The Winter People (33 page)

Katherine moved forward blindly at first, afraid that if she turned on her flashlight they’d see the glow and follow. It wouldn’t take them long to find her. She had to work quickly.

The passage went on for twenty feet or so, taking her steadily down, the walls cool and dripping, causing her feet to slip on the wet stone. She had to walk bent over, stepping carefully over and around rocks, feeling her way like a blind cave-creature.

She didn’t know where she was going. Was the portal in an exact place inside the cave? Or could she just pull over anywhere to do the ritual?

She paused to catch her breath, listening. She heard voices, but they were far off, mere echoes. She saw no glimmer of light from the direction of the chamber; she should be far enough away now to turn on her flashlight. She blinked at the sudden brightness and saw that she’d reached a fork. She hesitated, then bore left. The ceiling of the passageway dropped, so that she had to crawl on her hands and knees. About six feet in, it dead-ended. She slithered her way back out and went to the right this time, followed the twists and turns, moved down, squeezed through the passage sideways when it got too narrow. The going was slow, and Katherine guessed she’d only made it about ten feet in.

Keep going
, Gary whispered.
That’s it. Almost there, babe
.

She couldn’t hear the others behind her anymore. She’d moved too far from the main chamber now. And a new, haunting thought filled her:
Will I be able to find my way back out?
She thought of all the
images she’d seen in movies—people entering a cave and finding it full of the bones of those who hadn’t made it back out.

She should have left marks on the wall, a trail of breadcrumbs—something, anything. How many turns had she made? One right turn, then the fork. Or was it two right turns?

Don’t worry, I’ll show you the way back out
, Gary promised, a hissing murmur in her left ear.

The floor dropped out from under her, and she tumbled down, smashing her knee and left elbow. The flashlight fell from her hand and went out.

“Shit,” she yelped.

She fumbled for the flashlight and turned it on to check out the damage. It still worked, thank God. Her jeans were torn, her skin scraped and bleeding, but, all in all, it didn’t look that bad. She shone the light around to see where she’d ended up.

She was in a small chamber with rounded walls. There was a circular fire pit in the middle, full of half-burnt sticks. The floor was covered with rocky soil and gravel. On the walls around her were drawings and writing done in charcoal and red-brown paint (or was it blood?). Crude pictures of bodies buried in the ground rising up, coming back to the land of the living.

SLEEPER AWAKEN
was written over and over, at least a hundred times.

“This is it,” she said out loud. She’d been led right where she needed to be.

She went to work quickly, pulling out a candle, matches, the rabbit’s body, and Gary’s camera.

She laid the snowshoe hare on its back and used her fingers to palpate its chest. The fur was soft, the rib cage tiny and flexible. Hesitating only slightly, she used the small blade on her Swiss Army knife to slice open the animal’s chest down the sternum, gently, delicately. It didn’t take much pressure. All her college biology came back to her as she located the lungs and heart with ease and carefully removed the tiny heart. It was still warm.

The old Katherine might have been squeamish about this act—but the new Katherine moved through it effortlessly, as if she did this sort of thing every day.

Fingers sticky with the rabbit’s blood, she lit the candle and picked up Gary’s camera.

“Gary, I call you back to me. Sleeper, awaken!” She said this seven times, each repetition more urgent, more demanding, until, by the last refrain, she was nearly shouting.

She plunged the large blade of the knife into the rocky soil and found it loose and sandy. Digging with the knife, she easily made a small hole; into this she dropped the heart and covered it up. “So that your heart will beat once more,” she said in a voice loud and sure.

She began work on another hole, loosening the soil with the knife, then clawing at the dirt and scooping it away with her hands until the hole was large enough to put the camera inside. “Something of yours to help you find your way.”

Katherine sat back and waited. “Come on, Gary,” she willed. “I did my part. Now you do yours.”

She held her breath, waiting.

She thought of Gary’s and her first kiss, in the painting studio at college all those years ago, the smell of oil paint and turpentine all around them. How she’d wished the kiss would never end, that they could stay there forever in the painting building, twenty years old and so in love it hurt. How that one moment had become the centerpiece of the rest of their lives; everything that came after it swirled around it, as if the kiss itself were the eye of a hurricane.

She let herself imagine what it might be like to see him again, to hold him in her arms, smell him, taste him, breathe him in. All the words they hadn’t had the chance to speak to each other could be said.

Seven whole days. What a gift! They could live a lifetime in seven days. They could get something of Austin’s from the apartment, bring it back to the cave, and call him back as well. Then they’d be a family again.

Still, the longer she waited, the more doubt set in.

What if it didn’t work?

Or—what if it did work, and the Gary who came back wasn’t the Gary she remembered?

Her mind filled with images from horrible zombie movies: the
undead pale and rotting, losing limbs, moaning as they shambled their way through the land of the living.

She packed up her things, deciding not to wait any longer. To leave, get out fast.

As she crawled out of the chamber, she heard footsteps coming from the passageway to the left, the way she’d come. They were slow and steady, coming toward her. Worse still, there was a little scrape with each step, a horrible shuffle.

She turned and ran in the other direction, not daring to turn on her light, hands raised protectively in front of her as she groped helplessly through the darkness.

January 31, 1908

Martin stumbled as he made his way back down the hill. Home. Yes, home. He was going home.

He’d been out in the woods for at least two hours, running at first, then walking, then, finally, collapsing in the snow; there he lay, trying to convince himself that he’d only imagined the figure in the shadows behind Sara earlier, that he’d been a terrible coward to run.

