“This can’t be right.” Angelica wrinkled her nose. “This is like, the servants’ quarters or something.”
“So maybe we’re supposed to use the servants’ bathroom.”
She shook her head. “No. It must have been back there.”
We retraced our steps until once again we stood at the foot of the broad staircase. Angelica started up, but I remained at the bottom, my hand clutching the banister.
Above me the stairway twisted into darkness, ominous and silent. I shuddered. From the hall behind me came a sudden gust of laughter from the reception. I had only to turn back, walk a few steps, and I would be safe again. I could get another vodka tonic, find Baby Joe, and Oliver…
“Sweeney? You coming?”
I looked up and saw Angelica’s face suspended between the banister’s curves, the silver pendant at her throat glistening. She looked like the figure I had seen earlier: those terrible eyes floating above me, hair streaming into the night while all about her whirled into chaos. The woman in the moon.
“Sweeney?” Her exasperated voice floated down. “Come on. They’ll all still be there when we get back.”
“Okay,” I said, defeated. “I’m coming.” Moments later I stood beside her on the landing.
“What’s the matter, Sweeney? You look awful.” She ran her hand across my cheek. “Sweeney! You’re burning up!”
Her fragrance clung to my skin, the faint musk of sandalwood and oranges like rain washing over me. I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply, until that other, sickening odor was gone.
“I’m okay. I guess I drank too much.”
Angelica smiled wryly. “I guess so. Well, I’ve got some aspirin in my bag. Let’s find some water.”
She took my hand—firmly but companionably, like a determined English schoolgirl—and led me down the hall. After a few minutes I felt better.
“Well, this sure isn’t the servants’ quarters,” I said.
It was like being inside a landscape by Moreau. Against a shadowy black background all was painted or upholstered in dark jeweled colors, bloodred and purple and blue, shot with gold like spasms of daylight. A subdued ruddy light suffused everything, burnishing the oak wainscoting and worn oriental carpets that muffled our footsteps.
“Who the hell lives here? The second Mrs. de Winter?”
“No,” Angelica replied absently. “This is where visiting Benandanti stay.”
On the walls there were ornate brass fixtures shaped like griffins and gargoyles and beautiful women, and on the heavy closed doors brass plates engraved with simple legends—The Red Room, The Luxor Room, The Tuscan Room. Everything had the air of being made ready for guests, but at the same time it all smelled musty and closed-in, as though there had been no visitors here for months, maybe years.
“How do you know?” My voice was too loud. “I mean about the Benandanti. How do you know they stay here?”
“My father.”
“Your father.” I rolled my eyes. “Oh, sure.”
Angelica didn’t seem to hear. She continued on down the hall, not even looking to see if I was following her.
I wasn’t. I stood there, my hands clenched, and asked, “So who are the Benandanti?”
Silence.
“I said, who are the—”
“Ssshh!” She stopped and glared. “I thought you were sick, Sweeney. Come on—”
“I’m not your fucking sidekick! And I’d feel better if someone would tell me—”
Suddenly she was there in front of me, her hand on my waist, the silver necklace glowing against her black lace bodice.
“Sweeney,” she said softly. She touched one finger to my chin and tilted my head back, until all I could see were her eyes, huge and slanted and that impossible green. “It’s okay, Sweeney. Really, it’s okay—”
She kissed me, not a schoolgirl’s peck on the cheek but a real kiss; and I let her, though I had never kissed another girl before or even really thought about it. Her hair spilled across my face and I felt lace like dry leaves crinkling beneath my fingertips; her breasts spilling into my hands like warm water, and the hard smooth weight of her thighs where they pressed against me. But all I could think was that it wasn’t that different really, there was nothing soft about her at all, not her hands or her skin or anything except her mouth, so small and so hot I gasped, then moaned as she pulled me closer.
“Don’t be afraid,” she whispered, and though she didn’t say it aloud I could hear what came next—
You’re with me.
I tried to kiss her again, but she only smiled, drawing away from me and twisting a lock of my hair around one finger. “Come on, kemosabe—let’s get you that aspirin.”
I followed her in silence. I didn’t feel embarrassed or angry or even all that confused—just a little turned on, and very, very tired. She was so matter-of-fact, it was all so matter-of-fact that I was starting to think maybe this was what it was like for everyone on their first day of college. Angels at dawn, visions in the afternoon, succubæ at night. It was like a dream, like the best high you ever had; but I knew it was all a mistake.
Angelica had stopped where the corridor ended, at the top of yet another flight of stairs. She looked at me and frowned.
“Now what?”
I peered down the stairwell. A freezing draft shot up from it, and an oily smell.
“Maybe we just walked right past it,” I said weakly. “All those doors…”
We turned back, but only took a few steps before I saw something we’d missed—a narrow passage extending out from the hall. At the end of it I could see a greyish blur that might have been a doorway left ajar. I grabbed Angelica and pulled her into the passage. “I bet this is it.”
“Great.” Angelica stopped to fumble with her little beaded purse. “Okay. I know I’ve got some aspirin, I just—”
She stopped and looked at me. From the main corridor came the hollow echo of voices and muffled footsteps. Before I knew what was happening, she yanked me further down the passage, until we stood in a small recessed alcove facing a door.
Angelica rattled the knob. “Damn! It’s locked—”
“Jeez, who cares? We’re just looking for a—”
“Shhh!” Angelica crouched on the floor. “Get down.”
“What?” This was ridiculous. The worst that could happen was that we’d be reprimanded for snooping around, maybe asked to leave. But then I remembered that cold, black stairwell. I shivered. The voices grew louder as Angelica pulled me down beside her.
“I can’t—” I whispered.
“Shut up.” Angelica moved her hand in a small tight gesture and leaned back, as though trying to fold herself into the wall. I crouched beside her in the darkness.
Shadows blotted out the entrance to the tiny passageway. Men: two of them, I thought at first. But then the taller one moved, and I saw that they carried a third between them, a limp figure who kicked halfheartedly at the floor.
I felt a warm rush of relief. Just a drunk being walked around by his friends. But still Angelica didn’t move or say anything. Her sweat had overwhelmed the musk of her perfume, its fragrance now rank and sour, like the smell inside a small room where a child has been locked and forgotten.
Footsteps. The figures passed us, silent except for a faint wheezing from the man supported in the middle. I could see the trouser cuffs of the closest figure, a tall lanky young man wearing tennis shoes and no socks; I could have reached out and grabbed his bare ankle. Next to him slumped his drunken friend, and behind them I could barely glimpse the third figure, so small he was like the shadow of the other two. They stopped in front of the doorway across from us. The figure in the middle suddenly jerked upright, head thrown back, and let out a short strangled cry.