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… but a hideous buzzing sound forced her to open her eyes again. It now looked as if the mummy were vomiting blackness-the swarm of insects had taken flight, the cockroaches morphing into fat lubricious wasps, their mandibles clicking like knitting needles as they flew toward the audience with a horrible believability.
She felt a sudden wave of vertigo, and she swayed, instinctively grabbing the person next to her-the mayor-who was himself stumbling and unsteady.
“Oh my God-!”
She heard someone vomiting, a cry for help-and then a flurry of short screams as the crowd surged back, trying to escape the insects. Although Nora knew they had to be holographically generated, like everything else, they looked amazingly real as they came straight at her, each with a vicious stinger extruded from its abdomen, gleaming with venom. She stumbled backward instinctively, felt herself falling, with no bottom, falling like the robber in the well, to a chorus of wails around her like the shrieks of the damned being sucked into hell itself.
Chapter 60
Constance was awakened by a discreet rapping on her bedroom door. Without opening her eyes, she turned over with a sigh, nuzzling gently at the down pillow.
The knock came again, a little louder now. “Constance? Constance, is everything all right?” It was the voice of Wren-shrill, worried.
Constance stretched languorously-deliciously-then sat up in bed. “I’m fine,” she said with a twinge of irritation.
“Is anything the matter?”
“Nothing’s the matter, thank you.”
“You’re not ill?”
“Certainly not. I’m fine.”
“You’ll forgive my intrusion. It’s just that I’ve never known you to sleep all day like this. It’s eight-thirty, past time for supper, and you’re still abed.”
“Yes,” was all Constance said in return.
“Would you care for your usual breakfast, then? Green tea and a piece of buttered toast?”
“Not the usual breakfast, thank you, Wren. If you could manage it, I’d like poached eggs, cranberry juice, kippers, half a dozen rashers of bacon, a grapefruit half, and a scone with a pot of jam, please.”
“I-very well.” She heard Wren fussing his way back down the hall toward the stairs.
Constance settled back into the pillows, closing her eyes again. Her sleep had been long and deep and completely dreamless-most unusual for her. She recalled the bottomless emerald green of the absinthe, the strange feeling of lightness it gave her-as if she were watching herself from a distance. A private smile flitted across her face, vanished, then returned again, as if prompted by some recollection. She settled deeper into the pillows, letting her limbs relax beneath the soft sheets.
Gradually, very gradually, she became aware of something. There was a scent in the room, an unusual scent.
She sat up in bed again. It was not the scent of-of him; it was something she didn’t think she’d ever smelled before. It was not unpleasant, really… just different.
She looked around for a moment, trying to trace the source. She checked the bedside table without success.
It was only as an afterthought that she slipped a hand beneath the pillows.
There she found something: an envelope, and a long box, wrapped in an antique paper and tied with a black ribbon. These were the source of the scent: a musky smell redolent of the deep woods. Quickly, she pulled them out.
The envelope was of cream-laid linen paper, and the box was just large enough to hold a diamond choker, or perhaps a bracelet. Constance smiled, then flushed deeply.
She opened the envelope eagerly. Out fell three pages of dense, elegant handwriting. She began to read.
I hope you slept well, my dearest Constance: the sweet sleep of the i
There is a good chance it will be your last such sleep for some time. Then again-if you take the advice in this letter-sleep may come again, and very soon.
As I’ve whiled away these pleasant hours with you, I must admit to having wondered something. What has it been like, all these many years, to live under the same roof as Uncle Antoine, the man you called Enoch Leng: the man who brutally murdered your sister, Mary Greene?
Did you know this, Constance? That Antoine killed and vivisected your sister? Surely you must have. Perhaps at first it was just a supposition, a strange twinge of dark fancy. No doubt you ascribed it to your own perverse cast of mind. But over time-and you two had so very much time-it must have come to seem, first a possibility, then a certainty. Yet no doubt this was all subconscious, buried so deep as to be almost undiscoverable. And yet you knew it: of course you did.
What a deliciously ironic situation. This man, Antoine Pendergast, killed your very own sister-for the furthering of his own mortal life… and ultimately yours as well! This is the man to whom you owe everything! Do you know how many children had to die so that he could develop his elixir, so that you could enjoy your abnormally extended childhood? You were born normal, Constance; but thanks to Uncle Antoine, you became a freak of nature. That was your word, wasn’t it? Freak.
And now, my dear, duped Constance, you can no longer shove this idea aside. You can no more dismiss it as a flight of imagination, or a dark irrational fear on those nights when the thunder rumbles and you ca
Oh, yes: I had several chats with the old gentleman. How could I not seek out a dear relative with such a colorful history, with a worldview so similar to my own? The very possibility that he might still be alive after all those decades added excitement to my search, and I did not rest until I at length tracked him down. He quickly sensed my own true nature, and naturally became most anxious that your path should never cross mine-but in return for my promise never to meet you, he seemed happy enough to discuss his, shall we say, unique solution for a broken world. And he confirmed everything: the existence of his concoction for the prolongation of life-although he withheld from me the ma
So I ask one more time: what was it like for you to live in this house for so many, many years as helpmate to your sister’s killer? I can’t even begin to imagine it. No wonder your psyche is so frail-no wonder my brother fears for the soundness of your mind. Together, alone, in this house: was it possible that you even grew to become, shall we say, on intimate terms with Antoine? But no, not that: I am the first man to become master of that shrine, dearest Constance: the physical evidence was incontrovertible. But you loved him-no doubt you loved him.
And so what now is left for you, my poor pitiable Constance? My precious fallen angel? Handmaiden to fratricide, consort to your sister’s murderer? The very air you breathe you owe to her, and to Antoine’s other victims. Do you deserve to continue this perverse existence? And who will mourn your passing? My brother, surely not: you would be a guilty burden to him no more. Wren? Proctor? How risible. I shall not mourn you: you were a toy; a mystery easily solved; a dull box forced and found empty; an animal spasm. So let me give you a piece of advice, and please believe this to be the one honest, altruistic thing I have ever told you.