Page 82 of The Seekers of Deer Creek

Linh’s skin was so cold on hers that Vivi shivered. Her temperature had gone far beyond the threshold of comfort. She was in a fever, the worst she’d ever experienced. Even her teeth felt like molten beads searing the tissue of her mouth.

Sometime later, through wavering eyelids, she saw a doctor approach the bed. An anise-scented liquid stuck on its way down her throat. He forced a pill between her lips. She tried to bite his fingers and he drew back with a sharp curse.Ð? má, same across all languages. Voices clanged softly together like shaken beads.

When Vivi closed her eyes, beasts ranged across her imagination. Snakes with the heads of tigers. Deer with humpbacks. They clawed at her, as if she were hiding something they needed to find. Blood surged in her ears, but her body was still as a tomb, her lips mute as midnight. She couldn’t fight any of the threats, from within or without.

Hours, maybe more, passed in this confusion. She did not think she could take another minute. But when she woke, it was evening, and she didn’t feel as if she were burning anymore, only deeply sore and parched. Someone was sitting next to her—a warm, solid presence that lifted a glass of water to her lips.

“Button?” she asked, trying to blink past the layers of sleep.

Ki`êu’sface settled into clarity. Concern in his eyes; a creased brow that, for a moment, reminded her of her father rifling for the disability checks in the mail. “Your sister and Linh are fetching more medicine for you. Calla didn’t want you to wake alone.”

“How long—”

“Almost two days. But the fever’s passed.”

Two days lost. There was little chance of recovering the offering and returning to Chicago before the opening ofSea to Earth,especially when her search had yielded nothing at all. She’d looked everywhere at the Old House. If the offering was still there, it was evading her.

She mustered the manners to say, “I can’t thank you all enough. Especially after you warned me not to go alone.”

“There’s no blame between family,” he said. Vivi gave him an odd look; to her, there wasonlyblame between family. “Your sister is distraught, you know.”

“I didn’t mean to worry anyone.”

“She said you’ve been looking for something at the house by the ravine. Did you find it?”

“No.”

“Maybe I can help. With you and your sister nearby, I find it easier to return to my childhood. It’s as if my brother is here, calling for me to join him.”

Vivi jostled herself into a sitting position. “Anything you can share would be helpful. I’d like to understand more aboutTâm. What she was like in her final days.”

“It was a lifetime ago. Before my time.” He sat in thought for a few moments. “ButTâm, MadameLýas we called her then, made an impression on us all. My parents talked about her even after she died. Not just because she’d bought the old family home. But because she was such a novelty. The neighbors simply referred to her as the Foreigner.”

“How did she come to know your family?”

“She’d hiredNg?cas a sort of nurse, and sometimes my grandmother tookTu?nwith her. He was little more than a toddler when MadameLýarrived. She indulged him. I doubt he remembered anything about her either, he was so young.”

“And her relationship with Huy?”

“She took a special liking to my father. One understands why now. He was a musician—a flutist—and sometimes he’d come to her house and play the old songs for her.”

“They were friends?”

“I don’t know that they saw each other as often asNg?csaw MadameLý. But yes, they seemed to have some kind of kinship, from what my grandmother said. It’s a marvel to think of it now. Mother and son, reunited after so many years. I wonder if she, MadameLý, told him who she was.”

“I don’t know. I hope she did. He was her reason for returning toVi?tNam. Did anyone in the family ever mention hearing about a sundial?”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

“A place where time peels from light?”

“That doesn’t strike anything for me either. I know you hoped for something more, but these are only borrowed memories, after all.”

“I understand.”

He offered an affectionate smile. “Sometimes we have to accept that there will be blank spaces that we may never resolve. I’ve studied our family’s lineage for most of my adult life, and still I can’t peer into the past with the clarity I might wish. After all, I hadn’t imagined thatTâmhad returned to us—that she was still alive—until you told me.”

“Doesn’t it frustrate you, knowing so little?”