Snowfire

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  For the rest of the afternoon I saw nothing more of Julian. Nor was Shan about. Adria and I worked beside the fire until it was nearly time for me to go to the lodge. This afternoon I would take my own car and have it there to drive back after dark. That way I would take no chances. I wanted to see Clay again and find out what he thought of what had happened to me in the storm. In fact, there was a sudden eagerness in me to talk to Clay. He had been more open with me than anyone else, though he made me angry at times.

  But first there was something else I would do. There was still Shan’s mysterious sunset to be looked into, and I didn’t mean to let her down. For some reason she had wanted me to go to the tower gallery, and I wouldn’t disappoint her.

  I put on my after-ski clothes and shaggy boots, and went up the tower stairs. The house was very still. Julian had gone out again—to see Emory?—and he’d not yet returned, and Adria was still out behind the house, busy with the snowman she was building. Shan I had not seen since lunchtime. I felt a little amused as I climbed the stairs, already suspecting what I might find in the tower. But there were a few surprises.

  For one thing, the door to the top room was bolted on the stair side, and I paused to puzzle over this. It was not a new bolt, for the brass was dull, and I wondered why anyone would have had a bolt set upon a cul-de-sac like the tower. What could anyone want to shut in up there? Unless, I though whimsically, it was ghosts. With Shan, that was the likely answer.

  However, I didn’t hesitate to slide back the bolt and pull the door open. The sight that awaited me was partly what I expected. Cinnabar was there, of course, and he did not look pleased about having been shut into the tower. But there was a difference in him this time. Someone had taken the trouble to wind a silver chain several times about his neck, so that a medallion hung beneath his chin. It was Margot’s Ullr, missing from my drawer.

  What it meant I wasn’t sure, but I knew this was not one of Adria’s pranks. If Shan had taken the medallion, it might very well mean that my secret would now be exposed to Julian—after this small delay while she played a trick upon me with the great orange cat.

  I was sharply aware of the cold air of the tower. Though all the windows were closed, it was like being outdoors. I had not worn my coat, but I wouldn’t stay here long. First, though, I must give my attention to Cinnabar and the retrieving of the Ullr.

  The cat had edged away from me, across the circular floor of the gallery, and was watching me balefully from beneath one of the windows. I spoke to him quietly.

  “It’s about time we came to terms, Cinnabar—you and I. We’ve been glaring at each other ever since I came to Graystones. I wonder if we could make friends? For one thing, I’d like my medallion back.”

  His ears pricked up at the sound of my voice, and the tip of his tail twitched with displeasure. I took another step into the tower, drawing the door shut behind me so he could not escape. He moved like a flash of light, streaking toward the door, but he was too late, and he skidded to a stop against the closed panel.

  “You see?” I said. “Unless you’re willing to make friends, how are you going to get out of here? That is, unless you really can walk through closed doors.”

  He settled himself before the door and set up a pained yowling. Nothing happened. I turned my back on him and went to look out one of the windows to see if there really was any prospect of a sunset. The sky was clear, and though a beginning pinkness could be seen over the tree-tops, there were no streaks of cloud to spread the reflection of color. I was not surprised. I’d suspected Shan of some secret purpose, and I was not yet alarmed.

  From this vantage point, I could look down upon the front driveway with its piled banks of snow, to the place where I’d left my car. Julian had dug it out for me earlier and I would have no trouble using it. But what I saw made me search hastily for the window latch. Emory Ault was down there beside my car, bending over a rear tire. I could not open the window. Apparently they had all been sealed shut, and I pounded on the glass and shouted at him. If he heard me he did not look up, and a few moments later he walked away around the end of the house, out of my sight.

  I had no wish now to stay and play games with Cinnabar. I distrusted Emory utterly, and I wanted to get downstairs and see what damage he might have perpetrated. Like Cinnabar, I streaked toward the tower door, and like the cat I was too late. The sliding of the bolt made only a slight click, and the footsteps that stole down the stairs were soft. But the evidence was clear. I had been locked into the tower.

