The Winter People

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  “All right,” I said. “I’m glad you did. It’s time for you to face the real world and not the make-believe one you’ve been living in. I know all about dream worlds. I’ve lived there too. It’s a dangerous country because when you stay there too long it’s like being under the influence of a drug. After a while you can’t tell what is real and what isn’t. Your actions stop matching the real world, and what you do can blow the dream world and your life all to pieces. Now we’re going to face what’s real together. We’re going across the lake to show this scarf to your grandfather. We’re going to clear this up right now. If someone hid it among his things, he’d better know.”

  “Maybe she hid it there!” His voice went a little shrill. “Glynis, I mean. Maybe she’s still trying to make me do things I don’t want to! But if she’s not quiet yet, what am I to—”

  “I’ll take that scarf, if you please,” Nomi said.

  She must have climbed the stairs so quietly that we did not hear her until she spoke behind us.

  She came toward us with her hand extended, moving erectly, her gesture commanding. I put the scarf behind my back.

  “I think Colton must know about this,” I told her.

  “No!” The word had a flat and final ring. “I won’t have him disturbed any further. Or Glen either. I’m beginning to think that you are a completely disrupting influence here, Dina. For the time being I’ll take charge of the scarf. Let the wounding heal a little before it’s all ripped open again.”

  “What about me?” I said. “What about the fact that everyone is blaming me for Glynis’s death, when all I did was try to save her? Even Keith thinks I’m to blame. He tried to choke me just now. He put this scarf around my neck and—”

  “I wouldn’t have choked you,” Keith said sullenly. “I only wanted to scare you. You didn’t do it. I—I know you didn’t.”

  “Why?” I said. “Why do you like to frighten people?”

  His blue eyes that were so much like his father’s, and so unlike—blazed in his thin face. “Because you’re nothing but trouble and you ought to go away. My mother hated you. She didn’t want you to be Glen’s wife. She didn’t want you here and she’s still trying to get at you.”

  His face was sickly pale and I turned from him in disgust and spoke to Nomi. “Come and see what Glen has been doing. I think you’d better know.”

  “I do know,” she said. “Do you think I haven’t watched it all along? And it’s a good thing he has done. I don’t mean just artistically. I mean that it’s therapy of a sort. Better that he put his feelings into the carving than—than into—”

  There was a sound of a door slam from downstairs and she broke off to listen.

  “That’s Glen now. And Keith is right, Dina. You’d better go away. Stop interfering and go at once. He’ll never miss you if you leave, and if you stay you may be harmed. Go back to New York. Leave us to our tragedies. They aren’t yours.”

  I said nothing to either one. I gave her the scarf and went slowly down the stairs, and as I moved I could hear Glen coming up from the front door—so that we met in the hallway below at the halfway point. He looked more ravaged and more desperate than I had ever seen him. Nomi had run down the stairs behind me and she spoke to him in alarm, but he did not answer. He walked straight past us both and went into his room—into Glynis’s room.

  Nomi would have followed him, but I caught her by the arm and held her back. “I’m his wife,” I said. “This is for me to do.”

  She gave me a look and let me go. I knew now that I could not run away behind Glen’s back without talking to him first. No matter whether he would miss me or not, I had to tell him what I meant to do. He had closed the door behind him, but I did not knock lest he lock it in my face. I turned the knob and walked in. He had gone straight to the spotlight that illumined the black marble head and turned it on. He stood before the head and when I saw what he was doing the creeping terror washed over me again.

  Very delicately and thoughtfully, as he stared at the head, he was running the fingernail of his left thumb over his own eyebrow. Over and over again in a gesture that was Glynis’s only—a gesture I had never seen him use before.

  14

  I went to him and drew him away from the black marble head. “I have to talk to you, Glen. Come and sit down, please. I’ve seen what you did with the wood carving upstairs. Why, Glen—can you tell me why?”

  He let me push him gently into a chair and draw up another chair so I could sit before him, waiting for an answer that did not come. From the basket by the window colored witch balls winked at me wickedly.

