Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 02 (37 page)

 
          
Her
mother had given Winter her old room, but no trace remained now of Winter's
childhood occupancy. The room had long since been converted to the perfect
guest room, from the Laura Ashley Ribbons & Roses wallpaper to the trendy
country look of the hand-painted furniture and patchwork quilt on the bed. The
room was light-years from Janelle's Sears, Roebuck kitchen, but even at its
stifling worst there had been something more . . . human . . . about Janelle's
house.

 
          
The
illness she had feigned appeared for real; Winter bolted for the bathroom as
her stomach tried to eject what she'd managed to swallow of the evening's meal.

 
          
Afterward,
trembling and sore, Winter opened the medicine cabinet in search of toothpaste
and found instead several miniature bottles of liquor.

 
          
So
Wycherly's
following at least one family tradition.

 
          
The
only thing that surprised her was how much sadness the knowledge gave her. But
she knew it had to be his; Kenny didn't live here and neither of her parents
would have felt the need to hide their liquor.

 
          
Winter
twisted the cap off one of the little bottles, rinsed her mouth with vodka and
spat, then opened another and drank it straight down. Cold eighty-proof fire
spread through her aching stomach, soothing the pain. Every instinct urged her
to leave right now, to flee, but that was madness. This was her house; her
family.

           
"What
family doesn't have its ups and downs?"
Winter tipsily quoted James
Goldman as she reached for another of the little glittering bottles.
I'm having a relapse. Another breakdown.
Whatever.

 
          
And
whatever it was, she couldn't bear it. Why had she come back here, if coming
was going to cause her so much pain? What kind of coward was she?

 
          
A pretty stupid one.

 
          
She'd
been smarter before she'd gone to
Fall River
. The last time she'd been here was the
summer she'd left school. She hadn't been back since then. Not for Christmas,
not for Thanksgiving. Not in fourteen years.

 
          
And
you'd think, wouldn't you, that someone in the family would have mentioned that
on the evening when Winter Musgrave came home again at last?

 
          
Suddenly
she was crawlingly cold to the tips of her fingers. All the secrets she'd
cavalierly tried to unearth weren't tidily deposited elsewhere. Some of the
puzzles were here.

 
          
And I said I wanted to know the truth. How
stupid can you get? Oh, Grey, darling, help me!

 
          
Winter
retreated back to the bedroom, taking a third little bottle with her. Her
headache was coming now in waves of chill and nausea, and in the world outside
it had started to rain. The storm that had been threatening all afternoon and
evening was breaking at last, and when Winter looked out the window she could
see white lines of rain illuminated by the security floodlights.

 
          
It had been raining that night.

 
          
No!
She could feel the effect it took to
shove the memory beneath the surface, but she managed to make it. Her heart
beat faster with fear, and the exertion left her dazzled and weak. She fell
into the chair and stared morosely out the window.

 
          
There
were memories in the rain:

 
          
—
Winter Musgrave! That plate was
Limoges
!

 
          
—
But I didn't touch it, Mommy! I didn't!

 
          
But
her mother didn't believe her. She never did.
Just wait till your father gets home, young lady
— And Winter had
no way to rationalize the things she'd never done—or couldn't remember doing.

 
          
—
If you're going to go around trying to be
different, don't come crying to me that you're not popular.

           
—
But,
Daddy, all I wanted to do was . . .

 
          
—
If you'd spend less time trying to make
yourself interesting and more on your schoolwork, young lady, you wouldn't have
time to complain that no one wants to take you to the prom.

 
          
It wasn't like that, Daddy!
Winter
protested, years too late.
All I wanted
was someone who would like
me,
not
Kenneth Musgrave's daughter. . . .

 
          
The
rain gusted against the window. It had been raining that night, too.

 
          
No. Oh, please, not that. Not here.
The
pain behind her eyes shook her, making her surroundings glow and waver.

 
          
By
the time she'd reached her teens Winter no longer remembered the imaginary
playmate of her childhood who had yanked pictures off the walls and broken
plates with a gesture; nor that the blinding headaches she'd once gotten had
coincided with electrical shorts in any machinery close by. She'd only known
that there must be more to life than the garden club and the boardroom—something
beautiful, meant for her alone. She'd wanted to go to UCLA or Berkeley, but her
parents had insisted on an East Coast college. She'd chosen
Taghkanic
over
Albany
, even though
Taghkanic
was closer, because of the liberal arts program at the college and because the
fact that it hosted the
Bidney
Institute horrified
her mother.

 
          
Don't think I'm going to let you fill this
house with a pack of scruffy college students after all my hard work, young
lady. If you think you're bringing any of them to this house, think again
—

 
          
—7
wouldn't bring anyone here that I
LIKED,
Mother!

 
          
And
then she'd met Grey. And he'd been all of her dreams come true.

 
          
No—
no
—
no
—/
Winter pounded her fist on the windowsill, knowing that in some sense she had
planned her own agony. Why else come back, when she'd sworn she'd never return
here, after—

 
          
She'd
never return here—

 
          
It
was raining, and—

 
          
Never
come back here. Never—

 
          
It was raining that night fourteen years
ago. She hadn't told them she was coming; she'd taken the train downstate to
New
York
, then the LIRR to the closest station, then
a taxi to the foot of the drive. . . .

