The Wolf Gift by Anne Rice Read Free Book Online Page B

and with the mystique of the whole family.
    He got up and went into the bathroom. There was his shaving kit unzipped on the edge of the marble washbasin, and on a glass shelf beneath the mirror stood all the toiletries he might need, just as he might find them in a fine hotel. A curtained window faced west, and by day one could likely see the ocean or the cliffs, he wasn’t sure.
    He showered, brushed his teeth, and then got into his pajamas. Slipping on the robe and his shoes, he quickly turned down the coverlet, and plumped the pillows.
    For the first time this evening, he checked his phone and saw he had two messages from his mother, one from his father, two from his brother, Jim, and five messages from Celeste. Well, this wasn’t the time to answer them.
    He slipped the phone into the pocket of his robe, and then took stock of the room.
    Unbelievable treasures, helter-skelter, it seemed, and dusted as best they could be. Tablets. Yes, there were tablets there, tiny fragile baked-clay tablets that might crumble at his touch. He could see the tiny cuneiform writing. And there were figures in jade, and diorite, and alabaster, gods and goddesses he knew, and some he had never known, and inlaid boxes crammed with random bits of paper or fabric, and heaps of coins and what might have been jewelry, and then books. Lots of books, in all the mysterious Asian languages again, and in the languages of Europe too.
    All Hawthorne’s novels were here, and some very recent novels that surprised him and thrilled him—James Joyce’s
Ulysses
, very thumbed and filled with little note tags, and copies of Hemingway and Eudora Welty and Zane Grey. There were books of old ghost stories, too, elegant British writers, M. R. James, Algernon Blackwood, and Sheridan LeFanu.
    He didn’t dare to touch these books. Some were bulging with torn bits of paper, and the oldest paperbacks were falling apart. But it gave him the oddest feeling again of knowing and loving Felix, a twinge thatwas like the fan sickness he’d felt as a kid when he’d fallen in love with Catherine Zeta Jones or Madonna and thought them the most gorgeous and desirable people in the world. It was that kind of simple yearning, to know Felix, to have Felix, to be in Felix’s world. But Felix was dead.
    A wild fantasy bloomed in his mind. He’d marry Marchent. He’d live here with her. He’d bring the house to life again for her. They’d go through all of Felix’s papers together. Maybe Reuben would write a history of the house, and a history of Felix, one of those specialty books, which always include big expensive photographs, books that didn’t become best sellers but which were always respectable and valuable. God knows he had such books himself.
    Now he was the one telling himself he was dreaming. And in truth, much as he loved Marchent, he didn’t want to be married yet to anybody. But the book, maybe he could do the book, and Marchent might cooperate in such a venture, even if she herself went off again to her house in South America. Maybe it would bind them together, deeply, as good friends and fine friends, and that would be something of great value to them both.
    He went out of the room and walked about for a while, on the second floor.
    He went down the north hallway on the back of the house.
    Many doors stood open, and he found himself peering into several little libraries and galleries much like the one he’d just left. More ancient clay tablets. Ah, this took his breath away. More figurines, and even some parchment scrolls. He was fighting himself not to touch.
    There were more of the beautifully appointed bedrooms off the east hallway, one with dazzling black-and-gold Oriental wallpaper, and another papered in stripes of red and gold.
    Circling back eventually, he was again on the west side of the house. He stood for a moment on the threshold of what was obviously Marchent’s bedroom, one door above Felix’s bedroom, a haven of white lace curtains and