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“You don’t have any reason to be jealous, you know,” Ada said. “Just because I loved her doesn’t mean I stopped loving you.”

Lucille couldn’t speak. To hear her voice after so long was astonishing. So young, so high-pitched. “It’s a different love, that’s all,” Ada continued.

Lucille opened her mouth, though what came out felt hollow and automatic, like she was acting out a script she hadn’t written. “But it’s wrong.”

Ada’s eyes fluttered open and she looked at Lucille with a clear gaze. “Don’t tell me you still believe that.” She put a hand over her eyes. “She thinks it was wrong now, though. Now she’s angry.”

“Where is she?” Lucille asked.

“You know.”

Lucille sat up and looked around. There was no one else in the garden.

“She was so sweet,” Ada sighed. “When I said that the daisies were my favorite, she brought me the most beautiful daisies I had ever seen.” She looked at Lucille. “That’s why I brought you back here. This is when she was kindest. We’re safe here.”

“Safe,” Lucille asked, “from what?”

“Remember????”

“Dream of the Red Chamber?” Ma loved reading the Chinese classic to them. She’d always remind them that she had once played Lin Daiyu in the movie. They would curl up on the living room couches and read the tragic story of Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu. How they fell in love as their family dynasties soured into ruin.

“There’s a line in there,” Ada said. “???????.”

When what is false is taken for truth, true becomes indiscernible from false.

“Ada,” Lucille whispered. “Why are you telling this to me?”

“Because you’ve all been living a lie,” her sister said. “All this time. About what Ma had done. She did it to protect you.”

A slow dread settled upon her. As if she were finally realizing—no,rememberingwhat had happened that summer. “Mèi Mei…”

“And now that you know the truth, I need to tell you something, too.”

Ada sat up.

Her sister was seventeen. They were seventeen. The year was 1990. But was it? She felt a burgeoning sense of fear. Something horrible had happened. “What’s going on?”

Ada’s eyelids fluttered. “I brought you to this time,” she said, “because this was when the garden was safe. But that’s not true anymore. And the house isn’t safe either. This is what Ma was trying to protect you from.”

“Mèi Mei—”

“I’ve been holding the house,” Ada said, her eyes now wide-open and trained on Lucille. “But I can’t do it anymore. She’s breaking through. She’s been angry for a long time, and I thought Ma being gone might appease her. But now that you’re here, her anger is growing like a fire, and I can’t stop it.”

Ada’s placid expression twisted into terror. “You need to get out, Jie Jie.” Her voice rose. She clasped Lucille’s shoulders and shook her. “Wake up, Lucille. Now.YOU NEED TO WAKE UP.”

part three: rot?

forty-one

AUGUST 2024

MADELINEwoke to her bed shaking. But when she sat up, she realized the entirefloorwas shaking. It must be aftershocks of the tremble she’d felt earlier that night, she thought.

Then she saw the vines.

Tonight they weren’t flickering in the corner of her vision. Now they slid up the walls, coiling around the nightstand and the headboard.

Wake up.Surely, this was a nightmare.