Mexican Gothic(71)

“Richard,” Francis whispered, allowing her to look at the black-and-white photograph of a man. “His name was Richard.”

The sharpness of Francis’s sallow face vaguely reminded her of Virgil Doyle, but now she could see the traces of his father: the pointed chin, the broad forehead.

“Ruth caused a lot of damage. It wasn’t just the people she killed; she hurt Howard very badly. No normal man would have survived after she shot him, not the way she did it. He survived. But his grip, his power, decreased. That’s why we lost all our workers.”

“They were all hypnotized? Like your three servants?”

“No. Not quite. He couldn’t possibly manipulate that many people at once. It was a more subtle push and pull. It affected them, though.

The house, the fungus, it affected the miners. It was a fog that could dull your senses when he needed it.”

“What about your father?” she asked, handing him back the portrait, which he tucked in his pocket.

“After Howard was shot, he slowly began to heal himself. It has been hard, in recent generations, for the family to have children.

When my mother came of age, Howard tried to…but he was too old, too damaged, to give her a child. And there were other troubles too.”

His niece. He tried to have a child with his niece, Noemí thought, and the fleeting idea of that hideous thing she’d seen naked laboring over a woman, pressing its emaciated body against Florence, made her want to hurl again. She pressed the handkerchief to her mouth.

“Noemí?” Francis asked.

“What troubles?” she replied, urging him on.

“Money. The remaining workers all left when Howard’s control over them snapped, and there was no one to watch the mine, so it flooded. There was no money coming in, and the Revolution had already ruined much of our finances. They needed money and they needed children. Otherwise, what would happen to the bloodline?

My mother found my father, and she thought he’d do. He had a little money. Not a huge fortune, but enough to tide us over, and most important she thought he could get her with child. He came to live here, to High Place. They had me. I was a boy, but the idea was that he might give her more children, that he might give her girls.

“The gloom, it affected him. He felt himself going mad. He wanted to leave, but he couldn’t. He never could get far. He threw himself down a ravine in the end. If you fight it, then it will hurt. It will be bad,” Francis warned her. “But if you obey, if you bond with it, if you agree to be part of the family, then it will be fine.”

“Catalina fights it, doesn’t she?”

“Yes,” Francis admitted. “But it’s also that she is not…she’s not quite as compatible—”

Noemí shook her head. “What makes you think I’ll comply any more than she has?”

“You’re compatible. Virgil, he picked Catalina because he knew she’d be compatible, but when you came here, it became obvious you’re even more suitable than her. I guess they hope you’ll be more understanding.”

“That I’ll be happy to join your family. That I’ll be happy to what?

Give you my money? Maybe give you children?”

“Yes. Yes, to both.”

“You’re a pack of monsters. And you! I trusted you.”

He stared at her intently, his mouth quivering. She thought he might cry. It made her furious. That he should be the one breaking down and weeping. Don’t you dare, she thought.

“I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry! You god damn bastard!” she yelled, and despite the fact that her body still throbbed with a horrible, dull pain she stood up.

“I am sorry. I didn’t want this,” he said, pushing his chair back, getting up too.

“Then help me! Get me out of here!”

“I can’t.”

She hit him. It wasn’t a good punch, and as soon as she threw it she thought she was going to collapse on the floor. It robbed her of all strength, and she felt suddenly boneless. If he hadn’t caught her, surely she’d have cracked her head open. Yet she scrambled against him, trying to shove him off.

“Let go,” she demanded, but her voice was muffled against the folds of his jacket. She couldn’t pull her head up.

“You need to rest. I’ll think of a solution, but you need to rest,” he whispered.

“Go to hell!”

He deposited her carefully on the bed again, pulling the covers up, and she wanted to tell him to go to hell one last time, but her eyes were closing, and in the corner of the room the mold was beating like a heart, stretching out, making the wallpaper ripple. The floorboards also swayed, trembling like the skin of a living thing.

A great snake rose from under the floorboards, slick and black, and slid over the covers. Noemí stared at it as it touched her legs, its skin cool against her feverish flesh, and she didn’t move, fearing it would rear its head back and bite her. And upon the snake’s skin there were a thousand tiny little growths, tiny pulsating points, which quivered and unleashed spores.

It’s another dream, she thought. It’s the gloom, and the gloom isn’t real.

But she didn’t want to see this, she didn’t want to, and she moved her legs at last, trying to kick the thing away. When she touched the snake its skin split open, and it was white and dead, the carcass of a snake ravaged by decay. Life teemed upon this white corpse, mold blooming all over it.