McKillip, Patricia A - Winter Rose

by Winter Rose(Lit)

  Leta fell silent then, gazing into her tea. The expres­sion on her face, I guessed, was much as it had been that night so long ago. "What did you see?" I asked eagerly.

  She drew breath, blinking, astonished still. "Two rooms," she said. "One had a hanging drawn aside across its entry. We could see a bedpost in the shadows. In the bigger room we saw a single candle, and Tearle's father sitting next to it, just staring at the empty hearth. The door to the hallway beyond that room was boarded shut. That's all they lived in. Those two rooms. The rest of the hall was closed off. He must have put the housekeeper in the stable ... Rois, you've spilled your tea."

  The cup had overturned; tea flowed onto the saucer and into my lap. I stood up, brushing myself, feeling moth wings, moth feet, fluttering and prickling all over my skin. "Dear," Leta said sleepily.

  "It's all right. I'm used to being wet." I took her cup, too, before it slid out of her hand. She looked at me out of round, perplexed eyes.

  "So we never saw a chandelier, and Marin ran away to marry a shipowner. Don't you think that was strange, Rois? That great beautiful house, and all they ever saw were those two rooms. Don't you think that was strange?" She lay back, dropped her hand over her eyes. "That poor, poor boy," I heard her whisper before I left.

  Eight

  And so I went to Lynn Hall at night.

  I could not rest, I could barely eat, thinking of Corbet living like his grandfather's ghost in those two rooms. Did he know? I wondered, then: How could he not know? Nothing in those coldly beautiful rooms spoke of past by daylight. Were they haunted only at night? I paced, waiting for night. Our father, watching me circle chairs and weave between rooms, lift a curtain to check the color of the dusk, turn away and lift another, asked bluntly, with some humor, and more hope.

  "Are you watching for spring to come? Or Corbet Lynn?"

  I turned to stare at him. Laurel said quickly, shaking a cloth over the table for supper, "Father, really. Do you churn your butter with your feet, too? She's always this way in autumn. Leave her alone." She laid napkins. "Corbet is coming tomorrow, not tonight."

  I stared at her then. "How do you know?" "I saw him," she said calmly.

  "When?"

  "In the village. You were with Leta Gett. He asked me if he could come tomorrow. How is Leta?"

  I twitched at a curtain, looked for chimney smoke above the wood. The sky had turned darker than smoke; there were no stars. It had not yet begun to rain again. "She's frail," I said. "But still gossiping."

  "That's as good as breathing," our father said heart­ily. He hated to hear of illnesses, weaknesses among us. Perrin tapped on the door then, and came in, smelling of wood smoke and sweet, rain-soaked air.

  He kissed Laurel, and began talking about a cow that had stopped eating. I watched the sky darken, until it was time for supper, and then I listened to the sounds of eating around me -spoons scraping bowls, Laurel's soft swallows, Perrin's noisy chewing, our father clearing his throat after every bite, Beda's heavy tread and breathing and I wondered how I would ever get through the winter.

  It was better, later, when we sat around the fire, and our father's snoring mingled with the flute. Perrin played and spoke intermittently. Both the music and his voice were gentle. He did not speak of cows, but of the light in Laurel's hair, and of their childhood memories: how he had first kissed her among the blackberries, how they had first quarrelled in the apple orchard, throwing rotting ap­ples at each other. My eyes dropped; his voice, Laurel's soft laugh, wove in and out of the fire's rustling; now and then the flute sang a little, a distant sound, as if someone played it in another room, another time.

  I felt a touch on my shoulder and opened my eyes. Perrin had gone, our father had gone, the fire had dwin­dled into a glowing shimmer on the hearth.

  "Go to bed, Rois," Laurel said. "You're dreaming." I nodded. But I was where I wanted to be now: in the dead of night, and I sat there listening until 1 heard everyone's sleeping breaths. Then, barefoot, I crept out­side, and made my way by lantern light to Lynn Hall.

