Stargirl of the Edge

Ch 28 - Walk into the Edge

After going onto Alderley Edge with her dog Jessie, Olivia was hoping to make contact with her mentor, the Chinese princess, Esther. Unfortunately she was too late. Now she decides to go inside the Edge and meet her face to face. She goes to the footpath under Castle Rock, and there, in the legend of the Edge, she sees an opening. Leaving her dog outside, she enters.

It was completely dark. She felt for her iPhone in order to switch it on and provide some light, but realised she had left it on the bed. She was now completely blind and had to feel her way with her hands and feet. After a few yards, the tunnel seemed to get bigger, and she no longer had to bend down.
As she walked further along the tunnel, a chill went down her spine as she heard scary noises and bizarre, metallic, echoing voices. Olivia walked steadily along the tunnel, deeper and deeper into the Edge. Instinctively she placed her right hand over her heart. She pressed her bag to her side. If the pendant had been inside it, she would have felt secure, but then she remembered it was a fake, it couldn’t protect her.
Her eyes were open and yet in the darkness it was the same as having them closed. She walked and yet with no reference points, it seemed she was standing still, as if walking on a conveyor belt.  She closed her eyes, but it made no difference.
And then Olivia opened her eyes in terror as out of the darkness, a ghostly green light-painted face came floating towards her, the same as the one carved into the stone outside. An eerie voice tried to scare her by chanting “Woooooah!” and an even louder “Woooooah!”
And yet, she did not feel afraid. The strange face floated by and she kept on walking and at the same time, standing still.
She closed her eyes and saw a red light-painted scary Chinese dragon floating towards her from the left. Its head tilted left and right just like the one she had seen at Chinese New Year. There was the sound of a Chinese drum beating a repeated triple beat. The dragon stopped in front of her face, shining its eerie red light on her skin. She still had her eyes closed. It attempted to scare her by opening its bulging eyes. The drum beat faster and it roared. Fire issued from its mouth but there was no heat. She was not afraid. The dragon continued its merry dance and disappeared off to the left.
Olivia continued to walk and then she stopped and turned her head slowly to the left and looked to the side. Off the tunnel there was a chamber.
In it she saw a large wooden box containing a pile of glistening treasure of yellow, green, red. But the treasure did not consist of diamonds, emeralds or rubies. Instead, it was an assortment of glowing Chinese characters, many of them signifying precious stones and metals.
They were like miniature versions of the neon signs Olivia had seen in Hong Kong. In Chinese, she silently spoke the words.
“Jīn, cuì, hóngbǎoshí” - “Gold, emerald, ruby.”
There were many more, all luminous and in a myriad of shades, their multi-coloured glowing light reflecting off the walls and ceiling of the cave.
The Chinese characters appeared to bubble over like food in a pot, making high pitched, crackling, tinkling and popping sounds.
She turned her head to the front again and continued to walk. After a few moments she stopped and turned her head slowly to the right. Now her eyes were open. She looked into long tunnel and she saw a line of knights and horses. They were transparent and emitted a luminous green.
They were exactly the same as the ones in her storybook except that they were in the form of the Chinese character for horse. 
They appeared as if someone had painted them in the air using a green flashlight. They too were like the neon signs she had seen in Hong Kong. They curved away to infinity, as if reflected in a set of double mirrors. Silently she said the word for ‘horse’ in Chinese, ‘ma’ using the correct tone.
Next to each character for ‘horse’ were the characters for ‘knight’. Each character had the quality of polished silver that was both glowing and shiny at the same time. This was impossible and yet she could see it with her own eyes. With her lips and tongue she formed the word for knight: “Qíshì”
The strange thing was that the Chinese characters were the modern ones she had learned, but they formed an exact outline of a knight and a horse, although this was impossible as the two were quite different.
She heard echoing snoring sounds coming from the sleeping knights. The first horse made a neighing sound and shook its head. Each horse then shook its head in turn, forming a wave that passed down the line of horses to infinity.
Olivia turned her head to the front again and started to move forward. More floating creatures appeared, all similar to light paintings, and tried to scare her: a purple bat, an orange halloween pumpkin and a brown owl, but she wasn’t afraid, she was no longer a little girl, she was nearly an adult.
Olivia’s footsteps continue to echo against the walls of the tunnel and everything went dark again.
And then a few feet in front of her, she saw a bluish glow and as she walked through a doorway. She could smell a familiar aroma that made her feel hungry.
Olivia entered a large, cavern-like space that was as big as a cathedral. She looked up and above her she could see only solid rock, no doubt many metres thick, but at the same time she could see it was invisible and that it was possible to look right up through the rock into the starry sky above, making the cave seem more like a deep ravine, with the silhouetted shapes of trees around its edge.
The smell of cooking grew stronger and now she recognised what it was. It was special fried rice.
In the middle of the underground cavern, that was at the same time a ravine that was open to the sky, she saw, sitting on the ground, a Chinese junk, with a gangplank extending from it onto the floor. It was partly damaged and being repaired. And next to the gangplank she saw figures dressed in Oriental costume. One of them was a woman wearing an ancient Chinese imperial gown. Two men were playing some kind of board game. They were wearing the traditional outfit of Chinese sailors.  More sailors were doing some work on the ship. The sound of wood being beaten echoed off the walls of the cave or ravine. 
The scene was illuminated by Chinese lanterns that hovered in the air. They appeared to be suspended but there were no ropes or strings visible. The flames inside the lanterns gave out a beautifully warm, soft, flickering light.
Olivia walked towards the figures, and then one of them waved at her.

Stargirl of the Edge is not just for entertainment, it aims to encourage readers to think about stuff to do with learning, including languages, especially Chinese language. Chinese characters are seen as treasure, more valuable than gold and jewels. Also mentioned are things that cannot be, and yet they exist, thanks to the power of the imagination, another major theme of the story. Please help to promte this story and bring it to its target audience of young learners worldwide, especially in the Chinese speaking world. Please read, vote, comment and share. Thanks! Xiè xie!