Finale
Winter’s Door
“So explain this again.” The tall building on Brick
Street had an ominous and eerie feeling.
“Winter has his territory blocked off within Nowhere.
You can only reach it through this door.”
“Okay.” I walked up the steps to the front door. The
lock was rusty, but the key didn’t seem to mind. It slid in as easily as it had
every other lock and turned smoothly. There was a click, and the door came open
easily. Clutching the key in my hand, I stared into the threshold. Unlike every
other door to Nowhere I’d seen thus far, it was not black. The vision within
the door was a field of snow.
“Are you ready?” William asked.
I closed my eyes, and nodded. “Yes.” I went through
the door, and upon reaching the other side, it slammed shut. I could hear
Maurice and William pounding on the other side. I grabbed the handle, jerking
with all my might. But to no avail. This side bore no keyhole, and if Maurice
could not open the door from his side, there was little hope of it opening for
me.
Someone clapped behind me. Slow, sarcastic claps. I
turned around, feet starting to get cold as snow seeped into my shoes. My
shoes. Not the perception of my shoes. My shoes in actuality. I was myself
again.
“Welcome to my world, Catherine.” He was not tall. But
he was not short. His eyes were the blue of the ice around us and his hair was
the color of sand. “It’s taken you sometime, longer than I expected.”
“Do I know you?”
“Yes…and no.” He smiled, flashing canines that were
just a touch too pointed to be friendly in a smile. “I am Winter. I am the man
that took your husband. But in the world out there, I have another name. They
call me Daniel.”
“Officer Dan stops by once a week.”
He was too handsy by far…his cologne was overpowering…
“Officer Dan.”
“Indeed.” He smiled again. “You’re so cold, Catherine.
So very cold. I just wanted to help you. Things—never would’ve worked out with
you and David. His family never approved and you—you can’t even bring a child
to term. At least, not his child.”
His words should have grated against my ears, but
instead fell soft as feathers and with the warmth of a steady fire. He walked
towards me, and I found myself frozen. My feet would not move.
“David was so mistaken. I never wanted him.” He was
within arm’s reach, but I couldn’t move. He reached out and stroked my cheek
with a cold hand. “You…Catherine. You’ve always been the one I wanted.”
I couldn’t bring my voice to speak; it lay frozen
behind my lips.
He drew even closer, just a handbreadth away now. “The
one I cared for. The one I love.” He leaned in and kissed my cooling lips. I
couldn’t move. “Now, now you are mine.”
The key was still in my hand. It shouted at me,
screamed and berated. Fight! Fight back Catherine!
The cold was eating away at me. He was doing this. I
pulled memories of David from my mind. Summer afternoons spent in the shade. A
spring picnic in the park. Our honeymoon off the Mediterranean. All warm and
full of his love. The ice around my heart cracked. A loud snap jolting through
my body.
Walking, hand in hand, to the market on the weekends.
Dreaming together of the future, naked to the full moon’s light. Whispered
kisses in the shadows. David brought me into the light.
The ice cracked again, and crumbled. I balled up a
fist, and punched Daniel in the nose. He staggered back, hand going to the
blood starting to leak from the extremity. “You bitch!”
I smiled. “Aren’t as good as you thought, are you?” I
took a menacing step forward, “Now, where is my husband?”
Never Anger a Lamppost
“He is gone. Removed. You can never have him. Don’t
you see? This is what’s best for you. Anything that reminded you of David was poison.
Had to go.” He smiled. “Your baby—was killing you, and that…cat. It only
reminded of David. I couldn’t let you suffer like that.”
“You think I wanted my baby dead?” The audacity of the
man struck me in roots giving place for rage to settle. “You think I hated
having Variel around? She is still with me. She’s kept going. Kept me sane. You
think I wanted to find her body?
“Blood—pouring out of her ears, her nose…her mouth.” I
wiped at my own mouth in reflex. “You think I wanted my baby dead? Dead and
blood pouring out of me. It was everywhere.” I stared at my hands for a moment
before looking up at him. “I can still smell the death on me. That was you?”
Fear caught his face. I didn’t know what he saw, but I
felt myself changing. Felt the wind catch at fabric around my waist and elbows.
Grey and black tatters of a gown. The gown was alive in itself. It was alive
with my grief. Alive with my rage.
“I would never do anything to hurt you—”
“You never loved me. You only wanted to possess me.
You’re a coward. You’re a selfish coward.” Tears flavored my words intermittent
with rage.
Objects began to appear around me. Stones and books
and silverware, a lamp post and a mail box. More and more in a ring around
myself and him.
“Where is my husband?” My voice cracked like a whip.
“He will never have you! He can never escape me!”
“You’re wrong. I didn’t make it here on my own.
Someone helped me.” I opened my hand to reveal the silver key I’d clutched so
hard the outline of it was embedded in my hand. “David helped me. He brought me
the key. He set me on the path. Now you will give him back to me.”
“No! No! He his mine! And you are mine!”
