Dandelion Lights by Lilly Lu
4500 words, ~22 minutes reading time
Issue 4 (Spring 2024)
Avery moved like water and hoped no one would notice as she slipped through the hold of one conversation to disappear into the kitchen. She blinked the starbursts of light out of her field of vision—they often came in moments like these, when she was surrounded by chaos and feeling particularly unmoored.
A younger cousin blazed past her with a fake sword, screaming. An old wuxia series played in the living room where her grandparents were. The clamor of swords echoed through the hall. On the screen, martial arts heroes flew through the air, battling against a group of corrupt governors and strict martial leaders who couldn’t accept their unorthodox way of life. These heroes were wayward wanderers, defying gravity with the skills they cultivated over decades, beams of power emanating from their hands, the sleeves of their honfuk billowing with their swift movements—
Just as swiftly, her aunts were coming down the staircase.
Avery’s fingers fumbled on the tongs—
But her aunts were like hawks, able to sense dread. They descended on her, hands reaching out to smooth her hair and pat her cheek. Like Avery’s mom, their oldest sister, they had a surprising amount of arm strength for their petite statures.
“Hi, Ayi,” she managed through the pinching.
“Avery, not so small anymore!” Catherine-Ayi said in her soothing alto voice. “You are how old now?”
“Thirty-one,” Jessica-Ayi answered for her, clicking her tongue. She was the second-youngest and liked to be right.
Avery tried to take a breath before the next question would inevitably land in the air, but it came quicker than usual.
“No boyfriend yet?” Candice-Ayi–the youngest and nosiest–asked with a raised brow.
Avery was taller than all three of her aunts, but she felt so small in these moments, like a combination of her five-year-old self, her sixteen-year-old self, and her present-day self, past and present collapsing in on one another. “No, I—”
Catherine smacked the other two on the arms. “Aiya, don’t pressure, she went through a really hard breakup last year, didn’t you, Avery?”
“How long were you together? For him to do that to you, after what—”
“Seven years?”
“Eight?”
“Eight-and-a-half?”
The edges of her vision blurred again. One would’ve thought Avery was having a panic attack, but after years of this sort of thing, she knew it was something else entirely. The room constricted, space and time warping, and her aunts’ voices sounded as if they were coming from underwater.
Over time, she’d learned that what she called dandelion lights–luminous floating pinpricks, resembling dandelion puffs–were a kind of sensitivity (stress-related, the doctors had said, waving her away in their academic manner). She didn’t think the doctor was right, not totally. Yes, the lights often appeared when she was with her family, when Avery felt the most dissimilar to other people, but they appeared also when she felt the most like others.
She took a centering breath, envisioning oxygen reaching her core, just like those wuxia heroes did between battles. When she opened her eyes again, the room was its normal size again, and the dandelion lights—three of them, there, at the edge of the room by the living room window, floating above the sounds of wuxia swords clashing against each other—reappeared. She stood tall again.
“I’ve been doing my own thing.”
“See?” Catherine-Ayi said to her sisters. “Avery is a successful video game woman.”
“You still play video games? At thirty-one?” Candice-Ayi asked.
“I write them.” She’d explained this many times, and had accepted that her family didn’t really understand what it was she did at her job.
“You ever speak to that–that… what-was-her-name? Cherry?” Jessica-Ayi asked. “The friend you brought home in high school?”
“Sometimes,” Avery said, although it had been a while. Cherry Leung had moved across the country after college. “It’s hard to see people when we’re so busy.”
Possibly because they sensed the conversation had ended, or because they grew bored of Avery’s lack of gossip-worthy news, Candice and Jessica-Ayi moved away to get drinks.
Catherine-Ayi stood by and put her arm around Avery. “Don’t listen to them.”
“Thank you,” she said, one side of her mouth lifting in a smile. “It’s been hard after the breakup, and I don’t really feel…excited, romantically, by a lot of people.”
Sometimes Avery felt like she didn’t even want a relationship. She could picture a life without that, and she was perfectly happy. It was a life of friends and travel and sipping coffee while it rained and creating innovative and inclusive video games. It felt full. If she wanted a relationship, it would have to be with someone she felt connected to.
“It’ll happen—if that’s what you want,” Catherine-Ayi added with a knowing glance. “You know if I hadn’t married your Uncle George, I probably wouldn’t be married at all.”
Avery had always liked Catherine-Ayi, and this small admission of similarity between the two women only deepened her fondness. Uncle George and she had been really wonderful together–true best friends for their 25 years of marriage until his death four years ago.
“I’m sorry, Ayi.”
