The Winter People

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The Winter People Page 23

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;


  I had been surprised that Nomi had wanted to visit the grave, since she had refused to mourn for the girl she had disliked so intensely. But something she said while we stood there after Colton had gone, gave me a startling clue.

  “I just want to make sure,” Nomi said. “I wanted to make sure she was here.”

  “Here—but where else would she be?”

  Nomi seemed not to hear me. “I can sense that she’s here. But of course we can never be entirely certain. Not unless she was buried with a stake through her heart.”

  “Oh, Nomi!” I wailed. “Don’t you go down some weird road too! Nomi—is it you who keeps moving those witch balls into my room?”

  She stood beside Glynis’s grave and looked at me with wide, tragic eyes. “Don’t you know who does that?” She gestured. “She’s the one. Glen has seen her about, you know. He’s told me so, and I believe him. He thinks she will keep on coming until something is done about the person who caused her death. That’s why I had to come here. But it’s all right now. She’s here—asleep. It’s when she gets restless that we’re all in danger.”

  I put my hand none too gently on her arm and drew her away from the grave and back toward our car. “I have never heard such dreadful nonsense in all my life! And from you! I expected more of you, Nomi. You’re the one with the level head. You’re the one who isn’t a Chandler.”

  She seemed to wake up with a shivery laugh which did not reassure me. I could hardly wait now for Glen to finish his work and let me go. Escape was in my mind day and night. Escape to sanity and safety.

  My one sense of solace at this time was the knowledge that Trent McIntyre was across the lake. Sometimes I saw him from a distance. Sometimes he came to the house to see how Keith was getting along, and I found myself looking forward to these visits. His was a quiet, sane, blunt-spoken presence. I could imagine what he would say to Nomi if he knew about her weird remarks in the cemetery. Now and then, weighing these remarks, I wondered if she had been merely trying to frighten me—if she too wanted me gone.

  Unfortunately, I had no real chance to talk to Trent at this time. There were brief moments when our eyes met and he told me more than he could speak. I was glad he existed in time and in space at the same moment as I. But that small comfort was all I had the right to as long as I stayed in this house.

  The house was haunted. I knew that well enough now. It was haunted, not by the spirit of Glynis Chandler, but by the guilt of whoever it was who had taken my scarf away and left her to die. Not Colton. He had been too proud of his daughter to do her harm, whether he cherished her or not. His clan feeling was paramount. Not Glen, who loved his twin as though she were a part of himself. Not Nomi, who would not stoop to murder, however much she hated. There was no one else. If I went further afield—Keith had loved his mother desperately. Trent was no murderer. And Pandora was not involved—except in the past, through her son, and possibly through the land she wanted. But Colton meant to sell her the land anyway. So there was no one who could logically have taken away the scarf I had left securely tied to that tree stump in the lake. Yet one of these was guilty—and guilt itself walked the hallways of High Towers, sat beside our fires, loomed solemnly at every meal we ate.

  The awful thing was that some of these people, including Glen, still believed that it was I who had caused Glynis’s death. If I had any purpose during those days it was to prove undeniably that I had done what I said I had done. How could I run cravenly from High Towers while this ugly shadow of guilt hung over my own head? There was another reason to stay, but I had not seen it then.

  The following Saturday morning as I sat for Glen I found him in a strange mood. Strange because he was being rather kind to me. I think he was pleased with his work, confident that it was turning out well, so that perhaps he could afford to be kind. Yet the change made me uneasy. He was nearly through now, and he had turned to sandpapering and polishing to bring out the gleam of the natural grain.

  “I’m grateful to you, Dina,” he said almost lightly. “I couldn’t have done this without you. I had to have you there every minute, or I could never have succeeded.”

  “When am I to see it?” I asked.

  His eyes were darkly bright—eyes that reminded me of his sister’s—as he looked at me over the work he would not let me see. I could catch his face in the mirror, but nothing else.

