Joseph drove his old, beat-up car in silence. His hands were clamped onto the wheel, and even though it was cold and rainy outside he could feel sweat slicking his palms. He had decided not to turn his usual music on, letting the sounds of rain splattering against the roof and windows of his car be the only sounds in the world, a strange and melancholic dirge as he drove through lonely side-roads and trails slaked with mud. His stomach felt raw and twisted, like a stone had been dropped into it that refused to go away.
It had been a week since his Nai Nai's – his grandmother's – passing. She had gone in her sleep, far away from the three-story house she had built for herself in the mountains of Washington. It had not been a peaceful passing, either, but one full of Nai Nai's usual bitter poison flung at everyone who came to visit her in the hospital. She had snapped at the doctors who talked to her, the nurses who cared for her, and the family who visited her, her hands crossed and her face taut with that strict air that she always wore when the grandchildren were misbehaving. No, Zheng Chun's passing was not a peaceful one, with fluffy pillows and a family around her, the light leaving her eyes in some final epilogue. It had been much like Zheng Chun herself – a thunderstorm in a bottle, raging to be free once more, a tinge of sour desperation in its arguments.
Of course, it had fallen to Joseph to go to her house and look through her things. It was, in Dad’s words, ‘a quick survey.’ A short trip, though Joseph couldn’t help but feel frustrated that he had been the one sent to scout the house. He had left to get away from it all, hadn’t he? It was only because of Nai Nai that the old man had let him move up here at all...
Yet something in his father’s voice had prompted Joseph to take the three hour trip up to Nai Nai’s house, to take the rare role of dutiful son, not the wild child he was used to being.
“Wild child,” he said aloud. He had to chuckle at that. He had decided to relent, to give his mourning father a break. He was almost at Nai Nai’s house now - going over the small hill that marked familiar territory from his days visiting her, running through the fields with siblings. He could see the old home now - a tall house situated in a clearing in the middle of the woods. He started to slow down.
***
Joseph was to respect his grandmother. He had been taught to always defer to her wishes, to never raise his voice around her, and to always be available to help when she needed it. She was the head of the family, an elder to be deferred to.
But Joseph had to be honest with himself. Nai Nai, quite frankly, lived in the ass-end of nowhere. Joseph had been driving uphill for most of the ride to get to her house, far away from Seattle and the sights he had grown familiar with. Despite how close he had lived the past year in the dorms of Seattle University, he hadn't visited her at all. That fact definitely made him feel a little guilty. But then, Nai Nai had been ferociously independent - according to his father, she had thrown him out in all but name when he had finished college. So rather than living with and being supported by her son, Nai Nai had chosen to live on her own, with her family making visits to her old estate at least once a year. Not the traditional Chinese way, so Joseph could respect that.
Stepping out of his car, he opened his umbrella to escape the deluge of rain. He squinted, starting at the top of the house, eyes narrowly making their way down to the front door. Nai Nai’s house was an old, decrepit creature, three stories of white, chipped wood that must have looked pristine when first built. Now, though, it was falling into disrepair and rot, despite the fact that Nai Nai had been living here up until a few weeks ago. She had built it herself, apparently, when she had first arrived in Washington. Joseph wondered who her contractor had been.
A stupid story for another day.
With a shrug, Joseph walked up to the door, wood creaking under his feet as he went up the stairs. For a moment, habit overtook him as he got ready to ring the doorbell and stand up straight, waiting for the inevitable barrage of admonishments that came with the open door. Then he stopped, realizing that no one was inside anymore, sighed, got the spare key out of his pocket, and opened up.
Jonathan, his older brother, had called Nai Nai's house 'The Museum,' and he was pretty spot-on. Nai Nai's home was a place out of time, with the first floor being a wide-open living room with a kitchen, with an open roof that led up to the balconies of the second and third floors. There was little privacy here – no matter where you were in the house, the acoustics would carry to the other floors. Artifacts from all over the world decorated the house. Old paintings from Europe lined the walls, fancy noblemen and ladies pouting down at passersby. A set of Japanese armor sat by the refrigerator, the mask of an Oni covering the face. The head of an elk sat over the nice merry fireplace, antlers extending out six feet on each side, taking up the entire wall.
Joseph had to assume that the last one was fake.
