“He doesn’t know what he’s doing,” Amy whispered, tears running down her face and into the corners of her mouth. She licked them away and said again, “He’s gone crazy. He doesn’t know!”
“He does,” Emmy contradicted, pointing to the light she carried. “There haven’t been any lights in this old place since before we were born, but there’s everlights all along the hall. He got them out of the garage, just like I got this one. He put them here before. He planned it.”
Amy, looking at the dim lanterns set here and there on rickety tables or hung on doorknobs, nodded unwillingly. “Why! Why is he doing this to her?”
“Shhh,” her sister cautioned, pulling them both back into the shadow. Stavenger had stopped at the end of the corridor to thrust Rowena through an open door, pulling it closed behind her and locking it. The key ground in the lock with a rusty finality. He thrust it into his pocket and then stood there, as though listening. “Rowena.” A voice like metal — harsh and hideous. No sound from beyond the door.
“You’ll never go there again! Never to Opal Hill again! Never consort with fragras again! Never betray me again!” Silence.
He turned and took up the nearest lamp, then came down the corridor toward them, gathering up the everlights as he came. Slowly he plodded, his face expressionless, passing the door behind which his daughters trembled, leaving the place in darkness, going away as though forever.
They waited, listening for the sound that came at last, the heavy thunder of the door closing, two stories below.
Behind the locked door at the end of the corridor rose the sound of a woman’s howling, an interminable, grief-driven wail of pain and betrayal.
With trembling fingers, Emeraude turned on the everlight she carried and the two of them ran to the door, stumbling over warped floorboards, kicking up small, choking clouds of dust.
The door was heavy and thick, made of wood from a swamp-forest tree and hung by great metal hinges in a solid frame. Only a few doors at the estancia were this heavy, this immovable. The main door of the house. The door of Stavenger’s private office. The treasury door. What had this room once been, to have needed all this weight of wood?
They knocked, called, knocked again. The howl went on and on.
“Find Sylvan!” Emeraude urged her sister in a frantic whisper “He’s the only one who can help, Amy.”
Amethyste turned haunted eyes on her sister, babbling, “I thought I’d ask Shevlok—”
Emmy shook her, demanding her attention. “Shevlok’s useless. He’s done nothing but drink since Janetta showed up at that party. He isn’t even conscious most of the time.”
“If the lapse would get over—”
“If the lapse would get over, he’d go hunting all day and be drunk all night. Find Sylvan!”
“Emmy…”
“I know! You’re scared to death of Papa. Well, so am I. He’s like… he’s like one of the Hippae, all shining eyes and sharp blades so you can’t come near him. I keep thinking he will knock me down and trample me to death if I open my mouth. But I’m not going to leave Mama bleeding in there, penned up like that with no food and no water. I won’t let her die like that, but you know Papa will if we let him.”
“Why did Papa—”
“You know perfectly well why. Mama went to Opal Hill, she talked to the people who found Janetta. She’s got the idea that… that…” Emeraude struggled for words, choking on them, eyes bulging as she tried to say what she was not permitted to say.
“Never mind,” her sister said, shaking her. “I know. I’ll find Sylvan. You stay here and tell him what happened, in case I don’t have a chance to explain.”
“Take the light. I’ll wait here.”
Amy sped down the stairs, shuddering away from the banister, which creaked and sagged outward beneath her hand. This ruin was connected to the main house by the old servants’ quarters and the aircar garage. The connecting door was locked, had been locked by their father when they had followed him here, he with that wild, mad look in his eyes, dragging Rowena as though she had been a sack of grain. He had locked the door again when he went out, but there was a broken window nearby which gave onto a long drying yard and the summer kitchens. The girls had come through that. It was almost midnight. The servants would long ago have gone to bed. Even if one or two of them lingered in the kitchens, their sympathies would be with Rowena more than with Stavenger.
A Stavenger who was at this moment in the main hallway screaming unintelligibly at Figor, ranting and threatening so that the whole household had wakened to hear him. Figor, wisely, was saying nothing while allowing the storm to pass. Other family members, wakened by the uproar, stayed out of the way. The great building hummed with murmuring voices, clattered with doors opening and closing, and was yet quiet, silent except for the bellowing voice.
Amy ignored the noise. At this hour, Sylvan would be in his room, or in the library, or in the gymnasium, two floors below. The library was closest, and she found him there in a secluded corner, eyes fixed on a book, fingers in his ears. She knelt beside him and pulled the fingers away.
“Sylvan, Papa has beaten Mama and locked her in the old wing. Emmy’s waiting there. Mama’s got no food, no water, Sylvan. Emmy and I think he means to leave her there…”
She was talking to the chair. Sylvan was up and gone.
In the first light of morning Sebastian Mechanic came to the estancia, where he found Marjorie having a very early breakfast. In answer to her request, he pointed a direction, though unwillingly, suggesting to her that going out into the grasses alone was not a good idea. He did not like the look of her. Her eyes were haunted and she was too thin. Some deep tiredness seemed to oppress her. Despite her appearance of weariness, perhaps illness, she was sensible enough to agree with him that it would be foolish to go into the grasses. She told him she had simply been curious, then asked after his wife and family and made small talk with disarming patience and charm.
When he, assured that she had been merely inquisitive, had gone back to his work, Marjorie went out to the stables and saddled Don Quixote. It was not part of her intention to tell anyone where she was going, though she did leave a message with one of the grooms.
“If I’m not back by dark,” she said, “but not before then, tell my husband or son I’d like him to come look for me in the aircar. I’m carrying a beacon, so I should be easy to find.” The personal beacon was strapped to her leg under her trousers. Any sharp blow would set it off. If she were thrown from a horse, for example. Or if she struck it sharply with her fist. She was carrying a trip recorder of the type used by cartographers, which would serve as a direction finder. She had a laser knife with her as well, to clear her way through tall grass if that became necessary. She showed both of these to the stableman, telling him what they were for. She wanted everything about her journey to speak of purpose. She wanted no one to suppose that she had planned not to come back. It was a risk, that’s all. Still, if something happened to her, it would solve Rigo’s problem. And Stella’s. And her own. Resolutely, she did not think of Tony.
Quixote pawed the soil, flickers of movement running up his twitching hide from fetlocks to withers and down again. Not nerves, not precisely. Something more than that. It was a kind of agitation Marjorie was unfamiliar with, and she stood for a long time stroking his legs, talking to him, trying to imagine what had brought him to this state. He leaned into her, as though for support, yet when she mounted him he trotted out into the grasses as though for a ride on any ordinary day. He meant by this that he trusted her. Though he might die of it, he trusted her. He could not quite keep the nervous quiver from his skin, however, and the message eventually reached her after they had traversed some little distance. She flushed, ashamed to be using him in this fashion when his own nature spoke so strongly against it. She stroked him. expressing her own trust. “Father James says God has made viruses of us, Quixote, but I suppose one virus may still love another, or have another kind of virus as a friend. I won’t put you into a trap, my friend. I won’t let you get close enough for that.” And myself? she thought. Shall I put myself in danger?