Fiction: Group 2
Saving June
German Swiss International Primary School, Lau, Justin - 9, Fiction: Group 2
oonlight spilled into the room, basking Rose’s bed in a silver haze. She glanced at the clock
beside her nightstand. It was past midnight. Frustrated, she threw her legs over the bed and
made her way to the deck. The cold of the night seeped through her nightgown as she stood
alone, shivering, the wind whipping her black hair against her face. Rose sighed, it was going to be a long
night. Just then, a distant whimper broke the silence. Rose’s breath caught. She should be the only one
around.
Rose whirled around, her gaze flitting across the empty deck.
“Rose! Come here! Come here!”
Someone was beckoning her.
“Who is it?” Rose whispered.
“Rose, come here!”
Rose followed the voice hesitantly. Glancing around, she slowly went down the winding staircase
and through a corridor, growing increasingly skittish as the lamp flickers, her shadow looming in the narrow
hallway in the eerie silence.
The voice stopped as Rose came to a wooden door. Rose put her hand on the
door, unsure of what to do. She had never seen this part of the ship before. Taking a deep breath, she
pushed opened the door, and it slowly creaked open. She stepped into the room hesitantly, and the door
shut with a loud bang, melting into the walls. Rose blinked in disbelief. The door was gone. Suddenly, a
gust of wind swirled towards her from the corner, surrounding her and whirled her around the room. Rose
tried to grab on to something in a panic but there was nothing but thin air. She started to scream but there
was a blinding flash of white light, and she was sucked into the void.
Then all was still.
Rose found herself standing on a river bank. Behind her were dozens of cottages, but all the lights
had been extinguished. Before her, hundreds of red lanterns adorned a ship in the middle of the river,
illuminated against the dark of the night. She heard the sound of laughter and music floating across the river,
of people dancing and shouting in joy.
“Happy Birthday, June!”
“May you live a prosperous life!”
Rose saw a young woman in a red cheongsam walking towards the edge of the ship, away from the
raucous crowd. She sat down, her feet dangling over the side.
For the first time, Rose was able to see the woman’s face, and she realised with a start she had seen
this face countless times in her mother’s photobook--the woman was June, Rose’s grandmother. June
married into one of the wealthiest families in the Pearl River Delta when she was only seventeen years old.
The other concubines, jealous of her beauty, bullied her everyday. June soon fell into depression and
committed suicide on her twenty-fourth birthday, drowning in the Pearl River after leaping off the deck
from the family’s ship. Could it be? Rose looked around at the celebration on the ship as realisation dawned,
she had travelled back in time, to the day her grandmother died. But why?
Rose squinted at June, who was still sitting on the ship, unmoving against the river. Just then,
another woman, the second concubine, Louisa! Louisa crept towards June, and, as quick as lightning, pushed
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