The Wolves of Midwinter (The Wolf Gift Chronicles 2)

“Indeed, and it’s thrilling for me as well, to be invited into your house,” said Elthram, smiling. “Many’s the time our people have seen you and your lady walking in the woods here, and no human in these parts loves the woods any more than your beloved lady.”

“She’ll be so pleased to hear that,” said Reuben. “I wish she were here now to meet you.”

“But she has met me,” said Elthram. “Though she hasn’t known it. She’s known me all her life, and I’ve known her—knew her when she was a child making her way through Muir Woods with her father. The Forest Gentry know those who belong to the forest. They never forget those who are kind to the forest.”

“I’ll share all of this with her,” said Reuben. “As soon as I’m able.”

Some small derisive sound came from Margon.

The man’s eyes fixed on Margon. To say the appearance of animation drained out of the man would be an understatement. He was immediately bruised and silenced. And it did seem that the entire figure grew paler for an instant, less reflective, the smooth shining skin fading to a matte surface, but this was at once corrected, though the man’s eyes were narrow and quivering slightly as if fending off invisible blows.

Margon stood up and walked out of the dining room.

This was a terrible moment for Stuart, plainly, and he looked miserably after Margon and started to rise. But Felix reached down and put his right hand on Stuart’s shoulder, saying “Stay with us” in a small but authoritative voice. He turned back to the man.

“Sit down, please, Elthram,” said Felix and gestured to Margon’s chair. It was the logical chair, of course, but the gesture seemed a little abrasive, to say the least.

“Now, Stuart, this is our good friend Elthram of the Forest Gentry, and I know you join me in welcoming him to the house.”

“Absolutely!” Stuart responded. His face was flushed.

Elthram seated himself and immediately greeted Sergei, whom he also addressed as “old friend.”

Sergei gave a low rolling laugh and a nod. “You look splendid, dear friend,” said Sergei. “Simply splendid. You always take me back in mind to the most blissful—and the most tempestuous—times!”

Elthram acknowledged this with those intense eyes firing beautifully. Then he looked intently at Reuben.

“Let me assure you, Reuben,” he said, “we did not mean to startle you in the forest. We meant to help you. You were confused in the darkness. And we did not know how quickly you would sense our presence. And so our attempts went wrong.” His voice had a medium pitch, about like Reuben’s or Stuart’s voice.

“Oh, not at all,” said Reuben. “I knew you were trying to help. I understood that. I just didn’t know what you were.”

“Yes,” he said. “Often when we assist someone who is lost, that one is not so quick to realize that it is we who are doing it, you understand. We pride ourselves on subtlety. But you’re gifted, Reuben, and we didn’t realize how gifted, and so misunderstanding was the result.”

Surely the green eyes in the dark face were the most startling trait of this man, and even if they’d been small they would have been startling. As it was, they were very large with large pupils and it seemed impossible they were mere illusion, but then again this wasn’t mere illusion, was it?

And all this is particles, Reuben thought, drawn to an ethereal body? And all this can be dispersed? Now that seemed impossible. No revelation of a presence could compare in shock with the notion that something as solid and vital as this man could simply disappear.

Felix had seated himself again, and Lisa had set a large mug before Elthram, and was filling it from a cold silver pitcher with what appeared to be milk.

Elthram gave Lisa what was surely a bit of a mischievous smile and thanked her. Gratefully, in fact, with remarkably obvious pleasure, he looked at the milk. He lifted the mug to his lips but he did not actually drink the milk.

“Now Elthram,” said Felix, “you know why I’ve asked you to come—.”

“Yes, I do,” said Elthram running over Felix’s words. “And she is here, yes, most definitely here and lingering here and not wanting to go anywhere else. But she can’t see us yet or hear us, but she will.”

“Why is she haunting?” asked Reuben.

“She’s grieved, and confused,” said Elthram. The largeness of his face was slightly disorienting for Reuben, possibly because they sat so close to each other and the man was slightly taller even than Sergei, who was the tallest of the Distinguished Gentlemen. “She does know that she has passed, yes, she knows this. But she’s still uncertain as to what caused her death. She knows her brothers are dead. But she doesn’t grasp that they in fact took her life. And she searches for answers, and she fears the portal to the heavens when she sees it.”

“But why, why fear the portal to the heavens?” asked Reuben.

“Because she is not a believer in life after death,” explained Elthram. “She is not a believer in invisible things.”

His speech was easily more contemporary sounding than the speech of the Distinguished Gentlemen, and his kind and inviting manner was extremely attractive.

“Reuben, when the newly dead see the portal to the heavens, they see a white light. Sometimes in that white light they see ancestors, or parents who have gone on. Sometimes they see only light. We often see what we think they see but we can’t be sure. This light is no longer opening for her, or inviting her to move on. But it’s clear that she doesn’t know why she is still existing as herself, as Marchent, when she believed so firmly that death would be the end of what she was.”

“What is she trying to tell me?” asked Reuben. “What does she want from me?”

“She’s clinging to you because she can see you,” said Elthram, “so in the main she wants you to know that she’s here. She wants to ask you what happened to her and why it happened and what happened to you. She knows you’re no longer a human being, Reuben. She can see this, sense it, probably she’s witnessed you change into the beast state. I’m almost certain she’s witnessed it. This frightens her, terrifies her. She is a ghost filled with terror and grief.”

“This has to stop,” said Reuben. He was trembling again, and he hated it when he started trembling. “She can’t be allowed to suffer. She did nothing to deserve it.”