They stood as close to the little fire as they could, and Reuben stripped off the gloves and buried them in his pockets. He and Felix stood side by side warming their hands. Felix shivered in the cold. Reuben’s pulse was racing.
And what if she doesn’t come, Reuben thought desperately but didn’t dare to speak the words. And what if she does and what she says to us is terrible, more lacerating, more wounding, more damning than any words that came from Hockan?
He was shaking his head, biting into his lower lip, fighting the sheer misery of the anticipation, when he realized that another figure was standing directly opposite, on the other side of the fire, quite visible above the leaping flames, gazing at him.
“Felix,” he said, and Felix looked up and saw the figure as well.
A low moan came from Felix’s lips. “Marchent.”
The figure grew suddenly brighter than it had been, and Reuben saw her fully realized face, fresh and supple as it had looked on the last day of her life. Her cheeks were rosy from the cold and her lips were faintly pink. Her gray eyes were sparkling in the firelight. She wore a simple gray garment with a hood, and beneath the hood, he saw her short blond hair framing her oval face.
She was not four feet away from them.
The only sharp sound came from the lively fire, and beyond a soft series of sighs came from the great forest.
Then came the sound of Marchent’s voice for the first time since the night of her death.
“How can you think that I am unhappy that you are here together?” she asked. Ah, that voice, that voice which Reuben had never forgotten, so crisp, so distinct, so gentle. “Reuben, this house, this land, I wanted so for you to have it; and Felix, I wanted so for you to be conscious and alive and well, and beyond the reach of anyone who could ever harm you. And you two, whom I’ve loved with all my soul, you are now friends, you are now kindred, you are now together.”
“My darling, my blessed darling,” said Felix in the most broken and bruised voice. “I love you so much. I always did.”
Reuben was shaking violently. The tears spilled down his face. Clumsily he wiped at them with his scarf, but truly he didn’t care about them. He kept his eyes focused on her, as her voice came again with the same distinct and muted power.
“I know this, Felix,” she said. She was smiling. “I always knew. Do you think that, living or dead, I’ve ever laid blame on you for anything? Your friend, Hockan, and he is your friend, enlists me in a cause for which I have no sympathy.”
Her face was absolutely warm and expressive as she spoke, her voice as lyrical and natural as it had been that last day.
“Now, please, both of you listen to me. I don’t know how much longer I have to say these things to you. When the invitation comes again, I must accept it. Your tears hold me here now, and I must set you free, that I too might be free.”
She gestured naturally with her hands as she spoke, and it seemed she moved closer to the fire, impervious to its heat.
“Felix, it was not your secret power that darkened my life,” she said tenderly. “It was the unspeakable treachery of my loveless parents. I died at the hands of those who were diseased and blind. You were the sunshine of my life in the garden you planted here for your descendants. And in my darkest hour, when all the vibrant world defied my reach, it was you, Felix, who sent the gentle spirits of the forest to bring me light and understanding.”
Felix wept softly, soundlessly. He wanted to speak, Reuben could see that, but Marchent’s eyes had shifted to Reuben.
“Reuben, your loving face has been my lamp,” she said. It was the same manner she’d taken with him on the fatal day, naturally kind and almost tender. “Let me be your lamp now. I see your innocence abused again—not by your old family—but this time by one who speaks with bitterness and feigned authority. Look well at the dark intelligence he offers you. He would cut you off from those you love and those who love you in return—from the very school in which all souls imbibe the greatest wisdom.” She lowered her voice, underscoring her outrage with understatement. “How dare a living soul consign you to the ranks of the damned, or devise for you a bleak and penitential path of fetters and circumscription? You are what you are, not what others would have you be. And who does not struggle with life and death? Who does not face the chaos of the living breathing world as you and Felix do? Reuben, resist the curse that claims the power of Scripture. Resist my words, Reuben, if they offend the deepest longings of your honest spirit.”
She paused but only to include both of them now as she continued.
“Felix, you left this house and land to me. I gifted it in your memory to Reuben. And now I leave you both, bound by ties as strong as any under heaven. The lamps burn bright again at Nideck Point. Your future stretches to infinity. Remember me. And forgive me. Forgive me for what I didn’t know, and didn’t do, and failed to see. I will remember you wherever I go, as long as memory itself survives in me.”
She smiled. There was the tiniest trace of apprehension, of fear in her face and her voice. “This is farewell, my darlings. I know that I go on, but I don’t know to what, or where, or if I will ever see you again. But I see you now, vital and precious, and filled with an undeniable power. And I love you. Pray for me.”
She went still. She became the picture of herself, eyes looking forward, lips softly closed, her expression one of faint wonder.
Then her face began to waver, to fade. And soon all that was left of her was the outline of her figure drawn on the darkness. Finally that too vanished.
“Good-bye, my darling,” whispered Felix. “Good-bye, my precious girl.”
Reuben was crying uncontrollably.
The wind was soughing in the dark invisible trees that towered all around the clearing.
Felix wiped his tears with his scarf and then put his arms around Reuben, and steadied him.
“She’s gone now, Reuben, gone home,” said Felix. “Don’t you see? She has set us free, just as she said she wanted to do.” He was smiling through his own tears. “I know she’ll find the light; her heart’s too pure, her courage too strong, for anything else.”
Reuben nodded, but all he could feel for the moment was grief, grief that she was gone, grief that he’d never hear her voice again, and only slowly did he come to realize that a great consolation was being given to him.
When he turned and looked again into Felix’s eyes, he felt a deep calm, a trust that somehow the world was the good place he’d always believed it to be.
“Come,” said Felix, hugging him close, and then letting him go, his eyes filled now with the old vigor and light. “They must all be waiting for us, and they must be so afraid. Let’s go to them.”
“It’s all perfectly all right again,” said Reuben.
“Yes, dear boy, it is,” said Felix. “And we will disappoint her terribly if we don’t realize it.”
Slowly they turned and made their way back across the field of ash and cinders, to the narrow passage between the boulders, and began the long walk to the house in easy silence.
25
PASTOR GEORGE CAME IN the afternoon. She’d called Reuben the night before and asked to see him privately. And he could not refuse.
They met in the library. She was dressed prettily again, as she had been for the Christmas party, this time in a red pantsuit with a white silk scarf wound around her neck. Her short gray hair was nicely curled, and she wore a bit of powder and lipstick, as if this was an important visit for her.
Reuben invited her to take the wing chair by the fire. He sat on the Chesterfield sofa. The coffee and pound cake was already set out, and he poured for her.
She seemed quite calm and pleasant and as soon as he asked about Susie, she explained that Susie was
