BEGINNING OF ARC 3: DYBBUK

I stir awake, the haze of sleep lifting as the murmur of unfamiliar voices and the sound of footsteps filter into my consciousness. I rub my eyes and push myself off the futon - it's not super comfortable, but it's not terrible either, kinda like sleeping on a pancake that someone forgot to flip over. As I blink open my eyes, they take a moment to adjust to the ceiling, which is a lot closer than the one in my bedroom back home.

Sitting up, I rub the sleep from my eyes, harder this time, and stretch my arms out, my joints popping softly. It's weird waking up somewhere that's not my room, not my house - it was something I got used to with the old music hall, but it's weirder when it's, like, someone else's house. Even sleepovers always had a subtle sense of offness to them, to me. As I look around, my eyes are drawn to the details, filling in the blanks left by my pre-nap observations. The room is clearly more cramped than mine, tighter in a way that makes everything seem closer, more immediate. My dad would say that this is the opposite of open concept.

The walls catch my attention next. The paint is this uneven, matte sort of color that looks like someone took a whole lot of enthusiasm to slap it on but didn't really care about getting it perfect. There's something honest about that, I guess. It's lived-in. There are water stains on the ceiling, too. Circular splotches that hint at past rainstorms, leaks that might've happened years ago but still left their mark. A couple of framed pictures hang in a line, maybe aiming for a sort of gallery look. But they're random shots of city landmarks—parks, buildings, that sort of stuff, with only one family picture, just Lily and her parents.

And I can't help but compare all of it to my own home, lying in a heap in Mayfair. There, the walls are professionally painted, the furniture carefully arranged. There, leaks would be fixed as soon as they happened, not left to stain and tell stories. There, the walls have collapsed. Here, it's different. There's a charm in the imperfections, in the way each dent in the wall or crack in the tile probably has its own story.

The living room feels lived in thoroughly - nobody's been up late before company comes over fluffing pillows like my mom might do. The couch, sitting against one wall, looks like it's seen better days. Its back cushions sag in the middle, imprinted by the weight of many sittings, and the futon's fitted sheet is blotched with very light stains that look like they've been bleached recently. I can almost hear the seats groaning under imaginary pressure, inside my mind's ear.

Across from it, an old TV perches on a stand. It's the boxy kind, not flat-screened. I bet the insides are more tube and wire than microchips and whatever else goes in the newer models. Between the TV and the sofa, a makeshift coffee table sits low to the ground. It's basically an old plastic milk crate flipped over with a varnished piece of wood screwed to it, and it's got that "I'm useful" vibe rather than any style points. A couple of coasters, faded and warped, share the surface with a smattering of remote controls. Which one turns the TV on is anyone's guess - half of them are missing batteries.

Tucked in a corner, a floor lamp tries its best to light up the room. But the bulb must be low-watt or something because the light it spills isn't enough to chase away all the shadows, coating everything in a fine layer of orange-yellow. It makes everything look soft and a bit mysterious.

And then there's the kitchen. Or what you can call a kitchen when it's more like a small nook tacked on to the living room. It's cramped, for sure. I mean, I've been in walk-in closets bigger than this. Two people might be able to cook at the same time, but they'd probably need to be close friends or good dancers to avoid bumping into each other.

The appliances look like they were passed down from someone who didn't want them anymore. The fridge is a pale shade of white that suggests it was once brighter. It hums in a way that makes me think it's working really hard to stay cold inside. Next to it, the stovetop has dark circles around the electric burners, like little scorch marks. The kitchen table is nothing fancy—just one of those foldable card tables, the kind you might find at a flea market or a yard sale. One corner is a bit bent, and it gives the table a kind of limp. Lean on it too hard, and it wobbles like it's gonna topple over. Laid out on top are disposable plates, flimsy plastic forks and knives, and a small pile of paper napkins.

