Peony in Love by Lisa See

skirt as though it were a cicada’s wing carried by the wind. I was
out.
I was seeing things I’d never seen before. Here and there, bits of vines and branches draped over our compound wall, hinting at what was hidden inside. Weeping willows hung over the lake, their tendrils teasing the water’s surface. I brushed against wild roses blooming on the bank and their scent infused the air, my clothes, my hair, the skin on my hands. The feelings that rushed through my body were nearly overwhelming: fear that I would be caught, exhilaration that I was out, and love for the man who had brought me here.
    We stopped. I wasn’t sure how long we’d been walking.
    “My house is there,” he said, pointing across the lake, past the newly built pavilion on Solitary Island that I could see from my father’s library. “There’s a temple on the hill. It’s lit by torches this evening. Do you see it? The monks open their doors for all festivals. Just a little up and to the left is the house.”
    “I see it.”
    The moon was just a sliver, but it was enough to cast a path across the lake from my toes to his doorstep. It felt as though the heavens had agreed that we were meant to have this time together.
    In this most extraordinary circumstance, I was distracted by a peculiar sensation. My lily shoes were thoroughly soaked and I could feel water being drawn up into the hem of my skirt. I took a tiny step back from the water’s edge, which sent ripples out across the peaceful surface. I thought about those ripples hitting the hulls of boats that carried other lovers on the lake and lapping at the edges of moon-viewing pavilions where young husbands and wives had sought refuge from the watchful eyes of the household.
    “You’d like my home,” he said. “We have a nice garden—not as large as yours—with a small rockery, a moon-viewing pavilion, a pond, and a plum tree whose blossoms in spring fill the entire compound with an enticing fragrance. Whenever I see it, I’ll think of you.”
    I wished we would have a wedding night. I wished it would happen right now. I blushed and looked down. When I looked up, he stared into my eyes. I knew he longed for the same thing I did. And then the moment was over.
    “We must return,” he said.
    He tried to hurry us, but my shoes were now slippery and I was slow. As we got closer to the villa, the sounds of the opera came more fully into my consciousness. Mengmei’s pained cries as he was tortured and beaten by Prefect Du’s guards told me we were close to the end.
    He lifted me up and back into the Moon-Viewing Pavilion. This was it. Tomorrow, I would go back to preparing for my marriage, and he would go back to whatever young men do to get ready to greet their wives.
    “I liked talking to you about the opera,” he said.
    They may not seem like the most romantic words a man could have spoken, but to me they were, for they showed that he cared for literature, the concerns of the inner chambers, and that he truly did want to know what I thought.
    He picked up the willow sprig and handed it to me. “Keep this,” he said, “to remind you of me.”
    “And the peony?”
    “I’ll keep it forever.”
    I smiled inwardly, knowing that the flower and I shared the same name.
    He brought his lips close to mine, and when he spoke his voice trembled with emotion. “We had three nights of happiness. That’s more than most married couples have in a lifetime. I will remember them forever.”
    As my eyes filled with tears, he said, “You must go back. I won’t leave here until there’s a safe distance between us.”
    I bit my lip to keep from crying and turned away. I walked alone toward the main garden, stopping by the pond to tuck the willow sprig inside my tunic. Only when I heard Prefect Du accuse his daughter, who’d been brought before him, of being a disgusting creature of the dead did I remember how sullied my shoes, leggings, and the bottom of my skirt had become. I needed to get back