My grandfather liked to tell this story:

When he was a little boy, about 6, he walked to school from the truck farm he lived on. This was in lower Pearl City, near the harbor, back in the ’50s. It took him 30 minutes to walk in slippers on a dirt road to the elementary school, a collection of old wooden buildings.

The pitted road was lined with weeds, tall grass and infrequent kiawe trees. Along the way was a small, neglected cemetery with gray, weathered headstones that tilted one way or another. My grandfather had heard all kinds of stories about the cemetery. It was said that the spirits were angry about being abandoned and disrespected, for no one ever visited.

One afternoon, on his way home, my grandfather noticed a bit of color in the cemetery. There was a can of Primo beer and two pieces of mochi on one of the headstones. The beer can was half empty, and a bite was taken out of a mochi.

A month later a yellow plumeria lei had been draped over a headstone. After three weeks a handful of kakimochi appeared.

My grandfather’s mother speculated that someone was leaving tokens. She guessed that the spirits would be pleased to be remembered again.

There came a day when my grandfather found a black-and-white snapshot of a baby of indeterminate gender. It had wild black hair and startled black eyes.

My grandfather told one of his classmates about the cemetery and its gifts. The classmate, a chunky boy named Rodney, wanted to see it for himself. One murky day after school, my grandfather led Rodney to the cemetery. Rodney kicked at the carpet of dried leaves. He sat on a headstone, dangling his legs. He peered at the baby photograph and managed to bend a corner. There was a handful of li hing mui cracked seeds; Rodney took one and popped it into his cheek. My grandfather didn’t think this was a good idea, but Rodney taunted him until he took a seed, too. They kept at it until all the cracked seeds were gone.

On his way home my grandfather got a thorn in his slipper that drew blood from his heel. That night he had a nightmare where an obake was scrabbling at his bedroom window, trying to get in. In the light of morning, my grandfather detected what looked like finger marks on the glass.

Rodney was not in school. He was missing the rest of the week. During this time my grandfather would run past the cemetery. Once, he tripped — he wasn’t sure how — and was flung headlong into the hard earth. He suffered scrapes to his elbows and knees.

The following week the rumor was that something was wrong with Rodney and that he had been taken to the children’s hospital in Nuuanu.

Immediately my grandfather went to a superette and bought a bag of li hing mui cracked seeds. When he got to the cemetery, there was a man placing a paper plate of andagi on a headstone. Though it had been many years, my grandfather recognized him as the baby in the photograph. The man nodded at my grandfather and left. My grandfather set the bag of cracked seeds next to the andagi.

Rodney returned to school a week later. He had suffered a bad throat infection and was now a much thinner boy. He was less in other ways, too; he was now quiet and passive.

When my grandfather was 10, he and his family left the farm for a house in Kaimuki. He returned many years later for a visit but could not find the cemetery.

While growing up I often asked him, “Is this story really true?”

“What you think?” my grandfather always replied.