The cereal boxes are store-brand and the rice is in huge multi-pound bags. Duct tape plays a starring role here, patching up chair legs and sealing the edges of chipped wooden tables. Even the silverware sitting in a worn plastic drainer seems like it came from different sets, each piece a lone survivor of its original family.

But you know what? None of that makes the place feel bad or anything. It's the opposite. It's like all the bumps and scratches and little imperfections give the house its character. You can feel the life that's been lived here; it fills the air and sinks into the walls. This place is cozy in a way that's totally different from the coziness in my home. The sound of footsteps and voices trickles into my half-awake consciousness like a small stream breaking a dam, and I realize I'm not alone in the room anymore.

Footsteps sound from the back door, drawing my attention. I rotate my gaze towards the doorway, recognizing that the voices belong to Lily's parents. They're entering the room, their arms full of white takeout boxes and a large plastic bag. The smell that wafts from it is enough to make my stomach growl, even in my half-awake state. It's intoxicating, like bait to a fish. Her mom spots me — awake now but still clearly drowsy - and the corners of her mouth lift in a genuine smile. My lack of Chinese skills makes me clueless to what she's saying, but the light chuckle from her husband as he starts unpacking food onto the countertop suggests it's something pleasant, maybe even a little funny.

Lily's mom looks just like her, but with long hair, which is pretty astounding given how old she must be. There's, like, very slight wrinkles if I look close, but I don't want to stare, so I don't do that. Plus, some streaks of grey, but barely. On the other hand, her dad is a much more… robust person. I can't even really say chubby, he's just wide, shaped like a brick, and totally, completely, utterly bald. The two of them are both wearing aprons that bear the marks of years of dutiful service in a kitchen - stains, splatters, and small burns on the cloth.

Lily's arms are full of brown paper bags as she shuffles herself through the back door, squeezing into the tight crevasse that is the kitchen. She sets down the brown paper bags and begins apportioning out food from them. I blink, and in my exhaustion, time passes just a couple more seconds than I'd like it to.

"You're awake! My parents are home!" Lily declares, appearing like a whirlwind at the edge of my field of vision. She's clutching a laptop under one arm like it's a treasured artifact, and in the other, she balances a paper plate that's practically groaning under the weight of assorted food items. "I know you said you wanted to nap, but dinner's here!"

The sensation of wakefulness crashes over me like a wave, and I stretch my arms high above my head, feeling the tension in my shoulders and back give way. My mouth opens in a wide yawn, feeling the now-familiar throbbing in my broken foot. "It smells good, so I'll let it slide," I joke. The aroma in the air is tangy and rich, a fragrance that's new but enticing. It's a lure my groggy mind can't ignore.

A luminous smile appears on Lily's face, amplifying her already radiant expression to near-blinding levels. I didn't even think that was possible, and I'm glad she understood the joke - she always seemed a little sarcasm-blind in costume, but this is probably the most we've talked face to face in… ever, I think. With the sort of delicacy usually reserved for handling rare, fragile objects, she sets the laptop down on the makeshift nightstand next to my pile of water-damaged Polaroids. Her movements are oddly graceful, a sort of dance between caring and clumsy as she puts the paper plate down before me.

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"Look," she begins, pointing a finger at a set of golden-brown rolls on my plate. "My mom made extra crispy spring rolls just for you!" Her words tumble out with an almost childlike enthusiasm, and I can't help but feel a smile start to form on my face. Next to the spring rolls, there's a heap of what looks like perfectly cooked rice, as well as some slices of meat whose identity I can't readily discern, since it looks like chicken but has the distinct pinkish quality of a rare steak.

"And this," she continues, her voice filled with the kind of fervor usually reserved for life-changing revelations, "is Peking duck!"

"'ve never had duck before," I say, examining the slice of meat in front of me. It's this glossy, deep brown and kind of smells like what I think fancy should smell like—rich and a little sweet, spicy in a way I can't identify.