  “Tell me why you needed me while you worked, Glen. I want to understand. I know the work is good. But the motive behind such a result seems evil. So what had I to do with it?”

  For the first time his eyes seemed to focus on my face, and he flashed a shadow of his old smile at me.

  “I needed you there! I had to look at you constantly because I had to see you with her eyes. I had to see you so that I could build the way she felt about you into her leopard face.”

  I recoiled a little. I wanted to jump up and run out of the room—run from the house for good and never come back, but I sat where I was because something in Glen’s face would not let me go.

  “And now that you’ve finished with the head?” I said.

  He raised his shoulders in a helpless shrug. “I don’t know. I feel empty, drained. There doesn’t seem to be anything left.”

  “You’ll work again,” I said. “Doesn’t every creative worker feel drained when one piece is done and he isn’t possessed by the next one yet?”

  He looked up at me strangely. “Possessed! What a good word for you to use. Because that’s how I feel—empty and waiting. As though something must move into the emptiness—and possess me.”

  “As it will,” I said. “Wait for it and it will. But in the meantime, Glen, I’m going away. There isn’t anything left for us, now that your leopard woman is done. This was a wrong marriage for both of us. I fooled myself with a mirage, and so did you. There’s nothing right about it now—or ever will be.”

  “You’re going to Trent!” he said sharply.

  “No. I’m not going to anyone. I’m going to return to being myself. To finding out what myself is. I’m not sure I know any more.”

  “No!” he cried. “No—you can’t leave me! I won’t let you go away!”

  I could only stare at him in astonishment. “But you have no need for me, Glen. And love isn’t something that can be revived once it’s over—if we ever did love each other. I think what each one loved was only that mirage I’ve mentioned. Nothing real.”

  He did a surprising thing. He left his chair and came suddenly to kneel before me. He gathered me to him in both arms, and put his head against my breast.

  “You can’t leave me. You’re all I’ve got to fill the emptiness. If you don’t fill it, something else will. Something that’s waiting for its chance—to move in and possess me. Something I’m afraid of. I can feel it standing there in the shadows, waiting and watching. I’m terrified, Dina. And you’re wrong about me. I’ve never loved any woman as I’ve loved you. Stay with me, darling—don’t leave me.”

  When the rap came on the door he did not move and I had to disengage myself gently and go to the door. Keith was there, looking hangdog and embarrassed.

  “My father wants to talk to you,” he said gruffly. “My grandfather and Gran are going over the contract details, and he’s come away. He’s downstairs now. Will you see him?”

  Glen rose to his feet and turned away from me. He had heard Keith’s words, but he would not turn to me again. He went to stand at a window and look out at the icy winter world.

  “I’ll come,” I said.

  The feeling of wings began to beat through me as I ran downstairs. Wings that led to freedom, to happiness. Oh, it had to be—it had to be!

  Trent waited in Nomi’s sitting room, and Nomi was there too. He said she need not go away.
He wanted her to hear what he had to say to me. When I walked into the room he came and put his hands on my arms, held me off so that he could look into my face.

  “You’ve had enough,” he said. “Keith has told me about that carving of Glen’s. I won’t have you submitted to this sort of thing any longer.”

  The wings were still beating, but more weakly.

  “Won’t have?” said Nomi sharply, on guard for Glen’s rights, as always.

  “Won’t have,” Trent repeated. “Bernardina belongs to me, Nomi.”

  My eyes were swimming with tears, and I wanted with all my heart to go into his arms for good. This was real. It always had been. I was awake now.

  “I’m going to take you away, darling,” he said. “You’re going to stay with my mother for a time—or go back to New York if you wish. But the thing you’re not to do is spend another night in this house. I’m going to talk to Glen myself.” He let me go and went toward the door.

