9
I don't think father quite liked the idea of the ceremony I suggested, but he went along, coaxed by mother, Sam, and me.
Cooking all that food, and fasting for two days, was quite exhausting, but the moment father bowed to a wooden tablet with the name of his ancestors written in ancient Yllamese and introduced me as his daughter, it seemed like the room changed. Maybe it was all the incense making me dizzy, or the smoke making me imagine things, but I saw ghosts, as I sat up to prepare to bow again.
I almost felt them in the room, Yllamese men and women, all non-magical, wondering what I was doing here. They also looked at Sam with interest.
They sat around us, cross-legged in a circle, staring. I stared back, while father prostrated himself in front of the tablet, unaware of what w
