Snowfire

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  “Yes,” I said, “I can see how that would be. Now we must try to get rid of those dreams. They only come because you’re afraid of something that isn’t true. Tell me, dear—the other day when I first met you, you were sitting in your mother’s wheelchair. Why? Why did you get into that chair?”

  “I wanted to see if I could tell whether it really happened the way I was afraid. I thought if I sat in that chair—and then my father started shouting at me—and—and—”

  Her words trailed off and I held her and crooned over her, trying to soothe and calm and reassure.

  “Tomorrow you and I will prove that it couldn’t have happened that way, Adria. Tomorrow you’ll show me your mother’s room and we’ll try something out. But now you can forget everything and go to sleep. It’s going to be all right. I promise you.”

  Slowly the tension went out of her. She relaxed with her head on my shoulder and went sound asleep. I lay awake, listening to her quiet breathing, thinking about what I must do. If I removed Adria from all suspicion, I left Stuart in a more dangerous position than ever. But this was what I had to do. Adria mustn’t be sacrificed. Once she was safe and free of her dreams, I could give my attention to discovering which one of them had really pushed that chair. Emory? Clay? Shan? Even Julian? No—not Julian. And probably not Shan or Clay. But very possibly Emory. I already knew there were dark things moving in him, dark threats he would not hesitate to put into execution. And Julian was taking his word against mine. But there must be a way to find the truth. There had to be.

  I fell asleep at last, only to be awakened by a soft yellow glow as the electric lights came on in my room, and I heard the low reassuring rumble of the furnace. I released Adria from arms that were growing numb, and she turned over sleepily and did not waken. I slipped out of bed in the sharp cold to switch off the lights. Then I put on my robe and went to the window that looked out over the kitchen roof below. The wind had died down and over the snow on my window sill I could see a calm white night. The storm had blown itself out. Drifts were piled high against the house and the familiar world had disappeared. Tomorrow we would have to dig ourselves out. At the moment we were snowed in and the house seemed all the more quiet for being encased in high-piled drifts.

  I think Adria and I might both have slept late in the morning, but we were awakened by Shan’s outcry. She had found Adria missing from her room and was running down the corridor calling her name. Adria stirred beside me and nuzzled her head into my pillow as she tried to shut out the sound.

  I patted her shoulder. “Sleep if you can. I’ll tell Shan where you are.”

  She grunted sleepily as I flung on my robe and went into the hall. Shan was white with alarm. She rushed up and down with her fair hair flying and her filmy nightgown floating around her as she went to one door after another, rapping and calling.

  “It’s all right,” I told her. “Adria’s with me. She had a bad dream in the night and I let her come into my bed.”

  Julian’s sister turned from his door and came toward me swiftly, a faint pinkness staining her pale cheeks. “Let me see her! Let me see her!”

  I stood in the frame of my doorway. “Can’t we let her sleep? She’s had a disturbed night.”

  But I couldn’t bar her way, and she swept past me into the room and flung herself upon Adria. “Dearest! Dearest! Why didn’t you come to my room? You know you’d have been safe from bad dreams with me.”

  A strange thing happened as I watched her. Suddenly I was back more than a dozen years to a time when Stuart had gone out of his room in the middle of the night, and when I’d found him on the moonlit lawn I’d smothered him with alarmed affection as Shan was doing now with Adria. Once I’d been as foolish as she. And then Margot McCabe had died, and somehow I was growing up.

  Adria came awake and rolled over to look at Shan, bending above her, and at me, near the foot of the bed. Her black hair lay in tangles over the pillow, and her expression was ominous, wrathful.

  “Go away!” she told Shan. “I don’t like you very much and I want you to go away.”

  Shan began to tremble. She looked so shocked that I felt sorry for her and annoyed with Adria. But the fray lay between them and I couldn’t interfere.

