And the vacant bed, covers thrown back, overturned chair and something lying beside it — a letter, I see — crumpled and fallen from someone's pocket, and Mathilde is lifting it up to the flickering candlelight, hands shaking violently, words on paper quivering in and out of focus —
"She is a fine cook . . . but she has a jealous nature . . . fighting over a man . . . it will be trouble for everyone here . . . arranging for position with you there in Paris . . . soon as I can book passage . . . sure Jesse and Skyler will agree ..."
And Mathilde's lips moving, tears sliding down, face cold and hard as stone —
And what is it, Yoly is shaking her, trying to see, what is it —
Heart breaking, murmuring, no . . . no . . .
What is that, Yoly screaming now, screaming after her as Mathilde runs back along the gallery, back into the dangerous night, where are you going —
Hands twisting the pouch at her waist, twisting and tearing and digging deep, deep inside . . .
You wanted magic, Mathilde sobbing. . . sobbing . . . yes, I will give you magic . . .
"The storm," Jesse groaned, and Olivia had to fight her way up this time, up, up from the cavernous chambers of sleep, and she didn't want to wake up, she was getting tired of these fuzzy, unfulfilled snatches of sleep that made no sense yet seemed so familiar and so real. As she tried to open her eyes, the fleeting thought came to her that she had dreamed them all before, many times in her life, and had only just forgotten that she had—that they were so much more than twisted nightmares—that they were holding on to her and pulling her inside of them as if she somehow belonged there . . .
"The storm," Jesse said again, and he groped at his chest, but Olivia managed to catch his hand in time and hold it tightly in hers. "It happened that night. The night of the storm."
"Ssh . . . Jesse . . . you're only dreaming, that's all it is. Only a bad, bad, dream . . ."
"I didn't know where I was," he whispered. "I ran and ran in the dark, and she found me and took me inside, and then he came—"
"Jesse, stop." Olivia was fully awake now, and she sat up beside him, clutching his restless hands. "Wake up. Wake up now."
"The storm was so loud, and the thunder, and we didn't know anyone else was there, that we were being
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watched. Oh, God, I didn't mean to—we didn't mean to—"
"Jesse!"
"I didn't know—how could I have known—"
"Jesse, you're going to hurt yourself. It's only a dream—wake up!"
Thoroughly alarmed, Olivia leaned over him, saw his eyes flutter open, saw his look of shock and confusion as he stared into her face.
"Olivia . . ."
"Yes. It's me."
"What—"
"You're hurt, Jesse, hurt bad. You started bleeding, and I stayed with you ..." She gave him a tentative smile. She knew she was fully awake now, and yet his face, her own voice, were curiously hazy. "... like you stayed with me."
His dark eyes seemed bewildered. They swept slowly over the walls of the room, to the barely flickering candle, to Olivia's hair spilling over his chest.
"Jesse, what happened to you?" Olivia asked worriedly. "What did you do to yourself? You need to see a doctor—"
"No," he sighed. "It wouldn't do any good."
"You don't know that. If you're not strong enough to go, I could go for you. You could tell me how to get to town, and I could bring someone back here. No one would have to know if you don't want them to."
He sighed, then caught his breath in pain. Olivia thought she heard a peculiar rattle deep in his throat.
"What can I do?" She pressed close to him, trying to warm him, to comfort him.
"Close your eyes," he whispered.
"What?"
"Close your eyes."
She looked at him quizzically, then did as he asked. She could hear his labored breathing. .. easing slower . . . calmer . . . into sleep. She lowered her head onto his shoulder. She felt the pulse in his throat.
"You know what's happening," he murmured, but his voice was barely a sigh, and she was slipping away from him again, against her will, fighting to stay awake, but slipping into the ebb and flow of this strange and irresistible sleep . . .
Only this time she heard the thunder... the voices . ..
She saw the fog and Mathilde and the narrow space on the cool, damp floor between the vaults . . .
She saw the woman there and the men taking her ... the flicker of shadows over naked skin and tangled bodies . ..
