“Anna!”

  My mother’s shriek was so shrill it didn’t even sound human.

  Big globs of blood gushed out of my nose and mouth, splattering like a busted water pipe.

  If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed I had that much blood in me.

  “Back to the hospital! Step on it!”

  On the way, Mom floored the gas pedal.

  Anbay was holding me tight, wiping up the blood I spat out.

  His fingers were ice-cold from fright, and he kept murmuring,

  “It’s okay, Anna. Nothing bad’s gonna happen. I got your back. You’ll be all right...”

  Strangely, after puking up all that blood, I just felt cold all over, but didn’t feel like passing out.

  Back at the hospital, it was another round of tests and then a blood transfusion.

  After tossing and turning till midnight, the bleeding finally stopped.

  This time, the doctor laid it on the line for my family.

  They really had no clue what was wrong.

  Just relying on blood transfusions, my chances of pulling through were slim to none.

  “This little girl can’t take much more. You’d better look elsewhere,” the doctor said.

  Mom sat by the bed, clutching my hand, not getting a wink of sleep all night.

  The next day, Dad rushed to bury Grandpa and hightailed it back.

  After hearing what Mom said, his face was a mask of worry.

  It wasn’t that they didn’t want to fix me up.

  But to cure a sickness, you gotta know the cause.

  Now the test results said there was nothing wrong with any part of my body, yet I just couldn’t stop spitting blood.

  This time, Anbay was dead quiet.

  When my parents ran out of ideas, he finally spoke up.

  “Do you think Anna’s... possessed by a demon?”

  From the start, some people said I was haunted by an evil spirit, but my parents didn’t buy it.

  After all our family had been through because of me, they were starting to think it might be true.

  “Well, then what do we do?”

  Mom looked at Dad.

  She was clueless.

  She’d never dealt with anything like this.

  Dad made a snap decision.

  “Find an expert! We’ll turn the world upside down if we have to, but we gotta find someone to save our daughter!”

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  I knew Anbay had taken Grandpa.2’s dying words to heart.

  He said my soul was shattered and if we didn’t piece it back together, I was toast. Before, I wouldn’t have believed it either.

  But after the run-in with the blind man’s wife, I was starting to think it might be real.

  My parents went on a hunt for an expert.

  They shelled out cash, called in favors, looking high and low.

  The ones they found were either con artists or threw up their hands and said they couldn’t help.

  My parents grew more frantic by the day, and I looked more and more like a ghost.

  Now, when I glanced in the mirror, I saw a girl who could be knocked over by a gentle breeze, with lips as pale as death.

  It didn’t even seem like me.

  Anbay came back with a bowl of chicken broth.

  Seeing me by the window, he hustled over to steady me.

  “Don’t get out of bed willy-nilly!”

  “Nah, I’m good,” I grinned at him.

  “I didn’t cough up blood today. I feel okay.”

  Anbay looked at me like I was a puzzle he couldn’t solve.

  I was about to say something when the ward door banged open.

  It was my parents.

  “Come on, Anna. Let’s go!”

  There was a glimmer of hope on their faces, the first in days.

  I didn’t even ask why before they bundled me into the car.

  On the way, I found out what was up.

  They’d spent a fortune to bring in a Friar who hadn’t set foot off the mountain in ten years.

  Word was, he was the real deal.

  But the Friar said he had to see me in person to know if he could save me.

  In less than five minutes, we were there.

  My parents had set the Friar up in the nearest hotel.

  Before going in, they warned Anbay and me not to shoot our mouths off.

  The door opened.

  I saw the Friar.

  It was hard to tell his age.

  His hair and beard were snow-white, but his face was as ruddy as a ripe apple and not a single wrinkle in sight.

  “Hello, Friar,”

  I said, then clamped my mouth shut.

  The Friar took one look at me and sighed.

  “Go home.”

  Mom lost it.

  Tears streamed down her face.

  She begged him to save me.

  They’d tried everyone.

  If this didn’t work, I was doomed.

  “This girl’s soul is in pieces. Even the gods might have a hard time saving her. The soul-fixing technique is black magic. I don’t know how to do it,” the Friar said.

  When I heard that, I thought this guy might actually know his stuff.

  What he said jibed with what Grandpa.2 had said.

  Mom pushed my head down, making me kneel.

  She sobbed and pleaded with him to save me.

  Dad said that if he could save me, not only would they pay the big bucks they’d promised, but they’d also fix up his run-down monastery.

  Anything to save me.

  Anbay’s eyes were bloodshot.

  Without a word, he dropped to his knees and started kowtowing until his forehead bled.

  The Friar looked pained.

  He went to pull Anbay up.

  “Get up.”

  Anbay wouldn’t budge.

  He kowtowed harder.

  The Friar sighed again.

  “I didn’t say I wouldn’t save her.”

  He asked for my birth date and time, then started counting on his fingers, muttering to himself.

  Finally, he said, “This girl’s still got a big hurdle to clear.”

  “If she can get over it on her own, I’ll point you in the right direction.”

  My parents pounced on him, asking what the hurdle was.

  But he clammed up.

  He only said we’d know in seven days.

  To be honest, I felt a bit antsy. In my current state, I didn’t see how I could jump any hurdles.

  But what he said made sense.

  My parents hashed it out in the car and came up with a plan.

  “Anbay, keep a close eye on Anna these seven days. Don’t let her leave the ward,”

  Dad said, dead serious.

  Mom chimed in, “Yeah, keep her cooped up in the ward for a week. What hurdle could she not get over?”

  The hurdle they had in mind was my illness.

  If I stayed put in the hospital, even if I took a turn for the worse, the doctors could jump in and save me.

  If I couldn’t beat this thing in the hospital, I sure as heck couldn’t anywhere else.

  I didn’t say a word.

  But I had a hunch things weren’t that simple.

  Coming out of the parking lot, we headed for the inpatient department.

  Just after passing a building, we saw a mob of people up ahead.

  “What’s going on?”

  I tugged Mom and took a few steps forward.

  Then we saw someone about to take a swan dive off the building.

  It was a pregnant woman, her belly out to here, teetering on the roof’s edge.

  The people below had called 911 and were shouting up at her to come down.

  “It’s scary. Let’s go,” Anbay tugged at me.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t care.

  He was just more worried about me and didn’t want me to freak out.

  The people downstairs were pleading with her,

  “For the sake of the child, don’t do it!”

  But those words didn’t seem to register.

  She was clutching the railing, sobbing hysterically,

  “My baby’s gone! Give me back my baby!”

  A kind-hearted lady was sweating bullets,

  “Isn’t your baby right there in your belly?!”

  The woman just wailed louder.

  Anbay was about to drag me away.

  I’d just started to move when, boom!

  There was a dull thud that shook the ground.

  I whipped my head around. Blood. It was everywhere.

  Suddenly, everything went dead quiet.