Page 31 of The Manor of Dreams

Eugene drained his scotch and looked around. “It is a hell of a house, Richie.”

Jeanette nodded. “The classical influences are gorgeous. I see the Beaux Arts design on those windows. And the decorations, too. A flair of the Orient.”

Vivian was drunk to the point where the lights on the low chandelier were slightly expanding. Eugene rattled the ice around in his glass. “You know, I remember when you first told me about this house. It was a pipe dream, wasn’t it? But you really made it your own.”

“I remember,” Richard said. “You told me not to do it.”

“Well,” Jeanette said. “What with everything that happened with your family—”

Eugene set down his glass, hard. “Jennie.”

Everyone went silent.

What?Vivian wanted to ask. Her dinner guests were looking at one another. Her husband’s face was perfectly blank. She met Jeanette’s eyes, and the other woman quickly glanced away. Her drawn lips puckered. “Don’t mind me. I’m anuisancewhen I’m drunk,” she said. “We just wanted to toast to this beautiful family.”

“Yes,” Eugene said. He tipped his glass up. “To this house of your dreams.”

Finally, Richard smiled. “It’s called Yin Manor,” he said, looking over to Vivian. “I named it for my wife.”

“Isn’t that grand. To the Yin Manor.” Jeanette raised her drink.

As they clinked glasses, Vivian thought back to Cecilia Lowell’s cold eyes, the warning in her aunt’s tone. The look exchanged between Eugene and Jeanette.

What had happened in this house? And why hadn’t her husband told her?

“Now, Richard.” Jeanette leaned forward. Her heavy pendant earrings clinked. “You must tell me. What was Gene like at Yale? I hear you two were quite the pranksters.”

“Thatrequires more drinks.” Eugene laughed, reaching for the decanter. Vivian watched her husband relax.

Vivian smiled. She was starting to feel a little queasy. A sharp, metallic taste filled her mouth. She excused herself and went to the bathroom. She held herself up over the sink. Why was she feeling sosick?

She felt almost feverish. The headaches were frequent these days, and another one was beginning to press behind her eyes. It smelled like rust, still, everywhere, tasted like it. Could it have been the wine?

Another wave of nausea brought her to her knees. Her mouth filled with spit, and she vomited into the toilet. The vile taste of her stomach acid almost made her vomit again. Shakily, she pushed herself up and studied her pallid reflection. For a moment, someone appeared behind her. A man with mottled skin, his eye sockets filled with crumbling dirt. The skin rotting away to show the cheekbones underneath. He opened his mouth and bared his blackened teeth.

This time she lurched forward and vomited into the sink. Again, she forced herself to lift her eyes to the mirror.

The figure was gone.Am I hallucinating?She took shaky breaths and turned on the faucet, which sputtered. Water ran brown for a moment, then clear.

Vivian was dizzy. She needed to get out of here. She washed her hands and left, only to stop short.

Her daughter stood in the foyer.

“Lucille,” she whispered. “What are you doing here?” Her daughter blinked at her, her thumb in her mouth. “Let me get you back into bed.” She scooped the girl up, feeling her solid weight. Lucille was four. Almost too old to be carried, but Vivian did it anyway. She heard voices rising and falling from the dining room as she kissed her daughter’s head and hummed softly to her. She was glad to not have to return to the dinner just yet. To have an excuse to take this moment to collect her nerves. Drink some water.

She set Lucille in bed and went back downstairs. By the time she reentered the dining room, she was smiling at her husband and her guests.

“Sorry,” she said. “I was just checking on my daughter. Where were we?”

They clinked glasses again, and the conversation once more beganto flow. Jeanette offered Vivian tips on hiring nannies; Vivian said that there was already a woman named Edith Fan, who took care of her daughters. Edith was married to Josiah Deng, whom she’d thought about hiring as the gardener; he would be coming over to the house that following Monday, and Vivian would meet him. The conversation circled back to Hollywood. “It’s a small world, you know,” Jeanette said. “Don’t piss anyone off, smile more than you think you need to, and you’ll do just fine.”

What happened in the house?Vivian wanted to stand up and shout. She couldn’t stop thinking about the man with mottled skin. Richard reached for her hand. When she looked at him, her stomach lurched again. The figure in the mirror had looked too much like her husband.

“You all right?” he asked, staring up at her with wide eyes.

She couldn’t make sense of what she wanted to say, so eventually she just nodded and squeezed Richard’s hand. “Of course.” She rose to pour more wine, skipping her own glass. Eugene told another story, and they all laughed.

The next morning Vivian woke up and saw Richard leaning over the bathroom sink, a towel around his waist. He glanced up at her in the mirror. His wet, tousled hair fell in front of his eyes. “Did you feel the house shaking last night?”

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