Page 67 of The Seekers of Deer Creek

A rangy dog barking in a high-pitched tone. Grilled meat studded with pearl droplets of grease. A shuffling in the corridor from the housekeepers wearing too-large plastic slippers. Laundry strung from abalcony—fluttering lace skirts, a wisp-thin blouse, army-gray men’s trousers. Ho Chi Minh City was a riot of color, unapologetic and vital.

Even though Vivi was exhausted and wanted to lie down, she lingered at the window, letting each gale of sensation wind through her, momentarily grateful that they’d been led to this unlikely home.

“It feels different here,” she said. “All those people who look like us. But not.”

“I know what you mean. My chest is open.”

Vivi marveled. “You’re right. That’s exactly what it is. I feel like my breath is finally filling me up. What do you think it is about this place?”

“Diesel fumes.” Calla flounced onto the bed, popping a wasabi-covered pea into her mouth. “Let’s get some food atB?n ThànhMarket. And then maybe we’ll go to the C? Chi tunnels. We can’t pass up the Museum of Fine Arts either.”

“We’re not tourists.”

“Sure we are.”

“We should go to the address on the envelope first. Our uncle’s address.”

“And we will. But it’ll be there tomorrow. How often are we in Ho Chi Minh City together? We’ve got nothing but time.”

This was true, and yet, in the back of her mind, Vivi still counted down the days toSea to Earth. A little under a week to go now. Samuel would be caught up in last-minute preparations, adjusting the lighting, fine-tuning his welcome speech. If she’d been there, she’d be caught up in the flurry too. There was always a crackling anticipation before a big exhibition. It was addictive, this sense of possibility, this potential to brush with greatness.

Calla sensed her indecision and pounced on it. “We’ll have to get food anyway. Like you’re always telling me, I’m too skinny. And when was the last time you hadbún bòHu?... ?”

Vivi’s stomach gave a responsive grumble. “Okay, fine. Let’s go. Butjustdinner.”

Calla thrived within the slurry of chaos and activity at the market. The hall was packed with locals and tourists reaching over one another for the best wares, small dogs weaving between their legs. The tall ceilings were vaulted, the lighting glaring. Plastic fans were affixed to the frames of each stall, whipping about the smells until it was impossible to distinguish them.

There was an atemporality to the scene that reminded Vivi of a Christina Rossetti poem, “Goblin Market,” that she’d been assigned in her freshman lit course. In it, two sisters are lured in by enchanted fruits, until one of the sisters, the greedier and more impetuous one, nearly dies from hunger once she cannot find the market—and its forbidden wares—again. The poet’s brother, the famous Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, had illustrated the poem with wood-block prints of the devoted sisters intertwined in bed as sinister goblins tempted them in their dreams.

But Vivi’s goblins weren’t there inB?n ThànhMarket. They existed beyond the scope of reality, as malicious and ephemeral as the monsters of Rossetti’s fairy tale. That’s what made them so frightening.

The din of the market dizzied her. Her mind, unaccustomed to constant translation, now taxed with yet another time change, had become overstrung with wires of French and Vietnamese, until she felt like there was a smoking circuit board where her brain should be.

Someone bumped into her, shaking the images from her mind. “Xinl?i,cô. Désolé.”

A few paces ahead, Calla was leaping from stall to stall, haggling in her rudimentary Vietnamese as she perused stacks of loose-leaf teas and fabrics. She gesticulated in ballooning arcs, her cheeks flushed in excitement. Vivi drifted to a stand with a neat display of lacquerware. She thumbed through the plates and cups until she saw a red box nestled behind them all. On the top of the box, a dragon had been painted infine lines of gold, all serpentine curls and whiskers. A creature of earth and sea.

The last time Vivi had seen Phoebe, she had told Vivi all about vivianite, a rare, translucent mineral that grows in damp places, including decomposing corpses. For all her love of princesses and knights, Phoebe had a macabre streak that’d delighted Vivi. A lacquer box could hold all manner of treasures for a child with a florid imagination.

Vivi began to pay for the box, but then Calla edged in front of her. She shook her bob back and forth at the vendor.

“No, no, that’s too expensive,” Calla said, adopting the tone of a brisk and vaguely disgruntled Vietnamese shopkeeper. Vivi stared at her sister, bemused by the minor transformation. “It’s not even real lacquer, ha. We’ll give you thirtyd?ng.”

The vendor scoffed and began arguing in rapid Vietnamese as Calla crossed her arms. Vivi tugged at Calla’s shirt hem and said, “It’s fine. I’ll just pay what she asked. Do you even know what she’s saying?”

Calla shushed her and began negotiating again, embarrassing Vivi to no end. Minutes later, triumphant, Calla handed her the lacquer box, acquired for marginally less than the asking price. Vivi tucked the box into her messenger bag. The vendor smiled toothily at them, no trace of her prior ire to be found.

“Come back soon,” she said.

“See?” Calla crowed. “You have to play the game, Bee. What’s this box for anyway? Not really your taste, is it?”

“It’s for Phoebe.”

“Because you love her. Because you love Samuel?”

“I guess,” Vivi said miserably.

Now that he was gone, really and truly gone, she found herself able to miss him. She wondered if it were a personality flaw, that she could only let herself become tender and vulnerable after a person had left. That her love could only blossom in the shade of memory, like a fussy night bloomer.