“Maybe you hadn’t noticed.”
“I would’ve noticed.”
“I’ve been following you for a few minutes now, trying to decide whether to shake you awake or not.”
“I wasn’t sleepwalking.”
“Then I must have been mistaken, and you were simply walking around in the dark,” he said coolly.
God, she felt stupid, standing there in her nightgown, gawping at him. She did not want to argue with him; there was no point in it. He was right, and besides, she dearly wished to get back to her room. It was too cold and dark in this hallway; she could hardly see anything. They could be sitting in the belly of a beast for all she knew.
In the nightmare, they had been in a belly, had they not? No. A cage made of organs. Walls of flesh. That’s what she had seen, and who knew. If she tried to touch the wall right now it might ripple beneath her palm. She ran a hand through her hair.
“Fine. Maybe I was sleepwalking. But—”
She heard it then, a throaty moan like in her dream, low but undeniable. It made her jump again, jump back. She almost collided with him.
“What was that?” she asked and looked down the hallway, then turned to stare at him anxiously.
“My father is ill. It’s an old wound which never quite healed and pains him. He’s been having a rough night,” he said, looking very composed, adjusting the flame of the oil lamp, making it bloom a little brighter. She could now see the wallpaper, its drawing of flowers, faint traces of mold marring its surface.
No veins pumping through the walls.
Damn it, and yes, Francis had told her something similar earlier that day, about Howard being ill. But was she in that area of the house, close to the old man’s bed? So far from her room? She thought she might have taken a few paces outside her door, not wandered from one side of the house to the other.
“You should call for a doctor.”
“Like I explained, sometimes it pains him. We are used to it. When Dr. Cummins stops by for his weekly visit he can examine him, but my father is simply an old man. I’m sorry if he startled you.”
Old, yes; 1885 was when they arrived in Mexico. Even if Howard Doyle had been a young man back then, almost seventy years had passed. And how old was he, exactly? Ninety? Closer to a hundred? He must have been an old man already when he had Virgil. She rubbed her arms again.
“Here, you must be cold,” he said, setting the oil lamp down on the floor and untying his robe.
“I’m fine.”
“Put this on.”
He took off the robe, placing it around her shoulders. It was too large. He was tall and she was not. It never bothered her much, tall men. She simply looked them up and down. But she did not feel very confident right this second, still unnerved by that ridiculous dream. Noemí crossed her arms and looked down at the carpet.
He picked up the oil lamp. “I’ll walk you back to your room.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I do. Otherwise you’ll be liable to hurt your shins in the dark. And it’s quite dark.”
He was, once again, correct. The few wall sconces with working bulbs gave off a dim light, but there were large pools of blackness in between them. The glow of Virgil’s lamp was an eerie green, but on the other hand she felt grateful for its more potent illumination. This house, she was sure, was haunted. She wasn’t one for believing in things that go bump in the night either, but right that second she firmly felt every spook and demon and evil thing might be crawling about the Earth, like in Catalina’s stories.
He was quiet as they walked, and even if the silence of the house was unpleasant, and the creaking of each board made her wince, it was better than having to talk to him. She simply could not converse at a time like this.
I’m a baby, she thought. Boy, would her brother laugh at her if he saw her. She could picture him, telling everyone Noemí now practically believed in el coco. The memory of her brother, her family, Mexico City, it was good. It warmed her better than the robe.
When they got to her room, she finally felt at ease. She was back. All was well. She opened the door.
“If you want, you can keep this,” he said, pointing to the lamp.
“No. Then you’d be the one hitting your shins in the dark. Give me a minute,” she said, reaching for the top of the dresser, by the door, where she’d left the gaudy silver candelabra with the cherub. She grabbed the box of matches and lit the candle.
“Let there be light. See? It’s fine.”
