K.L. Quan

At a 400-year-old Dutch manor tucked in Malba, Queens, its inhabitants are already caught in the past. Stuck with years-old feuds and even older decor, they were still not prepared for an ancient monster to strike.

When bright and beautiful Esmee de Jong loses her life in an almost mythical murder, an unlikely and disenfranchised suspect becomes spotlighted. Can a dissolved team of detectives overcome their own past to give her a fair chance?

In the urban suburb of Malba, sat a Dutch manor. From across the street, the old house was deceptively unglamorous; it was widely considered an unfashionable relic of architectural trends long gone. Each day, expensive couples walked their well-bred dogs past an unassuming rectangular white building topped with a sloping roof colored dark gray.

The interior was in a word, archaic. The most recent wallpaper was from the 1800s; the owners at the time attempted to finally try a new look in the parlor sometime around 1840. Shortly after, the arsenic revelations came, to the horror of countless households who had stocked up on patterns including Scheele’s Green.1 Perhaps this was why the house had not been renovated in so long. It seemed nobody dared to change much after that.

The curtains had a lace trim, and the tablecloths had tassels. Tulip chandeliers hung from the ceilings, and gilded seats had cushions with embroidered silk. At the table, china plates were set down with polished silverware.

Dolores folded the napkins meticulously, eyes staring blankly ahead. The butler came to assess her progress.

“Good,” he said simply. “They will be here soon.”

She nodded silently. Of course; she had done the same work she did for the past forty years.

True to his words, the children, many of whom were grown, entered the dining room. Dolores knew each one of them as well as the back of her hand. They paid her no heed, though. The children had come with their mothers. There were three mothers for six children, although only five of them were here now. Behind one of the sons, came a young woman. As always, she wove her fingers before her. Her eyes were lowered just enough, and she sat politely.

It was not enough, as it never was.

One of the mothers asked the poor girl, Melati, to talk about her day. The moment Melati spoke, snickers erupted. The only one not to laugh was the youngest child. Dolores felt a small surge of fondness for the boy. Felix de Jong was sixteen, and the only one still her charge. He had stayed gentle, while his siblings had all turned cruel to Dolores by the time they reached fourteen.

His mother was the youngest of the wives; she was thirty-six, and spent most of her time away from young Felix. She ironically spent her time in Manhattan, filming ‘mommy blogger’ content, as Dolores’s granddaughter had scoffed. One day, Felix was feeling particularly unhappy and showed her one of his mother’s videos. Dolores was bewildered to see his mother packing a Lego lunch box with star shaped nut butter and jelly sandwiches. At the time, Felix was fifteen.

“She brags about using cashew butter because it’s more expensive,” Felix had complained that day. “I cannot even eat cashews, but you know this, Dolores. You and Hugo know everything.”

Melati did not cry. No, she had been there too long. She had been there for around three years, but to seventy-two year old Dolores, this was still a very long time. Time felt like a crawl in the de Jong house. Perhaps it was the decor, perhaps it was the seemingly endless shifts. Melati did not work shifts, but she might as well have.

She was a mail-order bride, more a product than a partner to her husband. She ate based on the diet he set for her and dressed in the clothes he set for her. Melati lived by her husband’s desires and demands. Her husband, Albert de Jong, was the eldest son and second-eldest child of Edwin de Jong. When his sister Irma would join them for dinners, she often criticized Albert, appalled by Melati’s circumstances. Albert argued that having a mail order bride was not very different from paying for a dating app subscription.

Irma had not come in some time. She moved to Australia, where she supposedly eloped. Felix said she was quite happy now. Irma’s mother and her youngest aunt, the current wife, were cousins. In the de Jong household, nobody blinked an eye.

It was a very unpleasant dinner, in Dolores’s own opinion. However, it was not particularly awful, as far as these affairs went. Felix’s mother sashayed away with his elder sister shortly after dessert, undoubtedly off to do some shopping. Felix’s sister Esmee was a beautiful girl of eighteen years. She used to have the loveliest smile, until about three or so years ago. Now, she was like the rest of her half-siblings. Dolores found it to be a pity.

Nobody bid farewell to young Felix, and Dolores took him to his room. Felix hated to eat his dessert with his elder siblings. He was not an athlete, and preferred quieter hobbies such as drawing and reading. Felix was a tall boy for his age, and many commented he would have made a superior athlete if he tried.

Most of his brothers once did one sport or another. Now, they were well past their prime and well into their pudge, although not very old. Dolores found they were very insecure, a grievance they made Felix’s problem.

“I hate them!” Felix declared loudly as he sat at his reading desk. “I especially hate Albert! His poor wife! Sometimes I wish we could get Melati out of her misery here. She cannot be happy here, I swear.”

Dolores did not dare agree aloud, although in her heart, she did. Every word she attempted to speak froze upon her tongue as the floorboards creaked. It seemed a single breath irritated those old wooden boards.

Nobody cared about them, she knew this very well. If Felix’s siblings, mother, and aunt-stepmothers hated Melati, they ignored their youngest consistently.

