Chapter 13
Epilogue
Three years later, the morning sun filtered through the blinds of our small, quiet apartment in the city.
I stood in the kitchen, carefully measuring out a cup of raw rice and pouring it into the rice cooker. River, now twelve years old, sat at the kitchen table doing his homework.
We never went back to that house.
When the police eventually investigated the Callaway residence after neighbors reported a terrible smell, they found a scene of absolute, inexplicable horror.
Aunt Lorraine, Uncle Neil, Bridget, Uncle Garrett, Aunt Dearra, and our father Wade were all dead. Their bodies were found scattered throughout the house, their faces frozen in expressions of unimaginable terror.
The official police report stated it was a horrific family dispute that ended in a murder-suicide perpetrated by Uncle Garrett, who had gone mad.
They found Grandma’s body in the east room, lying peacefully on her bed. The coroner stated she had died of natural causes at least three days before the massacre occurred.
The police never found the creature. They never found an explanation for how the heavy trapdoor in the west room had been shattered from the outside, or why a handful of scorched rice was found in the cellar.
River and I were placed in foster care, eventually aging out and finding our own way. We had each other, and that was enough.
I finished washing the rice and closed the lid of the cooker. I walked over to a small wooden shelf mounted high on the kitchen wall. Sitting on the shelf was a new, beautifully carved statue of the Kitchen God, flanked by two small electric candles.
I struck a match and lit a single stick of incense, placing it gently into the bronze holder in front of the statue.
“Thank you,” I whispered, bowing my head respectfully.
I didn’t know if the spirit of the Kitchen God had followed us to the city or if he was still bound to that old, rotting house in the countryside, but I would never stop honoring him.
And every night, before I locked the doors and checked the windows, I always made sure the rice bin in the kitchen was completely full.