The Turntable of Liên Hoa

My mother’s family is from a small town in the central highlands of Vietnam, a place of pine forests and perpetual mist. During the lunar new year, we made the long drive north to visit my grandmother, who still lived in the old family house on the outskirts of town. The journey took two days, and we stopped in the former hill station of Ðà Lạt, a city that the locals whispered was ‘haunted’—a place where the fog clung to the hills like a shroud and the French colonial villas rotted behind wrought-iron gates.

We arrived at dusk, the sky a bruised purple, and my father pulled into the parking lot of a small temple perched on a hillside. The temple was older than the city itself, its wooden beams blackened with age, its dragon-carved eaves dripping with moss. We went inside to pay our respects, and there, in a dim corner of the main hall, I saw it: a round wooden table, about knee-high, with a smooth, unadorned top. It looked ancient, the wood worn to a dark sheen by countless hands. The table stood alone, apart from the other furniture, and I felt a strange pull toward it.

My cousin, a boy of twelve with a shock of black hair, came up beside me. ‘They say the spirits speak through that table,’ he whispered, his eyes wide. ‘My friend’s sister tried it once. She asked it to turn right, and it did, even though no one touched it.’ I laughed, skeptical, and my cousin looked hurt. ‘It’s true! You have to put your hands on it, but it moves on its own.’ I dismissed it as superstition, the kind of talk that followed these old places. We left the temple, and I forgot about the table.

The next day, we went to a café near the bottom of the same hill, a home-based coffee shop run by an elderly woman named Bà Phương. She was said to be a medium, and her café was filled with oddities: dried herbs, old photographs, and, to my surprise, the exact same wooden table I had seen at the temple. It sat in the corner, identical in every way—same size, same shape, same dark wood. When I asked about it, Bà Phương smiled and said, ‘This table has been in my family for generations. It came from the temple up the hill. It was made by a carpenter who was possessed by a spirit, they say. The spirit wanted to speak to the living, so it made this table. Now, the table can be asked to turn left or right, faster or slower, and it will obey.’

I was still skeptical, but curiosity got the better of me. I asked Bà Phương if I could try it. She nodded, and she and my mother placed their hands on the table’s edge. I watched, my arms crossed. ‘Right,’ Bà Phương said, and the table turned slightly to the right, as if someone were rotating it with unseen hands. My mother gasped, and I felt a chill despite the warm afternoon. But I still thought it was a trick—maybe they were pushing it.

‘Try it yourself,’ Bà Phương offered, and I reluctantly placed my hands on the cool wood. ‘Turn left,’ I said, and the table resisted at first, then slowly, unnervingly, it began to turn left on its own, as if it were carrying a heavy weight. I pulled my hands away, and it stopped. My heart hammered. ‘It’s just a trick,’ I told myself, but I couldn’t explain it.

That evening, we wandered into a government park at the center of the city. The park was quiet, almost empty, save for a few old men playing chess under a banyan tree. And there, in a small pavilion, was the third table. Identical to the others. My cousin saw it and grinned. ‘Told you,’ he said. I walked toward it, and as I approached, I noticed something I hadn’t before: each table had a small, almost invisible carving on the underside of the rim. I knelt and ran my fingers over it—it was a name, written in old Vietnamese characters: ‘Liên Hoa.’

The carvings sent a jolt through me. I had heard that name before, from a story my grandmother used to tell when I was a child, a tale about a girl named Liên Hoa who was accused of witchcraft and drowned in the lake in the center of Ðà Lạt. The story said her spirit searched for a way to speak to the living, to clear her name. I looked at the table, and for the first time, I realized that all three tables shared a common craftsmanship, as if they were pieces of a whole.

That night, back at the hotel, I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about the tables. The next day, I decided to return to the first temple, alone. I found the table still in the corner, and I knelt before it, placing my hands on its surface. ‘Liên Hoa,’ I whispered, ‘if you can hear me, turn left.’ The table trembled, then slowly turned to the left. My hands flew off, but the table kept turning, accelerating, spinning faster and faster until it seemed like a blur, and the air around it grew cold.

From the shadows behind the altar, a figure emerged—a young woman in a white áo dài, her hair wet and clinging to her face, water dripping from her fingers. ‘You spoke my name,’ she said, her voice echoing as if from far away. ‘I have been waiting for someone to hear me.’ I tried to run, but my legs were frozen. She pointed to the table, and I saw that the carving now glowed faintly. ‘I did not drown myself,’ she said, her voice sharp as broken glass. ‘I was pushed. And the one who pushed me is buried in that park, next to the third table. Find him. Tell him I remember.’

She vanished, and the table stopped spinning, the room warm again. I stumbled out of the temple, my mind reeling. I didn’t know what to do. Over the next few days, I learned that the tables were not just curious artifacts—they were vessels for the anger of a spirit who had been wronged centuries ago. And each table was a part of her story: the temple where she was accused, the café where the murderer’s family lived (now the home of Bà Phương), and the park where her bones were buried.

I knew I had to act. I returned to the park, found the pavilion, and began to dig beneath it, my hands shaking. The ground was hard, but after a few minutes, my fingers hit something solid—a bone. I pulled it out, and I felt a wave of nausea. Then I heard a voice, closer than before: ‘Finish it.’ I look up, and I saw the ghost of Liên Hoa standing over me, her eyes filled with sorrow and fury. ‘He is in the café,’ she said. ‘The old woman’s grandfather. He is the one. His bones are in the family shrine. Bring them to me.’

I went to the café, and Bà Phương was there, watching me with knowing eyes. ‘You found them,’ she said softly. ‘I knew you would. I have waited for someone to help her pass.’ She led me to the shrine, and there, behind the incense burners, was a small wooden box. She handed it to me. ‘Take it to the lake,’ she said. ‘Dissolve the bones in the water. Then she will be free.’

I drove to the lake at the center of the city, the same lake where Liên Hoa had drowned. The water was black and still. I opened the box, and inside were the yellowed bones of her murderer. I scattered them into the water, and as they hit the surface, a great wind rose, and I heard Liên Hoa’s voice one last time, filled with peace: ‘Thank you.’ The wind died, and the lake was calm.

I left Ðà Lạt the next day, and I never saw the tables again. But sometimes, when I close my eyes, I still feel the smooth wood under my hands, and I hear the whisper of a name that no one should know.