"You'll love it!" Lily's voice rings with genuine excitement. She plops down next to me on the futon, her legs folding beneath her like she's made of rubber bands.

Gingerly, I bring the slice to my mouth and take a tentative bite. The flavors are like nothing I've ever tasted. It's rich, yeah, but there's more. My mouth tingles a little, and I feel it flooding with saliva. "Wow," escapes my lips before I even realize I've spoken. "This is really good," I say, looking away from Lily so that she doesn't have to see me literally drooling.

Lily beams at me like I just told her she won the lottery. "Told ya!"

Just as I reach for another slice — because yeah, I’m sold on this duck thing — a new presence enters the room from the kitchen. She's older, her face framed by lines that speak to years of hard work and easy smiles. She carries herself like someone who knows her way around both a kitchen and a difficult life. "Ah, you're awake! I'm Lily's mom, Mei."

"Mrs. Chen, hi. It's nice to meet you," I manage, suddenly aware of how greasy my fingers are. I quickly grab a napkin and wipe my hands, almost but not quite embarrassed.

Mei chuckles softly. "Please, call me Mei. So, how do you find the food?" Her eyes twinkle like she already knows the answer, and I get this sense of warmth from her. Not like a blanket or anything, but like walking into a room and knowing you're where you're supposed to be.

I meet her gaze and feel this little click, like, I get why Lily is the way she is. "It's delicious, thank you. Like, really, really good." My eyes dart back to the plate. "I've seriously never had duck before, but I'm starting to think I've been missing out."

Mei’s smile grows wider, if that's even possible. "I'm so glad you like it, dear. My husband Jiang and I run the Golden Panda Buffet, on Stiles Street, just down the road. I can't take all the credit for the food, that's mostly his job."

I nod while my cheeks bulge with food, like a squirrel preparing for the winter. Then, I swallow, my throat uncomfortably trying to press the food down into the rest of my gullet. "I don't think I've ever been there. We usually go to Dragon Phoenix House, my dad's friends with the owner and it's, like, a two minute walk."

Mei smiles and nods back at me. "You'll have to come visit some time. We're the only Huaiyang-style kitchen in Philadelphia!" she says, beaming with pride.

"Mama, I don't think that's true. I've been to like five in Chinatown," Lily interrupts, quickly swallowing down a mouthful of noodles mid-sentence. I look past Mei and into the kitchen, where Jiang is busy packing away leftovers into the fridge, which seems to be stocked with basically entirely leftovers. No, wait, there's a carton of lactose-free milk. It's weird to see a two-door style fridge-freezer to me with the freezer taking up the entire left side, given that my house had it where the freezer was on the bottom.

Mei laughs in a coy, teasing sort of way. "We're the only Huaiyang-style buffet in Philadelphia. And definitely the only Huaiyang-style kitchen in… Northeast Philadelphia."

Jiang emerges into the living room with a bottle of beer and grabs a can opener from their makeshift coffee table to pop the cap off. He takes a swig, and I notice the label is illegible to me - it's in Chinese. Which, I should have expected. He gives me a polite wave and flashes me a thumbs up.

"Oh, um, I can move if you need me to," I offer, scooting over a little to take up less of the futon. He looks at me and shakes his head.

"Oh, my dad can't speak English. But he can understand it, so I can just translate if you need me to," Lily explains, while Mei returns to the kitchen to grab food for herself.

As if on cue, Jiang says something totally incomprehensible to Lily. Like, I can't even tell you how little I understand it. I can't even mentally transcribe the noises into letters because it comes so quickly, so rapidly, that I've forgotten what was said before it's finished.

Lily turns to me with a wide smile. "My dad says its nice to meet you, and any comrade of mine is welcome to stay here as long as they need."

Jiang extrudes another sentence, and then takes a swig of beer.

Lily translates again. "He also hopes your foot is doing better."

"Oh, thanks. It's, um…" I think about how to dance around the superhero subject. "It's just sprained a little bit, nothing major. Wait, comrade?"