  “You don’t mean that, dearest,” Shan cried. “You know how much we love each other, and—”

  “I don’t love you,” Adria said stubbornly. “You think I pushed my mother’s chair. But—she doesn’t.” She nodded her dark head toward me.

  There was anguish in Shan’s eyes. She had shut all other loves out of her life to give herself to this child, and the child was repudiating her. She turned away in desperate hurt and moved toward the door. But before she went out of the room she turned her head toward me and her look chilled. There was something frightening about it—not indignation, not a human despising of me, but a sort of malevolence that was terrifying. I had two enemies now—Shan and Emory.

  But she went out of the room and I sat on the bed beside Adria. “There are things we don’t do,” I told her coolly. “We don’t behave cruelly toward people who love us.”

  She glowered at me with her blue eyes intense with some dark emotion, the rest of her face hidden by the covers. “Maybe I don’t like you, either.”

  So the battle was to be waged all over again, and the closeness of the night was gone.

  “I’m sorry if you don’t like me,” I said. “But we’ve things to do today anyway, so you’d better get up and get dressed. Do you want the bathroom first, or shall I take it?”

  She stared at me as though I baffled her. Unlike Shan I didn’t dissolve into a hurt mass of suffering which would encourage her to hurt me more.

  “What things?” she demanded, finding that she could not stare me down.

  “We’ll talk about that when we’ve had breakfast. The storm’s over and it looks as though it will be a good day. So do get started.”

  She lay quiet for a moment longer, perhaps still testing her strength against mine. I knew her tragic need of love and reassurance, and I longed to put my arms about her and hold her as I’d held her in the night. But this was the wrong time. She was her own person, and I had to respect that and give her a chance to choose her own course. So I stood quietly waiting for her to move or answer me.

  Abruptly she flung off the covers and at the same moment flung a challenge at me. “I’ll race you to the bathroom.”

  I let her go, laughing and relieved. Later, when we were both bathed and dressed, she let me comb the tangles from her long, fine hair and brush it to a dark sheen. By the time we went downstairs we had the house to ourselves, except for the maid who served us breakfast, and the cook out in the kitchen. Even Shan had left word that she was going out in the woods to look at the storm damage. I’d discovered that some hand shoveling had been done close around the house, and now both Julian and Emory were out in jeep and tractor, plowing snow from the driveway and about the house, as Clay was undoubtedly plowing it from around the lodge. There was a roar of machinery outdoors.

  Adria seemed more subdued now and a little uncertain with me. I suspected that she had not forgotten what I’d told her last night about our plans for the day, and that this was troubling her. She picked at her breakfast, drank a little milk, and pushed back her chair, though she didn’t rise immediately.

  “I think I’ll go outside now. Sometimes Daddy lets me ride with him on the jeep pickup when he’s plowing.”

  That wasn’t my plan. For once we had the house empty, and I didn’t want to lose this opportunity. I had to try what I planned—I had to give it a chance, even though the thought of this trial frightened me.

  “You haven’t forgotten that you’re going to show me your mother’s room this morning, have you?”

  The blue eyes were wide. “Her room is locked.”

  “But you told me you knew where the extra key was.”

  “I—I’ve forgotten.”

  “That isn’t true,” I said.

  She wriggled
in her chair. “My father says I’m never to go in that room without him. And Shan says I’m never to go there at all.”

  I knew all these things and they concerned me. Yet still I had to go ahead.

  “This time I’ll answer to your father and Shan. It’s my responsibility. You don’t want to spend the rest of your life having nightmares, do you? This may be a way to end them. Let’s go and find out.”

  She sensed that I wouldn’t give in, and she slid from her chair and ran out of the room. I followed her, not knowing whether I had won or lost. But she waited for me in the entry hall. I took two outdoor jackets from the clothes rack and handed the smaller one to Adria.

  “Let’s put these on. It may be cold in Margot’s room.”

  She obeyed me as if hypnotized, and I put on the other jacket myself.

  “Now you can get the key,” I said.