  I said, “Wait!” in a voice I hardly knew as my own. There were no more beating wings. He turned back to me, questioning for the first time. I went on. “I can’t go with you, Trent. Not because I don’t love you. I suppose I always have and always will. But I can’t go with you, because of Glen.”

  “What are you talking about?” he said roughly.

  I stood my ground, my fingers wound tightly together so that my hands would not do foolish things. I knew very well now what I had to do and I needed to find the strength to do it. Glen was real too. Not my love for him, but his desperate need, to which I was bound. To stay—this was what my father meant by courage.

  “I’ve been living make-believe,” I told him. “But now I’m out of it. Glen needs me, and I can’t walk out on him now.”

  Trent’s impatience grew. “That’s absurd. If you think—”

  “Listen to me, please,” I said. “I got myself into the situation I’m in. If I acted foolishly and impetuously, it’s my fault. But it’s done. Now I’ve got to stay and see this through. Please don’t make it any harder for me than you have to.”

  “Bravo!” said Nomi softly, and Trent threw her an angry look.

  “We’re not through with this discussion,” he told me, “but I’ll let you go for now. I’ll give you time to come to your senses. And I won’t be far away, whatever happens.”

  “My senses don’t have anything to do with this,” I said. “My senses tell me how much I love you. But only a little while ago they were telling me how much I loved Glen. So I’m not much inclined to believe in them any more. I have to believe in what needs to be done.”

  I went past him and out the door. I climbed the stairs and went back to Glynis’s room. Glen stood by the window where I had left him.

  “I’m going to stay,” I said. “But if I do, we can’t remain in separate rooms. You need a chance to recover from your suffering over Glynis, and you won’t if you stay here. It’s not good for either of us that you should.”

  He turned from the window and stared at me. His left thumbnail was stroking the curve of his eyebrow thoughtfully. I went to him and drew his hand from his face.

  “That’s a gesture that belongs to Glynis,” I said. “We’ve got to put Glynis behind us—somehow.”

  He swept me into his arms and held me close, buried his face in my hair. I let him hold me. I tried to hold him too, tried to feel what I used to feel. But I did not feel anything—for anyone. I was quite numb and without emotion, yet that did not seem to matter very much. Responsibility was a word I had never faced seriously before, and I found it an unemotional word. Actions have consequences. Certain things had to be done if I was to live with myself. I was my father’s daughter. I would find the strength to do them.

  Glen let me go at last, his own facile enthusiasm rising to the fore.

  “I’ll accept your terms, Dina. You give me something to live for again. I know that you and Nomi are right. Glynis’s room must be dismantled. Every trace of her must be put away, hidden from sight. It’s the only way to quiet her.”

  I did not like that phrase “quiet her,” but I agreed before he should change his mind. Together we summoned Nomi, and since Keith was hanging about uneasily, with no school on Saturday, we commandeered him too. Perhaps he too had a ghost to lay.

  All of us went to work in Glynis’s room. Glen might not have faced the task alone, but with all of us moving as a team, he joined in with a will. He and Keith brought down empty boxes from the attic, and Glynis’s clothes were packed away. I packed her dresses myself, so that Glen would not have to touch them. With a certain sadness I put away these outward markings of the gay, sophisticated, rather brittle and self-serving life she had led. It always seems strange to those who are left that mere silk and cotton and wool should outlive the bodies they have served.

  Glen placed her jewelry in a velvet-lined box. Her hosiery and lingerie Nomi laid between tissue paper. Later some of these things would be given to local charities. But they would be kept in the attic until something could be arranged.

  Of the four of us, strangely enough, Keith was the most emotionally involved. His expression, when I caught him off guard, was one of bewilderment—as if he could not yet believe his mother gone. More than once, he lingered by the great basket of witch balls, and when Glen and Nomi had carried a load up to the attic, he picked one of them up and held it in his hands. He spoke to me over his shoulder, his face hidden.

  “Do you think Glen would mind if I kept one of these?”

  I felt sorry for the boy, no matter how badly he had behaved. “I don’t think he’ll mind. But why do you want it?”

