N
oemí slept fitfully, afraid she’d launch into another somnambulistic escapade. Eventually, she dozed off.
There was a rustle of cloth in her room, the creak of a board, and she turned her head in fright toward the door, her hands clutching her bedsheets.
It was Florence in another of her prim dark dresses and her pearls. She had let herself into her room and carried a silver tray in her hands.
“What are you doing?” Noemí asked, sitting up. Her mouth felt dry.
“It’s lunchtime,” Florence said. “What?”
It couldn’t be that late, could it? Noemí got up and pulled the curtains aside. Light streamed in. It rained still. The morning hours had burned away without her noticing, exhaustion bleeding her dry.
Florence set the lunch tray down. She poured a cup of tea for Noemí.
“Oh, no, thanks,” Noemí said, shaking her head. “I wanted to see Catalina before eating.”
“She’s woken up already and has gone back to bed,” Florence replied, setting the teapot down. “Her medication is making her very sleepy.”
“In that case, will you tell me when the doctor arrives, then? He is supposed to come today, isn’t he?”
“He won’t be here today.”
“I thought he visited every week.”
“It’s still raining,” Florence said, indifferent. “He won’t come up with this rain.”
“It might rain tomorrow too. After all, it’s the rainy season, isn’t it? What’ll happen then?”
“Well get by on our own, we always have.”
What neat, crisp answers to everything! Why, it almost felt like Florence had written and memorized all the right things to say.
“Please tell me when my cousin wakes up,” Noemí insisted.
“I’m not your servant, Miss Taboada,” Florence replied. Her voice lacked animosity, though. It was merely a fact.
“I am well aware of that, but you demand that I not visit Catalina without warning and then you set up an impossible schedule for me. What is your problem?” she asked. She realized she was being incredibly rude, but she wished to draw a crack through Florence’s calm façade.
“If you have an issue with that, you’d best bring it up with Virgil.” Virgil. The last thing she wished to do was bring anything up with
Virgil. Noemí crossed her arms and stared at the woman. Florence
stared back at her, her eyes very cold and her mouth curved a little, the slightest hint of derision.
“Enjoy your lunch,” Florence concluded, and there was superiority in her smile, as if she thought she’d won a battle.
Noemí stirred the soup with her spoon and sipped the tea. She quickly gave up on both of them. She felt the beginning of a headache. She ought to eat but stubbornly decided to look around the house.
Noemí grabbed her sweater and walked downstairs. Did she hope to find anything? Ghosts, peeking from behind doors? If there were any, they evaded her.
The rooms with sheets on top of the furniture were dire, and so was the greenhouse with its wilted plants. Aside from evoking a mild sense of depression, they revealed nothing. She ended up seeking refuge in the library. The curtains were drawn, and she pulled them open.
She looked down at the circular rug with the snake she had noticed during her first visit and slowly walked around it. There had been a snake in her dream. It burst from an egg. No, from a fruiting body. If dreams had meaning, what did this one tell her?
Well, she was damn sure one needn’t phone a psychoanalyst to determine it had a sexual component to it. Trains going through tunnels make for neat metaphors, thanks, Mr. Freud, and apparently phallic mushrooms straining through the soil served the same purpose.
Virgil Doyle straining against her.
That was no metaphor; it was crystal clear.
The memory of him, with his hands in her hair, his lips against her own, made her shiver. But there wasn’t anything pleasant in the memory. It was cold and disturbing, and she turned her eyes toward the bookshelves, furiously looking among the tomes for a book to read.
Noemí grabbed a couple of books at random and went back to her room. She stood by the window, looking outside, nibbling on a nail before she decided she was too nervous and needed a smoke. She found the cigarettes, the lighter, and the cup decorated with half- naked cupids that she utilized as an ashtray. After taking a drag, she settled on the bed.
