The Wolves of Midwinter (The Wolf Gift Chronicles 2)

Sergei left him. He heard the door of his room close.

The sound of the howling came from far off.

Four a.m.

Reuben had fallen asleep in the library. He was sitting in Felix’s leather wing chair by the fire, his feet on the fender. He’d done some computer work, trying to trace down the words “Forest Gentry,” but could find nothing of any significance. And then he had sat by the fire, eyes closed, begging Marchent to come to him, begging her to tell him why she was suffering. Sleep had come but no Marchent.

Now he woke and at once sensed that some particular change in things around him had indeed awakened him.

The fire had burned low but was still bright in the shadows because a new log had been added to it; a big thick chunk of oak had been nestled in the embers of the fire he’d built two hours ago. Only shadows surrounded him in his chair before the brightness of the fire.

But someone was moving in the room.

Slowly he turned his head to the left, looking past the wing of the leather chair. He saw the slim figure of Lisa moving about. Deftly, she straightened the velvet draperies to the left side of the huge window. Bending easily, she stacked the books that lay on the floor there.

And in the window seat gazing at her with a look of fierce and tearful resentment sat Marchent.

Reuben couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. The scene struck perfect horror in him more surely than any other visitation—the spectacle of the living Lisa and the ghost in hideous proximity to each other. He opened his mouth but no sound came out.

Marchent’s quivering eyes followed Lisa’s smallest gestures. Agony. Now Lisa moved forward towards the ghostly figure, smoothing the velvet cushion of the window seat. As she drew nearer the seated figure, the two women looked at each other.

Reuben gasped; he felt he was smothering.

Marchent looked up furiously and bitterly at the figure who reached quite literally through her, and it seemed the obdurate Lisa stared right at Marchent.

Reuben cried out. “Don’t disturb her!” he said before he could think or stop himself. “Don’t torture her!” He was on his feet shaking violently.

Marchent’s head turned as did Lisa’s, and Marchent raised her arms, reaching towards him, and then vanished.

Reuben felt a pressure against him, he felt the pressure of hands on his upper arms, and then the soft tingling feeling of hair and lips touching him, and then it was gone, completely gone. The fire burst and crackled as if a wind had touched it. Papers on the desk rustled and then settled.

“Oh God,” he said in a half sob. “You couldn’t see her!” he stammered. “She was there, there on the window seat. Oh God!” He felt his eyes watering, and his breaths came uneasily.

Silence.

He looked up.

Lisa stood there behind the Chesterfield sofa with that same cold smile he’d seen on her narrow delicate features once before, looking both ancient and young somehow with her hair swept back so tight, and her black silk dress so prim to her ankles.

“Of course I saw her,” she said.

The inevitable sweat broke out all over Reuben. He felt it crawling on his chest.

Her voice came again, unobtrusive and solicitous as she approached him.

“I have been seeing her since I came,” she said. Her expression was faintly contemptuous, or at the very least patronizing.

“But you reached right through her as if she weren’t there,” Reuben said, the tears sliding down his face. “You shouldn’t have treated her like that.”

“And what was I to do?” said the woman, deliberately softening her manner. She sighed. “She doesn’t know she’s dead! I’ve told her, but she won’t accept it! Should I treat her as if she is a living creature here? Will that help her!”

Reuben was stunned. “Stop it,” he said. “Slow down. What do you mean she doesn’t know she’s dead?”

“She doesn’t know,” repeated the woman with a light shrug.

“That’s … that’s too awful,” Reuben whispered. “I can’t believe such a thing, that a person wouldn’t know she was dead. I can’t—.”

She reached out and firmly urged him back towards the chair. “You sit down,” she said. “And let me bring you some coffee now, as you’re awake and it’s useless for you to go back to bed.”

“Please, leave me alone,” said Reuben. He felt a massive headache coming on.

He looked into her eyes. There was something wrong with her, so wrong, but he couldn’t figure what.

In what he’d seen of her deliberate movements, her strange demeanor had been as horrifying as the vision of Marchent crying there, Marchent angry, Marchent lost.

“How can she not know she’s dead?” he demanded.

“I told you,” said the woman in a low iron voice. “She will not accept it. It’s common enough, I can tell you.”

Reuben sank down into the chair. “Don’t bring me anything. Let me alone now,” he said.

“What you mean is you don’t want anything from my hands,” she said, “because you’re angry with me.”

A male voice spoke from behind Reuben. It was Margon.

It spoke sharply in German, and Lisa, bowing her head, immediately left the room.

Margon moved to the Chesterfield sofa opposite the fire and sat down. His long brown hair was loose down to his shoulders. He was dressed only in a denim shirt and jeans and slippers. His hair was tousled and his face had an immediate warm and empathetic expression.

“Pay no attention to Lisa,” he said. “She is here to do her job, no more, no less.”

“I don’t like her,” Reuben confessed. “I’m ashamed to say it, but it’s true. However that’s the smallest part of what concerns me right now.”

“I know what concerns you,” said Margon. “But Reuben, if ghosts are ignored, they often move on. It doesn’t help them to look at them, acknowledge them, keep them lingering here. The natural thing is for them to move on.”

“Then you know all about this?”

“I know you’ve seen Marchent,” said Margon. “Felix told me. And Felix is suffering over this.”

“I had to tell him, didn’t I?”

“Of course you did. I’m not faulting you for telling him or anyone else. But please listen to me. The best response is to ignore her appearances.”

“That seems so cold, so cruel,” said Reuben. “If you could see her, if you could see her face.”