Still, Dolores never felt alone, even aside from Felix. There always seemed to be more people there than she anticipated, and this time felt no different.

A very long time ago, another house was built.

It was a feeble little cottage, with a leaking roof. To much mockery, it would be named Huis van Bas. The House of the Master was the plea of a penniless man who imagined a wealth he had never known before. It was not merely a name, though. It was a promise. In the later half of the sixteenth century, Berend Vogel was born a poor boy in the southern Dutch town of Leiden. Around this time, more Dutch merchants and craftsman began to set out in search of their own overseas fortune after witnessing the successes of their fellow Europeans.

Berend had become a merchant, although he was not a very wealthy one. Truthfully, he was not wealthy at all. However, he took care to present himself in an ostentatious manner. Berend eventually wed a merchant’s daughter ten years his junior. They were not particularly wealthy, but he received a dowry nonetheless. He still did not have enough money, though, and his father-in-law refused him more. Berend pooled his meager fortune with the small fortunes of others like himself, and took part in the Voorcompanieën.2 In the last half decade of the sixteenth century, around forty ships were launched, creating a booming trade of luxury goods for European customers. Soon after, the VOC was formed, and Berend partook in this as well.

The Huis van Bas was born out of a near-delusional promise Berend made to his wife. Against the odds, he had become a rich man, and his house truly did become the house of the Master. They expanded their home and hired servants to serve themselves and their first child, Floris.

Floris died at the pitifully young age of twenty-two, although he died after conceiving with his own wife, Gerlinde. In the year 1601, Berend caught a mysterious illness, which he passed onto his wife; this rendered her infertile. After Berend’s death, his fortune passed to his wife to safe-keep for as long as possible. In the event of her early death, the fortune would be passed onto Floris’s son Hans. Corine died a year before Hans reached adulthood, entrusting her will to her nephew, Jacob Smit.

In another tragic twist of events, Jacob then committed suicide, or so it seemed. It was mere weeks before his marriage to the most beautiful and rich girl in Rotterdam. He hung himself inside his lavish apartment. Of course, such a strange event caused uproar; his beloved Leonie had both the fury and power to pursue an investigation. Gerlinde was found guilty of murdering Jacob in days, and Hans was left without his cousin and his mother.

Jacob had a sincere fondness for Hans, and Leonie took pity on him. Leonie was born into one of the old noble families. Hans was wealthy by inheritance, but not particularly noteworthy. And so Leonie decided if she could not have Jacob, she would marry Hans. They did not love each other as Leonie had loved Jacob. However, it was said they had a friendly marriage. They produced three children that survived to adulthood.

The eldest, Leopold, stayed in the Netherlands. Leonie had two elder brothers of her own. One was a notorious philanderer. He was a drunk, and all his children were illegitimate. The middle son lived with his male peer, and had no children. Leonie had understood this from a young age, and raised Leopold to eventually inherit her father’s titles and land.

The second child was a daughter, Maartje. Maartje was wed to a West-bound merchant, and they settled in New Amsterdam.

The third child was another son, Rudolf. As Maartje went West, Rudolf went East.

Maartje and her husband, Willem de Jong joined the early Dutch high society in New Amsterdam. Their children would continue their legacy as New Amsterdam became New York.

Ignacio Quattrocchi paused mid-page as he heard the sound of a door groaning open in the distance. He had been bored, as he always was. The current Master of the house was Edwin de Jong. Edwin de Jong was one of the descendants of Maartje and Willem. The book Ignacio was reading was written by his own father, Philip De Jong.

According to the forward of the book, by the time Philip was born in early 20th century New York, his branch of the family was fairly all-American. Philip had pursued history as his career, eager to learn more about Dutch America and his own family. He had written many books, including a biography of Peter Stuyvesant. This one was a personal memoir of his own family research. It was very dusty the first time Ignacio picked it up. He himself wasn’t much for history, actually, but he was truly very bored.

Ignacio had come into the service of Edwin de Jong, two years ago. The man was a conservative lobbyist and banker, on his third wife, with six children between the three women. Ignacio got into escort service around two years ago, and was very quickly plucked up by the man whose bed he was stuck in. He was an insatiable, hypocritical, and in Ignacio’s opinion, rather pathetic man. However, he paid well, and provided other things Ignacio needed.

Edwin paid more if Ignacio stayed the night, so he did. He held his breath, grimacing as the old man slobbered over his lap. The floors of the home were aged wood, and they creaked and squeaked with each step. The family was full of sound sleepers, though. Most of them had their vices; a bit of weed there, vodka here. Some of the older ones took harder drugs too. Even young Felix was on nightly Zolpidem. That was what the maids said, but Ignacio would believe it. Nothing ever actually happened, although there was an ominous atmosphere in the house at all times.

He looked around lazily and saw a face, in the dark. It was a young girl, whose painting was stuck in a tarnished bronze frame. Her cheeks were round, and her eyes were dark. An antiquated lamp illuminated her face, and she faced him with an unwavering stare.

Ignacio forced his eyes to close and the moment he did, he heard a young girl’s scream.

Also published on Substack 🙂