  He held the purple sphere up to the light from a window. “Because she read my fortune in this once. She looked into it and told me what she saw.”

  I did not stop what I was doing, but asked my question casually. “What did she see?”

  He stared into the ball as though he might recreate the vision he had glimpsed through his mother’s eyes. “She saw me standing in a high place with a rifle to my shoulder.” He shuddered faintly. “When she told me she dropped her voice very low and husky, the way she could sometimes, and she said, ‘Be sure you shoot to kill!’ But what happened after that she never told me. She said the mist came in and she couldn’t see any more.”

  Impatiently, I left the box of dresses I was packing. “You’re too much concerned with killing, with frightening, and with injuring, Keith. Why? What satisfaction do you get from that sort of thing? And don’t tell me you want to play God.”

  He did not answer me directly, but set down the purple ball among its fellows and turned to pack a box of Glynis’s shoes. “It’s good we’re putting all this away. I wish everything of hers could be put into locked trunks, and the attic locked besides. Then maybe she couldn’t get out.”

  His vehemence startled me. “Oh, come now!” I cried “You’re not letting Nomi’s nonsense take hold of you, too! All that about Glynis not resting in the cemetery!”

  “Are you sure it’s nonsense?” His blue eyes looked darker than I’d ever seen them and I remembered that there was both Irish and Scottish blood in the boy—a mixture that might lead to curious notions. “Don’t you think if we put all her things away and lock them up it will be harder for her to get to us?” he questioned. “I think she needs to touch something of hers before she can make an entry.”

  “Entry!” I repeated, appalled. “Whatever are you talking about?”

  “Don’t you ever feel her around?” he asked. “Don’t you ever feel her beating at you as if she was trying to get in? Glen says she’ll get in wherever she finds a chink.”

  “She doesn’t beat at me,” I said dryly. “I think you walk around in the woods too much alone. Why don’t you talk these things over with your father?”

  “My father!” Keith was scornful. “I know what he’d say and how he’d laugh at me.”

  “You underestimate your father,” I said. “I’ve known him for a long time. I knew him when I was your age, when my own fa
ther died. I was ready to die of grief then myself, and it was your father who coaxed me back into wanting to live. He made me know that I really could get along without my father and go on to other things. Maybe you haven’t given your father a chance.”

  He scarcely attended my words. His young eyes were dark with an unhappy, inward-turning vision that the purple sphere had raised in his eyes.

  “Glynis not only tries to get in—sometimes she does,” he said. “That’s what happened upstairs in the attic when I took that scarf and tried to frighten you. It’s what she wanted. But I think it’s not me she means to use—I think it’s Glen she wants to get at. And she reaches him sometimes. I know she does. Haven’t you seen her look out of his eyes?”

  Reluctantly I remembered the gesture of thumbnail to eyebrow. “I think you mustn’t indulge such notions, Keith. They’re not real, though perhaps you find them exciting.”

  He turned to me suddenly. “I’m sorry I tried to scare you up in the attic. I don’t blame you for slapping me. It helped me because it frightened her off.”

  The others came back, and there was nothing more I could say—or wanted to say. The boy alarmed me, but I put these thoughts away as something I must talk about with his father.

  Glen went to strip the bed, take off the quilt that was Glynis’s favorite, pull off the tinted sheets that no one else in the house used. Keith watched him for a moment, watched the vigor with which Glen went to work, as if he would rip Glynis out of his mind and his heart. Then, moving quickly and without warning, Keith sprang to a window, flung it open, picked up the basket of witch balls and dumped the whole thing out the window. The balls clattered into a snowbank outside, crashing into one another, shattering and splintering with a great ringing of sound.

  Glen turned to stare at Keith in astonishment.

  Nomi said, “A fine mess you’ve made, boy. Now you can get down there with a shovel and clean up all that glass.”

  Keith moved exuberantly, as though released from a spell. “Sure, I’ll clean it up!” he shouted and went clattering off down the stairs.