Witchlight

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  As SHE BACKED out of the garage Winter could see Ramsey watching her through the living room window, as isolated as a castaway on a desert island. Although she was only yards away, Winter already felt as though she couldn’t go back, as if there were some force pushing the two of them apart. She willed herself not to care, to look to what came next. There was no way to go back, after all—there was no “back” to go to.

  She turned onto the street and drove away, and by the time Winter had reached the cross street the house was no longer in sight.

  Surrounded by the sights and sounds of weekday-morning Dayton traffic, Winter brooded. Ramsey had been completely honest with her at the end. Motivated by fear … or because he had given up trying to protect her? Winter’s fingers briefly touched the bag on the seat beside her. It held Cassie’s address. Or what Ramsey said was Cassie’s address, anyway.

  Now that she was on the road and heading for the interchange that would put her in 1-80, Winter realized that her hasty departure from Ramsey’s house had been motivated as much by panic and guilt as anything else. She’d taken off without a clear plan in mind, and California was a long way to go by car. There were major air-travel hubs in Chicago and St. Louis; surely it would be more sensible to drive to either place and fly out from there?

  But a part of Winter disliked the thought of being without a car once she arrived—unless she rented one—and, searching her emotions further, she realized she was reluctant to face Cassilda Chandler at all. Had Cassie changed? She was the only one of us who kept faith, Winter thought with an odd pang. From Ramsey’s hints, Cassie was still deeply involved in … whatever the five of them had been deeply involved in. Magic. Occultism. “The dark twin of Science,” according to the Thorne Blackburn biography. Taken up during their college days, as far as Winter could reconstruct, and never quite abandoned.

  Not completely.

  Not by all of them.

  She turned onto one of the six-lane roads that led to the interstate, her body moving the car smoothly and automatically through the rush-hour traffic. Could it be Cassie who had sent the magickal child? The idea had a certain repugnant logic.

  “After all, if you can’t suspect your friends, who can you suspect?” Grey said out of memory.

  “I wish you were here to tell me what’s going on,” Winter muttered to the absent Hunter Greyson.

  Somehow she thought that he knew; Grey had always known, or seemed to know, the answer to everything—at least as much as a college student could be expected to know. It was hard now to remember how young they’d all been then. They’d felt like adults, and thought that was all that mattered, but they’d been kids. And now, all these years later, how well could she say she still knew any of them? Janelle, entombed in her sad marriage, Ramsey, complacently accepting his myriad failures—maybe Cassie had undergone the same sort of dark alchemical transformation, into …

  The interchange for I-80 West loomed ahead in a blaze of red-white-and-blue shield-shaped signs. Accustomed to making instant decisions, Winter pulled onto the on ramp and merged smoothly with the heavier traffic, buying herself more time to think. She had to go west anyway—to reach Chicago, if she decided to fly; to reach I-90 and California if she didn’t. Once she’d settled into the light autohypnosis of long-distance driving, her mind returned unerringly to her original problem. The artificial Elemental—the magickal child.

  A power created and sent by a magician was stalking her. Beyond reason or sense, her problem was a magickal assault by a person or persons unknown. Its danger increased with every day, and she had no idea what to do about it.

  She’d been searching for Grey because he was the only magician she knew. She could not believe he would have returned from nowhere to harm her; but how could she be certain she’d had no contact with Grey since college? Could he be carrying out some agenda she’d forgotten?

  Winter frowned. She remembered the farmhouse outside Glastonbury, and before that, the sanatorium at Fall River. She remembered Arkham Miskatonic King, the day she’d started work there still as bright in her mind as a new-minted penny … .

  And before that came the garbled half-memories of college, like bright fish in murky waters. She hardly remembered Grey at all, but she could not believe she could ever have done something to kindle that degree of hatred in a sane person. And Grey, whatever else she might have forgotten about him, had been radiantly sane.

  But not, now that Winter came to think about it, the only magician she knew. If she could believe what Ramsey had said, Cassilda had “kept up with” the Blackburn Work as well, so Cassie could be as much help to Winter as Grey could.

