Voices in the Snow

by Darcy Coates

  Outside, something small and dark marred the perfect white world. Clare had to bend close to the glass and crane her neck to see it. A rectangular shape, no bigger than her head, was embedded in the snow below the window. A fresh coat of white was already erasing it. Clare needed only a glimpse to guess what it was, though. A roof tile.

  The wind continued to beat at the house, but its whistle pitch had risen a note as it burrowed into the hole it had created. Clare shuddered and stepped away from the window. She reluctantly let the cloth fall back into place.

  She’d been unnerved by the wind earlier when she was in her room, but at least she had felt sheltered inside the mansion. The building was so big, solid, and hulking, she’d had trouble imagining that anything could so much as chip it.

  But the house was crumbling. The wind had already eaten a gap in the roof and made a home for itself inside. How many more tiles would fall before winter was over?

  She couldn’t stop shaking as she followed the hallway back to her room. To reach it, she had to walk over the space where she thought she’d seen the figure. Clare eyed the smooth wallpaper as she passed it. There were no doors in that stretch of the hall, nowhere for the stranger to hide. She felt sick.

  I didn’t imagine it. Clare’s footsteps grew faster as she became desperate to put the window and the hall behind her.

  She stopped at the door to her room. The crackling fire was warm. Her bed, with tussled and unmade sheets, looked comfortable. But the space still didn’t feel inviting. She imagined sitting in front of the fire, trying to get the flames to reheat the chill inside her chest, as she waited for Dorran to return. It would be just her. Alone with the house.

  Clare ducked her head and passed the room, aiming towards the glow at the end of the stairs. It might not be as warm as her bedroom, but it offered something more—human company. The security of companionship would stop her mind from going wild at every little shadow and noise. She never would have expected to turn to the strange man for comfort, but at least Dorran stopped the house from feeling so empty.

  The carpet-covered stairs creaked as she descended them. She could see the foyer, but it was empty. A single candle waited on a table at the base of the stairs, perched on an old-fashioned bronze candleholder, and Clare picked it up.

  On the third floor, the wind made its presence known unrelentingly. It whistled, spat, and shook anything it could get a hold on. In the foyer, though, its spiteful effects were muted. Instead, echoes surrounded Clare. Every little step, every breath, was whispered back to her.

  Condensation rose like smoke every time she exhaled. She eyed the front door but passed it, instead looking for paths that might lead to the kitchen. There was no light and no sign of Dorran.

  She pressed on the largest door and found herself facing a dining hall that looked like something out of a period drama. The table was large enough to seat thirty, but its settings had been cleared. The serving tables were bare. Everything had been cleaned scrupulously. The mahogany wood shone, the tiles had been scrubbed until they glistened, and even the chandelier reflected her candlelight back at her.

  The tiles were too cold to stand on, so Clare backed out of the room and shut the doors. They moved silently, their hinges so well-oiled that they could almost fool her into thinking they were brand-new. They weren’t, though. The wood was old—well maintained, but old. A thousand tiny scratches and scrapes had been buffed out through the years.

  Clare tried the next door. The room was empty except for more doors, like some kind of transitional room. One of the doors had a line of light flowing out from under it. As she moved closer, Clare began to hear noises—scraping, scratching, snapping. Interspersed between them was a whistle, not too different from how the wind sounded, except this one had a tune. It was low and mournful. Haunting.

  As Clare stood on the door’s threshold, Beth’s voice of caution returned, begging her to retreat and go back upstairs. Her room might be lonely, but at least it was familiar and safe.

  The tune dropped in pitch, and the scraping noise grew louder. Clare had come too far to go back. She clutched the candle tightly as she turned the door handle.

  Beyond the door was a kitchen. The space looked larger than Clare’s entire cottage. The line of benches running around the room’s edge was broken by stove tops and a gigantic brick oven. Two thick tables with dried herbs suspended above them filled up the room’s centre. Pots and pans, blackened from use and sometimes dented, hung from the walls, between racks of knives, chopping boards, and kitchen utensils.

