They arrive at 6:30 on the dot—Alma adjusting the tiny floral scarf around her neck, and Thomas beside her with a bowl of greens already dressed. They have a healthy vacation glow and sunglasses-shaped tan lines around their eyes.
“Hello, girls,” Alma says. “Don’t you look charming!”
By accident, we’re in matching smock dresses; my sister’s is light blue with a watermelon print and mine fire-engine red. Mom never quite got over buying us matching clothes from when we were kids. It’s the single “nice” thing we packed. Lily and I smile, together, and open the French doors for them.
“How about a tour upstairs while we wait?” I ask, with the precise enthusiasm of someone whose distant father ordained them as Guide of This Blessed Evening in a House They Still Don’t Want to Be In. I’d barely had time to set up and check if Florence’s haunting trick would work. It’s a gamble how outraged or frightened everyone will be by dinner’s end.
“We’d love that,” Thomas replies, putting the salad on a gleaming table. Alma produces a bottle of wine from her bag to rest beside it.
They marvel the entire way upstairs, fingers running along the stair rail Ba commanded Lily and I sand and then moisturize with linseed oil. Its wood grain is clearer than the lines on my palms.
Lily’s room, Paris at Night, is first and perfectly made. Arcs of light bounce from the star chandelier to the walls, but what’s got the couple’s attention is the antique vanity table with a three-paneled mirror. “It’s wonderful,” Alma whispers. Her manicured nails clack against the polished surface, caressing the curve to an elaborately chiseled hairbrush. In the mirror’s reflection, her face is covetous. The diamond edge of her chin is ready to cut. In this house, her cigarette stench is wrong, as out of place as soured milk or a dead rat. “I love a beautiful antique. When we saw it earlier this summer, it looked beyond repair.”
“Dad has been hard at work,” Lily says, beaming and lying through her teeth—about this at least. She restored this piece and its contents under YouTube’s direction.
They admire similar features in other rooms, whatever is old and renewed, like the twin bed frames in French Countryside Getaway. The master bedroom’s the only one they don’t enter, maybe repelled by that sensation that we are trespassing. Its balcony has stayed closed since the king mattress was brought in. In mine, I stand between them and my belongings, in case they’re tempted to be handsy with my privacy. I’d hidden one of Florence’s Bluetooth devices here.
“It’s extraordinary,” Thomas says after, back in the dining room. “You can feel the heft of this house’s history.”
There are no wineglasses, so Alma pours red wine into four regular glasses, one topped off higher.
“Thank you,” Ba answers, stepping in from the kitchen. He’s moussed his hair and pressed his slacks. His button-up is unstained. He’s charismatic in his own way, when he wants to be, so the fact that he’s carrying three bowls of hot soup doesn’t detract from the image of businesslike sophistication. “All of it was waiting for a patient hand, and investors who saw its value.” His large eyes follow the wine being distributed. “Three for the adults.”
“Don’t be silly, Cường,” Alma says without proper intonation. I flinch, swallowing the right pronunciation. “A few sips never hurt a child. Italy and France, they enjoy a bit of spirits with their meals.” She winks at me.
“How old are you, Jade?” Thomas asks. “Eighteen? Nineteen?”
“Seventeen,” I say. “I turn eighteen in two weeks.”
“Same day as the opening, then?” Alma fishes through her bag and reveals the invitation Lily prepared last time. She slides it over to Lily, and I glimpse the pen marks all over it. “I have a little feedback here.”
Please join us July 28th for Nhà Hoa’s opening party.
I grip my glass. “Yep.” Lily should’ve been the one to tell me first. Ba looks unbothered. Since cake’s the last thing I came here for, I smile very bright and raise my wine. “May the weather be perfect, and may the house bring in beaucoup money.” The liquid sloshes over my papery tongue, bittersweet, and Alma and Thomas pause before bursting into wild laughter. It echoes, though the house is full. Over the rim of his glass, Ba is bothered now.
