Chapter Seven
seven
AUGUST 2024
DAY 3 IN THE HOUSE
MADELINE observed the next day unfurl through each tense hour. Aunt Rennie stayed in her room. Mā shut herself in the library and locked the door. Madeline sat on her thin green sheets, poking at mattress springs and feeling invisible. She turned the events of the past few days over in her head. The toxicology report seemed damning. But would Elaine really walk right back into a murder scene of her own making?
Now that all pretenses had fallen away, the house had become a strategic map. Madeline’s family occupied the library and the entire second floor. Her mother would leave the house for a while and come back, but no one else went anywhere. Nora continued to avoid her. It made more sense now , but still, Madeline wished she knew why she was disliked from the start. She passed time by making conjectures and theories about Nora. What did she think of everything? What was her relationship with her own mother like? Her grandmother? Madeline would likely never find out.
The once sprawling house now felt claustrophobic, and no one spoke without first glancing behind them. The drain groaned and plugged up when Madeline ran the shower. Same with the sink. Whenever she tried to unclog them, she wound up finding clots of dirt. And every once in a while, she would catch the scent of something festering and metallic—like meat? Or blood?—at different places throughout the house, though she could never trace it back to its source.
Late that night Madeline sat on the terrace steps to get some fresh air. She looked up at the intricate, cracked cornices that adorned the sides of the house. The sky was clear and dotted with stars. The property was surrounded by trees and miles away from the nearest grocery store. It seemed as though this place was unmoored from time. Had it only been two days since the reading of the will? Three? Was it Monday or Friday? Instinctively she checked her phone and the bars flickered. The cell service seemed to be getting worse by the day, too.
Madeline heard the door open behind her. “Oh, Yí Mā. Hi.”
Aunt Rennie pointed at the step Madeline sat on. “Can I join?”
Madeline nodded.
Her mother’s half-sister wrapped the skirt of her gauzy linen dress around her. She settled on the step with a sigh, her delicate features relaxing, and offered Madeline her glass.
Madeline took a sip. “I don’t know why adults like red wine.”
Her aunt smiled. “You’re an adult now, aren’t you? 长大了 , Madeline.”
She spoke Mandarin with a rounded accent. Madeline conceded, “I guess. I don’t really feel like it.”
“Sure,” Aunt Rennie said. “Twenty-two is young. You spend your early adulthood thinking you’re still a child, and then one day you wake up and you’re almost fifty.” She held up her glass. “I used to hate this stuff, too. But you get older and some things you used to hate as a kid don’t seem so bad anymore.” She drained her glass and squinted out at the garden, frowning slightly.
A nighttime breeze cut across the terrace. Madeline shivered. Aunt Rennie glanced over. “Should we head in?”
Madeline wavered. “I don’t like being inside. It’s…”
Her aunt smiled. Her teeth were stained from the wine. “Unsettling? Hostile?” She drew out her words, punctuating each consonant.
Madeline nodded. “Yeah. With everything that just happened.” She paused. “Do you know where Mā went today?”
“She left?”
“Yup. For like an hour.”
“No idea.”
“Do you really think she’s right about what happened to Wài Pó?”
“About whether the Dengs were involved, you mean.”
Madeline nodded. “… Right.”
“I don’t know.” Her aunt fidgeted with the gold ring on her index finger.
“She’s so sure of it. And it’s clear that she and Elaine hate each other. I mean—she used to be your housekeeper, right?”
“Daughter of the housekeeper. And the gardener. They were married and Elaine was their kid.”
“Oh. So maybe something happened to her that could have led to her doing something to—to Wài Pó.”
Aunt Rennie wavered. Madeline could sense that the conversation had started to turn. Her aunt seemed to tense. “That’s what your mother thinks.”
“What do you think?”
“None of it really makes sense to me. It could have been an overdose, but Mā was always careful with medication. It’s even harder to believe that Elaine would do something like this to her though. But that’s what your mother seems most convinced of at the moment. What I think doesn’t really matter much, does it?”
It matters to me , Madeline thought. “She’s always been like this to you, hasn’t she?”
Aunt Rennie gave her a long look. “She’s like this to most people.”
“But she’s always harder on you.”
“Oh, sweetie. It’s because I have the specific role of being the family fuckup.”
“That’s not—”
“I have no job. I’m always moving from one Los Angeles sublet to another. My marriage imploded so badly it ended up tabloid clickbait.” She gave a small, resigned laugh. “I know what people say about me.”
“I have no job either,” Madeline said plainly.
“But you have time. I ran out of that a while ago.”
