Cheung wanted us to go to Amah’s village, which was also his mother’s and so, ancestrally speaking, his. I’d thought that ghostly place was abandoned. It was hard to imagine anyone still living there. I went to find Father to talk to him about it.

“Why would that brat be hanging out in some ghost village?” he said. “She could be eaten by wild foxes. Or become of one of them. But maybe that’s already happened.”

“You think they are there?”

“Cheung’s mother is the last living resident of Wong Nai Chung, and Tak-Wing has a special bond with her. It’s possible.”

Amah went to rouse Driver Lim. The lights were already out in the window of his little room above the garage, which he shared with his wife, Auntie Lim, our resident feng shui master. A few minutes later, he stumbled downstairs. His hair was neatly combed, but his uniform was wrinkled. He started the car.

As we drove down Conduit Road it began to rain. Always on this road you could smell the sweet warm smell of jasmine and bauhinia. In the rain, the smell grew deeper, as though the spirits were insisting we take it in. The wind began to blow.

“Typhoon coming,” Amah said. “Maybe we should go back. We don’t even know for sure that they are there.”

“Cheung is expecting us now,” I said. “If he knows something about Emily and Tak-Wing, or if they are there, we should find out. What if they are in some kind of danger?”

“Not likely,” said Amah. “Those brats are too spoiled.”

“I should never have taken a second wife and gotten so distracted by my other family. It was too much to expect Amah to raise two unruly girls,” Father said.

“I’m not unruly!”

“You were always the good one,” Amah said. “But you are unruly in your own way. You are deeper, so the unruliness will come out later.”

“Gee, thanks, Amah.”

“I’m an old lady. I know how people are.”