I ease the door shut behind me and survey the small space. Immediately my nose is assaulted by that pungent smell, smoky and medicinal. The wood blinds are pulled down over the windows, making the room feel even smaller and more oppressive. The gaps in the slats at least allow a little light in, so that I don’t have to turn on the overhead lamp. Her covers are crumpled at the foot of the bed, half of Pudding Dog peering at me sadly from its wrinkled state.

I’m careful where I place my feet, to disturb as little as possible. The longer I stand in the room, the stronger the smell becomes. Almost like stepping into one of those herbalist shops in Chinatown, all the traditional Chinese medicine ingredients open to the air: dried flowers and fruit, roots and fungus. Then, underneath it all, a scent of sweetness. It reminds me of haw flakes, the thin pieces of “candy” that Ama used to give us to make those medicinal tonics more palatable. Every time I see them now, the taste of bitterness floods my mouth.

My attention is drawn to something new hanging on her wall. It appears to be an artistic calligraphy scroll, except…I frown at it. It looks like the talisman that Shen gave me, only on a bigger scale. I lift it off the hook on the wall, and then jump when I see what’s behind it. She hung it over a poster of one of her favorite K-pop girl groups—all their faces are covered over with red marker.

I take a photo of the poster, then a photo of the scroll, before returning it to where it was on the wall. Then I notice the others. A picture of a sleepy ginger cat she’s had forever, but now its mouth is drawn into a macabre grin with daggerlike teeth. A photo of our family from a trip to Lake Louise a few summers ago, now with scratches running across it, like she scraped at it with a knife.

Other decorations I haven’t noticed before, since she’s always so eager to get me out of her room. A sticker of a pink lotus up on her shelf. A pamphlet pinned up on the corkboard featuring a pair of floating, disembodied hands, holding a rainbow lotus in their palms. Underneath, there are the glowing red characters.

Something about the characters makes my skin prickle, my body reacting with an uncomfortable sensation that I could not explain. I take a photo of it too, as well as the list of events beside it. A line of cartoon kids, smiling happily, hands linked. Badminton. Ping-Pong. Mandarin lessons. Crochet animals. I unpin it from the board, and on the back: a logo of two hands shaking, the outline of Taiwan behind it. A collaboration between the Lower Mainland Taiwan Entrepreneurs and the Formosa Friendship Association. They seem to be everywhere these days.

My foot bumps against something, and I look down to see a box poking out from underneath Tina’s bed. I crouch and pull it out. Something sloshes inside it. The box is filled with bottles of some type of drink.

“‘Unsweetened High Mountain Taiwanese Oolong,’” I read aloud. Weird in itself, because Tina never drinks any sort of tea without adding a ton of sugar and milk to it. I take out a bottle and put everything else back the way I found it.

I look around again to see if I’ve missed anything, and then I notice that she’s put a mirror up above her closet door, positioned toward her bed. I take a step closer to look up at it. There are symbols drawn in red, overlaid on my face, so my reflection appears as if I’ve been tattooed. I crane my neck back, trying to get a better look, my eyes drawn into those lines and whorls. There’s something there in the loops and swirls, a message hidden within, if I just look at it for a moment longer. It’s going to tell me everything. It’s going to give me an explanation for all the mysteries, if only I can read it and comprehend it. It will tell me what’s wrong with my sister, it’ll tell me who is the true face behind whatever is influencing her. All those patterns have a meaning, a map pointing me in the right direction….

“What are you doing?” Denny’s voice snaps me out of it. The door is open behind him, and he stands right next to me, wide-eyed and too close.

I jump, almost tripping over the corner of Tina’s bed.

“Denny! You scared me!” I scold, louder than I intended.

“You were ignoring me.” He frowns. “You were staring at the ceiling. Being weird.”

How long have I been standing here? I don’t remember when I came in, but I had just finished breakfast, right?

“Did Tina come home with you?” I ask, remembering she went to the pool too.

“You’re not supposed to be in here.” He nods, understanding what I mean.

“I…I was looking for my shirt. Thought it might be in her closet,” I mumble. I tuck the bottle of tea under my arm and take my brother’s shoulders, guiding him toward the door. “But I couldn’t find it…. Maybe it’s still in the dirty laundry.”

“She’s not going to be happy…” Denny says in the singsong voice he uses when he tells our parents we’re doing something wrong.

“She’ll never know.” I push him through the door, and hope that the bottle and the pictures are enough for Shen’s elders.

“She already knows,” he says, cryptic, glancing over his shoulder.

I stop him in the hallway, getting down to his level, making sure he knows how serious I am.

“Denny, what do you mean, she already knows?” I ask. “What did she say to you?” He looks up at me in that innocent way.

“There’s Nice Tina, and then…” We both hear the door open downstairs. Denny is gone in a blink, into the bathroom without another word. I hurry into my room, quickly shutting the door behind me. I grab whatever I can find, a sweater, and wrap the bottle of tea in it, shoving it down in the bottom of my bag as quickly as I can.

What am I doing? I’m not so sure I know anymore.