Serpent Sarcophagus novel Chapter 6

When Mrs. Quebec saw Stowy, her feeling seemed to be a mixture of both fear and respect. She was trembling all over as she knelt, but she dared not move even a muscle.

Stowy’s low-pitched voice sounded again, “I have been protecting the Quebec family for many years. Are you going to disregard my help?”

“Forgive me, my lord. I dare not, I dare not!” Mrs. Quebec's voice trembled.

“Do what you’re supposed to do!” Stowy turned into the bracelet again and wrapped himself around my wrist.

Not until Stowy disappeared did Mrs. Quebec get up. Her blue coat seemed to be thoroughly soaked. She stared at me, while holding the door like she was going to fall.

Her eyes were piercing as if she can see right through me. It made me panic.

I was soon pulled aside by my grandma, who pointed ahead, asking me to step forward.

“Now, you should return and get ready. Tomorrow we will look for that sarcophagus.” Mrs. Quebec said while holding the door. She was overstressed. “And Aurora, remember to hold the white goose tight on your way back. And be careful!”

The big white goose had its feet pricked and was put down.

Realizing the seriousness of the matter, I hurriedly held the goose up.

“Mr. Han, the one who guarded your village, offer him something nice and better ask him to watch the door for your house tonight! Otherwise, I am afraid you won’t last through the night.” Mrs. Quebec stared at the black bracelet on my hand and said coldly, “Even with lord Dracula to protect you, you can’t defeat that ghost serpent!”

Listening to her faint voice, I felt a chill inside.

With her promise to help us locate the sarcophagus, my grandmother was pleased, and she returned home with me.

On the road back, grandma told me, “Quebec took over the channeling business after her aunt died. But her ill temper and constantly driving people out had earned her a bad reputation. Few people knew this business now. Now, even fewer people are willing to come to her door.

I had to say I was impressed that she had the strength to pull the old woman out.

Nowadays, many motorcycles were running across the nearby villages. My grandmother and I took one to get home.

Grandma also told me that every village has a guardian, which is usually the person who had committed unforgivable sins in the last life and was stripped off a fraction of the soul, and has sworn to guard the village with his or her life to atone the sins.

This person was usually very kind in heart and could guard the village against disasters, but may look dumb because his soul was not whole.

Mr. Han was the one who was guarding our village.

Thinking of Mrs. Quebec's words, grandma stopped the motor at the village entrance. She tried to coax Mr. Han to our house for dinner and to stay overnight.

“I won’t go. Snakes are in your house!” Mr. Han sat on the stone tablet that was knocked down by me earlier, and shook his head, “A lot of them! I won’t go.”

“There’s no snake,” Grandma explained impatiently.

I looked at Mr. Han, while the thoughts of the snake babies in the eggs, and the incident with David’s wife struck me. I pulled at my grandma’s sleeve and said, “Leave it.”

“Shush.” Grandma went to pull Mr. Han.

I stopped her quickly. “Never mind. Whatever might happen, we can deal with it. Why drag others along? “

Mr. Han was actually quite nice. He would always do his best to help whoever was hosting an event. Villagers often bullied him and gave him all sorts of dirty works but only let him eat the leftovers. And he was okay with it. Mrs. Quebec said he can protect me against the disaster. But the accident that happened in David Russell’s house made me realized that we were letting Mr. Han die for me.

“Aurora, don't pull me!” Grandma tried to grab Mr. Han again, coaxing him, “I will cook a chicken, big rooster, very fat! And you can have the whole chicken! And drinks too, beer, wine, I will give you whatever you want.”

“Granny!” Seeing grandma beguiled him like tricking a child, I shouted seriously, “Don’t do this, okay?”

I pushed Mr. Han away, “There’re snakes in my house, and I have one on my body too! If you ever come to my house, you will be dead! Do you understand me? Go away! Run!”

Mr. Han looked at me and giggled, stretching out his dirty hand, pointed at my grandma. “Fascinating, your granddaughter is fascinating!”

Grandma stared at me, with tears in her eyes, before she swung her hands fiercely and went home.

Mr. Han was still there, giggling, “Fascinating! Fascinating!”

I looked at him, taking out all the cash from the bag and gave it to him, and then I cruelly said to him, “If you dare to come to my house, I will beat the hell out of you. Got it?”

Mr. Han ran toward the village shop with the money while laughing.

I helped dig a pit with the hoe. Watching grandma putting the dead animals one by one into the pit, I just felt sad.

I tried to speak to her, but her mouth was tightly shut, clearly out of anger.

We buried the dead chickens, ducks, and rabbits. There were two dead pigs in the pigsty, which grandma and I could not move. She called my Uncle Peter for help.

“Grandma.” I refilled the pit and tried to comfort grandma.

She held me in her arms and cried bitterly. “Aurora, I was not a good person! I want to have Mr. Han die for you. But if I could die for you myself, I will certainly do it!”

“My Aurora, my sweet granddaughter, how did it fall on you?” Grandma hugged me, with tears falling on both of her cheeks. Finally, all day’s bad mood was let out.

I hugged grandma as well. “It doesn’t matter, we do have Stowy, don’t we? He will protect me.”

The black bracelet on the wrist heard this, stirred. I seemed to have heard Stowy’s deep laugh.

Uncle Peter was meticulous. When he came, he even brought along a few others from our clan. All of them were covered with the smell of alcohol. They sprinkled sulfur over my house before they entered.

Grandma led them to the pigsty to drag the pigs out. When they came to the backyard and saw me, none of them had given me a friendly face.

Uncle let some of the men fill the pit, and said to me, “Aurora, come here.”

Grandma was looking at the two pigs with pitiful eyes. They were raised before the next spring festival arrived, which had been growing for more than six months in the pigsty and become as heavy as over fifty kilos.

The pigs died rather miserably, with their stomachs bit through.

My uncle took the advantage of my grandmother's absence and took me to the front yard, “You have seen what happened to your family. You know what will happen when you come back to the village again. Go away before it is too late! And leave the village at once!”

I look at him, surprised. Looking sullen, he lit a cigarette. “This is not my idea. The men I brought here all agree that it’s right to get you out of the village.”

“All you know was that when you were born, snakes worshipped you at the side of the road. But what you didn’t know is that the village was flooded with snakes that year, and a lot of chickens and ducks were killed, the pigs too.” Uncle Peter blew a smoke ring, and said to me in a solemn voice, “Just say goodbye to your grandma and I will send you out of the village by motorcycle. Alright?”