Page 76 of The Manor of Dreams

She stared at her name on the paper. She remembered how her daughters couldn’t look her in the eye. How Edith was whispering to Richard. Her own family thought she was crazy.

When she finally fell asleep that night, she dreamed that she stood in the doorway of her bedroom. This time, Laura Dalby just sat on the bed. Her bloodied nightgown hung from her in shreds. She looked directly at Vivian with an empty gaze. Her eyes were sunken, her lips pale. She bared her neck and Vivian could see the flesh slashed at her throat, exposing the severed tendons.

“He killed me,” she said, as blood spurted between her teeth and splattered onto her nightgown. “He’ll kill you too.”

Vivian was not safe. The next day she woke up and was possessed by a numb sense of dread. When she drove, her hands shook at the steering wheel until she had to pull over. She felt like she was wading through fog. That night, and then the next, and the next, she let herself be held by her husband. He didn’t raise his voice at her again. His kindness felt like a threat. A truce forced by sheer will.

He’ll kill you too.

She sat at her vanity that morning and stared at her reflection.

Her skin was uneven and dry. Divots probed between her brows and wrinkles lined her eyes. Her eyes were puffier than they used to be. The skin on her neck, once taut, now sagged slightly. She pressed her fingers lightly to the splotches of bruises that trailed down the left side of her neck and on her collarbone. They were just beginning to yellow around the edges.

It was still painful to swallow. She started to feel light-headed again. What day was today? In the mirror, a hand slipped around her throat. Panic clamped down on her. She couldn’t breathe. Vivian clawed at her throat, yelping in pain when she scratched into flesh.

The dizziness passed and suddenly she was able to draw a breath again. Vivian looked back up at the mirror and the hand was gone. She had dug her nails into herself and scratched her own throat. She was safe. There was no one else here.

“???,” she muttered to herself. Shewasill in the nerves. She was seeing things that were not there. No wonder her husband wanted to put her into a mental institution. But she couldn’t leave him alone with her daughters. Not ever. She saw how he’d acted toward Ada. If she wasn’t around, Vivian couldn’t begin to think about who he might take his anger out on instead.

That night, after she finally sank into sleep, she opened her eyes to find that she was being buried in an open grave. Dirt piled up on her body as she screamed her daughters’ names. They stared at her with blank eyes. When Rennie turned, she saw that the side of her jaw was covered with bruises. Her mouth filled with earth.

Vivian lurched up from her nightmare. She went to Rennie’s roomand eased open the door. Her daughter slept peacefully, her hand curled up next to her on the pillow. Vivian closed the door in relief.

She went downstairs, then down the terrace steps and felt the dirt crumble under her feet. Sophie was trying her best, but in Josiah’s absence, a few weeds had sprouted. Vivian knelt. She couldn’t shake herself from her nightmares. The one she just had, with her daughter being hurt. The one she had nights ago, where Laura Dalby was murdered.

She stared around her. Everything—this serene garden, the house they’d built, was not a peaceful place. Amos Dalby had died in this garden. Laura Dalby had died in the house.

She shuddered with another horrifying speculation. What if the robbery had not been random after all? Even if Amos had been out of the house at the time, that didn’t mean he couldn’t have arranged his wife’s death. That notion was no longer an impossibility. Vivian now knew her own husband could kill her. He might. His jealousy had festered for years and now it was lethal. If he couldn’t kill her for it, he would take everything from her and leave her to rot in a facility, and then he was going to hurt her children.

She ground her fist into the soil. She remembered how long ago she had heard stories from an old woman in the city where she grew up about how Ming dynasty concubines were buried with their emperor when he died. Vivian, Yin Zi-Lian then, had asked her how they all happened to die at the same time.

The woman had looked at her with a chilling expression. “They were buried alive, child. They had no choice.”

But Vivian did. She was not going to let her husband ruin her or her children. Vivian Yin had fought tooth and nail to survive in this country. To make sure her children survived. She would not die a good wife.

twenty-eight

JULY 1990

SOPHIEnearly had a heart attack when she found Vivian, surrounded by a cluster of potted flowers, in the middle of the night. The actress had a wild look in her eyes; her hands were covered in soil.

“A Yí?” On instinct, Sophie moved to hide the flowers she’d plucked, and fixed her hands behind her back.

Her mother had told Sophie that Vivian had been acting erratic recently. And now, finding Vivian out here pawing through the soil in her satin pajamas and some leather gloves, surrounded by pots of flowers Sophie had never seen before, it seemed like Ma was right.

Vivian’s eyes narrowed. “What are you doing out here this late?”

Sophie cleared her throat. “Um. I was just taking a walk. Couldn’t sleep.”

“I couldn’t sleep either,” Vivian said softly. She stared around her as if she were trying to get a sense of her bearings. “I thought I’d… plant some new flowers.”

“What flowers?”

Vivian’s gaze shifted down. “What are you holding in your hands?”

Shit.Sophie hesitated. “I…”

“Go on, show me.”

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