Keen and I both put so much strength into being able to get out. And we thought we did. We thought we were going to escape our prison soon. With full ride scholarships to Julliard, Julliard! Mother would be so proud of us. But little did we know, our pride and strength. Our musical talent would very soon become our curse. And bring us to a prison we’d never be able to escape. Those beasts of the night we heard stories about growing up as kids, the legends of ‘cold ones, and blood drinkers… Never would I have thought them to be true.

Often when I am asked about my new novel, ‘The Headmaster’s Wager’, I am asked about my memories of my late grandfather. This does not surprise me. After all, I have written a book in which the protagonist, Percival Chen, shares many characteristics with my grandfather. Percival is the headmaster of an English school in wartime Vietnam, as was my grandfather. Percival lives most of his adult life in Vietnam but is ethnically Chinese, and this is crucial to his sense of identity. In addition to being a successful educator and entrepreneur, he is a gambler, drinker, and womanizer. All of these qualities in Percival are inspired by my grandfather. I choose that word carefully – inspired. The book is a work of fiction, and is not ‘based upon’ my grandfather’s life. It does not memorialize him or recount his actions or memories. Instead, it picks up on a thread of his life, and an era he experienced.

The bandages that covered his face in life have fallen away, all incinerated and hanging loosely around his neck. His face is completely destroyed. Unrecognizable. The skin covering his face is no longer there, all having melted away. His blood vessels have all burst, his nerves have fried along with the majority of his muscles. His jaw opens and closes a little bit. His eyes bore into me. They're large and round and completely accusing. His teeth are covered in bits of burnt muscle. I feel my heart thudding in my chest. He steps closer, closer. His bone gleams in the dim light. As he closes in on me, a pounding noise begins ringing through my ears. My heart beat- ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. It looked like he had been tossed into a fryer, fried alive, and he had been. By me. I did this to someone. I killed someone's team mate, someone's son. I killed someone's important person. -- Kimiko Kioku, a memory keeper. Never forgets anything, always notices, from the exact way the wind blew her hair against her face to coloring with her brother at five to the lullaby her mother would sing to her as she rocked her when she was not even a year old. She remembers. She remembers the blood, the glassy, clouded over eyes her brother had as he said his last words. She remembers the very first person she killed. She remembers how abandoned she feels, and how everything always feels like it's falling apart at the seams. (Can you say 'worst summary ever to exist'? Okay, maybe not that bad. But still pretty bad.)