Nathan felt like the luckiest man in the world as Julie welcomed him at her door with a kiss. She was beautiful, smart, wealthy, and liked him almost as much as he liked her.

Not everything had gone right today, though. “I need to wash my hands,” he explained. “I saw some pretty flowers, but when I picked some for you, they just disintegrated in my hands.”

Her smile disappeared. “Where did you pick those?”

“Along the road somewhere. Jalan something or other.”

“Where?”

“Um… on the way here from Seremban.”

Now she looked frightened. “You have to ask before you do things like that! You’re not in America!”

“I don’t get it. What’s wrong?”

“Stay here for now. And don’t look in any mirrors.”

That seemed a non sequitur; but on the way over there had been something odd about his rear view and side mirrors. A shadow, like a standing man, that he could see only out of the corner of his eye. If he looked directly at it, it would disappear. Probably a trick of the light, the angle of the sun in the humid air.

Julie was already upset. Telling her about this would just make things worse.

“It’s Delapan land,” she said. “We are not to take anything from there.”

“Who are the Delapans? Are they super rich?”

“They were here before anyone else.”

“Before the Brits?”

“Before the Chinese, the Malays. Everyone.”

To him, this made no sense, but she was obviously convinced, so he needed to respect that. “How do we make it right?”

“I don’t know! Just stay away from mirrors until we figure this out!”

Nathan backed into the living room, decorated with Julie’s eye for melding traditional and modern styles. A giant fork and spoon hung on the wall, but made of chrome instead of wood. He noticed his reflection in the spoon, its concavity turning him upside down. “Does this count?”

“I don’t know,” she said wearily, standing beside him, her reflection hanging beside his.

The shadow appeared, closer than ever, its reflection unnervingly right side up. It looked close enough to be right behind them. How come he couldn’t see any detail?

She screamed as the shadow’s reflection merged with Nathan’s, like two drops of water rolling down a windshield. She looked away from the spoon. The creature that had been Nathan turned to her, its face a moldy dirt-plugged closed-up wrinkle; and then it bloomed.

—

Nathan was never found again; a missed return flight, an expired visa, and he was the prime suspect for the murder of Julie Li. They never found her remains; but her clothes were strewn among a large pile of rotting, liquescent vegetation, and a stench that attacked investigators as soon as they opened the door.

Identifying which plants were involved was difficult. Everything must have been decaying for months.