I coughed and spat straw from my mouth. "Spit it out, child. Don't swallow the barn," Aunt Li snapped, tugging my chin up by the braid. My voice came out thin and small. My mind pushed words shaped like a woman who had filed papers until midnight, who had argued over rent with numbers on a glowing screen that no one here would know. The words sat unused in my skull while my throat screamed with a child's pitch. "She woke," Grandmother Wang said, half relief, half accusation. She crossed her arms and looked as if I owed her silver. I blinked. My hands were too small. My palms smelled of hay and smoke. The bones under my skin were small, the knuckles rounded. I tried to picture the mirror I last saw and froze at the memory of a narrow face surrounded by hair trimmed for office neatness. I had been thirty. Now I had nine years pressed into my ribs. "Can you stand?" Aunt Li demanded. I swung my legs, testing. They obeyed, clumsy and quick. I stood, and the room felt taller than the rooms I remembered from the city. My head swam for a breath. I steadied myself on the table edge. "Who is she?" a voice outside asked. It was Old Zhou's voice. He stood in the doorway, his boots sunk in straw. "Xinlan," Grandmother Wang said like a verdict. "She was weak in the spring. Didn't eat right. Collapsed in