He didn’t need his brother the doctor to tell him that he did not have long. He didn’t want to die up in those godforsaken woods. He wanted to see Sara once more, to tell her how much he loved her, in spite of everything. Above all else, he needed her to know that he had not hurt Gertie. He could not die knowing that Sara believed him guilty of such a thing. So he’d pulled himself up out of the snow and begun the slow descent down the hill.

As he took each breath, the wound in his left side seared with pain. The bullet had struck him just below his rib cage. Blood soaked through his shirt and heavy woolen coat. He could not stop shivering.

He was staggering now, his breath ragged as he shuffled his way across the field. The cursed field, where nothing would ever grow. Year after year, he’d plowed, manured, and carefully planted crops that never flourished, despite all his efforts. All the ground produced was stones, broken dinner plates, old tin cups, and, once, that beautiful ring carved from bone.

He looked at the house coming into view, remembered carrying Sara through the doorway when they were newly married. How in love with her he’d been. Sara, with her wild red hair and sparkling eyes. Sara, who could see the future. He remembered her as a little girl in the schoolyard, telling him, “Martin Shea, you are the one I shall marry.” How he’d handed her that silly glass marble. She still had it in a little box with Gertie’s baby teeth and a silver thimble that had belonged to her mother.

Flashes of their life together filled his head and heart: the Christmases they’d had; the time they went dancing at the hall over in Barre and the wagon wheel broke on the way home so they had to spend the night in the wagon, huddled together under their coats, happy. There were painful memories, too. The loss of the babies Sara carried inside her. The death of little Charles; how Sara held him in her arms, refusing to let go, refusing to accept that he was gone. And, of course, the loss of their darling Gertie.

“Sara,” Martin moaned as he passed the barn, feet crunching through the snow. “My Sara.” He fell, and struggled back up to his feet, leaving the white ground smeared with red, like a wounded snow angel. Maybe she’d be there in the doorway, waiting for him with the gun. Maybe that’s what he deserved.

Almost there, Martin
, he told himself.

Yes, he was almost home. He wanted, more than anything, to go inside, climb the stairs one last time, and get into bed. He wanted Sara to cover him with quilts, to lie beside him, stroke his hair.

Impossible wishes.

Tell me a story
, he would say.
An adventure story—the story of our lives together
.

As he came across the yard, he saw a figure out back, near the little graveyard. The person saw him and slipped behind the old maple tree.

He moved closer.

“Hello?” he called weakly. “Sara?”

But no one was there.

He must have imagined it.

Such an imaginative boy he’d been once. A boy with the heart of a hero. A boy who’d been sure great adventures awaited him.

He heard the front door bang open behind him, and turned to see Sara stumbling down the steps. Sara, his Sara. Ever radiant.

But something was different. Something was wrong. She moved awkwardly, and her face was stricken with terror.

Behind her, an old woman came through the doorway. She was holding Martin’s rifle, pushing the barrel into Sara’s back.

“Sara?” Martin called, turning toward them. “What’s happening? Who is this?”

Sara lifted her head. “The woman who killed our little girl,” she said. She looked at him with such agony on her face. “Oh, Martin, I’m so sorry,” she said. “For ever thinking it could be you.”

And I for being sure it was you
, he thought.

He saw the way the wicked old woman’s face twisted into a hideous grin and knew he had to do something. Even if it was his last act here on earth, he had to save his wife. His beautiful Sara. How could he have thought she would hurt Gertie? He’d been wrong. So wrong.

Using the last of his strength, Martin ran and leapt forward, hands reaching for the gun. But somehow he missed.

How could he have missed?

He’d failed Sara again. Probably for the last time.

The old woman laughed, turned the gun around, and swung it like a club so the butt end hit him right in the chest, right in the place where he was bleeding.

He dropped to the ground with a howl and tried to catch his breath, tried to move his thoughts beyond the pain that echoed through every inch of his body. Though he tried to get up on his knees, he just melted back down. The old woman lifted the gun and brought it down on his chest again. He felt himself going under, sinking down to someplace dark and warm.

To bed. Into their bed, deep under the covers, with Sara in his arms.

“Please,” Sara sobbed. “Stop.”

“Not until I am done,” the old woman snarled. “Not until everything you have is gone.”

Sara
 … He tried to speak her name. To tell her it was all right, really. He deserved this. And she, she had deserved better than him.
He wanted to say all this to her. To tell her how sorry he was. He managed to lift his head, open his eyes, and saw, coming across the yard, someone else. Someone small, moving forward in a slow, determined shuffle.

A child. A child with blond hair and a long dress.

And she was holding an ax. Martin’s own ax. The one he used to split wood and kill chickens. He kept the blade so sharp it could cut paper. He was good at taking care of things, at making them last.

But you weren’t able to take care of your wife and daughter, were you?

The child moved forward steadily, coming up just behind the old woman, who had turned the gun back around and aimed it at Sara.

The child raised the ax high up, her arms outstretched. As she turned, he could see her face clearly in the moonlight.

It couldn’t be.

“Gertie?”

She brought the ax down with all her might, burying it in the back of the old woman’s skull. Blood splattered on the little girl’s face. The gun fell; the old woman went down, and the child was on her, ripping at her clothes and skin.

Martin closed his eyes, willing it all to end.

M
artin? Martin?” Someone was shaking him, slapping his face. He opened his eyes. He was on his side in the yard, half frozen into the snow, though he no longer felt cold.

Lucius was looking down at him, his face a mask of horror and disgust. Lucius, always calm and stoic, was actually trembling. His shirt was rumpled and stained with blood. “My God, Martin, what have you done?”