There were also several golden Chinese sayings on the walls. Joseph had only pretended to understand them as a kid, when Nai Nai had prompted him.
“Boy,” she would say, pointing at one of her sayings, “What does that say?”
“I'm sorry, Nai Nai, I forgot my glasses at home.”
“Useless grandson, always forgetting your glasses! I should speak to that failure of a father of yours, otherwise I will have to buy a pair of glasses and glue them to your face.”
Joseph didn't wear glasses.
There were stranger things on the walls, as well. A sword that glowed a neon green, a shield that shifted like a kaleidoscope as Joseph walked across the living room, a bear statue in the corner of the room, right by the staircase, with almost human-like eyes and a forked tongue.
When Joseph had asked Nai Nai about this as a kid, she had merely scoffed.
“Mere movie props,” she spat, “Don't pay attention to them, boy. Now eat your cereal and go do whatever it is you children do.”
Still, the way those eyes stared at him made Joseph want to bolt, like at any moment the bear would leap to life and chase him down. But those were just nerves.
For a moment, Joseph stood there, taking in the sight of the Museum. Then, he blinked and re-oriented himself. Dad, in one of those odd moments of caring, had told Joseph to call him when he’d gotten to the house safely. Joseph took out his phone and dialed his father’s number.
A few moments passed as the phone rang, the rain splattering against the many windows in the house. All Joseph could see outside was the woods nearby. The phone’s ring echoed through the house, setting him ever so slightly on edge, as though something could hear him. Finally, his dad picked it up.
“Hello, Joseph,” his voice sounded haggard and hollow, “Did you get to her house?”
“Yeah, I'm here,” Joseph said, “Look, let's just get this out of the way. Where do you want me to start?”
“Is that any way to talk to your father?”
Joseph rolled his eyes.
“Right, sorry. Where do you want me to start?”
“Try to get a layout of the place. I'll be heading there myself in a few days, when we've-”
“When you've taken care of everything, I know, you told me,” Joseph said, tapping his foot impatiently.
“Joseph, please,” his dad said.
“Sorry, I know, the interrupting thing,” Joseph rubbed his temples. He didn't mean to be so snappy, but his dad was being his usual self - complete and sufficiently informative, though he took the long-winded route to get there. “Sorry, this place just gets to me. Lots of...”
“Movie props,” his dad finished.
“You keep calling them that, Dad, but I'm starting to doubt you. Some of ‘em look real.”
“‘Em’?”
“Them. Some of them look real."
“I know,” his dad said, “But that's always what she said they were.”
“Yeah, obviously, but-”
“Are you calling your grandmother a liar?”
“No! Of course not! Okay, subject change,” Joseph took a deep breath, “Look, just tell me what you need me to do.”
“I already told you, get a layout of the place, write down what we'll need to put into a moving van, and how many people you think we'll need to move everything out.”
“Sounds good,” Joseph tried to keep the hint of bitterness out of his voice. He knew that what his dad was asking him was reasonable, but the whole situation was just… annoying.
No, that was unfair. Nai Nai was dead. He didn't have time to wallow in his own misery.
“Are you holding up okay?” Dad asked, “It's bad enough here, with us preparing her body for the memorial. Your mother is a wreck. You know how close they were...”
Joseph was quiet for a moment, unsure of what to say.
“Joseph?”
“I'm fine,” Joseph said, “It's just...”
He looked up at the house again to the spiraling staircases that led up to the second and third floors, and the rooms that Nai Nai had decorated with her collection.
“Just a lot to take in. Haven't been here in a while. Did she add some new things?”
“Yes,” his dad replied, “At least one new prop a year.. I don't know where she gets them from.”
“Hollywood or Spirit Halloween, probably,” Joseph said. There was a bit of a pause as he walked to the kitchen.
“Just go through all four floors, okay?” his dad said.
“Wait, four floors?” Joseph said, “Dad, there are three.”
“She had a basement.”
Joseph narrowed his eyes, “She never told me about a basement. Neither did you.”
“She didn't want you to rummage in there as a kid,” his dad said, “It's where she stored all of the collection that she couldn't put up in the main house. Remember that locked door by the bathroom?”
“She said it was a cleaning closet,” Joseph growled. He recalled a time when he had tried to open it, only for Nai Nai to slap his hand away, her eyes alight with a special kind of rage.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“No touch!” she had snarled, “Go play somewhere else, now!”
