Bitter Spirits (Roaring Twenties #1)(31)

He grunted his amusement. “I suppose I have. And I appreciate that, but some things are best left in the past.”

“Now that I agree with,” she said with a soft smile.

It took them a quarter of an hour to make it to the first side street. Avoiding the subject of the accident, they talked the entire way, first about Chinatown, then about what she remembered of the city from her childhood. The smell of fish cooking got them chatting about the Magnusson fishing business and crab season, then he told her a few stories from his childhood—stealing away from school at lunchtime to smoke cigarettes behind the baseball field . . . absconding with one of his father’s fish delivery trucks to meet schoolmates at Golden Gate Park.

Once they’d turned down the side street, the scenery began changing. Gold-painted window frames, pagodas, and curling eaves all but disappeared. Forgotten laundry dripped from balconies, and the smell of sewage wafted from dark corners. By the time they’d taken two more turns, they were sloshing through puddles on narrow backstreets where the asphalt gave way to old paving stones.

They found Doctor Yip’s storefront halfway down a cul-de-sac, right where Mrs. Lin said it would be. The sign was in Chinese, but they spotted the landmark she’d mentioned, a metal yellow lantern that hung near a door under an arch of honeycomb cutout woodwork. A string of bells tinkled when they walked inside.

Winter shook the umbrella outside the door as Aida looked around. The apothecary shop’s walls were wrapped in wooden shelves that stretched to the ceiling, each of them brimming with ceramic jars lined up in neat rows. Tracks of wooden drawers stood behind a long counter to one side. Near the back of the shop, sticks of pungent sandalwood incense smoked from a brass bowl filled with sand.

The shop was empty until a thin, elderly man appeared from a dark doorway. “Good afternoon,” he said with a British accent as he shuffled around the counter to greet them. He was shorter than Aida, with salt-and-pepper hair braided into a queue that hung down his back. And though he was dressed in western clothes—black trousers, white shirt, gold vest—he was wearing a pair of Chinese black silk slippers embroidered with honeybees.

“Hello,” Aida said. “We are looking for Doctor Yip.”

“You have found him.”

When Winter turned to face him, Yip froze. Aida tensed herself, hoping the elderly man hadn’t recognized Winter as a gangster; Winter had said this street was on the edge of a tong leader’s territory. But before she could worry any further, Yip exhaled. “Forgive me, but I do believe you are a very large man.” He grinned, laughing at himself, then nodded at Aida. “Quite wise to have a protector like this when walking some of these streets, young lady.”

She introduced the two of them and the herbalist heartily shook their hands before ushering them farther into the shop. “How can I help you?”

“My landlady sent me here.”

“Oh? Who might that be?”

“Mrs. Lin. She owns the Golden Lotus restaurant on the northern end of Grant.”

“Ah yes. Mrs. Lin—always brings me cookies, trying to fatten me up.”

Aida smiled. “Yes, that’s her. She said you might be able to help us.”

He stepped behind the counter and faced them. “I can try. What do you need? A remedy?”

“Information,” Winter said as he propped up the closed umbrella and removed his gloves.

“About . . . ?”

“Black magic.”

“Black magic,” Doctor Yip repeated, drawing out the words dramatically. “Sorcery? Spells and things? Can’t say I know much, I’m afraid. I’m a healer, not a sorcerer.”

“We don’t need a spell,” Aida clarified. “Something’s been done already. We’re wanting to know how to stop it.”

Curious eyes blinked at Aida. “What kind of something?”

Aida said what she’d rehearsed with Winter on the walk. “We have a friend who’s been cursed. A sorcerer used a spell to open his eyes to the spiritual world—ghosts and things of that nature. And now he’s being haunted by ghosts that have been manipulated by magic.”

“Oh my,” the herbalist said. “Very interesting.”

“Do you believe me, or do you think I’m crazy?” Aida asked with a half smile.

“Strange things happen every day. If you say it’s true, I believe as much as I can without having witnessed it myself. I’ve felt things that I couldn’t explain. I am a Shenist. Do you know what that means?”

Aida nodded. “Mrs. Lin says it’s the old Chinese religion.”

“Most religions are old,” he said with kind smile. “I believe in shens—celestial deities made of spirit. I also believe in lower spirits, other than the ones I worship—what you would call ghosts. It is not a stretch to think that someone could manipulate a spirit of the dead. Though I wouldn’t know how, exactly.”

“Four Chinese coins were found on the person being haunted,” Winter said. “We’ve been told that’s considered unlucky?”

Doctor Yin crossed his arms over his black and gold vest. “Four is very unlucky. In Cantonese, the word for ‘four’ sounds like the word for ‘death.’ In Hong Kong, many buildings do not have fourth floors—or fourteenth, or twenty-fourth. People are careful to avoid the number four on holidays and celebrations, like weddings, or when family members are sick. Westerners call this tetraphobia. But four Chinese coins, you say?”