Chapter 1

We moved into the new house in August, the air thick and heavy with the kind of heat that makes you sweat just by thinking. It was supposed to be a fresh start. Dad got a promotion, and the new house was bigger, with a yard and a two-car garage. It was the American dream, or so he kept saying.

The first casualty of that dream was Grandma' s altar.

It wasn't much, just a small wooden table she kept in a corner of our old apartment. On it sat a few sticks of incense, a small porcelain bowl for offerings, and a little wooden box carved with patterns so intricate you could lose yourself looking at them. Grandma had been with us since Grandpa passed, a quiet, constant presence. Every morning, she would light a stick of incense and put a piece of fruit or a small cup of tea in the bowl. She' d murmur things I couldn't understand, her eyes closed.

I asked her once what she was doing. I was maybe ten, sick with a fever that wouldn't break. She had me sit in front of the altar while she prayed. The smoke from the incense smelled like sandalwood and something else, something old and deep.

"I' m asking for protection," she had said, her voice soft. "Keeping the bad things away."

The next day, my fever was gone. Mom said it was the medicine finally kicking in. Dad said it was just the flu running its course. But I always remembered the smell of the incense and the cool, calm feeling that settled over me in that little corner of our apartment.

When the movers came, Dad pointed at the altar.

"Just pack that up carefully," he told them. "Put it in the garage for now."

Mom didn't say anything. She was busy directing them with the kitchen boxes.

Grandma was the only one who protested, but her voice was weak.

"It can' t go in the garage, David."

"It' s fine, Ma," Dad said, not unkindly, but with a finality that ended the conversation. "We' ll find a place for it later. This new house has a different layout, we need to figure things out."

He never found a place for it. The altar, the bowl, and the intricately carved wooden box were wrapped in newspaper and put into a cardboard box labeled 'Misc.' , then stacked in a dark corner of the new garage, behind the lawnmower and a set of old tires.

Grandma changed after the move. She stopped humming to herself. She' d sit in her new, sunlit room and just stare out the window for hours. When we asked what was wrong, she would just shake her head. Mom said she was just having a hard time adjusting. Dad said she was getting old. Her devotion, once a quiet pillar of our home, was now just a collection of old habits that didn' t fit in our new, modern life.

We didn' t understand. We saw a new beginning, a bigger house, a better life. We didn' t see the empty corner where the protection used to be. We were busy unpacking our new lives, completely ignoring the fact that we had left the door wide open for the bad things to come in. The neglect wasn't a single act, it was a slow, creeping carelessness, a silent dismissal of the old ways. And we were about to pay for it.