Author: Mira Han
The invitation arrived in the mail on cream stationery, written in looping cursive I recognized instantly — my grandmother’s. The postmark had no date. The address was hers, the one that had burned down fifteen years ago.
I went anyway.
At twilight, the hill where her house once stood looked different — not ruined, but restored. The porch light glowed, and lace curtains fluttered in the window. I knocked once. The door opened by itself.
Inside, everything was as it had been: the ticking mantle clock, the smell of jasmine rice, the chipped blue plates. My grandmother sat at the table, her hair silver and perfect. Across from her sat my great-grandfather, who’d died long before I was born. Beside him, my aunt, gone three winters ago.
They were all waiting.
No one spoke. My grandmother gestured for me to sit. The food was warm — steamed fish, bitter greens, sweet rice cakes. I ate slowly, the silence thick but not frightening. When I looked up, their faces flickered — not vanishing, but dimming, like candlelight in wind.
When the meal was over, my grandmother finally spoke.
“You don’t visit enough,” she said gently.
“I didn’t think I could,” I whispered.
“You always can.”
When I blinked, I was sitting on the empty hill, the plates gone, the stars cold. But in my hand was a single rice cake, still warm.
I didn’t eat it. I buried it at the roots of a nearby tree — a small offering for whoever comes next.
