Galilee by Clive Barker

her.”
    â€œâ€”I’ll find her. And I’ll just ask her to have Marietta show me the sights instead of you.”
    â€œShe doesn’t trust Marietta,” Luman said, getting up and crossing to crouch in front of the fire. “She trusts me because I’ve stayed here. I’ve been loyal.” His lip curled. “Loyal like a dog,” he said. “Stayed in my kennel and guarded her little empire.”
    â€œWhy do you stay out here?” I asked him. “There’s so much room in the house.”
    â€œI hate the house. It’s entirely too civilized. I find I can’t catch my breath in there.”
    â€œIs that why you don’t want to help me? You don’t want to go in the house?”
    â€œOh, shit,” he said, apparently resigned to this torment, “If I have to I have to. I’ll take you up, if you want to go that badly.”
    â€œUp where?”
    â€œTo the dome, of course. But once I’ve done that, buddy, you’re on your own. I ain’t staying with you. Not in that place.”
VII
    I began to see that one of the curses of the Barbarossa family is self-pity. There’s Luman in his Smoke House, plotting his revenge against dead men; me in my library, determined that life had done me a terrible disservice; Zabrina in her own loneliness, fat with candy. Even Galilee—out there under a limitless sky—writing me melancholy letters about the aimlessness of his life. It was pathetic. We, who were the blessed fruit of such an extraordinary tree. How did we all end up bemoaning the fact of living, instead of finding purpose in that fact? We didn’t deserve what we’d been given: our glamours, our skills, our visions. We’d frittered them all away while we bemoaned our lot.
    Was it too late to change all of that, I wondered? Was there still a chance for four ungrateful children to rediscover why we’d been created?
    Only Marietta, it seemed to me, had escaped the curse, and she’d done so by reinventing herself. I saw her often, coming back from her visits to the world, dressed like a trucker sometimes in low-slung jeans and a dirty shirt, sometimes like a torch-song singer in a slinky dress; sometimes barely dressed at all, running across the lawn as the sun came up, her skin as dewy as the grass.
    Oh Lord, what am I admitting to? Well, it’s said; for better or worse. To my list of sins (which isn’t as long as I’d like it to be) I must now append incestuous desires.
    Luman had arranged to come and fetch me at ten. He was late, of course. When he finally turned up, he had the last inch of his havana between his teeth, and the last inch of gin left in the bottle. I suspect he didn’t indulge himself with hard liquor very often, because he was much the worse for wear.
    â€œAre you ready?” he slurred.
    â€œMore than ready.”
    â€œDid you bring something to eat and drink?”
    â€œWhat do I need food for?”
    â€œYou’re going to be in there a long time. That’s why.”
    â€œYou make it sound like I’m being locked up.”
    Luman leered at me, as though he was making up his mind whether to be cruel or not. ‘Don’t be shittin’ yourself,” he said finally. “The door’ll be open all the time, you just won’t feel like leaving. It’s very addictive once you get going.” With that he started off down the passageway, leaving me to trundle behind him.
    â€œDon’t go too fast,” I told him.
    â€œAfraid of gettin’ lost in the dark?” he said, “Brother, you are one nervous son of a bitch.”
    I wasn’t afraid of the dark, but there was good reason to be concerned about getting lost. We turned a couple of corners and I was in a passageway I was pretty certain I’d never visited before, though I’d thought myself familiar with the entire house, barring Cesaria’s chambers. Another corner,