  I kept the lantern covered under my cloak until I reached the wood. Then I loosed a thin light to show me what bramble lay under my next step, what tree loomed in my path. The sky was very dark, without stars or even an edge of silver cloud to show where the moon hid. The hall took me by surprise, a wall of stone rising out of the black in front of me. The place was soundless; I saw nothing, I heard nothing. I stepped through a crumbling doorway into a room with no ceil­ing but the sky. I could feel the moss and broken flag­stone under my feet. I let my cloak fall open. Light circled me, revealed jagged walls, window panes of sky. I moved from room to room, smelling the fresh wet beams that so far held up only air. I walked down the length of the hall until I stood at the doorway that Leta Gett had seen. It still sealed the two rooms behind it from the rest of the house, but the wood was newly planed and solid, a wall to keep out winter.

  I could go no farther. Yet I stood there, my lantern raised, listening for voices behind the door, feeling the empty dark at my back, seeing nothing but wood, hearing nothing, as if I were in some timeless pause between a breath taken, a breath loosed.

  I lifted my hand and knocked.

  The door did not so much open as dissolve in front of me. The rooms themselves -walls, ceilings, furniture - seemed as insubstantial as smoke behind Corbet, who stood looking at me, his eyes as expressionless as the moonless sky.

  He held out a hand. "You left something of yours here. You came back to look for it." It lay in his palm: a drop of blood, bright and gleaming like a jewel. As I stared, his fingers closed over it. "It's mine, now."

  I felt a sharp pang, as if his hand had closed around my heart. "Corbet," I breathed. "What are you? Are you your father's ghost?"

  "No." Expression touched his eyes; I saw him shud­der. "No. Come in."

  "No. "

  "You will," he told me. "You will follow me. You keep trying to find your way past the world. You still see your reflection in water, you still feel the wind rushing past you, leaving you behind. You want to dissolve into light, ride the wild winds. I saw you, that night. You wanted to flow like moonlight out of your own body. You will follow me."

  "What happened?" I asked, holding fast to sorrow like a blade in my hands. "What happened in those two rooms?"

  "Human things." He shook his head. "It does not matter. "

  "It matters. You wear your grandfather's face. Are you your grandfather's ghost?"

  He made a sound; I saw his face streaked suddenly with fingers of red, as if he had been struck. "No." He lifted a hand, gripped the misty stone. "Come in and I will tell you."

  "No."

  "It's what you came for," he reminded me. "I know."

  "You came for truth, but you are too afraid to touch

  it. „ "I am afraid of you," I whispered.

  "Don't be," he said. But his cold eyes said: You should be.

  I took a step backward; he reached out, caught my shoulder. "Rois," he said. "Don't leave me here. Don't leave me. Don't."

  "Rois."

  I struggled to open my eyes, feeling black leaves slid­ing over them, and over my face, my body, as if I pushed through some dark wood before I could wake. Laurel stood over me, one hand on my shoulder, a candle in the other. Only a couple of smoldering flakes remained of the fire.

  "Rois," Laurel said sleepily. "Go to bed. You'll be stiff as a chair by morning."

  I stood up unsteadily, bewildered, wondering if this were just another dream. Don't, he had said. Rois. I fol­lowed Laurel's candle; a leaf still wet from the wood glowed briefly on the floor in its light, like a footprint from another world.

  When I first saw him the next evening, there was nothing in his eyes that remembered a dream of an open door between us.

  He had ridden through rain, the interminable season between gold leaves and snow. He spoke of the weather, of a stable for his horse that he wanted Crispin's help to build on the clear days left to us. He had brought wine from
the inn; as Beda brought us glasses, he counted them and raised a brow.

  "Where is Perrin?"

  "In his barn with a sick cow," Laurel said. His eyes questioned her, and she added, "He may come later." She met his eyes a moment longer, then pulled out a chair noisily from the table. "Sit down."

  Beda had made a chicken pie, fragrant with tarragon and so heavy that only our father did justice to it, plowing a broad furrow through it that would set him snoring in his chair by the hearth. I couldn't eat. I was too aware of the movements of Corbet's hands, the tones in his voice, the candlelight sliding along the folds of his loose shirt, touching his skin. I listened for the voice I had heard in my dream: the voice that had said my name.

  "Rois," he said, and I started. He was smiling, but I could see no smile in his eyes, only the reflection of fire. "What? "

  "You're very quiet."

  "It's the season," Laurel explained. "She broods when she can't go roaming in the wood."

