I Her grandmother sat up straighter. 'The land? It is a ready' attacking the land?'
'I... I guess.'
'Then it is strong already. We must move quickly.'
The knot of fear tightened in Sue's stomach. 'Shou I get Mother and Father? And John?'
'Your parents have asked me not to tell you and yo brother about this.'
'Why?' i 'They do not want to frighten you.'
Sue nodded. That made sense. Her parents, her moth in particular, were always trying to protect her and her brother from the vicissitudes of life in the outside world
They did not seem to realize that she and John were more familiar with the outside world, more conversant in its ways, than they themselves were. At home, her father ruled uncontested. He was the boss, the master of the house, and whatever he said was law. But outside of the house and the restaurant, out in the real world, their roles were reversed. The man who was so sure and strong when dealing with his family was meek, polite, and overly solicitous to strangers, and it was she, and to a lesser extent John, who steered her parents through the rough waters of American society.
'What about John? Have you talked to John?' 'John may have been .. . influenced.' Influenced.
'We must watch him. We must protect him. But we cannot trust him. He cannot help us.'
Sue switched positions, unbent her knee, and sat flat on the floor, stretching her legs out in front of her. 'Can the cup hugirngsi be stopped?'
'I do not know.'
'But there are ways to protect ourselves. The white jade .. .'
'Yes. The jade will protect you. The tse m0r cannot bite a person wearing the jade. But .. .' Her grandmother grew thoughtful. 'But the creature exerts a larger influence than that. It kills its victims, but it also affects others who see it, who are near it, even those who are not directly attacked. It twists their minds. The cup hugirngsi is not alive, but it is not dead. It is worse than dead, and it is like a magnet, attracting some people, repelling others, warping both. The jade will protect you from that. But the jade will not protect you from those other people, those who are changed by the cup hugirngsi.
Sue understood. The monster could convince people to do its bidding, convert them. It was a defense mechanism for the cup hug/rngs/, a survival mechanism, a shield for its weak spot. 'We can get people to wear white jade, then.'
'White jade? Do you know how rare that is?'
'Is it the only jade that will work?'
Her grandmother shook her head slowly. 'It is the strongest, it is the most effective, but even green jade will offer some protection.'
'We'll make sure everyone wears some kind of jade, then.'
I 'Not everyone will want to wear jade. Not everyone will believe. And those people will be as lights to a moth for the cup hugirngsi.
Besides, I do not think that even in the jewelry stores there is much jade in this town.'
'What else can we do? What else is good? In American movies, vampires are afraid of crosses and garlic.'
'Willow,' her grandmother said;
'Willow?'
The old woman nodded.
Sue suddenly understood. 'Is that why Father planted those willows in front of the house? For protection?'
'Yes.'
'You told him to plant them, didn't you?'
Her grandmother only smiled.
'Father used to tell me about fung shui. He said that fung shui was harmony between building and land, and I could never understand how he could think that our yard and house were in harmony with this desert.
'Tung shui means not only balance between buildings and nature but balance between the material and the spirit worlds. Bad lung shui can bring disaster.' She shrugged. 'Our home is not completely harmonious with the land, but it is harmonious in the most important way.
I have made sure that it is safe.'
'What else?'
'Running water. The cup hugirngsi cannot cross running water.' '
Sue was silent for a moment. 'But those two teenagers were killed in the river. The cup hugirngsi killed them in running water.'
They were both silent now. For the first time, Sue saw doubt on her grandmother's face, and she realized that all of this was academic to her grandmother too. She had learned of these things secondhand--she had never tried them out herself.
All of asudden, Sue felt much less confident.
Maybe this wasn't a cup hugirngsi. Maybe it was something else. Maybe it was something that none of them knew anything about, something that no one knew how to right.
'It is the cup hugirngsi,' her grandmother said as if reading h.e'Lind'
Sue pulled her legs next aroind-h/lnes, and lobkel.
-She felt vulnerable, helpless and that something had to be done but not knowing what it was or how to go about it. 'So what are we going to do?' Her grandmother did not answer.
'I write for the newspaper now. I can warn people. The editor's brother is the police chief. I'm sure he can help
US.'
The old woman bent forward, reached down, and put her hand on Sue's.
The movement was difficult for her, painful, but when she spoke there was renewed strength in her voice. 'What do you want to do? What does your heart tell you to do?'
Sue looked into those eyes that were so like her own. 'You mean my D/Lo Ling Gum ? .... Her grandmother smiled, nodded. 'Yes.'
She felt none of the power within her, but she held her grandmother's gaze. 'It tells me to hunt it down and destroy it.
'Then we will.' The strength that had temporarily invigorated the old woman disappeared, seemed to visibly seep out of her face, and, grimacing, she leaned back on the bed and lay down again.
'But... what do we do? How do we start?'
'We wait. We can do nothing right now. I need to know more. For now, we wait.'
'But .. .' Her voice trailed off. People were dying; trees and animals were being killed. A moment ago, her grandmother had admitted that the situation was urgent, had said that they had to act quickly.
Now she wanted to lie here and do nothing?
'We are not the architects of events,' her grandmother said. 'We are merely the construction workers.'
What kind of KungFu crap was that? Sue wondered. 'I have to warn people,' she said. 'Tell them about the cup hugirngsi.'
'You can try.' But the tone in her grandmother's voice made it clear that she did not think anyone would listen. She sighed. 'I am tired.
I must rest.'
Sue leave. 'What does
Di Lo stood, preparing to your
Ling Gum say?'
The old woman shook her head, put her arm over her eyes, refusing to look at her granddaughter, refusing to answer. 'I must rest,' she repeated.
Sue left the the door behind silently, room closing her, feeling far more frightened than she had before she'd come.
The Indian summer came to an abrupt end. The temperature dropped sometime after midnight, shifting from summer to winter without even pausing at the intermediate stage of fall.
