The Wolves of Midwinter (The Wolf Gift Chronicles 2)

Susie stood up out of respect for Jim. “Thank you, Father,” she said.

“Susie, you can tell Father Jim Golding anything,” said Reuben. “And I promise you, he will believe you. And he’ll keep your secrets too, and you can talk to him anytime you want, just as you can talk to me.”

Jim took the chair opposite her, gesturing for Susie to sit down.

“I’m going to leave you now,” said Reuben. “And Susie, you e-mail me any time you want, honey, or you call me. If it goes to voice mail, I promise, I’ll get back to you.”

“I knew you’d believe me,” said Susie. “I knew you would.”

“And you can talk to Father Jim about all of it, Susie, whatever happened out there in the woods with that bad man. And anything about the Man Wolf. Honey, you can trust him. He’s a priest and he’s a good priest. I know because he’s my big brother.”

She beamed at Reuben. What a beautiful and radiant creature she was. And when he thought of her crying in that trailer that night, when he thought of her small dirt-streaked face as she’d cried and begged him not to leave her, he was silently overcome.

She turned and looked eagerly and innocently at Jim.

And Reuben said, without thinking,

“I love you, darling dear.”

Susie’s head turned as if jerked by a chain. Pastor George turned too. They were both staring at him.

And it came back to him, that moment in the forest outside the church, when he’d left Susie with Pastor George and he had said in that very same tone of voice, “I love you, darling dear.”

His face reddened. He stood there silently looking at Susie. Her face seemed ageless suddenly, like the face of a spirit, stamped with something profound and at the same time simple. She was gazing at him, without shock or confusion or recognition.

“Good-bye, honey,” he said and he went out closing the door behind him.

At the foot of the stairs, Reuben’s editor, Billie, accosted him. Wasn’t that Susie Blakely? Had he gotten an exclusive with Susie Blakely? Did Reuben realize what that meant? No reporter had been able to talk to that little girl since she’d been returned to her parents. This was huge.

“No, Billie, and no, and no,” Reuben said lowering his voice to soften his outrage. “She’s a guest in this house, and I do not have any right or any intention of interviewing that child. Now, listen, I want to get back to the pavilion and hear some of the music before the party’s over. Come with me, come on.”

They plunged into the thick of the crowd in the dining room and mercifully he could no longer hear Billie or anyone else. Billie drifted away. He shook hands here, nodded to thanks there, but steadily moved towards the music coming through the front door. Only now did he think about Jim hating so much to be around children, hating to see them, but surely he’d had to call Jim for Susie. Jim would understand. Jim was a priest first and foremost, no matter what personal pain he might feel.

The pavilion was no less crowded. But it was easier to make his way through the tables, exchanging greetings, acknowledging thanks, merely nodding at those he didn’t know, and who didn’t know him, until he came near to the solemn artfully lighted crèche.

The chain of medieval mummers was passing through, handing out their golden commemorative coins. Waitresses and waiters everywhere were replenishing plates or collecting them, offering fresh glasses of wine, or cups of coffee. But all of this faded as he moved into the soft dreamy light of the manger. This had been his destination all along. He smelled the wax of candles; the voices of the choir were blended and heartbreaking yet faintly shrill.

He lost track of time as he stood there, the music close and beautiful and engulfing. The boys’ choir began a mournful hymn now to the accompaniment of the whole orchestra:

In the bleak mid-winter

Frosty wind made moan,

Earth stood hard as iron,

Water like a stone.

Reuben closed his eyes for a long moment, and when he opened them he looked down on the smiling face of the Christ Child, and he prayed. “Please show me how to be good,” he whispered. “Please, no matter what I am, show me how to be good.”

A sadness overwhelmed him, a terrible discouragement—a fear of all the challenges that lay ahead. He loved Susie Blakely. He loved her. And he wanted only all that was good for her forever and always. He wanted good for every single person he’d ever known. And he could not think now of the cruelty he’d visited on those whom he’d judged as evil, those whom he’d taken out of this world with a beast’s thoughtless cruelty. Silently with his eyes closed he repeated the prayer in a profound and wordless way.

The inner silence, the engulfing song, seemed to go on forever, and gradually he felt a quiet peace.

All around him people seemed rapt in the music. Nearby to his left, Shelby stood with her son, Clifford, and her father. They were singing, as they gazed at the choir. And others crowded in whom he didn’t know.

The choir went on with the soft, beautiful hymn.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim

Worship night and day,

A breastful of milk

And a mangerful of hay;

Enough for Him, whom angels

Fall down before,

The ox and ass and camel

Which adore.

At some point he heard a tenor voice, a familiar voice, singing beside him, and when he opened his eyes, he saw it was Jim. Jim was with Susie, standing in front of him, Jim’s hands on her shoulders and beside Jim was Pastor Corrie George. It seemed an age had passed since he left them. Now they were all singing the hymn together, and Reuben sang along with them, too.

What can I give Him,

Poor as I am?

If I were a shepherd

I would bring a lamb,

If I were a wise man

I would do my part,

Yet what I can I give Him,

Give my heart.

Gathered all round them were the volunteers from Jim’s parish soup kitchen whom Reuben knew from past meals there when he’d worked with them as he had last Christmas and the Christmas before. Jim stood still merely looking down at the white-marble Christ Child in the manger of real hay with a curious wondering expression on his face, one eyebrow raised, and an overall sadness pervading him—so like what Reuben felt.

Reuben didn’t talk. He caught a glass of sparkling water from a passing tray and sipped it quietly, and the choir started up again. “What child is this who laid to rest in Mary’s arms is sleeping …”

One of the volunteer women was crying softly, and two others were singing along with the choir. Susie sang clearly and loudly, and so did Pastor George. People came and went around them, as if paying visits to the altar. Jim remained, and Susie and Pastor George remained, and then slowly Jim’s eyes moved up over the serene face of the angel on the pediment of the stable and over the trees massed behind it.