The Wolves of Midwinter (The Wolf Gift Chronicles 2)

“Yes, I think you saw her,” she said. “And obviously Felix didn’t think you imagined this either. I guess what frightens me is you might see her again.”

He nodded. “But do you believe she’s existing somewhere, I mean the real and true Marchent. Do you believe she’s in some sort of purgatorial state?”

“I don’t know,” she said frankly. “You’ve heard the word ‘earthbound,’ haven’t you? You know the theories, don’t you, that some ghosts are earthbound spirits, people who have died and simply cannot move on. I don’t know if any of it’s true. I’ve never believed in it much. But the dead person remains out of confusion or some emotional attachment when it should be moving into the light.”

He shuddered. He had heard those theories. He had heard his father talking of “the earthbound dead.” Phil spoke of the earthbound dead as suffering in a kind of purgatory created for themselves.

Vague thoughts came back to him of Hamlet’s ghost and its horrifying descriptions of the fires of torment in which it existed. There were literary critics who thought the ghost of Hamlet’s father was actually from hell. But these thoughts were absurd. Reuben didn’t believe in purgatory. He didn’t believe in hell. Actually, he had always found talk of hell highly offensive. He’d always sensed that those who did believe in hell had little or no empathy for those they assumed to be suffering there. Indeed, quite the opposite. Hellfire believers seem to delight in the idea that most of the human race would end up in just such a horrible place.

“But what does earthbound mean, exactly?” he asked. “Where is Marchent now at this very moment? What is she feeling?” To his mild amazement, Laura was actually eating her food. Quickly cutting several pieces of veal European style, she devoured them and moved on through the plate of scaloppine without stopping for breath. When the waitress set down the roast beef sandwich, naturally he snapped back to the task at hand.

“I don’t know,” said Laura. “These souls, assuming they exist at all, are trapped, clinging to what they can see and hear of us and our world.”

“That makes perfect sense,” he whispered. Again, he shuddered. He couldn’t help it.

“This is what I would do, if I were you,” she said suddenly, blotting her lips, and swallowing half the iced cola in her glass. “I’d be open, willing, eager to discover what the ghost wants. I mean, if this is the personality of Marchent Nideck, if there is something coherent and real and feeling there, well, be open to it. Now I know this is easy for me to say in a cheerful little crowded café in broad daylight, and of course, I haven’t seen this, but that is what I’d try to do.”

He nodded. “I’m not afraid of her,” he said. “I’m afraid that she’s miserable, that she, Marchent, does exist somewhere and it’s not a good place. I want to comfort her, do what I can to give her whatever she wants.”

“Of course.”

“Do you think it’s conceivable that she’s troubled about the house, about the fact that Felix is back now, yet I own the house? Marchent didn’t know Felix was alive when she gave me the house.”

“I doubt it has anything to do with that,” said Laura. “Felix is rich. If he wanted Nideck Point, he’d offer to buy it from you. He isn’t living there as your guest because he lacks the means.” She went on eating as she spoke, easily cleaning her plate. “Felix owns all the property bordering on Nideck Point. I heard him talking about it to Galton and the other handymen. It’s no secret. He was discussing it casually with them, hiring them to do other work. The Hamilton place to the north has belonged to him for the last five years. And the Drexel place to the east was bought by him long before that. Galton’s men are working on those houses now. Felix owns the land south of Nideck Point, all the way from the coast inland to the town of Nideck. There are old homes throughout these areas, homes like Galton’s home, but Felix stands ready to buy each and every one of them whenever the owners want to sell.”

“Then he did plan to come back,” said Reuben. “He planned to come back all the time. And he does want the house. He has to want it.”

“No, Reuben, you’ve got it wrong,” she said. “Yes, he planned someday to return. But not while Marchent was connected to the property. After she’d moved to South America, his agents made repeated offers under various names to purchase the house, but Marchent always refused. Felix told me this himself, just in conversation. Nothing secretive about it. He was waiting her out. Then events caught him completely unawares.”

“The point is he wants it now,” said Reuben. “Of course he wants it. He built it himself.”

“But he’s not in any hurry,” she said.

“I’ll give it to him. It never cost me one silver dime.”

“But do you think this ghost knows all these things?” Laura asked. “Does this ghost care?”

“No,” he said. He shook his head. He thought of Marchent’s contorted face, thought of her hand extended, as if to reach through the glass. “Maybe I’m on the wrong track. Maybe it’s the Christmas plans that are disturbing her spirit—plans for a party so soon after her death. But maybe that’s not it at all.”

Again, he had a strong sense of Marchent, as if the apparition had involved a new and eerie intimacy, and the misery he’d felt seemed infinitely more deeply rooted in the Marchent he knew.

“No, the party plans wouldn’t offend her. That wouldn’t be enough to bring her back from wherever she is, make her visit you in this way.”

Reuben’s mind drifted. He fell silent. He realized nothing more could be known until this spirit appeared to him again.

“Ghosts often come at Midwinter, don’t they?” Laura asked. “I mean, think of all the Christmas ghost stories in the English language. That’s always been a matter of tradition, that ghosts walk at this time of the year; they’re strong at this time, as though the veil between the living and dead becomes fragile.”

“Yes, Phil always said the same thing,” Reuben said. “That’s why Dickens’s Christmas Carol has such a strong hold on us. It’s all that old lore about spirits coming through at this time of year.”

“Come back to me,” said Laura taking his hand. “Don’t think about this any more now.” She motioned for the check. “There’s a little bed-and-breakfast near here.” She smiled at him, the most incandescent and gently knowing smile. “It’s always fun, isn’t it, a different bed, different rafters overhead.”