Chapter 19 Chryssy
Chapter 19
CHRYSSY
W hat is that doing here? It was supposed to be destroyed,” Auntie Rose says, her mouth a hardened line. “Daisy? What happened?”
The Curse Box sits on the Plotting Shed’s workbench as my aunties, Vin, and I pace around it, wondering how to best go about this.
“And demolish this beautiful, handcrafted box? It’s an antique,” Auntie Daisy says, wringing her hands. “They don’t make pieces like this anymore. You see the mother-of-pearl inlay here—”
“I don’t care if the whole thing’s made of gold,” Auntie Rose states. “Who knows what damage has been done by having this around.”
“Some would argue there’s no evidence curses are real,” Auntie Daisy states, her expression unchanging.
“You don’t believe that, though,” Auntie Rose says.
Auntie Daisy tilts her head. “Well, no. I forgot, okay? I hid it until I could figure out what to do with the contents of the box. It’s all we have left of our ancestors.”
“They really left us the good stuff, huh?” Auntie Rose exhales heavily. “First the dating scheme, then the curse gets exposed to everyone in the Pacific Northwest, and now this. How did I get roped into any of it? And why us? We don’t know anything.”
Auntie Violet moves around the perimeter of the shed opening all the windows and doors. “Oh, please,” she says. “Don’t act like you don’t live for drama. You were a divorce lawyer, for crying out loud.”
“Our guests will know we’re unwanted women!” Auntie Rose says. “We’re all allowed skeletons, but I prefer them in the attic, not outside our inn.”
It pains me hearing this, knowing that this is what they think of themselves.
Auntie Daisy raises her hand. “Can I get a count of how many of us are in a good headspace for this?”
Vin tentatively raises his hand.
“Is it ever a good time to deal with a curse head-on?” Auntie Rose asks while she busies herself by moving vases from one end of the shed to another.
Auntie Violet plucks out a flower as Auntie Rose passes by. “Cut flowers aren’t so bad, are they, Rose?” She smirks. “Flowers inside, sacrificing your garden for the betterment of capitalism. I like this side of you.”
Auntie Rose rolls her eyes. “Don’t get used to it.”
Auntie Daisy lowers her hand. “So… no one’s in a good headspace except Vin. Great.”
“I’d like to do this together,” I say. “Use our collective knowledge to try to understand what this curse really is. It’s grown over the years. It’s taken over our lives like ivy.”
“If it didn’t before, it certainly has now,” Auntie Rose grumbles. She starts spritzing the shed with sweet orange essential oil from a spray bottle. “Let me at least clear the negative energy from the space first. We need more Yang energy in here.”
“Oh, Rose. It’s not like people haven’t known,” Auntie Daisy says. “And I heard Aunt Angelica is working on a book about the curse.”
“I thought it was a reality show. She asked me to produce it,” Auntie Violet says, picking up on Auntie Rose’s cues and grabbing the broom. “I can’t say I love the idea of our pasts being dug up.”
Auntie Rose flaps her hands at her sisters. “You’re both wrong. It’s Aunt Rosemary, and she’s trying to persuade her grandchildren to write a screenplay. Or was it her daughter she was trying to convince?”
More rumors. More games of telephone. So much for collective knowledge.
“Can we focus?” I plead.
Auntie Rose sprays orange scent around the Curse Box.
“Yes, focus. If we’re doing this, we’re doing it as a team,” Auntie Daisy says, hesitating. “Right?”
“Yes! People! This box holds all the answers,” Auntie Violet says, inching around us all with her broom, sweeping dirt and other negative Curse Box associations out the door. “If we want Chryssy and Vin to have a chance at being together, it’s important we try to understand what we’re dealing with here. We need to see what’s in the box.”
“I wouldn’t say it holds all of the secrets, but, yeah, we should probably look inside,” I clarify.
“For love,” Auntie Daisy adds.
At the mention of love, I glance at Vin. His gaze is already firmly planted on me. I redirect my eyes back to the box on the table.
“Or at least for the hope of it,” Auntie Rose says, her bunched forehead relaxing.
A breeze sweeps through a far window and pushes the aroma of citrus around. Hopefully, this uplifts everyone a little.
“This hasn’t been opened in decades. Generations have gone by and not one peek,” Auntie Violet says, stopping her sweeping and looking up. “Right?”
