Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 02 (49 page)

 
          
That
left only Cassie's letter. Winter pressed the envelope between her fingers,
feeling its thinness. Whatever information the letter contained, it was very
brief.

 
          
Gritting
her teeth and closing her eyes, Winter ripped the envelope open.

 
          
The
fog slid in off the water, blurring the boundaries between the ocean and the
land. The rain had stopped, but the air was still
rilled
with moisture as the mist claimed the city for its own, sliding over the walls
of stark new office buildings, gracious old hotels, and even the sloping sides
of the Transamerica Pyramid. In the City by the Bay, the night slid on toward
morning.

 
          
In
the parlor of the suite in the
St.
Mark
Hotel
, time had lost all meaning. Winter stared at the brief paragraph
written on the sheet of white paper. She sat cold and silent, unmoving, while
inside her mind the screaming had only begun.

THE WINTER HEART

Rise up, my love, my fair one,
and come away. For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; The
flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the
voice of the turtle is heard in our land.

— KING JAMES BIBLE

 
          
NORTH OF SAN FRANCISCO, THE COASTLINE RUNS TO
small coves floored in silvery gravel, and the remains of the mighty sequoia
forests stand along the coast like silent sentinels. Along this wild Pacific
headland there are a number of small towns that go on untouched from the days
when gold, or timber, or even wine—and not computers— were the principal
livelihood of the locals. There are frame houses in the exuberant fashion of
the previous century, and gracious buildings in the Mission style, and the
inhabitants hope that the freeway sprawl that seems determined to make
Sacramento merely a suburb of San Francisco will miss them entirely.

 
          
She
had not slept.

 
          
As
soon as it was light, Winter had checked out of the hotel. The Mark's concierge
had been helpful, providing driving directions and even a road map. She reached
San
Gabriel
a little before
noon
.

 
          
San Gabriel
was a sizable town, larger than
Glastonbury
, though dwarfed by the metropolises
surrounding it. By the time she arrived, the early morning haze had burnt off
to leave the coast basking in a brilliant, cloudless day.

 
          
Winter
did not care.

 
          
When
she pulled into a gas station to ask directions, her voice was harsh as a
crow's, her face a stark mask of sleeplessness and psychic pain. She thanked
the attendant as carefully as if such worldly courtesies could still matter to
her, and drove slowly toward her final destination.

 
          
In
some cruel incongruity, the place she sought was almost on the water itself,
just as if beauty still had the power to affect those within. The Pacific
reflected the sun and the sky as if it were poured of blue enamel, and gulls
wheeled and cried above the cove. Winter slewed her car into the parking lot
and stopped.

 
          
"I
have to see Hunter
Greyson
," Winter said to the
woman behind the desk. Inside the building it was as if the postcard-perfect
day outside did not exist. Tired fluorescents illuminated walls that had been
painted a grubby gas-chamber green thirty years before, and the shabby linoleum
looked as though it could never really be clean.

 
          
"Is
he a patient here?" the nurse said. Winter could see her nameplate:

 
          
CAROL
TAYLOR.

 
          
Do you think I'd be here if he wasn't?
"Yes,"
Winter said. The contrast between this place and
Fall River
gave her a sudden unwelcome pang. If
Fall River
had been horrible, how much more horrible
could this place be?

 
          
"Are
you a relative?" the nurse asked.

 
          
Winter's
head drooped.
Yes. I'm the woman who
should have married him.
"I'm Winter Musgrave."

 
          
A
simple trick that Winter had learned years before was that any answer, no
matter how meaningless, would be taken for the proper answer if only it was
uttered in a confident tone of voice. Though she had provided no explanation
and no proof, the nurse pressed a button, and an aide in a bright-flowered
smock popped out of one of the rooms down the hall.

 
          
"Ashley
will show you to Mr.
Greyson's
room," the nurse
said.

 
          
*   
 *     *

           
"And how are we today,
Hunter?" Ashley chirped brightly. She walked past the bed by the door,
opened the curtain, checked the air conditioner to see that it was running, and
then turned back.

 
          
Winter
stood looking down at the bed by the window. "Hello, Grey," she said.
Her lips moved, but no sound came.

 
          
The
man on the bed was thin and frail. His long blond hair was pulled back in a
limp braid. His eyes were closed as if he were asleep.

 
          
But
he wasn't.

 
          
In
the space between the two beds a respiratory ventilator worked, its sound an
awful parody of human breathing. A blue-tinted hose led from the machine to a
bubbling humidifier to a hole in the throat of Hunter
Greyson
.
Through the tube's translucent plastic Winter could see the pale flash of the
tracheostomy
fittings, and a nauseated wave of denial rose
up behind her clenched teeth.

 
          
"Is
this your first visit?" Ashley asked, her voice low with professional
compassion. She moved closer to the bedside, lifting Grey's slack hand and
taking his pulse with automatic efficiency. "Come on, Hunter, wake up,
guy. You've got visitors."

