The Wolves of Midwinter

33

ELEVEN P.M. at Nideck Point. The house was quiet, the fires out. Laura had long ago gone into the forest with Berenice. Felix and Phil had come back from the forest early and Felix had gone up to bed.

Reuben walked down the hill alone in the soft soundless rain. He approached the dimly lighted guesthouse, hoping, praying his father might be awake, that they might sit and talk.

He felt restless, slightly hungry, with a little ache in his heart.

He knew all was well in San Francisco. He’d never doubted that it would be well. Lorraine and the children were staying with Grace until the end of the week. Grace had not been able to put into words how well things had gone. But the many pictures told the story, coming in over the late afternoon. The whole family at lunch, including the ecstatic father flanked by his children and a happy Lorraine beside a cheerful and relaxed Celeste. Then there was little Christine sitting beside her beaming father by the fireplace. Grace with both her grandchildren. And Jamie in front of the same fireplace, standing straight and tall for the inevitable record beside his proud dad.

No one ventured to speculate as to where Jim’s future would take him. But Reuben had every confidence that Jim was in possession of a rare and priceless treasure that would smooth his path no matter which way he had to go.

And Reuben was restless, and alone.

As he drew closer to the little guesthouse, he realized there were two figures inside, only dimly illuminated by the dying fire. One was his father, naked and barefoot, and the other was Lisa in one of her characteristic dark dresses with lace at the throat.

His father was embracing Lisa, kissing her, kissing her as passionately as Reuben had ever seen a man kiss a woman. Reuben waited, fascinated, knowing he should not remain there, that he should look away but he did not. How healthy, how strong was this man who was his father, and how pliant and yielding seemed the figure of Lisa, as Phil pulled down her long hair.

As Reuben watched, the two left the dying light of the fire and moved towards the spiral stairs to the attic above. A gust of rain hit the large multipaned windows. The icy wind from the sea stole through the rattling branches and the newly fallen leaves that littered the terrace and the path.

Reuben felt suddenly crestfallen and strangely disturbed. He was happy for Phil. He knew his father’s time with his mother was over. He had realized that quite some time ago. Yet it still saddened him to realize it with such sharpness, and he felt suddenly extremely alone. He knew in his heart of hearts that Lisa was a male, not a female, no matter how elaborate her accoutrements, and that faintly amused him and fascinated him—how little difference it seemed to make. There is no normal life. There is only life.

He stood very still in the darkness, realizing he was cold and wet and his shoes were wet through, and that he ought to go back up the hill. He looked up at the dark trees around him, at the pines soaring above the scrub oaks, at the dark tortured shapes of the Monterey cypress forever grasping in desperation for what they would never reach, and he felt a strange longing to shed his clothes and to move off into the forest alone—to break out of the shell of this all too human discomfort into a different and savage realm.

Quite suddenly, he heard a rush of sounds near him, faint, crackling, rustling, and then the touch of hot breath on his neck. He knew the claws that were clutching his shoulders, and the teeth pulling at his shirt collar.

“Yes,” he whispered, “darling dear. Rip it off.”

In a moment he’d turned and given himself up to her, feeling her fur sealed against him as she pulled away the shirt and jacket like so much wrapping paper on a gift. He kicked off his shoes as she ripped his trousers away. His shredded underwear fell away as her paws moved over his naked chest and legs.

He held off the change, even though he was chilled to the bone, his hands running through her mane and fur roughly, and loving the feel of her tongue against his naked face. He could hear her laughing, a deep vibrant laugh.

She lifted him off his feet with her left arm, and sprang off down the hill, and into the thick of the uncleared forest and then she started up into the trees. He had to hold on to her with both arms as she used both of hers. He was laughing like a kid. He locked his legs around her, loving the feel of her easy power as she climbed higher and higher into the redwoods, into the pines. From tree to tree, she ventured on. He didn’t dare to look down, but he couldn’t see well in the darkness anyway, not till he changed, and he was holding it off with all his strength.

“And the beast saw beauty,” she growled against his ear, “and carried him away with all her might and main.”

