N
oemí hadn’t been lying about counting sheep. She was too energized by all the thoughts of hauntings, of answers to puzzles, to be lulled into an easy slumber. And that moment when she’d thought to lean forward and plant a kiss on Francis’s lips was still bright in her mind, electric.
Noemí decided that the best thing she could do was take a bath.
The bathroom was old, several of the tiles were cracked, but under the light of the oil lamp the tub appeared intact and decidedly clean, even if the ceiling was defaced by unsightly traces of mold.
Noemí set the oil lamp on a chair and her bathrobe on the back of it, and opened the faucet. Florence had told her mild baths were what everyone ought to take, but Noemí didn’t intend to soak in a cold pool of water, and whatever issues the boiler might have, she was able to draw a hot bath for herself, the steam quickly filling the room.
Back home she would have sprinkled sweet-smelling oils or bath salts into the water, but there were none to be had. Noemí slipped into the bathtub anyway and rested her head back.
High Place wasn’t exactly a dump, but there were so many small things wrong with it. Neglect. Yes, that was the right word. There was a great amount of neglect. Noemí wondered if Catalina might have turned things around, had the circumstances been slightly different. She doubted it. Rot had set in in this place.
The thought was unpleasant. She closed her eyes.
The faucet dripped a little. She sank deeper under the water until her head was completely underwater and she held her breath. When
was the last time she’d gone swimming? She’d have to make a point to visit Veracruz soon. Better yet, Acapulco. She couldn’t think of a place that would be more different than High Place. Sun, beaches, cocktails. She could telephone Hugo Duarte and see if he was available.
When she emerged, Noemí brushed the hair away from her eyes almost angrily. Hugo Duarte. Who was she kidding? She wasn’t thinking about him these days. That arrow of yearning that had struck her in Francis’s room was worrisome. It felt different from her other excursions into desire. Though a young woman of her social standing was not supposed to know anything about desire, Noemí had had the chance to experience kisses, embraces, and certain caresses. That she did not sleep with any of the men she dated had less to do with a fear of sin than with the concern that they’d tattle about it to their friends, or worse, entrap her. There was always this smidgen of fear in her heart, fear of so many things, but with Francis she forgot to fear.
You’re turning mawkish, she told herself. He’s not even handsome.
She slid a hand up and down her breastbone and contemplated the mold on the ceiling before sighing and turning her head away.
That’s when she saw it. The figure by the doorway. Noemí blinked, thinking for a moment it was an optical illusion. She’d brought the oil lamp into the bathroom and it provided enough light, but it wasn’t the stark illumination of a light bulb.
The figure stepped forward, and she realized that it was Virgil, in a navy pinstripe suit and a tie, looking nonchalant, as if he’d walked into his bathroom instead of her own.
“There you are, you pretty little thing,” he said. “No need to speak, no need to move.”
Shame and surprise and anger shot through her body. What the hell did he think he was doing? She was going to yell at him. She was going to yell at him and cover herself, and not only yell. She’d slap him. She’d slap him once she was in her bathrobe.
But she didn’t move at all. No sound escaped Noemí’s lips. Virgil stepped forward, a thin smile on his face.
They can make you think things, a voice whispered. She’d heard that voice before, somewhere in this house. They make you do things.
Her left hand was resting on the edge of the tub, and she managed, with considerable effort, to curl it tighter. She was able to open her mouth a little, but not to speak. She wanted to tell him to get out and couldn’t, and it made her tremble with fright.
“You’ll be a good girl, won’t you?” Virgil said.
He had reached the bathtub and knelt down to look at her, smiling. It was a cunning, crooked smile set in a perfectly sculpted face, and he was so close to her that she could see there were flecks of gold in his eyes.
He tugged at the tie around his neck and took it off, then he unbuttoned his shirt.
She was petrified, like the unwary character in an old myth. She was the victim of the gorgon.
“Such a good girl, I know it. Be good to me.”
Open your eyes, the voice said.
But her eyes were wide open, and he had woven his fingers into her hair, making her lift her head up. A rough gesture, devoid of any of the kindness he was asking of her. She wanted to shove him away, but she still couldn’t move, and his hand clenched in her hair and he was leaning down to kiss her.
