The Secret History - Donna Tartt [175]
“What?” I said, hopeful at last for some passionate, back-clawing detail.
“That dead man. Lying on the ground. His stomach was torn open and steam was coming out of it.”
“His stomach?”
“It was a cold night. I’ll never forget the smell of it, either. Like when my uncle used to cut up deer. Ask Francis. He remembers, too.”
I was too horrified to say anything. She reached for the teapot and poured a bit more into her cup. “Do you know,” she said, “why I think we’re having such bad luck this time around?”
“What?”
“Because it’s terrible luck to leave a body unburied. That farmer they found straight away, you know. But remember poor Palinurus in the Aeneid? He lingered around and haunted them for the longest time. I’m afraid that none of us are going to have a good night’s sleep until Bunny’s in the ground.”
“That’s nonsense.”
She laughed. “In the fourth century B.C., the sailing of the entire Attic fleet was delayed just because a soldier sneezed.”
“You’ve been talking too much to Henry.”
She was silent for a moment. Then she said: “Do you know what Henry made us do, a couple of days after that thing in the woods?”
“What?”
“He made us kill a piglet.”
I was not shocked so much by this statement as by the eerie calm with which she delivered it. “Oh, my God,” I said.
“We cut its throat. Then we took turns holding it over each other, so it bled on our heads and hands. It was awful. I nearly got sick.”
It seemed to me that the wisdom of deliberately covering oneself with blood—even pig blood—immediately after committing a murder was questionable, but all I said was: “Why did he want to do that?”
“Murder is pollution. The murderer defiles everyone he comes into contact with. And the only way to purify blood is through blood. We let the pig bleed on us. Then we went inside and washed it off. After that, we were okay.”
“Are you trying to tell me,” I said, “that—”
“Oh, don’t worry,” she said hastily. “I don’t think he plans on doing anything like that this time.”
“Why? Didn’t it work?”
She failed to catch the sarcasm of this. “Oh, no,” she said. “I think it worked, all right.”
“Then why not do it again?”
“Because I think Henry has got the idea that it might upset you.”
There was the fumble of a key in the lock, and a few moments later Charles plunged through the door. He shouldered his coat off and let it fall in a heap on the rug.
“Hello, hello,” he sang, lurching inside and shedding his jacket in the same fashion. He had not come into the living room, but made an abrupt turn into the hallway which led to bedrooms and bath. A door opened, then another. “Milly, my girl,” I heard him call. “Where are you, honey?”
“Oh, dear,” said Camilla. Out loud, she said: “We’re in here, Charles.”
Charles reappeared. His tie was now loosened and his hair was wild. “Camilla,” he said, leaning against the doorframe, “Camilla,” and then he saw me.
“You,” he said, not too politely. “What are you doing here?”
“We’re just having some tea,” said Camilla. “Would you like some?”
“No.” He turned and disappeared into the hall again. “Too late. Going to bed.”
A door slammed. Camilla and I looked at each other. I stood up.
“Well,” I said, “better be heading home.”
There were still search parties, but the number of participating townspeople had shrunk dramatically, and almost no students remained at all. The operation had turned tight, secretive, professional. I heard the police had brought in a psychic, a fingerprint expert, a special team of bloodhounds trained at Dannemora. Perhaps because I imagined that I was tainted with a secret pollution, imperceptible to most but perhaps discernible to the nose of a dog (in movies, the dog is always the first to know the suave and unsuspected vampire for what it is), the thought of the bloodhounds made me superstitious and I tried to stay as far away from dogs as I could, all dogs, even the dopey Labrador mutts who belonged to the ceramics teacher