The red house stands out like a spark in the twilight as their car reaches the top of the slope. Van parks her white Volvo next to a cherry tree, then strides to the red mailbox by a yellow pot of lavender to collect the key. As Van contemplates the long, ancient iron key, she has a feeling it may unlock a mystery of this 400-year-old house in the countryside of Wales, but to what she doesn’t know.

“Shall we feed the animals?” Van glances at the barn and two ponies in the field. “Yeah.”

Mark whistles a melody from ‘The Blue Danube’ as he forks hay from the corner stack into the feeding trough. Van looks around, searching for a large spoon to put dried food into the iron buckets. She adds water, then chooses a stick to stir the food, which breaks into a dark green powder, climbs the iron fence and puts the buckets in the field. Jack, a black pony, and white Daisy gingerly trot towards the bucket. They stare at the strangers with eyes the colour of clouds before rain. Van stares at them for a while, trying to guess their age. She gets the watering can, pours water into a plastic bowl, then heads to the car to help Mark carry their luggage and food into the house.

• Tags: fiction, Issue 32, Ngan Nguyen, Vietnam