“Mmm,” I mumble. Vin and I both know what happened in the Dandelion that night he arrived, but we’re taking it to the grave with us. Which, depending on what’s in this box, might be a lot sooner than we both anticipated.
“It’s time we take charge and get a look for ourselves at what’s in here,” Auntie Daisy says. “So who’s gonna do it? I’m not touching that thing.”
“Don’t look at me,” Auntie Rose says, lifting the spray bottle. “I’m spritzing.”
Auntie Daisy’s eyes widen. “I’m too nervous. My palms are sweaty.”
I swallow. “I guess I could—”
“I’ll do it,” Vin says, stepping forward. “I’ll open the box.” We continue not mentioning that this wouldn’t be his first time doing so.
“Good! Yes!” Auntie Violet says, toasting Vin with the broom. “Admirable on and off the stage.”
We all gather around Vin as he lifts the lid on the writing box very slowly. The moment feels heavy and dramatic, which is on brand with the Hua women.
Vin removes a stack of notebooks and an empty leather binder. In one of the notebooks is transparent-looking paper with what looks like Mandarin written on it. The writing was done quickly, the Chinese characters angled on the pages.
“This must be 4G’s handwriting,” I say. In the lower corner is a seal pressed in red ink. “Is this his seal?”
“Could be. Seals were originally used to authenticate documents and then later art,” Auntie Rose says of the red square with Chinese characters carved in the center. “But this doesn’t look like art. Maybe it’s a contract.”
“We can confirm it against 4G’s rose illustration in the kitchen,” Auntie Violet says. “If the two seals match, then this has to be his handwriting.”
“When I last saw this—I mean, when I imagined what would be in here—it looked like a cookbook. Or that’s what I thought it would be,” Vin says, tripping over his words. “Here, see. It says something about herbs.” The wrinkle in Vin’s brow is emphasized as he concentrates. “The ink’s faded, so it’s hard to fully understand.”
“There’s a sketch of a chrysanthemum. And a mushroom,” I note, indicating the small illustrations in the margins of the page. “What if it’s a recipe?”
“Can’t we let things be?” Auntie Rose pushes. “This is a lost cause. Yesterday, one of the showers broke randomly in a guest’s room, and now I think I know why. Look at the imbalance you’ve already created.” She looks pointedly at Vin. “Don’t try to disturb the past. What’s done is done.”
“If you’re getting cold feet, Rose, rub them with oil and drink tea,” Auntie Violet retorts. “You also don’t need to be here for this.”
“Well, someone needs to supervise,” Auntie Rose grumbles, staying put.
Her earlier statement lingers in my ears, saddening me. “You’re hurt,” I say, wrapping my arm around her. She returns my gesture. “Burying this down deep might feel good right now, but you know that’s not healthy. We always talk about prevention. That’s how I’m trying to approach this. In the same way you all taught me. I may not be able to stop the curse or repair the damage it’s already done, but I might be able to prevent it for future generations. Maybe even for me. I’m doing this, but I can’t do it without you.”
I must have gotten through to her because Auntie Rose gently removes more journals whose pages are marked with dried, pressed flowers as delicate placeholders. “There are a bunch of ingredients listed here. Many are scratched out. The ones I can see, though, I don’t know what most of them translate to. My Chinese isn’t what it used to be,” she says.
Auntie Violet moves her hands back and forth a few times before finally taking the leather binder into her hands, riffling through thin pieces of cloth with characters inked on them. A gasp escapes her. “Look. A secret compartment,” she says, her voice low.
“A secret compartment with a knob?” Auntie Rose asks, crossing her arms. “It’s a drawer, Vi.”
Auntie Violet carefully slides out a small bundle of envelopes, ignoring her sister. “Looks like letters.” They look so old, as though they might disintegrate on the spot at any moment.
“Who are they from?” I ask.
My imagination runs wild as the aunties and Vin translate silently. Instead of wallowing in my uselessness and going down the mental spiral of why I haven’t learned Mandarin yet, I seek out context clues. Stamps. Burned corners. Water stains… or teardrops. What if they’re love letters from before the betrayal. Or maybe it’s eighteenth-century China’s equivalent of a divorce decree.
“Calendula,” Auntie Rose says, squinting at the characters sprawled across the paper. “Our grandmother?”