And "don't you know what's happening," Yoly crying again and again and again—"don't you realize what you've done—"
Olivia heard the moans ... the screams . . .
Ecstasy . . . terror. . .
"Jesse," she breathed, and she was asleep and awake, hovering somewhere in a vague, misty netherworld. She could feel Jesse's body stretched out against her, the warmth of him where they touched, and as she rose up, she watched him sleeping, his arms peaceful at his sides, his shirt open and spread apart.
Slowly she pulled the sheet away from his chest.
The sight of his wound made her want to cry.
She bent her head low.
He stirred only slightly as she pressed her lips against him.
His blood was salty, metallic on her tongue, and as she tenderly kissed his chest, she ran her fingertips over him, the width and the length of him, his
shoulders, his stomach, his ribs and his hips. In wonder, she felt his first slow stirrings of passion, passion rousing beneath her touch, and as she moved her lips over him, her hands over him, he moaned softly, his body stretching in innocent sleep. She kissed his neck, his cheeks, his lips, oh Jesse, Jesse, and suddenly she wanted to see him, all of him, to look at him and know him and memorize every curve and angle of his body. Slowly and carefully she worked, so he wouldn't wake up, and when she finally had his clothes off, she gazed down at him with a slow intake of breath, his beautiful body, soft and strong and hard, lying there just for her, her eyes, her hands, her lips, for her and her alone . . .
Jesse . . . let me look — let me touch —
He moved beneath her, a flicker of pleasure, of pain, of confused helplessness, just an instant upon his face, and she could feel his gentleness and his strength, throbbing together as she held him, and his yearning and his hesitance and his surrender.
She stretched herself tightly against him.
She could still feel him trembling.
She kissed his lips, and they moved softly, smiling, saying her name.
in spite of his obvious dismay, she thought he might have blushed a little.
Olivia didn't answer right away. She straightened her skirt and blouse and ran one hand back through her hair. She felt wrinkled and damp and grubby, and the heat hung in the air like a sponge.
"You took them off yourself," she said quietly. "I woke up, and you'd taken them off."
He looked puzzled, not wholly convinced.
"You were a gentleman," she added. "Nothing happened, if that's what you're worried about."
"But something happened last night," Jesse said, and Olivia glanced up in surprise, as if she had slipped back into a dream. Strange . . . she remembered the whole long night as an endless succession of eerie settings and scenes, yet now that it was morning, everything had run together in a muddy blur.
"I. . . I'm not sure what you mean," she said truthfully.
Jesse hesitated. His white shirt was stained with blood, and it hung open a little, but she couldn't really see his chest wound.
He stared straight at her, his eyes solemn. "The dreams you were having. . . don't you remember them?"
And then, in a jumbled rush, bits and pieces came back to her, like stills from a macabre movie, characters, dialogue, colors, sensations, all of them swirling together through her head, exploding together in her brain.
"I remember something," she said carefully, "mostly nightmares."
"Yes." His lips ba
rely moved. "Always the nightmares."
"But ..." She thought about it for a long moment. "They had something to do with this place, I think . . . with Devereaux House. People were in it that I knew." She stared up at him, frowning. "How do you know about my dreams? Did I talk in my sleep? Did I wake you up?"
"Devereaux House . . . has a way with dreams."
"I believe you were in it," Olivia said haltingly, her brow furrowed in deep thought. Something . . . something . . . just beyond the reach of memory. "I believe Skyler might have been in it, too . . . Yoly maybe ... or Mathilde ..."
"Were you in it?" he asked, and she looked at him in surprise.
"I don't think so. Should I have been?"
He held her eyes for several seconds. Uncomfortably, she looked away and ran her hands over the tumbled covers of the bed.
"You told me once that you wished you knew the past of Devereaux House," Jesse said. "That you wished you knew some of its secrets."
Reluctantly she raised her eyes, her expression faintly troubled. Her mind felt peculiarly empty, as if it had firmly shut the doorway to all recollections.