Soon, the savory scent of wonton soup lures us in. Thomas pops a wonton in his mouth, breaking for a mmmm, while Alma compliments Ba on his cooking. I’m about to slurp up chewy egg noodles when I notice Lily isn’t touching her food. Crap. I didn’t make sure there was a vegan option. Our parents taught us to never waste anything, and Ba counts on us to never make a scene.
I slide her bowl closer to mine, but she snaps, low. “It’s fine. I’ll eat it.” She glares at her meal as if ramping herself up to wrestle a bear.
“It’s fine, I’ll eat it,” I say, even though I’m still annoyed with her. I place the entire salad in front of her instead. It’s all lettuce and nuts. “Hang on.”
It’s a good excuse to slip away to the kitchen. The soup is still simmering on the stove, in case people want more, and packets of yellow noodles wait on the counter for boiling. I shoot a text to Florence: eating, soon okay?
I open the refrigerator. Whether it’s the heartiest of vegetables or brand-new meat, each day we wake to the smell of something gone off. That smell lingers even after we remove the offending rot, like now. Our moods spoil or are spoiled; it’s hard to tell. The tomato and cucumber inside, however, are from the garden, freshly harvested. By the time I’m done washing and slicing them in thick wedges, Florence has texted me back.
T minus 5. Dancer emoji.
The smile has to be forced from my face before I return to the dining room. My phone slips into my lap as I nudge the additional ingredients into Lily’s sad salad.
After daintily swallowing a spoonful, Alma adds to the reno conversation, “I would definitely go for holly or even koa for the pergola. Both look more expensive.”
At her side, Thomas gulps down some noodles and gestures with chopsticks. “I have a cousin who ships wood from all over. I can wrangle a good deal out of him.”
“We’ll have to rush if we wait any longer,” Ba says. “It has to be perfect for opening day, so people get excited and make reservations right away.”
Any second now and the noise will start, so I fixate on my wontons instead. The wrapper is not overly soft, the filling delicate with a bit of a kick. It’s been so long since we had this that the flavor consumes me. Did Ba change his recipe? I chew slowly, tongue lingering over new textures. Who has he tested his meals on, if not us? Maybe I’ve just forgotten what this tastes like. Mom doesn’t cook often with how late she works at the nail salon.
A sharp trill breaks the silence from upstairs. I jump a little in my seat, having been embarrassingly focused on my meal. It grows, full blast, in crescendo.
Alma hesitates on their next wood option and peers at the ceiling. Thomas’s attention shifts as well. “Is that …?”
“Music,” Ba says before turning to me and Lily. “Did you leave something on upstairs?”
“No,” we answer together. Wiping my chin, I add a “that’s creepy.”
It’s the musical score for some movie. It cuts briefly to the sharp wail of a sad woman. Fucking hell, is that Billie Eilish? I resist the urge to rub the spot between my brows. Luckily, Florence’s distant DJing ends then. For now.
“You must’ve,” Ba says sternly.
Lily comes to the rescue with a very ironic question. “So, where are you both from?”
“Cold Spring, New York.” Thomas smiles across the table at Lily. “We sold our house a while back to do some traveling, but our kids are there still.”
It’d be better to work my way slowly into the topic of this house and its history, but I can’t do this all night. “What brought you here?” I pause, twirling noodles innocently. “There are so many old and new villas in Đà Lạt. Why choose this one?”
“New isn’t always better,” says Alma. Her expression is amused, like we’re sharing an inside joke. “In the States, this house would be a historic landmark. Not many people could afford the cost of upkeeping such a marvelous house.”
Thomas chips in, “And it’s so hard for foreigners to get any kind of footing in this country.” He halts, probably realizing who he’s talking to, before clarifying his point. “What I mean is, bureaucratic rules about who can own what, and travel visas. Our lawyer fussed for months over the paperwork alone. That type of thing! Thank God we found your dad and his business partner. And as for why this house …” He glances expectantly at his wife.
