The Wolves of Midwinter (The Wolf Gift Chronicles 2)

Silence.

“What did you feel when you saw her?” Felix asked.

“Terror,” said Reuben. “And I think she knew it. I think she might have been disappointed.”

Again, Felix was silent. Then after a moment, he spoke up again, his voice very polite, and calm.

“Why did you feel terror,” he asked.

“Because it was … Marchent,” Reuben said, trying not to stammer. “And it had to mean that Marchent is existing somewhere. It had to mean that Marchent is conscious somewhere, and not in some lovely hereafter, but here. Doesn’t it have to mean that?”

Shame. The old shame. He’d met her, loved her, and failed utterly to stop her murder. Yet from her he had inherited this house.

“I don’t know what it means,” said Felix. “I have never been a seer of spirits. Spirits come to those who can see them.”

“You do believe me.”

“Of course I do,” he said. “It wasn’t some shadowy shape as you’re describing it—.”

“Utterly clear.” Again his words came in a rush. “I saw the pearls on her negligee. The lace. I saw this old heavy lace, kind of dagged lace along her collar, beautiful lace. And her bracelet, the pearl chain she’d been wearing, when I was with her, this thin little bracelet with silver links and little pearls.”

“I gave her that bracelet,” Felix said. It was more a sigh than words.

“I saw her hand. She reached, as if she were going to reach through the glass.” Again there came the prickling on his skin but he fought it. “Let me ask you something,” he continued. “Was she buried here, in some family cemetery or something? Have you been to the grave? I’m ashamed to say I didn’t even think of going there.”

“Well, you couldn’t have attended any funeral, could you,” said Felix. “You were in the hospital. But I didn’t think there was a funeral. I thought her remains were sent to South America. To tell you the truth, I don’t honestly know if that’s true.”

“Could it be that she’s not where she wants to be?”

“I can’t imagine it mattering to Marchent,” said Felix. His voice was unnaturally a monotone. “Not at all, but what do I know about it?”

“Something’s wrong, Felix, very wrong, or she wouldn’t have come. Look, I’ve never seen a ghost before, never even had a presentiment or a psychic dream.” He thought of Laura saying those very words, more or less, that very evening. “But I know ghost lore. My father claims to have seen ghosts. He doesn’t like to talk about it over a crowded dinner table because people laugh at him. But his grandparents were Irish, and he’s seen more than one ghost. If ghosts look at you, if they know you’re there, well, they want something.”

“Ah, the Celts and their ghosts,” said Felix, but it was not meant flippantly. He was suffering and the words were like an aside. “They have the gift. I’m not surprised Phil has it. But you can’t talk to Phil about these things.”

“I know that,” said Reuben. “And yet he’s the very person who might know something.”

“And the very person who might sense more than you want him to sense, if you begin to tell him about all the things that puzzle you, all the things that have happened to you under this roof.”

“I know, Felix, don’t worry. I know.”

He was struck by the somber, bruised expression on Felix’s face. Felix seemed to be flinching under the onslaught of his own thoughts.

Reuben was ashamed suddenly. He’d been elated by this vision, horrific as it was. He’d been energized by it, and he hadn’t thought for one second about Felix, and what Felix must surely be experiencing just now.

Felix had brought up Marchent; he had known and loved Marchent in ways that Reuben could scarce imagine, and he, Reuben, was going on and on about this, the apparition having been his, his brilliant and unique possession, and he was suddenly ashamed of himself. “I don’t know what I’m talking about, do I?” he asked. “But I know I saw her.”

“She died violently,” Felix said in that same low and raw voice. He swallowed, and held the backs of his arms with his hands, a gesture Reuben had never seen in him before. “Sometimes when people die like that, they can’t move on.”

Neither of them spoke for a long moment, and then Felix moved away, his back to Reuben, nearer to the window.

Finally in a raw voice he spoke.

“Oh, why didn’t I come back sooner? Why didn’t I contact her? What was I thinking, to let her go on year after year …?”

“Please, Felix, don’t blame yourself. You weren’t responsible for what happened.”

“I abandoned her to time, the way I always abandon them …,” Felix said.

Slowly he came back to the warmth of the fire. He sat on the ottoman of the club chair across from Reuben.

“Can you tell me again how it all happened?” he asked.

“Yes, she looked right at me,” Reuben said, trying not to give way again to a gush of excited words. “She was right on the other side of the glass. I have no idea how long she’d been there, watching me. I never sat in the window seat before. I always meant to do it, you know, curl up on that red velvet cushion, but I never did it.”

“She did that all the time when she was growing up,” said Felix. “That was her place. I’d be working in here for hours, and she’d be in that window seat reading. She kept a little stack of books right there, hidden behind the drapery.”

“Where? On the left side? Did she sit with her back to the left side of the window?”

“She did, as a matter of fact. The left-hand corner was her corner. I used to tease her about straining her eyes as the sun went down. She’d read there until there was almost no light at all. Even in the coldest winter she liked to read there. She’d come down here in her robe with her heavy socks on and curl up there. And she didn’t want a floor lamp. She said she could see well enough by the light from the desk. She liked it that way.”

“That’s just what I did,” Reuben said in a small voice.

There was a silence. The fire had died to embers.

Finally Reuben stood up. “I’m exhausted. I feel like I’ve been running for miles. All my muscles are aching. I’ve never felt such a need for sleep.”

Felix rose slowly, reluctantly.