"But you did know it last night," Jesse went on. "Secrets and history both. Think, Olivia. Think hard."
She glanced at him uneasily and then away. She lifted her hair off her shoulders and fanned herself with her hand.
"It's hot in here," she said. "I feel like I can't breathe."
He walked over and stood looking down at her small, anxious face, and he slid his fingers beneath her
chin and forced her gently to look at him. "Olivia . . . the dreams ..."
"You were dreaming, too," she said, almost defensively, and she turned her head out of his grasp. "And you were restless—in a lot of pain." She frowned at him. "It wouldn't surprise me at all if you were running a fever last night. And if you had a fever, you were probably delirious, but that didn't have anything to do with me."
"You have to leave here," Jesse said solemnly. "You have to leave this place today. As quickly as you can."
"Why? What are you talking about—"
"You were scared when you came here yesterday, don't you remember that? You were scared and upset because you didn't understand things that were happening at Devereaux House." He stopped . . . took a deep breath. "I told you once, things don't have to be seen to be real. Well, believe me," he said, and this time his eyes looked fully and ominously into her face. "Believe me. They are very real."
Olivia was standing up now, moving away from him toward the wall. "You're not making any sense—"
"It doesn't make any sense." Jesse's voice rose. "It doesn't make any sense at all, but you've got to trust me. You've got to leave here. You're in danger if you stay."
My house . . . my home . . . Grandmother . . .
"Leave here?" Olivia said shakily.
Yesterday she would have . . . she might have .. . she'd been so shaken, so shocked . . . but now, in the morning, here with Jesse, his shy, beautiful body, the innocent bed they had shared, here in the church, here where yesterday seemed very far away, she was almost sure now that trying to kill Skyler hadn't been real,
that finding Helen hadn't been real, that yesterday itself had only been like one of last night's dreams that she could scarcely remember.
"Leave here and never come back?" / belong here but you don't . . . you should leave . . . Yoly and Skyler and Mathilde should leave, I'm the one who should stay at Devereaux House . . . just Grandmother and me . . .
"You dreamed my dreams, Olivia. Don't you see?" Jesse's voice tightened. "Everything that went through my head last night went into yours. We shared everything. Every thought. . . every feeling."
Olivia stared back at him. "I don't understand .. ."
"Please." Jesse gazed earnestly into her face, and Olivia felt a cold chill work its way up her spine.
"Jesse . .. what are you trying to say to me?"
He didn't answer. Instead he moved across the room and stopped in front of her. He pulled his shirt open. She gazed in horror at his chest.
The wound was gone. His chest was smooth and tan, with no sign of torn flesh anywhere.
Olivia backed away from him, felt the wall hard against her, blocking her escape.
"Jesse, what is going on!" she cried.
"You kissed me last night, didn't you?" he said softly, one hand lingering at the opening of his shirt. "You kissed me right here, and you fell asleep, with your head on my chest—"
"I don't know—I don't know! What does that have to do with anything!"
"You kissed me and you shared my dreams, Olivia. There's only one way you could ever have done that."
"I don't know what you're talking about. You're confusing me, and you're scaring me! I thought you were different—"
"I can't be different." His voice rose. "I don't have a choice, Olivia—"
"I thought you were different, but you're as crazy as all the others! What are you doing—"
Without warning Jesse grabbed her, pinning her shoulders to the wall. His body pressed tight against hers. She could feel his heart racing, his body trembling, and the look he gave her was frightening.
"You think it will be a welcome homecoming," Jesse said between clenched teeth, and as she looked into his eyes, her heart began to freeze within her. "Well, I promise you. It. . . will. . . not. "
"Let go of me, Jesse, let go!"
"When you face them, then you'll know," he said, leaning down closer, his eyes pleading into hers. "The dreams, Olivia—think of the dreams—"
"No!" Olivia screamed. "/ can't remember!"
