Guardian of the Village: Willowleaf Ferry

Everyone in the village said he could communicate with the gods.

When he was seven, he touched the old willow tree at the village entrance, and a hand reached up from underground and clasped his. From then on, he could see the dead and hear their wishes. Every time he helped a departed soul cross over, another fine line appeared on the scar on his right wrist, where his older brother had accidentally cut him. He couldn't remember the faces of the living, but he could hear the faintest pleas of the dead.

He watched over the willow tree, its crown reaching toward the sun and its roots burrowing into the underworld. Beneath it lay a stone stele engraved with the names of 999 dead, the characters facing down toward another world. He used willow leaves to guide the spirits on their way, helping them pass through the markings carved into the trunk and depart. He could not leave the village for more than seven days, or the scar on his hand would fester.

His older brother, Liu Ping, was his only interpreter among the living. Frail and often ill, Liu Ping shielded him from trouble and read aloud from their grandfather's notebooks. But Liu Sheng didn't know that a child who had died long ago was lodged in Liu Ping's heart. The spirit had latched onto him when he fell into a well as a child.

A developer wanted to move the willow tree. A black-faced ghost tried to take root inside a living person. A bride who had been trapped in a well for three hundred years began singing a wedding song on the full moon. And the last page, torn from their grandfather's notebook, read: On the day the 999th name has been guided across, the stele will be empty, and the last person to be guided will be the guide himself.

Liu Sheng could guide every spirit in the village across, but not the one person closest to him.

When the third full moon rises and the thing lodged in his brother's heart finally awakens, he must make one fateful choice: protect the village, guide every spirit across, or send his brother away. He guards so others can leave; only by guiding them all across can he protect himself.