When You Trap a Tiger, page 17
I stare at her. She’s never told me this before. And I feel a flicker of recognition in my heart—like a tiger lifting its head inside me. I remember Dad reading to us—If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Where the Wild Things Are, Goodnight Moon.
I feel the echo of his voice, lines from storybooks, hidden in my brain. Dad’s there, almost.
“I was so afraid of forgetting something,” Sam says, voice cracking. “But of course I have. I know I have.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you share the list?” Maybe I could have known him, through Sam. I could have helped her remember him.
Then Sam, my fearless sister, my sister with the sharp teeth and sharper words—starts to cry. Soft first, a drizzle, then a storm. “I didn’t want to share. Like, if I told you all those Dad-stories, they’d disappear. They wouldn’t be mine anymore.”
“Stories don’t belong to anybody,” I say. “They’re meant to be told.”
Maybe it’s scary to tell stories and share their truths—but I’d rather face them than run.
I take a breath. It’s my turn to say a scary thing. “I saw this tiger, and she spoke to me, and she told me she could heal Halmoni. I really believed that the magic was real, but now I’m afraid that it wasn’t. Maybe I was hoping too hard, and it was all just a mental stress reaction, like you said. I thought I could be a hero, that I didn’t have to be a QAG anymore.”
Sam wipes the black smudges from her face. “The QAG thing…that was stupid. I shouldn’t have put that stereotype on you. And I shouldn’t have said the tiger wasn’t real. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe, somehow, it is real. I want to believe that. And maybe we have to believe.”
Her eyes shimmer with tears. “That’s what I’ve always admired about you. You don’t give up on magic. And I was wrong to tell you to.”
I stare out the windshield. What would it mean to hope, now, at the very end? When Sam can’t drive in the rain, and we’re stuck, and Halmoni is dying and we can’t get to her?
“Lily,” Sam says. “Remember when you asked me about the tiger story? About whether I would run?”
I close my eyes and nod.
“I want you to know, whenever we can’t run, whenever you have to stand and face it—I’ll be here. I’ll stand with you.”
I get that filled-up feeling. We are the sun and the moon, ready to be brave. And sometimes, believing is the bravest thing of all.
But none of that matters. Sam can’t drive in the rain, so we’re stuck. Halmoni is dying and we can’t get to her.
Yes, we’re trapped, but then something surfaces in my memory.
I have an idea.
Ricky said to go to a place that tigers like. Halmoni said she went where tigers kept their stories.
And when I was making the mud pudding, the tiger said that the library was her favorite place.
The library, a home for stories.
“Wait here,” I tell Sam. Then I fly out of the car and run toward the library.
The door is locked. Because it’s the middle of the night, so of course. But I won’t let that stop me. Not now.
I try one of the windows, but it doesn’t open. And I feel hopeless until I remember: Mom, outside Halmoni’s house.
It’s a long shot, I know, but I tap the side of the pane, run my hands over the windowsill, and thump a fist right below the glass.
I hold my breath and think, Please. Then I push.
Like a miracle, the window opens.
Sam shouts my name, and I spin around to see her standing behind me. “I told you to wait in the car.”
She bug-eyes me. “Are you kidding? You’re breaking into the library and I’m supposed to wait in the car?”
“Please, I just—I need to do this on my own. It won’t take very long.”
She shakes her head slowly. “If I just sit by while you break into a building, I’m basically the worst older sister of all time—”
I lean forward and squeeze her in a hug, and she’s so surprised she stops talking. “You’re the best sister. But I need you to wait in the car and be ready to go. Just trust me.”
She runs her hand through her hair. “Oh my god. Okay. Okay, fine. I will be your getaway driver, even though you realize I can’t drive in the rain.”
“Thank you,” I say, and then I pull myself up and through the window, tumbling into the library.
“Please be in here,” I whisper once I’m inside.
It’s dark, but I am Little Eggi. I am the sun, and the dark doesn’t scare me anymore.
I weave through the stacks. “Hello?”
My chest clenches because I thought the tiger would be here. I was so sure. Yet, the library is silent.
“Hello!” I call again. The quiet is so loud I can’t stand it. I sweep all the books off the nearest shelf, and they crash to the ground. “Please just come out! I need your help!”
“All right, fine.” It’s her voice, and I spin around to see my tiger lying in a corner, head resting on her paws.
“You’re here,” I breathe. I feel ridiculous, like I could almost cry. She’s a terrifying beast, but it feels so good to see her. There’s still hope.
“You owe me an apology,” she says. “I am not a monster. You cannot wish me away like a bad dream.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t know if you’re good or bad, and I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing.”
I’m going off a hunch—an idea that’s just barely formed—a spark, a hope. But I decide to be brave. “I noticed something, when I saw you that night after the grocery store. I didn’t really think about it before, but…it seemed like the rain wasn’t falling around you. And I thought you were there to hurt Halmoni, but now I think…maybe you were standing there to guide us home.”
When she doesn’t respond, I swallow hard and add, “And I really hope I’m right. I really hope you have that magic. Because I need your help.”
