The Karma Ledger: The Lock That Came Home

Luke Lin doesn’t believe in ghosts. He is a fourth-generation Chinese American who can’t read Chinese, can’t speak it, and knows almost nothing about the family history his father refuses to discuss. His mother died of cancer when he was six. That is the story he has always been told. Then, during a random trip through China after losing his job, Luke takes home an old brass lock from a flea market. The red clay on its back drinks his blood.The hostel front desk says he never checked in.A dream leaves red marks around his ankle.A news broadcast reports him missing, while police collect his belongings inside an abandoned house he has never seen. The lock is there on the screen. It is also beside his bed. When Luke calls his father, the old man says only one thing before forgetting the conversation entirely: “That lock was buried with your mother.” Something has come out. It knows Luke’s name.It is learning his voice, his handwriting, his habits, and his breathing.And it may have a better claim to the Lin family debt than he does. Some inherit money.Some inherit houses.Luke inherited a curse written in a language he cannot read.