“What does she say?” Auntie Daisy asks. She slides her yellow reading glasses up the bridge of her nose and peers at the paper over Auntie Rose’s shoulder.
Auntie Rose holds the paper closer to both of their faces. “It says she doesn’t want to meet. She’s leaving the country.” She blows out a frustrated breath. “There are so many smudges. The writing is too faint. There’s a good amount here that’s lost to time.”
“It must be addressed to 4G,” I say, looking through the other pockets in the binder.
“But it isn’t. It’s addressed to… Lily?” Auntie Violet says, her brows creasing. “Like Great-Great-Great-Grandmother Lily?”
“èyùn? The reason we’re all cursed?” Auntie Rose asks.
I glance between my aunties. “Who are the other letters from?”
“The same. Lily and Calendula. Looks like they had been writing back and forth,” Auntie Violet says.
“Why did Lily want to get in touch with her great-granddaughter?”
“I thought no one had heard from Lily ever again,” I say. “It’s odd, isn’t it? The handwriting from Lily’s letters looks the same as the handwriting in these notebooks.”
“Okay, here. Lily wrote that she burned it. Got rid of something?” Auntie Violet says, angling the paper differently and coming at the words from a new perspective.
Auntie Daisy hums as she thinks. “She burned the ingredients? The blends?”
“She must mean recipes. So she burned the heart herbal blend. We know that already. Why is she rehashing history?” I ask. “What else is in there?”
“ The recipes are long gone. I made sure of it. Here’s what I remember ,” Auntie Rose translates. “Then she lists five ingredients.”
My mouth goes slack. “Do you think she’s trying to re-create the heart herbal blend? What are the ingredients?”
Auntie Rose squints at the smudged, slanted writing. “I can only make out three of them. The rest are a very different style.”
“It can never be easy,” Auntie Violet says on a sigh.
“Is that Old Chinese?” Auntie Daisy wonders.
“Why are you looking at me?” Auntie Rose appears unamused. “I’m old, but I’m not that old.”
I trace the lines and curves of each character. “They look like little drawings. This had to be well before Lily’s time,” I guess.
“I don’t know what those are, either. I learned some Traditional Chinese, but mostly Simplified,” Vin says. “It’s like a code, or a puzzle.”
“What, like she used different variations of Chinese to add an extra level of security?” I ask, half joking. Then the realization hits that maybe this isn’t a joke, and that Lily really did want to make it harder to crack this blend. But who was she protecting it from?
“The instructions are so vague,” Auntie Daisy observes. “Is that an eight or a nine? I can’t tell.” She points to one of the complex characters that looks more traditional in style. “That sounds like too much ginseng.”
“The blend should help with tonifying Qi,” I say. “Why is she sharing it with Calendula?”
Vin thinks for a moment. “For posterity? In the early 1870s, a music editor named Robert Keller helped get Johannes Brahms’s compositions into print. There’s handwritten correspondence that still exists. Music notes are drawn out on these letters. Brahms was communicating the music to get them into the record.”
“Okay. And?” Auntie Violet says, waiting eagerly.
“Maybe your great-great-great-great-grandmother was the Brahms of herbalism,” Vin says.
I spin one of my earrings as my mind swirls with new information. “But she’s the one who destroyed the recipes, not made them. In these letters, it sounds like she’s trying to re-create the tonics that she got rid of. Why would she do that?” I ask, trying to process everything.
Auntie Rose’s eyes zigzag down the letter. When she reaches the bottom, she shakes her head.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Eh, it’s too hard to read. She was probably 4G’s scribe and documented everything,” Auntie Rose replies.
“Let me try,” Auntie Daisy offers.
Auntie Rose quickly stuffs the letter back in the envelope. “No, no. There’s nothing useful here.” She waves her hands in front of her like good riddance . “Look at us! We’re speculating, just like always.”
“We do know something. Lily started documenting the heart herbal blend,” Auntie Violet says.
“We can get these three ingredients while we figure out what the last two are,” Auntie Daisy suggests.
Auntie Rose frowns, looking out the Plotting Shed’s window over the main garden. “Sure. If that will give you closure.”
A renewed sense of optimism surges through me. “It’s time to understand what this blend was all about,” I say. “Who’s up for an adventure?”