Red Storm
A one or two lesson adventure story perfect for ages 11-13
This is the UK edition of Red Storm. It’s the first in a series crossing different historical settings. This is set in China around 1700. It was a lot of fun to research and write. There is also a complete graphic novel done by a talented art house in Indonesia. Here is the link - free :) It could be great if you have students who need extra help or encouragement. Sarah did all the illustrations.
No AI nonsense here!
Chapter 1
The smell of tea
The old, old man lies in a bed. The sheets are white, the pillow is red. His name is Jianyu, he is ninety-six years old and this is his deathbed. He breathes in small breaths.
His eyes flicker open and blink twice to clear. His favorite granddaughter, Bik, is sitting in a chair next to the bed. Bik holds a white cup decorated with blue flowers to his lips but his lips remain closed. She sighs, then using her other hand, waves some of the Jie tea steam towards his nostrils. He sniffs and smiles. Paper thin. Paper dry.
The Jie tea steam smells of time. Memories wash through the old man, making his heart beat faster and his eyes roll back. Bik takes his hand in hers. Jianyu’s skin is softly spotted brown.
He takes a sip of tea to oil his throat for words. He swallows. Bik thinks of a baby bird.
“I want to tell you one last story. You’ve always loved my stories, but I’ve never told you the most important one.”
Bik leans forward to hear his words clearly. She gently squeezes his hand. Encouragement.
“This is an old story. And this is a true story. You know where I grew up, Nanhai, the South China Seas, on a small island. Me and my mother. My father died, so I made a living by picking up things that drifted onto the beach.”
The girl has heard the stories before. But these are Grandfather’s last moments, so she does not interrupt.
“It was early in the morning. I always walked the beach before anybody else. I had a better chance of finding objects of value. I remember it clearly.”
For a moment the old man pauses, smiles. “Memory is strange. I can’t remember my last meal, but I remember that morning almost eighty years ago as clearly as I see you now,” Jianyu laughs to himself. “In fact, clearer. My eyes are not as good as they once were.”
Bik looks into the yellow-brown eyes, made pale with time’s milk.
“I walked the dunes, looking for the shine of metal or a bump in the sand under which something may lay hidden. I nearly walked right into her – a girl, maybe two or three years younger than I. She was lying with her legs in the surf, as though she had pulled herself from the water. I remember her fingers were dug into the sand as though with tremendous effort she had dragged herself from the sea. It reminded me of those stories we used to learn in school. The first fish that left the water to eventually become us. That was what it was like, as though she had crawled from water to become part of land. She was breathing. I thought maybe a boat had capsized, or she had escaped from criminals or pirates. I took off my jacket and put it around her shoulders. She sat up and looked at me. Her hair was black and red.”
The old man pauses and looks at his granddaughter. “I called her Xiaotong. Morning redness. That was the color of her hair, like the red of sun pushing through the black of night. Quite beautiful. Her hair was…” and then the old man mumbles something quietly. Bik leans forward trying to hear, but the words are lost.
Jianyu sips more tea. “She never spoke. She never spoke until the end. But wait, I am going too far ahead. I hope I have enough time. You need to hear the whole story.”
“Mother took the girl to work in the house and we fed and cared for her.
We became friends. She walked the beaches with me in the morning. In the afternoon we did household chores together. When the work was done, we played. We walked the hills and played gentle games: rolling stones, chess - and we talked. Well, I talked, and she listened. Xiaotong had the strangest way of listening. She tilted her head to one side and stared at me with her dark black eyes.”
The old man sighs and smiles. “Oh my, those eyes. When she looked at me it was as if a light switched on in my mind. A light that was brilliantly bright and terribly dark at the same time. I talked and talked as if the words would never stop. Everything came out of me - about my father, about my thoughts and ideas, my wildest imaginings, and my smallest fears. And Xiaotong listened
Jianyu coughs. The sound of two dry sticks kindling nothing.
“Her hair. I must tell you about her hair. It grew very long, and Mother tried to cut it. She tried with knives, she tried with sharp stones and we tried with scissors. All broke against her hair. It just kept growing. In a year it reached her ankles – moving around her as she walked. I know this scared Mother because she didn’t talk to anyone about it. I think she was afraid they would hurt Xiaotong because they did not understand her. And then the terrible day came. The final day.” The old man searches Bik’s eyes.