  “Soon, soon, my dear,” he told me, but somehow I did not find either the promise or his gentleness reassuring. It was as if he promised me something more than a viewing of his work.

  “Tell me again, Dina,” he went on as he worked, his tone deceptively gentle. “Tell me what happened that day when Glynis fell through the ice.”

  So this was where his coaxing manner led!

  “I’ve told you,” I said wearily. “I’ve told you so many times.”

  “Then tell me another time,” he urged, his voice very soft, very gentle with me. “Tell me, because I’ve never really understood.”

  I knew suddenly that I was afraid of him. He blamed me for Glynis’s death and now time was running out on the head he was finishing. When it was done, he would not need me any more.

  Suddenly I saw him move in the mirror, saw him snatch up the cloth and fling it over the head to conceal it from view. Then he came to take me lightly by the wrist.

  “We’re going there now,” he said. “Come with me, Dina. Make me understand what happened. Make me understand all of it.”

  I tried to object, but he was once more a driven man, and when he was in this mood he would take no opposition.

  “We’ll go now,” he said. “So get into your coat and boots. The sun is out and perhaps there’ll be enough thawing of the snow crust so we can get through the woods. Hurry now.”

  I tried to find some way to object, to at least postpone what he wanted to do. “But Colton was speaking earlier of seeing Pandora today, working out the business of the land. He said you were to go with him.”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” Glen said. “I’ll meet him there later. First, however, you and I are going out on the ice to the place where Glynis fell through, and you’re going to make me see everything just as it happened.”

  I needn’t be afraid, I told myself. The ice was solid enough now. Even the place where the springs fed from underneath would not weaken the danger spot today. I had better do as he asked. Perhaps this was one way to make what had happened vivid enough to him so that he would really understand. If only those few strands of wool had been left in the crevice, I could have shown them to him to help support my story.

  When we went out we found it slippery enough underfoot, but Glen had brought along a couple of walking sticks for us to use as alpine staffs, and by stamping firmly with every step we were able to make the downhill path. Along the shore where the sun shone the going was easier and here we could walk lightly on the crust without slipping. We made quick enough time in the clear bright morning on the way to Gray Rocks.

  I could see the pointed towers reaching upward from the shores of the lake, and I remembered when I had thought of them as “his and hers.” Now there was only one twin left. One twin, bereft of his right hand. Yet the twin towers of rock still stood. When I saw them ahead I had no sense of the ominous about them. All my uncertainties, all my sense of the ominous rested in the man who hurried along the trail ahead of me. I had forgotten about that other one because there were enough things to frighten me about Glen. There was the heavy stick he carried, for instance. And there was that coaxing gentleness that I did not trust. But I gave no real thought to the towers ahead.

  More than once I glanced across the lake toward the McIntyres, but no one was in sight. I was not even sure Trent was home. Sometimes he made the drive into New York to see his editor. And often he took long hikes through the hills while he waited for ideas to jell before writing.

  When we reached the base of Gray Rocks, Glen stopped ahead of me, looking upward. For a horrid moment I was afraid that he might actuall
y call out to Glynis, to see if she was there. But he only smiled at me over his shoulder and went on. There was something so twisted and sly about his smile that I hesitated as he started across the base of the rocks, wondering if I should go on. Thus I was able to look up at the first sound of something sliding from high above. I saw the small knot of pebbles spring free and separate themselves from the mass as they came bouncing down, to be followed by a great loosening slab of rock that plunged furiously down the wall. I sprang back and screamed a warning to Glen just as the huge slab crashed to the base, landing squarely between us, shattering itself over the ice.

  For a moment we stared at each other, in frozen, shared fear. Then I looked upward in time to see something move up there, hear some soft grating sound as whoever had flung the rock over tried to make his way as quietly as possible down the far side, well out of our sight.

  I called out to Glen. “There’s someone up there! Someone deliberately threw down that slab of rock. It might have killed either of us.”

  To my further horror, Glen looked exhilarated, exuberant.