  The room was dark, lit by only an oil lamp perched on the centre table and two candles spaced over the nearest bench. Dorran stood there, knife in hand and eyes wild.

  They stared at each other for a moment, both silent and unmoving. Then Dorran exhaled and dropped the knife back onto the chopping block. “Clare. You startled me. You looked like a ghost.”

  She glanced down. Her own candle lit her, but not well. She could only imagine what she must have looked like standing in the dark doorway. “Sorry.”

  “Is everything all right?”

  “Yes. Fine.” She stepped into the room, warily eyeing the knives on the wall and the bronze fixtures that flickered in the candlelight. “It’s dark in here.”

  “I will fix that.” The aisle was narrow, and Dorran’s shoulder brushed Clare’s as he passed her. He flicked an oversized switch on the back wall, and sudden, sharp light bathed the room.

  Dorran blew out the candles and the lamp as he returned to the bench. He’d been chopping leeks. Not far away, a pot simmered on the stove top. He pulled a chair out from under the nearest table and indicated for Clare to sit. Then he undid his coat and draped it around her shoulders before stepping around her and fetching something from a cupboard near the door. Clare gratefully hugged the fur coat around herself. The kitchen wasn’t quite as cold as the rest of the house, but it was still biting enough to feel through the dress.

  “Here.” Dorran placed a pair of worn leather boots at her side. “These should stop you from freezing. I didn’t expect you to come looking for me, or I would have left the lights on.”

  She wanted to laugh but didn’t know if it would be rude. “Do you always work in the dark?”

  “No. But the storm took the power out.” He scooped the leeks into the pot and stirred it. “We have a generator—the house is so remote that we lose power at least three or four times a year—but our fuel supplies are limited. I am trying to conserve where I can just in case we are trapped for longer than a few weeks.”

  “Oh!” She frowned up at the large, high-intensity lights set into the ceiling as she slid her feet into the boots. “Sorry. I didn’t realise. You can leave them off.”

  His glance was sharp. “We can afford to keep them on for a while, especially since you are not familiar with the house.”

  Dorran retrieved two bowls from under the sink, ladled the soup into them, then topped them with parsley. He placed one in front of Clare, and she saw that it was really more of a stew. Chunks of meat bobbed among the vegetables.

  “This is nice. Thank you.”

  “It is still tinned soup, I’m afraid, but I supplemented what I could.” He sank into the chair beside her. “We have nonperishable food and frozen meat and vegetables but almost nothing fresh.”

  “I suppose your family wouldn’t want the food rotting while they were away.”

  “Exactly.” He frowned. “The leek was a lucky find.”

  “A moment ago, you said you were conserving fuel in case we’re trapped here for weeks. That’s not likely, though, is it? Winter’s only just begun. There’s usually a few patches of warm weather before the cold really kicks in.”

  He didn’t speak for a moment but stirred his stew slowly. “I am not sure what to think. This storm arrived unnaturally quickly.”

  Clare closed her eyes and once again tried to dredge up memories of that final day. She remembered brewing coffee that morning. It had been a fair da
y then. Sunlight—not warm but bright enough—had been coming through her window.

  That was her last reliable memory. Everything after that felt jumbled and was mixed in with what had to be dreams. Her recollections felt like someone had dumped two jigsaw puzzles into one box and told her to solve them.

  She’d been driving to Marnie’s. She was sure that was real. And she’d been on the phone with Bethany, though she couldn’t remember what they had been talking about. But it had been snowing heavily. Beth had been worried about her. She thought her older sister might have been telling her to go back home, but it had been too late for that. She’d been closer to Marnie’s house than to her own.

  She thought she remembered something about a news station. That had to be a dream. She only watched TV in the evening and never followed the news because it just depressed her. And she had passed a car on the side of the road, but that had been so unreal that she wasn’t sure whether it was an actual memory or not.

