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AUGUST 2024

DAY 3 IN THE HOUSE

MADELINEobserved the next day unfurl through each tense hour. Aunt Rennie stayed in her room. Ma 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 sensenow, 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 freshair. 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 Ma. 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????, 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 Ma 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 doyouthink?”