The Winter People

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  Glen went to look out the window. “There’s not one left whole,” he said. “Now she’ll have to stop putting them about.”

  I’d had enough of such talk. With a sense of revulsion I laid aside a sweater of Glynis’s which still bore her scent and went out of the room. I wanted to be free of Chandlers for a time, but there was nowhere to go, and I rejected the thought of running to talk to Trent about his son. This I must not do. I was suspicious of my own motives by this time.

  The day was a long one to endure. I went for a walk, though I did not wander far from the house. I joined Nomi in her sitting room and was reminded that here I could be safe from Glynis. Because of Jezebel. Only the tiger cat seemed to have no fear of the house being haunted—and that was reassuring to me. Jezebel wandered about freely, even in to Glynis’s room, now that it was an empty, impersonal place.

  And all the while I knew that night was coming and that I was a wife again. During the evening it began to snow gently—big soft flakes that piled up, shutting us in. None of us wanted to stay up except Colton. There was a late show he wanted to catch on the television screen in his den and we left him to it and went up to bed.

  It was Glen who slept on my shoulder that night. I lay awake into the early hours, my arm stiffening under his head, my mind full of lost, lonely thoughts. And there was no courage in me. I had only to give up, to abandon Glen—and Trent would be waiting for me. For a time he would be waiting for me. Yet I could not go to him, and neither could I make myself accept wholeheartedly the life that awaited me here. I was neither fish nor fowl and I did not know how to order my life.

  When Glen finally turned away in his sleep, I was able to withdraw my arm, and I too fell asleep. When I wakened to a snowy morning, Glen was gone from the bed. I peered from beneath warm covers into pale, rose-tinted daylight, and saw that he was up and dressed. He had lighted a fire, and was sitting on a hassock pulled up before it. When the bed creaked, he turned to look at me.

  “Good morning, Dina.” He was smiling at me with the old loving expression, and I ached a little for a loving I could not return.

  The thought of Keith and what the boy had done yesterday returned to me. With Glen in a good mood, perhaps I could talk to him and through the subject of Keith lead into something more urgent—our leaving High Towers.

  “There’s something I need to tell you,” I said. “About Keith.”

  His mood remained amiable and he spoke to me over his shoulder, holding out his hands to the fire. “Talk ahead.”

  “I don’t think you should put the idea into the boy’s mind that Glynis is trying to reach us. You’ve given him a notion that he is being—oh, it’s such a silly word!—possessed by her. We’ve got to undo this somehow. He half throttled me yesterday—as a sort of prank that he feels was inspired by Glynis.”

  If I had hoped for an amused reaction, I was wrong. Glen turned his head and looked at me gravely, searchingly.

  “But I’ve felt the same thing myself,” he said. “That’s why I warned the boy. That’s what I intended it to be—a warning. So that he would be careful not to open any cranny that would let her in.”

  So here it was again—and worse to deal with in Glen.

  “We’ve got to get away from this place,” I told him. “We could go to New York, or abroad, if you prefer. We need to escape High Towers for a time. If Glynis’s spirit is wandering, let her rest. Perhaps she can’t with us here. I don’t see how you can stand to stay here anyway, knowing that she was—murdered. Haven’t you faced that, Glen? If you haven’t, you must.”

  “I suppose you mean because of the scarf?”

  “Of course. Who could have taken it away except Colton or Nomi? You’ve got to stop living in an imaginary world and face what’s real. That’s what I am trying to do. I don’t want to believe it of either of them, but who else is there?”

  Glen rose from his hassock and came toward the bed. “There seems to be one person left whom you haven’t thought of—the one person who really hated her—Trent McIntyre.”

  I sat up indignantly and reached for my gown. “That’s absurd! Trent’s not the sort to turn to violence.”

  “Not even when he thinks his precious son is threatened? Not even when he knew Glynis might try to interfere with Pandora’s plans? There’s where your motive lies! Not with Colton, who loved her. And not with Nomi, who has borne her old hates for a long time and would never do anything about them.”

  I sat on the edge of the bed shaking my head, until Glen put his hands on my shoulders.

