Page 21 of An Immaculate Deception

I finally have his attention. “When people find themselves lost, it’s always because of separation from God. That is the cause of all ills, and love of God is the cure. The idea that lost memories from childhood have the power to cause diseases in the mind is only the folly of modern men who think themselves beyond good and evil.”

Silence falls. Mother says it is masculine and ungracious for a young lady to voice strong opinions, but the impulse to speak my mind was strong, and I don’t regret it. In fact, I find it profoundly satisfying. Leandro regards me with silent intensity now, as though his soul is about to launch out of his body. As though I have come alive to him.

Doctor Lobo sips his burgundy wine and switches topics to his hedonistic exploits in Paris after medical school, experiencing “joie de vivre,” chasing women, and generally wasting his father’s money.

I bring my liveliest, brightest, most engaged self into the rest of the dinner conversation, but Leandro is once again glassy-eyed and taciturn. The intense spark of interest from the earlier conversation never returns, and he is like a candle that has been put out, watching us as though we are happening somewhere else.

11

There’s a thought trapped in my subconscious.

I sit up in bed, feverish. It is the middle of the night. A thought lurks deep in my subconscious, like earth under the ocean. Like the slumbering monster at the bottom of the lake. Buried so deep, yet profound. A weight grips my veins.

I try to remember what I was dreaming before I awakened. Vague, incomprehensible snippets float to mind: me lying in bed, frozen and naked against the mattress. My damp, sweating back sticking to the sheets. My mind a blur, neither asleep nor dead, neither dreaming nor conscious. A man bends over me, stretching out his hands to touch me. He is all shadow and no flesh, no form nor name. He smells like charcoal and bay leaves and cloves. The chilling noises I’m hearing come from him. He growls in a bestial nonhuman tongue, yet I crave his touch. From my deepest depths I crave him. Time unfurls backward.

I try to shake off the unholy dream as I reach for the water by the bed. The physician is to blame. I fear he has stirred up a wickedness in me. I have not allowed myself to entertain sinful thoughts when I was awake, yet the thoughts found me through my subconscious, in a fashion hideous and grotesque.

Perhaps the physician was right, and there are thoughts that can be trapped in our subconscious. I think of Mother, my childhood. The perfume bottle slipping from my absent fingers. Crashing, splintering into furious shards, unleashing a revolting stench. A little bit of the scent is sublime; too much of it is poison. A long time ago, my sister broke Mother’s favorite perfume bottle. I do not remember if Mother beat her for it, only that we spent all day fearing that she would, as we waited for her to return home. I think that she did beat her, and after it was done, we both felt relieved. What we so feared had already happened, and so we did not have to fear anymore. For a brief second, I feel a rift in my soul like an earthquake, and I tremble.

Rain drums against the window. Distant whispers and murmurs mingle with the rain, as though lost in it. I listen, alert. Thump, thump, thump. The thudding comes from the walls and the floorboards, like a force rising upward in a steady march. A profound silence falls, and I start to think I can fall back asleep. Then I hear it again: thump, thump, thump. Footsteps just outside, coming closer.

My heart slams against my chest. There’s something out there.

I rise from the bed. I can’t sit still anymore. With trembling hands, I light a lamp. The room is hot and dark. I press my hand to my forehead—it’s damp. The flame flickers from my shallow breath and my trembling hands. The thudding continues, the source of it close by, whatever it is. A shudder runs down my back. I am not imagining it this time. The infernal chorus rises alongside it. Weeping, sighing, sobbing, moaning, plaintive wailing, discordant tongues, tormented words, the twang of rage, strident voices, smacking hands…

My knees crumple and I clamp my hands to my ears: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten…

Silence. The chorus of Hell subsided. The thudding also stopped, and all I hear now is gushing rain against the window. Is this house plagued by restless, evil spirits?

I open the door a bit; the corridor is engulfed in heavy shadows. I try to pull my gaze from it, to turn away and go back to bed. But I can’t. I can see that the door of the lavender-rose room is wide open. I remember, earlier today, Leandro shutting it behind us.

I step out onto the corridor, and the lamp’s glow spills before me. I wave it around me, listen closely, but I neither see nor hear anything. The corridor feels much colder than my room, despite the lack of windows or air circulation. I almost wish I could hear the wind or the rain from here. The stillness feels oppressive. The cold floorboards creak slightly under my bare feet.

I pause at Leandro’s door. It is ajar. Could the thudding sound I heard be him moving about? Perhaps he is an insomniac or a sleepwalker. I am not sure which would be preferable. I nudge it open gently. I hold out the lamp and step forward into his room, one step, two, three steps. His bed is empty, sheets crumpled about as though he got up in the middle of the night.

Where is he?

I trace my steps back to the corridor, intending to return to my room, but the open door of the lavender-rose room seems to invite me in. I feel pulled to it, as though by an invisible string, or by a nameless force I cannot turn away from. Leandro could be there. A wild, mad thought occurs to me that maybe Leandro lies there entangled in bed with the woman who smells of lavender.

I have an uncanny feeling as I enter the room that I cannot explain. It grows as I approach, until it solidifies into terror in my chest.

“Leandro?” I call out at the threshold, holding the lamp before me. The flame nearly goes out, even though there is no wind. The feeble light is barely sufficient to illuminate the vanity and the bed with the canopy. The rest of the room is shrouded in darkness.

I step inside. Leandro is not here. There is no one in here.

Perhaps Leandro is drinking a glass of milk in the kitchen.

The bed appears undisturbed. I am amused at my own silly theories that Leandro would be carrying out an affair here right under my nose, with a mystery woman who somehow disappears during the day.

I start to turn around, to head back. This room makes me deeply unwell.

As I turn, I catch a glimpse of the antique brass mirror and freeze in terror.

I see her.

A pale, foul woman stares hideously, her fury-marked face as faded as her hair and skin. Her edges blend in with the scratches and stains on the glass, as though the containing surface and image within are all one. As though she’s been locked in the mirror for ages, imprisoned in a gray and sepia-toned world. Her mouth opens wide in a silent shriek.

I choke on my own scream, and I run.