I hoofed it back home.

  Anbay and Grandpa.2 were twiddling their thumbs in the yard, waiting for me.

  The light was as dim and yellow as a sickly glowworm.

  Relying on my foggy memory, I shuffled over to the desk.

  The drawer wasn’t locked.

  Nobody had given it a second glance in years, and a thick layer of dust had settled on the handle like a furry coat.

  I yanked the drawer open and stuck my hand in from underneath the desktop.

  After feeling around for what felt like forever, about ten-plus centimeters in, my fingertip brushed against something.

  I tugged it out. It was an envelope.

  Hidden away in this nook for ages, the paper was as yellow and brittle as a dead leaf, with a bit of a bulge in the middle.

  I ripped it open, and a round thing plopped into my palm.

  It was still a bright, tender green.

  After all these years, time hadn’t laid a finger on it, not even a hint of yellow.

  It was really here.

  That rainy day wasn’t just a figment of my imagination.

  I really had seen that man.

  This grass ring was the smoking gun!

  At the same time, a slip of paper fluttered out of the envelope.

  I scooped it up.

  On it were my chicken-scratch handwriting from when I was six.

  “Moli.”

  I read it out loud without thinking.

  The second I uttered the word “Moli,” a teeny-tiny gust of air whooshed past my ear.

  It was like someone had whispered sweet nothings, but I couldn’t make out a word.

  I could practically feel a pair of invisible arms giving me a squeeze from behind.

  I got the chills and whipped around, but there was zilch, nada.

  While I was standing there like a deer in headlights, Anbay started hollering at me.

  There wasn’t a second to waste, so I didn’t dare dawdle.

  I slipped the grass ring onto my finger and skedaddled.

  It had been twelve years since I’d set foot in the village.

  I’d forgotten these roads like they were last year’s fashion trends.

  Luckily, Anbay had a better memory.

  The country paths were a nightmare to walk on, especially once we started climbing the mountain.

  If Anbay hadn’t been tugging me along, I’d have been stuck in the mud.

  “Grandpa.2, where the heck are we going?”

  I gasped when I finally caught my breath.

  In my hazy memory, I vaguely recalled that when someone in the village kicked the bucket, they were buried on the back mountain.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  But this wasn’t the beaten path.

  People in the village were always hiking up there and had smoothed out a nice, flat trail.

  But the one we were on?

  It was barely a goat track. In some spots, we had to hack through the bushes just to keep moving.

  “Tired? Buck up, kiddo. We’re almost there,” Grandpa.2 said.

  Almost there?

  I was as confused as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

  The moonlight was as bright as a spotlight tonight, and I could see just about everything in front of me.

  Only...

  “Where’s the darn path?!” Anbay chimed in, just as confused.

  Grandpa.2 led us right to the edge of a cliff.

  Since we were knee-high to a grasshopper, our family had kept us far away from here, saying it was a death trap.

  Plus, I remembered Grandpa yapping about how this spot on the mountain had bad Wind-water and nobody in their right mind would bury the dead there.

  “That’s exactly the Wind-water we need,” Grandpa.2 said.

  The blind man and his wife had died in a super freaky way, and everyone in the village knew it.

  They picked this place to use the spooky vibes in the Wind-water to keep them in check.

  It was like fighting fire with fire.

  Grandpa.2 let out a sigh that could’ve blown out a candle.

  “It still didn’t work in the end.”

  Anbay seemed to catch on.

  “You mean their graves are down there?”

  “Yep.”

  Grandpa.2 pulled out a rope and tied it to a big, old tree beside us.

  Anbay rolled up his sleeves like he was getting ready for a boxing match.

  “I’ll go down first.”

  “ No can do.”

  “ Why not?!” Anbay was getting hot under the collar.

  “She has to go down first,” Grandpa.2 said, pointing at me.

  I was scared out of my wits.

  The bottom of the cliff was as black as a coal mine and already giving me the heebie-jeebies.

  And thinking about the blind man and his wife buried down there?

  It was nightmare fuel.

  My brother wasn’t having any of it.

  But he was up a creek without a paddle.

  Grandpa.2 said I was an unmarried girl, sick as a dog, with a boatload of Lunar energy, and was the perfect bait to draw out the evil spirits.

  So, I had to go down first.

  Anbay hit the roof when he heard that.

  He was dead set against me taking the risk.

  But in the end, one sentence from Grandpa.2 shut him up like a clam.

  “There’s at most three hours left.”

  Mom and Dad were in a life-or-death situation.

  If we didn’t hustle, they might be goners.

  Time waits for no man.

  I had to bite the bullet and told Anbay to zip it.

  “I’ll go.”

  Anbay couldn’t talk me out of it and had to suck it up.

  I didn’t have much oomph.

  There was no way I could shimmy down that cliff by myself.

  Anbay tied the rope around my waist so he could lower me down bit by bit.

  Grandpa.2 shoved a piece of red string into my hand, with a bell on the other end that he held.

  “Once you spot their graves, give this bell a jingle, and we’ll come running,” he said.

  I nodded like a bobble-head.

  Anbay held the rope and slowly lowered me down.

  I had no clue how high that cliff was.

  All I knew was it felt like an eternity before my feet finally touched terra firma.

  I craned my neck, trying to see them.

  The bright moonlight made this deep valley look even spookier, like a scene from a horror flick.

  I looked up and all I saw was a big, black blob.

  To be honest, I was scared stiff.

  I couldn’t even watch a horror movie alone at night.

  What was going on now was way scarier than any movie!

  I swallowed hard and managed to calm my nerves a bit.

  The top priority was to find the graves.

  From what Grandpa.2 said, finding the grave mounds was basically the golden ticket.

  But...

  Where were the darn grave mounds?

  I looked around like a lost puppy.

  The bottom of the cliff was way wider than I’d imagined.

  There weren’t many tall trees, just a whole lot of bushes, one after another, looking like a million tiny grave mounds.

  It was like finding a needle in a haystack to figure out which one was that woman’s grave.

  I had no choice but to do it the hard way, searching every nook and cranny.

  I pushed aside the bushes, not leaving a single stone unturned.

  I wasn’t in the best shape and had just puked up blood.

  I didn’t have much gas left in the tank and was wheezing like an old steam engine.

  I leaned on a small tree, trying to catch my breath.

  Suddenly, a female voice chimed in behind me.

  “Little sister, whatcha looking for?”

  “I...”

  I was about to answer on autopilot when I froze.

  Who in their right mind would be down here at the bottom of the cliff this late?

  Who was talking to me?

  A living person or...

  My heart was pounding like a jackhammer.

  I wanted to make a run for it, but in this creepy-crawly place, I didn’t even know which way was up!

  That person seemed to sense my panic.

  Her tone was as soft as a feather.

  “Did I spook you? I live here. Don’t be scared, don’t....”

  She really sounded like an angel, just like a kindergarten teacher soothing a scaredy-cat.

  Maybe... she really was someone who lived here?

  I hadn’t been back in ages, so I truly didn’t know.

  I wanted to crack a smile, but my legs were as wobbly as jelly from being scared, and I couldn’t even fake it.

  But she didn’t seem to care and kept on asking me gently,

  “What are you looking for? I lost something too and I’m looking for it.”

  The moonlight was pouring down like a waterfall, and her voice was as gentle as the moonlight.

  Meeting a living person in this spooky place was like hitting the jackpot.

  I was just about to answer her.

  But right then, something tugged at my gut.

  It seemed like... something was off.