Medusa's Web by Tim Powers

Author:Tim Powers
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-12-03T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

MIDMORNING SUNLIGHT REFLECTING OFF the bare floor shone on the plaster ceiling, and Scott was peering through watering eyes as he rolled out of bed, sure that he was about to vomit; but he paused, leaning against the wall beside the open window, and after a few seconds the chilly air blowing in on his sweaty face emphasized his headache instead. He looked back at the disordered bed and the bottle on the floor, and he felt old and exhausted and corrupt. He had only begun to try to dismiss the memories of last night as dreams, when he saw the dried mud stains on his bare feet.

I will not go to that house where Valentino was, he told himself firmly; I can clearly sense what direction it’s in, but I will not go there. He glanced down again at his blackened feet, and shuddered. I am through with spiders.

There must be another way to get Madeline out of the web, out of Aunt Amity’s posthumous domination. He sighed from the bottom of his lungs and began wearily pulling on his jeans and a flannel shirt.

The orange couch and the heraldic wet bar, he thought. What did Aunt Amity do with all of Mom and Dad’s stuff? They had some specific fact-in-context to blackmail Aunt Amity with, and if I can find out what that was, then maybe it’s something I can use to banish her ghost, and nobody need ever look behind the red board in the attic of that house out there. To hell with Taylor and Valentino and that whole crowd. That whole dead and buried crowd.

Scott squinted against the brightness at his black plastic bag on the shelf beside his remaining dried-out cigarettes, but dreaded the effort of digging through its contents to try to find clean socks, and he pulled on yesterday’s, then slid his feet into his shoes and clumsily tied them. Then he made the effort to pick up the bourbon bottle and shove it back under the mattress next to the manila envelope.

He looked through the open connecting door, but Madeline’s bed was empty and neatly made up. God knew what time it was. He stepped softly into the hall and down the stairs.

From the dining room he heard the tinkling of a spoon stirring coffee in a ceramic cup, and someone closed a cupboard in the kitchen beyond, so he stole to the right from the base of the stairs, through the laundry room—scuffing aside bits of dry mud that were too clearly footprints—and lifted a dusty key ring from a hook and sidled out the back door.

He didn’t even glance toward the spot by the Medusa wall where he had awakened last night, but hurried past the kitchen windows to the driveway and the long west lawn. Nobody opened the kitchen door to call after him.

The walk out to the road that led up to the old garages stretched his cramped thigh muscles, and the cold, soil-scented breeze in his nostrils made his headache recede.

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