on the windows. Such an intimate sound, the rain gusting on the panes. The colorless sky unaccountably brightened in spite of the rain, and far out to sea a ship moved on the distant horizon. It was barely visible in the gray dazzle of the sea.
“You won’t tell me what to do, will you?” asked Reuben.
“You don’t want me to tell you what to do,” said Phil. “You need to discover that for yourself. But I will tell you this. You’ve taken my mind off my rapidly fading aches and pains; you’ve done me wonders. And whatever happens, whatever you decide, whatever Felix decides, nobody will separate you from me or me from you and Laura.”
“That’s true. That is absolutely true.” He looked at his father. “You’re happy, aren’t you, Dad?”
“Yes,” Phil answered.
24
IT WAS THEIR FIRST DINNER together since Modranicht. They sat around the dining room table, eagerly feasting on the baked fish, roast chicken, and sliced pork with platters of hot steaming buttered greens and carrots. Lisa had baked fresh bread, and apple pies for dessert. And the chilled Riesling was sparkling in the crystal decanters and glasses.
Reuben was in his usual place, to the right of Margon, and Laura sat beside Reuben. Then came Berenice and Frank, and Sergei, while opposite sat Felix as always with Thibault on his left and Stuart next with Phil beside him.
It was easy and quiet as if they’d dined this way a hundred times before, and when the conversation erupted, it was of ordinary things, like the little New Year’s Eve party scheduled for the village Inn, or the unchanging weather.
Felix was silent. Utterly silent. And Reuben could hardly bear the expression on Felix’s face—the shadow of dread in his eyes as they stared listlessly at nothing.
It seemed that Margon was being uncommonly gentle with Felix, and more than once tried to talk to him about unimportant or neutral matters, but when no answer came from Felix, Margon didn’t press it, as if he knew this would defeat his kind purpose.
At one point, Berenice said in a casual polite way that the other female wolves had gone back to Europe, and that she might soon be joining them. This was obviously not news to Frank, but it was news to the other men, yet not a single one asked what Reuben wanted to ask: had Hockan not gone with them?
Reuben wasn’t going to utter the name “Hockan” at this table.
Finally Margon said, “Well, Berenice, you are certainly welcome to remain here if you don’t want to go. Surely you know that.”
She only nodded. There was a look of deliberate resignation on her face. Frank was simply staring off as if this were of no concern to him.
“Look, Berenice,” said Thibault. “I think you should stay with us. I think you should forget your old ties to those creatures. There’s no reason why we can’t attempt a pack of males and females again. And this time we ought to make it work. Indeed, my dear, we have Laura with us now.”
Berenice was startled, but not offended. She only smiled. Laura was watching all this, with obvious concern.
In a soft voice, Laura said, “I would like it if you stayed, but of course this is your affair, not mine.”
“We’ll all like it if you stay,” said Frank dismally. “Why do women so often form their own packs? Why can’t we live in peace together?”
No one said a word.
Just before the end of the meal, when they’d had their fill of the apple pie and the espresso and Sergei had gulped down an enormous quantity of brandy, in came Elthram, dressed in his familiar beige chamois leather, and without a word, he seated himself in the armchair at the foot of the table.
Margon welcomed him with an agreeable nod. Elthram sat back, almost slouching in the armchair, and smiled at Margon as he made a little helpless shrugging gesture.
All this was so puzzling to Reuben. Why wasn’t Margon furious that the Forest Gentry had done what they did? Why was he not claiming that he had foreseen such a grisly possibility? Or that he’d been right to warn against their involvement? But Margon had not been saying such things, and now he sat comfortably with Elthram at the foot of the table.
Stuart was drinking in every detail of Elthram with a kind of startled fascination. Elthram gave him a gentle smile, but the company continued in its miserable silence.
One after another was slipping away. Berenice and Frank headed off to drive down to the village for a nightcap at the Inn. Stuart went up to finish the novel he’d been reading. Suddenly Sergei was gone along with the brandy. And Thibault asked Laura if she might help him with his usual frustrating computer difficulties.
Phil rose to take his leave, pleading utter exhaustion, and refused all offers of assistance, saying he had not the slightest difficulty now in walking or seeing his way to the cottage in the darkness.
And it was the “cottage” now, wasn’t it, not the “guesthouse.”
Elthram sat there staring fixedly at Margon. Something silent seemed to pass between them. Margon rose, and giving a quick warm embrace to Felix, who did not acknowledge it at all, he went out towards the library.
Silence.
No sound came from anywhere, not the low fire in the grate or the kitchen. The rain had died away completely, and the lighted forest beyond the windows was a sweet yet sad spectacle.
Reuben looked up to see Elthram watching him.
Only Reuben and Felix and Elthram remained.
Then after a long period of quiet, Elthram said: “Go now, both of you. Go to the clearing, if you would see her.”
Felix gave a violent start. He glared at Elthram. Reuben was stunned. “You mean it?” Reuben asked. “She’ll be there?”
“She wants you to come,” said Elthram. “Go now, while the rain is slacking. A fire burns there. I’ve seen to it. She wants to come through. It’s in the clearing that she’ll be strongest.”
Before Reuben could say another word, Elthram was gone.
Quickly and quietly, Felix and Reuben went to the closet for their overcoats and scarves, and went out the back door. The forest sang of the rain but there was no rain now, just the high branches releasing their soft trickling downfall.
Felix walked ahead rapidly through the darkness.
Reuben struggled to keep up, realizing that once they were beyond the house lights and the lights of the oak forest, he’d be utterly lost without Felix.
It seemed an eternity that they struggled along one narrow uneven path after another. Reuben managed to put on his leather gloves without slowing his pace, and he wrapped his scarf high around his face against the wind.
The deep woods trembled and whispered with the collected rain, and the earth beneath their feet was often muddy and slippery.
Finally, Reuben saw a pale flickering gleam against the sky, and he made out in the light of that gleam the line of the approaching boulders.
Through the narrow pass, they slipped as before, and into the vast clearing. The strong smell of soot and ashes rose in Reuben’s face. But the cold air seemed at once to dilute it and diffuse it.
All the debris of Modranicht was gone—the scattered instruments, the drinking horns, the coals, the cauldron. A great black circle was all that remained of the bonfire, and in the center of it stood another small blaze, made up of thick oak logs, flames leaping in the swirling mist.
To this blaze they went, walking through the charred and shiny bits and pieces of the old fire. Reuben was painfully aware that Fiona and Helena had died here. But there was no time for mourning the two who had attacked Phil.
