She tapped her crude outline of Monkey. “It’s fun to get it wrong, don’t you think? Monkey wasn’t ever mean—he just wanted to do fun things.” She turned the page back to his Sherlock Holmes/Bruce Lee mash-up. “Maybe you should be like Monkey and do whatever makes you happy. And if it turns out to be wrong, you can fix it later.”
He tilted his head as he thought about her words. “I don’t think Dad would agree with you.”
No. Her cousin would likely say that right was right and wrong was wrong and his son should know the difference. But they weren’t talking about math or science. They were talking about art.
“Here’s something your father won’t like much either.” She pushed forward an advertisement for Monkey kung fu classes. “Want to learn?”
Her nephew’s eyes widened in shock as he eagerly grabbed the paper. “But Dad wants me to go to science camp.”
She knew that. “He also wants you to get more exercise. If I can get him to say yes, will you go? Will you—?”
“Yes!” He made hands like claws. “I’m going to be like Monkey!”
She smiled. Better yet, a few minutes later, when she saw him drawing again, it wasn’t of his strange Bruce Lee with a pipe and magnifying glass. No, he was fixing her Monkey outline and filling it in with loving detail.
Late that evening, still buoyed by her happy time with her nephew, she closed up her shop and climbed the back stairs to her tiny apartment. It was small but clean, with sparse furniture and a few pictures of her family. She had a task to do tonight, but she waited, avoiding it while she ate noodles for dinner and watched television.
In the end, she could avoid it no longer. She was the caretaker of a demigod’s power, with no successor except an eight-year-old boy too young to know his own talent. It was her responsibility to make sure it was managed correctly, but she worried constantly. What if she was handling the power wrong? What if it was lost, or worse, misused? What did one do with a macabre necklace passed from one generation to the next for more than six hundred years? She had been given this responsibility from her uncle, who had received it from his father, who got it from his aunt, all the way back. She couldn’t be the one who misused it. She would not.
She sat on the cushion in the middle of her living room, meditating on the four noble truths and the eightfold path. Then she recited the five precepts before she added one of her own.
“I undertake to gain wisdom from the demigod Sand for the good use of the world.” She said the words as she had been taught, but she also remembered that in her tradition, demon and demigod were the same thing. General Sand had power and wisdom, but he also had his own agenda.
She opened a box set before her and pulled the contents into her hands. It was a necklace of nine skulls, and it was the token that connected her to the energy of the demigod Sand. Fortunately, it wasn’t full-size. The skulls were the size of large beads, and they settled easily into her hands. Toward the end of his life, her uncle had taken to wearing it, but that was a step she wasn’t ready for.
As usual, General Sand’s voice filtered immediately through her thoughts.
You have neglected me.
“It has been two days,” she chided.
Too long.
Two minutes was too long for Sand. Boredom seemed to be his biggest problem, and no wonder. He had an eternity of emptiness to deal with, except for the times she asked him questions. She’d be bored too.
“Tell me more about Walter’s potential. What is his talent?”
He brings his thoughts to life.
It was the same answer he’d given the last hundred times she’d asked, and she hadn’t figured out what he meant yet.
“How can I make his talent stronger?”
Let me join with you. I will teach you everything you need to know.
“No.” Sand always wanted to climb into her brain. He wanted another life, another human body to use as he wandered the earth again. His desires weren’t evil, per se, but she didn’t trust him not to get in trouble. “Tell me more about his talent,” she ordered.
You must encourage his passion.
“He’s an eight-year-old boy. He wants to draw superheroes and play video games.” She lifted her chin. “I did get him interested in Monkey kung fu classes.”
Excellent.
She couldn’t remember now if Sand had suggested the martial arts classes or if it had been her idea. Either way, Walter would get them now.
I can help you become rich. I can show you how to make enough money to have anything you want.
“I will not use you for my own gain.” That was the first and most important rule when talking with a spiritual entity, especially one as powerful as Sand. She could never use him to profit financially—ever. It was how her family had retained the necklace without damage for six hundred years.
