The Halvorsen estate does not welcome; it merely relents. Wen Yi Chow stands in the centre of the grand foyer, her fingers aching from the weight of the metal-bound case. Outside, the Vermont dusk turns the lake to slate, but inside, the air has the thick, preserved quality of a museum vault. She adjusts the silk collar of her blouse, the small gold seal at her throat feeling suddenly cold against her skin.
Everything is vast and unmoving. The mahogany floorboards are polished to a mirror shine that seems to swallow the dim overhead light rather than reflect it. This is the stillness Auntie Mei Lin spoke of in the Sheung Wan atelier—the silence of a debt that has been waiting since 1948 to be collected. It feels as though the house is holding its breath. Wen Yi glances at the shadows pooling in the corners of the ceiling, her precise dark bob casting a sharp silhouette against the white marble.
A heavy clock chiming elsewhere in the house cuts through the quiet, but it is not the clock that makes her pulse quicken. From the top of the sweeping staircase, a slow, dragging footstep begins to descend.
