She was clutching a shoebox-sized mahogany chest that Frank had never seen before. With her high-collared black dress and severe bun of gray hair, she looked like a school teacher from the 1800s.
She surveyed the carnage: her porcelain in the wagon, the shards of her favorite tea sets scattered over the lawn, Frank’s arrows sticking out of the ground, the trees, the fence posts, and one in the head of a smiling garden gnome.
Frank thought she would yell, or hit him with the box. He’d never done anything this bad before. He’d never felt so angry.
Grandmother’s face was full of bitterness and disapproval. She looked nothing like Frank’s mom. He wondered how his mother had turned out to be so nice—always laughing, always gentle. Frank couldn’t imagine his mom growing up with Grandmother any more than he could imagine her on the battlefield—though the two situations probably weren’t that different.
He waited for Grandmother to explode. Maybe he’d be grounded and wouldn’t have to go to the funeral. He wanted to hurt her for being so mean all the time, for letting his mother go off to war, for scolding him to get over it. All she cared about was her stupid collection.
“Stop this ridiculous behavior,” Grandmother said. She didn’t sound very irritated. “It is beneath you.”
To Frank’s astonishment, she kicked aside one of her favorite teacups.
“The car will be here soon,” she said. “We must talk.”
Frank was dumbfounded. He looked more closely at the mahogany box. For a horrible moment, he wondered if it contained his mother’s ashes, but that was impossible. Grandmother had told him there would be a military burial. Then why did Grandmother hold the box so gingerly, as if its contents grieved her?
“Come inside,” she said. Without waiting to see if he would follow, she turned and marched toward the house.
In the parlor, Frank sat on a velvet sofa, surrounded by vintage family photos, porcelain vases that had been too large for his wagon, and red Chinese calligraphy banners. Frank didn’t know what the calligraphy said. He’d never had much interest in learning. He didn’t know most of the people in the photographs, either.
Whenever Grandmother started lecturing him about his ancestors—how they’d come over from China and prospered in the import/export business, eventually becoming one of the wealthiest Chinese families in Vancouver—well, it was boring. Frank was fourth-generation Canadian. He didn’t care about China and all these musty antiques. The only Chinese characters he could recognize were his family name: Zhang. Master of bows. That was cool.
Grandmother sat next to him, her posture stiff, her hands folded over the box.
“Your mother wanted you to have this,” she said with reluctance. “She kept it since you were a baby. When she went away to the war, she entrusted it to me. But now she is gone. And soon you will be going, too.”
Frank’s stomach fluttered. “Going? Where?”
“I am old,” Grandmother said, as if that were a surprising announcement. “I have my own appointment with Death soon enough. I cannot teach you the skills you will need, and I cannot keep this burden. If something were to happen to it,
I would never forgive myself. You would die.”
Frank wasn’t sure he’d heard her right. It sounded like she had said his life depended on that box. He wondered why he’d never seen it before. She must have kept it locked in the attic—the one room Frank was forbidden to explore. She’d always said she kept her most valuable treasures up there.
She handed the box to him. He opened the lid with trembling fingers. Inside, cushioned in velvet lining, was a terrifying, life-altering, incredibly important…piece of wood.
It looked like driftwood—hard and smooth, sculpted into a wavy shape. It was about the size of a TV remote control. The tip was charred. Frank touched the burned end. It still felt warm. The ashes left a black smudge on his finger.
“It’s a stick,” he said. He couldn’t figure out why Grandmother was acting so tense and serious about it.
Her eyes glittered. “Fai, do you know of prophecies? Do you know of the gods?”
The questions made him uncomfortable. He thought about Grandmother’s silly gold statues of Chinese immortals, her superstitions about putting furniture in certain places and avoiding unlucky numbers. Prophecies made him think of fortune cookies, which weren’t even Chinese—not really—but the bullies at school teased him about stupid stuff like that: Confucius say …all that garbage. Frank had never even been to China. He wanted nothing to do with it. But of course, Grandmother didn’t want to hear that.
“A little, Grandmother,” he said. “Not much.”
“Most would have scoffed at your mother’s tale,” she said, “But I did not. I know of prophecies and gods. Greek, Roman, Chinese—they intertwine in our family. I did not question what she told me about your father.”
“Wait ... what?”
“Your father was a god,” she said plainly.