The Wolves of Midwinter (23 page)

“We will. We surround her now; we surround her when she is dreaming and unfocused and unaware. We attempt to rouse her spirit, to provoke it to focus so that she pulls her spirit body together and becomes a learner again.”

“What do you mean, ‘a learner’?” asked Reuben.

“Spirits learn when they are focused. Focus involves the concentration of the spirit body, concentration of the mind. When the newly
dead first cross over, their biggest temptation in the earthbound state is to diffuse, to spread out, to become loose and like air, and to dream. A spirit can float in such a state forever, and the mind does not think in such a state so much as it dreams, if there is any narrative in that mind at all.”

“Ah, that’s exactly what I thought,” said Stuart suddenly, but then he sank back and gestured in apology.

“You have studied this,” said Elthram in a very genial manner to Stuart. “You and Reuben both have studied it on your computers, on the Internet, you’ve read all you can find about ghosts and spirits.”

“A lot of jumbled theories,” said Stuart. “Yes.”

“I haven’t studied it enough,” said Reuben. “I’ve been too focused on myself, on my own suffering. I should have studied.”

“But there’s truth in much of those jumbled theories,” Elthram continued.

“So when a dreaming spirit draws itself together,” said Stuart, “when it focuses, then it starts to really think.”

“Yes,” said Elthram. “It thinks, it remembers, and memory is everything for the education and the moral fiber of a spirit. And as it grows stronger, so its senses become stronger; it can see the physical world in the old way again, though not perfectly. And it can hear physical sounds in the old way again, and even smell, and touch.”

“And as it grows stronger, then it can appear,” Reuben volunteered.

“Yes. It can appear to someone who is gifted more readily than to others, but yes, as it condenses its energy, as it envisions its own energy in the form of its old physical body, it can both accidentally and purposefully appear to anyone.”

“I see. I’m getting it,” said Stuart.

“Now do keep in mind that the spirit of Marchent doesn’t know these things—she is responding when she sees or senses Reuben’s presence. And she responds when Reuben responds to her. And the act of concentrating, of focusing, of pulling together, this happens without her fully grasping that that is what she’s doing. This is how ghosts learn.”

“And left to her own devices,” asked Felix, “she will continue to learn?”

“Not necessarily,” said Elthram. “She may remain as she is for years.”

“That’s too horrible,” said Reuben.

“It is horrible,” said Felix.

“Trust in us, old friend,” said Elthram. “We will not abandon her. She’s your blood kin, and you were master of these great woods for many a decade. Once she recognizes us, once she ceases to veer away from us and back into the buffer of her dreams, once she allows herself to focus on us, we can teach her more than I can now explain to you in words.”

“But she could ignore you for years, too, couldn’t she?” asked Felix.

Elthram smiled. It was the most compassionate smile. He extended his left hand and then, turning, placed both his hands over Felix’s right hand. “She will not,” he said. “I won’t let her ignore me. You know how persistent I can be.”

“So you’re saying,” asked Reuben, “that she turned away from the white light, the portal, as you call it, because she didn’t believe in life after death?”

“There can be many tangled reasons why spirits don’t acknowledge the portal,” said Elthram. “I sense this was the reason in her case. And it was mingled with the fact that she feared notions of the hereafter for other reasons, that she would encounter there spirits she didn’t want to encounter, the spirits of her parents, for instance, whom she hated by the end of their lives.”

“Why did she hate them?” asked Reuben.

“Because she knew they’d been treacherous to Felix,” said Elthram. “She knew.”

“And all this you can extract simply by being here where her spirit is?” asked Stuart.

“We’ve been here for a very long time. We were here when she was growing up, of course. We were around her during many moments in her life. You might say we’ve always known her, because we have known Felix and known Felix’s house and Felix’s family, and we know much of what happened with her.”

This was saddening Felix, almost crushing him. He put his face in his hands.

“Don’t fear,” said Elthram. “We are here now to do what you’ve asked us to do.”

“What about the spirits of her brothers?” asked Reuben. “The men who stabbed her to death?”

“Gone from the earth,” said Elthram.

“They saw the portal and went up?”

“I don’t know,” said Elthram.

