Judy I. Lin

These are the hands that buried my mother.

She is the Lady of the South, who dropped a single leaf from her beak into the cup of the First Emperor, and gifted humans the pleasure of tea.

What if I come back, and she’s gone

Grief has a taste, bitter and lingering, but so soft it sometimes disguises itself as sweetness.

FOR LYRA.

YOU ARE THE BEGINNING OF EVERYTHING.

They whisper terrible things—that my father wishes it were me, and not Shu, who had the sickness. That my family would be happier if I were gone.

“Things change, but they cycle back, too.

“Bo, then. You can call me Bo.” He follows that with a grin.

The tongue needs a little sweetness, she’d say. It teaches the heart how to love.

She died when I was very young.”