He’d never laughed this hard in his life. He kissed the soft silky fur of her face. “Wicked beast,” he said. The pringling would not stop. He couldn’t fight the change now; the change was rampant. And she was laughing, lapping him with her tongue as if this would hasten the metamorphosis. And maybe it did.

She leapt down, down through the groaning and snapping branches and they fell together softly on the damp leafy earth. He was in full wolf coat now and they wrestled with one another, finally embracing side by side, face to face, and his organ battered against her as she teased him until finally she let him in.

This was who he was; this was what he wanted; this was what he’d longed for, and he did not know now why he had denied himself this for so long. All the victories and defeats of the human world were far away.

They lay together silently for a long while, and then he leapt up, urging her to follow him and they took to the trees again. Rapidly they moved through the wet foliage towards the sleeping town of Nideck.

Now and then they fed on the wild things, the tiny scurrying abundant life of the treetops, and now and then they dropped to lap the water from shimmering pools. But mostly they traveled the canopy until they had come to the edge of the sleeping town.

Far down below were the gleaming rooftops, the bright yellow sparkle of occasional streetlamps, the lingering smell of oak fires in the air. Reuben could easily make out the dark rectangle of the old cemetery, and even the glint of light on the wet headstones. He could see the small shimmering roof of the Nideck crypt there, and beyond the slumbering Victorian houses, some with the softest lights burning still within.

He and Laura embraced one another, a great heavy branch easily supporting them. He felt fearless, as if nothing in the world could hurt them, and the town below with its faint streak of twinkling lights along the main street seemed at peace.

O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie. Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.

“Maybe they’re all safe somewhere,” Laura said against his chest, “all the lost children of the world, loved, unloved, young and old. Maybe they are safe, or they will be safe, somehow, somewhere—even my children somewhere, safe and not alone.”

“Yes, I do believe that,” he said softly, “with all my heart.”

He was content for them to remain there forever as the rain fell gently around them.

“Listen, do you hear that?” she said.

Below, in the little town, a clock was solemnly chiming the hour of twelve.

“Yes,” he said at once picturing a polished hallway, a quiet parlor, a carpeted stair. “And Christmas is indeed complete upon the midnight,” he whispered to her, “and ‘Ordinary Time’ has begun.”

All the houses looked to him like toy houses, and he heard the chorus of the woods rise around him, his eyes closed, his hearing sharpening, probing over greater and greater distances until it seemed to him all the world sang. All the world was filled with falling rain.

“Listen to it,” he said in her ear. “It’s as if the forest is praying, as if the earth is praying, as if prayers are rising to heaven off every shimmering leaf and branch.”

“Why are we so sad?” she asked. How tender her voice sounded, even deepened and roughened as it was.

“Because we’re moving away from them down there,” he said. “And we know it. And my son when he comes into this world isn’t going to change that. And there is nothing we can do to change it. Can a Morphenkind shed tears?”

“Yes, we can shed tears,” she answered. “I know we can, because I have. And you’re right. We’re moving away from them, all of them, and we’re moving ever deeper into our own story and maybe that is as it should be. Felix has done all he can to help us, but we’re moving so rapidly away from them, what can we do?”

He thought about his little boy, that tiny slumbering creature in Celeste’s womb, that tender hostage to fortune that was his very own. Would he grow up in that cheerful house on Russian Hill with Jamie and Christine? Would he know the wholesome safety and happiness there that Reuben had long ago trusted so completely? It seemed so very distant suddenly, so bound up with sadness, with grief.

His mother was young yet, vital, a woman in her prime. And when Celeste entrusted the newborn infant to her, would Lorraine be there to also take it in her arms? He saw his brother vividly in the picture that began to glow ever more brightly, yet distantly, in his mind. He heard Jim’s words from the sermon at the altar steps: So I come away from Christmas—and that great shining banquet of riches—thankful once more for the absolute miracle of “Ordinary Time.”

“I love you, darling dear,” he said to Laura.

“And I love you, my beautiful one,” she answered. “What would the Wolf Gift be to me without you?”

THE END

June 22, 2012

February 4, 2013

Palm Desert, California