Mexican Gothic(99)

There must be a law about that,” she said with that genial tone of hers. It had been a while since she had employed it. It felt stale and difficult to sound so carefree, it almost hurt her tongue, but she managed a smile, and he looked pleased.

She must practice, she thought. It was all practice. She’d learn to live without worry, without fears, without any darkness chasing after her.

“Mexico City, then,” he said. “It’s very large.”

“You’ll get the hang of it,” she replied, stifling a yawn with her injured hand.

His eyes fixed on Noemí’s splinted fingers. “Does it hurt very badly?” he asked quietly.

“It hurts a little. No sonatas for me for a while. Maybe we can play a duet and you help me with the left hand.”

“Seriously, Noemí.”

“Seriously? Everything hurts. It’ll mend.”

Maybe it wouldn’t, and maybe she’d never be able to coax notes out of a piano the same way she used to, maybe she would never be able to vanquish this experience, but she didn’t want to say that.

There was no point in saying that.

“I did hear your cousin telling you to sleep. It sounded like a good idea.”

“Bah. Sleep is boring,” she proclaimed and fidgeted with her pack of cigarettes.

“Do you have nightmares?”

She shrugged and did not reply, tapping her index finger against the box.

“I didn’t have nightmares about my mother. Maybe I will dream of her later,” Francis said. “But I did dream the house had stitched itself together and I was inside of it, and this time there was no way out. I was alone in the house, and all the doors were sealed.”

She crushed the box. “It’s all gone. I told you, it’s all gone.”

“It was grander than before. It was the house before it had fallen into disrepair; the colors were vivid and there were flowers growing in the greenhouse, but flowers also grew inside, and there were forests of mushrooms up the staircase and in the rooms,” he said, his voice infinitely calm. “And when I walked, mushrooms sprouted from my footsteps.”

“Please, be quiet,” she said, and she wished he had dreamed of murder, of blood and viscera. This dream was much more disquieting.

She dropped her box of cigarettes. They both looked down at the ground, where it had landed between her chair and his bed.

“What if it’s never gone? What if it’s in me?” he asked, and there was a hitch in his voice.

“I don’t know,” she said. They’d done everything they could.

Burned all the mushrooms, destroyed the gloom, ingested Marta’s tincture. It ought to be gone. Yet, in the blood.

He shook his head with a heavy exhalation. “If it’s in me, then I should put an end to it, and you shouldn’t be so close to me, it’s not —”

“It was a dream.”

“Noemí—”

“You’re not listening.”

“No! It was a dream. Dreams can’t hurt you.”

“Then why won’t you go to sleep?”

“I don’t want to, and it has nothing to do with this. Nightmares mean nothing.”

He intended to protest, she pulled herself closer to him, settled on the bed and finally under the covers, bidding him to hush as she embraced him. She felt his hand ghosting against her hair, heard his heart stuttering and smoothing into a steady beat.

She looked up at him. Francis’s eyes were shiny with unshed tears.

“I don’t want to be like him,” he whispered. “Maybe I’ll die soon.

Maybe you can cremate me.”

“You won’t.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“We’ll stay together,” she said firmly. “We’ll stay together and you won’t be alone. I can promise you that.”

“How can you make such a promise?”

She whispered that the city was wonderful and bright, and there were areas of it where buildings were rising up, fresh and new, places that had been open fields and held no secret histories. There were other cities too, where the sun could scorch out the land and bring color to his cheeks. They could live by the sea, in a building with large windows and no curtains.

“Spinning fairy tales,” he murmured, but he embraced her.

Catalina was the one who made stories up. Tales of black mares with jeweled riders, princesses in towers, and Kublai Khan’s messengers. But he needed a story and she needed to tell one, so she did until he didn’t care whether she was lying or speaking the truth.

He tightened his arms around her and buried his face in the crook of her neck.

Eventually, she slept and did not dream. When she woke up to the half-light of the early morning, Francis turned his wan face toward Noemí and locked his blue eyes on her. She wondered whether one day, if she looked carefully, she might notice a golden sheen to them.

Or maybe she’d catch her own reflection staring back at her with eyes of molten gold. The world might indeed be a cursed circle; the snake swallowed its tail and there could be no end, only an eternal ruination and endless devouring.

“I thought I dreamed you,” he said, still a little sleepy.

“I’m real,” she replied, a murmur.