  For a moment her face twisted, and I thought she might burst into tears. My heart misgave me and for an instant I was ready to retreat. I couldn’t force her in the face of tears. Then she shook off the spasm and ran into the library to fumble in a drawer of her father’s desk. When she turned toward me, she held up a key. I took it without comment and slipped it into the lock of the door between the library and Margot’s room. I was not feeling as calmly self-possessed as I pretended. Yet I had to take the risk.

  The key turned easily in the lock and I pushed open the door. Adria stood close beside me. I felt her trembling, and put an arm about her shoulders.

  “There’s nothing here to frighten you,” I said gently, though I could feel a tightening at the back of my neck.

  The room had scarcely been touched since Margot herself had occupied it on her last day alive. The door to the drawing room was closed and I knew it was now kept locked. The bolt was thrown shut on the balcony door. Margot’s wheelchair stood in the center of the room, and Cinnabar lay asleep on its cushion.

  Adria gave a small scream and clung to me. For a moment I was ready to flee from the room with her. Then I spoke to her calmly.

  “I wonder why Shan keeps letting the cat in here,” I said. “Will you put him out, Adria? We’ll need to use that chair.”

  My matter-of-fact tone seemed to reassure her sufficiently so that she stood her ground, but she would not touch the cat.

  “No—I won’t put her out. She has a right to be here. She has a right to see whatever you’re going to do.”

  It was a point I didn’t care to argue, but I wanted the cat to go. I had never touched Cinnabar before, but I went to the wheelchair and reached for him. He sprang up, spitting at me, and jumped to the floor. But he did not retreat from the room, though the library door was open. He simply settled himself on the carpet and watched us with a fixed yellow gaze.

  I stood for a moment looking about the room, trying to quiet my nerves. It was strikingly decorated, with walls of pale silver gray, a darker gray carpet, and accents of flame color in patterned curtains, in the bedspread and even in paintings on the walls. Nowhere were there any skiing scenes or anything which suggested snow and winter. Except at the windows, where real snow had piled itself halfway up, contrasting with flamboyant scenes of tropical flowers and brilliant birds. It was a beautiful and dramatic room, yet it was somehow empty. Not merely empty because the woman who had lived here was gone, but empty of the things that matter in a room. It might have been a lovely picture out of a magazine. There were no books, no evidence of the everyday matters with which a woman tied to a wheelchair might have occupied herself. It was as though she must have sat here with no interest in life. No interest except for the brooding in her own mind, except for the planning of the harm she meant to do. Eerily, a presence seemed to enter me—a consciousness of that vengeful resentment which had turned solely toward one man—Julian McCabe. It was as if the very air of this room had once pulsed with angry emotion, so that traces of it were still here to disturb the atmosphere. For the first time I sensed along my own nerves and with my own awareness what torment Julian must have suffered. There were forces abroad I might not be able to combat.

  With an effort I flung off these imaginings and gave myself to the single purpose of our being here.

  I went first to the balcony door and shot back the bolt. The door opened inward, so that snow fell across the sill and cold air swept in. I was glad I wore a jacket. Outside, the balcony was deep in drifts that flashed rainbow lights in the sun, and the ramp was fully buried. I wheeled the chair to the balcony door and called to Adria.

  “Will you show me how to set the brakes?”

  She came reluctantly and showed me the rubber-handled brake levers above each wheel. When she had set them both, I tried the chair to make sure it would not move, and then seated myself in it as calmly as I could. Adria stared with wide-eyed fascination in which there was a hint of terror. A terror that had to be quenched.

  “You’ll need to remember everything about that day,” I told her, keeping my tone matter-of-fact. “We’re doing this to stop those dreams. How do you know the brakes are on?”

  She was intently serious now and less frightened. “I just put them on!”

  “And how do you know they were on that day?”

  She considered this for a moment before her face brightened. “I put them both on that day too. I remember doing it. One of them was stuck and worked hard.”

  “Why didn’t your mother put them on herself?”