She stands slowly, and I think I hear her bones creak, but it could be the trees outside, whipping in the storm. “Follow me,” she says. And she leads me through the stacks, out of the library.
* * *
I run back to the car, slam the door, and fasten my seat belt. “I think she wants us to follow,” I say.
Outside, the tiger steps in front of our car and turns, slowly, until she’s facing away from us. Her tail flick-flicks low to the ground, almost kissing the pavement.
Then she steps forward, moving in slow motion like she has all the time in the world, one claw, one paw, one leg at a time. As she walks, the rain lessens behind her. It doesn’t stop completely, but now the rain is just a drizzle.
Everywhere around us, the rain is still heavy, except for the path the tiger clears.
I don’t understand weather patterns. Maybe this can be explained away by clouds and wind and whatever. But this feels like something different. This feels like magic.
“She, who? What’s happening?” Sam breathes, eyes wide. She may not see the tiger, but she sees the drizzly path, cleared just for us. “Is it the tiger?”
I hesitate, then nod.
“I don’t see her,” she whispers. There’s disbelief and fear in her voice—but underneath it all, a hint of longing. She tugs at her white streak and pushes it behind her ear. “Why don’t I see her?”
I never understood it before—why Sam was so angry about all Halmoni’s traditions. About the magic. But now I think it’s because she wanted, so badly, to be a part of it. And maybe she was afraid she couldn’t be, so she pushed it all away.
I reach up to unclasp my pendant, then lean over to fasten it around her neck. Extra protection. Extra love. Just in case.
“We’ll be okay,” I tell her. “Sometimes, believing is the bravest thing of all. Now drive.”
My tiger leads us to the hospital.
“That was…You are…,” Sam says as she parks, but she shakes her head. There’s no time.
We run out of the car, past the tiger, and in through the automatic sliding doors.
Hospitals are cold and bright. The smell of rubbing alcohol stings my nose, like it’s trying to disinfect my nostrils. In here, everything is clean, controlled. The outside is wild with rain and wind and tigers, but inside, nature can’t touch us.
Sam talks to somebody at the front desk of the emergency room, and a nurse takes us through the hospital, twisting and turning through white hallways.
Then she drops us off at Halmoni’s room.
Mom lies with Halmoni on the bed, curled up next to her. She’s blocking our view of Halmoni, but I hear her whisper, “I’ll give you whatever you want. Just don’t take her. Not yet.”
I don’t know if she’s praying to a god or a tiger or something in between.
Sam knocks on the open door, and when Mom looks up, I expect anger. She told us to stay home, and Sam drove here with only a learner’s permit. We broke the law, and worse—we broke Mom’s rule.
But Mom’s too tired for scolding. “I was going to call you girls soon. It doesn’t look good.”
I want to ask her what that means, but I also don’t want to know. And also, I think I do know.
She motions Sam and me into the room, but I stay in the doorway.
Halmoni looks small in the hospital bed, pale against the light blue blanket. She wears a thin oxygen tube, but with her sequined head scarf, she’s glamorous, even now. Even when she looks sick.
No.
Sick is not the right word.
Sick is Halmoni throwing up in the bathroom. Sick is Sam’s pink nose when she has the flu. Sick is my sore, swollen throat when I got strep.
This is not sick. This is not getting better.
Halmoni looks like she’s dying.
And I’m not ready.
I take a step backward, but Halmoni opens her eyes and sees us. “Sam,” she says. Her voice is small. “I talk to Sam first.”
Sam’s voice is a squeak. “Me? Really?”
Halmoni nods weakly, and Sam rushes to her side.
Mom walks over to me. “Come on. Let’s get some snacks from the vending machine.”
I follow her out, but the bright lights and the smell of the hospital make me dizzy. I don’t want to be in the place where Halmoni will die.
Mom walks ahead, assuming that I’m following, but I turn myself invisible and walk the opposite way, away from Mom and Halmoni, down the winding halls, until I’m back outside the sliding doors, until I can breathe.
I stand under the canopy outside the hospital entrance. In front of me, the tiger is sitting in the rain, like I knew she would be.
An invisible girl and an invisible tiger. We match.
“I think I know how the stories changed me,” I tell her.
Her ears twitch. “How?”
I inhale. “They made me want all these opposite things at the same time. I don’t know how I can feel so many things at once. And I don’t know which feelings and which wants are right.”
“What do you want, Lily?”
My heart beats. I get that filled-up, bursting feeling again. And then I say, “I want Halmoni to live longer, but I also don’t want her to hurt longer.
“And I want—” My voice cracks, and I don’t think I can keep going, but I do. “I want to go back into that room, to be with Halmoni and my family, but I also want to run very far away.”
I take a breath. The rain falls.
I tell her, “I hate all this wanting. I get why the tiger-girl begged for a cure. It’s terrible to feel so much.”
She shifts her weight, and her stripes glow. “The tiger-girl was wrong, Lily. As it turns out, she quite likes her tiger form. And she knows, now, that you can be more than one thing. If you are strong, you can hold more than one truth in your heart.”
