Mexican Gothic(83)

“Why did he never transmigrate before? When he was shot, then?” she asked.

“He couldn’t. There was no new body he could inhabit. He needs an adult body. The brain must grow up to a certain point. Twenty-four, twenty-five, that’s the point at which the transmigration may take place. Virgil was a baby. Florence was still a girl, and even if she’d been older, he would never transmigrate into a woman’s body.

So he held on, and his body stitched itself back together into a semblance of health.”

“But he could have transmigrated as soon as Virgil turned twenty-four or twenty-five instead of staying an old man.”

“It’s all connected. The house, the fungus running through it, the people. You hurt the family, you hurt the fungus. Ruth damaged the whole fabric of our existence. Howard wasn’t healing alone, everything was healing. But now he’s strong enough and he will die, his body will fruit, and he’ll begin a new cycle.”

She thought of the house growing scar tissue, breathing slowly, blood flowing between the floorboards. It reminded her of one of her dreams, in which the walls palpitated.

“And that’s why I won’t go with you,” Francis continued, fiddling with the cutlery, spinning a fork between his fingers and setting it down, ready to grab the tray and depart. “We’re all interconnected, and if I fled, they’d know, maybe even follow us and find us with ease.”

“But you can’t stay here. What will they do to you?”

“Probably nothing. If they do, it won’t be your problem anymore.”

He clutched the tray. “Let me take that and I’ll—”

“You can’t be serious,” she said, snatching the tray away and laying it on the floor, shoving it aside.

He shrugged. “I’ve been gathering supplies for you. Catalina tried to run away, but she was ill prepared. Two oil lamps, a compass, a map, perhaps a pair of warm coats so that you can walk to town without freezing. You have to think about yourself and your cousin.

Not about me. I don’t really count. The fact of the matter is this is all the world I’ve ever known.”

“Wood and glass and a roof do not constitute a world,” she countered. “You’re not an orchid growing in a hothouse. I’m not letting you stay. Pack your prints or your favorite book or whatever you wish, you are coming with us.”

“You don’t belong here, Noemí. But I do. What would I do outside?” he asked.

“Anything you want.”

“But that is a deceiving idea. You are right to think that I was grown like an orchid. Carefully manufactured, carefully reared. I am, yes, like an orchid. Accustomed to a certain climate, a certain amount of light and heat. I’ve been fashioned for a single end. A fish can’t breathe out of water. I belong with the family.”

“You’re not an orchid or a fish.”

“My father tried to escape, and you see how he fared,” he countered. “My mother and Virgil, they came back.”

He laughed without joy, and she could very well believe he would stay behind, a cephalophore martyr of cold marble who’d let the dust accumulate on his shoulders, who’d allow the house to gently, slowly devour him.

“You’ll come with me.”

“But—”

“But nothing! Don’t you want to leave this place?” she insisted.

His shoulders were hunched, and he looked as if he would bolt out the door any second, but then he took a shaky breath.

“For God’s sake, you can’t be that blind?” he replied, his voice low and harrowed. “I want to follow you, wherever you may go. To the damn Antarctic, even if I’d freeze my toes off, who cares? But the tincture can sever your link between you and the house, not mine.

I’ve lived too long with it. Ruth tried to find a way around it, tried to kill Howard to escape. That didn’t work. And my father’s gambit didn’t work either. There’s no solution.”

What he said made a terrible amount of sense. Yet she stubbornly refused to concede. Was everyone in this house a moth caught in a killing jar and then pinned against a board?

“Listen,” she said. “Follow me. I’ll be your pied piper.”

“Those who follow the pied piper don’t meet a good end.”

“I forget which fairy tale it is,” Noemí said angrily. “But follow me all the same.”

“Noemí—”

She raised a hand and touched his face, her fingers gliding along his jaw.

He looked at her, mutely, his lips moving though he uttered no words, gathering his courage. He reached out for her, pulling her closer to him in a gentle motion. His hand trailed down her back, palm pressed flat, and she rested her cheek against his chest.

The house was quiet, a quiet that she disliked, for it seemed to her all the boards that normally creaked and groaned had stopped creaking, the clocks on the walls did not tick, and even the rain against the window panes was shushed. It was as if an animal waited to pounce on them.

“They’re listening, aren’t they?” she whispered. They couldn’t understand them since they were speaking in Spanish. Yet it still disturbed her.

“Yes,” he said.

He was scared too, she could tell. In the silence his heart beat loud against her ear. At length she lifted her head and looked at him, and he pressed his index finger to his lips, rising and stepping back from her. And she wondered if in addition to being able to listen, the house might not have eyes too.