“But you look confused. Is this story hard to understand? Pah! Death is making me into a fool! Of course, I am telling you things in the wrong way. You do not know about the terrible day, the flowers of blood. So I will tell you.”
Chapter 2
Flowers of blood
“Xiaotong and I were playing our favorite game in the hills. I hid a small stone and Xiaotong tried to find it. She could always find that small stone, as if she knew my mind. But this terrible day, we saw smoke coming from the village. Black smoke, thick and hot. We ran.”
“A boat had come to our island. Seven big men were attacking. They wanted to hurt people in the village and take what little we had. I picked up a stick and ran towards our house. Xiaotong ran after me. Inside the house, I saw Mother hiding under a table. I closed the door. The big men hadn’t come to our house yet. I pushed Xiaotong towards Mother. I put a chair against the door. Outside, screaming and noise. The sound of objects being turned over, doors being broken, and the crackle of fire.”
Jianyu stops talking. A vein beats on the side of his head. His weak grip becomes as iron on his granddaughter’s hand. Bik fights the impulse to pull her hand away as his fingernails dig into her skin. How can he have so much strength left? she thinks.
Grandfather starts to speak again. Now his voice is strong and quiet. Quick and urgent.
“My mind is on fire with that day. I am there now. My heart is too fast. My breathing is too quick. I can hear them coming. Closer. Closer.”
Grandfather closes his eyes. Bik sees his eyes move wildly behind paper-thin lids.
“And then the door crashed open and a man came in. Wild eyes and cruel mouth! I can still smell his smell. Salt sea. Salt sweat. He looked through me and barked a laugh. What a fool I was! One blow with his fist and I was on the floor. My useless child’s stick clattering away. I lay on the floor, my cheek to the wood. Tears blurred my vision. Blood spilled from my nose and lip. He stood over me and raised a hand-axe over his head. And then I saw movement. Xiaotong ran at the man. She was powerful. She was fast. She brushed the man aside like wheat from a scythe. He fell next to me, his lifeless eyes staring into mine. Wide eyes, full of fear.”
“I pushed myself to my knees and crawled to the open doorway. Xiaotong was now in the street. She was standing, calm as stone, her eyes cast downwards. She was surrounded by twenty or so men laughing and taunting her. She crouched low on one knee as if in prayer, her red-black hair fanned around her – a wedding dress to death. And as the men moved in for the kill, she jumped. She was leaping, twisting, turning. A furious wind, spinning and destroying – strands of long hair, razor sharp, slicing through flesh and bone. Like a thousand splinters of glass cutting through snow. Nails. Teeth. Wherever her hands flashed, a man fell. Blades of grass – ripped and torn. And where the grasses fell, blood flowered.”
The old man lay limp. His breathing violent.
Bik feels his grip relax on her hand. “Grandfather?” She asks gently. “This story is making you tired. Why don’t we stop now?”
“No Granddaughter. You have heard the beginning. You must hear the end.”
Jianyu smoothed the sheets with one hand over his tremulous chest. He caught a breath, savored it and closed his eyes.
“The village people and my mother thanked Xiaotong. But they were scared of her. How could a small girl kill so many?
I was not afraid, because I knew that I loved her. I loved her with all of my heart and all of my soul.
I took her away from the frightened eyes, down to the beach. I talked to her – held her hand. At the edge of the sea, we washed away blood. And then we kissed. Once. Her lips. My lips.”
Jianyu stops speaking. He lets go of Bik’s hand. His fluttering fingers feel their way from his chest to his lips. He touches them delicately. Exquisitely. And Granddaughter sees the kiss happening again and again on the old man’s lips.
“Oh my,” he sighs. “That kiss. The only one we ever shared, but it was enough to last a thousand lifetimes.”
A moment. Jianyu pats his granddaughter’s hand. “I hope you have one kiss like that. All time stops. Nothing else is important. When the kiss is over, it is never really over. It carries you forward, like a stick on a river, through time, over death and into something else.”
Jianyu is quiet. His breathing slows. Is this the end? thinks Bik. Is her kiss the last thing he will think of?
The old man’s eyes open again. “I’m not dead yet, Granddaughter.”
There is water in the old man’s eyes.