  Or as much harm. Face it, Winter, while sorcerous assault strains the credibility, being a victim chosen at random snaps it right in half. It has to be someone who knows you—and who you know.

  Not Cassie. Not Grey. With the obstinacy of a child lying alone in the dark, Winter clung to that belief. They had been her friends. They would never hurt her. Even Ramsey and Janelle, strange as they were, changed as they were, had meant her no harm.

  I need time.

  Time to reason things out, in a situation where no reason was possible. Time to think. Time to plan.

  Time to learn. About herself, at least, if nothing else.

  BUT RAMSEY had said Cassie’s problem might be urgent, and so, a couple of hours later, when Winter stopped for gas and to stretch her legs, she sought out a pay phone to call Cassie.

  She was at one of those mass-produced rest stops on the interstate that seemed to have evolved in defiance of every tenet of Lady Bird Johnson’s “Keep America Beautiful” campaign thirty years before. The pay phones were located in a not-very-quiet corner where the noise of tired children, cash registers, and Muzak made a deadening background mush of sound. Winter cradled the phone to her ear and thanked her lucky stars that her PhoneCard still worked—she hated to think how many quarters she would have had to feed the phone if it didn’t. Fortunately the escrow account that had taken care of her bills during the time she’d been at Fall River had seen to it that her checks didn’t bounce, her charge cards were paid, and there was money in her drawing account.

  Now that she knew what city’s directory assistance to consult, she got Cassie’s home number easily. Winter carefully crossed out the old Berkeley number in her Filofax and wrote in the new. There was only one Cassilda Chandler in the San Francisco phone book, but there was no answer at that number. After a moment’s hesitation, she dialed again and asked directory assistance for the number of the Ancient Mysteries Bookstore on Haight Street, and once the synthetic robot voice had provided it, dialed it before she had the chance to regret doing so.

  The phone rang mindlessly on; after a dozen rings, Winter lost count and simply watched the second hand sweep around the dial of the clock that was hung over the entrance to the rest-stop cafeteria. As the clock measured off the seconds, Winter felt herself losing patience. Surely any bookstore, no matter how New Age-y and laid-back, would answer a phone that had rung for over a minute?

  Finally she hung up and moved slowly away from the bank of phones, worry and relief combining into a disoriented, unsettled feeling. How could she ask Cassie what was wrong if the woman wouldn’t even answer her phone?

  She’d have to try again later.

  THERE WAS no answer when Winter stopped for lunch, either. Pretty soon she’d cross the Indiana border, and then she was going to have to make up her mind whether to head north for Chicago and fly the rest of the way, or drive straight through, which would take two or three days minimum—at least if she took it easy and didn’t push it.

  Driving did have a certain perverse appeal. Behind the wheel Winter could always tell herself that she was on the verge of turning back; that this was a pleasure trip; that her destination was not as fixed and irrevocable as the stars in their courses. Behind the wheel, Winter felt safe.

  And safety—real or illusory—was a commodity in short supply in her life just now.


  That’s it then. I drive—unless and until I get through to Cassie and get some real information. And anyway, almost every major city has at least a small airport—even Indianapolis. No matter where I am, I’m only hours away from the West Coast if there’s a real emergency.

  By evening Winter had crossed the border from Indiana into Illinois. She’d taken to trying Cassie every time she stopped, and had gotten no answer at either of the numbers. While Cassie might be out of town, surely the bookstore would still be open?

  Maybe they’ve gone out of business. Places like that do. Ramsey didn’t tell me how long it had been since she called him—and I didn’t think to ask, dammit.

  But that, at least, was easily remedied.

  A few hours after dark, Winter stopped for the night in a shabby little motel that offered a night’s lodging for the price of a Wall Street lunch. The room she got was run-down and depressing—surprising partly in the fact that, unsatisfactory as it was, people would still pay to rent it—but it had a phone.