  But she did remember the snow. “The storm came out of nowhere, didn’t it? I wouldn’t have gone driving if I’d known it would be that bad.”

  “The same for myself. We had barely even had frost the week before. Realistically, my family should have been able to stay here for at least two or three more weeks, but my mother likes to make our journey to Gould early, before there is any chance of snow. I asked to be let out not long after leaving the forest. The sky was clear then. An hour into the walk home, snow was falling between the trees, and I could hear the wind howling. It was not long after that when I found you.”

  “You walked home? From outside the forest?”

  “It is less than four hours if you keep a good pace.”

  “You must have really not wanted to go to Gould.”

  He laughed. “I did not.”

  Clare sipped some of the soup. It was good, meaty, and rich. “I guess the storm caught both of us unaware.”

  “Yes. And I bring up the storm’s suddenness to try to explain why I am being cautious.” Dorran continued to stir his soup, scooping up bits of vegetables then letting them drop back in. “Weather in this region can be unpredictable. But the storm appeared in less than an hour and has lasted for three days now. That is not normal.”

  Clare lowered her spoon. “What are you saying?”

  “I cannot be certain, but some part about this feels wrong. I intend to be cautious, to take precautions, to guard our resources. The storm may still clear, and the temperature may rise within a day or two. But we cannot rely on it. Lives are lost when people take good fortune for granted.”

  Chapter Eight

  Nestled in the kitchen, in the heart of the house and with Dorran beside her, it was easy to forget how vicious the weather was. But Clare could still picture the outside world blanketed in snow so thick that the ground looked like it might never resurface. She was used to storms lasting a few hours, sometimes as long as half a day. Three days of unrelenting blizzards wasn’t right, though. A sense of malaise crawled into her bones.

  On the morning of the crash, Beth had been worried about something. She’d called Clare because of it. Worried about the storm? No, if it had just been a storm, I would have stayed in my house and weathered it out.

  “If this is a worst-case scenario…” She spoke carefully, trying not to let her imagination run away from her. “How long could we live here?”

  “I took inventory yesterday. We have an abundance of firewood, so heat will not be an issue. Food is more limited. We have tinned soup and rice but only enough to keep us for a few weeks. We have three kilos of frozen meat and a small amount of frozen vegetables.” He nodded towards the door. “We also have a garden.”

  Clare frowned. “That’s got to be long gone, though, right? It would be buried under the snow by now.”

  “Not quite. I will show you later. It is not planted, but it may provide food once the nonperishable goods are gone.”

  “Right.” Clare dropped her spoon into her bowl. She knew she had to eat, but her mouth had turned dust dry. For the first time, she imagined what might happen if the snow didn’t let up. If deep winter had arrived early and the roads remained choked until spring, they would be trapped in Winterbourne. She couldn’t picture spending four months there cut off from the rest of the world.

  There’s probably nothing to worry about. Like Dorran said, the weather around here is unpredictable. But it’s not like it will hurt to be prepared in case of a worst-case scenario either.

  Clare swallowed. “I can help. With the garden, or the cooking, or repairing the house. Whatever you need.”

  He blinked. “Thank you. But you should rest. At least for a while longer.”

  “I’m feeling a lot better today.” That was the truth. The stiffness and the pains persisted, but she no longer felt as though she were about to collapse.

  “I’m glad to hear it.” He rose and carried his empty bowl to the sink. “I’ll help you with your hair. Finish eating while I heat some water.”

  Clare had been used to Beth washing her hair when she was a young teen, on the occasions when she tried to do something fancy with it. And the hairdressers washed it before cutting it. But letting Dorran run his fingers over her scalp was a strange experience.