  "But But you were out a day or two ago," he said, and added easily, taking my breath away, "You left something in my house."

  "You went visiting?" Laurel said. "You didn't tell me."

  "I went for a walk." I had to stop to clear my throat. I could not meet his eyes. "I stopped at the hall. You were not there."

  Blood, I thought. I left a jewel of blood where I cut myself on the reflection you left in your bright razor. "What did you leave there?" Laurel asked curiously. "A few mushrooms? Some late apples?"

  "Rainwater and mud," our father suggested, with a chuckle, pleased, I could tell, at where my heart had drifted. He poured more wine into my cup, heady and dark as old blood. I sipped it, then raised my eyes finally to meet Corbet's.

  "What did I leave there?" I asked him. My heart pounded badly, but the wine steadied my voice. "I brought nothing."

  He smiled again, shifting a little away from the light. "Then I won't tell you," he said. "And perhaps you'll visit me again. I need company. And you must come with her," he added to Laurel. "You haven't seen what I've done with the house."

  She laughed, hesitating, I could see; our father reached for his pipe. "Of course they'll go," he said. "Lau­rel has been making enough lace to trim a barn; she needs light before the winter. She's my practical daughter," he added fondly. "I forget how she works in this house to keep it tidy and comfortable: the chairs always where you expect them, and the cushions never frayed, the carpets straight - I don't know what I'll do without her, when Perrin takes her away from here." He glanced at me, teasing, but I didn't know what he would do, either; I never straightened a carpet.

  "I suppose," I said doubtfully, "you could hire a maid. Or get married again."

  "I suppose," he retorted, "you couldn't just learn to dust."

  "There's Perrin's sister," Laurel suggested. "Or Beda."

  "Me," Beda said, snorting as she removed what our father had left of the pie. "Marry in order to keep house for someone? Who's to pay me for that? Now look at your plates - I didn't bake this to feed to the pigs."

  "I'll finish later," Laurel said dutifully. "With Perrin."

  We had all shaped a few designs on our plates, even Corbet, who had been working. Beda grumbled off with the remains; we took our wine to the fire and our father lit his pipe.

  "This is pleasant," he sighed, after a puff or two. And after another puff or two: "But I miss Perrin on the flute." "I can play," Corbet said. "My mother taught me." He reached for it, despite Laurel's protests.

  "No, you must answer questions; you can't talk with your mouth full of music."

  "Let me play a little," he said, raising the silver to his lips. "And then I will answer every question."

  He played a little. None of us moved, not even my father to lift his pipe. It was a song out of a forgotten kingdom, out of the deep, secret heart of the wood. It burned wild and sweet in my throat, in the back of my eyes. It lured and beckoned; it gave us glimpses of the land beyond the falling leaves, within the well. He blurred into tears and fire, a face of fire and shadow, a gleaming stroke of silver. I wanted to find that place where such music grew as freely as the roses grew here, the place where the winds began, the place the full moon saw within the wood.

  Then I heard his voice within the dream: Don't leave me here. Don't leave me. Don't.

  He stopped as abruptly as he had begun. His eyes sought Laurel; she stared at him, her face flushed, her eyes wide, startled, as if she had just seen him for the first time, stepping out of light.

  I felt the fear and wild grief flood through me. I would never see that kingdom; that song was not for me. As if he sensed my thoughts, his eyes flicked to me. Don't, he said. Rois.

  He lowered the flute. "That's the only song I know." Our father moved finally, tapping his pipe, which had gone out. He seemed bemused, as if he had heard something, or seen something, but did not know what to call it, and was not certain that he liked it. "It takes you," he said, but did not say where.

  "My mother taught it to me," Corbet said. He put the flute back on the shelf above his head.

  "It was beautiful," Laurel whispered. "I've never heard anything so beautiful." She blinked, stirring out of her spellbound thoughts. She appealed to me. "Have you, Rois?"

  I shook my head, mute, wishing desperately for Perrin. We needed Perrin's boots and clear thoughts and the big, easy lines of his body between Laurel and Corbet.

  And, as if I had wished him into being, there he was, coming into the room, shedding rain everywhere as he swung off his cloak.

  "Cow's fine," he said, smiling. His eyes went to Lau­rel; his smile deepened a little. "You look awry-all bright and unsteady, like a candle in a breeze. Have you been playing your game of questions with Corbet?"

