his head, and his eyes were closed. Here was luck at last. Noemí breathed in slowly and leaned down next to his body, reaching into his pocket for the tincture. She found it, uncapped it, and drank a little from it, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
The effect was immediate and noticeable. She felt a wave of nausea, her hands trembled, and the flask slipped from her fingers and shattered on the floor. She held on to one of the bedposts and breathed quickly. My God. She thought she’d faint. She bit her hand hard to jolt herself into wakefulness. It worked.
The black puddles of mold that had accumulated on the floor were receding, and the fog in her mind was evaporating. Noemí put on her sweater, tucked the razor in one pocket and the lighter in another.
She looked at Virgil still sprawled on the floor and considered sticking the knife into his skull, but her hands were trembling again, and she needed to get out of there and away from him. She must fetch Catalina. There was no time to waste.
25
Noemí rushed along the darkened hallway, a hand on the wall to steady herself. The lights that were working seemed spectral and awfully dim, flickering in and out of life, but she knew the path by memory.
Quickly, quickly, she told herself.
Noemí feared her cousin’s room would be locked, but she turned the doorknob and yanked the door open.
Catalina sat on the bed in a white nightgown. She was not alone. Mary kept her company, her eyes fixed on the floor.
“Catalina, we’re leaving,” Noemí said, extending a hand in her cousin’s direction while she held the razor in the other.
Catalina did not move; she did not even acknowledge Noemí, her gaze lost.
“Catalina,” she repeated. The young woman didn’t budge.
Noemí bit her lip and walked in, her eyes fixed on the maid sitting in the corner, her hand trembling as she gripped the razor. “For God’s sake, Catalina, snap out of it,” she said.
But it was the maid who raised her head, golden eyes zeroing in on Noemí, and rushed toward her, shoving her against the vanity. Her hands wrapped around Noemí’s throat. It was such a startling attack, the strength of the woman unthinkable for someone her age, that Noemí dropped the blade. Several items on the vanity also clattered and fell: perfume bottles and a hair comb and a picture of Catalina in a silver frame.
The maid pushed harder, forcing Noemí to step back, the hands at her throat squeezing tight and wood digging against her back. She tried to grasp something, anything as a weapon, but her fingers found nothing suitable, tugging at a doily, overturning a porcelain pitcher that rolled upon the ground and cracked.
“Ours,” the maid said. It didn’t sound like the woman’s voice. It was an odd, raspy sound. It was the voice of the house, the voice of someone or something else, reproduced and approximated by these vocal cords.
Noemí attempted to pry the fingers off her neck, but those hands were more like claws, and all Noemí managed was to gasp and tug at the woman’s hair, which accomplished nothing.
“Ours,” Mary repeated, then clenched her teeth like a wild animal, and Noemí could hardly see, so bad was the pain. Her eyes watered, her throat was on fire.
Suddenly the woman was yanked away and Noemí was able to breathe, taking in air in huge, desperate gulps as she gripped the dresser with one hand.
Francis had walked in, and he had pulled the maid off Noemí, but now the woman was clawing at him, her mouth opening wide to unleash a hideous screech. She shoved him down, onto the floor, her hands around his neck, bent over him like a bird of prey ready to devour a piece of carrion.
Noemí picked up the straight razor and approached them. “Stop!” she cried out, and the woman turned around, screeching at Noemí, ready to sink those hands into her neck again and crush her windpipe.
She knew then a dizzy sort of terror, pure and overwhelming, and she slashed at the woman’s throat. Once, twice, three times, blade meeting flesh, and the woman did not cry out. She fell to the ground in silence, face-first.
Blood dripped down Noemí’s fingers, and Francis raised his head and looked up at her, dazed. He stood up and stepped toward her. “Are you hurt?”
She rubbed her neck with her free hand and stared at the dead