Madeline looked toward the trees. When she was younger, her aunt would sometimes visit. She always swept in with only a few days’ notice. Sometimes she’d be in between auditions and regale them with stories for hours. The parties she snuck into, the celebrities she’d met who were kindest. Then she gave up on acting and did a series of odd theater-related jobs. She would promise to come by for Thanksgiving, but something would always come up last minute. Sometimes Mā would text her for days before she would respond.
The last time Yí Mā visited, she announced she was getting married to an art collector in New York and invited them all to the wedding. Months later she called Mā and told her that they’d eloped in Italy on the Amalfi Coast. Her mother had been furious. Madeline understood it stung to be cut out, but she still admired her aunt’s erratic romanticism. She loved Yí Mā’s free and fleeting joy; how easy it was for Madeline to confide in her; how once, sitting at the dinner table, she noticed that her aunt and her mother shared the same smile, the way their lips dimpled in at the corners.
Now Aunt Rennie simply looked deflated. She drifted through the house, left plates unwashed in the sink, and cupboards hanging open. Madeline asked, “What do people say about you?”
Her aunt shrugged. “?‘ Rennie doesn’t know how to handle money.… Rennie runs away from her problems.… Rennie wasted her talent instead of pursuing a stable career.… Rennie sees things like a crazy person .’ Haven’t you heard it all?”
Madeline had heard all but the last. A peculiar sensation settled over her. “What do you mean, see things?”
Aunt Rennie frowned. She opened her mouth as if to say something, and then shut it. “Never mind.”
“What do you see? Like—ghosts?”
“It’s not—” Her aunt faltered. Already she seemed to close off. She gathered up her skirt. “I don’t know what I’m saying. It’s cold out here. I want to go in.” There was a rustle as she stood. Madeline watched her head in, and chewed on the inside of her cheek.
After a while, the door opened again. Mā stood over her, her arms tightly crossed.
“Oh. You’re back. Where’d you go?” Madeline asked.
Mā didn’t answer. “What were you and Yí Mā talking about?”
“Nothing, really.” Madeline craned her neck to look into her mother’s face. “Did something happen in this house? Between you and Elaine?”
“No,” her mother said brusquely. “Why? Did Yí Mā say that?”
“No, I just—”
Her mother switched to Mandarin. “You shouldn’t spend so much time out here. It’s late. And cold. And dirty.”
A long pause. Madeline bundled her knees to her chest. “I’m okay for now.”
Her mother’s presence didn’t budge. Finally, she said with a sudden sharpness in her voice, “Madeline. Go inside.”
In any other circumstance, she would get up. But Mā’s tone grated on her. This was the first time she had seen her mother all day and she hadn’t even asked how Madeline was doing. She felt like a scolded child.
“I heard you,” Madeline said without moving.
Her mother went in without another word.
Madeline didn’t know how long she had been outside. At some point the cold set in and her fingertips went numb. But the wine lingered in her head and kept her warm on the inside.
She made her way to the cracked stone fountain in the garden and looked back at the exterior of the house. It really was beautiful. As she stood watching, the lights in the windows went out one by one. Her mother and Yí Mā must be preparing for bed.
The round lights on the terrace didn’t work anymore, so as she walked on, she relied on the bright moon to light her way. Slipping her hands in her pockets, she stepped onto what seemed like the remnants of an old path, and, stopping to the left of the fountain, carefully picked her way to that perfect rose. Several pale pink buds, almost luminescent at the tips that surged to a deep red toward the center, formed bursts of color among the roots and overgrown vines. Madeline took in a breath and reached out for the petals. They were light and fluid, as if they were crafted from silk.
She leaned in, expecting the buds to have a faint, sweet scent. But instead the petals emitted that raw, sharp odor of rust.
The air was clear with no mist, but the ground felt damp to the touch. Madeline glanced back at the darkened house again and saw the kitchen light from downstairs sputter on. Who had gotten up?
Suddenly she stumbled, as something laced around her ankles and pulled.
She pitched forward. She scrambled, first in confusion, then in panic, to grab at what had now fastened itself around her feet and seized her ankles.
They were vines. Thick and unyielding as rope.
Her panicked breaths rushed in and out. She grasped the vines, dug into them with her fingernails, trying to pry them off, but they didn’t budge. Even the ground was unsteady. The dirt was warm and soft, pulsing like a living thing, giving way beneath her.
A whimper escaped her lips. She wrapped both hands around her leg in an effort to tug it free, but it was useless. New vines shot out from the ground and lashed around her knees, dragging her farther into the dirt.