  “It’s time for you to face reality!” he cried. “Just how much does Trent mean to you? Just how fickle and false are you? Once I thought you were the one woman I could trust. I don’t think that any more. I knew the truth when I held you in my arms last night.”

  My shoulders went limp beneath his hands. “I’ve tried, Glen. If you needed me, I meant to stay. But you make it too hard. I don’t know what to do—or how to live with you.”

  His eyes were bright and dark—the old look of jet that made him seem like Glynis. “What if I can prove to you that Trent is the one who took the scarf away? What if I know how to prove it?”

  “You can’t,” I said. “You can’t because it isn’t so.”

  “Get dressed,” he said curtly. “Get dressed and I’ll show you. I’ll prove what happened so you’ll never doubt it again.”

  I had to go with him, if only to disprove this new wild notion that drove him. It took me only moments to put on warm outdoor things and pull on my boots. Glen wore his leopard jacket as we went downstairs together in the early morning light.

  I heard others moving about in the house, but only Jezebel came into the lower hall as we came downstairs. Ordinarily Glen paid little attention to the cat, but now he paused and looked down at her, with one hand on the rail. Jezebel did a strange thing. She laid back her ears and bared her teeth, her fur rose all over her body and she stood on her claw tips, hissing.

  Glen laughed and vaulted the rail, landing lightly beside her. The cat yowled in terror and fled for the open door of Nomi’s sitting room, while Glen stood laughing up at my shocked expression.

  “You see? Jezebel knows! Jezebel has more sense than you have, darling. Come down here to me.”

  He was like the vital, exuberant man I had first known, yet with an uncanny difference. As I came down to his level, he swung me into his arms and grazed my cheek with his man’s rough face.

  “Do you see, Dina—we’re twins now, Glynis and I. Twins as we never could be before.”

  As I pulled away in horror he caught my hand and drew me out the front door before I could protest.

  “Enough of such nonsense,” he said and I saw that he was himself again. “It won’t take long to show you the truth, my darling. We’ll take the upper path this time. It’s faster. There’s snow over the ice, but it’s not too deep. Come along, Dina, and I’ll prove the truth about Trent.”

  I went with him across snow that was gold-tinted in this early hour of sunrise.

  15

  The snowfall had not been deep and walking was easy enough. Now and then my foot pressed through snow and slipped on the icy crust beneath, but this did not happen often. The higher path was easier to follow than the shore path, where the snow drifts were high. Glen moved with consideration, holding back snow-laden branches so they would not slap me, assisting me when the going was rough. Long shadows lay across our path like gray bars upon the snow.

  Once when he went ahead I called to Glen to know where we were going, but he seemed not to hear me. When we reached the twin pinnacles of Gray Rocks, he started down through the woods toward the saddle between, and only then did he turn back to answer my question.

  “We needn’t go all the way to the lake,” he said. “From Gray Rocks we can see everything. And I can show you what must have happened.”

  I still did not believe he knew what had happened, or that Trent had any part in it, but I had to hear his accusation before I
could refute it. If what Glen believed was serious, then Trent must know so that he could answer it.

  Glen climbed up into the saddle, from which most of the snow had blown away, and reached out to help me across. Over the lake the sun was rising above dark hills, etching green reflections of spruce trees where snow had drifted away from the ice-covered lake.

  “Come along,” Glen said. “We’re going to the top.”

  It was sharply chill and I had no desire to stand in that windy place in the cold early morning, but when I hesitated, Glen prodded me ahead of him.

  “Start climbing,” he said. “Don’t be timid. It’s not slippery. This face of the rock is clear of snow and ice. I’ll come up behind you. It’s an easy climb. Don’t be afraid.”

  He did not know that I had been up to his secret place before, and I did not tell him. I fitted my mittened hands into the hewn places in the rock and went up, step by step, until I crawled out into the sheltered place at the top. There I forgot Glen for a moment and stepped to the parapet wall to look out at the sun rising over the lake, gilding every snowy tree branch with yellow light. Down on the ice an early skater was out, and I was reassured to see that it was Trent. He was a long way off, skating where snow had blown away, but if I needed him he was there. Not that I would need him in handling Glen. I had no fear. Not yet.