A flush almost as dark as wine colors her cheeks. “As I mentioned before, I did my dissertation on the founding of French Indochina, so my interest is both professional and personal.”
“Oh my god,” I say. “Right, that’s so cool.” The phone is hot in my lap under the table, open on a music player. “Did something special draw you to this house? From your research.”
“Oh yes.” Alma clasps her hands together. Obviously smitten with his wife, Thomas tucks her stray hair back into the fluffy bob.
In rising excitement and volume, Alma says, “Roger Dumont was key in establishing order in this region, but his wife, Marion, was a very accomplished linguist in her time. Latin, German, et cetera, all the great languages, and then of course she had to come here with her husband. She became quite good at Vietnamese too. It’s a bit unusual for spouses to come along, but she was an absolute asset to her husband. She was known as the Lady of Many Tongues.”
Here’s my treasure trove of highly specific and obscure information. Ba’s fist closes tightly around his chopsticks, ready to snap. Right, Roger and Marion employed our family. We were here first, and yet where are we in history books?
Alma can’t be stopped now, judging by the animated look in her eyes. “Marion held many parties and meetings in this house,” she says. “Entertaining officers on leave, translating documents where needed, of course. Geniuses hardly have their equals, so she never had any reason or want to actually associate outside of this house. Unfortunate though. She could’ve been a great teacher to the locals.”
Because I need to know for myself how no one cared for the way my family tended the hydrangeas that live until this day, I ask, “Did someone else live here?”
“No, not really,” she says slowly. “Roger and Marion had children, and personal attendants—a house as big as this needs care—but they were very much distinguished pioneers and masters of their hearth.”
The woman has her PhD in colonization, but that doesn’t mean I’m happy she knows more than me—however fractured that knowledge. Having perfected the art of texting with a phone in your lap, I press Play.
I’m shocked it isn’t Thriller playing, but the beat’s aggressive and jars Alma out of her reporting. I turn it louder, never once glancing down. Lily’s eyes widen, torn lettuce at the corner of her mouth. Thomas places a hand over his heart, staring wildly around.
Ba has had enough. His napkin smacks against the table. “I’ll check.”
And this is why it’s me and not Florence controlling the speakers from outside the entire time. As long as I know where Ba and everyone are, I can let the music ring out from upstairs, hand hovering over the stop key. I listen for the creaking steps and crooning floorboards beneath the sharp entanglement of spoons and forks. When I think he’s too close to a speaker, I shut off the player completely.
He doesn’t join us for several minutes, during which they—we—wait, tense.
“It was my computer,” Ba lies, chuckling. “Left it on earlier. All off now.” He scans the table, then picks up the bottle of wine. “How about another?”
It doesn’t take a long time to send them off afterward, once the soup grows tepid and the conversation one-sided. The music picks up periodically, and Ba says he’s got to get that computer checked. Lily and Ba are exhausted at the end of it. On our way upstairs, Lily confides in me that Ba seems to be lying. I agree, because I know. I’m not really lying to her by agreeing.
Later, I run the faucet in the bathroom before stepping on the toilet lid. Reaching around folded towels, I find the small hole eaten through the wall. Rats, I reason again, because of the droppings scattered nearby, and reach in to search along the side. The tape unsticks, and a Bluetooth speaker falls into my grip.
Buzzing with wine, I message Florence: Mission accomplished! Bells emoji, champagne emoji, dancer emoji.
The last thing to drift in my mind is them, the Dumonts, and whether the Lady of Many Tongues had red hair. If they haunted Cam in her dreams. Perhaps Marion Dumont never left, even after dying, but I have tomorrow for solving mysteries. Right now, I’m allowed to feel enough. I’m allowed to sleep, proud of what I’ve done.
I wake drowning in sweat, sloughing layers like a second skin. I forget where I am until the crown molding blinks into view. Nhà Hoa. Đà Lạt. Vietnam.
Dawn is far from my window. Invisible weight anchors my body to the bed, threatening to skewer me on its coils.