“No need. I am content. I have my book club and pottery. Do you know how strong my arms are? I don’t need anything or anyone else to be happy.” Catherine-Ayi flexed her bicep and offered it up to Avery to feel.
Avery squeezed and her eyes widened. “Impressive.”
“I know,” Catherine said with a wink.
Avery felt like the room was aglow around her, and the dandelion lights looked softer than before. A flow of energy ran to her core. This was solidarity, and comfort. She suddenly had an appetite again for more duck, and bravery enough to rejoin her family in the living room.
Avery used to think everyone could see the lights.
The first time she noticed them, really noticed them, was in the seventh grade. It was after school, and she and her best friend, Cherry Leung, were waiting for their moms to pick them up. They wandered to the field and lay down in the soft grass, talking about their wishes. They lifted their hands above them and marveled at the differences, Avery’s a golden tan, Cherry’s a smooth and light brown, and they linked fingers. The day was not particularly sunny but Avery felt warm and understood.
The lights began to appear, dancing among the foliage of the trees at the edge of the field. She’d seen these soft golden lights before, of course, but they seemed to float now like dandelion seeds blowing in the wind, languid and bright.
“Don’t listen to Charlotte and the rest,” Avery said softly to Cherry. “I think you have a lovely name.”
“My English teacher in Hong Kong gave it to me,” Cherry said, blowing her raven hair out of her face. Avery liked the way she said Hong Kong, with vowels like music, vowels she’d only ever heard from her mom’s side of the family. “You know when you take a foreign language and teachers give you a name? I’ve been stuck with it since kindergarten.”
Avery had been born in the States, so she didn’t know firsthand, but she could empathize. Her mom spoke Cantonese, her dad spoke Mandarin, and they wanted to give her a name that would help her fit in in this primarily white town. They saw Avery on a shampoo bottle when her mom was eight months pregnant. “You could always change it to something you like. Plus, I like Cherry. It’s bold.”
“You’re right. Changing it will be too much of a hassle. Plus, maybe I’ll grow into it. You know those old movies with the flying martial arts heroes?”
“Yeah?”
“The names of the characters are sometimes cheesy or stuffy, but there’s an endearing and meaningful aspect to them. Cherry is so straightforward, so girly. But maybe it’s bold too.”
Avery smiled. Cherry already seemed to know who she was. It was fun to imagine an older Cherry who retained this confidence. “It makes me imagine a woman in her thirties with a job she’s passionate about, really dark lipstick, a short cool bob, and a boldness that’s unmatched.”
Cherry smiled back, pleased by the idea. “Okay. I’ll stick with that name until I become that woman, and then I’ll see if I want to change it.”
“Deal.”
The wind blew across the fields, and still their moms hadn’t arrived. They didn’t mind. With Cherry, Avery felt like she stepped into a realm entirely their own, where they were free to play and talk without judgement.
As if reading her mind, Cherry admitted, “I don’t tell people about my feelings like this. Charlotte said I was intimidating because I don’t smile like other Asian girls. Not to her, anyway.”
“Well, I’m lucky I’m on your good side,” Avery said. “And you can tell me anything. I shall cherish whatever you tell me.” She was prone to these kinds of dramatic turns of phrase at that age—and she meant everything she uttered.
The glow she felt seemed to emanate from her own self and from the world, pulsating all throughout. Her vision was rimmed with those soft lights.
The dandelion lights were stronger then. Back then, she believed they appeared in moments of deep emotional connection. Avery thought this was the universe’s way of physically manifesting her feelings—or perhaps it was the feeling itself made tangible, painting the world a different color for her. Wasn’t that what they said about love, that it could make you see the world anew?
As Avery grew, she realized people talked about love and attraction differently from how she thought about it. They talked of heat, of fireworks, of explosions, using violent metaphors. It sounded painful to her, unpleasant, but she took these for figurative speech and wondered if she’d ever have such a collision with desire.
In her thirty-one years of life, however, desire never came–and especially not as collision. In the months following the family party, even as her aunts kept questioning her via texts, it still didn’t come. Later that summer, as another text came from Candice-Ayi asking her if she’d want to see a matchmaker, Avery forced herself to pay attention to the gifts her college friend Sarah was working through. The anniversary party for Sarah and Brandon was filled with old college friends who Avery wasn't certain if she fit in with anymore.
She sat in the circle, marveling at the presents and sipping her peach Bellini. The television was on in the background, one of the many hook-up shows Sarah talked about. The camera focused on lurid close-ups of bikini bodies and abs. Avery's mind wandered to the dating sim she was assigned to work on, having to watch several reality TV shows for research. She thought it funny how people were so tempted by people they found attractive, so much so that they’d be enticed into infidelity. Avery didn’t understand that personally, but she supposed the game was narratively fun.
