Sheri Tepper - Grass

She laid a hand on his arm, feeling the shivering of his skin beneath the fabric. “We’re fine. What are they doing, the Hippae?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think anyone knows. Dancing, they say. Sebastian says he knows where. Someone told him where, but he doesn’t like to talk about it.”

“Ah.” They stood together, looking out the tall windows across the terrace, feeling the beat of the thunder through the soles of their feet. A mystery. As all of Grass was a mystery. And she, Marjorie, was doing nothing about it.

She was still thinking of viruses, considering what a thinking virus might do, one whom God did not observe or command but merely allowed to do what it was created for.

“Ask Sebastian to come see me, will you, Persun?”

“Tomorrow,” he promised, “When it gets light.”

Far across the grasses, beyond the port and Commons, beyond the swamp forest, the same sound beat upon the ears of all those at Klive. The bon Damfels family was wakeful, listening. Some were more than merely wakeful.

In a long, dilapidated hallway in the far reaches of the vast structure, Stavenger bon Damfels dragged his struggling Obermum down a long, dusty hallway. One of his hands was twisted into Rowena’s hair, the other held her by the collar of her gown, half throttling her. Blood from her forehead dripped onto the floor.

“Stavenger.” She choked, clinging to his legs. “Listen to me, Stavenger.”

He seemed not to hear her, not to care whether she spoke. His eyes were red and his mouth was drawn into a lipless line. He moved like an automaton, one leg lurched forward, then the other drawn up to it, heaving at her with both hands as though he lifted a heavy sack.

“Stavenger! Oh, by all that’s holy, Stavenger! I did it for Dimity!”

Behind the struggling pair, hiding themselves around corners and behind half-open doors. Amethyste and Emeraude followed and cowered. Since they had seen Stavenger strike Rowena down in the gardens — he either not noticing his daughters behind a screening fountain of grass or not caring if they saw — they had followed him and their mother. The corridor they had come to was ancient, littered, untended and untenanted. The five-story wing that held it had not been used for at least a generation. Above them, the ceiling sagged in wide, shallow bubbles, stained with water which had leaked through the rotted thatch and permeated the three floors above. The portraits on the walls were corrupted with mold, and the stairs they had climbed were punky with rot.

“He doesn’t know what he’s doing,” Amy whispered, tears running down her face and into the corners of her mouth. She licked them away and said again, “He’s gone crazy. He doesn’t know!”

“He does,” Emmy contradicted, pointing to the light she carried. “There haven’t been any lights in this old place since before we were born, but there’s everlights all along the hall. He got them out of the garage, just like I got this one. He put them here before. He planned it.”

Amy, looking at the dim lanterns set here and there on rickety tables or hung on doorknobs, nodded unwillingly. “Why! Why is he doing this to her?”

“Shhh,” her sister cautioned, pulling them both back into the shadow. Stavenger had stopped at the end of the corridor to thrust Rowena through an open door, pulling it closed behind her and locking it. The key ground in the lock with a rusty finality. He thrust it into his pocket and then stood there, as though listening. “Rowena.” A voice like metal — harsh and hideous. No sound from beyond the door.

“You’ll never go there again! Never to Opal Hill again! Never consort with fragras again! Never betray me again!” Silence.

He turned and took up the nearest lamp, then came down the corridor toward them, gathering up the everlights as he came. Slowly he plodded, his face expressionless, passing the door behind which his daughters trembled, leaving the place in darkness, going away as though forever.

They waited, listening for the sound that came at last, the heavy thunder of the door closing, two stories below.

Behind the locked door at the end of the corridor rose the sound of a woman’s howling, an interminable, grief-driven wail of pain and betrayal.

With trembling fingers, Emeraude turned on the everlight she carried and the two of them ran to the door, stumbling over warped floorboards, kicking up small, choking clouds of dust.

The door was heavy and thick, made of wood from a swamp-forest tree and hung by great metal hinges in a solid frame. Only a few doors at the estancia were this heavy, this immovable. The main door of the house. The door of Stavenger’s private office. The treasury door. What had this room once been, to have needed all this weight of wood?

They knocked, called, knocked again. The howl went on and on.

“Find Sylvan!” Emeraude urged her sister in a frantic whisper “He’s the only one who can help, Amy.”

Amethyste turned haunted eyes on her sister, babbling, “I thought I’d ask Shevlok—”

Emmy shook her, demanding her attention. “Shevlok’s useless. He’s done nothing but drink since Janetta showed up at that party. He isn’t even conscious most of the time.”

“If the lapse would get over—”

“If the lapse would get over, he’d go hunting all day and be drunk all night. Find Sylvan!”

“Emmy…”

“I know! You’re scared to death of Papa. Well, so am I. He’s like… he’s like one of the Hippae, all shining eyes and sharp blades so you can’t come near him. I keep thinking he will knock me down and trample me to death if I open my mouth. But I’m not going to leave Mama bleeding in there, penned up like that with no food and no water. I won’t let her die like that, but you know Papa will if we let him.”

“Why did Papa—”

“You know perfectly well why. Mama went to Opal Hill, she talked to the people who found Janetta. She’s got the idea that… that…” Emeraude struggled for words, choking on them, eyes bulging as she tried to say what she was not permitted to say.

“Never mind,” her sister said, shaking her. “I know. I’ll find Sylvan. You stay here and tell him what happened, in case I don’t have a chance to explain.”

“Take the light. I’ll wait here.”

Amy sped down the stairs, shuddering away from the banister, which creaked and sagged outward beneath her hand. This ruin was connected to the main house by the old servants’ quarters and the aircar garage. The connecting door was locked, had been locked by their father when they had followed him here, he with that wild, mad look in his eyes, dragging Rowena as though she had been a sack of grain. He had locked the door again when he went out, but there was a broken window nearby which gave onto a long drying yard and the summer kitchens. The girls had come through that. It was almost midnight. The servants would long ago have gone to bed. Even if one or two of them lingered in the kitchens, their sympathies would be with Rowena more than with Stavenger.

A Stavenger who was at this moment in the main hallway screaming unintelligibly at Figor, ranting and threatening so that the whole household had wakened to hear him. Figor, wisely, was saying nothing while allowing the storm to pass. Other family members, wakened by the uproar, stayed out of the way. The great building hummed with murmuring voices, clattered with doors opening and closing, and was yet quiet, silent except for the bellowing voice.

Amy ignored the noise. At this hour, Sylvan would be in his room, or in the library, or in the gymnasium, two floors below. The library was closest, and she found him there in a secluded corner, eyes fixed on a book, fingers in his ears. She knelt beside him and pulled the fingers away.