  The air was sparkling clear and cold and I filled my lungs with it before I turned back to watch Glen climb up after me. I did not feel afraid until I looked down into his face. He had unbuckled the leopard skin jacket so that it fell open as he came up and I saw that he had put on his Christmas gift chain of gold links. It was not the one Glynis had given him, however, but his own gift to her—gold links with the gold medallion of a leopard’s head. The face he lifted toward me had changed. There had been some subtle metamorphosis. Now I felt what Jezebel had sensed. They were so alike—those two! Yet this was Glynis who climbed toward me! I knew it with some sixth sense. I knew it before Glen spoke to me—and then I knew it all the more. The voice was faintly husky, but not with the huskiness of a man’s voice. It was Glynis’s voice that spoke to me from Glen’s mouth in that high place on Gray Rocks.

  “Do you think I don’t know what happened?” the voice said. “Do you think I can’t tell you every detail of what happened? Oh, you can forget what we said about Trent. That was a ruse to get you here. But now you’re going to face up to what you’ve done, Dina darling.”

  He climbed up beside me, stood in the open, very close, yet not touching me. On one side was the rock wall, on the other the sheer face up which we had climbed. He was Glen—and he was not Glen. I did not believe in possession—of course I did not. Yet his expression had changed, his voice had changed, and it was Glynis who looked out of his eyes, Glynis who toyed with me—and had used, eerily, that pronoun “we.”

  I sprang away from him to the parapet wall and looked over it toward that skating figure on the lake. I cupped my hands about my mouth and shouted Trent’s name, shouted for help. I saw the skater slide to a stop, saw him look toward the rocks upon which I stood—and then wave an arm. I had no chance to wave back because Glen swung me around, pulled me away from the parapet. It did not matter. Trent was too far away to help me. No one could help me now. I could deal with Glen—but not with Glynis.

  Glen’s hands held me from struggling. The pressure on my arms was painful as the soft husky voice went on. “Now I’ll recall you to exactly what happened that day when you went skating out there on the lake. You played the same trick that drowned our mother, didn’t you? You skated out onto the dangerous part because your light weight wouldn’t crack the ice. And when we came out to rescue you, the ice broke and we went through. Then you pretended all that bit of using a scarf to save us from drowning—but when the time came, you pulled the scarf away. You carried it back to the house and hid it among Colton’s things, knowing he might not look for years in that old chest of junk.”

  “No!” I cried. “No—Glen, it wasn’t like that at all. Glen, Glen!”

  But he could not hear me because she was interposed. She watched me warily, cunningly, through his eyes and smiled with her smile, spoke to me with her voice.

  He let me go, and I cast about wildly for whatever help I could find. I could not see Trent now. And what loose slabs of rock lay about were all outside the parapet, so I could not snatch one up for a defensive weapon. Both twins had always been far larger than I, and now their strengths were somehow combined and I knew my own helplessness. Nevertheless, I had to fight him if I could.

  “Don’t touch me,” I warned. “This is no place for a fight, but if you lay a finger on me, I will fight—even if we both go off the edge.”

  “We won’t touch you.” He spoke almost pleasantly. “Don’t worry—there won’t be any fight. Because you are going to do what you have to do yourself, Dina darling. You’re going to climb over that parapet. You’re going to climb over it because you don’t want to live any longer. You can’t live with your own guilty conscience, can you? How could you bear to live knowing you’ve lost everything you care about? You’ve lost your husband forever, you know. And you’ve let a woman die out there in the lake. How cunningly you slipped the scarf away and let her flounder when she was tired and unable to fight for life in icy water. But you can’t get away with it. We’ll see to that.”

  “Glen!” I cried again. “Glen, come back to me!”

  It was no use. He had gone into some dark hiding place of the disturbed mind where I could not reach him.

  “Come now, Dina,” he said. “I’ll give you a foot up to get you over the wall. Just step into my hand—gently now.”

  I kicked out at him hard, and he caught my ankle in his grasp.