  “Of course she’s up there, Dina! She’s still after you, isn’t she?” He flung back his head and shouted so that the echoes went roaring down the lake. “Glynis! Glynis! Stop your pranks now! We know you’re there.”

  I heard the sliding, slipping sounds of someone climbing down the rock, making away through the icy woods far above us, well hidden behind the thick growth of spruce and cedar.

  I felt as appalled by Glen’s shouting as I had by the crash of rock. “Wake up!” I called to him. “That wasn’t Glynis. Don’t you play games!”

  He was staring at me from the far side of the base, and suddenly his face seemed to crumple into grieving desperation. He turned away from me and went stumbling on along the shore road alone. I had no wish to go with him now, or try to bring him back. I had my own desperation to drive me, and I began to stumble back in the direction from which I’d come. I leaped from grass tuft to grass tuft, broke ice with my stick when I had to, slipped and slid my way along the path through the woods. Only once did I stop for breath, stop to listen, but whoever had climbed Gray Rocks must have followed the upper path more quickly than I, and was already out of range, so that I heard nothing. The woods were quiet, the lake gave out no echoes, and only fear clattered and crashed through my own mind.

  That slab of rock had not been meant for Glen. My enemy had been up there. Someone had known that I was coming that way and had waited for me. Someone who wanted to save himself at my expense. The same someone who had spoken to Glynis while she floundered in the water, and taken away the scarf I’d left for her to cling to. I wanted to shout to the woods that I did not know his name—that he was safe enough from me. But that was Glen’s mad road. There was only one thing to do, and I knew it very well now. For my own safety, I must get away from High Towers.

  When I reached the house, panting and breathless, terribly warm from my struggle uphill, I found Colton and Nomi talking together in the lower hall. How long they had been there I could not tell. They looked at me in astonishment when I burst into the house.

  “There was someone up on top of Gray Rocks!” I cried. “Someone flung over a huge slab of rock that might have crushed either Glen or me. It’s only luck that we escaped.”

  “My dear,” Colton said, and began to help me off with my coat.

  Nomi threw him a quick look. “Where is Glen now?”

  “He went on,” I told her. “I—I was with him because he wanted to look at the place where Glynis died. He wanted me to show him just what had happened. But—but after the rocks came down, he went off toward the far end of the lake.”

  “He’ll come back.” Colton was reassuring Nomi. “He knows I want him to be at Pandora’s to talk over this sale of land. If he comes here, Naomi, send him over at once.”

  “I’ll go look for him myself,” she said—but before she could move away he touched her arm and spoke more sharply.

  “Let him alone. You coddle him too much. You’ve got to let him work things out in his own way. I’ll see you later. That is, if you’re still sure you won’t come along while I talk to Pandora.”

  “I’m sure,” she said, and went down the hall to her own sitting room. When she opened the door Jezebel slipped quietly into the hall and sped like a striped shadow to the front door—to slip out when Colton opened it.

  I flung my coat over the stair rail and ran up to the attic. I knew what I must do. Before I left this house there was something I had to know. Once I knew, I would leave. I would pack my things and get away before Glen returned.

  My boots clattered on the stairs and I burst a bit wildly into the empty attic. I went at once to Glen’s studio and stopped before the covered head on the turntable. I pulled off the mittens, loosened my furry hat and jerked it from my head, tossed it aside. I needed to be unhampered in what I meant to do.

  I took a step nearer the pedestal and put my hand on the cloth that hid the carving from view. For just an instant it seemed as though something lived and breathed beneath my hand. I stiffened myself to pull off the cloth.

  The face was turned away from me. Bright chestnut hair that caught morning light from the sky window flowed over and down the tipped-back head, giving the locks a chance to lift free in an apparent breeze. Without intricate detail the hair had been made to seem alive and real. It was not Glynis’s hair, except for its color; it was mine—and it was far more alive than Glen had ever caught it in stone.

