The Wolves of Midwinter (22 page)

“Good God, they could be walking around amongst us,” said Stuart.

“They
are
walking around with us,” said Margon. “I see them all the time. But what I’m trying to tell you is that these Forest Gentry are merely one tribe of these old and evolving ghosts, and of course they are among the most cunning, the most practiced and the most formidable.”

“So why do they bother with fables about themselves?” asked Stuart.

Felix interjected. “They don’t consider their origin stories mere fables,” he said. “Not by any means, and it is offensive to suggest to them that their beliefs are mere fables.”

Margon gave a faint sneer. His face was too agreeable for it to be a mean sneer and it vanished immediately.

“There is nothing under the sun,” said Margon, “nor under the moon, no entity of intellect, that does not have to believe something about itself, something about its purpose, the reason for its suffering, its destiny.”

“So what you’re saying,” said Reuben, “is that Marchent is a new ghost, a baby ghost, a ghost who doesn’t know how to appear or disappear—.”

“Exactly,” said Margon. “She is confused, struggling, and what she’s managed to achieve has depended on the intensity of her feelings—her desperate desire to communicate with you, Reuben. And to some extent her success so far has depended on your sensitivity to seeing her ethereal presence.”

“The Celtic blood?” asked Reuben.

“Yes, but there are many sensitive seers of spirits in this world. Celtic blood is but one facilitating ingredient. I see spirits. I did not in the beginning of my life, but at some point I began to see them. And now I can see them sometimes before they’re focused and intent on communicating.”

“Let’s cut to the chase,” said Felix gently. “We don’t know what really happens when a person dies. We know some souls or spirits detach from the body, or are released by the body and they move on and are never heard from again. We know some become ghosts. We know they appear confused and often unable to see us or see one another. But the Forest Gentry can see all ghosts, all souls, all spirits, and the Forest Gentry can communicate with them.”

“They have to come, then,” said Reuben. “They have to help her.”

“Really?” asked Margon. “And what if there is some Maker of the Universe out there who has designed life and death? What if He doesn’t want these earthbound entities lingering here, gaining power, lying to themselves, privileging their personal survival over the grand scheme of things?”

“Well, now, you just described us, didn’t you?” said Felix. His voice was still strained, but he was calm. “You just described us personally. And who is to say that in the scheme of things ordained by the Maker of All Things, these earthbound spirits aren’t fulfilling a divine destiny?”

“Ah, yes, all right, very well,” said Margon wearily.

“But who do the Forest Gentry think they are?” asked Stuart.

“I haven’t asked them of late,” said Margon.

“In some parts of the world,” said Felix, “they claim to have descended from fallen angels. In other places, they are the spawn of Adam before he coupled with Eve. What is curious is that humankind
has countless such stories about them the world over; but one thread runs through it all. They are not descended from humans. They are another species of being.”

“Paracelsus wrote of this,” said Reuben.

“Right, he did,” said Felix. He gave Reuben a sad smile. “Right you are on that,” he said.

“But whatever the truth of the matter is, they can embrace Marchent.”

“Yes,” said Margon. “They do it all the time—invite the newly dead to join their ranks, when they find them strong and distinctive and interesting.”

“Normally it takes centuries for them to notice a persistent earthbound soul,” said Felix. “But they’ve come because I’ve asked them to come and I will invite them to welcome Marchent.”

“I think I’ve seen them in a dream,” said Reuben. “I had a dream. I saw Marchent and she was running through a dark wood and there were these spirits in the dream and they were trying to reach out for her, to comfort her. I think that’s what was happening.”

“Well, because I cannot prevent this from happening,” said Margon wearily, “I give my consent to it.”

Felix rose to his feet.

“But where are you going?” asked Margon. “They’re here now. Ask them to show themselves.”

“Well, isn’t it fitting that I stand when I welcome the Forest Gentry into Reuben’s house?”

He brought his hands together reverently as if in prayer.

“Elthram, welcome to Reuben’s house,” he said in a soft voice. “Elthram, welcome to the house of the new master of this forest.”

