In the meantime, I’m told to stick to my normal routines. Keep everything the same, maintain my regular schedule, so that whatever is inside Tina does not suspect what is going happen.

“You’ll feel weak for a little while,” Shu-Ling tells me. “The scorpion was formed from pure yin energy, and your body saw it as an infection it had to fight. Removing it will help, but it will have other aftereffects.

“You’re going to continue to see the spirits, and they’re going to be even clearer than before. You might even be able to hear them, sense their presence, but they shouldn’t be able to hurt you. Just ignore them.”

“But how do I protect my little brother? My parents? What if she hurts them?” I ask.

“You have to be patient,” Shu-Ling says, and I can detect a slight annoyance to her voice now. “Trust us.” She doesn’t elaborate further, and I’m tired of being polite.

“Everything you talk about, you act like I should know it, but I don’t. I never learned any of this while growing up. I was born here. I’ve only gone back a few times, and my family isn’t religious….” My voice trails off, my anger suddenly deflating out of me like a balloon as quickly as it came.

“I know nothing at all,” I whisper under the weight of her impassive gaze.

“The guardians exist on the periphery of the living world,” Shu-Ling says, ignoring my outburst. “Our role is to be unknowable, hidden from society. We’ll share what you need to know. Nothing more. It’s for your own safety. Shen, you’ll see her out?” She disappears through a doorway hidden behind one of the curtains, then it’s only the two of us again.

“She’s usually like that,” Shen tries to explain. “She doesn’t mean it in a bad way.”

“Comes in, does her flashy bit with the swords and stuff, then leaves behind a bunch of questions for everyone else?” I ask, and that gets a chuckle out of him.

“That sounds about right,” he says. “Can I give you a ride home?”

“I have piano,” I tell him, even though my head is filled with all the things I’ve seen today, so the lessons will probably be a disastrous one…again.

“You play?” He looks surprised, then impressed. “I’ve always wanted to learn an instrument, but it never made sense to me. It’s like learning another language.”

“The studio is just down here.” I point down the length of the mall.

“We should talk…after. When are you done?” He’s insistent, and makes me realize it must be important, whatever it is.

“Okay,” I agree, knowing Tina won’t be around to catch me with Shen. “I’m done at six thirty, and I need to be home by seven thirty.”

“Great, I’ll finish my shift then too.”

Today’s focus is Bach. I’ve been working on the French Suite in C minor for a few months, deceptive in its simplicity. My confidence in the Baroque selection is the best out of all my performance pieces. The suite is lively, with several movements to convey the feeling of a dance. I start the first movement after a warm-up, and the notes sparkle as they emerge from the piano. Mrs. Nguyen smiles beside me, her silver pointer still in her hand, but her foot taps, keeping that steady beat, as good as any metronome.

Light! Bright! Fingers up! I keep her instructions in mind as my fingers run through the notes. Her reminders are entangled with the history lessons my previous teacher gave me whenever we discussed the piece.

What does this mean? he would say. Allemande? He used to stand up beside his grand piano, the floorboards of his old house creaking under his feet as he performed the dance steps. Imagine. A ballroom full of people dressed in their fanciest clothing. The way their hands would join, and come apart, as they spin and twirl, moving in an elegant configuration.

I whirl through the dances, my mind lost elsewhere to the ballroom in my mind.

But the final movement is where the distractions begin to creep in. This movement always sounds off to me, like a puppet dancing with one of its strings cut, its movements lopsided. Tina’s face comes to mind, speaking in the shadows of her room, her expression filled with devotion as she watches the dancers on the screen. I imagine her on the stage, spinning, jumping, her limbs guided by strings too. A vacant smile spreads across her face, stretching the corners of her mouth wide. Too wide…

My fingers stumble, collide with one another, and I force myself, through sheer muscle memory, to power through. But it only adds to the discord, the keys too slippery now. When I end, it’s not with a flourish but a flop. I close my eyes, breath coming a little shallow.

“Sorry,” I mumble. “I couldn’t keep it going there at the end.”

“We’ll work on your endurance.” Mrs. Nguyen does not seem to be bothered. “It’s still in good shape. Now…shall we work on the Rachmaninoff again? How do you feel about it?”

“I’ll…I’ll try…” I gulp, already scared.

I open my binder to the music, dots on lines, treble and bass. I think back to what Shen said earlier. This is an entirely different language that I’m somehow able to decipher. Someone, years ago, heard this music in his mind and wrote it down in a way that those who came after him would be able to understand it. That I get to play it now, interpret it for myself, for others to hear, somehow seems like a sort of magic in itself.

Appassionato. Deeply emotional, with great passion.

My fingers rest lightly on the keys. I push everything out of mind, except for the lines of black and white, the reach of ten fingers. My two hands, capable of creating sounds soft and gentle or grand and booming. I take a deep breath, then let it all go. Unleash the discordance, the noise, the frustration, the anger, the resentment. I make myself feel all the ugliness of my feelings, all the emotions I’ve been forced to hide. Because they never listen. Tina and I have been doing the equivalent of shouting at the top of our lungs, but they don’t hear us.

Fear, crashing into the anger. The bells tolling overhead, an omen, a warning. The sense of something building, that I’m waiting for a terrible thing to finally happen.