She hadn’t even bothered to read the titles of the books she’d picked. Hereditary Descent: Its Laws and Facts Applied to Human Improvement, it said. The other book was more interesting, dwelling on Greek and Roman mythology.
She opened it and saw the faint, dark marks of mold upon the first page. She turned the pages carefully. The interior pages were mostly intact, a few tiny spots on a corner or two. They made her think of snatches of Morse code. Nature writing upon paper and leather.
Noemí held the cigarette in her left hand and let the ash drop into the cup, which she’d placed on the side table. Golden-haired Persephone, the book informed her, had been dragged down into the
Underworld by Hades. There she ate a few seeds of pomegranate, which chained her to his shadow world.
The book contained an engraving showing the exact moment when Persephone was snatched away by the god. Persephone’s hair was strewn with flowers and a few flowers had fallen to the ground; her breasts were bare. Hades, reaching from behind, had picked her up, clutching her in his arms. Persephone had one hand in the air and swooned, a scream on her lips. Her expression was one of horror. The god stared forward.
Noemí clapped the book shut and looked away, her eyes landing on the corner in her room where the rose-colored wallpaper was stained black by mold. And as she looked at it, the mold moved.
Christ, what kind of optical illusion was that?!
She sat in the bed and gripped the covers with one hand while with the other she held her cigarette. Slowly she stood and approached the wall, unblinking. The shifting mold was mesmerizing. It rearranged itself into wildly eclectic patterns that reminded her of a kaleidoscope, shifting, changing. Instead of bits of glass reflected by mirrors it was an organic madness that propelled the mold into its dizzy twists and turns, creating swirls and garlands, dissolving, then remerging.
There was color to it too. At first glance it appeared black and gray, yet the longer Noemí looked at the mold, the more it became obvious there was a golden sheen to certain sections of it. Gold and yellow and amber, dulling or intensifying as the patterns remade themselves into a new combination of staggering, symmetrical beauty.
She reached a hand up, as if to touch that section of the wall that was dirtied by the mold. The mold moved again, away from her hand, skittish. Then it seemed to change its mind. It pulsated, as if it was bubbling up, like tar, and it crooked a long, thin finger, beckoning her.
There were a thousand bees hiding in the walls, and she heard them buzzing as she pressed forward drowsily, intending to slide her
lips against the mold. She’d run her hands across the shimmering gold patterns, and they would smell of earth and green, of rain, and then they would speak a thousand secrets.
The mold beat to the rhythm of her heart; they beat as one, and her lips parted.
The forgotten cigarette, still in her possession, burned Noemí’s skin, and she let go of it with a yelp. She quickly bent down and picked up the cigarette, tossing it into her makeshift ashtray.
She turned around to look at the mold. It was absolutely still. The wall looked like old, dirty wallpaper and had not changed even a little bit.
Noemí rushed into the bathroom and shut the door. She gripped the edge of the sink to keep herself steady. Her legs were about to fail her, and she thought, panicked, that she would faint.
She opened the faucet, splashing cold water against her face, unwilling to collapse even if it took all her damn might. Breathe and breathe again, that’s what she did.
“God damn it,” Noemí whispered, bracing herself with both hands against the sink. The dizzy spell was passing. But she wasn’t going out there. Not for a while, at least. Until she made sure…made sure of what? That she’d stopped hallucinating? That she wasn’t going mad?
Noemí slid one hand against her neck while she examined the other. She had a great, nasty burn between her index and middle fingers, where the cigarette had burned down to a stub. She’d have to obtain an ointment for that.
Noemí splashed more water against her face and stared into the mirror, her fingertips on her lips.
A loud knock made her jump back.
“Are you in there?” Florence asked. Before Noemí had time to reply, the woman opened the door.
“Give me a minute,” Noemí muttered.
“Why are you smoking when it’s forbidden?”
Noemí whipped her head up and scoffed at the inane question. “Yeah? I think the more important question is what the fuck is going on in this house?” Noemí said. She wasn’t quite yelling, but she was awfully close.
