“Mother cannot, will not protect you. No one will protect you.”
Mother is dead, Noemí thought. You killed her. But she doubted there was any point in reminding someone who was a corpse, long buried, about such things. Noemí stretched out a hand, touching the girl’s shoulder. She felt real under her fingers.
“You have to kill him. Father will never let you go. That was my mistake. I didn’t do it right.” The girl shook her head.
“How should you have done it?” Noemí asked.
“I didn’t do it right. He is a god! He is a god!”
The girl began sobbing and clasped both hands against her mouth, rocking back and forth. Noemí tried to embrace her, but Ruth flung herself against the floor and curled up there, her hands still covering her mouth. Noemí knelt down next to her.
“Ruth, don’t cry,” she said, and as she spoke Ruth’s body turned gray, white speckles of mold spreading across her face and hands, and the girl wept, black tears sliding down her cheeks, bile trickling out of her mouth and nose.
Ruth began to tear at herself with her nails, letting out a hoarse scream. Noemí pushed herself backward, bumping against the bed. The girl was writhing; now she scratched at the floor, her nails tearing at the wood, driving splinters into her palms.
Noemí clacked her teeth together in fear and thought to cry too, but then she recalled the words, the mantra.
“Open your eyes,” Noemí said.
And Noemí did. She opened her eyes, and the room was dark. She was alone. It rained again. She stood up and slid the curtain away. The distant sound of thunder was unsettling. Where was her bracelet? The bracelet against the evil eye. But that would do no good now. Inside the night table’s drawer she found her pack of cigarettes and her lighter; those were still there.
Noemí flicked the lighter on, watching the flame bloom, and then closed it, returning it to the drawer.
22
Francis came back to see her the next morning, giving her another small amount of the tincture and pointing out the items that were safe to eat. When night fell, he reappeared with a tray of food and told her that after she finished her dinner they were supposed to speak with Virgil, who awaited them in the office.
It was too dark, even with the oil lamp in Francis’s hands, to look at the portraits running along the wall that led toward the library, but she wished she could have stopped and gazed at Ruth’s picture. It was an impulse born of curiosity and sympathy. She had been a prisoner, like her.
Noemí was struck by the unpleasant scent of moldy books as soon as Francis opened the door to the office. Funny how she’d gotten used to it and barely noticed it in days past. She wondered if that meant the tincture was doing its job.
Virgil sat behind the desk. The subdued lighting in the paneled room gave him the appearance of a Caravaggio painting and rendered his face almost bloodless. There was a stillness to his body, like that of a wild animal camouflaging itself. His fingers were laced together, and when he saw them he leaned forward in greeting, smiling.
“You seem to be doing better,” Virgil said. Noemí sat before him, Francis at her side, her mute stare the one answer to his question. “I’ve asked you here because we need to clarify a few points. Francis says you understand the situation and you’re willing to cooperate with us,” Virgil continued.
“If you mean I realize I can’t leave this horrid house, yes, that has become unfortunately clear.”
“Don’t be sore about it, Noemí—it’s quite a lovely house once it gets to know you. Now, I guess the question is whether you are determined to be a nuisance or whether you’ll willingly join the family?”
On the walls the three deer heads cast long shadows. “You have a very interesting notion of ‘willingly,’ ” Noemí said. “Are you offering any other option to me? I don’t think so. I’ve decided to stay alive, if that is what you’d like to know. I wouldn’t want to end up in a pit, like those poor miners.”
“We didn’t dump them in a pit. They’re all buried in the cemetery. And they needed to die. You must make the soil fertile.”
“With human bodies. Mulch, isn’t that right?”
“They would have died anyway. It was an assortment of underfed peasants, riddled with lice.”
“Was your first wife also a peasant, riddled with lice? Did you also use her to make the soil more fertile?” Noemí asked. She wondered if her portrait was hanging outside, with the pictures of all the other Doyles. A wretched young woman with her chin up, trying to maintain her smile for the camera.
Virgil shrugged. “No. But she was inadequate all the same, and I can’t say that I miss her.”
“How charming.”
“You won’t make me feel bad about that, Noemí. The strong survive, the weak are left behind. I think you’re quite strong,” he said. “And what a pretty face you have. Dark skin, dark eyes. Such a novelty.”
Dark meat, she thought. Nothing but meat, she was the equivalent of a cut of beef inspected by the butcher and wrapped up in waxed paper. An exotic little something to stir the loins and make the mouth water.
Virgil stood up, rounding the desk and standing behind them, a firm hand resting on the back of each of their chairs. “My family, as you might know, has strived to keep the bloodline clean. Our selective breeding has allowed us to transmit the most desirable traits. Our compatibility with the fungi in this house is the result of that. There’s one tiny problem.”
Virgil began walking around, circling them, looking down at the desk and toying with a pencil. “Do you know that chestnut trees that stand alone are sterile? They require cross-pollination from another tree. This seems to have become the case with us too. My mother gave my father two living children, yes, but she had many stillbirths. It’s the same story when you look back in time. Stillbirths, crib deaths. Before Agnes, my father had two other wives, neither of which was any good.