Noemí tasted sweetness on his lips. The trace of wine, perhaps. It was pleasant and it made her relax her tense body. She let go of the edge of the bathtub, and the voice that had been whispering to her was gone now. There was the steam from the bath and the man’s mouth atop her own, the hands snaking around her body. He kissed down her long neck, pausing to bite at the top of her breast, which drew a gasp from her. His stubble was rough against her skin.
Her neck arched backward. It seemed she could, in fact, move.
She raised her hands to touch his face, to draw him toward her. He wasn’t an intruder. He wasn’t an enemy. There was no reason to yell or to slap him, while there was every reason to keep touching him.
His hand ran down her stomach and disappeared beneath the water, caressing her thighs. She was not trembling with fright anymore. It was desire making her shiver, delicious and thick, spreading across her limbs, his touch heavy, his fingers toying with her as her breathing hitched. His body was hot against her skin. Another flick of his fingers, a deep exhalation, but then—
Open your eyes, hissed the voice, yanking her hard, and she turned her face away from him, staring up again at the ceiling. The ceiling had melted away.
She saw an egg, and from it rose a thin white stalk. A snake. But no, no, she’d seen such an image before. In Francis’s room a couple of hours ago. On the walls. The watercolors of mushrooms with their neat labels beneath, and one of them had said “universal veil.” Yes. That’s what it was. The egg, pierced, the membrane removed, the snake that was the mushroom rising through the ground. Alabaster snake, sliding and knotting itself, devouring its tail.
Then there was darkness. The light from the oil lamp had gone off. She wasn’t in the tub anymore. She had been wrapped in a thick cloth that impeded her movement, but she managed to pull it apart, to slide it away, and it slipped from her shoulders as neatly as the membrane she’d observed.
Wood. She could smell damp earth and wood, and when she raised a hand her knuckles hit a hard surface and a splinter cut her skin.
Coffin. It was a coffin. The cloth was a shroud.
But she wasn’t dead. She wasn’t. And she opened her mouth to yell, to tell them that she wasn’t dead even when she knew she’d never die.
A buzzing, like a million bees had suddenly been unleashed, and Noemí pressed her hands against her ears. A blinding golden light
shivered; it touched her, moving from the tip of her toes up to her chest until it reached her face, smothering her.
Open your eyes, Ruth said. Ruth with blood in her hands and blood on her face and her nails caked with blood, and the bees were inside her head, tunneling through Noemí’s ears.
Noemí snapped her eyes open. Water was dripping down her back and her fingertips, and the bathrobe she was wearing was not cinched; it lay loose and open showing her nakedness. She was barefoot.
The room she stood in lay in shadows, but even in the dark the configuration indicated it was obviously not her own room. A dim lamp rose, like a firefly, grew brighter as nimble fingers adjusted it. Virgil Doyle, sitting in his bed, raised the lamp that had been resting at his bedside and regarded her.
“What’s this?” she asked, pressing a hand against her throat.
She could speak. Dear God, she could speak, even if her voice was hoarse and she was trembling.
“I believe you managed to sleepwalk into my room.”
She was breathing much too quickly. She felt as though she had been running and God knew if she had. Anything was possible. She managed to close her robe with a clumsy motion of her hands.
Virgil pushed the covers away. He put on his velvet robe and approached her. “You’re all wet,” he said.
“I was taking a bath,” Noemí muttered. “What were you doing?” “I was sleeping,” he said, reaching her side.
She thought he meant to touch her and took a step back, almost toppling the painted screen next to her. He steadied it with one hand.
“I’ll fetch you a towel. You must be cold.” “Not that cold.”
“You’re a little liar,” he said simply and went rummaging in an armoire.
She was not going to wait for him to find the towel. She meant to walk immediately back to her room, in absolute darkness if
necessary. But the night had stunned her, it had reduced Noemí to a state of anxiousness that did not allow her to leave. As in the dream, she was petrified.
“Here,” he said, and she clutched the towel for a minute, before finally drying her face and then slowly blotting her hair with it. She wondered how long she had been in the tub, and then how long she’d wandered down the hallways.
Virgil slipped into the shadows, and she heard the clinking of glass. He returned with two glasses in his hand.
