The Wolves of Midwinter (The Wolf Gift Chronicles 2)

“And it is all right with you what’s happened,” asked Reuben. “That they used the Chrism to save your life, and that you’re now one of us.”

“Didn’t I just say that it was?” asked Phil.

“Can I be blamed for asking a question like that twice?” asked Reuben.

“No, of course not,” said Phil gently. He sat back and looked at Reuben with the saddest smile. “You are so young, and so naïve and so truly good of heart,” he said.

“Am I? I always wanted you with us!” Reuben whispered.

“I knew what I was doing when I came here,” said Phil.

“How could you have really known?”

“It wasn’t the mystery that drew me,” Phil explained. “It wasn’t mad speculation as to whether these friends of yours really had the secret of living forever. Oh, I knew there was a possibility of that, yes. I’d been putting it together for some time, just as your mother had. It wasn’t only the picture in the library, or the unusual personalities of the men who were living with you. It wasn’t just their curious anachronistic speech, or the odd points of view they hold. Hell, you’ve always had a way of speaking that made us joke about your being a little changeling.” He shook his head. “So it wasn’t all that surprising that you’d cultivate some group of otherworldly friends who sounded as strange as you sometimes sound. No, it’s overwhelming and irresistible, surely, immortality. It is. But I don’t know that I quite believed that part of it all. I don’t know that I believe it now. It’s easier to believe that a human being can turn into a beast than it is to believe he’ll live forever.”

“I understand that perfectly,” said Reuben. “I feel exactly that way, myself.”

“No, it was something more mundane than that yet infinitely more profound and meaningful that brought me here. I was coming to live with you in this anointed place, because I had to do it! I just had to. I had to seek this refuge against the world to which I’d given my long and dreary and inconsequential life.”

“Dad—.”

“No, son. Don’t argue with me. I know who I am. And I knew I had to come. I had to be here. I had to spend my remaining days somewhere that I truly wanted to be, doing the things that mattered to me, no matter how trivial. Walking the woods, reading my books, writing my poems, looking out at that ocean, that endless ocean. I had to. I couldn’t keep moving towards the grave step by step—choked with regret, choked with bitterness and disappointment!” He sucked in his breath as though he were in pain. His eyes were fixed on the barely visible line of the horizon.

“I understand, Dad,” said Reuben quietly. “In my own way, my young and naïve way, I felt the same thing the first day I came here. I can’t say I was on a dreary path to the grave. I just knew I’d never lived, that I’d been avoiding living—like I’d learned early to decide against life rather than for it.”

“Ah, that’s beautiful,” Phil said. His smile brightened again as he looked at Reuben.

“Dad, do you understand the things that Hockan said? Did you follow the thread?”

“Most of it,” said Phil. “It was a bit like a dream. I was lying right on the earth and the earth was cold, but I was warm under those coverings. And I was listening to him. I knew he was aiming his powerful arrows at Felix and at you and Stuart. I heard him. I put it all together. And in the nights since I’ve been going over and over it, with Lisa’s little whispers here and there, patching it together.”

Reuben screwed up his courage, and then he asked, “Do you think there was truth in what Hockan said? Do you think he was right?”

“What do you think, Reuben?” asked Phil.

“I don’t know,” said Reuben, but the words were lame. “Each time I talk about it with myself, each time I see Felix or Margon or Sergei—I come to realize a little more that I have to make up my mind, my own mind, as to what I feel about the things Hockan said to us.”

“I understand that. I respect that.”

Reuben reached inside his jacket and withdrew a folded piece of paper, and then he handed that to Phil.

“That’s everything he said to us, written down there,” Reuben explained. “That’s every word. Exactly as I recall it.”

“My son, the honor student,” said Phil. He unfolded the page, and read the words slowly, thoughtfully, and then closed up the page again.

He looked expectantly at Reuben.

“It’s had a devastating effect on Felix,” said Reuben. “He’s deeply discouraged.”

“That’s understandable,” said Phil. He had more to say, but Reuben continued.

“Margon does not seem moved, one way or the other,” he said, “and Sergei and Stuart seem absolutely to have forgotten all of it, to have swept it aside like it never happened. They certainly aren’t afraid of Elthram and the Forest Gentry. They seem as comfortable with them as they ever were.”

“And Laura?”

“Laura has asked the obvious question: ‘Who is Hockan? Is Hockan an oracle? Or is Hockan a fallible creature like the rest of us?’ ”

“So the ones who’ve been really hurt by this are you and Felix?”

“I don’t know, Dad. I can’t get his words out of my head! I’ve never been able to get the negative voices of my life out of my head. I’ve struggled all my life to find my own truth and I find myself smothered by other people’s words. It’s as though they’re always shouting at me, bullying me, shaking their fists, and half the time I can’t find what I think.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, son,” said Phil. “I think you do know what you think.”

“Dad, know this,” said Reuben. “I love that house, this place, this part of the world’s great forest. I want to bring my son here. I want to be here with you. I love them all, my new family. I love them more than I can say. Laura, Felix, Margon, Stuart, Thibault, Sergei, all of them. I love Lisa, whoever and whatever she is. I love the Forest Gentry.”

“I hear you, son,” said Phil, smiling. “I’m extremely fond of Lisa, too.” He gave a short secretive laugh. “ ‘Whoever and whatever’ she might be.”

“The thought of leaving Nideck Point behind, of breaking off all contact with my mom, of giving my son over to Mom to bring up, of never seeing Jim again—these are things I can hardly bear to think about. My heart’s breaking.”