  “She liked me to do things for her,” she answered with confidence, and then went on wisely, “and it made my father feel worse if there were lots of things she couldn’t do.”

  “But when the chair was found later, the brakes weren’t on. So how can you be sure you put them on?”

  Her stubbornness grew from assurance. “I’m positive. We talked about the sticking brake, and she tried the chair to make sure. They were both on.”

  “All right. We know both brakes are on now, and I’m sitting in the same wheelchair. So go ahead and push me. Push the chair as hard as you can, Adria.”

  She shrank back. “No—no, I can’t!”

  Cinnabar yowled at her tone, not helping me at all.

  “Of course you can. Nothing will happen because the brakes are on. Push the chair and see.”

  She put her hands on the two grips at the back and then winced away. “No—you’ll go down the ramp, and you’ll be killed like Margot was killed!”

  “Adria dear, I won’t,” I said. “You can see all the snow out there. I couldn’t possibly go down the ramp. Look!”

  I released both brakes and wheeled myself at what speed I could manage across the sill into banked snow. The wheels came to an immediate halt.

  “You see? Even if you pushed me a lot harder so that I was really rolling and tipped out into the snow, I couldn’t hurt myself. So now I’m putting the brakes back on. You’re watching, aren’t you? Push the chair, Adria, push it as hard as you can.”

  This time she obeyed and put all her will and strength into trying to shove the wheelchair. It skidded an inch or two on the carpet, never going over the sill. Adria came around to the front of the chair where she could look into my face, and I saw hope rising in her eyes.

  “So even if I did push her she couldn’t have been hurt?”

  “Of course she couldn’t.”

  “What if I took off the brakes and then pushed her? What if that’s what I did?”

  “In that case, why would you remember putting them on, but not remember taking them off?”

  The cry of shock that reached us from the library door was shrill with near hysteria. Shan came rushing into the room, still wearing her outdoor clothes. She snatched Adria away from the chair, but all her fury was turned upon me.

  “Oh, how wicked you are, how dreadfully wicked!” She let Adria go and rushed past me, plowing through the balcony snow. “Julian! Julian!” she called.

  I could hear the sound of Julian’s snowplow but he couldn’t hear Shan over the noise, so she went floundering wildly down the ramp, hip d
eep in snow, stumbling out into the yard, waving her arms frantically at Julian. He must have seen her, for the sound of the motor was shut off, and a moment later he came stamping up the ramp and into the room.

  I sat in Margot’s chair, and Adria came again to stand beside me, though now tears were streaming down her face and she was trembling within the circle of my arm. Julian had turned quite pale.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded of me. “Haven’t I given orders to keep Adria out of this room?”

  Shan had floundered up the ramp after him and they were both shedding snow all over the gray carpet. I had to shout to make myself heard over Julian’s voice and Shan’s fluttering cries.

  “Be still!” I cried. “Do keep quiet for a moment—both of you!”

  For once I took Julian by such surprise that he stopped his own shouting and stared. Shan gave a last small squeal and fell into a chair. At once Cinnabar leaped into her lap, his ears back and his tail twitching. I was shaking by this time, but I held onto Adria. And when I spoke it was to Adria alone.

  “We’re going to show them, darling. Show them how you put the brakes on for your mother that day. Go ahead, Adria—show your father.”

  She cast a single terrified look at Julian, and then reached for the brake levers on the chair.

  “That’s fine,” I said. I tried the wheels and the chair would not roll. “Now you’re going to push the chair just the way you did that day when you and your mother were angry with each other. Of course the only reason you pushed the chair was because you knew the brakes were on and you couldn’t really hurt her. You just wanted to show her you were angry. Isn’t that right? Now go ahead and push.”

  She went behind my chair and I could feel the thrust of her hands, feel the chair quiver and slide a tiny bit. That was all. Julian stood very still. Shan was whimpering.

  “Did you see the chair move when you pushed it that day?” I asked Adria.