“Your key should open it,” his dad pulled him back into reality, “Just take a look in there. Once you're done and you've got a good idea where to start, let me know.”
“Alright, sounds good,” Joseph said.
“Oh, and Joseph?”
“Yeah?”
“The painting of the lake, with the mother and son standing over it.”
“Yeah, I see it.”
“Can you... Can you take it down?”
“...Yeah. I'll see you, Dad.”
“I love you, my son.”
Joseph paused at that rare statement, his dad hanging up on the other end. He was taking this harder than he was letting on. That made him feel even worse about his flippancy. Joseph fulfilled his father's odd request, taking the painting down and turning it so it faced the wall. Perhaps it brought up too many memories of Nai Nai. He realized that his father didn't talk about his childhood very often. Still, there must have been some good mixed in with the bad, if he was so broken about the situation.
With that done, Joseph took stock of the house. Four floors to go through. Nai Nai had lived alone, and how she kept the whole place was a mystery to him. He decided to start at the top, going up to the third floor and looking around. This was where Nai Nai had slept – the master bedroom was up here, clean and luxurious, Chinese watercolors adorning the walls. It smelled of strong spices that she had used in her baths. Joseph didn't want to stay in here long – something about the place felt off, like a piece of her soul still resided there, judging him from the corner of the room. So he turned back and went across the hall to the only other room up here.
It was an observatory. Joseph smiled at that. She had been the one to get him into astronomy. As Joseph walked through the great, circular room. He passed the star charts arrayed messily on the table and towards the balcony to outside, where the telescope had been set up.
“Oh, Nai Nai,” he whispered, “You left it out in the rain.”
The telescope was soaked. Joseph pulled it back into the bedroom, worried that it would be ruined. It wasn't cheap, with electronic bits and pieces that would be ruined from being out in the storm for so long. He wondered why she had left it out on the balcony. Memories swirled around his head as he adjusted the telescope, checking the various pieces to see if anything had visible damage.
“Boy,” Nai Nai had said to Joseph when he was seven, “What do you think of the stars?”
Joseph had been too young to comprehend what she was talking about.
“Stars?” Joseph had asked, annoyed.
“Yes, boy. Stars.”
“They're cool, I guess.”
“Cool?” she had raised an eyebrow, towering over him and glowering down at the small child, “Just, cool?”
Joseph blinked. He hadn't been sure how to respond, “...Yes?”
Then Nai Nai nodded in satisfaction, “Yes, stars are very cool. Come with me.”
Then she brought him up to her observatory. It had been a clear night, and she had used the exact same telescope to show him the stars, how to adjust the focus knob, how to look just the right way so there wasn’t a black ring that obscured your view, how to just get that perfect shot of Saturn. Joseph had marveled, eyes wide, as she told him about the constellations, about the stars and their names, and the history of the universe.
“There are billions of stars in the galaxy,” she said, “And billions of galaxies in the universe. And you're here. The only you.”
“The... only me,” Joseph’s voice was a whisper.
“Makes you feel small, boy,” Nai Nai had said, “That in the end, you don't matter. I don't matter. No one matters to the universe. It will still be here when we are gone, boy. It will be here long after us.”
Not the coolest thing to say to a seven-year old. But those words stuck to Joseph now as he stared at the telescope. Nai Nai had her moments of kindness and wonder, despite her exterior shell of being the strict matriarch of the family. She had shown that side more with Joseph. He wasn't sure why. Maybe because he was the youngest, the most prone to speak out of turn. Nai Nai had been the youngest in her family, too. Maybe she saw in him a kindred spirit.
One year, when Joseph was eleven, he, Jonathon, and Lily had gotten into a game of hide-and-seek. Joseph had decided to hide in one of the spare bedrooms, beneath the covers of the bed. Nai Nai had been very specific about locking the door to this bedroom, as she said the “covers were too expensive for wild animals.” But Joseph had stolen a spare key from downstairs, by the entrance where Nai Nai kept her car keys. A broad smile was on his face as he heard the door open. Jonathon would be so jealous that Joseph had gotten in!
But it was Nai Nai's face that greeted Joseph as she pulled the covers away.
“What are you doing here?!” she had snarled.