“Avery, are you seeing anyone new?” Sarah asked, her voice taking on that familiar tone, half curiosity, half pity. She knew the answer.
The dandelion lights began to pop in Avery's periphery, but they looked different this time–around them was a darkening shadow about to eclipse them. It twitched and grew, like an unstable energy force.
“I-I’m not,” she said, her eyes flicking to Sarah and back to the shadow.
Sarah frowned, and looked to where Avery was glancing. “You okay?”
Avery snapped out of it. “Yes, of course. You were saying?”
“Well, have you tried at all? Dating?”
“I’ve been too busy, honestly, and not so interested—” The shadow grew larger. She felt her core glow, as though singing in response to–in protest against–the shadows. She felt small again, as she did during her family party. She took a deep breath.
“How do you know you’re not interested if you haven’t tried?”
One of Sarah’s friends chirped, “Yes, it’s so hard unless you really get out there. You have to make yourself available. Men won’t simply flock to you.”
“It’s not that. I—” Avery attempted.
Sarah took hold of her arm and frowned in disappointment. “Now, Avery, you know that old adage: You gotta get under someone new to get over someone? It’s so true. How long are you going to be stuck on Ryan?”
“I’m…I’m not stuck on him.” She only paused because she was watching the shadow contort. It seemed to puncture through Sarah’s wallpaper, bending the wall where it was erupting from. One last dandelion light floated in front of Avery’s face. Could no one see what was happening?
Her hands had broken out in a sweat.
Sarah noticed how distracted she was and insisted, “Listen, Avery. Ryan has probably slept with upwards of five women since the breakup by now. Maybe upwards of ten. Think about it! What are you waiting for? Someone’s permission? You’re an adult!”
The glow intensified and Avery felt she might combust. “I’m okay, really—”
“You’re thirty-one and you’re not getting any younger!" Sarah's voice raised with each word, excited and reprimanding. "This is your wake-up call, Ave, this is your sign: GO HAVE SEX WITH SOMEONE—”
“I’M NOT INTERESTED!” Avery was standing now, chest heaving. Energy flowed from her core to her arms, her palms singing with heat. She felt powerful. “I am not interested in dating, or marriage, or even sex with someone I do not care about!"
The shadow grew larger, spreading outward. Avery inhaled again, leaning into Sarah's space. "Can’t you understand some people want different lives from what you have? Can’t you understand that it is not a lack but simply a different way of living? I am happy! What makes me unhappy is THIS CONVERSATION!”
Sarah froze, her lips twitching. Everyone froze.
But the shadow in the corner of the room ruptured with a screeching sound. The guests screamed. A large, dark, cavernous fissure had formed along one wall. Out of the shadow climbed three men, all in gray modern honfuk, wielding onyx swords singing with power, their brassy sounds vibrating in Avery’s ears even from where she stood several feet away. Avery could hear the sounds from where she stood several feet away.
Around her, the guests had scattered, running out the front door.
One of the soldiers made eye contact with her. “Catch her!” he shouted.
His finger pointed at—her! Avery stood still, panicked and truly realizing that he meant her.
Before she could say anything, the soldiers ran forward, their boots clamoring against Sarah’s mahogany floor, swords brandished in the air.
“What the fu—” Heat spread from her stomach to her fingertips, and for some reason, she had the thought to punch forward, do anything to release that buildup of energy. She thrust forward with her two fists and a burst of opalescent light emanated forth, blowing the soldiers back.
She looked at her hands—they looked ordinary, if not a little dry. Except that, now, dandelion lights floated around her, painted in the same luminescence.
“What—”
The soldiers sprang back up, flipping and flying in the air just as they did in the old wuxia movies Avery had seen time and time again with her grandparents. The years of memories of fighting sequences from Legend of the Condor Heroes came back to her. With quick feet, she turned around and ran, knocking over a chair and throwing back a few vases. Distraction was key. Using your surroundings was key. Grunting, the soldiers smashed through the glass with their swords. Scared to look behind, she careened out of Sarah’s house and into the front lawn.
Luckily, this was her hometown and she knew the roads and rivers. She sprinted across the street and into the forest, imagining herself moving like water again, slipping through fingers, dodging dark energy blasts that flew past her ear.
When she glanced back, they were soaring twenty feet above the ground, using their arms to swim through the air. She could hear the fluttering of their sleeves like sails in the wind.
Why? Dim-gai? A thousand of her grandmother’s swear words flurried through her mind.
Why were they after her! Why were they after a video game writer? She had no immense fortune. She had a small, dingy apartment. Was it the new rice cooker she’d bought? Or had she offended the ancestors in some way?
