Whenever he heard the dogs at night, he retrieved a red biscuit tin from under the bed. Inside were firecrackers he purchased whenever he attended a fair. Using a tinderbox, he'd light them and toss them from the window, the bursts of sound like cracks of gunshots. Sent the prowlers scampering and the dogs howling. Despite having a loaded Smith & Wesson revolver in his nightstand drawer, two Colts in the dresser and a Winchester shotgun hidden behind the bedroom closet, the firecrackers remained his preference. Saved bullets that way.

Marlee had never been fond of the dogs. They'd been there longer than she had, and they were keenly aware of it. On the day she arrived, five years ago, the German shepherds lay bundled as a trio of necks on the foot of the porch, watching as Dalton pulled up to the porte cochère that extended from the side of the house. They snarled and barked until their nostrils expelled mucus. One of them made a move to snap at her. After all this, they had never warmed to her. And never would.

It was strange how much life could change in five years. Five days. Five seconds. How they had met was a secret to the world. All was past and prologue – and she was thankful that Dalton never reminded her of it. She gathered that a man so nonchalant about his spouse's past was a man who wished others could feel the same about his. Back then, her hair was a long, braided rope. Her skin light brown as the throat of a forest flood. Eyes bright and soft as misted stars. The misery of ethnicity did not seem to concern her – not even she knew exactly which ancestral spotlight to stand beneath. She was no older than seventeen when she met Dalton, who was more than twenty years her senior.

He thought she was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen. Something classical and gothic about her as a Botticelli belle. Darkly angelic, as if her presence should be accompanied by a canticle. He, on the other hand, had a face that looked like a wine bottle had been smashed into it. A gangly, greasy man. Sharp, cutting features. Aquiline nose. Sinuses always stuffed. A small brown naevus in his left eye, as if his iris had splintered. If you saw his silhouette in the twilight, you might have mistaken him for a scarecrow come to life. Children would've snickered at his appearance if they weren't aware of his money. Fiend money. Was easy to think of him as a fiend if it weren't for his fair skin, almost Kashmiri. People thought twice before swindling a sahib.

Marlee decided that she'd wait until morning to check on Brahma. Dalton usually carried a leash with him if he ever went down the hill to the Surinam cherry orchard. The area was fenced so the dogs couldn't venture there on their own. Surinam cherries were poisonous to dogs, and so Dalton tied them to a wooden stake when he was down there with one. He must have forgotten to undo Brahma that night. As eccentric as her husband was, he took sedulous care of those dogs. To relinquish such a chief responsibility to her was unheard of. And if he expected her to venture out into a storm just to unleash a hound, then he must have truly lost it.

When Dalton first brought her here, she was surprised at how far removed it was from the village. For at least a mile and a half in each direction, there was nothing but road and woodland and the odd shack filled with rumours. The row of electrical poles leading up the undulating roadside seemed only to supply this house. The house, a cage locked in a vault of boscage.

Before they were married, she had questioned his business. His answers always came in the form of gifts – linens, sandals, bangles, skirts, rouge. His business was his business. There were very few people that he trusted. He told her that he'd fired all of the house staff two years before she'd met him. The chef, the chauffeur, the housekeeper, everybody. They weren't to be trusted, he said. He hired three new men to tend to the grounds and to the crops, but they were to never set foot inside his house.

Excerpted from Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein. Copyright © 2023 by Kevin Jared Hosein. Excerpted by permission of Ecco. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.