Joseph knew that any answer he gave would mean the same punishment. His heart hammered as he stared at Nai Nai's face, which had gone taut and white as snow, those eyes piercing into his very soul. So Joseph decided to be smart and be honest.
“I was playing hide-and-seek,” he said, putting on an innocent face, “I was wanting to hide. I didn't want to ruin your bed, Nai Nai. I'm sorry.”
Her lip had twitched just a bit. Then she nodded, and said, “Just be a good boy. If you ruin the covers, I will throw you out into the wilds.”
And she covered him back up, went out of the room, and closed the door.
Joseph let out a small chuckle at the memory. No, Nai Nai had been kinder to him than she had been to anyone else in the family, even her only son, his father. He looked back at the telescope, heart swelling. Just for one last time, he decided to take a glance into the telescope.
Despite the fact that most of the equipment was ruined by the rain, despite the fact that the telescope was now fully inside and pointed at the wall, there were stars on the other side.
“Shit!” Joseph jumped back, eyes wide and heart pounding.
That couldn't be right. He took a look again. There were stars. Open space. The telescope wasn't very zoomed in, and it looked like he was just staring at the night sky. He narrowed his eyes, trying to find familiar constellations. He couldn't find any.
The entire thing was throwing Joseph off. He peeled himself away from the telescope, trying to take a deep breath to calm himself down. Shaking his head, he got up, and walked out of the observatory.
Better to let memories lie.
The second floor was filled with guest rooms, all of them decorated with those strange movie props collected throughout Nai Nai’s life. Some of the rooms had paintings from around the world, others had sculptures that were far too realistic, or so abstract they made his head swirl. The vase in the third bedroom had intricate designs, and he couldn’t recognize any of the plants growing within them - purple flower petals with dark orange thorns that bled droplets of nectar into the soil. Joseph went through them one by one, noting in a small notepad which ones had larger decorations. Then he passed by the room at the end of the balcony. This one he remembered more sharply than the others. Nai Nai had always assigned it to him with each visit, and he spent many nights here trying to sleep. The only decoration in the room was a painting on the wall opposite the bed that Nai Nai called “Saturn Devouring His Son.’ It depicted a giant, bearded man eating his son's arm, having already cronched on his head. Saturn's haunted eyes stared down at Joseph, terrifying him, but he hadn't dared say anything as a kid.
Joseph decided to avoid that room.
He came back down to the first floor. He had already surveyed it, so after a quick glance around the living rooms to see if he had missed anything, he walked to the locked door by the bathroom. He took the key out of his pocket and, after a moment's hesitation, unlocked the door. It opened with a click, revealing a set of wooden stairs that yawned down into darkness. Joseph began stepping down.
If Nai Nai's house had been ‘the Museum,’ her basement was its storage room. Joseph's eyes widened at the sight of everything in here – statues and abandoned paintings, strange glass orbs caked over with dust, suits of armor from a dozen different cultures set up on stands.
“My god,” he said, “You were a hoarder, Nai Nai.”
He had to lift his legs to walk, as random objects littered the floor. He almost stepped on a few stuffed unicorns that stared up at him with mournful eyes. He accidentally knocked one of the glass orbs, which rolled with a titanic grace like a giant marble across the floor, bumping into a marble pillar with a vase on top. Joseph froze, watching the vase dance on its pedestal. Then he strode forward and grabbed it as it fell.
He had been holding his breath. Joseph exhaled, hands shaking a bit as he looked at the vase. It depicted a naked man with a spear attacking a many-headed snake. His eyes narrowed as he noticed the man had three eyes on his cheek and a hook instead of a left hand.
“Picasso,” he murmured. He put the vase on the floor and continued on his way.
He wondered why he hadn’t been told about this room. Certainly enough, he could see why Nai Nai would forbid anyone walking downstairs - four rambunctious children, one of them a demon named Joseph Zheng - but everywhere else in the house she had used intimidation to scare the grandchildren away from her more personal rooms. The fact that she had straight-up lied about this room and kept it under lock and key, never even mentioning its existence even when the grandchildren were all grown up made Joseph vaguely uneasy. He tripped again on a stand with a suit of armor on top of it. He didn’t recognize the armor’s make - it was as though it had been carved out of stone.
No, wait, he had seen it before.