  “If you’re going to play rough, we’ll play rough too. Up you go now.” Again he used that dreadful first person plural.

  He reached to take hold of me and force me to the wall, but at that moment a rifle cracked and a bullet spat against a rock nearby. Glen let go of me and we both looked around in astonishment in the direction of the shot.

  Keith McIntyre had climbed to the twin pinnacle of Gray Rocks, and he sat astride a ridge of rock, almost on a level with us, his rifle at his shoulder.

  “Put that gun down!” Glen said, but again the voice was Glynis’s, and I saw the boy wince. Nevertheless, the rifle did not waver.

  “I’m a real good shot, Glen, and you know it,” Keith said. “So get out of the way and let Dina come down. If you make one move in her direction I’ll shoot.”

  Glen was not afraid. “You won’t do that, boy. You’re not going to hurt us, you know. Why should you? What does Dina matter, Keith—when she’s the one who killed your mother?”

  “I know who killed my mother!” The boy’s voice trembled, but he held the gun steady. “I know how furious you were when I did as Dina made me understand I must do and told you how Glynis got me to crack that head and set it up in her room so it would look as though Dina broke it when she opened the door. Then I went over the balcony rail and back inside through Aunt Nomi’s sitting room. I had to do what Glynis said—I had to! She said she wouldn’t take me with her to New York if I didn’t. But I’ve seen you carrying those witch balls around the house, pretending it was my mother placing them about.”

  “It was your mother,” Glen said.

  “I tried to get even with you that day I climbed up there and shoved down a slab of rock. But I couldn’t make myself really hit you.”

  The boy was almost crying and the rifle wavered out of range. I stumbled toward the descent notches, but Glen caught me by the arm and for a moment I thought I was going over headfirst onto the stony saddle far below. Keith raised his gun and it cracked again. Glen fell back with a cry and I saw blood stain his shoulder, saw him clasp his hand to the wound.

  “Come down, Dina!” Keith shouted. “Come down off that rock—quickly!”

  At once Glen moved toward me, wound or no, and once more Keith fired. The boy was an expert shot. Gl
en stumbled and slid helplessly to the floor of the rocky space.

  “I don’t want to kill you!” Keith sobbed: “I don’t want to kill you, but you’ve got to let her go.”

  Both wounds were in the same arm. Glen pulled himself up with his good arm and rolled himself between me and the handhold niches hewn in the rock. His face looked ghastly pale and there was no Glynis there to stare out of his eyes. For a breathless, agonizing moment, he looked up at me.

  “I’m sorry, Dina,” he said. “Sorry for so many things.”

  Then, quite deliberately, he rolled himself to the edge and went over the lip of rock. I stood frozen where I was, helpless and stunned. He struck the saddle with his body, bounced off and went crashing down the precipice toward the base of Gray Rocks.

  Glen had faced his own reality.

  Only then did I start frantically down the hand and foot stair and heard Keith’s cry echoing over my head.

  “I didn’t want to kill him! I didn’t want to! But I had to stop him. I had to stop her.”

  Her, he had said, and the hair on my scalp seemed to move. Keith had seen it too—that dreadful possession of one twin by the other. The boy clambered down from his rock and reached the saddle before me. He stared at me a moment, his look a little wild, and then he leaped down to the hillside and climbed around the rocks to the place where he could make a safe descent. I would have followed him down, but Trent called to me from the shore below.

  “Don’t come down, Dina. There’s nothing you can do. Keith and I will get him home. Go and warn Nomi.”

  I did not ask—I did not dare to ask whether Glen were dead or alive, but I think I knew. No one could have survived that fall. It was what, at last, he himself had wanted. Now he would be forever free of Glynis. I climbed up to the path and fled along the very tracks we had made coming out. Double tracks, edged by a third pair—Keith’s as he had followed us.

  Nomi came to meet me before I reached the house. She had heard us go out, and she had dressed and come after us because she was worried. She had heard the shots, and I think she knew the worst by my face the moment we met in the woods. Her expression did not change. She simply muffled her coat collar higher about her head and turned back with me toward the house.