In the hallway, metal teeth grumble on wood, the sound exactly like the workers’ handsaws on overgrown roots. It doesn’t come closer, only moves back and forth.
My eyes strain against the paralysis, but I see nothing but the closed door. The sound repeats, grating inside my ears.
When will it be done sawing? What is it sawing?
My jaw is locked tight, so the heart can’t escape upward in a panic.
I had developed a routine to get through this in the past few days: count, breathe, count, relax what you can. But my breath, in and out, falls in line with the saw.
Back and forth.
One, two, three, four—
Forth and back.
Five, six, seven—
Again, something is being cut; dug into; desecrated.
I burst from under the blanket and throw all the fabric to the ground, breathing unevenly and flexing fingers and toes. Mine, all mine and working. My belly’s still swimming with wontons and sliced green onion. I’m a container too full of quartered party hats.
Back and forth.
Did I forget to put the speaker away? Is Florence playing a prank on me?
It’s scary to think of her among the pines at night. The floor is cold under my feet; nothing’s been watching me from the side of the bed.
I touch the doorknob, then twist it. It’s a dark hallway except for a shock of pale flesh. I switch the light on, thankful Ba installed something useful instead of beautiful, and see.
She stands, spine toward me, outside the neighboring room. There’s a red box cutter in her hand, and she cuts it deep into the door frame, white flecks gathering on a sheath of black hair. Over and over again.
It’s Lily—it has to be Lily, the hair has a line crunched in from a hair tie, and yet I don’t want it to be. The ridge of her working shoulder blade shows under thin lilac pajamas.
My hand is out, reaching. I touch her arm.
Nothing happens, for a second.
A force throws me halfway over the railing. My tailbone throbs as I arch over that sanded wood, one hand slack on her sleeve and another clinging to the banister. She fucking threw me. I try to make sense of it and her glazed-over eyes.
The blade on the box cutter is a shark fin of gray, drawing near to my throat. I can either fall or be cut.
“Lily!” My scream is swallowed whole in this house.
A deeper voice answers. “Lily.”
My dad’s reddish-brown arms encircle my sister’s, pulling her away with a soft “shhh.”
“Thức dậy,” he orders. Wake up.
I’m frozen over the railing.
“She wanted to see how tall I was,” Lily mutters, the box cutter dropping. “She wanted to see how tall I was.”
My body unbends, listening. “Who?” I ask. She blinks rapidly.
“You were sleepwalking,” Ba says, patting her head. Slivers of wood fall from her hair. Disoriented and staring at the tool on the floor, Lily begins to cry. I take her into my arms with a nod at our dad. He picks up the box cutter, closing the blade away. I’ve got this. I didn’t remember that I shouldn’t touch her when she’s sleepwalking, that’s all. It’s been forever. Last time was the night before her elementary school graduation.
Although her room is fine, she insists on coming to mine after. Arms full of pillows and blankets, a misty-eyed Lily stops and glances at one wall. “You brought your night-light here?”
“If I didn’t want to trip on shit in America, I also don’t want to trip on shit here,” I say as I unplug it from the wall, pitching us in darkness. When she goes to set up in my bed, I nudge her to the floor. She’s almost fourteen, and this is our normal, and my bed is not safe. What if she wakes up paralyzed too?
It takes a long time for my heart to settle. Lily shuffles on her makeshift bed.
“Are you mad at me?”
“No.”
“Okay, then why am I on the floor?”
“Because I like my space.”
“Are you sure you’re not mad?”
“Lil,” I say, turning over though I prefer sleeping on my back. Every synapse in my brain wants a rational explanation for our experiences. “It’s okay.” I reach down in the dark, and a cold hand takes mine. “It’s going to be okay.” That I can promise; us, the way I would never leave her. “I’m not mad. You were sleepwalking.” Fingers squeeze tightly, our fine bones almost twins.
They hold on to me, almost hurting me, but even in sleep I don’t let go.