Mexican Gothic

That night Noemí has another intense dream, but this time, she encounters Ruth, the Doyle who nearly killed the entire family a generation before. Ruth is holding a rifle, and Noemí follows in her wake until they arrive at a room that contains an old man whose body is so corrupt that he appears to consist entirely of an open sore filled with stinking pus. Ruth shoots the pestilential man, explains that she is not sorry for killing him, and then kills herself with a shot to the head. Noemí sees the golden woman again, and the sense that the golden woman is about to consume her makes Noemí “kn[o]w terror” (118).

Noemí wakes up to find herself standing in a hall with Virgil, who claims to have discovered her sleepwalking toward the room of Howard, whose groans of pain punctuate the conversation. Virgil believes Howard is too old to merit a call by Dr. Cummins. Noemí realizes that Howard must be old, considering that he was arrived in Mexico in the 1880s as a grown man.

It is cold, so Virgil gives Noemí his robe to wear as they walk back to her room. When she tries to return it, he flirtatiously notes how fetching she looks in his belongings, a “mildly inappropriate” (121) comment that leaves her speechless.