Princess Yifan by J L Blenkinsop
PRINCESS YIFAN
Worlds of Yifan Book 1
by J L Blenkinsop
Copyright 2015 J L Blenkinsop
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Also by this author
Prince Yifan (Worlds of Yifan Book 2)
Shen Teal, accomplished young swordsman, athlete, artist and Prince of Joseon wakes in the middle of the night to find he is now a thirteen-year-old girl, in a bewildering new World where his long-dead mother still lives...
The Tower (Worlds of Yifan Book 3)
At the end of the world, there is a Tower. It’s the last hope for humanity – so can Yifan and her mother find out who is trying to destroy it?
My books are available in all electronic book formats from all major eBook sellers. Please also see the Worlds of Yifan Facebook page, and visit the author’s Facebook page at Facebook.com/John.L.Blenkinsop
CONTENTS
Princess Yifan
Glossary
Acknowledgements
Taster – Prince Yifan
About the Author
To my amazing daughter – no unicorns here, but plenty of Princesses. And to my wonderful wife, who is my life.
Princess Yifan
I.
“All I have is bread, cheese, eggs, milk, cereal, butter, peanut butter, hazelnut spread, marmalade, mushrooms, bacon, tinned meat, baked beans, tea, coffee, fruit juice, tap water, honey, hot chocolate, drain cleaner, a bad back and a snottery ticket.”
“You mean lottery ticket,” said Yifan, coming down the stairs. John turned and looked sternly at her.
“I didn’t have a handkerchief,” he explained. Behind him in the kitchen Ji Ye laughed and poured boiling water into the teapot. Yifan watched Bart the cat saunter in through the open back door, his fur miraculously dry even though it was raining outside. He put his head into his bowl and started eating.
“What’s for breakfast?” said Yifan, with her second-best innocent expression.
“Uuuuh….. All I have is bread, cheese, eggs, milk…. You know what there is, Yifan, what do you want?”
“I want a bread roll with cheese on top,” she said, and got one for herself.
This is the way that a Sunday starts in Yifan’s house. It’s much like the way that Sunday starts in most other houses with eleven-year-old girls in them. But it wasn’t going to end the way Sundays usually end, in anyone’s house.
Breakfast was punctuated by hugs, cuddles and smiles between her mother and her stepfather and her, by tea for everyone, and especially milky for Yifan, and by Bart coming in to the living-room and running out again when Yifan squealed with delight and her mother with annoyance. The rain still fell, and the lights had to be on to lift the gloom. Shopping was discussed, and the possibility of a walk to the pub for lunch, since the rain was not really THAT bad, was it? It was? Oh, well, then….
Yifan looked at her family as she sipped at her milky tea. Ji Ye is pretty, small-boned, with unruly hair and a face that shows all her emotions. This morning her eyes sparkled and her teeth gleamed as she smiled and laughed with John.
He is a big man, tall and not as slim as he thinks he is, a Westerner, not Chinese. Since moving to England Yifan had got used to these taller people, with their odd voices and their odd habits, and their even odder looks. John has ears that stick out, and a big nose, and now he is trying to find his electric shaver because Ji Ye has objected to his stubble.
“It’s in my room,” said Yifan. “Under the desk. It’s a microphone.”
“A microphone?”
“Yes, it’s for me to practice singing.”
“I wondered what the noise was,” said John, making for the stairs.
When John eventually came down, shaved smooth, Ji Ye brought out some arithmetic exercises.
“You need to practise,” she said, and although Yifan objected she still sat down with the book, because really she didn’t mind. She liked getting top marks for things at school. But then there was a hunt for a pencil, which began well enough, both being certain they knew where a pencil must be, and both being mistaken.
“There’s one upstairs,” cried Yifan, and scooted up.
It was dark in her room. Outside the rain fell relentlessly but lethargically, as if it was unwilling to reach the ground. It was very quiet, only the occasional plop of a raindrop against the window glass. Yifan sat down on the bottom bed of her bunk. It seemed as if the world was holding its breath, waiting for something to happen, and it was going to happen
Now.
She stumbled; light was bright in her eyes and noise loud in her ears. Colours swept around her as she began to fall; she cried out but it was not her and it was her, two voices making a mess of the sound; and it was too far to fall, she was so high up….
A hand grabbed her arm and her fall turned into a circular sweep, and her ankles hurt but she did not fall. A young man had hold of her arm and stabilised her; he looked very concerned. Whatever he was saying was buried in the noise of traffic. And there was another noise, a noise inside her head.
The dizziness began to pass, and the colours resolved themselves into blue sunny sky, red, blue, white, green cars and busses, birds in the mature trees that lined the road, the sound of many people passing to and fro around her. The young man was saying, “Are you all right?” and she nodded, but she was surprised to also shake her head at the same time, which was really quite painful. He released her arm and knelt down to pick up a fallen bag and some books, which he inspected for any horrid dirtiness and, satisfied, put into her hands.