 
          
Winter
groaned aloud. In a moment more she would remember; she could feel the psychic
scars opening, leaving the wounds as raw and bleeding as if it were yesterday.

 
          
She'd walked up from the foot of the drive
—
to give herself time, to prepare for having
to tell them
—
and the rain had soaked
her to the skin, first chilling, then numbing her. She'd wished she could be as
numb inside; she would rather feel nothing than the pain. . . .

 
          
She would rather feel nothing than the pain.

 
          
She
could still refuse to remember. To sit here looking inward took more courage
than she would need to face a loaded gun; Winter had always thought she had
courage, but she knew now those beliefs were a lie. All her life was a lie,
carefully constructed.

 
          
And
now she knew it.

 
          
The girl raised her hand to the
door-knocker, trying not to think. About what was to come, and what had already
happened.

PAST REASON HUNTED

Age makes a winter in the
heart, An autumn in the mind.

—JOHN SPARROW

 
          
IN THE ORCHARD BEHIND GREYANGELS, THE APPLE TREES
were in full bloom. When she'd gotten
back from the doctor earlier today all she could think of was finding some way
to tell him privately
—
but on a small
campus where both of them were so well known, privacy was hard to come by.
Professor
MacLaren
didn't mind
Taghkanic
students trespassing in his orchard, so she'd asked Grey to bring her here.

 
          
But now that she had him alone, Winter
Musgrave, age twenty-two and in her senior year at
Taghkanic
College
,
didn't know where to begin. "I have something I need to tell you,"
she'd said, and then had chattered on about meaningless things: spring break,
the graduation ceremonies only a few months away, plans for the coming summer
that she now knew were meaningless.

 
          
"Come on," Grey said. He'd leaned
toward her, the fringe on his white buckskin jacket swinging. A stray sunbeam
glinted off the glass-bead embroidery across the jacket's shoulders; a blue
more brilliant than the sky. "You've been dancing all around
SOMETHING.
What?" he'd demanded. "
Didyou
hear something about the internship? 'Dandy' Lion
was supposed to hear this week
—"

 
          
They'd both applied for summer intern
positions with the American Shakespeare Company, and Professor
Wei
landhadthought
there was a
good chance that Grey, at least, would get his. Winter brushed the thought
aside. Like all her other plans for the future, it no longer mattered.

 
          
"I'm going to have a baby," she'd
blurted out.

 
          
Grey had gone instantly still, staring at
her with wide gray eyes. Even in this moment, knowing he was going to reject
her, Winter could not help loving him the way she loved the wild beauty of the
hawks or the Taconic hills. The spring breeze from the river had fluttered
through his pale hair and the beaded fringe on his jacket, and it seemed as if
the world held its breath.

 
          
"A baby." Grey had taken a deep
breath and smiled. "A baby! Our baby! Why didn't you tell me? How long have
you
—
How do you know?" He'd
reached for her and Winter gestured irritably, stopping him.

 
          
"I went to the doctor," Winter
told him in a small cross voice. "
Dammit
, those
pills are supposed to
work."

 
          
Grey had laughed. "Everything always
works out for the best." He'd tried to put his arms around her, but Winter
whirled away, glaring at the inoffensive apple tree directly before her and
willing the tears not to come. Flower petals were everywhere, covering the
spring grass in mock snow. She 'd brushed them forlornly off the shoulders of
her fake-fur jacket, hating the mess.

 
          
"For the best! Grey, what am I going to
DO?" she'd wailed, leaning suddenly against the tree. It was somehow worse
that he'd accepted it. When she wasn't facing active resistance, Winter had
never known quite what to do.

 
          
"Don't you want a baby?" Grey said
then, and the sober note in his voice had made her turn back and look at him.
"Do you want to, uh . . ." His voice trailed off awkwardly.

 
          
I
don't know, I don't know—

 
          
"I don't
KNOW/"
Winter wailed. "You aren't
—
We aren't
—"
She gestured helplessly, unable to put her thoughts into words,
conscious only of feeling trapped. "What am I going to do?
—
Mother said they'd send me to Europe for the
summer after graduation
—
mostly to get
me away from you
—
and Daddy wants me
to go to work for a friend of his on Wall Street
—
or get married
—
and I don't
even know what I'm going to tell them, and
—"

 
          
"Marry me," Grey had said.
"We'll have the baby, and if that internship
thing doesn't work out I can do the
Renfaire
circuit out in
California
full time. We have the
Blackburn
Work, and I know some people out in the Bay Area who'll help us. Everything's
going to work out. You'll see."

 
          
Winter had gone on the circuit with him last
summer, doing the pseudo-Elizabethan Renaissance Pleasure
Faires
up and down the West Coast. She'd played the guitar; Grey had done stage magic.
They'd spent the summer sleeping on friends' couches or in the back of Grey's
van; fine for a few weeks, but for a life? With a baby coming?