  "We've just been sitting," she said. There was a little silence; none of us mentioned Corbet's playing. She rose abruptly. "Beda has supper for you in the kitchen." "Good. I'm hollow."

  Corbet stood up. "I'll bid you good night, then." "No, stay," Perrin said. "We'll join you soon." "There's brandy," our father offered. Corbet shook his head.

  "I've been chopping wood," he said to Perrin, and Perrin grunted.

  "You could use an early night." He slipped his arm around Laurel as she passed him; she turned abruptly in his hold to face Corbet.

  "Next time," she said, "I will have questions for you. You won't get away so easily." She did not smile; neither did he. He gave her a little nod. Her eyes loosed him; he turned to get his cloak.

  "Next time," he said, promising nothing, and left.

  Nine

  I went to the village to talk to Crispin's grandfather. He was a brawny old man who still liked to pound a horseshoe now and then. He spent one night a week at the tavern, drinking with Crispin's father, until, red-faced and shouting, they would stumble home, waking neigh­bors and dogs, and swearing bitterly that they could not abide one more moment under the same roof with each other. In the morning, Crispin's grandfather would wake tremulous and penitent, and Crispin's father would wake oblivious of everything that had been said, and Crispin's mother would be banging pots in the kitchen, furious with them both.

  So gossip told it, but this was not one of Halov's penitent days. I found him in the barn, whistling cheer­fully as he pitched the mire out of the cow stalls. He peered at me with surprise, his eyes misted with the bloom of age.

  "Rois?" He heaved dung out the door. "Are you looking for Salish?"

  Salish was Crispin's younger brother, who had, un­like Crispin, inherited his grandfather's energy. I sup­posed Halov had become used to young women wandering around the place looking for Salish.

  "I'm looking for you," I said.

  Perplexed, he leaned on the pitchfork a moment. "Ah?" he said vaguely. I glanced around for some place to sit, and hoisted myself onto the top rail of a stall. He might, I thought, be more inclined to ramble if he kept working. I was silent until, bemused, he shrugged himself off his pitchfork and made a few tentative swirls in the straw.

  Then I said, "
It's about Corbet Lynn. You knew his father."

  His brow wrinkled. He sent a forkful of straw out the barn door with a sudden, energetic thrust. "And his grandfather. That buzzard. Crazy as a bed quilt."

  "Is that why Tearle Lynn murdered his father?" I asked, groping. "Because he was crazy?"

  He stopped to rub his eyebrow with a thumbnail, as he looked back at the past. Then he rumbled and spat with some emphasis. "From where we all stood, if he hadn't, his father would likely have murdered him." He got to work again. "The boy was wild, like a dog goes wild, with ill-use, out of desperation. Nial Lynn scared us all. He was cold as iron in an icehouse. When he lashed out, you never saw it coming. That's how he was with Tearle. He'd walk beside him with no expression on his face, barely looking at him, and the next thing you'd know, the boy was in the dirt with a bloody mouth, and no one seeing it could swear Nial had laid a hand on him."

  Corbet, I thought, chilled, then remembered: It was his father Halov spoke of, not him. There was no wild­ness, no despair in his eyes. "Except," I whispered, "when I dream about you." Halov, moving to the next stall, did not hear. My hands gripped the railing tightly; my heart­beat seemed strong enough to shake me loose.

  Don't leave me here, he had said in my dream. Don't Leave me. Don't.

  "Everyone seems to remember a different curse," I said to Halov's back. "How would anyone have heard the curses?"

  As if, I thought, I knew where "here" was, and how I could travel there to free him.

  Halov seemed not to hear me; he didn't answer. But his pitching slowed a little, then slowly stopped. He leaned on his fork, gazing out the open doors of the barn, across the fields, as if he too searched for a frail thread of smoke rising into the grey sky from within the trees. " 'May yours do to you what you have done to me,' " he said.

  "Did you see Tearle kill his father?"

  "It was dead winter when he died," he said softly to the distant wood. "I was huddled by the hearth in a dozen quilts, trying to sweat a fever out of me. The snow was piled halfway to the eaves. I would have had to shovel my way to Lynn Hall, to have seen anything."