Meanwhile, she grabbed a key from behind the counter, then held it up so that the knotted red rope blessing dangled before him.
“Open the door, nephew,” she said. “Choose this service.”
“Um, okay.” He took the key from her hand but didn’t unlock the door. “Can you not hold on to me so tight? I’m bleeding.” He gestured to the blood gathering beneath her nails where she gripped his forearm.
“Yes, yes,” she said, not releasing him. “Blood is part of the sacrifice.”
“Er, right. But I don’t want the scars, okay?” He firmly lifted her fingers to reveal the half-moon cuts beneath her nails. “Scars are supposed to be remnants of great battles. I can’t very well say I’ve been maimed by my favorite auntie.” He laughed as he spoke, looking for a hint of the banter they’d had when he was younger. He’d always known how to make her smile. But her expression looked forced.
“Of course, of course.” She released his arm but stood blocking his retreat. “I am merely excited. I have waited so long.”
He paused and tried to probe for more information. “Waited for what?”
She grinned at him. “For you to grow up and be a man.” She squeezed his right bicep without drawing blood. “And look, you’ve been working out.”
Actually, he hadn’t. But thanks to his poverty-induced diet of ramen noodles and chicken broth (not to mention the days spent on set construction), he’d lost ten pounds of baby fat and now looked pretty good. He’d never have the sheer power of Bing on camera, but at least he could play Kung Fu Fighter #3 without being laughed off the set.
“Go, go!” Auntie Sand urged. “Upstairs. It is time to answer your question.”
He had no idea what question she meant, but since she was forcing him into the room he’d been dying to check out since he was a kid, he didn’t refuse. He climbed the narrow steps up to the darkened upper floor, unlocked the door, and stepped inside while Auntie Sand flipped on the lights. His thoughts bounced between excitement to finally see what she was hiding up here and worry that something was very wrong with his aunt.
Finally light flooded the apartment, and Walter froze on the top step, his eyes taking in the living space above her shop. He’d imagined it a thousand times, but nothing could have prepared him for what he saw now.
It was a shrine. The whole apartment was dedicated to the worship of a big granite egg. Likereallybig. Four feet of gray-green stone. It wasn’t even pretty or smooth, but was more like pocked concrete put on a velvet stand in the center of the room. And all around it were papers written in Chinese. Scrolls, etched stones, weird fetishes, and he didn’t even know what else.
“Where do you watch TV?” he asked. Why that question came out was beyond him. But this was where Auntie Sand lived. He could see her bedroom through an open door. A tiny closet-sized room with a single bed. He noted a basic bathroom and kitchen, also tucked away. He didn’t see the computer he’d helped her buy five years ago or the TV she’d been given for Christmas. No. Everything here was dedicated to the egg.
“I watch it downstairs in the store,” she said, her tone indicating that her answer was obvious. “I sold the other one.”
The little portable TV next to the cash register? It had been black and white when he was a kid. It was color now, but the average tablet got better images than the ancient thing she had downstairs. That was why his family had bought her the new one.
He wanted to ask more questions but didn’t know how to tactfully askWhy do you worship an ugly egg?He looked around and wondered if she suffered from dementia. How would he get her to a hospital without her losing it completely?
“Do you see? Do you see?” she pressed. “This is why I did it. This is what I’ve waited for.”
“Um, forgive me for being stupid. What exactly am I supposed to see?” Other than a cement egg.
She patted his shoulder in a fond gesture. “Of course you don’t realize. It’s all your father’s fault. He always hated the Monkey King story.” She pointed to the egg and grinned. “This is Monkey’s egg, and I have devoted my life to bringing him back.”
No, she hadn’t. As far as he knew, her greatest passion was travel. Once a year, she closed the shop and took a vacation somewhere exciting. And yes, she loved the story of the Monkey King, but she’d never mentioned having a huge egg in her living room.
Walter stepped closer to the thing. It really did look like old concrete. And he certainly remembered that the Monkey King had been born from a stone egg, but this was beyond ridiculous. “Where did you get this thing?”
She didn’t seem to hear him. Instead, she moved slowly around the egg as she offered a kind of litany, spoken in a singsong voice. “Every day you will bow before it. You will pledge yourself and your work to him. This gathers the energy for the transformation. Every time you dedicate your soul to the Monkey King, your body becomes more attuned to his energy. In return, I will give you one million dollars to make your movie.”
“Auntie, I don’t think you understand that I really need that kind of money. In cash.”
“And I have it. In cash.”
“Auntie—” he argued, but she cut him off.
“You are thinking that I am crazy. That I have cancer or Alzheimer’s or something.”
He couldn’t keep the truth off his face. “Maybe it’s just the medicine you’re taking,” he suggested, but she shook her head.
“I am healthy. I know what I am doing. I feel so strong!”
He couldn’t deny that she looked good. She had an energy to her that was powerful. And yet when he looked in her eyes, he worried. She didn’t seem to be the same aunt who had let him draw comics in her store.