Final tears for a life that ends, Bik thinks.
Jianyu looks around the room, nods approvingly at the gods covered in red cloth. “This is a good family,” he says quietly. “A family of tradition. You will have to find blue for your sleeve when I am gone.”
Bik nods. “Grandfather, can I get the others? Will you not say goodbye once more?”
“No,” the old man shakes his head. “My goodbyes are done. But my story is not.”
Chapter 3
Valkyrie
“We were not ready to go back to the foolish people in the village. So we sat there on the dunes looking out at a storm coming in. I felt her shoulder tense. I looked up. High above us large black birds circled.”
“There was a change of smell - a smell of electricity and salt. Xiaotong stood and leaned into the wind coming from the sea; shoulders straight, her nose pushing forward. Her long black, fire-red hair blew out behind her like a cloak. Her white shirt pressed flat to her breast by the wind, stained with the blood of the men she had killed so easily. I looked at her. There was something in her eyes, something…” Jianyu stops and takes a gulped breath.
“There was a noise then. Splashing in the water. Dark red clouds hung heavy and low, pushing the waves to white anger. A low growl of thunder and then a sharp line of lightning connecting heaven to earth. And from these clouds, the shape of a boat. But not like any boat I had ever seen. This boat was pulled by a gold dragon prow with red eyes and green scales. Rowing the boat with many oars were the shadows of men and women, half hidden by shields lined along the boat’s side. The shadows stood in the boat and called out. They were calling to Xiaotong. It was not our language. The sound was strange and harsh - like animals at war or trees being uprooted.
Xiaotong answered them. She spoke their words. Her people had come to take her home. She turned then and looked at me. I was crying. I remember that now. It wasn’t just blood on my cheek it was tears. She used her knuckles to wipe them away. I saw her fingernails were sharp and strong. She smiled at me and turned. She waded into the dark sea – water pulling her ankles – rising to her knees. Another line of lightning and I saw her back was moving, changing shape. From under her black-red waterfall of hair, wings pushed and grew. Black wings like those of the birds above her.
The wings moved slowly, beating. Xiaotong moved upwards from the water. The black birds swooped and flew with her; playing, spinning, turning. I watched as she danced and tumbled in the storm air and then landed on the boat with an extraordinary grace. The others held her, stroked her wings, touched her face. She was home. I knew that then. I was a temporary place for her to be. I like to think that I had the grace at that moment to understand that I had been lucky to have her for a few short years. But I think in truth, I was just terribly sad that she was about to leave me. She was my love, and I was losing her.”
“Giant oars cleaving water, the boat pulled away. The clouds rolled and crashed around the great dragon ship as it took her from me. She turned in that last moment and called one word to me. ‘Valkyrie!’ And she was gone.”
The old man looks again at his granddaughter. He is pulled back to the present by her eyes. “And that is the end of my story. That is the end of my life.”
“Don’t say that Grandfather,” says Bik. “You will tell me many more stories.” But she knows this is not true.
“Valkyrie,” says the old man again. “When I left the island, I found that word in books. Winged warrior women who fought with the Vikings. Ancient warriors from Europe’s North. And Ragnarok – a great battle at the end of time between humans and gods. I think the dragon boat came to take her to that great battle,” the old man pauses and laughs quietly. “And having seen the way she fights, I don’t think the gods stand a chance.”
Jianyu wipes his eyes and grows silent. He gently squeezes Bik’s hand. “Now leave me. Leave me alone with my final thoughts.” He shakes his head at her unspoken protest. Bik leaves, silently closing the door behind her.
The old man touches his lips once more and closes his eyes. A long moment. His thoughts slowing. His heart slowing. A movement above him.
“Granddaughter, I told you to leave.”
Lips on his. A kiss. A memory.
Jianyu opens his eyes. Black feathers touch his cheeks and cover his thin bones with warmth.
“Xiaotong!”
Dark eyes. Black, fire-red hair. Soft smile. “Of course. Did you think I would ever leave you, my warrior, my love?”
“I am no warrior. I was a foolish child with a stick.”
“You are one who would die to protect others. You are one who stood against the impossible. What greater warrior is there?”
“But I am old. I am weak.”
Dark eyes crease to a smile. “Not any more. So, leave this old body behind and come. We have a fight ahead of us.”
