The Wolves of Midwinter (The Wolf Gift Chronicles 2)

Reuben agreed immediately. He was smiling at the sheer scope of all this, and wondered who would be first in his family to ask how much it had cost and who was paying for it. Maybe Celeste would ask that question, but then maybe again she wouldn’t dare.

It was Stuart now who asked this very question.

Felix clearly didn’t want to answer, and Sergei said, “A banquet like this is a gift to everyone who comes, you wait and see; it’s that way. You can’t measure it in dollars and cents. It’s an experience. And people will be talking about it for years. You give them something priceless with all this.”

“Yes, but they give us something priceless too,” said Felix, “in that they come, they are part of it, and what would it be without every one of them?”

“True,” said Sergei, and then looking at Stuart he said gravely in his crackling baritone, “In my time, of course, we ate the captives of other tribes at Midwinter, but before cooking them, we put them to death painlessly.”

Felix laughed out loud before he could stop himself.

And Stuart shot back, “Oh, yeah, right!—You’re a farm boy from West Virginia and you know it. Probably worked in a coal mine for a little while. Hey, I’m not knocking it. Just sayin’.”

Sergei laughed and shook his head.

Margon and Felix exchanged a secretive look, but said nothing.

After supper, Reuben and Felix headed up the steps together. “You must tell me if you see her,” said Felix. “But I don’t think you will. I think Elthram and his people have been successful.”

“Did Elthram tell you this?”

“More or less,” he said. “I hope you sleep well tonight, and I so appreciate you’re coming with me to the village tomorrow—because you are the lord of the manor, you know, and they all so want to see you. It’s going to be a long day and evening, but it’s only once a year, and they’ll all love it.”

“I’m going to love it too,” said Reuben. “And what about Laura?”

“Well, she’ll be with us tomorrow in the village for a little while … and then later on Christmas Eve, of course. That’s all I know. Reuben, we must let her do things her own way. That’s what Thibault is doing—letting her decide things.”

“Yes, sir,” said Reuben with a smile. He kissed Felix quickly, in the European style on both cheeks, and then went off to bed.

He was asleep the moment he hit the pillow.

18

THE DAY DAWNED GRAY but rainless. The air was moist, as if at any moment the featureless sky would dissolve into rain, but by ten a.m., it hadn’t happened.

Reuben had awakened marvelously refreshed with no dreams or hints of Marchent’s presence. And he was downstairs at nine for a quick breakfast.

Big refrigerator trucks were already arriving, and caterers swarmed the kitchen and the backyard, unloading portable ovens, ice makers, and other equipment, while the teenagers who would function as guides all over the house and the woods were there for “orientation” with Lisa.

All the Distinguished Gentlemen were present and smartly dressed in dark suits, and at nine thirty, Felix, Reuben, Stuart, and Margon headed to “the village” while Thibault, Sergei, and Frank stayed behind to get ready for the banquet.

The town was reborn. Either that, or Reuben had simply never seen it before. Now with every façade etched in decorative lights, for the first time he appreciated the Old West storefronts with their overhanging roofs that sheltered the sidewalks, and how gloriously the three-story Inn dominated the main street, sitting right in the middle of the three-block stretch as it faced the old theater.

The old theater, though in the midst of restoration, had been opened for just one of the many crafts markets, and the booths were already doing business to a lively early bird crowd of families with children.

Cars were bumper to bumper for the three-block stretch that was the downtown and being directed to the side streets to parking lots blocks away.

Every shop was occupied and bustling, and a group of musicians in Renaissance garb was already playing beside the Inn doors while another group a block and a half away was singing Christmas carols near the town’s only gas station. Several people were selling lightweight see-through umbrellas, and vendors were selling gingerbread cookies and small mince pies from smoking hot tables or trays they carried through the crowd.

People swamped Felix as soon as he stepped out of the car. Reuben was being greeted too on all sides. Margon took off to see how things were going at the Inn. And Reuben, Stuart, and Felix made their slow and deliberate progress down one side of the street with the aim of doubling back up the other.

“Ah, the Forest Gentry are going to love all this,” said Felix.

“Are they here now?” asked Stuart.

“I don’t see them yet, but they’ll come. They absolutely love this sort of thing, people descending on the forest and its neglected little towns, gentle people, people who love the cold crisp pine-scented air. You’ll see. They’ll be here.”

More than one huge empty shop had been turned into a veritable arcade of booths. Reuben glimpsed quilts for sale, along with handmade cloth puppets, rag dolls, baby clothes, and a whole variety of linens and laces. But it was impossible to focus on any one particular booth because so many people wanted simply to shake his hand and thank him for the festival. Again and again, he explained that Felix had been the genius behind it. But it was soon clear that people saw him as the young lord of the castle, and even said so in exactly those terms.

By eleven a.m. cars were directed off the street, and it became a pedestrian mall. “Should have done that immediately,” said Felix. “And we’ll be certain to do that next year.”

The crowds increased steadily while the rain came and went. The cold wasn’t stopping anybody. Kids wore caps and mittens; and there were caps and mittens aplenty for sale. The hot-chocolate vendors were doing great business, and whenever the rain cleared, the crowd flowed out into the middle of the street.

It was more than two hours before they’d made their circuit of downtown—what with stopping for a puppet show and several choruses of “Deck the Halls”—and there was nothing to do but begin it all again as new people were arriving all the time.

Only a few people asked Reuben about the famous Man Wolf attack at the big house, and if he’d seen or heard any more of the Man Wolf. Reuben had the distinct feeling many more wanted to ask but didn’t think it in keeping with the festivities. He was quick to answer that no one in Northern California, to the best of his knowledge, had ever seen the Man Wolf again after that “horrible night,” and as for what happened, well, he could scarcely remember it. The old cliché “It all happened so fast” was coming in handy.