Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 02 (12 page)

 
          
"Nuclear
research? Is that why it's called Nuclear Lake?" Winter asked.

 
          
Nina
frowned. "I'm not sure
why
it's
called Nuclear Lake; just that everyone does. I looked it up; on the maps it's
Haelvemaen
Lake—
that
was a surprise! I'm not even sure it's still private land; it was just a
little parcel tucked into State land; somebody up in Albany probably eminent
do-
main'd
it into
Huyghe
State Park."

           
Haelvemaen
.
Dutch for "Half Moon," the name of the galleon that
Henrik
Hudson had first sailed up what would become the
Hudson River almost 400 years ago.

 
          
Nina
had returned to her records. "Well, I've got three of the names you asked
about—Baker and Miller are current; they're getting our newsletter and say it's
okay to give out their addresses. Chandler I've got marked as 'moved no
forwarding,' with a last address in Berkeley. You can have that, too, if you
want—but I haven't got anything on Hunter
Greyson
."

 
          
"Thanks,
Nina—this is a real help. But don't you have
anything
on Hunter
Greyson
?"

 
          
Nina
waved a small fan of cards tucked between her fingers. "You know how it
is—people move and don't give out changes of address." She laid the three
three-by-five cards out on the table in front of Winter as if she were telling
her fortune.

 
          
The Fool. The Hanged Man. The High
Priestess.
For a moment the voice echoed in Winter's ears, then the moment
of disorientation passed.

 
          
Janelle
and
Cassilda
and Ramsey. Winter took a notepad and gold
Cross pencil out of her Coach bag and bent over the counter to write.

 
          
"I
was thinking of going up there today," Winter said as she wrote. "To
Nuclear Lake, I mean. But after what you've said, I'm not sure I want to go
alone," she added, trying hard to make it sound like a joke.

 
          
"I'll
go with you," Nina said instantly. "That is, if you—"

 
          
"That'd
be great," Winter said quickly, trying to cover the sense of relief she
felt. "To tell the truth, I'm not sure my car would make it—I've got a
loaner from Kelly's Garage, and—"

 
          
Nina
hooted with laughter. "Oh,
that
old
thing! I used to call it 'no
va
—I was a Spanish major; it means 'no go.' I'm the one that
turned it in to Dave! No, you're better off going with me, that's for sure.
Look, my student aide comes in at twelve; you want to have lunch and then run
up there afterward?"

 
          
"Sure,"
Winter said.

 
          
It
was amazing how much nicer it was to run around a strange town when you were
with someone who knew it well. In Nina Fowler's company, Winter discovered a
tiny vegetarian restaurant tucked in behind Bread Alone, the bakery she'd
stopped at on her first visit into town.

           
The dining room of Vegetable Love
was in a large open courtyard, with only the kitchen and juice bar of the
restaurant indoors. The courtyard was floored in loose brick and filled with
small round French cafe tables. Arching aluminum ribs and a rolled canopy
answered the question of how the restaurant accommodated its patrons on rainy
days, but Winter could not imagine it could be a popular place to go in the
winter. She mentioned this to Nina.

 
          
"Oh,
no! It's
wonderful
in the winter—they
put up these free-standing fireplaces in the corners and it's terrific! You'll
have to come back and see."

 
          
"Sure."
If I'm still alive.
Winter wondered where
the conviction had sprung from that she, instead of those around her, was
personally at risk. Even though she honestly felt the truth of it, her emotions
seemed curiously uninvolved. She followed Nina across the crowded courtyard.

 
          
Vegetable
Love was an evident college hangout, filled with noisy oblivious students in
flannel and denim and spandex; the sort of untidy, undignified crowd that
usually made Winter irritable. But this time, when that knee-jerk reaction
began, she forced herself to step back and view it dispassionately. There was
no earthly sensible reason for this blast of withering contempt that roared
through her, except to estrange her from a group of people who could not
possibly be all that bad.

 
          
As
it always did. Cutting her off, isolating her from everyone who did not match
an increasingly narrow set of specifications. Until, in the end, Winter would
be all alone.

 
          
Alone.
Helpless.

 
          
Was
there something that wanted that? Something stalking her?

 
          
Nina
found them a table in the corner because, all tolerance and even approval
aside, neither of them was interested in being stepped on by the Doc Martens
that were still all the rage for the under-thirty crowd, and the tables
were
pretty close together.

 
          
"Whoa!
What a crush!" Nina said, sliding into her seat. "Still, I love it.
Do you remember when it opened?"

 
          
Winter
felt a sudden pang of fear, which dissipated when Nina answered her own
question. "But you wouldn't—sorry!—you're Class of 'eighty-two and
Veg
didn't open until nineteen eighty-five." With an
apologetic grin, Nina devoted herself to the menu.

           
Saved,
Winter thought with an inward sigh, and reached for her own menu. But she
couldn't go on pretending forever—not when she was surrounded daily by the
reminders of how easily everyone else seemed to recall their adolescent years,
moving swiftly between Then and Now through the facility of their own mental
time machines.