I shake my head. “Well, I’m not strong. I’m not ready for the end of Halmoni’s story. I can’t face it.”
“Lily, I told you I would heal my Ae-Cha, but healing is not always about curing illness. Often, it is about understanding. And when you face your whole story, you can understand your whole heart.”
My whole heart hurts. “I messed it up. I didn’t know if it was real or not, and I was angry, and I broke the jar. The final story is gone, and now Halmoni won’t even have that.”
“It’s not gone,” she says. “You released it. And I cannot tell it to you, but you know more than you realize. These are the stories of our family, after all.”
I pause, turning her words over. My Ae-Cha. Our family. My family, and hers. “Are you…Halmoni’s mom? Am I…?” I don’t say a tiger-girl, because I don’t have to. I already know.
She doesn’t answer my questions. “Take your history, understand where you came from and who you are—then find your own story. Create the story of who you are yet to be.”
Before I can respond, the doors slide open. I turn to see an Asian nurse with pink scrubs and orange lipstick. “There you are!” she says. “Your mother is in a panic over you. Come on now.”
I look back to my tiger, but she’s gone, like I knew she would be.
The nurse leads me down the white hallways again, and I have to hurry to keep up with her. “I’m really sorry,” she says once we reach the door. “I still remember when I said goodbye to my grandmother. It’s so hard. But I’m praying for you, honey.”
Mom sees us and runs over. “Lily. You scared me! You can’t run off like that! Especially not now.” She pulls my head toward her and breathes me in. “Okay. Halmoni wants to talk to you.”
My mind swirls with the tiger’s words.
I take a breath and I step inside, toward Halmoni.
Sam stands. She doesn’t bother wiping away tears, but she rubs my arm as she passes and leaves the room. Then it’s just me and Halmoni and the hospital machines, beeping next to us.
I half-moon my palms with my fingernails, and I sit on the gray hospital chair beside the bed. It’s scratchy, and the fabric skritch-skritches against my thighs.
“Lily Bean.” Halmoni’s hand twitches in a way that seems almost inhuman. That seems wrong. And I’m scared and sad, and a piece of me wants to turn away. But I grab her hand, and those feelings don’t disappear, and I realize there’s love there, too, and that’s stronger than anything else.
“I am seeing the truth,” Halmoni says. “I see my mother. My umma. She finally find me.”
“Halmoni,” I whisper, “I think I saw her, too.”
Halmoni smiles. “You always see, Little Egg. That is you power.”
My chest hurts, but I squeeze her hand, tracing her life line with my thumb.
“All my life, I spend so much time, so much energy, hiding my heart. I am scare of tigers. But more, I am scare of the tiger in me,” she says. “I thought I have to hide my words, because my English not so good. I thought I have to hide my heart, because I feel too much. And I thought I have to hide my story, because I think if I tell it, it is who I am forever.” She takes a shallow breath. “But when I keep it tight-tight, it eat me up. I don’t see the love, all around me.”
Hope rages inside me, even though I try to stop it. Even though I know how dangerous it is. “Maybe everything can be okay, now that you realize that. You can heal now.”
“I am ready now.”
My throat feels swollen shut. “I’m not.”
She closes her eyes. “Sometime, the strongest thing is to stop running. To say, I am not afraid of tigers. I am not afraid to die.”
But I’m so afraid.
For a fraction of a second, I see a flash of a tiger’s face beneath her expression—
It’s gone almost as soon as I see it, but I know what I saw. It’s the fierceness in her, the courage she’ll have in her next chapter.
She will be brave.
Sam and Mom come back then, and Sam sits on the other side of the bed and holds Halmoni’s other hand. Mom walks over and rubs my back.
With her eyes still closed and her lips lifted into the smallest smile, Halmoni says, whisper-fierce, “Tell me a story.”
Sam looks at me and reaches up with one hand. She makes a grasping motion, as if she’s plucking a star from the sky, and holds it out to me.
At the edges of my mind, a story starts to form—it comes together from mist and shadow. It takes shape.
I scoot toward Halmoni—
closer—
closer—
and I begin.
Long, long ago, when tiger drank the stars, ten thousand suns and ten thousand moons after a girl stole stories from tigers—two little girls lived with their halmoni in a house on a hill. They were sisters, one with long black braids, one with dark eye makeup. Once, they’d shared everything, but over time, they’d grown apart—grown alone.
One day, the halmoni went to the village to buy rice and Happy Nut crackers for her girls, but she got trapped in traffic. She got home late, much later than usual.
The sky was dark that night—rain clouds covered the stars—and when the halmoni passed by the windows, her shadow shifted, taking the shape of a tiger.
It may have been a trick of the dark, but they could not tell.
Little girls, the halmoni said, let me in.
The sisters peeked through the window, but that night, their halmoni looked different. She was transformed.
The sisters were afraid. They didn’t know what to do. So they tried to change her back. Unya scattered the rice, and Eggi spilled the stars. They tried everything, but nothing worked.
Finally, when there was nothing left but the end of the story. A sky god saw them and took pity.
See, centuries before, a different sky god had created a tiger-girl who walked both worlds.