The inanimate clamored around me. Let us… Let us… Let
us…
I knew what they wanted. “Your life will end here, in
blood and sorrow if you refuse me again.”
“You think you frighten me little girl? I’ve killed
hundreds like you!”
And their bones spoke to me from the ground, soft
whispers of long ago life. Let us… Let us… Let us…
I closed my eyes for just a moment. “Give him back.
Please.” I spoke over the maelstrom of
tiny voices.
“Please? Please?” He laughed. “Never!”
I sighed. “Then you will get no mercy from me.” I let
go of the control I had over their bloodlust. Bones rose from the ground and
went first, battering into the man. And then the silver and the stones and the
books. The lamppost and the mail box.
I turned away, but couldn’t quite block out the sound
of his gurgled screaming.
“She did say please.” I looked down, Variel sat facing
Winter’s bloody end.
“I couldn’t hold them back much longer anyway…I killed
a man.” I closed my eyes again and my stomach heaved.
My knees grew cold as snow seeped through the fabric
of my tattered gown. I pressed the palms of my hands against the ground to
steady myself.
“It’s all right.” Variel rubbed against my arm. “Wash
your mouth out with some snow.”
I took her advice, ridding myself of the after burn of
the bile with the cold clean taste of the snow.
“I have to find David.” I pushed myself up to standing
and took a good look around. All I saw was snow and a corpse covered in
twitching objects.
“You have to look past the snow. There were two things
Winter was good at, illusion, and death. Just, see what’s there.”
I breathed deeply of the brisk air, and looked.
All around me, all I saw still was snow. “Nothing.”
“I know you can do this. Concentrate. He must have a
home here. A fortress. The inanimate within are clamoring for you. Listen,
see.”
I closed my eyes to better hear. At first, all I could
hear were the contented sighs of the bloodthirsty. I pushed past them, past the
cold of the still stone beneath my feet and the bones too tired to join the
fight.
…
There.
Chairs and a table. Shelves. A fire. Smoke. I could
smell it. I opened my eyes and looked up into the sky where the smoke pooled
and cast my eyes below it and looked.
The stone building appeared out of the haze.
Reasserting itself into the landscape with genuine relief. Variel purred. “Well
done.” It was immense. A veritable disaster of architecture from every part of
the world one found stone castles in. Fluted turrets met starkly against
watchtowers as solid as mountains. Stairs grew from every direction and some
ended abruptly, going nowhere.
But there was a door. A clear entrance into the chaos.
I nodded sharply and walked up to the door. It was
ajar. The fortress and its furnishings seemed to welcome me. Call to me. I
smiled and stroked the lintel gently. “Well done,” I whispered back to it.
One could feel the entire place warm.
But there was a source of cold. A deep, dark cold the
house could not warm. I followed the twisting halls of stone back and deeper.
Deeper to the heart where the source of the cold was.
Bone-numbing cold that chattered my teeth and turned
the tips of fingers blue. It was a shard of ice. Huge, it filled the center of
the circular room I found myself in. Its blue tiled floor was cold beneath my
feet. The walls were pierced with doorways going in every direction.
Doorways filled with images of places I knew. The
cemetery. My house. Hanover Street. The territories of the Wizard and
Locksmith. The Library. He’d been watching. Always watching.
I looked up at the pillar. It was smooth and perfect.
Precisely clear but for a single imperfection close to the floor. A dark
blotch. A strange, large blotch. A man-sized blotch. With the clarity of
understanding I rushed to the side of the trapped man. He was embedded deeply
within the ice. His arms stretched out in defense, his hands reaching for
something.
“David.”
Reunions
Variel whistled. Which surprised me as I hadn’t known
cats could whistle. But then, Variel wasn’t just any cat.
“That’s a pretty potent work.”
“How do I get him out?”
“Well—” Her words were cut off by a strangled mrowl.
“Variel?” I turned around.
She hung in midair, grasped by translucent hands
attached to a translucent form. Winter.
“Let her go!” I swung at him, only to fall through his
non-existent form.
The ghost of Winter laughed. He laughed, and laughed.
But his laugh cut off as Variel’s claws dug into his chest. Apparently he’d forgotten
Variel wasn’t altogether alive. She looked at me, smiled her catty smile and
bit down into his throat.
It was some instinct in me that screamed. “No!” But
before I could blink, she had sucked him into herself and fell prone to the
floor. “Variel?” I moved to her side and knelt, laying a hand on her. “Variel?”
She still smiled, and as I watched, her form faded
away.
“Cats are the gatekeepers of death,” David said with a
smile. “I figure it’s good to have one around. They keep the spirits that refuse
to rest at bay. Of course, they say for every life they send, they lose one of
their own.”
“And how many lives has Variel got left you think?” I
stroked her ears and snuggled closer to my husband.
“She’s an adventurous creature, but I bet she’s got at
least one left.”
“No!” I pounded the floor where she’d lain with numb
hands. My tears catching in the gullies between the tiles. Running like rivers
amidst islands of cool blue.
I stood and ran to the ice trapping my husband. I
pounded my hands against it, dug at it with my nails. One tore off, bleeding
sluggishly in the cold.