She was going to have to cut herself free. She fumbled around in her pocket. Nothing. A pen. She pulled it out, stabbing at the vines around her, and she almost breathed a sigh of relief when they seemed to retract, like a wounded animal, but it was only for a second. Before Madeline could react, the vines surged forward again with a vengeance and lashed around her arm.
Something punctured into the skin of her arm, and she screamed. She heaved onto her elbows and stomach, her face only inches away from the roses she had just been admiring. The rotten, revolting smell of rust rose from the dirt itself. She tried to find purchase, but her fingers sank into soil that seemed to be rising around her. The vines laced around her back now, and her breath sputtered out in frantic gasps. She could feel the cords creeping up her back, to her shoulders.
Madeline tried to scream louder, but the vines pulled her face forward into the dirt. Wrestling her head to the side, she tried to keep drawing air into her lungs, but she sucked in dirt instead and now she was gagging on it.
Dirt filled her mouth, choking out her screams. Madeline imagined for a fleeting moment what it would be like to be buried alive, to be crushed under the leaden weight of the earth.
And then she felt someone’s fingers grab on to her.
NORA set the kettle on the stove. It made a clatter and water sloshed out. Impulsively, she cringed and looked around, hoping no one else was there to see. But this instinct to be invisible made her angry. So what if she made a sound? She was tiptoeing around, eating after the Yin family had eaten, like she was the help, even though this was technically her mother’s house.
She turned the stove on. The burner glowed to life, and she peered out at the garden, looking for any sign of her mother. If Mā didn’t remember gripping Nora hard enough that she’d left a mark, what else could she do in her sleep?
But Mā wasn’t out there tonight. Nora was just on edge. The water came to a boil, and she cut the flame and poured it over her tea. She was practicing taking deep breaths when she saw something move in the garden.
Nora nearly dropped her tea. It splashed on the table and over Nora, burning her. She yelped in pain and marched to the glass kitchen door. She wrenched it open. Was someone out there?
If this place is messing with me again—
She heard a shrill scream and saw the flash of a white sleeve.
Madeline.
Nora didn’t think. She bolted down the stone steps and out onto the grounds, trying to follow the sound. There was another flash of white and she ran toward it.
At first, Nora couldn’t see Madeline at all. Breathing hard, she found herself standing in front of what looked like a large tangle of dead vegetation, until it dawned on Nora that it was moving. Madeline must be underneath, covered—no, swarmed — with vines. She heard a stifled cry and saw another flash of Madeline’s shirt to the left. She was reaching out as roots wrapped around her feet and her stomach, across her shoulders.
Nora leapt over and grabbed Madeline’s arm. She yanked ferociously on a thick handful of the vines. Digging her heels in, she threw her weight backward, but as she pulled, thorns sliced through her palms, causing her to jerk away.
Her blood dripped onto the vines as she stood over the tangle, her mind blanked with panic and in pain. Gathering herself, she reached for the vines again and pulled, gritting her teeth through the sharp pain. This time, the vines slackened.
Nora’s knees buckled from the sudden lack of resistance, and she fell back, pulling some vines with her. Madeline ripped one arm free. Nora tugged on Madeline’s arm, out of the vines. All at once the vines retracted and they tumbled, hard, against the ground. The back of Nora’s head hit the ground, hard. Dazed, Nora heard Madeline’s ragged gasps against her ear and registered her weight on top of Nora.
Looking around her, Nora realized she was now eye level with several roses. Roses? When had these appeared in the garden? She had thought everything out here was dead. But these were a beautiful light pink, though something like mud seeped from their centers.
No—it was blood .
Madeline and Nora sprang apart. Madeline flung the remaining vines off. “Get—away,” Madeline choked. They raced back toward the house. They ran up the steps and tumbled onto the terrace. Nora knelt on the ground, panting. Madeline coughed and gagged, heaving over the stones.
Nora looked over and her first thought was: she’s bleeding. So was she. She could feel the searing pain at the center of her left palm where the thorns had cut the deepest. Blood was welling up inside the other cuts and dripping down her arms.
Madeline looked up, saliva pooling on her lips, her delicate features frozen in terror and her face streaked with dirt. The words lodged in Nora’s throat. They’d never spoken. She had to say something , but she didn’t know how to start. Her voice came out hoarse. “My mom told me never to go into the garden. You shouldn’t either.”
Madeline just stared.
Nora curled her hand into a fist, pressing her fingertips onto the wound to staunch the blood. A long silence passed between them until Madeline pushed herself to her feet without a word and walked back into the house, leaving Nora alone and shivering.