I imagine myself exploding outward, the noise thundering through me and all around me, filling the room, until…I retreat back into my body. My left leg quivers. That spot on my right ankle still aches. My eyes are watering again, and I don’t know why.

“Ruby…” Mrs. Nguyen is there in front of me, spinning me to face her. She smiles down at me, holding my hands, her mouth pulled wide in a grin. “Ruby! That was beautiful and passionate and brave. Whatever it was you channeled, whatever conjured this feeling of desperate, deep emotions—that is what you need every time! This is your breakthrough! Remember this. How it made you feel. Appassionato!”

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the realization. I’ve finally found what motivates me.

It’s fear.

Shen waits for me in the hall outside the studio, leaning against the door of one of the empty offices. He’s changed out of his Westview uniform. Now he’s dressed all in black: a black baseball cap on his head, a black hoodie with a cartoon of a black bear on it, waving a flag that says “Made in Taiwan.” The sight of it makes me chuckle. He looks like one of those boys Ma always warns me about, pulling me close every time we have to walk by one of them on the street. She always believes they are “up to no good,” the ones who loiter outside stores and paint graffiti and have no future. But then there’s his mural of the dragon in the back alley, the art in his notebook. He’s so much more than I ever expected. We never should have met, and yet…

He approaches me with a hesitant smile. “I’ve heard music around here a lot,” he says with wonder. “But I always thought it was coming from a speaker.”

“I think this studio only opened this year,” I tell him as we make our way to the stairs. “That’s why I started spending time at the mall.”

“That was you playing, right?” he asks.

I nod.

“Wow.”

I shrug, but I’m secretly pleased he seems impressed by that.

“Ruby! Ruby! Come here!” Mrs. Sui is at the door of the Senior Centre. She gestures at me frantically, looking upset. Mrs. Wang is there too, frowning, sitting on the seat of her four-wheeled walker. Shen and I hurry over, worried someone has gotten hurt. The two of them are bundled up, like they’re ready to go outside. Mrs. Wang wears a puffy red vest, and Mrs. Sui has on a thick wool jacket, along with a black bucket hat that has red flowers embroidered over the front.

“姑婆, shouldn’t the volunteers be taking you back to the manor?” Shen asks.

“We were waiting for them,” Mrs. Sui says. “But Mrs. Wang wanted to ask the gods a question.”

I notice then Mrs. Wang’s hands are cupped around something.

“I only wanted to ask for their blessings for Ruby,” Mrs. Wang says, opening her hands anxiously. She’s holding what looks like two crescent-shaped pieces made from wood, painted red. “Look.”

She holds the wood pieces in her hands and brings them up to her forehead, eyes closed as she murmurs. A prayer? A request? Then she shakes them in between her hands, like she’s rolling die. Once, twice, three times, before letting the pieces fall to the floor below. They land with a clatter, the “raised” portion of the pieces face up, with the flat sides on the floor. Mrs. Wang leans over to scoop them up and deposits them in her hands again. She lets go, and the pieces land again with the flat side down. Shen’s expression is stony now instead of curious, and when the pieces fall a third time, the exact same way…he frowns at the pieces on the floor as if they’ve personally wronged him.

“Over and over again,” Mrs. Sui mutters. “So many times in a row.”

“What does it mean?” I ask, not wanting to interrupt their ritual, not knowing why the three of them are suddenly so gloomy. Like something precious has fallen and shattered in front of them on the ground, irrevocably broken.

“It’s bad.” Mrs. Wang shakes her head now. “Really, really bad.

“土地公 is giving us a warning,” she says, somber, calling out the god by name. The Earth God, the protector of the people. A guardian in his own right, I suppose. They all turn to look at the shrine that’s inside the Senior Centre. They’re supposed to bring in good fortune to businesses, watching over the owners and the patrons. When I was little, I always thought these tiny houses were adorable.

Shen takes the pieces from the older woman’s hand and shows them to me.

“When we ask questions to the gods, they answer through these.” He turns the pieces so that the raised and curved side faces up. “This is the yin side, and the other is the yang.”

“When you have both yin sides up, it means the gods say ‘no’ or ‘disagree’ or…” He hesitates then, like he knows I won’t like what he will say next.

“大凶!” Mrs. Sui declares, a phrase I do not recognize, shaking her head slowly again. I look to Shen for an explanation.

“It means ‘great misfortune,’” he sighs.

“Are you ready to go?” Two of the staff members of the manor approach us, having come up the stairs, wearing matching reflective vests. Mrs. Wang purses her mouth. They fall quiet, not wanting to discuss the gods in front of them.

“I’m serious, A’Shen!” Mrs. Sui tsks. “You take care of her!”

Shen nods. “I’m trying, 姑婆.” We watch as Mrs. Sui is wheeled away, Mrs. Wang assisted by the other volunteer. She gives me one more worried look over her shoulder before they turn down the hall that will take them to the elevator.

“Let’s go,” Shen says, shoving his hands into his pockets, looking decidedly unhappy.

“Wait, you’re not going to talk to me about this? About what it means?” I ask.

“Let’s go for a drive. I think better when I’m driving.” He pulls out his keys. I follow him, certain that whatever he shares with me won’t be anything good. Again.