“Cécile! Christ, what happened to your arm?”
I should only have asked what happened, period, because Cécile Métrailler, my très ooh-la-la Nurse Cécile, she’d been fully taken to pieces. Her left arm was in a sling, her fingers sticking out of a cast. She still had hips to hold up her pants and enough tits to fill her shirt, but there were at least twenty pounds missing from the rest. Even the rouge under her cheekbones couldn’t mask the fact that, in three weeks, she’d aged ten years.
Despite all of this, she still managed to crank something up that was meant to resemble a grin. “Oh, that. That was a stupid accident.” The grin broadened somewhat. “I broke my wrist. I fell off the stepladder when I was changing a lightbulb.”
That statement unveiled the seasoned pro liar she truly was, but this wasn’t the time for questioning. “What are you doing here? Shit, you look like a walking concealer stick.”
“They said on TV a massive snow front was nearing the mountains, this year’s first major storm. I remembered what my mamie had told us and I decided to come. I . . . I didn’t want you to go through it alone tonight. You know, not with what’s going on with Nick and everything.”
That moved me. Despite my surprise, despite my suspicions, I got a lump in my throat. I put my arms around Cécile, careful not to crush the arm in the cast.
“I’m so happy to see you again.”
“Me too, Sam. You’re not doing too good, huh?”
“Nope.”
Damn, now my bottom lip was starting to tremble, so I held on to her just a little bit longer. I’ve also been known to conceal things, and what’s wrong with that? Besides, it was good to hold someone close. Someone who didn’t give you visions of infinity and send you to the moon and back.
“My god, you can feel it everywhere. It’s making me feel queasy all over. Has it been like this for long?”
“Since this morning.”
“That’s what I figured. And it looks like we’re not the only ones to feel it.”
I gazed at her and Cécile nodded upward.
The sky was darkened by flocks of birds. Way up high, they were heading north. They were coming from the mountains, thousands at a time. There was something ominous about their unanimity, something your brain either could not or would not process.
Where were they going? And would we ever get to see that place?
Cécile cringed against a sudden gust and said, “Come on.” She avoided my glance and said, “Let’s get in the car.”
We did, but as we bounced over that bumpy road, I looked at her trembling hand on the wheel and realized I hadn’t been able to decipher her expression.
6
“Nom de Dieu,” Cécile whispered.
It hit us the minute we walked in. It was like walking into a poisonous cloud. As soon as we entered the hallway and the intensifying wind had slammed the massive door shut behind us, we sensed there was a greater danger lurking inside. The sensation was similar to when the Maudit would take over Nick, only it had gotten worse again. One lighted match and you’d transform Hill House into a smoldering crater. A crater housing three sets of charred, unidentifiable dental remains.
Nick, he’d stopped pacing. He was now standing still in front of the big window, face tilted upward, his eyes, reflected in the glass, large and staring and blind—blind at least to the things we could see.
Emanating vibes that made the hairs stand up on the backs of our necks.
“We need to drug him,” Cécile said, obsessively scritch-scratching her hair. Her pupils ping-ponging in their sockets: “Before it starts to get worse and that glass door isn’t enough to keep him in here anymore.” Tense fingers probing her open mouth: “He looks like he’s hypnotized . . .”
I said, “Last time I drugged him I used oxazepam, and that worked fine.” I started laughing, couldn’t help it. Last time I drugged him. Find me a therapist who’d consider that a fruitful foundation for a relationship.
“Nick?” I called. “Nick, I’ve got Cécile with me. She’s come here to help us.”
In my head: You and me, Sam. We don’t need anybody else.
No reaction.
The only sound his breathing, rumbling deep in his chest.
Cécile in the doorway, twenty pounds lighter and six shades paler than the last time she’d walked in there. You could hear her catch her breath.
“Nick?”
In the glass, the reflection of his eyes distorted, too hollow, too dark.
The reflection of his ruined face, grotesquely askew.
And Cécile, you could hear her whisper, “Jésus Marie Joseph.”
“Nick. Yoo-hoo.” Walked up to him, touched his shoulder. Waved my hand up and down between his eyes and the window. “Cécile would like to examine you.”
And Cécile: “Tu con . . .”
I looked around and shrugged. I kept trying, but nothing. It was like Nick wasn’t there. As if I was looking at an empty shell. It was creepy. His gaze fixed on things only he could see. Except when one of those echoes erupted. One of those auditory illusions of cries in the sky. Then something alive in his eyes seemed to chase it. As if he’d heard it call his name.
A temptation luring him into the unknown.
The large window shook on its hinges. The wind had free rein of it and seemed to be incessantly prodding it, testing it, searching for weak spots. To get inside. Become bait for anything that wished to trail behind it.
A new thought made my blood run cold: What if Nick decides to break out? You can lock the doors, but the chalet is no fortress.
No other way—dope him up.
Cécile and I, we stumbled down the stairs together. To the downstairs bathroom, just in case he was listening in anyway. I took a strip of oxas from Nick’s leather toilet bag on the sink. Said that he usually siestaed a coupla hours every day since his accident. That he usually imbibed gallons of water. Usually—but who knows if today was “usually.”
“What’s his regular dose?”
“Two. I think. Three on bad days. Why are we whispering?”
“Don’t know. Feels better. Okay. Give him six.”
“Witchy woman! We need to neutralize him, not knock him off.”
Cécile rolled her eyes. “Believe me, even if you take a whole pack of Seresta, you still wake up tomorrow morning. Okay, woozy, severe stomachaches, but you wake up. There are few prescription drugs available that are enough for a fatal intoxication by themselves. With good reason.”
“Okay, six it is. Will that be enough to take him through the night?”
“Um . . . I’m not sure. I don’t know what kind of effect it has on—bon Dieu de merde! It follows you even here! It’s driving me crazy; can’t you hear it?”
Whether she meant the wailing of the wind or the subliminal message hidden in the wailing of the wind I didn’t know, but the last thing I needed was a Cécile with her hands pressed to her ears, indulging in a nervous breakdown.
“Cécile,” I said out loud, “get your act together.” Popping six pills out of the strip and onto a dish, and there she was, snatching one off and swallowing it dry. I gazed at her. She gazed back, looking at me like What?