The Chosen

drab in the gaps between the heavy gray draperies. In the far wing, one of the housekeeping staff seemed to grimace whilst laying out more place settings and teepeed linen napkins.

A solitude, drab as the winter light, fell down on her: The Carriage House felt dead. What was wrong now? She couldn’t stop calling up the memory of her encounter with the blond prostitute, and how so much of what she’d said corroborated Paul’s explanation. And the business with Chief Mulligan disappearing—she knew it had nothing to do with her, or The Inn, but it still seemed so strange. Earlier, in her office, she’d gotten a call from Morton-Gibson Ltd., someone inquiring as to the whereabouts of one Mr. Terrence Taylor. Vera told him all she knew, that Mr. Taylor had checked in but had forgotten to check out. This, too, seemed strange. But that wasn’t all that bothered her—

“You look bothered,” the soft but solid voice drifted out. Feldspar stood by the hostess station, eying her. He wore fine black slacks and a loose gray-silk shirt, diamond cuff links winking. Bothered? Vera thought. Me? What could she tell him? Nothing, really, so she lied, “I’m fine, Mr. Feldspar.”

He unlocked the glass cognac case and poured himself a shot of Louis XIII. Vera winced when he threw it back neat. That stuff’s a hundred years old and cost five hundred fifty dollars a bottle, Vera wished she could scold. You don’t throw it back like it’s Old Grand Dad. Of course, it was his; he could do what he wanted with it. He could wash his hands with it if he so desired. “You’re fine, you say?” he seemed to challenge. “Frankly, I’ve never seen you appear so…disconsolate.”

Well, I think someone was in my room last night. Is that something worth being disconsolate about?

No, it wouldn’t work. What could she possibly tell him? Last night, her dream had returned, her fantasy of The Hands. The Hands had caressed her into ecstacy, after which their phantom possessor had made love to her in the graven dark. Well, no, not love—she’d been fucked, roughly and primitively, her face shoved down into the pillows so intently she thought she’d smother, her buttocks slapped till it stung, her hair yanked like a bell cord on an ice cream truck. Yet in spite of the dream’s flagrant violence, she’d enjoyed every minute of it.

And when she’d awakened…

She swore she’d heard a click.

As if her bedroom door had just clicked shut.

Suddenly it hadn’t felt like a dream at all. Her sex ached, and her buttocks seemed—yes—it seemed to sting. And hadn’t Donna reported having bizarre dreams too, undeniably sexual dreams?

Laved in sweat, she’d lurched from bed, donned her robe, and stepped quickly into the hall. No, this hadn’t seemed like a dream at all. It had seemed real in some hazy unsorted way. She even harbored the consideration that maybe, just maybe, someone had been coming into her room all these nights. Molesting her. Raping her.

In the dim hallway she’d seen the figure, its back to her as it walked away. “Who are you?” she called dizzily out. She’d always believed the dream-lover was Kyle, but this figure didn’t look like him at all. “Who are you!” she called out again.

When the figure turned at her call she saw at once that it wasn’t Kyle.

And she knew that it must be a dream.

No, the figure wasn’t Kyle. It wasn’t even human.

The memory snapped like a thin bone, bringing her back to Feldspar, the dining room, reality. “I just haven’t been sleeping well,” she said. “Bad dreams.”