  It couldn’t be serious, of course. I only needed to shout, and someone would come to let me out. I began to pound indignantly on the door, and to call out as loudly as I could. The uproar alarmed Cinnabar, and he sprang away across the tower, his fur bristling, his claws unsheathed.

  Again nothing happened. No one answered my outcry either from within the house or from outside. I remembered uneasily that Graystones was built of stone, and that the tower with its enclosed stairs was really outside the main stone wall. Solid wooden doors closed off every floor from the drafty stairs, and it was possible that the noise I was making could not penetrate. Up here I was on a level with the rooftop, and in the winter all the downstairs windows would be closed, so that sound could not carry through from outside.

  Once more I searched the driveway, but there was no one to be seen. If Adria was still with her snowman, she would be far away on the other side of this thick house. I tried banging on the windows again, but that helped no more than pounding on the door. The situation was thoroughly ridiculous, and of course not permanent, but the tower was cold, and likely to grow colder with the setting of the sun in the early winter dark. My sweater and after-ski pants weren’t adequate, though the reindeer boots helped warm my feet, at least.

  “What do we do now?” I asked Cinnabar.

  He regarded me with distaste, and as I marched about the tower flapping my arms to keep warm, he continued to retreat from me, not trusting me at all.

  It occurred to me that my one best hope was for someone to start up or downstairs and thus step into the tower. If that happened, I could surely make myself heard. I took up my post beside the door, with my ear pressed against the wood, listening for the slightest sound. The house had never seemed more silent. Now and then I pounded on the door—with no more results than before.

  Outdoors the faint winter pink in the sky was turning gray, and across the drive the hemlocks were thick and black with shadow. I was cold, cold, cold. I moved my arms and jogged around the tower, pausing now and then to listen at the door, continuously making as much noise as I could. Clay would be wondering by now what had happened to me, but he wouldn’t think it important enough to investigate.

  Once, for want of anything else to do, I tried to retrieve the medallion from Cinnabar. But I had convinced him that I was quite wild and he wouldn’t come near me. I had been able to make friends with ordinary cats easily enough in my life, but with this one I’d got off on a wrong foot from the very first. In the thickening dusk the medallion caught what light there was, so that Ullr’s face glinted in the gloom grinning at me. He was the god of skiing and helped not at all with someone locked in a Norman tower.

  When the end of imprisonment came, it happened suddenly. I heard steps on the stairs, the bolt was drawn back and the door flung open. Light from the lower tower flooded my prison, and I could see Julian and Shan and Adria on the stairs, looking at me curiously. All three wore outdoor clothes and had evidently just come in.

  “What happened?” Julian asked. “Adria said our house ghost was pounding down the door in the tower. How did you happen to be locked in up here?”

  “Ask Shan,” I said, and went shivering down the stairs past them.

  “There’s Cinnabar!” Adria cried. “She was locked into the tower too.”

  Even I turned to look at Cinnabar, remembering the medallion. The big cat stepped delicately, cautiously across the tower floor, having lost his trust in all humans, and was about to st
reak past us, when Adria caught him up in her arms.

  “Look!” she cried. “Look what Cinnabar is wearing!”

  I crossed my arms about my shivering body and looked only at Julian. He reached out to unwind the chain from about the cat’s neck. Then he held out the Ullr to me.

  “This is yours, I believe?”

  “Hers!” Shan was scornful. “Look at it carefully, Julian. You know who it belonged to. Look for the markings that diamond on the back has scratched out! Margot gave it to Stuart—and who would Stuart give it to but his sister?”

  He didn’t need to turn the medallion over. Perhaps he’d known the first time he saw the Ullr in my possession, but had refused to believe the truth. He was still holding it out to me, and I had to take it from him. I saw the dislike in his eyes—the disgust for my falsehoods, my masquerade. For the first time I could see it all through his viewpoint as I’d refused to do before. I would rather have him burst into anger and dismiss me furiously from the house than to look at me like that. Coldly, he went down the stairs and disappeared through the lower door.