“What about Marrok’s spirit?” asked Reuben.

Elthram was quiet for a moment. “Not here. But Morphenkinder spirits almost never linger.”

“Why not?”

Elthram smiled as if the question was surprising and even naïve. “They know too much about life and death,” he offered. “It’s those who don’t know much about life and death that linger, those who aren’t prepared for the transition.”

“You help other spirits, lingering spirits?” asked Stuart.

“We do. We have. Our society is like many an earthly society. We meet, we come to know, we invite, we learn from. And so it goes.”

“And your company, the Forest Gentry, you take in wandering spirits.”

“We have. We do.” Elthram seemed to be pondering for a moment. “Not everyone wants to join with us,” said Elthram. “We are after all the Forest Gentry. But we are only one group of spirits in this world. There are others. And many a spirit needs no company and evolves from virtue to virtue on his own.”

“This portal to the heavens,” asked Reuben, “does it ever open for you?”

“I am not a ghost,” said Elthram. “I have always been what I am. I chose this physical body; I constructed it for myself, and perfected it, and now and then alter it and refine it. Because I have never had an ethereal human body, but only an ethereal spirit body. I have always been spirit. And no, there is no portal to the heavens that opens for such as me.”

There came the soft sound of someone walking into the room
again, and out of the gloom, Margon appeared and took the chair at the far end of the table.

Elthram’s face was stricken. His eyes quivered again as though someone were hurting him. But he looked steadily at Margon in spite of this.

“If I offend you, I’m sorry,” he said to Margon.

“You don’t offend me,” said Margon. “But you were flesh and blood once, Elthram. All of you Forest Gentry were once flesh and blood. You’ve left your bones in the earth like all living things.”

These words were lacerating Elthram and he was flinching. His whole frame stiffened as if to hunker under an assault.

“And so you’ll teach your clever skills to Marchent, will you?” demanded Margon. “You’ll teach her to rule in the astral sphere as you rule. You’ll use her intellect and memory to help her become a nonpareil of a ghost!”

Stuart looked as if he was going to cry.

“Please don’t say any more,” said Felix softly.

Margon kept his eyes on Elthram, who had drawn himself up, his open hands hovering in front of his face.

“Well, when you speak to Marchent,” said Margon, “for the love of truth, remind her of the portal. Don’t urge her to remain with you.”

“And what if there is nothing beyond the portal?” asked Stuart. “What if it’s a portal to annihilation? What if existence continues only for the earthbound?”

“If that’s so, then that’s the way it’s probably meant to be,” said Margon.

“How do you know what is meant to be?” asked Elthram. He was taking pains to be courteous. “We are the Forest People,” he said gently. “We were here before you ever came into existence, Margon. And we do not know what is meant to be. So how can you know? Oh, the tyranny of those who believe in nothing.”

“There are those who come from beyond the portal, Elthram,” said Margon.

Elthram appeared shocked.

“You know there are those who come from beyond the portal,” said Margon.

“You believe this and yet you say that we did not come from beyond the portal?” asked Elthram. “Your spirit was born of matter, Margon, and thrives in matter now. Our spirits were never rooted to the physical. And yes, we may have come here from beyond the portal, but we only know of our existence here.”

“You become more clever all the time, don’t you? And you grow ever more powerful.”

“And why shouldn’t we?” asked Elthram.

“No matter how clever you become, you’ll never be able to actually drink that milk. You can’t eat the food offerings you so relish. You know you can’t.”

“You think you know what we are, but—.”

“I know what you are
not
,” said Margon. “Lies have consequences.”

Silence with the two staring at each other.

“Someday, perhaps,” said Elthram in a low voice, “we will be able to eat and drink, too.”

Margon shook his head.

“People of old knew ghosts or gods—as they called them—savored the fragrance of burnt offerings,” said Margon. “People of old knew ghosts or gods—as they called them—thrived on moisture, thrived on the falling rain, and loved the brooks of the woodland or the fields, or liquids turning into steam. That feeds your electrical energy, doesn’t it? The rain, the waters of a creek or a waterfall. You can dip to lap the moisture of a libation poured on a grave.”

