A Cursed Birth

The surge of bitterness and shame and rage threatened to overwhelm Shaonu as she became material. For so many years, she had loved Xueshan. She had studied his likes and dislikes. She chose all her robes to complement what he was wearing. She endured the tittering and teasing of her peers among the gods when they talked about how she had been chasing him for centuries.

And he never noticed. Instead he walked out when she was reciting a poem she wrote for him, about him, although cloaked in appropriate metaphors. She was a goddess of rain and snow, he was the god of snow, what could be more natural?

Then this human woman appeared, and he gave her his heart in an instant. It was unbearable. Shaonu was actually shaking with anger. Was she not beautiful? Was she not worthy of his love? If it had been another god or goddess, she would have been heartbroken, but a human? A tiny, irrational, insignificant bug with a lifespan of less than a century?

Above her, the sky grew darker, and it began to sleet at a torrential pace. The pellets of ice came down like silver scalpels slicing through the air, coating the roads, the trees, the houses and buildings.

"No. No!" she raged. "I will not allow them to go off to the moon and be happy. However long I must wait, I will ruin it for them. I will ally myself with whatever forces I must. Even, in the end, should demons in hell crack my bones to suck out the marrow, I will see them suffer first."

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Five years later: The moon was a very beautiful place, in a pale and shadowy way, as if it were all a garden bathed in perpetual moonlight. It was truly an enchanted location for a perpetual honeymoon.

However, for Xueshan and Fenlan, the honeymoon was over. Not because they had fallen out of love, but because something had happened.

"Not yet, young mistress. Not yet. Just ride out the contraction." Chang-o and Xueshan waited in the antechamber while the goddess of childbirth, Pi-hsia-yuan-chun and her servants attended to Fenlan. The snow god's hands gripped the stone baluster, nearly crushing it.

"Relax at least a little," Chang-o advised him. The sideways glance she gave him was full of sympathy. "It's so cold here I can see my breath. That can't be good for Fenlan."

"I have been no good for Fenlan." His reply was almost inaudible.

"That is not true, and you know it. Her life with you has been a hundred times better than her life on Earth."

When Xueshan first brought the girl to her, Chang-o had been surprised, to say the least, but she instantly realized Fenlan was the hearthfire in Xueshan's heart. The girl had also been worn down to her last nerve from both training for competition and keeping up with her studies, so much so that she had bitten her nails down to the quick.

It had been a long time since Chang-o had walked the world as a mortal, but from what she gathered, life for women had become even more difficult. It was not enough to be a wife and mother, one also had to excel as a scholar, have a career, earn a lot of money and keep one's figure as well. She sympathized with Fenlan, but she also insisted that the wedding wait a few months until the girl had a chance to get used to her new home and what her life would be like on the moon.

At the same time, she had looked out for the girl's parents. After they got the phone message she left them, they raced to the place she was last seen, but all that was found was her bag with her phone, her tryout clothes, and Xueshan's medallion, which was of course a priceless antique. The authorities confiscated it as evidence, but Caishan, the god of fortune was indeed sending some their way; their business was becoming quite a success. They themselves, however—they were devastated. What had happened to their Fenlan? Had she been abducted? Had she taken her own life? Was she even now lying in a shallow grave somewhere, or had she simply run away? That seemed to be what the authorities thought. Yet it was so unlike her…

In the meanwhile, Xueshan and Fenlan married six months after he brought her to Chang-o, their wedding attended by the other deities associated with the moon: Chang-o's husband Houyi, the god of archery, Tu'er Ye, Chang-o's pet rabbit, and his wife Tu'er Nainai, and of course Yue Xia Lao Ren, the god who made all marriages by tying together the red threads of each couple's lives. He beamed as he watched the two of them meet before the altar.

A few years of idyllic marital harmony passed. Then somehow Fenlan got pregnant, despite the odds against conception and magics which should have prevented it. Early on, they had tried to end it, but nothing worked, and as the pregnancy proceeded, Fenlan decided against aborting it. Which brought them to this day.

"Steady, steady, young mistress," the goddess of midwives soothed Fenlan. "Rest between the contractions."

The reason human women usually died giving birth to the offspring of a god was not because the child was too large. It was that the growing demigod drained the mother's vitality. Eating and drinking the life-giving foods grown on the moon helped—but had they helped enough?

"Nnnnnghhh!" Fenlan cried out in pain. Xueshan grimaced in sympathy.

"Now! Yes, now! Push with all your might!" Pi-hsia-yuan-chun exclaimed.

"Yahhhh!" Fenlan screamed, and then came the thin wail of a newborn.

"Wahhh! Wahhh! Wahhh!"

"The young mistress is delivered of a little lady!" Pi-hsia-yuan-chun declared.

"Is Fenlan all right?" Xueshan asked. "Is my wife all right?"

"Just a moment, Lord Xueshan. The afterbirth must be expelled."

It was several minutes before the new father was allowed in, and although Fenlan had been changed into a fresh gown, the bed linens changed, her face washed and her hair combed, it was evident that all was not well. She was pale, too pale, like a guttering candle. Nevertheless, her smile was radiant as she held her newborn daughter.

"Fenlan," Xueshan cried out.

"Husband," she said. "Look. We have a little girl. Isn't she beautiful?"

In all truth, she was not, or at least not yet. She was discolored and creased by her journey into the world, like all newborns.

However, Chang-o was wise enough not to say that. Instead she spoke before Xueshan could get a word in. "Yes, she is. She's a pearl."

"Yes," The God of Snow was smart enough to take a hint. "But you, Fenlan!" Xueshan sat on the bed next to her, slipping his arm around her shoulders. "You're tired. You should rest."

"I will soon. Pi-hsia-yuan-chun gave me medicine, so I know I'll sleep beautifully. I'm so glad. What should we name her? I think taking part of your name and part of mine would be…would be…" Her eyes closed, her face went blue-white, and her body went limp.

Chang-o swooped in to scoop up the baby as Xueshan gripped his wife, his body rigid with shock.

"Why wait to call us in just as she was dying?!" he spat at Pi-hsia-yuan-chun. The tears which fell from his eyes were ice crystals.

"Because she insisted your last glimpse of her shouldn't be while she was sweaty, weltering in blood, and disheveled," the goddess of midwives snapped at him. "And, if you hadn't noticed, there is still a spark of life left to her. That medicine I gave her was formulated by Shen Nung, and he isn't the god of medicine for nothing. She's asleep, very deeply asleep. She'll remain that way for years—. Unless."

"Unless what?" Xueshan asked.

"Show them," Pi-hsia-yuan-chun commanded.

One of her servants stepped forward with a stained porcelain jar. A dark fog clung to the objects inside—four small coins, a scant handful of rice, a dead creature that looked to be part snake, part spider and part scorpion, and a fetish-doll, made to look like a pregnant woman and dressed in a scrap of red cloth.

"A curse?" Chang-o asked, cuddling the baby carefully. In Mandarin, the word 'four' sounded like the word for 'death', the handful of rice represented scarcity, the dead thing was a transmitter of darkest magical poison, and the doll was actually magic to promote fertility. Under other circumstances, that particular piece of magic would be positive. It would only be negative for a human woman married to a god.

"And a very well hidden one." The goddess of midwives pointed to the wisps of fog. "There aren't many who can hide something from a god's eyes. Someone got past all your protections. This curse is crude as a blunt instrument, but blunt instruments are dangerous when enough force is behind them. However, the curse itself would roll off a god like water off a duck's back. It could only affect a human. I can't even say that there aren't other curse jars like this all over this property. Unless you can find out who placed this curse on her and get rid of them, this girl and her baby are still in danger."