Within three seconds it had filled my mouth and nostrils, weighted my lashes, hidden the world. I heard John call out, and tried to fight my way toward him, but the wind tore his voice to tatters and drove me to my knees. When I struggled up, I had lost all sense of direction. Groping blindly, I stumbled forward. My foot caught on a tombstone and I fell again. The faint far-off wail I heard might have been his voice, or the wind—or my own whimper of fear. I couldn’t even see the ground, it was the same color as the air around me, but I felt it cold against my face as I slid forward. The blackness that filled my vision was a pleasant change after all that uniform white.
Warmth. Still dark, but warm and therefore wonderful. Surely there was a faint red glow, a specific source of heat not far away…. I was afraid to open my eyes. Mother always warned me I’d go to the bad place if I didn’t mend my sinful ways. Little did she know. After being frozen to death, hell seemed like…
“Heaven,” I murmured blissfully.
“You aren’t the first woman to tell me that,” said John’s voice.
I turned my head slightly and burrowed deeper into the lovely, prickly warmth of his sweater.
“How did you find me?” I asked drowsily.
“I believe the usual answer is, with great difficulty. To be quite honest, I fell over you. Lucky for you…. Lucky for both of us, in fact. It helped orient me; I was heading straight for the cliff.”
“Where are we?”
“Why don’t you open your eyes and find out?”
So I did.
The only light came from the flames of the fire by which I was lying. An empty, echoing darkness reached out beyond the light. At least it was enclosed; there was no wind and no snow, but it was warm only by comparison to the out-of-doors. Though the few details I could make out were indistinct, reasoning told me that there had only been one source of shelter near at hand.
“The church?”
“Mmm-hmmm.”
“Where did you find the wood for the…Oh, John, you didn’t!”
“I hadn’t much choice. Luckily the pews were old wooden affairs. They burn very nicely.”
“But you’ll set the place on fire!”
“No fear. The baptismal font makes a handy little fireplace. Really,” John went on in a meditative voice, “I had no idea how convenient an abandoned church can be. I must remember to look for one the next time I’m benighted.”
“Good God,” I said helplessly.
“I couldn’t agree more. If you are sufficiently recovered to tend the fire, I will go questing to see what other useful items I can find. I felt a fire was the most important thing. You were unpleasantly frigid to the touch when I towed you in.”
I sat up. Once away from the warmth of his body, I realized the temperature of the air was well below freezing. I felt like a piece of bread in one of those old wire toasters, singed on one side and cold on the other.
He had removed my wet outer clothes and laid them on the floor near the fire. I heard him move away, cat- footed in the dust. He was whistling softly.
Well, I could think of worse people to be caught in a blizzard with. My lips twisted in a reluctant smile as I saw the crumpled papers next to the makeshift fireplace. They were pages from a hymnal.
I looked over my shoulder. The flame of his lighter gleamed like a star in the dimness, and I thanked God he had taken up smoking. “Haven’t you got a flashlight?” I called, and then recoiled as the high ceiling threw the last syllables back at me like the voice of the Inhabitant himself.
“Yes. In the caaaar…. Fascinating echo, isn’t it? Yodayahlalala…”
He came back carrying an armful of wood, which he dumped onto the floor. “I wonder if I could invent a torch,” he mused, squatting. “My lighter isn’t going to hold out indefinitely. We ought to save it in case the fire needs to be restarted.”
“What are you looking for?” I asked, as he straightened with a burning fragment in his hand.
“A bottle of sacramental wine would hit the spot.”
“I doubt that a thrifty Bavarian would overlook anything like that. Besides, this isn’t a Catholic church. Some offbeat local sect.”
John came back to the fire to rekindle his makeshift torch. “Please,” he said, in tones of the utmost sincerity, “Please don’t start talking about the Old Religion. The ambiance is grisly enough without that.”
“The Old…oh, you mean the witchcraft cult—the theory that it was a survival of pre-Christian religions. There are plenty of survivals around here.”
His teeth gleamed uncannily with reflected firelight. “Yes, I saw you gibbering at the
He went off again before I could answer. I huddled closer to the fire.
The torch burned fitfully, now flaring up, now sinking to a sullen glow. Gliding through the darkness, it resembled a giant, diabolical firefly. A dry, inhuman squawl made me jump before I identified it as the sound of rusty hinges. The dancing light disappeared. An interminable time seemed to pass before it appeared again.
“Found the sacristy,” John announced. “Or the off-beat local version of same. Not much there.” He tossed a bundle onto the floor. Dust billowed up in an evil-smelling cloud.
“God,” I said involuntarily. “It smells like a grave.”
“Mold. Let’s eschew suggestive similes, shall we, and say mold.” John nudged the bundle with his foot. “Curtains. They’re rotting and filthy—and moldy—but we’re in no position to be fastidious. It’s going to be a long, cold night.”
“No wine?”
“No wine.” He sat down next to me. I edged away.
“Now don’t tell me you are going to come all over prim propriety,” he jeered. “Bundling, I have been informed, is a thrifty old New England custom which ought equally to have applied in the frigid tundras of Minnesota.”
“It’s not unheard of,” I admitted, moving into the circle of his arm. “I’ll endeavor to overcome my qualms about doing it in a church. What’s a commandment or two compared to death by freezing?”
“Fornication,” said John precisely, “is not mentioned in the Ten Commandments.”
“That’s a relief.”
“In fact,” John went on, “if one analyzes the sexual regulations of the Old Testament, one finds that they are based on property rights rather than moral attitudes.”
“Is that right?” I pressed closer against the warmth of his body.
“Adultery is prohibited because a man’s wife belongs to him in the same sense as his horse and his ass and so on. The daughter belongs to the father, so sibling incest infringes on the old man’s territory.”
“But surely father-daughter relationships—”
“There’s no prohibition against that.” John added thoughtfully, “I checked.”
I started to laugh. “This is an incredible conversation. Would you consider me vulgar if I asked why you investigated that particular issue?”
“That is not only vulgar, it is repellent,” John said coldly. “Idle curiosity alone prompted my investigation. It’s my greatest weakness—but one never knows when a seemingly irrelevant bit of information may come in handy.”
“I’ve noticed that.”
He turned slightly and put his other arm around my shoulders, holding me close against him. His warm breath stirred my hair. After a moment he let out a long, tremulous sigh.
“God, I’m hungry,” he said.
John claimed he had not eaten since breakfast because he had been too busy playing bodyguard for me. I took that with a grain of salt, but I was moved by his plight. I was hungry, too.
“I don’t suppose you brought my backpack? Oh, you did—bless your heart.”
“I had no choice. It was attached to you like a misplaced pregnancy.” A tender and touching hope dawned on his face as he watched me rummage in the knapsack. “I could even eat that bulb.”
“No, you couldn’t. Daffodil bulbs are poisonous.”
