Xiulan woke from the dream with a start.
Moonlight still filtered through the window paper, pooling silver on the floor. Nian'an slept beside her, his breathing even, his small fist clutching the edge of her sleeve. All ten of his nails were intact, gleaming faintly in the pale light. Chen Wangtian sat slumped against the headboard, having fallen asleep sitting up, his hand still loosely holding hers.
She gently withdrew her hand and raised it to the moonlight.
Left pinky: waxy yellow, Old Wu's nail, heavy with fifty years of borrowed memories. Left index finger: pearl-white, the nail the Nail Borrower had returned to her in the dream, clean as a blank sheet of paper. The other eight fingers: gray nails still growing, now reaching half their normal length, their color shifting from dark gray at the base to pale gray at the tips, like eight slivers of diluted twilight.
She pressed her nails against her palm. The sensation from the pinky was sharpest—not just touch, but memory. Old Wu's memories. Flames from fifty years ago. A little girl's black eyes. The faint sounds of ninety-eight nails detaching from children's fingers. Every time she touched something with that nail, those memories surfaced like fish rising from deep water, flashing once before sinking back down.
The index finger's touch was clean. That nail held nothing but herself. Like a blank page wiped clean.
She rose and walked to the window.
Outside, the village slept beneath the moon. The old locust tree stood silent at the village entrance, its canopy dense and black. But tonight, something hung from its branches—a single point of faint, pearlescent light, like a tiny star caught in the leaves. She knew what it was. One of the nine nails the Nail Borrower still held. She had returned one to Xiulan. Nine remained. The old woman had said she would come for the remaining nine, one by one. Each time she took one, Xiulan would grow a new one in its place.
She did not know when the next would come. Tomorrow. Next year. Next Ghost Month. But she was no longer afraid.
A faint rustle came from outside the door.
Xiulan turned. Through the gap in the doorframe, a sliver of moonlight fell upon a figure standing there. Small, hunched, wearing a gray cloth shirt patched over and over.
The madwoman.
She stood at the door, head tilted, peering through the tangled curtain of her hair. Her eyes in the moonlight were no longer murky. They were clear. Clear as a child's.
Her left hand emerged from her sleeve. All five nails were intact. But they were not normal nails. Each one was pure black, black as condensed night, their edges gleaming with a faint pearlescent sheen.
Xiulan looked at those black nails, and suddenly she understood.
"You're not mad," she said.
The madwoman smiled. There was no madness in that smile, only a deep and bone-deep weariness.
"I was once," she said. Her voice was no longer the garbled muttering of before. It was clear, slow, carrying the same ancient accent as the Nail Borrower's. "Fifty years ago. Shanghe Village. I was the first child the Nail Borrower ever borrowed from. But I was not burned. My brother hid me in the cellar and traded his ten nails for ten days of my life. On the eleventh night, I still became the Nail Borrower—but not fully. Only a part of her. The part she left behind in the world of the living."
Xiulan's breath caught.
"You are Old Wu's sister."
"Yes." The madwoman looked down at her ten black nails. "Fifty years ago, I was six years old. My brother gave me his nails, and I lived ten more days. On the eleventh night, I passed. But the Nail Borrower did not take all of my soul. She left a piece behind, to watch over this village. To watch over him. For fifty years, I watched him light incense after incense, pour oil after oil, string nail after nail onto his beads. I watched him become a handler. I watched him become the thing I feared most as a child."
Her voice trembled. Her black nails dug into her palms.
"I could not stop him. Because I am part of the Nail Borrower. My nails are black. Half my soul lives in that tree. I could only wait. Wait for someone who did not fear her. Someone who dared to speak to her of rules."
She raised her clear eyes to Xiulan.
"I waited fifty years. And finally, you came."
Xiulan extended her own hand and placed it beside the madwoman's in the moonlight. Ten fingers, bare at the tips, eight gray nails growing, one pearl-white, one waxy yellow. The madwoman's hand lay beside hers, all ten nails pure black, like ten slivers of condensed night.
"Your brother is dead," Xiulan said. "He gave me his last nail. Before he died, he said—tell her. Her brother has returned the nail. The debt is paid."
Tears slid down the madwoman's face, cutting tracks through the grime. She did not wipe them away. She simply stood there, letting them fall onto her black nails. With each tear that landed, the black faded slightly—from pure black to dark gray, from dark gray to pale gray, from pale gray to something nearly transparent.
"Fifty years," she said, her voice soft as a fallen leaf. "I watched over him for fifty years. Now the debt is paid. I can go."
She stepped backward. Her form began to fade in the moonlight—not vanishing, but dissolving, like ice melting into water, the edges blurring, becoming transparent. Before she faded completely, she reached into her robe and drew out a small red paper packet. She set it on the doorstep.
"This is what my brother gave me fifty years ago. Ten nails. He traded his own soul for ten days of mine. Now I return them to his sister—but I have no sister anymore. So I give them to you."
Her form dissolved into the moonlight. The last words drifted back, soft as a sigh.
"Bury them beneath the old locust tree. Under the stone covered in moss."
Xiulan bent and picked up the red packet. It was small, nearly weightless. She opened it. Inside lay ten nails. Not black. Not gray. Ordinary nails, gleaming with a faint pearlescent sheen. Fifty years ago, a teenage boy had pulled them from his own fingers and placed them in the hands of his sister, who had become the Nail Borrower. Fifty years later, the sister returned them.
The nails were warm in her palm, like ten embers not yet extinguished.
She pressed the red packet to her chest and walked back inside. Nian'an still slept, undisturbed. Chen Wangtian had not stirred. She placed the packet inside the wooden chest beneath the bed, beside her grandmother's booklet. Then she lay down, gathered Nian'an into her arms, and buried her bare fingertips in his hair.
Outside, the point of light in the locust tree's canopy still glimmered.
The Nail Borrower held nine more of her nails. The debt was not yet settled. But tonight, she would not think about it. Tonight, she only wanted to hold her son and sleep.
Tomorrow, perhaps the gray nail on her index finger would have grown another inch. Perhaps the waxy yellow nail on her pinky would show her more of Old Wu's memories in her dreams. Perhaps another nail would appear beneath the locust tree, drifted from who knew where.
But that was tomorrow.
Tonight, she slept.