  The nearest restaurant was in the town beyond. Winter, reluctant to face food that might match her lodgings, settled for a Coke out of the machine. She shouldn’t put off the call anyway. Picking up the phone, she dialed in the fourteen-digit access number, then Ramsey’s number. A moment later she heard him answer.

  “Ramsey?”

  The sense of relief she felt when she heard his voice made her giddy; she realized that in some part of her mind she’d just expected him to be gone. Vanished without a trace, like her past.

  “Winter!” His voice was politely cheerful … and faintly slurred.

  He’s drunk, Winter thought in surprise. “Hi, I’m in Illinois. I thought I’d call and see how you were.”

  “It was good to see you. We’ll have to do this again.”

  Winter recognized the tone in his voice. Someone skating on the thin edge of memory, not quite sure of the context.

  “Maybe the five of us could have our own private reunion,” she said. “And actually, that’s sort of why I’m calling. I’ve been trying to reach Cassie all day and I haven’t been able to get through to her either at home or at that bookstore you said she has. I’m hoping she hasn’t moved on; when did you say you’d talked to her last?”

  The sudden strained silence at the other end of the line made Winter think she’d just said something wrong—but what?

  “Ramsey, you said you’d talked to her,” Winter prompted, almost pleading. “When?”

  “A couple of weeks. Maybe a month. Or two. I didn’t exactly write it down in my DayTimer.” There was a sullenness in his voice she had not heard before.

  And I bet you forgot all about it—until this morning. And something about dead animals in the middle of your kitchen brought it right to mind, Winter thought grimly. The creature that stalked her—that seemed to stalk all of them—somehow played upon the memory, withholding recollection at will.

  But hadn’t she read somewhere that the brain generated its own electric current? Winter remembered the ball of lightning that had destroyed Nina’s car; the spark that had melted the lamp in Ramsey’s guest room. Maybe she was what had made Ramsey remember. And if so, could she do it now—at this distance?

  “Well, of course not. Why would you do that?” Winter answered soothingly. “But I can’t reach her at her home, and the bookstore doesn’t answer, so I’m starting to worry. Was it after Christmas that she called you?” He’d said he exchanged Christmas cards with the others. It would be a logical time for a letter. But not if the situation were urgent.

  There was no answer from the other end of the line.

  “You said it was important, Ramsey—that Cassie had a problem. You asked me to look her up.”

  “You told me you were going to go see her.” Ramsey’s tone was as near to hostile as she’d ever heard it. If she was the force that had made him remember, apparently she couldn’t manage the trick from where she was now.

  “Of course I did. I’m just wondering, now that I can’t reach her …” Winter tried to think of some question that would pierce the veil of forgetfulness that her disembodied opponent had woven around Ramsey Miller.

  “Look, Winter, I’m glad you called, but I’m pretty busy right now. Catch you later, okay?” The phone went dead.

  She called back immediately but the line was busy, and after half an hour she admitted to herself that Ramsey had probably taken the phone off the hook.

  That left Janelle.

  Winter stared at the phone doubtfully. Ramsey said that Janelle’s memory was unreliable, but Winter had only Ramsey’s word for that. On the other hand, Janelle hadn’t seemed to be in touch with Cassie when Winter had asked before. There was probably no point in calling her at all.

  Since when did you become a coward? Winter demanded scornfully of herself. Balancing her Filofax on her knee, she quickly punched in the combined digits of her PhoneCard and Janelle’s number.

  This time she’d work into things gradually. She could tell Jannie about visiting Ramsey; it was a reasonable call for old friends getting back in touch to make—

  “Hello? I’d like to speak to—”

  “She isn’t here,” Denny said, and slammed down the phone.

  At nine o’clock at night? Winter slowly replaced the receiver in its cradle. Whether Janelle was there, or out—Or dead, a chill inner voice added—Winter was not going to be able to talk to her. Not tonight, anyway.

  She tried both of Cassie’s numbers again—it would only be 6:00 on the West Coast—and got, as she had learned to expect, no answer.