 
          
"I don't know," Winter began,
hesitantly. She could see the beginnings of confusion on Grey's face; the
question he was too proud to ask: "Don't you love me, Winter?"

 
          
I
DO, GREY--- I DO! BUT I'm SO AFRAID--

 
          
"Stay with me, Winter," he said, holding
out his hand one last time. "Stay with me."

 
          
She put her hands behind her back, afraid
that if she took his hand she'd lose all common sense and blindly follow her
heart.

 
          
"I... I have to think, Grey. Take me
back." It wasn't true
—
she hadn't
been able to think, not with so much uncertainty swirling around her.

 
          
"It's my baby, too; don't you think
it's my decision, too?" Grey sounded hurt then and she couldn't bear it.

 
          
"No!"
Winter exploded. "No I don't! It's
my body and my life, and I can't just—"

 
          
He'd closed the distance between them and
put his arms around her. She'd clung to him as if she were drowning and cried
as if everything she loved were already gone. He held her until her tears were
exhausted, teased her until she smiled, and promised her the sun, the moon, and
the stars.

 
          
And he' d thought everything was settled
then, with the easy confidence of one who had never known defeat. But she'd had
no faith in the future he painted for her.

 
          
And that night, without telling anyone, not
even
Cassilda
, she'd taken the train south.

 
          
Home.

 
          
Winter
opened her eyes. The storm had softened to a steady drumming rhythm that could
go on for hours, and through the open window the room was filled with the smell
of rain and wet earth. Laboriously Winter picked herself up off the floor of
her room. When she moved, she found that her entire body ached with chill and
tension, but the headache had passed, leaving a light-headed lethargy in its
wake. Unwillingly she looked around. For a moment she expected to see the rows
of carefully preserved stuffed animals, but that belonged to the past; she'd
given them all away years ago.

 
          
Winter's
eyes brimmed with the unshed tears of a grief too long deferred. She had built
her self-image on her risk-taking and courage, and all of it was a lie. She
wasn't brave. She'd betrayed everything and everyone she really loved.
Unforgivably. Irrevocably.

 
          
Winter
climbed shakily to her feet, wondering how long she'd been lying on the floor.
She no longer wondered why no one had come to look in on her and see if she was
all right—she knew all of
Wychwood's
secrets now.
Automatically she looked out the window, but could tell nothing of the time. It
was late, that much she knew. The rain spilling from the gutters was a silvery
waterfall in the house's security lighting, and the rest of the house's
inhabitants must long since be in bed. Low blood sugar made Winter's hands
shake, and her skin felt cold and clammy. That much, at least, she could fix.

 
          
All
trace of use had been cleared away; the cloth changed, Grandmother Winter's
sterling centerpiece returned to its accustomed place. Winter walked into the
dining room. Everything was where it should be. Nothing was out of place—not
the furniture, not the children. Any exceptions were swiftly dealt with.

 
          
And they kept at me and at me
—
they were my parents
—
they were supposed to know what was best
—
not just what was convenient!

 
          
But
that wasn't true. She hadn't been a child any longer by the time she'd come
home to
Wychwood
that spring. She should not have
given them the kind of control an adult took of a child's life over hers.

 
          
But
she had. She'd given them that power through fear or cowardice or even
stupidity. She'd known she wanted something different than her mother's life
and her father's, but in the end she hadn't trusted herself enough to take
charge of her own future.

 
          
She'd
paid for that.

 
          
But
she wasn't the only one.

 
          
She—and
Grey—and the child who had never been born—all of them had paid. And the girl
she'd been, like some spell-cursed princess, had been doomed to dream away her
life inside the arctic armor Winter had forged about herself to numb the pain
of that disastrous choice.

 
          
Until
. . .

 
          
Winter
felt the flickering feeble attempt of the destroying angel to rouse beneath her
skin. She pushed it away, back into the world of dream. She had made her power
into a dream—a bad dream—and had dreamed on, insensible, until something had
come looking for her.

 
          
Something
that was tithed in blood. Something Winter had retreated into madness to
escape, not knowing that to do so would free that long-denied, long-betrayed,
part of herself—or that, freed, it would fight to reach her across the
borderland of her unconscious mind.

 
          
With
one last clutch, Winter felt the coils of her hate-born shadow-self relax
forever. All that was left was Winter Musgrave.

 
          
Who's a fool.

 
          
For
a moment she allowed the self-hatred to well up, then let go of that, too. Even
after her mother had gotten her way about the baby, Winter could still have taken
back her life—but grief and self-hatred had paralyzed her and she had let
others choose her future for her—choices that had not been made out of love,
but out of anger.
Wychwood
held little love within
its walls.

 
          
Winter
laughed a little shakily, and flipped on the dining room lights.
By all means, let's have all the demons out
of the box in one go.
She walked through and into the kitchen and began
opening cupboards, her body's demands uppermost in her mind. She found a box of
raisins and began stuffing the fruit into her mouth, swallowing almost without
chewing.