The Wolves of Midwinter (The Wolf Gift Chronicles 2)

“That’s exactly what she said,” Reuben answered. “And I know I should be happy that it’s out of my hands, that she’s been accepted without conditions, that she’s seen as whole and entire and her own person.…”

“Yes, of course you should, but she’s your spouse!”

Reuben didn’t respond. He was seeing Laura again, by the creek, holding that small wooden flute, and then playing it, tentatively, making that melody that rose mournfully, as if it were a little prayer.

“I know this,” said Felix. “You have an exceptional capacity to love. I’ve seen it, felt it, knew it when we first talked to each other in the lawyer’s office. You love your family. You love Stuart. And you love Laura deeply, and if for any reason you cannot bear to be around her anymore, well, you will deal with it with love.”

Reuben wasn’t so sure of that, and suddenly the difficulties, the potential for difficulties, overwhelmed him. He thought of Thibault under the tree outside of her house, waiting there so quietly in the darkness, and a raging jealousy took hold of him, jealousy that Thibault had given her the Chrism, jealousy that Thibault, who’d warmed to her from the beginning, might be far closer to her now than Reuben was.…

“Come,” said Felix. “I want you to see the statues.”

The flashlight threw a large yellow beam before them as they entered a cold white-tiled room. Even the ceiling was tiled. And at once Reuben’s eyes made out a great cluster of white-marble crèche figures, finely carved, robust, and baroque in proportions and costume, as rich as any Italian statues he had ever seen. Surely these had come from some sixteenth-century palazzo or church across the sea.

They took his breath away. Felix held the flashlight as Reuben examined them, wiping the dust from the Virgin’s downcast eyes, her cheek. Not even in the famous Villa Borghese had he ever seen anything more plastic or lifelike rendered in stone. The tall figure of the bearded Joseph loomed over him, or was it one of the shepherds? Well, here was the lamb, and the ox, yes, finely detailed, and there suddenly as Felix moved the flashlight were revealed the opulent and splendid Three Kings.

“Felix, these are treasures,” he whispered. How pathetic had been Reuben’s imaginings of a Christmas crib.

“Well, they haven’t been on the terrace at Yuletide for almost a hundred years. My beloved Marchent never laid eyes on them. Her father detested such entertainments, and I spent too many winters in other parts of the world. It wore me out, pretending to be my own mortal descendant. But they’ll be displayed this Yuletide, and with all the proper accoutrements. I have carpenters all ready to build a stable enclosure. Oh, you’ll see.” He sighed.

He let the flashlight pass over the huge figure of the richly adorned camel, and the donkey with his large tender eyes … so like the eyes of the beasts that Reuben had encountered, the soft open unquestioning eyes of the animals he’d killed. A shock passed through him as he looked at it, thinking of Laura again, and the scent of the deer outside her house.

He reached out to touch the Virgin’s perfect fingers. Then the light settled on the Christ Child, a smiling and beaming figure with flowing hair and bright joyful eyes, lying on the bed of marble hay with his arms outstretched.

He felt a pain looking at this, a terrible pain. There had been a time long, long ago when some belief in these things had galvanized him, hadn’t there? When as a little boy he’d looked at such a figure and felt the deep consummate recognition that it meant unconditional love.

“Such a story,” Felix said in a low whisper, “that the Maker of the Universe would descend to us in this humble form, come all the way down and down and down from the far reaches of his creation to be born amongst us. Was there ever a more beautiful symbol for our desperate hope at Midwinter that the world will be born anew?”

Reuben couldn’t speak. For so long, he’d bought all the flippant dismissals … a pagan feast with a Christian story grafted to it. Was it not something for the devout and the godless to both reject? No wonder Stuart was so suspicious. The world today was suspicious of such things.

How many times had he sat there silently in church watching his beloved brother, Jim, celebrate the Mass and thought, Meaningless, all of it, meaningless. He’d long to be released from the church into the bright, open world again, to be looking simply at a starry sky or listening to the sound of the birds that sing even in the darkness, to be alone with his deepest convictions, simple as they were.

But some other deeper and finer feeling was dawning in him now, that it was not all “either-or.” A magnificent possibility was occurring to him, that disparate things might in some way be united in ways we had to come to understand.

He wished he could talk to Jim just now, but then Jim would come to this Christmas fete and they would stand before this crèche, and they could talk together as they always had. And Stuart, Stuart would come to understand, to see.

He felt a great relief that Felix was here, with his resolve and his vision, to make something like this grand Yuletide party truly work.

“Margon’s not tired of Stuart, is he?” he asked suddenly. “He understands, doesn’t he, that Stuart is just so damned exuberant!”

“Are you serious?” Felix laughed softly. “Margon loves Stuart.” He dropped his voice to a confidential whisper. “You must be a very sound sleeper, Reuben Golding. Why, it’s Zeus carrying off Ganymede just about every night.”

Reuben laughed in spite of himself. Actually he was not much of a sound sleeper, or certainly not every night.

“And we’ll have the finest musicians,” Felix resumed as if talking to himself. “I’ve already made calls to San Francisco, and found inns along the coast where they can be put up. Operatic voices, that’s what I want for the adult choir. And I’ll bring the boys’ choir from Europe if I have to. I have a young conductor who understands. I want the old carols, the traditional carols, the ones that capture something of the irresistible depth of it all.”

Reuben was quiet. He was looking at Felix, stealing a long slow look at him as Felix looked lovingly on this family of marble sentinels. And Reuben was thinking, Everlasting life, and I do not begin to know.… But he knew that he loved Felix, that Felix was the light shining on his path now, that Felix was the teacher in this new school in which he found himself.

“Long ago,” Felix said, “I had a splendid home in Europe—.” He went quiet, and his usually cheerful and animated face was shadowy and almost grim. “You know what kills us, don’t you, Reuben? Not wounds, or pestilence, but immortality itself.” He paused. “You are living in a blessed time now, Reuben, and you will be until all those you love here are gone, until your generation is in the earth. Then immortality will begin for you. And someday centuries from now, you will remember this Yuletide and your beloved family—and all of us together in this house.” He drew himself up, impatiently, before Reuben had a chance to respond, and he gestured for them to leave.