It had been knocked over when Nai Nai had gone out for groceries, and his parents were watching the house. Without Nai Nai’s usual, oppressive spying on them, things had gotten a bit out of hand. While his mom cooked dinner downstairs, Jonathan had run into the stand, knocking the armor over, cracking it horribly.
“What were you thinking?!” Nai Nai screeched when she discovered the damage, “Idiot boy! You should be ashamed! Your father should be ashamed of raising such an ignorant child, and I should be ashamed for raising a man who raised an ignorant child!”
She had gingerly picked the pieces of the armor up. Her face was still hawkish and red with anger.
“An old friend gave this to me,” her voice just had the tiniest hint of sorrow, “A friend now long gone.”
She wouldn’t accept any of their apologies - not even his mom’s. She had gathered the pieces of the armor up, and whisked them away. She had been silent the rest of the visit.
Now he knew where she had taken it. She had painstakingly put the armor back together, it seemed - Joseph could see the barest hints of gold-stained glue holding some of the pieces in place, as though it were terracotta. He had never known Nai Nai to be an artisan, nor had he ever seen the barest hint of her own crafting supplies in the house - not even a pair of scissors. Yet here stood the armor, put back together with a passion Nai Nai had only exhibited screaming at strangers on the road.
“Let’s not break it again, then,” Joseph said. He turned back towards the rest of the room, and began picking through the various props, trying to make sense of everything.
***
After around ten minutes of looking about the place, Joseph had just about given up. He was frozen with indecision, not sure where to start. His mom and sister would have been better suited at this. But no, Joseph was the closest to the house, so he was the one to do it. At least it was just a survey, but he had the feeling that he would be roped into helping clean the house out as time went on.
“Dammit,” he said, “Just in time for finals.”
He walked around the room, again feeling a bit guilty about his anger. He knew it wasn't fair – none of this situation was fair. Better to be the dutiful son, like Jonathon. He took a deep breath, centering himself.
And he froze.
And heard voices.
At first he thought they were coming from upstairs. Had he locked the door? Were some random mountain men coming in through the front? Joseph felt his stomach tighten.
But no, they weren't coming from upstairs. The whispers were indistinct and dark, and Joseph looked around the room, trying to find its source. It was somewhere in the basement, and as Joseph padded through the discarded trophies and old stone tablets, it grew louder, hammering into his head. The light from the small lightbulb in the ceiling didn't cover the entire room, and it darkened to a sunset glow as he made his way to the corner of the basement. His eyes adjusting, the whispers screaming in his head, Joseph found the voices’ source.
It was a coffin. No, a sarcophagus. Silver in color and seven feet tall. It stood upright against the wall, and the man carved onto the front of the coffin had the head of... something. It vaguely looked like a jackal, but the way its snout curved down reminded Joseph of an ant-eater. Twin ruby eyes glared down at him. Its arms were crossed. On one hand it held a shepherd's cane. The other hand held a coiling dragon, fist clenched over the dragon's throat.
Joseph took a few steps back, but he could not tear his gaze away from the sarcophagus. It seemed to take up his vision, the darkness swallowed up by silver. The eyes glinted, spoke to him, commanded him. Joseph gulped. He tried to run. To turn around and flee, go back upstairs and back into his car. He shouldn't have even been here. This was his father's job. His Nai Nai would be disappointed, for her grandson to be here. He wasn't allowed down in the basement. She had locked the door for a reason.
She had locked the door for a reason.
The sarcophagus opened up. Joseph felt himself walking forward, step by step, into the open maw of the inside. It smelled of sweet spices – more pungent than his grandmother's room, like the sickening smell of rotting fruit. The inside of the sarcophagus was cold and clammy like a cavern. With a great ka-chunk, the sarcophagus closed behind him. He felt a tug in his stomach, as though he were a fish caught on a line. Then he was pulled back. But instead of slamming into the walls of the sarcophagus, Joseph instead fell into darkness. The voices had turned into chants, a thousand voices deafening his ears as he tumbled in shadow, twisting in open air. That shadow turned to light, a bright miasma of colors assaulting his vision, reflecting and refracting off of his eyes and back out towards the beyond, then back again.
Then, for a brief moment that seemed to hold for an eternity, he stopped, suspended in the air. Joseph wanted to scream, but found he couldn’t even breathe. The lights faded, the shadow returned, and then he fell once more into inky darkness.
And then Joseph landed.
Hard.