T
HERE WAS A CHANGE
in the atmosphere, a faint draft that made the candle flames shudder. Lisa straightened against the paneled wall and looked sharply towards the far end of the table. Sergei sat back heavily in his chair, sighing, with a smile on his lips as though he were enjoying this.

Reuben followed the direction of Lisa’s gaze and then so did Stuart.

Out of the shadows there, something indistinct took shape. It was as if the darkness itself thickened. The candle flames settled on their wicks. And a figure gradually appeared—resembling first a faint projection of an image and then brightening, and becoming finally three-dimensional and vivid.

It was the figure of a large man, a man slightly taller than Reuben, rawboned, with a massive head of black shining hair. The frame of the man was enormous, and the bones of his face were prominent and beautifully symmetrical. His skin was dark, dark as caramel, but he had large almond-shaped light eyes, green eyes. These eyes shining out of the dark face gave him a slightly manic look, heightened by his thick straight eyebrows, and the faint smile on his large sensuous mouth. He had a high smooth forehead from which his unruly hair erupted in dark glossy waves.

His hair was so full that some of it was pulled back from his face, the great mass of it falling down on all sides to his shoulders. He appeared to be wearing a light beige-colored chamois shirt and pants. The belt he wore was very wide and dark and had a large bronze buckle in the shape of a face.

He had very big hands.

There was no classifying him as to race in Reuben’s mind. He might have come from India. It was impossible to tell.

He looked at Reuben thoughtfully and made a little bow. Then he looked at each of the others in the same way, his face dramatically brightening when his eyes settled on Felix.

He came around the table behind Stuart to greet Felix.

“Felix, my old friend,” he said in clear unaccented English. “How glad I am to see you, and how glad I am that you’re returned to the Nideck woods.” His voice was even, youthful.

They embraced.

His body seemed as real and as solid as Felix’s body, and Reuben marveled that there was nothing even faintly frightening or horrible about this figure. In fact his fantastic materializing seemed like some natural revelation—that is, the uncovering of someone solid who had already been there, obedient to gravity, and breathing just like any one of them.

The man’s eyes fixed on Reuben. Quickly Reuben rose and extended his hand.

“Welcome, young master of these woods,” said Elthram. “You love the forest as we love the forest.” He sounded contemporary, relaxed.

“I do love it,” said Reuben. He was trembling and trying to conceal it. The hand that clasped his was warm and firm. “Forgive me,” he stammered. “This is powerful, all this.” The scent rising from the figure was the scent of the outdoors, of leaves, living things, but also of dust, very strongly of dust. But dust gives off a clean scent, doesn’t it, Reuben thought.

“Indeed, and it’s thrilling for me as well, to be invited into your house,” said Elthram, smiling. “Many’s the time our people have seen you and your lady walking in the woods here, and no human in these parts loves the woods any more than your beloved lady.”

“She’ll be so pleased to hear that,” said Reuben. “I wish she were here now to meet you.”

“But she has met me,” said Elthram. “Though she hasn’t known it. She’s known me all her life, and I’ve known her—knew her when she was a child making her way through Muir Woods with her father. The
Forest Gentry know those who belong to the forest. They never forget those who are kind to the forest.”

“I’ll share all of this with her,” said Reuben. “As soon as I’m able.”

Some small derisive sound came from Margon.

The man’s eyes fixed on Margon. To say the appearance of animation drained out of the man would be an understatement. He was immediately bruised and silenced. And it did seem that the entire figure grew paler for an instant, less reflective, the smooth shining skin fading to a matte surface, but this was at once corrected, though the man’s eyes were narrow and quivering slightly as if fending off invisible blows.

Margon stood up and walked out of the dining room.

This was a terrible moment for Stuart, plainly, and he looked miserably after Margon and started to rise. But Felix reached down and put his right hand on Stuart’s shoulder, saying “Stay with us” in a small but authoritative voice. He turned back to the man.

“Sit down, please, Elthram,” said Felix and gestured to Margon’s chair. It was the logical chair, of course, but the gesture seemed a little abrasive, to say the least.

“Now, Stuart, this is our good friend Elthram of the Forest Gentry, and I know you join me in welcoming him to the house.”