  He had her lean back in one of the kitchen chairs and draped a towel around her neck while he balanced a washbowl behind her. Traces of dried blood had matted her hair, but unlike Beth and the hairdressers, he was incredibly careful as he untangled it. He worked through the knots slowly, alternately using shampoo and conditioner from glass bottles. His thick eyebrows were pulled together in concentration, but otherwise, he looked serene.

  The experience was far too intimate for Clare. Desperate for a distraction, she started a conversation. “This really is inside the Banksy Forest, isn’t it?”

  “The estate? Yes.”

  “I can’t believe I never knew it was here. It must be old.”

  “Very old.”

  “Older than the forest?”

  “The same age. My family owns the forest.”

  “Oh!” Pieces were starting to fall into place. “Does that mean they planted it?”

  “Correct. Several hundred years ago. This and many other forests.” He scooped up a cupful of warm water and poured it over her hair, his other hand smoothing the suds out. Then the comb returned to a stubborn patch just above her temple.

  Clare shuffled a little higher in her seat. She was still trying to get used to being touched by someone she barely knew. “Why did they plant them?”

  “It was our business. We grew wood. It made our family wealthy.”

  She tried to glimpse his face again, but his head was down as he tried to ease grime out of the tangle without hurting her. “Why didn’t they cut this one down?”

  “Because the head of the family died unexpectedly. In her grief, his widow had a house built where no one could disturb her—inside one of the forests.”

  Clare eyed the kitchen. “She must have been very rich. I had no idea wood growing could be so profitable.”

  “It wasn’t our only business, but it was our mainstay. Under good leadership, wealth tends to cascade. Unfortunately, since the house was built, good leadership has been rare in our family. The estates—and the businesses—were passed down through generations and gradually sold as expenses exceeded income. Now we have almost nothing left. This estate. The Gould estate. And this forest.”

  He sounded sad. Clare pulled the fur coat around herself a little more tightly. “Still, it’s more than a lot of people have, right?”

  “True.” Dorran’s inflection didn’t change, but as the word hung between them, Clare sensed there was something more he was stopping himself from saying.

  She lifted her eyebrows. “But?”

  “I worry about the future.” The words came out carefully, as though he didn’t like to say them. “If we sold this building and lived modestly, we would have nothing to worry about. But my mother insists on holding this house an
d maintaining our traditions. Sixty full-time staff are not cheap. Repairing and maintaining a building this old and large is not cheap. We have money, but it flows out rapidly, and nothing comes in to replace it. By the time my mother is dead, I suspect we will be bankrupt.”

  Clare tried to imagine how that must feel—to come from a family of historical significance, to live a life of decadence, but to know you would inherit none of it. Winterbourne Hall was massive and clean, but she doubted it would be easy to sell. Banksy Forest wasn’t a prime location. There were no beautiful views to attract luxury vacationers, and the snow made the place unlivable for nearly four months every year. The building, for all of the care that had gone into maintaining it, wasn’t modern enough to attract a fair price.

  Dorran’s fingers caught on a snag, and Clare swallowed a gasp. He pulled back, sounding alarmed. “Forgive me.”

  “It’s fine.” She laughed. “You don’t have to worry so much. You’re doing a good job.”

  After a moment, his hands returned, moving more carefully.

  “What about you?” Clare tried again to see his face. His dark eyes met hers then glanced away. “What will you do if your mother is spending all of her money?”

  “Truthfully, I do not yet know. I would like to work. I would like to be responsible for something. But that is not an option as long as I live here.”

  “Why don’t you leave?”

  He closed his eyes. The muscles in his jaw twitched. Before she could identify the emotions he was trying to conceal, he opened his eyes and his features returned to neutral. He dipped the comb into the water before answering. “I cannot.”

  His tone made it clear he didn’t want to continue that line of conversation, but Clare was too curious to stop. “Why not?”

  “The world is not particularly welcoming to someone like me.”

  “Someone like you?”

  He poured fresh water over her hair, holding one hand across her forehead to keep it from running into her eyes. “Strange.”

  “What? You’re not strange.”