 
          
Maybe
it would come back to her. Even now, she felt that if she held very still and
didn't startle them, the memories of her college days were close enough to
touch.

 
          
Almost.

 
          
"Are
you sure this is the right way?" Winter asked nervously half an hour
later. She was grateful for the impulse that had led her to invite Nina along
on this expedition. If Winter had been by herself, she would almost certainly
have missed the turnoff from County 4. The side-road—a few miles past the
turnoff for
Greyangels
Road
—wasn't even marked, and after about half a
mile the blacktop on the one-and-a-half lane road-by-courtesy vanished
altogether.

 
          
"It's
the only way," Nina said cheerfully. "I'm an amateur herbalist, so I
ramble all through The Angels looking for plants—there's a shop in town that
sells herbal mixtures, and Tabby's always on the lookout for suppliers—I
haven't been up here since my student days, but I know the area pretty well,
and this is the only road that goes down to the river. Hang on!"

 
          
The
gravel that had replaced the blacktop petered out, and the dirt road that
remained became progressively more rutted. At last Nina tapped the brake a few
times and shifted the car into neutral.

 
          
"I
don't want to go any further, and the lake's less than half a mile from here
anyway. Why don't you go on ahead—I've got my stuff in the back; I want to look
around by the car and see if I can find anything worth harvesting."

 
          
"I
don't know how long I'm going to be," Winter said reluctantly.

 
          
"Oh,
don't worry about me! I go on one of my rambles and lose all sense of time. If
I'm not at the car when you get back just honk the horn a couple of times, and
if I get done first I'll come look for you. Just keep an eye on the sun,
though—you don't want to try to find your way back here in the dark."

           
"I shouldn't be that long. I
just want to take a look," Winter said. She got out of the car, grateful
for the sensible Reeboks that made walking down the trail not only possible,
but a pleasure. In a few moments she had rounded a bend in the trail, and
Nina's Honda was lost to sight.

 
          
It
was puzzling, Winter mused as she walked along. She remembered buildings at
Nuclear
Lake
, and Nina had said there'd been some sort
of lab here. Yet the path beneath her feet was hardly more than a trail now—how
had people driven to work? Nina said there wasn't any other road leading in to
the
Nuclear
Lake
property.

 
          
She also said she hadn't been up here in
years,
Winter reminded herself. There must be another road in. Even if the
facility had been deserted for—what? twenty years or more?—a two-
laned
blacktopped access road just couldn't get itself into
this condition in less than a century.

 
          
Could
it?

 
          
Just how much can I say I
really
know about the nature of Reality,
considering everything?
Winter asked herself snidely.

 
          
And
then she saw the lake.

 
          
It
was not large. The trail she'd been following swung wide around it, and, at
this time of year, the water lilies that turned the quiet backwaters of the
Hudson into carpets of living green were not yet in bloom; Winter could see
straight to the bottom, with its round stones, occasional Coke can, and fugitive
anonymous fish. It looked both peaceful and tempting, though the water was
still too chilly for wading and much too chilly to swim.

 
          
Across
the lake and a little to the left of it she could see a building— the
oh-so-mysterious research laboratory. Squaring her shoulders in anticipation
of another hike—she was still in lousy physical shape after all that bed rest,
for all that she'd used to go to the gym three times a week—Winter struck off
in that direction.

 
          
The
building had looked perfectly intact from across the lake; it was built in that
style common to the sixties and early seventies that made no concession to the
organic reality of its surroundings, as if it were poised to leap right into
some hygienic future composed entirely of brushed aluminum and Formica. But
once she got closer, Winter could see that the perfection was only an illusion.
The loops of polychrome spray-paint graffiti covering every exposed surface and
the drifts of liquor bottles and fast-food trash were evidence enough of that.

 
          
She
was indignant and comforted at the same time. How dare these people trespass on
grounds that were so special to her? Yet if they did come here, it certainly
indicated that nothing weird or harmful had claimed the place for its own.

 
          
Winter
walked closer, her memories shifting and rippling like the stones seen through
lake water. Was the building a little more battered than she remembered it? Did
she really remember it at all? Winter studied the sight before her carefully.
The main building was two stories tall and had a long one-story wing branching
off to the right. The front wall of the wing was all glass; a wall of
uncurtained
windows; and vines had grown across several of
them. Others were broken, and Winter could see a slurry of leaves and trash on
the floor inside.

 
          
For
a moment a hotter sun than this shone down on her shoulders— May, almost
summer, and she and the others coming here again just as they did every week,
to—

 
          
What?

 
          
The
memory and its certainty faded, and Winter swore under her breath. If memory
was personality, then hers was fading in and out like a weak radio signal.

 
          
Enough of this.
Instinct told her she'd
gone inside before, so she'd go inside again now. Maybe that would trigger
something more—something she could hold onto.