This reckoning didn’t last long. As I stepped up onto the porch the wooden stairs wobbled beneath my feet and I almost fell, grabbing out quickly to hold on to the rail and yelping as a splinter of wood stabbed into my thumb. Pain shooting through me, I shoved it into my mouth, cringing as I thought about what germs could be festering on the rail. Maybe I needed a tetanus shot. But how close was the nearest doctor? I didn’t remember seeing a medical centre on my way in. Ragged Point might only be a couple of hours from the city, but right now it felt like the ends of the earth.

An old rocking chair sat on one end of the porch, a colourful crocheted blanket scrunched up in a ball on top of it with what looked to be some kind of animal droppings adorning it. My stomach revolted and I added bin bags and plastic gloves to my mental shopping list—that blanket would be the first thing to go. Followed by the empty beer bottles and crinkled newspapers that filled various milk crates surrounding the chair.

The steps weren’t the only things that wobbled. At least three of the floorboards buckled as I walked towards the glass sliding door and the rocking chair creaked, moving slowly back and forth. Although there weren’t any curtains at the front, the glass was so smeared I could barely see inside.

Taking a deep breath, I slid the key Hayley had given me into the lock and pushed open the door.

13

‘Oh my God!’

My stomach turned and my hand rushed to cover my nose as a horrible smell assaulted my senses. I couldn’t tell if it was dead fish or just mustiness from being closed up for months. Wei hadn’t been kidding when he said no one had visited since his grandfather died. I surveyed the scene in what I guessed to be the living room, if the woebegone leather couch, the leaning bookshelves and the TV in the corner were anything to go by. If it wasn’t for the mess, I’d think I’d stepped into some kind of museum.

The television looked like one my mother had bought in the early eighties—we were all so excited because it was twice the size of the old one. I couldn’t imagine it would work in the digital era, but there was a VCR machine beside it and a number of videos in a glass TV cabinet. A medium-sized coffee table sat in the middle of the room, covered with dishes, mugs and cutlery that now looked to be growing things on them.

Stepping through the debris on the floor—more bottles and newspapers, boating magazines that went back years, a couple of broken buckets, fishing tackle and a few rods—I crossed over to the bookshelf to check out the old man’s collection.

It soon became apparent that even if I did stay—which was looking less and less likely by the second—I wouldn’t be able to read any of the books. They were all written in what I assumed was Chinese. As I put a book back onto the dusty shelf, I heard a noise coming from the back of the shack and my heart hitched a beat. Frozen, I cocked an ear towards the sound, hoping I’d imagined it, but the rustling only grew louder.