“Absolutely!” Stuart responded. His face was flushed.

Elthram seated himself and immediately greeted Sergei, whom he also addressed as “old friend.”

Sergei gave a low rolling laugh and a nod. “You look splendid, dear friend,” said Sergei. “Simply splendid. You always take me back in mind to the most blissful—and the most tempestuous—times!”

Elthram acknowledged this with those intense eyes firing beautifully. Then he looked intently at Reuben.

“Let me assure you, Reuben,” he said, “we did not mean to startle you in the forest. We meant to help you. You were confused in the darkness. And we did not know how quickly you would sense our presence. And so our attempts went wrong.” His voice had a medium pitch, about like Reuben’s or Stuart’s voice.

“Oh, not at all,” said Reuben. “I knew you were trying to help. I understood that. I just didn’t know what you were.”

“Yes,” he said. “Often when we assist someone who is lost, that one is not so quick to realize that it is we who are doing it, you understand. We pride ourselves on subtlety. But you’re gifted, Reuben, and we didn’t realize how gifted, and so misunderstanding was the result.”

Surely the green eyes in the dark face were the most startling trait of this man, and even if they’d been small they would have been startling. As it was, they were very large with large pupils and it seemed impossible they were mere illusion, but then again this wasn’t mere illusion, was it?

And all this is particles, Reuben thought, drawn to an ethereal body? And all this can be dispersed? Now that seemed impossible. No revelation of a presence could compare in shock with the notion that something as solid and vital as this man could simply disappear.

Felix had seated himself again, and Lisa had set a large mug before Elthram, and was filling it from a cold silver pitcher with what appeared to be milk.

Elthram gave Lisa what was surely a bit of a mischievous smile and thanked her. Gratefully, in fact, with remarkably obvious pleasure, he looked at the milk. He lifted the mug to his lips but he did not actually drink the milk.

“Now Elthram,” said Felix, “you know why I’ve asked you to come—.”

“Yes, I do,” said Elthram running over Felix’s words. “And she is here, yes, most definitely here and lingering here and not wanting to go anywhere else. But she can’t see us yet or hear us, but she will.”

“Why is she haunting?” asked Reuben.

“She’s grieved, and confused,” said Elthram. The largeness of his face was slightly disorienting for Reuben, possibly because they sat so close to each other and the man was slightly taller even than Sergei, who was the tallest of the Distinguished Gentlemen. “She does know that she has passed, yes, she knows this. But she’s still uncertain as to what caused her death. She knows her brothers are dead. But she doesn’t grasp that they in fact took her life. And she searches for answers, and she fears the portal to the heavens when she sees it.”

“But why, why fear the portal to the heavens?” asked Reuben.

“Because she is not a believer in life after death,” explained Elthram. “She is not a believer in invisible things.”

His speech was easily more contemporary sounding than the speech of the Distinguished Gentlemen, and his kind and inviting manner was extremely attractive.

“Reuben, when the newly dead see the portal to the heavens, they see a white light. Sometimes in that white light they see ancestors, or parents who have gone on. Sometimes they see only light. We often see what we think they see but we can’t be sure. This light is no longer opening for her, or inviting her to move on. But it’s clear that she doesn’t know why she is still existing as herself, as Marchent, when she believed so firmly that death would be the end of what she was.”

“What is she trying to tell me?” asked Reuben. “What does she want from me?”

“She’s clinging to you because she can see you,” said Elthram, “so in the main she wants you to know that she’s here. She wants to ask you what happened to her and why it happened and what happened to you. She knows you’re no longer a human being, Reuben. She can see this, sense it, probably she’s witnessed you change into the beast state. I’m almost certain she’s witnessed it. This frightens her, terrifies her. She is a ghost filled with terror and grief.”

“This has to stop,” said Reuben. He was trembling again, and he hated it when he started trembling. “She can’t be allowed to suffer. She did nothing to deserve it.”

“You’re right, absolutely,” said Elthram. “But do understand that in this world—in your world, and in our world, the world we share—suffering often has little to do with whether one deserves it.”

“But you will help her,” said Reuben.