Mei returns with a paper plate and chopsticks and fish that looks like it's been arranged into a flower shape in the takeout container. Her other hand drags a plastic folding chair out from the kitchen across the linoleum, so that she can sit with us. "Oh, yes, we're, um, on the know about Lily's… Extracurriculars." Mei leans in, lowering her voice as if sharing a secret. "If you need anything, even something for your… other activities," her eyes dart meaningfully toward my backpack, "just let us know. We support what our Lily does, and we support her friends."

"I appreciate that," I say, finding it a bit difficult to reconcile how openly involved her parents are in her superhero life. My family loves me, sure, but the lines are more distinctly drawn - and I just saw the consequences of that playing out firsthand. "Um… No, my foot was totally smashed. I did fib a little. But I heal really fast, so it'll be fine in a week or two."

"Oh, dear!" Mei says at the same time that Jiang makes what I have to assume is an analogous exclamation. "Smashed? Like, your bones having been broken?"

I nod, blushing for some reason I can't place. I grab a spring roll - I'm not sure if Lily meant additional crispy spring rolls, or crispy spring rolls that happen to be crispier than normal, when she mentioned "extra crispy spring rolls", and I'm not going to ask. Instead, I'm going to bite one.

I have decided that I don't really like spring rolls. I swallow, though, and finish one while I think of how to respond to Mei's question and Jiang's sympathetic glances. I force my throat to swallow. "I, um, I got my foot stepped on by a T-Rex."

Jiang pipes up near immediately, and a quick back-and-forth between Mei and Jiang ensues, with Lily watching, amused. Her smile is catlike, and she's clearly enjoying my slight bewilderment. I didn't know Lily had a mischievous bone in her! Mei turns to me, face pallid with a nervous sweat. "Just to make sure this is not a language issue, do you mean T-Rex as in the animal? The dinosaur?"

"Yeah, like the dinosaur. Um, if you don't mind me asking, your English is very good, Mrs. Chen. Did you… take classes, or something?" I reply, trying to pull the conversation away from 'my foot got stepped on by a dinosaur'.

She smiles at me, gladly taking the bait - I see the understanding in her eyes. Jiang says something, but she gives him a dismissive wave in response. I'm so curious, it's almost making me want to try learning Chinese just so I can know what's being said. "I'm the one who's had to operate all the business and customer goals for the store. Jiang is the head chef, and you could consider me the head hostess. So I had to learn English just for my line of work. People in America treat you better the less broken your English is."

"And papa is too lazy to learn anything but Mandarin," Lily cracks, earning her a stern glare from Jiang while she titters with laughter.

I nod sagely. "Do you, um, want my spring rolls?" I offer to Lily, quietly. She pats me on the back and takes them off of my hands, eagerly shoving them into her mouth in my stead. "So, um, Mandarin? Like the orange?"

The room pauses for the most painful moment in my life. But when they laugh, instead of being soul crushing, it's very gentle, very ginger and genuine. "Mandarin is one of the two major Chinese… dialects. The other is Cantonese. Jiang and I both immigrated from Beijing many years ago, as young, very foolish lovers."

"And now we're living the American Dream!" Lily cheers enthusiastically, mouth full of spring roll. From anyone else's mouth, it would've sounded extremely sarcastic, especially considering the living conditions, but then I clamp down on that part of my brain that's making silent judgments. Really, they don't live any worse than Kate, and Kate's been my friend for years. I wonder why my brain gives me the impression that they must be, like, secretly miserable here. I mean, Kate's clearly unhappy, it doesn't take a genius to figure that out, but Lily seems the exact opposite in temperament.

You know, I should probably unpack all of this at some point. I realize that the conversation has lapsed into Chinese - into Mandarin? Note to self, look up which is the correct way to describe in my internal monologue later - and that I've been staring into space. Quietly, I finish my duck.