Chapter 2
Edward Quan ·
The shrill giggle came closer.
She'd crawled onto me.
Clouded white eyes bored into mine.
Resentful. Evil. Hateful. Venomous.
Hee hee hee.
Still laughing!
“Aaaaaah!”
I screamed.
My vision darkened.
Then I lost consciousness...
...
“Darling, aren't you industrious? Up early cleaning.”
Tôn Đình's voice startled me awake.
I bolted upright, gulping air.
Had it been a dream?
The baby's white-eyed smile had felt terrifyingly real.
She shook my arm.
“What's wrong?”
“Huh?”
I stared at her.
“What did you say?”
She sounded annoyed.
“I said you've cleaned the house beautifully.”
I shook my head.
“I slept all night. I didn't clean anything.”
Her eyes widened. She pointed at the rug beside the bed.
“Look...”
I glanced down.
Not a grain of earth remained on the white shag rug.
How could it be so clean?!
I sprang up and ran into the living room.
The three-centimeter footprint beside the shoe cabinet was gone.
The gleaming floor reflected my pale face.
Thump. Thump.
My heart battered my ribs.
“Impossible... Did I remember wrong?”
Tôn Đình murmured.
“There was mud yesterday. The traces of her coming to find me...”
“You remembered wrong.”
I pulled myself together and comforted her.
“You're exhausted. That's why you imagined her crawling out of the ground.”
“Really?”
She sat on the bed, clutching her head, her words tangled.
“The baby... the mud... None of it existed? Am I really... hallucinating?”
“Rest.”
I poured her some milk and told her to stay in the bedroom and sleep.
I sat on the living-room sofa, breathing deeply, trying to recover from the nightmare.
It had been too real.
I could even remember the smell of decay hitting my face when the baby opened her mouth to laugh...
...
At last, I calmed down.
The urgent thing was to care for my wife.
The operation and the baby's death had drained her.
I searched Zhihu for foods to aid postpartum recovery, intending to buy a silkie chicken and make nourishing soup.
At the market, I heard several women gossiping.
“Are you fooling me? I was digging winter bamboo shoots in the hills yesterday. Didn't see anything strange.”
The hills?
I stopped and listened.
“Why would I lie?”
“Yesterday evening, I saw something crawl out of the bamboo grove myself.”
“Awful-looking thing. Plump and black.”
I tapped her shoulder.
It was our neighbor, Widow Vương.
“What did you see up there?”
She turned.
“Looked like a water monkey. Or a dead child someone had abandoned.”
My face tightened.
I couldn't stop shaking.
Had our child really come back?
Not merely in a dream?
“Oh, Lâm Hoa!”
She recognized me and grinned with yellow teeth.
“Back to hold the baby's one-month celebration?”
I felt sick.
Our baby had been born dead.
What bloody celebration?
Oblivious to my irritation, she continued sarcastically.
“You didn't come when my son got into university. Let's call the gift money even, then.”
“My baby's dead—”
I was about to lose my temper when I realized something.
My father-in-law had thought the stillbirth shameful.
I'd buried her secretly, avoiding everyone.
How could Widow Vương have seen her?
Breathing hard, I asked, “How do you know I brought a baby back?”
“Everyone knows.”
She looked at me oddly.
“I saw your wife feeding her this morning.”
The words struck like lightning.
Our child was dead.
What was Tôn Đình feeding?!
I raced home.
From a distance, I saw her holding a bottle in one hand and a bundle against her chest with the other.
She rocked it slowly as though soothing a baby.
“Đình Đình! What are you doing?”
When she turned, I saw the thing's face.
Huge eyes.
A frightening amount of white.
Black pupils fixed on me.
My whole body shook.
Several seconds passed before I realized it was a plastic doll.
I rushed over and snatched it from her.
“Where did you get this?”
Pop.
Its head broke off and rolled to my feet.
I stamped on it hard.
“Darling, how could you do that to our baby?!”
She was angrier than I was.
Quickly, she crouched to collect the broken pieces.
I shook her shoulders.
“Wake up! This isn't our child!”
“Yes, she is. You hurt her.”
Clutching the broken doll, she insisted:
“Let go. I need to feed her.”
“Enough!”
I shouted.
“Tôn Đình, our child is dead! She's buried in those hills! Do you understand?”
My voice drew the neighbors out.
Widow Vương and the other women's gossip reached me clearly.
“That purple-black thing you saw crawling out yesterday... Wasn't it Lâm Hoa's dead baby?”
“No. Dead babies can't crawl.”
“Why's his wife holding a plastic doll like a treasure?”
“A doll? She must have something wrong with her mind. I thought she was really feeding a baby.”
“Has she gone mad...?”
The overlapping voices made me furious and ashamed.
I sighed and held her tightly.
“You're still recovering. You shouldn't be out in the cold. Come inside and rest.”
“Darling, while I was asleep, I suddenly heard her giggling outside the gate.”
She sobbed into my chest.
“I followed it. Found this doll at the door. So... I fed her.”
I brought her in.
She asked, “Did I make everyone laugh at me?”
“No. Don't worry.”
I gently rubbed her back.
“I think someone at the company is behind this!”
“We may be in charge on paper, but the minority shareholders have always wanted control. They're deliberately tormenting us so they can take over.”
“Leave the company entirely to me for now. I'll find who's responsible!”
I kept comforting her.
“You just rest.”
She leaned against me and let me guide her to the bedroom.
I made the silkie-chicken soup.
After drinking it, she seemed much brighter and lay down to sleep.
With her settled, I finally exhaled.
But I increasingly felt we couldn't remain here.
Too remote.
Our baby had just been buried nearby.
There was something unclean about it.
Buzz.
My phone vibrated on the table.
A message appeared.
“The baby's dead. Hee hee hee.”
I called the number.
No answer.
Frowning, I deleted it.
Then I packed, intending to leave when Tôn Đình woke.
She slept less than an hour.
“Let's go back to the city.”
She seemed not to hear.
Barefoot, just like the night before, she walked toward the kitchen.
Something felt wrong.
I hurried to my feet.
“What are you doing?”
She came out holding a claw hammer in one hand and a cleaver in the other.
“The baby.”
Her voice was sharp.
“She's inside.”
“Inside where?”
I wanted to take the weapons but feared hurting her.
I kept talking, trying to distract her.
“Put those down first.”
“Behind the mirror.”
She pointed toward me.
The cleaver flashed coldly.
“Đình Đình, she's buried in the hills.”
“No!”
She screamed and swung.
The blade grazed my ear.
A sharp pain shot through me.
“Ah!”
I clutched it.
Blood streamed between my fingers and dripped onto the white tiles.
Part of my ear had been sliced off.
“Tôn Đình!”
I roared her name.
Now I truly thought she'd gone mad.
A little farther, and would she have taken my head off?!
She raised the hammer and advanced.
I was frightened.
Really frightened this time.
Slowly, I backed away, softening my voice.
“What's wrong...?”
“I dreamed about her.”
She said:
“She told me she'd been bricked into the wall behind the mirror.”
The raised hammer slammed past me.
Crash!
The mirror shattered.
Bright silver fragments flew everywhere.
“Careful!”
I tried to stop her before she hurt herself.
Too late.
Glass sliced her face, hands, and ankles.
Blood spattered.
She seemed not to feel it.
Bare feet stepped straight onto the sharp shards.
I hurried to hold her, trying to pull her toward the bedroom.
“Wake up!”
“Let go.”
Her strength was frightening.
To escape, she struck me with the hammer.
Heavy iron smashed against my arm bone.
The pain forced me to release her.
“My baby...”