Chapter Ten
Willow felt paralyzed, kneeling beside the stricken old man curled in the fetal position at the base of the staircase.
Nine years of research and musicology study had prepared her for exactly nothing connected to the lives of the living people around her; she felt more useless than ever before in her life.
The dark-suited man reached across Geralt’s gasping body and gently touched her shoulder, then her cheek.
His eyes caught hers and held them—dark eyes, so dark the pupils were almost invisible, older than the rest of him, eyes that would notice everything.
But they were also, somehow, kind, and his voice was calm and reassuring.
She forced her brain to process what the voice was saying. “There’s a linen closet in the kitchen, to the right of the door. You’ll find some towels.”
Towels. It was something.
Willow burst into action. Among table linens and cleaning supplies were several neatly folded stacks of once-bright terry cloth, now old and faded and reduced to mopping up spills.
She grabbed a pile of the towels and came back to where Geralt lay, slipping a couple of them under his head for comfort and spreading out another to sop up his sick.
He shifted a little as she gently wiped the corners of his mouth, then he gave a shuddering sigh.
If he had been pale before, now he was positively waxen, his complexion a grayish white, a delicate tracing of veins visible in the translucent skin of his closed eyelids.
He was shaking; she could not tell if he was cold or seizing, but on impulse, after removing the soiled towel and tossing it to the side with most of the mess it had soaked up, Willow darted into the sitting room and picked up the sea-blue shawl draped over the back of Effie’s rocking chair.
She had a strange sensation of another pair of hands brushing hers, pushing the shawl into her grip; the impulse to weep washed over her.
She hurried back to the foyer, laying the soft sea colors over the old man. He was mumbling now, incomprehensible sounds without words; his breaths were shallow and gasping.
Suddenly, his eyes burst open, his face twisted in terror as he focused on something just behind her.
“No,” he whispered, fear rising in his face.
“No, not you … Go away…” Willow fought the urge to look over her shoulder; of course there would be nothing there.
She tried to comfort Geralt, softly wiping his face again as tears came and he subsided into weak sobs.
“I’m so sorry,” he murmured. “Please, I’m sorry … Please…” Geralt’s eyes were bleak. “I can’t,” he whimpered. “It hurts, and I can’t. I—”
Impulsively and against all logic, Willow turned her head to look behind her. A lightning-quick impression, silhouetted in the afternoon sun—a tall man in a suit and fedora—
She blinked, and there was nothing there.
Of course there was nothing there.
Geralt’s body convulsed as he vomited again; again, Willow wiped it away.
With a sudden jolt, Geralt’s talon-like hand jerked up and grabbed Willow’s forearm with a strength that surprised her; her first response, as much as it shamed her, was to jerk away from his grip, but his grasp was hard and implacable.
For a moment, both his face and his speech were utterly clear. “It’s you. Sue’s girl. Willow. It’s you.”
For an endless instant, she was frozen in place. Time stopped again, and his gaze bored into her with an intensity that curled her insides. It was as though the will of the whole house were pushing down on her.
Willow … It’s you … It’s you … Willow …
The echo of his words swirled around her like a hushed whisper from countless voices, surrounding her, filling the room.
Panic rose in her, centering in her solar plexus, squeezing hard, holding her immobile.
Geralt pulled her closer, his rheumy eyes boring into hers, and whispered urgently, “The house. It needs to stay in the family. It must.” He shuddered and retched again, releasing her wrist and clutching his stomach.
She lurched backward, barely noticing that she had put her hand down on a shard of glass from Geralt’s broken cane.
Willow … the house … the family, the whispers spun in a soundless sigh.
She scrambled backward, away from the sick old man; she could think of nothing but getting away—far from this house, from the look of coming death in the old man’s face, from the voices.
From the almost-visible shadows lurking just outside her vision.
From the implacable gaze of the man with the dark suit and silvering beard.
And then even thought departed her; there was only the desperate need to flee.
“Willow.” Joel’s voice, sharp and clear, cut through her terror.
She jerked her gaze to him, then away, unable to bear the judgment she saw reflected there. “I have to go,” she forced out in desperation. “I have to get help.”
Joel’s voice was clipped and tight. “I fear he is beyond that now. What he needs is comfort. He needs to not be alone.”
The whispers, again: Alone … Don’t leave him alone …
She squeezed her eyes shut as though doing so could squeeze out the impossible sounds or the harsh gasping breaths of the old man. Joel’s voice came again, sharper now. “Willow!”
But she was too lost in her own panic and fear.
She backed away, first scuttling like a crab, then pulling herself to her feet and moving toward the door, her eyes fixed on Geralt.
Ashamed to look at Joel, terrified to look around the room for fear of what she might see, all she could think of was her own escape.
“Help,” she breathed again, her feet crunching on the broken glass of Geralt’s cane handle. “I need to get help.”
Willow’s skin itched with the weight of Joel’s stare, with the weight of unnumbered, unseen faces all around, all focused mercilessly on her. The invisible scrutiny had weight, tendrils, twining around her as though to trap her here.
Her hand, groping behind her, touched the doorknob, smooth and cool; she had made it to the door.
Joel’s eyes were still fixed on her, but the kindness was gone; they were shuttered, distant, even a little cold.
At last, he looked away and said quietly, “All right, Willow. Go. Get help. You don’t belong here, not for this. Go back. Call for help.”
His disappointment pressed down on her even through the fear; she had let him down, though she had no idea how or why it should even matter—this stranger she had met half an hour ago who made her feel like he could tear through her every defense.
She nodded numbly; the knob turned beneath her hand, and the heavy door swung inward as though trying to push her back into the foyer; only a step, but it was too much, and she felt the panic rise again.
Geralt shifted again, grasping at the hand of the man kneeling next to him, looking up at Joel with a vague, childlike stare. “You’ll stay with me? You won’t leave me?”
Joel turned his kind, too-old eyes to Geralt and moved closer to him. “I promise. I will stay with you. I promise.”
Willow felt like her insides were shattering as she clawed her way around the door, away from the naked hope and terror on the dying man’s face.
She thought she could see Geralt’s cheeks shiny with tears as he pleaded weakly, “It’s going to be all right, isn’t it?
It doesn’t end here, with me? Do we get to go on? ”
Joel nodded and gave him a sad smile. “Yes, my friend. We get to go on.”
Willow looked back one last time from the doorway, fervently hoping Joel would not notice her again, fervently praying he would.
When she tried to inhale, her lungs clogged with the intimacy and emotion that suddenly suffused the room, as though Geralt had become the fulcrum of something rich and incomprehensible.
She turned and ran.
The stone lions watched after her. She could feel them watching her.
She reached up to push her hair out of her face and realized her hand was bleeding.
She kept running.