would show me by giving me everything I want!”
He said, “But I’ve given you everything. You don’t lack food or shelter or even jewelry! And you have me. I’ve done nothing but adore you!”
She said, “But your adoration is empty. It means nothing.”
Hien thought about this. His love meant nothing.
His love meant her life.
He demanded his three drops of blood back.
She laughed. “Who needs your three pathetic drops of blood? That’s all you’ve ever given me, and what sacrifice was it to you?”
Just as quickly as she said it, she took a pin to her forefinger and spilled his three drops of blood. They fell from her finger and saturated the ground.
The mosquito was born that day, wandering here and there in search of those three drops of blood to bring her back to life.
As for Hien, after his wife vanished, which to him, she did simply vanish, the fairy knocked on his door. She appeared before him, a humble woman with kind eyes, and together, they lived happily ever after.
When I was growing up, my parents spoke minimal English, but of course, being in the States, they wanted to encourage me to learn English while not forgetting my “roots.” I had several books of fairy tales that were written in English on one side, Vietnamese on the other. I don’t have a very clear memory of the contents of these books, except that they weren’t traditional — by which I mean Western — fairy tales. The only story I remember with any certainty is “The Story of the Mosquito,” which I have retold here.
My memory of these books is tainted though: a fairy tale set inside another fairy tale, one which I don’t remember, but it’s a story my parents have told me until the story itself has frayed, worn thin. Their fairy tale features me — a voracious reader, quickwitted, wise, and smart, though not particularly pretty — and by the time I was three, I could read, not only in English but also in Vietnamese. At parties, my parents would display me as some mixture of sideshow and genius. I would read these books to their friends: first in English, then in Vietnamese, my accent in both perfect. And here, here is the magic: of course, I couldn’t read when I was three. I’d memorized these books, and though they weren’t long, maybe thirty to fifty pages each, I’d managed to learn when pages should turn, where words stop and pick up, and so on.
I have looked and looked, and none of my research has turned up either this Vietnamese mosquito fairy tale or the volume in which I read it. [Part of the inspiration for this anthology is the hoped-for revival of older fairy tales, often at risk of disappearing. Perhaps this tale will be discovered one day. Ed.]
I wasn’t supposed to be a writer. No one in my family has supported this decision. No, I was supposed to be a doctor, but in many ways, my pilfering of story began there, then, when I was three, with this very fairy tale.
NAOKO AWA. First Day of Snow
IT WAS A COLD DAY IN LATE AUTUMN. ON A PATH RUNNING STRAIGHT through the village, a young girl crouched down, looking at the ground. She tilted her head and breathed deeply. “Who was hopscotching here?” she wondered aloud.
Hopscotch rings, drawn in chalk, continued endlessly on the path — across the bridge and toward the mountains. The girl stood up. “What a long hopscotch!” she cried, widening her eyes. When she hopped into a ring, her body became as light as a bouncing ball.
One foot, one foot, two feet, one. With her hands in her pockets, the girl hopped forward. She hopped across the bridge and down a narrow path through cabbage fields, then past the only tobacco shop in the village.
“Oh, you have a lot of energy!” said an old woman who minded the shop. Panting for breath, the girl smiled proudly. In front of the candy shop, a large dog barked and bared its teeth.
“Who on earth drew a hopscotch this long?” the girl thought as she hopped. When she reached the bus stop, snow flurries began to blow. The hopscotch rings kept going. The girl kept hopping, her red face sweaty.
One foot, one foot, two feet, one. The sky had turned dark, and a cold wind blew. The snow started to fall heavily and left white spots on the girl’s red sweater.
“It may turn into a blizzard,” the girl thought. “Maybe I should go home now.”
Then she heard a voice from behind her: “One foot, two feet, hop, hop, hop.” Surprised, she turned around and saw a snow-white rabbit hopscotching after her.
“One foot, two feet, hop, hop, hop.” When the girl looked closely, she saw another rabbit behind that one. As the snow kept falling, many more white rabbits began following her. She gaped in amazement.
This time she heard a voice from ahead. “White rabbits behind you, white rabbits in front. One foot, two feet, hop, hop, hop.”
When she looked ahead, the girl saw a long line of white rabbits hopping. “Oh, I had no idea.” She felt as if she were in a dream. “Where are you going?” she asked. “Where does this lead to?”
The rabbit in front of her answered, “To the end, to the end of the world. We’re snow rabbits who make snow fall.”
“What?” The girl was startled. She remembered a story her grandmother once told her. On the first day of snow, a herd of white rabbits came from north. They went from village to village, dropping the snow. They moved so fast humans saw only a white line.
“You have to be careful,” her grandmother said. “If you’re caught in the herd of white rabbits, you can never come home. You hop to the end of the world with the rabbits and turn into a chunk of snow.”
When the girl first heard this story, a chill ran down her spine. Now she was about to be taken away by the rabbits.
“I’m in trouble!” the girl screamed inside her head. She tried to stop. She tried to stop her feet from stepping into the next ring.
Then the rabbit behind her said, “Don’t stop! We’re right behind you. One foot, two feet, hop, hop, hop.” Her body bounced like a rubber ball, hopping along the hopscotch rings.
While hopping, the girl remembered her grandmother telling a story. Her grandmother had stopped sewing for a moment and said, “Once there was a girl who came home alive after being taken away by rabbits. She chanted with all her might: ‘mugwort, mugwort, mugwort in spring.’ Mugwort is a charm against evil.”
“I’m going to do the same,” the girl thought. As she hopped, she imagined a mugwort field. She thought about the warm sunlight, dandelions, honeybees, and butterflies. She took a deep breath. When she was about to say, “Mugwort, mugwort,” she was interrupted by the rabbits’ singing.
The girl covered her ears with her hands. But the rabbits’ singing became louder and louder and spilled into her ears through the gaps between her fingers and kept her from chanting the mugwort charm.
The herd of rabbits and the girl went through a fir forest, crossed a frozen lake, and reached faraway places