How had they ripped through time-space like that? Had she caused this somehow?
Her feet slapped a patch of mud as she cut through the woods towards her childhood home. Her parents were visiting relatives in another town. They’d be safe.
She picked up the pace, her calves throbbing but her feet flying, almost like the wuxia heroes. If it weren’t for these circumstances, she would feel–free. Empowered. She’d just said, out loud, for the first time that she didn’t align with others’ ideas of sex or romance. She knew in her heart that she’d been in love before, but that it seldom happened. She knew in her heart that she’d rarely felt sexual attraction before, and it only came after a feeling of intense emotional and romantic attraction.
She’d always been like this, and whenever she felt this part of herself strongly, the dandelion lights appeared. Why would the shadows appear when she felt announced herself proudly? Did that anger them–that she wasn’t interested in dating?
Ridiculous!
Although—she thought back to what she’d seen online, about how choices like the ones she’d made were somehow offensive to the status quo, to society that expected each person to fall in love, get married, have kids, and never deviate–her truth was offensive to not just the people around her who had expectations for her life. It was a challenge to the social order, not wanting to engage in the script of sex and marriage was defiance. It was revolution.
Even though, to her, it was simply her living her life.
A shadow fell above her and she glanced above–the soldiers were flying overhead, one of them in the front, trying to anticipate her turn towards the main road. She realized they might know where she lived.
So she turned the other way, past the old creek and the crumbling bridge, and towards the middle school. The playground set had thankfully been changed over time, but it offered no coverage. Unthinkingly, her focus landed on the field where she and Cherry had lain all those years ago.
She blinked, and the field seemed to be aglow with the lights.
She blinked again. Suddenly a chorus of dandelion lights hummed and floated before her, like fireflies on a summer’s night.
As she hurdled down towards the field, she saw that the dandelion lights were gathering in its center like a murmuration of starlings, like a congregation of fireflies, as if finding a home base, and they swirled together, creating—
A door. Through the light, a door formed.
And through it stepped a woman in opalescent honfuk with a gossamer lavender sash and voluminous sleeves. She had deeply tanned skin, with really dark red lipstick, and a stylish bob, and confidence in her stride. And a sword in her hand that shone like a winter’s moon.
Avery recognized her.
“Cherry?”
Cherry Leung smiled broadly. “Get behind me, Chang.”
Avery scrambled to do her bidding. The scent of jasmine floated towards her. “Where—”
“Do as I do,” Cherry said, demonstrating a diagonal arm movement from her core across her chest and to her shoulder.
Avery did so, and—her heated palm felt heavy. A sword appeared in her right hand, shimmering in the late afternoon light. “What--?”
“That’s your spiritual sword,” Cherry explained, as if that was self-evident. “Like in the movies?”
“Sure…”
Cherry made a series of hand motions, and then splayed her hands in front of her. A gleaming, silvery shield appeared before them, pushing forward. The three soldiers were now in sight, slashing at the shield to get through. Each hit the shield resisted, throwing out sparks from the impact. The men grit their teeth and swore.
Avery splayed her hands in front of her as well, to try to add energy to the shield.
“Can you keep this shield up for a second on your own?”
Avery wasn’t sure–but Cherry, bold as ever, believed in her, and so she wanted to believe in herself too. “I’ll try!”
Cherry let her hands down, and Avery poured her strength forward. The spiritual force of the soldiers felt like an immense wall. She leaned forward and strained against it.
Flute music soared through the air. Cherry was playing the dizi, conjured as if by magic from her sash, and, from the melody, a ghost of a dragon appeared, traveling up towards the soldiers, curling around them like a huge boa constrictor. They shouted and slashed at the dragon with their swords, but he was too large, build from the silvery spiritual power of Cherry’s haunting tune. One of the solider’s swords clamored to the ground as he trembled in fear. The other two stood their ground and stabbed at the beast.
Cherry’s tune crescendoed, and the dragon bared its teeth at the soldiers, gaining power from the melody. Its jaws opened wide–and, in one swift movement and one thundering sound, lunged forward and devoured them.
The song came to an end, and dragon and soldiers all vanished in a glistening rain.Avery collapsed to the ground, panting, the shield dissolving, too, before her
Cherry ran to her and her hand found her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
She sat with her head in her hands, catching her breath. “Just–give me one moment.”
Cherry sat beside her, sheathing her sword. “I wiped the party’s memories, by the way. Our people will come tomorrow to patch up Sarah's house so they will not remember what transpired.”
“Aren’t–aren’t you supposed to be in California?” It was not the highest-priority question, but it was the only one she could think of.
