Mexican Gothic(77)

Francis did not reply, but she could guess that he wasn’t enjoying the idea of springing two people out by the way he frowned.

“I can’t leave her behind,” she said, clutching the hand in which he still held the bottle. “You must also give her the tincture, you must also break her free.”

“Yes, fine. Keep your voice down.”

She let go of his hand and lowered her voice. “You must promise, on your life.”

“I’m promising. Now, shall we give it a try?” he asked, taking out the bottle’s glass stopper. “It’ll make you a little sleepy, but you probably need the rest.”

“Virgil can see my dreams,” she muttered, pressing her knuckles against her mouth for a moment. “Won’t he know, if he can see my dreams? Won’t he know what I’m thinking?”

“They’re not really dreams. It’s the gloom. But be careful when you’re there.”

“I don’t know if I can trust you,” she said. “Why would you help me?”

He was unlike his cousin in a thousand tiny ways, with his slim hands and his weak mouth, spindly where Virgil was solid forcefulness. He was young and wan, and infected with kindness. But who could say if it was all for show, if he couldn’t sink into ruthless indifference. After all, nothing in this place was what it seemed.

There were secrets upon secrets.

She touched the back of her neck, the place where Virgil’s fingers had dug into her hair.

Francis twirled the glass stopper in one hand. It caught a stray ray of light, filtering through the curtains; a tiny prism, painting a rainbow on the edge of her bed.

“There’s a cicada fungus. Massospora cicadina. I remember reading a journal article which discussed its appearance: the fungus sprouts along the abdomen of the cicada. It turns it into a mass of yellow powder. The journal said the cicadas, which had been so grossly infected, were still ‘singing,’ as their body was consumed from within. Singing, calling for a mate, half dead. Can you imagine?” Francis said. “You’re right, I do have a choice. I’m not going to end my life singing a tune, pretending everything is fine.”

He ceased toying with the glass stopper and glanced at her.

“You managed to pretend so far.”

She stared at him, and he stared back at her gravely. “Yes,” he said. “And now you’re here and I can’t anymore.”

She watched him, silent, as he poured out a minute amount of liquid onto a spoon. Noemí swallowed the tincture. It was bitter. He offered her the napkin that had been set by her plate, and Noemí wiped her mouth clean.

“Let me take this away,” Francis said, placing the bottle back in his pocket and picking up her tray. She touched his arm, and he stopped.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me,” he replied. “I should have spoken sooner, but I’m a coward.”

She pressed her head back against the pillows after that and let the drowsiness take over. Later—she wasn’t sure how much later— she heard a rustling of cloth and sat up. Ruth Doyle was perched at the foot of her bed, looking down at the floor.

Not Ruth. A memory? A ghost? Not quite a ghost. She realized that what she had been seeing, the voice whispering to her, urging her to open her eyes, was the mind of Ruth, which still nestled in the gloom, in the crevices and mold-covered walls. There must be other minds, bits of persons, hidden underneath the wallpaper, but none as solid, as tangible as Ruth. Except, perhaps, for that golden presence that she still could not identify and that she could not even declare a person. It didn’t feel like a person. Not like Ruth.

“Can you hear me?” she asked. “Or are you like the grooves in a vinyl record?”

She wasn’t afraid of the girl. She was a young woman, abused and abandoned. Her presence wasn’t malicious, merely anxious.

“I’m not sorry,” Ruth said.

“My name is Noemí. I’ve seen you before, but I’m not sure you understand me.”

“Not sorry.”

Noemí didn’t think the girl was going to offer her more than those scant words, but suddenly Ruth lifted her head and stared at her.

“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.