 
          
"Don't,"
Winter begged.
Grey. His name is Grey.

 
          
Ashley
looked at her pityingly. "You've got to talk to them," she said,
still holding Grey's hand. "Maybe they know you're here. And sometimes
they wake up, even from the machine."

 
          
Winter
stared at her. She could not have spoken if her life depended on it. After a
moment Ashley shrugged almost imperceptibly and moved toward the other bed.

 
          
"
Hiya
, Bobby. How're we doing today? Ready for a little
Softball on the beach?" she said with bright enthusiasm.

 
          
"What
happened to him?" Winter asked. Ashley pulled the covers up around
"Bobby's" neck and turned to face her.

 
          
"Hunter?
It was a motorcycle accident, the admitting report said. We got him—I mean, he
was transferred here after about six weeks at
Sacto
;
we had the only available bed in the area. He was riding in the rain . . . they
found his bike at the bottom of the cliff near Antonia Beach and they're lucky
they found him at all. Hit and run, maybe. If he wakes up, maybe he can tell
us. Right, Hunter?"

 
          
The dark, the rain
—
hadn't looked like rain when I left; got to get the bike under cover
—
Headlights in the wrong lane, sliding around
the curve
—
drunk driver; which way's
he going to swerve?
—
No! Oh, God, it's
so cold
—

 
          
Winter
jerked back to reality with Ashley's hands clamped around her arms.

 
          
"Come
on over here; we're going to sit down now."

 
          
Winter
felt the edge of a chair at the back of her legs and lowered herself
gratefully into it, sweating and sick with the sudden flashback to the
recurring nightmare that had haunted her for weeks before her admission to
Fall River
. Only it wasn't a nightmare. She knew that
now. It was the truth.

 
          
Savagely
Winter forced the tears back, wishing she could disown as well the memories of
the pain and broken bones, of lying in the rain not knowing how bad the
injuries were but knowing they were bad, of feeling life and consciousness ebb
like the ocean on the rocks below and praying that someone,
anyone,
would come.

 
          
Winter
drew a deep breath.

 
          
"Are
you all right? Shall I get the nurse?" Ashley said.

 
          
"No.
Yes. I mean— It was just a shock, seeing him. I'm all right now," Winter
lied glibly.

 
          
"When
did you find out?" Ashley said. "About him?"

 
          
Winter
glanced up at her in surprise.

 
          
"You
aren't really family, are you?" Ashley said. "A friend?"

 
          
There
was no point in denying it now. What could they do, other than throw her out?
"Yes," Winter said.

 
          
Ashley
sighed, and for a moment all the vitality seemed to drain out of her. "Oh.
I'm sorry to hear it. I was kind of hoping you could sign the papers," she
said softly. "We haven't been able to find any family. Do you know where
they are?"

 
          
Grey
had never spoken of his family, not that Winter ever remembered. "No.
What papers?"

 
          
"To
pull the— To turn off his respirator. He came in on one from
Sacramento
, and by state law we can't disconnect it
without the family's consent. But he's been here more than a year, and I don't
really think he's going to wake up," Ashley said sadly. "He's only
thirty-five. He could be like this for the next thirty years. And sometimes,
when I work
midnights
I
come in here and sit with him. I think he wants us to let him go ... but we
can't." Ashley hesitated. "Do you want me to leave you alone with him
for a while?"

 
          
"Thank
you," Winter said.

 
          
"I'll
be down at the other end of the hall," Ashley said. "It's just me and
Mrs. Taylor on today—that's the nurse down at the station. Marcie called in
sick. Just press the button if you need anything." Her white orthopedic
shoes whispered over the battered linoleum as Ashley whisked out, closing the
door behind her.

 
          
Winter
walked back over to the body in the bed. The thump and sigh of the ventilator
was loud inside the room, and the sunny day outside seemed only a mockery
painted on the glass.

 
          
"Hello,
Grey," she said again. She reached out and took his hand.

 
          
And
vanished.

 
          
Or,
rather, the world around her vanished, as suddenly as if someone had put a bag
over her head. There was a confusing maelstrom of images: the gulls crying, and
rain; a roaring sound like a powerful engine running flat-out; and the taste of
copper. It was as if some playful god were pawing through some
toybox
of the senses.

 
          
And
then, so fast that Winter, scrabbling for her sanity, was sure this was only
one more layer of hallucination, she found herself standing in the spring
orchard below
Greyangels
Farm. She had barely grasped
where she was—against all possibility—when the apple-blossom petals began to
spill from the trees, and the grass to turn to dust. For an instant the
branches of the orchard were silvery bare, before the trees themselves withered
away to ash, and a cold, cold wind swirled the remains of the orchard away.
I'm going to scream now,
Winter thought,
though she knew that once she began to scream she would never stop.