“What language! Watch how you talk to me, young girl.”
Noemí shook her head and closed the faucet. “I want to see Catalina, right away.”
“Don’t you dare order me around. Virgil will be here any minute and you’ll see—”
She clutched Florence’s arm. “Listen—” “Take your hands off me!”
Noemí squeezed her fingers harder while Florence tried to push her away.
“What’s this?” Virgil asked.
He stood at the doorway, looking at them curiously. He had on the same pinstriped jacket that he’d worn in her dream. It gave her a jolt. She’d likely seen it on him before, which is why she’d pictured him wearing it in the first place, but she didn’t like this detail. It blended reality and fantasy together. It unnerved her enough to release Florence.
“She’s been breaking the rules, as usual,” Florence said, carefully smoothing back her hair even though it did not need to be smoothed. As if their brief confrontation could have upset her well-coiffed head. “She’s a nuisance.”
“What are you doing here?” Noemí asked, crossing her arms. “You yelled, and I came to see if anything was amiss,” Virgil told
her. “I imagine that’s the same reason why Florence is here.”
“Indeed,” Florence replied. “I didn’t yell for anyone.”
“We both heard you,” Florence insisted.
Noemí had definitely not yelled. There had been noise, but that was the noise from the bees. Of course there were no bees, but that didn’t mean she had yelled. She would damn well remember if she
yelled. The cigarette had burned her hands, but she hadn’t made that much noise and—
They both looked at her. “I want to see my cousin. Now. I swear to God, you let me see her or I’ll knock her door down,” she demanded.
Virgil shrugged. “There is no need for that. Come.”
She followed them. At one point Virgil looked at her over his shoulder and smiled. Noemí rubbed her wrist and looked away. When they walked into Catalina’s room she was surprised to see her cousin awake. Mary was also there. It seemed this would be a group reunion.
“Noemí, what is it?” Catalina asked, a book in her hands. “I wanted to see how you were doing.”
“Same as yesterday. Resting, mostly. It seems I’m the Sleeping Beauty.”
Sleeping Beauty, Snow White. Noemí couldn’t care less about that right now. But Catalina was smiling kindly, like she always used to smile. “You look tired. Anything wrong?”
Noemí hesitated and shook her head. “It’s nothing. Do you want me to read to you?” she asked.
“I was going to have a cup of tea. Do you want to join me?” “No.”
Noemí wasn’t sure what she had expected to find, but it wasn’t Catalina in high spirits, the maid quietly arranging flowers in a vase, the meager blooms from the greenhouse. The scene struck her as artificial and yet there was nothing wrong. She stared at her cousin, trying to find the faintest trace of discomfort in her face.
“Really, Noemí. You seem a little odd. You aren’t getting a cold, are you?” Catalina asked.
“I’m fine. I’ll let you have your tea,” Noemí said, unwilling to reveal more in the presence of the others. Not that they seemed terribly interested in this conversation.
She stepped outside. Virgil exited the room too and closed the door. They looked at each other.
“Are you satisfied?” he asked.
“I’m appeased. For now,” she replied tersely, intending to walk back to her room alone, but he was going in the same direction, obviously wishing to continue their conversation and not minding her curtness.
“And I thought there was no appeasing you.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked. “You’re on a quest to find faults around you.”
“Faults? No. Answers. And let me tell you, they’re pretty big ones.”
“Are they?”
“I saw this awful thing, moving—” “Last night or now?”
“Now. And last night too,” she muttered, pressing her hand against her forehead.
She realized then that if she headed back to her room she’d have to look at the ugly wallpaper with the hideous black stain on it. She wasn’t ready to face it. Noemí changed course, quickly veering toward the stairs. She could always hide in the drawing room. It was the most comfortable room in the house.
“If you’re having bad dreams I can ask the doctor for a remedy to help you sleep the next time he visits us,” Virgil said.