She was frightened, she was overwhelmed. What was happening? She did not have control of her body – she saw her hands wave the young man away, heard herself say “I’ll be fine, don’t worry,” her head moved from side to side and she saw a bench, which her legs immediately, if rather shakily, took her towards. And she sat herself down, the bag and the books in her lap.
-- What’s going on?
-- What's happening?
The two thoughts happened at once. One was hers. The other sounded like her.
-- Who are you? You’re inside my head!
Yifan found that she could move herself. She looked down at her body. It was older, taller, dressed in a silk top, white jeans, heeled shoes. The bag was a good one, and the books were obviously from a library. One was about archaeology, and the other was about Chinese history.
-- Talk to me! I know you’re there. I can feel you moving me.
-- I’m Yifan, she thought. What am I doing here? Who are you?
-- You’re Yifan? I’m Yifan….
There was a feeling as if someone was running their fingers very very lightly over her head, but from the inside, which was not quite as pleasant as it could have been. Thoughts, memories, were brushed out by these touches; they floated in her mind and popped like soap bubbles.
-- Will you stop that? she ‘said’, a bit crossly.
-- You ARE me. Wow!
The fingers stopped their so-gentle teasing. She had the feeling that this other Yifan (if it was her) was standing just behind and to one side of her. She did not know how they could be talking together like this.
-- I don’t know either, said the other Yifan.
-- I was in my bedroom, and now I’m here.
-- How old are you?
-- Eleven.
-- I’m nineteen. I don’t remember having an experience like this when I was eleven.
Older Yifan was at College. This was Cambridge. She was studying for a degree in Chinese History, and she hoped to become an archaeologist some day. She had a boyfriend, and Yifan wished that he was here with them, which made older Yifan laugh out loud, and some people passing looked startled.
-- He’s a nice guy, but I think this would freak him out.
Yifan tried to do the fingers thing, and found that it wasn’t fingers, but a sort of turning round inside her head so that her mind intersected with older Yifan’s mind. It felt itchy, and not the sort of thing you could do for very long. She did catch a fleeting glimpse of older Yifan’s boyfriend, though.
-- Oh, he’s yucky!
-- No he’s not – he’s lovely. Just needs a haircut. Anyway, mum likes him.
-- What about John?
-- I haven’t told John yet. I don’t want him making any funny remarks.
-- NOT funny remarks!
Yifan, laughing at her own funny remark, nearly overbalanced them both on the bench. Older Yifan was not so amused.
-- Look, stop moving me about. Just sit still. OMG, you’re so juvenile.
Yifan started to get a bit sulky at that remark.
-- Don’t get sulky. You are me, apparently. And I know what I was like when I was eleven.
They sat for a while, until Yifan asked to see a bit of Cambridge, and older Yifan obliged, standing up cautiously and then, carrying her books and bag, walked around the centre of the old City, pointing out the churches and colleges, the bookshop, her favourite tea-house.
-- There’s a lot of Chinese shops here
-- Yes. There are lots of Chinese students nowadays. Lots of Chinese investment in Britain. Mama has a Company to teach Mandarin, and does translations for new businesses. She has a team of people working full-time.
Oh! That sounded very good to Yifan.
-- Don’t tell her! I don’t want something strange to happen just because you started telling people about this – this weird stuff.
They sat in a coffee-shop and older Yifan had a mug of black coffee, which to Yifan tasted horrible.
-- Don’t pull faces with my face!
-- It’s my face too. Anyway, I don’t know what it looks like.
Yifan nagged her old self to go to the bathroom so that she could look in the mirror. She saw a face which pleased her – older, but not yet decrepit, with lovely wide eyes and a sweet nose, and her hair glossy-black and long. She turned this way and that, and remarked on her long neck and square shoulders, her straight back, her… well, her…
-- Yes, you’ll get them eventually. Don’t gawp!
Yifan realised that although she was sharing this body, she did not really know it. She could make it move, but without grace, and she could not understand some of the feelings that filtered through to her mind.
-- I expect you have to grow up mentally and physically together, said older Yifan, and she returned them to their seat and the horrible coffee. When she saw the books again, a new question occurred to Yifan.
-- Why are you studying arky-watnot? I don’t like arky-watnot.
-- You don’t even know what it is.
-- Yes I do. It’s about old things. Is it about dinosaurs?
-- No, not dinosaurs. About people who lived a long time ago. Actually, I was your age when I found the pot that started me wanting to do archaeology.
-- A pot?
Between sips of too-sweet and horrible-tasting coffee, older Yifan told her younger self about the pot. It was a very old, small earthenware pot from China that had been in her grandfather’s family for longer than anyone could remember. Yifan had found it in the loft in her grandparents’ home in Cardiff.
-- I haven’t found a pot. I didn’t know about a box in the loft!
-- Well, you will find it, so there.
The pot had a sealed lid, and it seemed very old. Her mother had not known about it, and even her grandfather had forgotten it was there. So Yifan had kept it, and then….
-- Then what?
