The Wolves of Midwinter (The Wolf Gift Chronicles 2)

A constant parade moved up the oak stairs to the upper floors. Standing at the foot Reuben could hear the young docents describing the William Morris wallpaper and the nineteenth-century Grand Rapids furnishings, and even such things as the kind of oak used in the floorboards and how it had been dried before construction, things Reuben knew nothing about himself. He caught a female voice saying, “Marchent Nideck, yes. This room.”

People smiled at Reuben as they made their way up.

“Yes, please, do go up,” he said earnestly.

And behind it all was the mastermind, the ever-charming Felix, who moved so rapidly that he seemed to be in two places at one time. Ever smiling, ever responding, he was on fire with goodwill.

At some point, Reuben realized, slowly realized, that the Forest Gentry were in the house as well. It was the children he noticed first of all, pale, thin little creatures in the same dusty leaf-strewn rustic dress as their elders, darting through the crowds this way and that as if they were playing some kind of personal game. Such hungry faces, dirt-streaked faces, urchin faces! It sent a stab into his heart. And then he saw the occasional man and woman, eyes aflame yet secretive, drifting about as he had been drifting about, studying the human guests as if they were the curious ones, indifferent to those who eyed them.

It unnerved him that these small emaciated children might be the earthbound dead. It positively made his heart quiver. It made him faintly sick. He couldn’t stand the thought of it suddenly that these towheaded boys laughing and smiling and dodging amongst the guests here and there were ghosts. Ghosts. He could not imagine what it signified, being this size and this shape forever. He couldn’t grasp how this could be desirable or inevitable. And all that he didn’t know about the new world around him frightened him. But it also tantalized him. He caught a glimpse of one of those unusual women, those strangely alluring women, bejeweled and sequined and passing through the crowd slowly with long lingering glances to her right and left. She seemed a goddess in some brutal yet indefinable way.

His anxieties suddenly collected around him, crowding him, dimming the radiance of the party, and making him aware of how sharp and unusual the emotions and experiences of his new life actually were. What had he ever known of worry before? What had the Sunshine Boy ever known of dread?

But all he had to do, he thought, was not look at the Forest Gentry. Not look at that strange woman. Not speculate. Look instead at the very real and substantial people of this world who were everywhere having such a remarkably good time. He was desperate suddenly to do that, to not see the unearthly guests.

But he was doing something else. He was searching. He was searching now from left to right and straight ahead for the one figure he most dreaded in all the world, the figure of Marchent.

Did someone behind him just say, “Yes, in the kitchen, that’s where they found her”?

He moved past the giant Christmas tree towards the open doors of the conservatory, which was as crowded as every other room. Under countless Christmas bulbs and golden floods the huge masses of tropical foliage here looked almost grotesque; guests were everywhere among the trellises and pots, but where was she?

There was a slender woman near the round marble-top table before the fountain where Reuben and Laura had so often taken their meals. His skin was pringling and singing as he moved towards this slim blond-haired figure, this delicate figure, but quite suddenly as he stood beneath the arching branches of the orchid trees, the woman turned and smiled at him, flesh and blood like countless others, another nameless happy guest.

“Such a beautiful house,” she said. “You’d never think anything terrible happened here.”

“Yes, you’re right,” he said.

So many words seemed on the tip of her tongue, but she said only it was a great joy to be here, and she moved on.

Lifting his eyes, he looked up into the purple blossoms of the trees. The noise pressed in around him, but he felt remote and alone. He was hearing Marchent’s voice when they’d talked of orchid trees, beautiful orchid trees, and it was Marchent who’d ordered these trees for this house and for him. These trees had been brought over hundreds and hundreds of miles on account of the living Marchent, and they were alive now and bent low with shivering blossoms and Marchent was dead.

Someone had approached, and he ought to turn around, he knew it, and acknowledge the greeting or the good-bye. A couple was here, with plates and glasses in hand, obviously hoping to commandeer the table, of course, and why not?

And just as he did turn, he saw far across the giant room the person for whom he’d been searching, the unmistakable Marchent, almost invisible in the shadows against the dark and shining glass panes of the wall.

Her face was marvelously realized, however, and her pale eyes were fastened on him just as they’d been in the village when she’d stood there in semi-profile listening to the smiling Elthram who’d stood at her side. An unnatural light seemed to pick her out of the artificial twilight, subtle but sourceless, and in that light he saw the sheen of her smooth forehead, the gleam of her eyes, the luster of the pearls around her neck.

He opened his mouth to call her name and no sound came out. As his heart shook, the figure appeared to grow brighter, to shimmer, and then to fade completely away. A volley of raindrops hit the glass roof overhead. Silver rain slid down the many panes all around him, and the very walls shimmered everywhere that he looked. Marchent. The grief and the longing felt like a pain through his temples.

His heart stopped.

There had been no misery, no tears, no desperate reaching in her face. But what had the expression in those serious eyes, those thoughtful eyes, actually meant? What do the dead know? What do the dead feel?

He put his hands up to his head. He shivered. His skin was hot under his clothes, terribly hot, and his heart would not stop skipping. Someone asked him if he was okay.

Oh, yes, thank you, he answered and he turned and left the room.

The air in the main room was cooler, and sweet with the scent of pine needles. Soft swelling music came from the orchestra beyond the open windows. His pulse was returning to normal. His skin was cooling. A glistening gaggle of teenage girls passed him, giggling and laughing and then rushing into the dining room, obviously on a mission to explore.

Frank appeared, the ever-genial Frank with his high Cary Grant polish, and without a word put a glass of white wine in Reuben’s hand. “Want something stronger?” Frank asked, eyebrows raised. Reuben shook his head. Gratefully Reuben drank the wine, good Riesling, cold, delicious, and found himself alone by the fire.