  Adria understood none of this, and she looked from Shan to me, and back again, beginning to stammer her questions. Shan spoke to her sweetly.

  “I’m sorry to tell you this, Adria dear, but Linda is Stuart Parrish’s sister. The sister of the man who pushed Margot’s chair down the ramp. She has only been pretending to be our friend. I’m afraid your father is very disappointed in her.”

  Adria cried out softly and ran down to the second floor, pushed open the door and let it bang shut behind her. Shan stood on the steps above me laughing gently—her dryad’s laugh. But she had the full ability of the human to destroy and demolish, and she had used it with an almost fearsome pleasure.

  There was nothing I could say to any of them. Not even to Shan, who had planned this exposure in her own dramatic way. I walked woodenly down the stairs to the second-floor door, and followed Adria through it. The door to her room was closed, and I knew there was nothing I could say to her now. Tomorrow, perhaps—if I could get her to listen.

  In my room I put on my parka and gloves. Then I went downstairs. Like Adria’s door, the door to the library was closed, and I knew Julian was in there. While I stood hesitating, he opened the door a crack and stared at me, his eyes chill, his dark brows drawn down. I could neither run nor stand there, and I took an unwilling step toward him. He pushed the door open, waving me into the room. I walked past him, still unwilling, wanting only to escape the look in his eyes, the condemnation which I so richly deserved.

  In the room I did not sit down, and he did not ask me to. He came to stand beside me where I faced the fire.

  “Perhaps you’ve some explanation for me?” he said grimly.

  I could not look at him. “I should think the explanation is obvious. I wanted to help Stuart. I’ve never believed he was guilty, and that means someone else is. No one was really investigating. I thought I could find something out.”

  “And have you?”

  “Very little. But I’ve thought you should be doing more and—”

  “What about the injury to Adria? Haven’t you thought of that?”

  I looked at him blankly. “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve come here and gained her confidence, her affection. And now she must know who you are and that you’ve been falsifying yourself with all of us. But especially with her.”

  “That’s not true! I’d like to talk to her when she’s willing to listen to me. I think I can—”

  “Fool her all over again?”

  Blood was flowing in my veins again. Angry blood. “I’ve never wanted to fool anyone! Especially not Adria. I was caught and couldn’t help myself. But I haven’t falsified my feeling for her. There are times when I’ve put her good ahead of Stuart’s. Don’t you think it would have been an easy out to believe that she had pushed that chair? But I didn’t believe it, and I had to disprove it.”

  His gaze dropped from mine for the first time, and he took a quick, angry turn about the room. His face had a flushed look and his eyes were bright.

  “I would have said you’d be trustworthy under any circumstances,” he flung out at me. “I believed in you—I liked you.”

  By this time I was too angry myself to be cautious. “What difference does that make if you can’t trust me now? You’ve liked a great many women. One more or less hardly makes any difference. I’ve heard the stories about you. Perhaps I’ve some right to be angry too. Perhaps I might have expected greater understanding from you, greater trust. Yes—trust. I’ve pretended, yes. Because I couldn’t help myself, once I’d chosen this course. But I’ve never let you down, never injured anyone here in any way.”

  He paused beside a window and turned to stare at me. But I wouldn’t wait to be torn apart again. I flung away from him and ran toward the door, and into the hall. When I stopped to pull on my boots, he made no move to come after me. I was still shaking as I let myself out the front door and crossed the drive to my car. There was only one place for me to go right now, and that was to the lodge. I needed Clay to listen to me. He might not always approve of me, but he would listen. And he already knew who I was.

  I got into the car, started the engine, and began to back in order to turn around on the drive. The action of one rear wheel was unmistakable. I had forgotten that I’d seen Emory near the car. When I got out and went to the right rear tire, I found what I expected. It was flat. Not because someone had let out the air, but because it had been slashed with a knife. I could just make out the cuts in the dim light, and I could feel them under my fingers. So that was that.

