The Wolves of Midwinter (The Wolf Gift Chronicles 2)

After greeting a group of television reporters, Reuben and Felix broke off from Stuart and Margon to inspect all of the booths in earnest, as Felix wanted to hear from the craftsmen and merchants as to how sales were for them and what he could do to make the fair better in coming years.

Reuben grew almost groggy as he moved from table to table, inspecting the highly glazed pottery, the unique bowls and mugs and plates, and then the dried-apple dolls, and the quilts again, always the quilts. There were leather craftsmen selling belts and purses, dealers in brass and pewter belt buckles, fine gold and silver jewelry, and the inevitable flea-market professionals marketing obvious machine-made goods, and even one merchant selling what might have been stolen hardcover best sellers at half price.

Felix took time with everybody, nodding again and again to this or that compliment or complaint. He had pockets filled with business cards. He accepted cups of mead and ale from the vendors but seldom drank more than a sip.

And through all of this Felix appeared deliriously happy, even a little manic, needing from time to time to escape to a back room or a restroom or a back alley, where he and Reuben found themselves in the company of the guilty outcast smokers who puffed on their verboten cigarettes furtively and with apologies before going back to join the “saved.”

There were times when Reuben felt dizzy, but it was a beautiful kind of dizzy, what with the Christmas carols rising and falling in the general hubbub of voices, and the giant Christmas wreaths on door frames all around him, and the smell of pine needles, and the fresh, moist breeze.

Finally he lost Felix. He lost everybody.

But that was fine. He stopped now and then to jot notes for the next article, thumbs hammering on his iPhone, but mostly he drifted, soothed and fascinated by the movement and color, the squeals and laughter of the children, the slow hesitating yet incessant movement of shoppers that seemed at moments rather like dance.

Arcades and artisans were running together in his mind. He saw table after table of little fairy and elf Christmas ornaments and angels, and displays of fascinating handmade wooden toys. There were dealers in perfumed soaps and bath oils everywhere he looked, booths of buttons, dyed yarns, ribbons, and lace trim, and booths of fantasy hats. Or were those vintage hats? Somebody had recently been talking about hats, hats like those with big brims and flowers. He couldn’t quite remember. Hand-dipped Christmas candles were for sale every few feet it seemed, and so was incense, and handmade notepaper.

But here and there was the rare exceptional artisan presenting a display of unique wood-carved animals and figurines that didn’t resemble the more commercial big-eyed woodland critters at the next table, or the jewelry maker whose gold and silver brooches were truly spectacular creations, or the man who painted his silk and velvet scarves with entirely eccentric and original figures.

And then there was the painter who put out nothing but his original and fascinating canvases, with no apology or explanation whatsoever, or the woman who assembled huge baroque decoupage ornaments out of bits of lace and gold braid and brightly colored figures clipped from old Victorian prints. There were wooden flutes for sale, Tibetan brass bells and singing bowls, zithers and drums. There was one dealer who sold old sheet music, and another with a table of tattered and broken vintage children’s books. And a woman who’d made beautiful napkin rings and bracelets from old sterling spoons.

The sky was white overhead, and the wind had died down.

People were buying, said the merchants. Some of the food vendors had sold out. One potter confessed she wished she brought all of her new mugs and bowls, as she was now left with almost nothing to sell.

There was at least one dealer doing a great business in handmade leather shoes.

Finally Reuben rested against a storefront, and through a break in the crowd tried to gain perspective on the mood of the festival. Were people really enjoying themselves as much as they seemed? Yes, undoubtedly. Balloon artists were doing a brisk business with the little kids. Cotton candy was being sold, and even saltwater taffy. And there were face paint artists for the children too.

To his right sat a tarot card reader at her velvet-draped card table, and a few feet beyond a palm reader who had a client opposite in a folding chair.

One whole shop across from him was selling Renaissance costumes, and people were laughing with delight at the lace-trimmed shirts that were selling for “great prices.” And beside the shop was a used-book vendor presiding over tables of books about California and its history and the history of the redwoods and the geology of the coast.

Reuben felt drowsy and comfortable, unnoticed for the moment, and almost ready to close his eyes. Then he made out two familiar figures in the shadowy open door of the Renaissance shop. One figure was most definitely the tall raw-boned Elthram in his familiar beige chamois shirt and pants, his black hair long and bushy and even tangled with bits of dried leaf; and the other figure, the slender and graceful woman who stood right beside him, groomed and seemingly poised, was Marchent.

For a moment he could not believe it, but then he knew that this was exactly true. Nothing distinguished them from those around them except what would have distinguished them had they been alive.

Elthram towered over Marchent, his large eyes glittering as he smiled, whispering to her, it seemed, whispering with moist smiling lips, with his right arm tightly around her, and she, turned just slightly towards Elthram, her hair neatly combed, was looking straight at Reuben as she nodded her head.

The world went silent. It seemed to empty except for the two of them, Elthram now casting a slow glance at Reuben, and Marchent’s eyes holding him steady as she continued to listen, to nod.

The crowd shifted, moved, closed the gap through which Reuben had seen them. The noise around him was deafening suddenly. Reuben hurried out into the middle of the street. There they were, the two of them, solid and vivid down to the tiniest details, but they turned their backs now, and they appeared to be walking into the enveloping darkness of the shop.

The sights and sounds of the fair went dim again. Someone bumped into Reuben, and he yielded without thinking or responding, barely conscious of a hand on his arm. There was a stab in his intestines, and a heat rising in him threatening to be pain.

Someone else had come up close beside him. But he only stared off into the inevitable gloom of the shop, searching for them, waiting for them, his heart pounding as it always did when he saw Marchent, and he tried to reconstruct the details of what he’d seen. There had been no clear indication that Marchent had really seen him; perhaps she’d only been looking forward. Her face had been calm, thoughtful, passive. He couldn’t know.