“David!” I shouted at him. Pounded and tore and
shouted again. “David!”
His eyes, which had been closed just a bare moment
before, opened. Bright green and piercing.
“David!” I pounded harder, desperate for the ice to
break. “David! Please, David! Please!”
One hand moved, clenching into a fist. And then the
other. I could see the glint of his wedding ring even through the ice. I
pressed my hand against the ice. Willing it to push through to him.
“David?” His hand closed around mine. I stepped away,
pulling him free of the ice.
He collapsed against me and we fell to the floor in a
heap of arms, legs and dripping clothes. Steam waded off of him in little
waves. “Catherine,” he said softly. “Catherine…” He kissed me. He kissed me so
fiercely all the cold left my body.
Everything was warm and welcoming. Every hurt, every
lonely night washed away in the life of that kiss. There seemed to be water all
around me, warm, life-filled water.
The pillar of ice was melting.
“David. We should go, we can’t stay here.”
He drew away, and his smile warmed me down to my toes.
“You’re right. But what about Winter? He’ll never let me go. How did get past
him?”
“Winter is dead, David.” I swallowed. “He’s dead.”
“How?”
I met his incredulous eyes. “I killed him. The
inanimate, they killed him because I could not hold them back. I didn’t want
to. And his ghost attacked Variel. She took him. Sent him onward. He’s gone.
He’s really gone.”
There was no repulsion. David lifted me into his arms
and stood. He kissed me again, I thought I would melt. “You did only what you
had to do. I have faith in that.”
A shot of sound snapped through the air. The pillar of
ice was starting to crack. “We have to go.”
“You still have that key?” I opened my hand. He
smiled. “Well done. Hold tight to me.” I didn’t need further prompting. I
clutched him tight and he took off running. We slammed through the doorway as
the ice fell behind us in deadly shards. Shattering at our heels.
I opened my eyes on my own bedroom. There were arms
wrapped around me, I was warm, and dry. I rolled over within the loop of arms.
David smiled at me. “Good morning,”
“Good morning.” I kissed him. “You aren’t going to
leave me again, are you?”
“Never again.” He pushed my hair out of my face. “You
are the bravest person I have ever known. I love you Catherine.”
“I love you too.”
Explanations are Not Forthcoming
“Catherine?” It was my mother, pounding on my door.
The shower was running, David. I smiled, picking myself out of bed and
shuffling over to my bedroom door. It seemed Maurice had taken the time to fix
it.
With a new deadbolt even. Bless him.
“Catherine?”
I unlocked the door and opened it on my mother in
mid-knock. “Good morning.”
“Good morning? Good morning?” Her voice raised several
decimals. “You’ve been gone. Vanished. No one has been able to find you
anywhere!”
“Well, I wasn’t anywhere. I was Nowhere. Now. If you
excuse me, I want to take a shower.” I started to close the door, but she
stopped me.
“Catherine Elizabeth! I want an explanation. You ran
from the hospital, you vanish for days at a time. You rave at Mr. Crowley about
David being alive and now you have the audacity to brush it off like it’s nothing?”
David stepped behind me and wrapped his arms around
me, giving me a quick kiss on the cheek. “Good morning, Mom.”
“David?”
“You see, I told you he was alive.” My mother fainted,
falling to the floor with a fairly significant thump. Maurice and William were
quick to step up to help her away.
“Don’t worry about a thing,” William said. “We’ll
explain everything to the family.”
Maurice nodded in agreement. “Far past time. This
family has too many secrets.” Now that, I could agree with.
Time Heals
“Mommy! Mommy! Look what I found!” My daughter rushed
up to me, chocolate brown pigtails waving behind her, barely contained by her
blue ribbons. In her hands she held a squirming kitten. “Isn’t he adorable?”
She held him up for my inspection, green eyes twinkling with mischief.
“Precious.” The kitten was nothing special at first
glance. Black with white feet and bib. His tail thrashing in irritation.
“Can I keep him?”
“Hmm…” I lifted him from her inexpert grip to take a
closer look.
“I’ll call him Mittens and feed him and keep him clean
and everything!” she promised emphatically.
Mittens? The kitten decried. My name is not Mittens. On
closer inspection, one could see the pattern of darker black stripes. Amidst
those stripes was an image. A key.
“I don’t think he looks like a Mittens, Victoria.”
“Then what does he look like?” David asked, peeking at
the kitten over my shoulder.
Monty. The kitten mewled. My name is Monty.
“Monty. He looks like a Monty.”
My daughter frowned at the kitten for a moment, and
then clapped her hands. “Does that mean he stays?”
I smiled at her and glanced back at David, who nodded.
“Yes, that means he stays.”
Oh good, he purred, Cause I’m hungry. I laughed,
cuddling the kitten tight and then drawing my daughter in for a hug. David
wrapped his arms around both of us.
My daughter squealed in happiness and basked in the
warmth and love of my family. At long last, I won the war and Winter had no
hold on me.