“I am not a ghost,” whispered Elthram.

“But no spirit or ghost or god,” Margon insisted, “can really eat or drink.”

Elthram’s eyes blazed with a painful anger. He didn’t answer.

“Beings like this one, Stuart,” said Margon as he glanced at Stuart, “have fooled humans since before recorded time—pretending to an omniscience they do not possess, a divinity they know nothing about.”

“Please, Margon, I beg you,” said Felix gently. “Don’t go on.”

Margon made an airy gesture of acceptance, but he shook his head. He looked off at the fire.

Reuben found himself glancing up at Lisa, who stood very still by the fireplace, staring at Elthram. She had no real expression except that of vigilance. Her mind might have been wandering for all he knew.

“Margon,” said Elthram. “I will tell Marchent what I know.”

“You’ll teach her to invoke the memory of her physical self,” said Margon. “That is, to move backwards—to strengthen her ethereal body to resemble her lost physical body, to seek for a material existence.”

“It’s not material!” said Elthram, raising his voice only slightly. “We are not material. We’ve taken bodies to resemble you because we see you and know you and would come into your world, the world you’ve made of the material, but we are not material. We are the invisible people and we can come and go.”

“Yes, you are material, it’s simply another kind of material,” said Margon. “That’s all it is!” He was becoming heated. “And you’re burning to be visible in our world; you want it more than anything else.”

“No, that is not true,” said Elthram. “How little you know of our true existence.”

“And look how your face reddens,” said Margon. “Oh, you get better at this all the time.”

“We must all get better at what we do,” said Elthram with an air of resignation, his eyes appealing to Margon. “Why should we be different in that respect from you?”

Felix looked down, neither resigned nor accepting, but only unhappy.

“So, what, it’s better to let Marchent suffer in confusion?” asked Reuben, “and hope that she slips permanently into dreams?” He couldn’t keep silent any longer. “What does it matter what it’s called or what science knows about it? Her intellect survives, doesn’t it? She’s Marchent and she’s here and she’s in pain.”

Felix nodded to this.

“In dreams perhaps she can see the portal to the heavens,” said Margon. “Once she becomes focused on the physical, perhaps she will never again see it.”

“What if it’s the portal to nonexistence?” asked Reuben.

“That’s what it sounds like to me,” said Stuart. “The white light, it flashes when the energy of the spirit disintegrates. That’s what I think of this portal to heaven. That’s all I think it might be.”

Reuben shuddered.

Margon gazed across the long table at Elthram, Elthram’s large eyes narrowed as if trying to fathom something about Margon that he could no longer describe in words.

Sergei, who’d sat there quiet all the while, gave a long eloquent breath.

“You want to know what I think?” said Sergei. “I think we leave here tonight, Margon, and me and these boy wolves and we go hunting. And we leave Felix here to keep preparing for the Christmas festival. And we leave Elthram and the Forest Gentry to their task.”

“That sounds like an excellent idea,” said Felix. “You and Thibault take the boys away from here. Satisfy their need to hunt. And Elthram, if there is anything I can do to cooperate with you, I will do it, you know that.”

“You know the things I love,” said Elthram, smiling. “Let us sup with you, Felix. Bring us to your table. Welcome us into your house.”

“ ‘Sup,’ ” scoffed Margon.

Felix nodded. “The doors are open, my friend.”

“And I think this taking the boys away is an excellent idea,” said Elthram. “Take Reuben away from here. And that will give me my best chance with Marchent.”

He rose slowly, pushing back the chair and standing without using his arms or hands. Reuben noted this, and again noted his tremendous height. Six foot six, he calculated roughly, given that he himself was six foot three, and Stuart was taller than him, and Sergei was very slightly taller than that.

“I thank you for inviting us,” said Elthram. “You can’t know how we treasure your welcome, your hospitality, your invitation to come in.”

“And how many more of you Forest Gentry are in this room right now?” asked Margon. “How many more of you are wandering this house?” It was meant to be accusatory, provocative. “Can you see better
when you’ve assembled this physical body for yourself, when you’ve charged its particles with your subtle electricity, when you narrow your vision to look through those ravishing green eyes?”