  Without really caring very much one way or another, I began to follow the drive the long way around toward the lodge, on foot. This evening there was a waxing moon and the way was not fully dark. The short-cut path would still be filled with snow, so I had to take the drive. As I rounded the first turn, I saw the light of Emory’s cabin off through the trees. How close I had been to safety during the blizzard, without knowing it. But there was no storm tonight. I had no need to feel afraid. Especially, since I could see a figure cross before a window of the hut. Emory was there inside. He was not out looking for me.

  Something drew me toward the cabin, and I stopped behind a tree to watch the square of light that was a window. Someone else was in there with Emory. I saw the movement of a second shadow, and then Shan crossed the room toward him. I stole closer, wishing I could hear, but their voices did not reach me. When I was near enough to the window, I could see that Shan appeared to be pleading with him. Her back was toward me, but I could see Emory’s angry face.

  He was waving a folded sheet of paper at Shan. She tried to snatch at it, but he held it away and strode toward the wood-burning stove, But before he could take off the lid and drop the paper into the fire, she hurled herself upon him and pushed him away from the stove. Slight as she was, he fell back before her attack, the paper still in his hand. Again Shan seemed to plead with him, and this time he shrugged and dropped the folded sheet into a steel strongbox that stood on the table. Then he got into his parka, took his skis from their wall rack and came toward the door.

  I ducked around the corner of the house, hoping he wouldn’t see my tracks when he came outside. Fortunately by now the snow had been chopped up with footprints, and he seemed not to notice mine. Peering around the corner, I saw him go stalking toward his car, with his ski poles and his skis over his shoulder, leaving Shan behind. The door banged, and I knew she was in the hut alone. Once more I had to see what was happening and I moved to a window.

  If ever I had seen a woman who looked terrified, she was one. Her face was pale in lamplight and drawn as if in pain. After a moment in which she stared fixedly at the door through which Emory had gone, she seemed to fling herself into action. She reached into the strongbox and drew out the folded sheet of paper they had quarreled about. She thrust it into her jacket pocket and ran out of the house. I stood well back in shadow and watched her.

/>   I heard the sound of Emory’s car, and so did Shan. We both watched through the trees as he drove off toward the road. Shan stood for a moment staring after the car. Then she moved and there was nothing drifting and unfocused about her now. Every line of her body showed purpose as she ran toward Graystones. I knew I had to follow her. I had to find out what was going on.

  Such urgency winged her feet, however, that she was out of sight by the time I reached the house. I stood uncertainly in hemlock shadow and watched for a moment. I wasn’t sure whether she had gone for her own car, or if she’d entered the house. Lights showed me the library on one hand, and the dining room across the hall. But I couldn’t see all of the library, and there was only a maid in the dining room, setting the table for dinner.

  Then my eye caught movement on the lighted tower stairs and I saw Shan running up to the second floor. She vanished through the hall door, but her room was at the back of the house and I didn’t know whether that was where she had gone. I waited for a few moments longer, and as I was about to give up, a reflection of light fell upon the trees at one end of the house. I went to where I could view one of the attic windows that was set into the end gable. I could see Shan’s dim figure moving in those high recesses, and I wondered what on earth she could be doing up there.

  Whatever it was didn’t take her long. In a moment the light went out and she reappeared in the tower, running down the stairs. This time she hurried out the front door and went toward the garages at the back. In moments she had backed her car out, turned around and was off at high speed down the curving drive. Like Emory, she carried her skis in the rack on top of the car.

  Julian must have heard the sound of squealing wheels, for he came to the library window and looked out. Well hidden in my clump of hemlock, I looked at him as if he were miles away—looked at him and knew how lost he was to me. What stabbed through me in that moment was no longer tenuous and uncertain. I was no longer angry. Where there had always seemed time to draw back before, that time was now past. I was committed—and lost. Perhaps Stuart was lost too, when it came to receiving any help from Julian. Perhaps Julian would be so angry with me that he would refuse to do anything for my brother—and that would be my fault. So that somehow I had failed them both.