For a second she thought she was mistaken, that it was Francis and she was seeing wrong or else it was the gloom, confusing her once more. After all, why would Virgil be in her room? But then Virgil grinned, and Francis would never smile at her like that. He was leering at her.
She jumped to her feet, intending to flee, but she stumbled, and he caught her in two quick movements, grabbing hold of her arm.
“Noemí, here we are again,” he said.
His grip was firm, and she knew she couldn’t fight him using physical force alone. She took a breath. “Where’s Francis?”
“Busy being reprimanded. Did you think we wouldn’t find out?” Virgil asked, reaching into his pocket and showing her the glass vial with the tincture. “It wouldn’t have worked, anyway. How do you feel?”
“Drunk. Did you poison us?”
He tucked the vial back in his pocket. “No. It was a little wedding gift, a little aphrodisiac. It’s a pity Francis won’t be able to enjoy it.”
She had a razor, she recalled. Hidden under the mattress. It would count for something. If she could get to it. But his hand was still on her arm with an iron grip, and when she tried to brush it away he wouldn’t allow it.
“I’m married to Francis.”
“He’s not here.”
“But your father—”
“He’s not here either. How funny, they’re all busy right now.” He tilted his head. “Francis is a little green boy of no experience, but I know what I’m doing. I know what you want.”
“You don’t know anything,” she whispered.
“You dream of me, you come looking for me as you dream,” he said. “Life bores you, Noemí. You like a hint of danger, but back home they wrap you in gauze, to keep you from breaking. But you’d like to break, wouldn’t you? You play with people and you wish someone would have the guts to play with you.”
It was not a real question, he awaited no answer, and his mouth covered hers. She bit him, but it was not in an attempt to deter his actions, and he knew it. He was right that she liked to play, that she enjoyed flirting and teasing and dancing, that they were so careful around her because she was a Taboada, and once in a while a coil of darkness wrapped itself around her heart and she wished to strike, like a cat.
But even as she was admitting this, even as Noemí knew this was a part of her, she also knew it was nother.
She must have said that out loud without realizing, because he chuckled.
“Of course it’s you. I can nudge you, but it’s you.”
“No.”
“It’s me you want, me you fantasize about. We have an understanding, don’t we? We know each other, really know each other. Underneath the layers of decorum all you do iswant.”
She slapped him. It accomplished nothing. There was the briefest pause, and he caught her face between his hands and turned her head, running his thumb along her neck. Lust, thick and heady, made her gasp in ruinous delight.
The mold in the corner of the room was shifting and blurring, and his fingers were clenching hard into her flesh, pulling her tighter against him. The mold was streaked with veins of gold, and he was trying to gather up her skirts, shoving her against the bed, touching her between her thighs. The motion made her panic.
“Wait!” she said, as he pressed down on her, undaunted, impatient.
“No waiting, you tease.”
“The dress!” He frowned, annoyed, but Noemí spoke again, hoping to buy time. “You’d better help me take off the dress.”
This seemed to improve his mood, and he gave her a radiant smile. She managed to stand up, and he peeled off her sweater, tossing it on the bed, and pushed her hair away from her nape as she furiously tried to think of a way out of—
In the corner of her eye the mold, with its streaks of gold, had spread across the wall and was dripping onto the floor. It refracted and changed, a pattern of triangles turning to diamonds and then whorls. She nodded, feeling as if a great hand were pressed against her face, quietly smothering her.
She was never getting out of this house. To have considered it had been a folly. To have wanted to leave had been a mistake. And she wished to be a part of this, wanted to be one with the strange machinery and the veins and the muscles and the marrow of High Place. She wanted to be one with Virgil.
Want.
He had undone the top buttons on the back of the dress. She could have left long ago. Should have left in the beginning, when the first tingle of disquiet assailed her, but there had been a thrill to it, hadn’t there? A curse, maybe a haunting. She had even been excited to tell Francis about it. A haunting, a mystery to solve.