There’s a Coffin Shop in My House

Grandpa died. All he left Lin Qiu was a coffin shop.

The shop stood at the western edge of town. Its storefront was small, but the back courtyard was deep. A funeral-clothes shop stood on the left, and a paper effigy shop on the right. Every business on the street dealt with the dead.

Before he died, Grandpa left three rules.

Rule one: No orders after dark. Don't open the door if someone knocks, and don't answer if someone calls your name.

Rule two: Make one coffin each year for someone with no family. Seal it on the twenty-third day of the twelfth lunar month, and open it on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month.

The third rule had been blacked out.

Lin Qiu didn't take it seriously.

After all, he only sold wood. He wasn't a ghost hunter.

On the first night after he opened the shop, something inside the empty coffin at the very back turned over.

On the second night, someone knocked. A woman called his name. He answered.

On the third night, he found several scratches on the edge of his bed. He had no idea when they had appeared.

Lin Qiu began leafing through Grandpa's notes. On the last page, there was only one line:

“The coffin shop isn't for making coffins. It's a place for locking things away. I've kept them locked up for forty years. Now it's your turn.”

But the ink on those words was fresh.

Seven days newer than the date of Grandpa's death.