“Sit and have a sip of wine,” he said. “It’ll warm you up.” “Let me borrow your lamp and I’ll be out of here.”
“Have the wine, Noemí.”
He sat in the same chair he’d used the last time, setting the oil lamp on a table, along with her drink, while he nursed his own glass. Noemí twisted the towel between her hands and sat down. She let the towel drop to the floor and picked up the glass, taking a sip—only one, as he’d suggested—very quickly, before setting the glass down again.
She felt as though she were still floating in the dream even though she had woken up. A haze lingered in her mind, and the only clear thing in the room was Virgil, his hair a little wild, his handsome face peering at her intently. He expected her to speak, that much was obvious, and she sought proper words.
“You were in my dream,” she said. More for her sake than for his.
She wanted to understand what she’d seen, what had happened.
“I hope it wasn’t a bad dream,” he replied. He smiled. The smile was sly. It was the same smile she’d dreamed. Slightly malicious.
The ardor that she’d felt so vividly and pleasantly was now turning into a sour feeling in the pit of her stomach, but the smile was like a stray spark, reminding Noemí of her eagerness, of his touch.
“Were you in my room?”
“I thought I was in your dream.”
“It did not feel like a dream.” “What did it feel like?”
“Like an intrusion,” she said.
“I was sleeping. You woke me up. You are the intruder tonight.”
She’d seen him rise from his bed and grab his velvet robe and yet she didn’t think him innocent. But he couldn’t have swept into the bathroom, like a medieval incubus, sitting on her chest as if they were posing for one of Fuseli’s paintings. Sneaking into her chamber to ravish her.
She touched her wrist, wanting to feel the blue-and-white beads. She’d taken off the bracelet against the evil eye. Her wrist was bare. So was she, for that matter, wrapped in the white bathrobe, with water droplets still clinging to her body.
She stood up.
“I’ll be heading back now,” she declared.
“You know, when you wake after sleepwalking you are not supposed to go back to bed right at once,” he said. “I really think you could use a little more wine.”
“No. I’ve had a terrible night and don’t wish to prolong it.” “Mmm. And yet if I didn’t agree to let you take my lamp you’d be
forced to remain here for a few more minutes, wouldn’t you? Unless
you plan to find your way back by touching the walls. This house is very dark.”
“Yes. I do plan to do that if you won’t be polite and assist me.”
“I thought I was assisting you. I’ve offered you a towel to dry your hair, a chair to sit down, and a drink to calm your nerves.”
“My nerves are fine.”
He rose with the glass in one hand, eyeing her with a dry amusement. “What did you dream tonight?”
She did not wish to blush in front of him. To turn crimson like an idiot in front of a man who wielded such meticulous hostility toward her. But she thought of his mouth on hers and his hands on her thighs, like it had been in the dream, and an electric thrill ran down
her spine. That night, that dream, it had felt like desire, danger, and scandals, and all the secrets her body and her eager mind quietly coveted. The thrill of shamelessness and of him.
She blushed after all.
Virgil smiled. And even though it was impossible, she was sure that he knew exactly what she had dreamed, and that he was waiting for her to give him the smallest hint of an invitation. The fog in her brain was clearing, though, and she remembered the words in her ear. That single phrase. Open your eyes.
Noemí curled a hand into a fist, her nails digging into her palm.
She shook her head. “Something terrible,” she said.
Virgil seemed confused, then disappointed. His face turned ugly as he grimaced. “Perhaps you were hoping to sleepwalk into Francis’s room, hmm?” he asked.
The words shocked her, but they also gave her the confidence to stare back at him. How dare he. And after he had said they could be friends. But she understood now. This man was an absolute liar, toying with her, attempting to confuse and distract her. He turned kind for a second when it suited him, granted her an inch of cordiality, then took it away.
“Go to sleep,” she said, but in her mind she thought fuck you, and her tone plainly indicated that. She snatched the lamp and left him in the shadows.
When she reached her room she realized it had started to rain. The sort of rain that does not ease, a constant patter against the window. She ventured into the bathroom and looked at the bathtub. The water was cold, and the steam had dissipated. She yanked up the plug.