“I live there—most days.” When Avery lifted her head, Cherry was staring at her with concern and patience.
The only next question she could think of left her lips: “You kept the name Cherry, I suppose?”
Cherry swished her stylish bob. “I did. It suits me, don’t you think?”
Avery nodded.
“You sure you're okay?”
Avery nodded again, though more to convince herself than to tell the truth. “Who were they?”
Cherry’s brows knit together. “Those were imperial soldiers. They are of this world, but also not. Soldiers who uphold what they call The Order, and they are threatened by those who can see the opal energy. Like us.”
Us. Cherry could see them too, could possibly always see them too. “Why?”
“You know about yin and yang, about qi—or hei, depending on what language you’re using.”
“Of course.”
“Well, people like us, people who aren’t stuck to the allonormative script of attraction, people who are on the ace spectrum, we open portals.” Ace spectrum. These words stuck to Avery’s brain like a beautiful morning dew. “They aren’t portals you jump through. They are light portals, on the same plane of existence as us, marked usually by those opal lights that appear. Our existence and our energies keep those light portals up. And those light portals stabilize everything that exists—the trees, the flowers, us, interpersonal bonds.”
“You’re saying, because I’m–on the ace spectrum–” The words sounded new and strange and glistening on her tongue, and tasted like delight–“that I—stabilize the world.”
Cherry chuckled. “You and your energy, yes. Your opal energy keeps the world expansive, keeps time and space capacious as well as intact. The way you are is not only valid. It’s necessary.”
Her vision was blurry, but not with the lights–with tears. She’d never known another way to be, but learning that she was needed, that she needed to be like this, released a tightened valve inside of her. “How?”
“If everyone were the same way, if everyone were allo, wouldn’t we miss out on other, similarly powerful forms of love? Like friendship, familial. Aren’t those connections as deep as romantic love, just as important?”
“I’ve always thought so.”
“Those are also love. Those, too, keep the world going. And we see that, but the imperial army, the people who uphold the narrowest definitions of romantic love and sexual attraction above all others see your energy, my energy, as a threat.”
“Why? I’m just—existing. I’m just—reading my books and writing my games and hanging out with my friends!”
Cherry squeezed Avery’s hand. They glanced down at their interlocked hands. “You see? We challenge their view of the world, and that scares them. Yet our energy is necessary to the world, just as much a part of it as theirs is.”
Avery squeezed Cherry’s hand back. Opal lights appeared around them, enveloping them in the glow. “I missed you. I’m sorry I’ve been so busy.”
“I’ve been busy too,” Cherry said, nodding at the sword at her belt. “I’ve been meaning to send you more postcards, but…I thought it’d be weird if I sent you one from every place I go. I’m in three places a day, sometimes more.”
“I suppose you have been busy,” she laughed.
Cherry smiled at her, warmth in her amber eyes. “I missed your laugh. You make me feel braver, you know.”
“I feel the same. Brave, and safe.”
The song of crickets rose around them and the sky was deepening blue. The collision of desire may never come, but Avery felt certain this was better: a safe harbor in another person. There might not be fireworks and lightning strikes, but there were soft dandelion lights, and opalescent swords, and this feeling with Cherry, who understood her and fought alongside her.
As it grew darker, Avery asked, “What do we do?”
Cherry pursed her lips before saying, “First, we go to a restaurant and get ho fun, preferably with beef. And then, we debrief on the mission.”
“The mission?”
“We need to keep these light portals open around the world to make sure that everything is stable, and that the imperial army has not gone around destroying them.”
“Right. Of course. Just another Friday night.”
“And then you have a choice. They will probably appear to you again, the soldiers. But you have a choice to fight with us—you’ll have to learn sword fighting, undoubtedly, but you have impressive spiritual energy in you. It shouldn’t be too hard.”
“…Or?”
“Or, you can go about your normal life and I can swoop in to save your ass every time the soldiers come.” Cherry shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind, but it would make my job easier if you knew how to fight, too.”
“Okay. Do I have to decide now?”
“No. Beef noodles first, remember?”
“Oh, right.”
They stood and looked around the vast field.
“Do…we Uber?” Avery asked.
“No, we take our own way,” she said, snapping her fingers.
An opalescent door appeared before them.
“You ever try Hong Kong cafés in Los Angeles?” Cherry said, a playful half-smile forming on her lips.
“I’ve never even been to the west coast,” Avery answered, reaching her hand out and feeling warmth emanating from the door.
“You’ll like it. I promise.”
They took each other’s hands, and Avery stepped through, feeling like water allowing itself to be embraced by a current.