Джефф Вандермеер - The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities

Still, the children didn’t move. Sylvia allowed herself to exhale. She attempted an actual instruction.

“Why don’t you sit here on the sofa while we wait?” she said. Quietly, the children obeyed. They lined up on the sofa and sat, one after the other, no one pinching anyone.

Extraordinary. Truly extraordinary. Something was terribly, terribly wrong here.

Sylvia sat in a wingback chair across from them, watching. They sat, hands folded in laps, and waited, not making a sound, not even flinching. Somewhere, a clock ticked, and it sounded like the tolling of a funeral bell. Sylvia’s heart was racing for no reason at all.

When the double doors opened again, she nearly shrieked, hand to her breast to still her heart. The children merely looked.

The housekeeper stood there, like a monk, in her brown dress. She frowned. “There’s been a change of plans. I’m afraid the doctor has been unexpectedly detained. You’ll have to come another time.”

That was that. The whole afternoon for nothing, and now Sylvia was going to have to herd the children back outside, and back to the car for the ride home.

But they left the parlor quietly, single-file by height and age. Outside, on the front steps, they halted in a row, like little soldiers, while the car pulled around. They got in, sat quietly, and stayed that way until the car left the grounds of Lambshead’s manor. Then, they burst into screams, the boys hit the girls, the girls pinched the boys, and everybody bounced against the ceiling. She could only watch. They were spring toys that had been let loose.

Terrifying.

The Girl at the Fountain

A week later, Jerome returned to the manor in a hopeful mood, eager, prepared. His newspaper had agreed that a second trip to Lambshead’s manor was worth it, for the chance to recoup some of the expenses with an actual story. This attempt couldn’t possibly go any worse than the last. He knocked on the door, which the scowling housekeeper opened, showing him into the foyer and pointing him to the library.

The lady reporter was in the library, standing before the tapestry of a girl at a fountain, nestled amid the staring portraits.

“Not you again!” he blurted, and she turned on him, gaze fierce. She had the most extraordinary green eyes, he noticed.

“Oh, give me a break!” she said.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m here for my interview—what are you doing here?”

“ Your interview, this is supposed to be my interview. How did you manage this?”

“Don’t lay this on me, this isn’t my fault!” She stepped toward him, pointing, and he took a step forward to keep her from getting the upper hand.

“You’re trying to tell me that you aren’t following me?” he said. “That you didn’t arrange to be here simply to aggravate me?”

“Wait a minute—I was here first this time! Are you following me ?”

“What? No!”

She was only slightly shorter than he was, but the heels of her shoes may have made her appear taller, just as they accentuated the curve of her calves and the slope of her hips inside their clinging skirt. Today, she wore navy blue, a well-tailored and flattering suit, a cream-colored blouse contrasting with the flush of the skin at her throat.

“I don’t care who screwed up and who double-booked us,” she said. “I’m getting my interview and you can’t stop me.” Her lips were parted, her eyes shining, and her hair seemed soft as velvet.

“I don’t want to stop you,” he said, and realized that he really didn’t.

“Then you’ll turn around and walk out of here right now?”

“I don’t know that I’m ready to do that.”

She tilted her head, her fury giving way to confusion, which softened her mouth and forehead and made her eyes wide and sweet. “But you won’t stand in my way?”

“Well, I might stand in your way.”

In fact, they had moved close enough together that they were only inches apart, gazing into each other’s eyes, feeling the heat of each other’s bodies.

“And why would you do that?” she said, her voice low.

“I think—to get a better look at you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” He couldn’t see the rest of the room anymore.

“I have to admit, you’re an interesting man— I . . . I don’t even know your name.”

“Jerome. Yours?”

“Elaine.”

They kissed.

The shock that passed from his lips through his nerves to the tips of his toes came not only from the pressure of her mouth, the weight and warmth of her body pressed against him, her hands wrapped around the hem of his jacket to pull him closer—but also from the fact that he was kissing her at all. It should never have happened. It was meant to be.

The kiss lasted for what seemed a very long time, lips working between gasps for breath, hands on each other’s arms. This, he thought, this was what he had come for.

Finally, they broke apart and stared at each other in wonder.

“What was that?” she—Elaine—said. Her cheeks were pink, and her breathing came quickly.

“It was perfect,” he breathed.

“God, it was, wasn’t it?” she whispered.

“Oh yes.” He leaned forward for another kiss, but she interrupted the gesture.

“Let’s go. The two of us, together, let’s leave, go somewhere and never look back.”

“What about your interview?” he said.

“What interview? Who?”

He could hardly remember himself. They were in this archaic parlor filled with artifacts, books, carved fireplace, stern portraits, and that faded tapestry, which hardly seemed a setting for passion—his heart was suddenly filled with fragrant gardens and winding paths where he could hold her hand and walk with her for hours.

He took both her hands and pulled her toward the door. “You’re right, let’s go.”

A wide, glorious smile broke on her face, a flower unfolding, opening to him, filling him with joy, unbridled and bursting. Hand in hand, they left the parlor, breezed past the scowling housekeeper, and burst through the front doors to the outside, where the sun was shining gloriously and the shrubs seemed filled with singing larks. Jerome had an urge to sing along with them. Elaine was grinning just as wide as he was, and he’d never felt so much . . . rightness in being with someone.

They had to step aside for a passing car filled with countless children, whose screams were audible through the glass.

“Can I ask you a question?” Elaine asked.

“Of course.” He would do anything for her.

“Do you want children?”

He thought a moment; he’d never really considered, and found he didn’t much need to now. “No, not really.”

“Good. Excellent.” She smiled at him, and his heart nearly burst.

At the end of the drive, the boundary to the property, Elaine stopped. Her tug on his hand made Jerome stop as well. He blinked at her; her frown gave him the sense of a balloon deflating, of a recording of birdsong winding down to the speed of a dirge.

They dropped each other’s hands. He was rather startled that he’d been holding it at all.

“What are we doing?” she asked. “We can’t just run off like a couple of teenagers. This isn’t like me at all .”

“Nor me,” Jerome said. “But . . . perhaps if you think that I simply couldn’t help myself.” That was true enough—whatever had happened, it was a surge of passion that seemed to have vanished, much to his regret. He wanted it back.

He tried on an awkward smile for her, and if she didn’t return it, she at least didn’t scowl.

“There’s something really weird about that house,” she said, looking back to the manor.