She ran past him out of the church and through the dripping woods. She could hear him calling after her, running after her, and she frantically tried to remember where she'd left the boat. She deliberately veered off the path and ducked beneath a low overhang of tangled brush, and she heard him curse as he ran right into it. It slowed him down just long enough for her to get away. She looked back as she rowed to the opposite shore, and she could see him standing on the bank in the rain, his hands hanging uselessly at his sides, gazing after her with a look of pure anguish.
The dreams . . . think of the dreams . . .
She ran back to the house, knowing in her heart that she was running from something, yet not knowing what. Knowing somehow that Jesse was right, yet not knowing how he was right.
The dreams . . .
But they had been just ordinary dreams, hadn't
they? Woven from fragments of deep subconscious things, things that made no sense, bits and pieces of fears and memories and suspicions, people whose faces she might have recognized or might not. Devereaux House. All the dreams had something to do with Devereaux House.
But that's because I'm here now. Because I've always wanted to be here.
And Skyler had been in the dreams and Jesse had been there and Mathilde and Yoly . . .
And some woman . . . some beautiful woman screaming and begging beside her lovers on the floor.
Strong magic . . .
Olivia remembered something about magic, and she pushed it impatiently from her mind. There was no such thing as magic, she told herself bitterly, no such thing as love, as happiness, as family . ..
I'm family. I'm Devereaux. I belong. They don't I'll make them all leave.
She saw the house rising up ahead of her through the downpour like a bad omen. She thought of Skyler and Mathilde and Helen, of Jesse's warning, and she thought, very calmly, I will take a torch and I will burn Helen's body in the stairwell, I will give her a death with dignity, and I will burn this whole place down and everyone who is in it, and then there will be no more dreams and no one to scare me away . ..
She stopped on the back veranda. She would go to the kitchen at once and take a smoldering log from the fire, but she would be careful to save Miss Rose first, because Miss Rose was old and feeble anyway and not likely to be any trouble.
She lifted her head into the rain, a strange sensation rippling just under her skin. Sh
e could feel something—a sense of urgency in the air—something pal-
palpable and tragic and transitory. And as she stood there uncertainly, waiting for the feeling to identify itself to her, Yoly came out the back door.
"What's happened?" Olivia's voice was dull, and her eyes squinted through warm wet streams that gushed from the eaves above. She saw Yoly's split-second appraisal of her, and she heard the tightness of Yoly's voice.
"It's Miss Rose. She's havin' one of her spells."
"Spells? What does that mean? Is she dying?" Olivia grabbed Yoly's arm, but the woman only gave her a sad stare and hurried off. "Is she dying?" Olivia said again to the house, to the rain, should I tell her now . . .
Her mind did a jolting flashback. She saw her stepfather sprawled in the garden, legs kicking weakly, blood gushing out. . . and Mama staring at her from the attic floor, lying there in her own sticky mess .. .
Dying . . .
She saw the cemetery, tombs rotted away and forgotten . . . she smelled the foul stagnant air—she saw Skyler ripping brown vines from broken crosses on nameless graves .. .
Dying . . .
She saw the inside of her mind, the cold dark places, the hidden stairwell, the mausoleum, the attic cluttered with long-ago memories . .. Devereaux House . . .
Dying . . .
Olivia went into the downstairs hall and looked around to make sure she was alone.
She turned the latch on Miss Rose's door and slipped inside.
Olivia felt her heart stop. A strange trembling crawled through her soul.
Miss Rose moaned again. "Olivia . . ."
Olivia stood there, unable to move. She saw Miss Rose try to lift one arm . .. saw it drop back uselessly upon the covers . ..
And then Miss Rose wept.
A hopeless, empty sound.
"No . . . don't cry," Olivia murmured, and she started toward her, but there were footsteps out in the hallway, and she froze beside the bed.
Miss Rose's hand plucked restlessly at the covers. The footsteps paused just outside the bedroom, and the doorknob began to turn. Olivia spun around, looking for a place to hide. She saw the large trunk sitting against the opposite wall and just had time to climb in and lower the lid before Skyler came into the room.
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