She walked faster, intent on putting distance between him and her. “That won’t do any good since I wasn’t dreaming.”
“You weren’t dreaming last night? But you walked in your sleep.”
She turned around. They were standing on the stairs, and he was three steps above her.
“That was different. Today I was awake. Today—” “It all sounds very confusing,” he interjected.
“That’s because you’re not giving me a chance to speak.”
“You’re very tired,” he said dismissively as he began to descend those steps.
Noemí went down three more steps, attempting to maintain the same gap between them. “Is that what you told her? You’re very tired? Did she believe you?”
A moment later he had reached Noemí and bypassed her, descending the final steps to the ground floor. He turned to look at her.
“I think it’s better if we leave it at this for now. You’re agitated.” “I don’t want to leave it at this,” she said.
“Oh?”
Vigil slid a hand over the shoulder of the carved nymph that grasped the newel post at the bottom of the staircase. A sordid spark danced in his eyes. Or was she imagining that too? Was there something else to that casual “oh,” to that smile spreading across his face?
She descended the steps, giving him a challenging look. But then her courage evaporated when he leaned forward and she thought he was about to transfer his hand to her shoulder.
In the dream there had been a strange taste in his mouth, like ripe fruit, and he, with the pinstriped jacket, hovering above her, taking off his clothes, slipping into the tub and touching her, while Noemí wrapped her arms around him. The memory was tinged with arousal, but also with a terrible humiliation.
You’ll be a good girl, won’t you? He’d told her that. And here they were now, wide awake, and she realized that he was capable of saying exactly that to her in real life. That he’d have no trouble snidely delivering such a line, that his strong hands could find her in the daylight or the dark.
She was afraid he’d touch her and of how she’d react. “I wish to leave High Place. Can you tell someone to drive me back to town?” she asked quickly.
“You’re full of impulsiveness today, Noemí,” he said. “Why would you be leaving us?”
“I don’t need a reason.”
She’d come back. Yes, that was right. Or even if she didn’t leave, if she could get as far as the train station and write to her father, it would all be better. The world seemed to be collapsing around her, becoming a confused mess, dreams bleeding into her waking hours. If she was able to step out, to discuss the strange experiences she was having at High Place with Dr. Camarillo, then maybe she’d feel like herself again. Camarillo might even be able to help her figure out what was going on, or what she should do. Air. She needed fresh air.
“Of course not. But we can’t drive you back with all this rain. I told you, the roads are treacherous.”
She could see the raindrops splattered against the colored glass window on the second landing. “Then I’ll walk back.”
“You’ll drag your suitcase in the mud? Perhaps you intend to use it as a boat and paddle away on it? Don’t be silly,” he said. “The rain must cease today, and we can attempt the drive tomorrow morning. Will that suffice?”
Now that he’d agreed to take her to town she was able to breath and unclench her tense hands. Noemí nodded.
“If you really are leaving us tomorrow, then you should have dinner with us one final time,” Virgil said, sliding his hand off the nymph and glancing down the hallway, in the direction of the dining room.
“Very well. And I’ll want to talk to Catalina too.” “Of course. Is there anything else?” he asked. “No,” she said. “There’s nothing.”
It wasn’t a lie, but she still avoided his gaze, and for a moment she remained unmoving, not knowing whether he might continue following her as she went toward the sitting room. But remaining wouldn’t do her any good either.
She began walking. “Noemí?” he said.
She paused to look back at him.
“Please don’t smoke again. It disturbs us,” he said.
“Don’t worry,” she replied and, remembering the cigarette burn on her hand, she looked at her fingers. But the red, raw mark was gone. There was no sign of it at all.
Noemí held up her other hand, thinking that perhaps she’d mistaken which hand she’d injured. Nothing there either. She flexed her fingers and hurried to the sitting room, her steps loud as she walked. She thought she heard Virgil chuckle, but she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure of anything at all.