  Then I saw something that sent a creeping of horror up the back of my neck. Set high on either side of the head, and visible through strands of hair, were angry, laid-back ears—the pointed animal ears of the monstrous thing Glen had created. I walked about the clamped stand. Wild, animal eyes looked into mine, glowing and predatory in the gleam of shining wood. I could see the blunted nose, the snarl of fangs, the lips drawn back in the evil grimace of a leopard about to pounce. No—not pounce—bound! Bound high into the air toward Gray Rocks, on which that gleaming, distant gaze was fixed.

  I felt sickened, betrayed. Why had he needed me to pose all these long weeks while he created something that had nothing to do with me—something that was all Glynis, the very essence of Glynis?

  What happened next came so quickly that I had no chance to escape. Soft folds dropped over my head so gently that my frozen stare was hardly interrupted. They dropped softly and thickly about my neck like a cowl collar—and then began to draw chokingly tight. I gasped and tried to tear the thing from my throat, only to have it pulled more tightly, so that I was held in a vise that would not let me turn to see my tormentor. I stood rigid against this new terror, trying to lean backward into the pull that choked me.

  The boy behind me laughed—and the noose was loosened. As I whirled to face Keith McIntyre I still gasped for breath, unable’ to speak. I saw the vivid blue excitement in his eyes, saw the smile of triumph on his thin young face.

  “How easy it would be!” he said. “How easy to hold this tight so you wouldn’t be standing there now. I scared you, didn’t I? Just as that leopard carving scared you. It’s awfully good. Better than the alabaster—because he was thinking of Glynis while he worked. And it’s like her—terribly like. I know because I’m her son. I told you in the beginning to look at it. You needed to see it before it was too late, because you’re the victim. You know that, don’t you? You’re the victim she’s going to pounce upon.” He moved close to me with the noose of the scarf tantalizing me.

  I put my hand to my throat, still trying to catch my breath and ease the hurt, and the boy moved about me—and about that dreadful leopard’s head with the human hair. He moved lithely, as he did in the woods, with the grace of a dancer, a bullfighter, a dueler! And he dangled the long scarf before me as if it were the weapon he would use to skewer me with.

  I found my voice. “Where did you get that scarf?” I asked.

  He held it up before his own eyes as if he were really seeing it for the first time.
“Back there,” he said, waving a hand vaguely in the direction of Colton’s end of the attic. “What difference does it make where I found it! Aren’t you grateful that I let you go? Aren’t you afraid of me?”

  I was too angry to do anything but explode. I flung out at him with both hands. With one I snatched the scarf into my own keeping, and with the other I slapped him hard across one cheek. He fell back from me with a gasp of angry astonishment, and I gave my attention to the long strip of cloth I held in my hands. It was dark brown with streaks of pink lightning woven the length of the pattern.

  “If you weren’t so stupid,” I said, “you’d recognize this as the scarf Nomi gave me for Christmas. I was wearing it that day when Glynis and I went skating. It’s the scarf I threw to her to keep her afloat and that I tied to a slit in that tree stump in the lake. Look—you can see how it’s shrunk, and how the colors have run. Here’s where bits of fringe were torn loose.”

  He had put one hand to his cheek, and he was staring at me with a wide, angry look that was nevertheless a little frightened. I advanced upon him, waving the scarf.

  “Show me exactly where you found it! I won’t be bullied by you or by anyone else. If you found it among Colton’s things, then I want to know where.”

  The grace had gone out of him. He shuffled his feet as he walked, leading me back to Colton’s studio. I had never stepped into this section of the attic before, since the rules said it was off bounds for anyone but Colton, unless one was especially invited.

  Keith lifted the lid of what looked like an old sea chest and poked in among a miscellany of discarded articles.

  “It was down there, squeezed into one corner,” he said.

  “And how did you happen to find it?”

  He hesitated before answering. “I was just poking around. I wanted to see if my grandfather had any old carving tools I could borrow. I mean, that he wouldn’t miss. And I found that.”

 

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