“On occasion you need to inject new blood into the mix, so to speak. Of course my father has always been very stubborn about these things, insisting that we must not mingle with the rabble.”
“Superior and inferior traits, after all,” Noemí said dryly.
Virgil smiled. “Exactly. The old man even brought earth from England to ensure the conditions here would be like the ones in our motherland; he wasn’t about to entertain the locals. But the way things have gone, it has become a necessity. A question of survival.”
“Hence Richard,” Noemí said. “And hence Catalina.”
“Yes. Although if I’d seen you before, I might have picked you rather than her. You’re healthy, young, and the gloom rather likes you.”
“I suppose my money doesn’t hurt.”
“Well, that’s obviously a prerequisite. Your stupid Revolution robbed us of our fortune. We must get it back. Survival, as I said.”
“Murder, I think that’s the word. You murdered all those miners. You made them sick, you didn’t tell them what was wrong with them, and your doctor, he let them die. And you must have killed Ruth’s lover too. Although she paid you back for that.”
“You’re not being very nice, Noemí,” he said, his eyes fixed on hers. He sounded peeved and turned to Francis. “I thought you had smoothed things out with her.”
“Noemí won’t try running again,” Francis said, sliding his hand upon her own.
“That’s a good first step. The second step is that you are going to write a letter to your father, explaining that you will remain here until Christmas, to keep Catalina company. Come Christmas, you’ll inform him that you’ve been married and intend to live with us.”
“My father will be upset.”
“Then you’ll have to write a few more letters, to assuage his concerns,” Virgil said smoothly. “Now, why don’t you start writing that first letter.”
“Now?”
“Yes. Come her
e,” Virgil said, patting the chair he had been occupying behind the desk.
Noemí hesitated but stood up and took the seat he was offering. There was a sheet of paper ready and a pen. Noemí stared at the writing instruments but did not pick them up.
“Go on,” Virgil said.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Write a convincing message. Because we wouldn’t want your father visiting us and maybe falling ill with an odd disease, would we?”
“You wouldn’t,” she whispered.
Virgil leaned down, gripping her shoulder tight. “There’s plenty of space in the mausoleum, and as you pointed out, our physician is not very good at treating illnesses.”
Noemí shoved his hand aside and began writing. Virgil turned away.
She kept scribbling, finally signing the letter. When she was done Virgil came back to her side and read the letter, nodding.
“Are you happy?” Francis asked. “She’s done her bit.”
“She’s far from done her bit,” Virgil muttered. “Florence is rummaging around the house, trying to find Ruth’s old wedding dress. We’re to have ourselves a wedding ceremony.”
“Why?” Noemí asked. Her mouth felt dry.
“Howard is a stickler for those kind of details. Ceremonies. He does love them.”
“Where will you find a priest?”
“My father can officiate; he’s done so before.”
“So I’ll be wed in the Church of the Holy Incestuous Mushroom?” she intoned. “I doubt that’s valid.”
“Don’t worry, we will of course drag you to the magistrate at one point.”
“Drag is the right word.”
Virgil slammed the letter down on the desk, startling Noemí. She winced. She recalled his strength. He’d carried her into the house as if she were as light as a feather. His hand, resting against the desk, was large, capable of inflicting tremendous damage.
“You should consider yourself lucky. I did tell my father Francis might as well tie you to the bed and fuck you tonight, without any preamble, but he doesn’t think that would be right. You’re a lady, after all. I disagree. Ladies are not wanton, and as we both know, you aren’t exactly a little innocent lamb.”
“I have no idea—”
“Oh, you definitely have a few ideas.”
Virgil’s fingers grazed her hair. The slightest touch, which sent a shiver down her body, a dark and delicious feeling coursing down her veins, like imbibing champagne much too quickly. Like in her dreams. She thought of sinking her teeth into his shoulder and biting down, hard. A ferocious pang of desire and hatred.
Noemí jumped up, pushing the chair between herself and Virgil. “Don’t!”
“Don’t what?”
“Stop this,” Francis said, hurrying to her side. He clutched her hand, assuaging her, quickly reminding her with one look that they had, after all, a plan, and then, turning to Virgil, he spoke firmly. “She’s my bride. You need to show her respect.”
Virgil seemed unamused by his cousin’s words, that thin, tart smile of his widening, ready to turn into a snarl. She was certain he would push back, but he surprised her by raising his hands in the air in sudden, theatrical surrender.
“Well, I guess for once in your life you’ve actually grown a pair of balls. Fine,” Virgil said. “I’ll be polite. But she needs to mind her words and learn her place.”
“She will. Come,” Francis said, quickly guiding her out of the office, oil lamp in hand, shadows wavering and shifting due to the sudden movement of the light source.
Once outside, he turned to her. “Are you all right?” he asked in a whisper, switching to Spanish.
She did not reply. Noemí pulled him down the hallway, into one of the unused, dusty rooms with chairs and settees covered by white sheets. A huge floor-to-ceiling mirror reflected them, its top embellished with elaborate carvings of fruits and flowers and the ever-present snake that lurked around every corner in this house. Noemí stopped in her tracks as she stared at the snake, and Francis almost bumped into her, whispering an apology.