  No answers anywhere.

  THEY WERE in the apple orchard below Greyangels—somehow she knew that, although she had no conscious memory of the place. The close-planted rows of trees were covered with masses of pink-white blossoms, so new that the tightly clustered petals had not yet begun to fall to the ground.

  In his fringed white leather jacket and acid-washed jeans, Grey blended into them; a snow-leopard against a field of ice. His eyes were as pale as the rest of him—quicksilver mirrors of crystal and light.

  “Stay with me,” Hunter Greyson said. “Stay with me, Winter.” He reached for her.

  There was no reason for the words, the gesture, to frighten her so, but terror was a sudden cold weight beneath her heart. She began to back away, out of reach, but she was too slow. Grey grabbed her arm, and she could feel his fingers sinking into her flesh like hot iron into snow.

  “Stay with me. Stay with me, Winter. Stay with me stay with me stay with me—”

  She felt his fingers break the skin and knew that in a moment the blood would come—and that when it did, Grey would tear her to ribbons. She had to get away. If she did not, he would destroy her.

  She struggled against him one final frantic time, but it was too late. The sluggish blood flowed over her skin like cold acid, and as it did, Hunter Greyson began to change.

  His face elongated, the cool patrician features sliding sickeningly out of alignment, until instead of a mouth there was a muzzle, and his teeth were long and sharp. Helplessly she began to cry, and her tears burned, too, melting the flesh from her face.

  “Stay with me …” He leaned toward her, raising his other hand to begin the flensing of her, and she could not bear it, not again—

  She screamed, and tore free of him, the blood was everywhere and would not stop. Grey snarled, and the scent of apple blossoms was gaggingly strong, like the smell of rot and decay. She ran, but the apple blossoms were falling now, and she slipped on their slick white softness and fell, helpless … .

  THE SOUND OF her own scream woke Winter moments before she crashed to the floor. For a moment she fought frantically against the cocooning sheets until the very ordinariness of her fruitless struggles brought her fully awake.

  A dream. It was only a dream.

  For a moment Winter lay there panting, almost whimpering with relief. She was soaked in clammy sweat and her heart hammered as if she had, indeed, been running.


  He’d wanted her. To stay with him always. He’d wanted her to stay, and the flowers had been everywhere. She hadn’t been able to get the scent out of her hair afterward … .

  With hands that shook uncontrollably, she untangled herself from the sheet.

  Grey had wanted her.

  The memory of that nightmare hunger made her shudder. It was as vivid as if she still dreamed, and even now it seemed as if she could smell the apple blossoms. No wonder she hadn’t even wanted to see the orchard behind the house, if that was what had happened there … .

  But how could it have?

  Winter frowned, confused, feeling the borders of sanity and unreason slide over each other in her mind. What she had dreamed could not have had any counterpart in reality. People’s bodies did not shift like quicksilver; and when they killed, it was not with fangs and claws. She was not dead. She had dreamed. That was all.

  Only a dream …

  She kicked her feet free of the blankets and sat up to turn on the lamp. The warm illumination banished the last of the night shadows and cleared her head. She stood, stretching, and winced at the stiffness in her muscles. She must have been lying there rigid as a board until she’d knocked herself out of bed. But the nightmare was only a manifestation of her anxiety—a projection of her fears about the others. She could have dreamed of Cassie just as easily. Grey had not turned into a monster and tried to devour her alive.

  She thought.

  Wearily she ran a hand through her hair. Who could tell where reality ended any more? At Nuclear Lake and in the Bidney Institute Lab she’d already seen and experienced things that were starkly unbelievable by modern standards—and Winter was wise and honest enough to admit that if they happened to her, similar things probably happened to others as well. The world was a stranger and more frightening place than anyone was willing to admit; a place without limits, where wonders and horrors occurred every day and miracles were commonplace.

  Wonderful. A whole culture in denial. Is there a twelve-step program for the refusal to see ghosts?