-- I don’t think I ought to tell you. Just find it and let it all happen.
Yifan could not see any deeper into her older version’s mind. In fact, things were getting a bit wavy. Her sight was dimming, and then
Back.
Her mother and John were leaning over her. She was on the bottom bunk, and a duvet was pulled over her. She looked up; it was still gloomy and the rain still fell monotonously outside the window.
“Yifan?” asked Ji Ye, with relief and concern on her face.
She was a bit dizzy, but that was getting better. At least she was not going to fall over.
“Are you OK, sweetheart?” asked John, and Yifan nodded her head a bit.
“We were so worried,” said Ji Ye. “You’ve been asleep for an hour!”
“I was tired,” Yifan said, in a small voice. She was not deceiving anyone, she knew, because she HAD been a bit tired, and she still was. “I just laid down and had a bit of sleep.”
They seemed to be satisfied with that, although John did wonder if they shouldn’t go to the doctor – he was always worrying about things like that, and pretending he knew things about health and medicine and stuff. Yifan knew she was alright, and she also knew that a doctor would not be the best judge of what had just happened.
Yifan was soon up, and had a cup of tea, some toast and scrambled eggs (she was very hungry), and the promise of lunch in the Town.
“When are we going to see grandpa and grandma? She enquired with an unconvincing air of innocence, which was not remarked on.
“Half term,” said Ji Ye. “You know that. I’ve got the tickets.” And indeed Yifan had forgotten, with all the strange things that had happened that day. And half-term was only two weeks away, although it would have been better, she thought, if it started tomorrow.
Before Ji Ye married John, she and Yifan had lived with Yifan’s grandparents in Wales, Ji Ye’s mum and dad. Grandpa Ji was a Professor of Engineering at the University, working on things that Yifan did not understand and had little interest in. But she did like to visit them. She got pampered and spoiled, and taken to places like the seaside, if the Welsh weather was good. She had not known that the house had a loft – an attic, a room beneath the roof but above the top floor, that could contain all manner of things. It was certainly going to be her priority. Almost, she began to hope that it would be raining there too so that she wouldn’t be tempted to go out.
II.
Time passes slowly when you’re young, and for Yifan the next two weeks felt like a year. She ached to talk to someone about her strange experience with older Yifan, but it just seemed so weird that she could not bring herself to tell anyone, not even John, who quite liked weird things. But she knew that if the old pot could be discovered in grandpa’s attic there would be proof that she had travelled in time.
Eventually she decided to tell Bart. Cats were quite good at keeping secrets, even when Yifans were not. Bart – for once – stayed still and listened to her as she earnestly whispered the facts of her encounter. His yellow-green eyes were wide and fixed on hers as she told him the whole story; and he didn’t even yawn once. When she had finished, he nuzzled her knee and walked away to the kitchen, where she filled his bowls and stroked him as he ate.
There. THAT was done. Now she didn’t have to worry about telling someone any more. And the half-term holiday eventually came. John accompanied Ji Ye and Yifan to Paddington and waved them off to Wales, because he had to work all through half-term.
While Yifan at first bounced around in her seat, pointing at things through the window and telling her mum interesting facts, and then became tired and fell asleep, John was making his way back home, and on the phone to a friend.
“I’m worried about her,” he was saying. “When we found her asleep we could
John did not get any useful information or reassurance from his telephone call, and neither did Ji Ye, who was taking advantage of Yifan’s nap to say pretty much the same things on her mobile to her best friend, who had known Yifan from a baby.
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about it,” said Ji Ye’s friend. “She’s young, and has late nights. Maybe it just means that you should make her go to bed earlier.”
“That’s easier to say than to do,” observed Ji Ye. “She’s always gone to bed late.”
“I know. British children all seem to go to sleep at a much more reasonable time than Chinese. It’s just what each culture is used to, I suppose. For us, time with the family is always time well spent, even if it makes us late to bed.”
Certainly at her grandparents’ place Yifan would enjoy the family experience. She would stay up till midnight, being pampered and listened to, and being told stories by her grandfather. Ji Ye would be on the phone to John in the evenings, keeping him on his toes whilst they were away.
“One more thing,” observed Ji Ye to her friend, “The cat is behaving strangely. Usually it looks right at me, because it knows I don’t like it. But now, it looks away whenever I catch its gaze – I think it’s hiding something.”
“If it’s a mouse,” commented her friend, “it will become known very soon.”
*
Yifan entered her grandparents’ house like a Princess, and was waited on as she supposed she would love to be in a palace, with excellent home-cooked Chinese food and Chinese songs on DVD. The comments from her grandfather and grandmother about her artistic abilities, her obvious gain in height, her school-work, weight, width, choice of clothes, diet, hairstyle and tone of voice (apparently she now sounded different than she had less than a year before) almost overwhelmed her, but Ji Ye fielded part of the onslaught and postponed investigations into some of the enquiries for long enough so that Yifan could eat comfortably and sing a few Chinese songs.