“You said you’d get supplies for us,” she told him, her eyes on the decoration surrounding the mirror, the fearful snake. “But what about weapons?”
“Weapons?”
“Yes. Rifles and guns?”
“There are no rifles, not after what happened with Ruth. My uncle Howard keeps a gun in his room, but I wouldn’t be able to have access to it.”
“There must be something!”
She was startled by her own vehemence. In the mirror, Noemí saw her face reflected, anxious, and turned away, disgusted by the sight of it. Her hands were trembling, and she had to hold on to the back of a chair to steady herself.
“Noemí? What is it?”
“I don’t feel safe.”
“I reali—”
“It’s a trick. I don’t understand your mind games, but I know I’m not entirely me when Virgil is around,” she said, her hands fluttering up as she brushed the hair away from her face nervously. “Not lately. Magnetic. That’s how Catalina described him. Well, no wonder. But it’s not charm alone, is it? You said the house can induce you to do certain things…”
She trailed off. Virgil brought out the worst in Noemí, she disliked him immensely, and yet as of late he also awoke a depraved thrill in her. Freud talked of death drives: that impulse that makes someone, standing at the edge of a cliff, suddenly want to jump off it. It was surely this ancient principle at work, Virgil tugging at a subconscious string she’d been ignorant of. Playing with her.
She wondered if it was like this for the cicadas Francis had mentioned. Singing their mating songs even as they were consumed alive from within, their organs turning to powder while they rocked against each other. Perhaps chirping even more loudly, the shadow of death creating a frenzy of need inside their small bodies, urging them on toward their own destruction.
What Virgil inspired was violence and carnality, but also a heady delight. The joy of cruelty and a velvet black decadence she had tasted only slightly before. This was her greedy, most impulsive self.
“Nothing will happen to you,” Francis assured her, setting down his oil lamp on a table shrouded in white.
“You don’t know that.”
“Not when I’m around.”
“You can’t be around all the time. You weren’t there when he grabbed me in the bathroom,” she said.
Francis clenched his jaw, almost imperceptibly, shame and anger washing over his features, his face flushing richly. His gallantry was misplaced. He wanted to be her knight and could not. Noemí crossed her arms, tucking her chin down.
“There must be a weapon, please, Francis,” she insisted.
“My straight razor, perhaps. I could give you that. If it would make you feel safer.”
“It would.”
“Then you can have it,” he said; he sounded genuine.
She realized this was but a small gesture, which did not solve her problems. Ruth had carried a rifle, and that did not save her. If this was truly a death drive, a defect of her psyche now amplified or twisted by the house, then no ordinary weapon could protect her. Yet she appreciated his willingness to help her.
“Thank you.”
“It’s nothing. I hope you don’t mind bearded men, since I won’t be able to shave if you’ve got my razor,” he said, trying to make a quip, trying to lighten the mood.
“A bit of stubble now and then never hurt anyone,” she replied, matching his tone.
He smiled, and the smile, like his voice, was genuine. Everything in High Place was gnarled and begrimed, but he’d been able to grow bright and mindful, like an odd plant that is carried onto the wrong flower bed.
“You truly are my friend, aren’t you?” she said. She hadn’t quite believed it, half expecting a ruse,
but she didn’t think there was one.
“You should know the answer by now,” he replied, but not unkindly.
“It’s very difficult, in this place, to discern what’s real from what’s false.”
“I know.”
They looked at each other, quiet. Noemí began walking around the room, running her hand atop the shrouded furniture, feeling the decorations carved into the wood beneath, upsetting the dust that had collected upon the drop-sheets. She raised her head and saw him staring at her, his hands in his pockets. Noemí tugged at one of the white sheets, revealing a sofa upholstered in blue, and sat on it, her feet tucked up under her.
He sat next to her. The mirror that dominated the room was now right in front of them, but it was cloudy with age and distorted their reflections, turning them into phantoms.
“Who taught you Spanish?” she asked.
“My father. He liked learning new things, learning languages. He used to tutor me; he even tried tutoring Virgil a little, but he had no interest in such lessons. After he died, I’d help Arthur with documents or errands. Since he also speaks Spanish, I was able to practice with him. I always assumed I’d take Arthur’s place.”
“Serving in town as your family’s middleman.”
“It’s what I was given to expect.”
“You’ve had no other desire but that? To serve your family?”
“When I was younger I dreamed I’d go away. But it was the sort of dream only a small child can have, like thinking one day you might join the circus. I didn’t pay it any heed, lately. It was pointless. After what became of my father, I figured, well, he had a stronger personality than I have, he was more audacious, and even he could do nothing but obey the will of High Place.”
As he spoke, Francis reached into his jacket’s pocket and took out the little portrait she’d seen before. She leaned down, looking at it with more care than the first time. It was part of an enamel locket, one side painted blue, decorated with golden lilies of the valley. She traced a flower with a nail.
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