This is proof, Catalina had said. But proof of what? She laid the letter on the table and smoothed it out. She read it again.
Put the facts together, you fool, she told herself, chewing on a nail. And what were the facts? That her cousin spoke about a presence in this house, including voices. Ruth also described voices. Noemí had heard no voices, but she’d had bad dreams and sleepwalked, which she hadn’t done in years.
One could conclude this was a case of three silly, nervous women. Physicians of old would have diagnosed it as hysterics. But one thing Noemí was not was hysterical.
If the three of them were not hysterical, then the three of them had truly come in contact withsomethinginside this house. But must it be supernatural? Must it be a curse? A ghost? Could there be a more rational answer? Was she seeing a pattern where there wasn’t any? After all, that’s what humans did: look for patterns. She could be weaving three disparate stories into a narrative.
She wanted to talk to someone else about this because otherwise she was going to wear the soles of her shoes off walking back and forth in her room. Noemí slid the paper into her sweater’s pocket, grabbed her oil lamp, and went to find Francis. He had been avoiding her for the past couple of days—she assumed Florence had also given him the speech about chores and duties—but she didn’t think he’d slam the door in her face if she went to him, and, anyway, it wasn’t as if she was going to ask him for a favor this time. She simply wished to chat. Emboldened, she sought him out.
He opened his door, and before he could properly greet her she spoke. “May I come in? I need to talk to you.”
“Now?”
“Five minutes. Please?”
He blinked, unsure; cleared his throat for good measure. “Yes. Yes, of course.”
The walls in his room were covered with colorful drawings and prints of botanical specimens. She counted a dozen butterflies carefully pinned under glass and five lovingly painted watercolors of mushrooms, their names in tiny print beneath them. There were two bookcases laden with leather-bound volumes and books stacked on the floor in tidy piles. The smell of weathered pages and ink permeated the room, like the perfume from an exotic bouquet.
Virgil’s room had a sitting area, but Francis’s did not. She could see the narrow bed with a dark green coverlet and a richly carved headboard festooned with leaves, the pervasive motif of the snake eating its tail at the center. There was a matching desk, covered with more books. On a corner of the desk, an empty cup and a plate. That is where he must have his meals. He didn’t utilize the table in the middle of the room.
As she walked next to it, she realized why: the table was covered with papers and drawing instruments. She looked at the sharpened pencils, the bottles of india ink, and the nibs of pens. A box with watercolors, the brushes sitting inside a cup. There were many charcoal drawings, but others were inked. Botanical sketches, the lot of them.
“You’re an artist,” she said, touching the edge of a drawing showing a dandelion while she held the oil lamp with her other hand.
“I draw,” he said, sounding abashed. “I’m afraid I have nothing to offer you. I’ve finished my tea.”
“I despise the tea they brew here. It’s terrible,” she said, looking at another drawing, this one of a dahlia. “I tried my hand at painting once. I thought it made sense, you know? My father being in the dye and paint business, after all. But I was no good. Plus, I like photos better. They capture the thing in the moment.”
“But painting is the repeated exposure to a thing. It captures the essence of the object.”
“You’re poetic too.”
He looked embarrassed. “Let’s sit,” he said, taking the lantern from her hand and setting it down on the desk where he had already placed a few candles. Another oil lamp, very much like her own, larger, rested on his night table. The glass on it was tinted yellow, and it varnished the room in warm amber tones.
He pointed her to a large chair covered with an antimacassar showcasing a pattern of rose garlands and quickly shoved off a couple of books that he’d left there. He grabbed his desk chair, sitting before her and lacing his hands together, leaning forward a little.
“Do you get to see much of your family’s business?” he asked.
“When I was a kid I’d go to my father’s office and pretend to type reports and write memos. But I’m not so interested in that anymore.”
“You don’t want to be involved with it?”
“My brother loves it. But I don’t see why if my family has a paint company I should be in paint. Or worse: marry the heir of another paint company so we can have a larger company. Maybe I want to do something else. Maybe I have an amazing secret talent which must be exploited. You could be talking to a top-notch anthropologist here, you know.”
“Not a concert pianist, then.”
“Why not both?” she asked with a shrug.
“Of course.”
The chair was comfortable, and she liked his room. Noemí turned her head, looking at the watercolors of the mushrooms. “Are those yours too?”
“Yes. I did them a few years ago. They’re not very good.”
“They’re beautiful.”
“If you say so,” he replied, sounding dignified and smiling.
