The Winter People(80)
Seven whole days. What a gift! They could live a lifetime in seven days. They could get something of Austin’s from the apartment, bring it back to the cave, and call him back as well. Then they’d be a family again.
Still, the longer she waited, the more doubt set in.
What if it didn’t work?
Or—what if it did work, and the Gary who came back wasn’t the Gary she remembered?
Her mind filled with images from horrible zombie movies: the undead pale and rotting, losing limbs, moaning as they shambled their way through the land of the living.
She packed up her things, deciding not to wait any longer. To leave, get out fast.
As she crawled out of the chamber, she heard footsteps coming from the passageway to the left, the way she’d come. They were slow and steady, coming toward her. Worse still, there was a little scrape with each step, a horrible shuffle.
She turned and ran in the other direction, not daring to turn on her light, hands raised protectively in front of her as she groped helplessly through the darkness.
Martin
January 31, 1908
Martin stumbled as he made his way back down the hill. Home. Yes, home. He was going home.
He’d been out in the woods for at least two hours, running at first, then walking, then, finally, collapsing in the snow; there he lay, trying to convince himself that he’d only imagined the figure in the shadows behind Sara earlier, that he’d been a terrible coward to run.
He didn’t need his brother the doctor to tell him that he did not have long. He didn’t want to die up in those godforsaken woods. He wanted to see Sara once more, to tell her how much he loved her, in spite of everything. Above all else, he needed her to know that he had not hurt Gertie. He could not die knowing that Sara believed him guilty of such a thing. So he’d pulled himself up out of the snow and begun the slow descent down the hill.
As he took each breath, the wound in his left side seared with pain. The bullet had struck him just below his rib cage. Blood soaked through his shirt and heavy woolen coat. He could not stop shivering.
He was staggering now, his breath ragged as he shuffled his way across the field. The cursed field, where nothing would ever grow. Year after year, he’d plowed, manured, and carefully planted crops that never flourished, despite all his efforts. All the ground produced was stones, broken dinner plates, old tin cups, and, once, that beautiful ring carved from bone.
He looked at the house coming into view, remembered carrying Sara through the doorway when they were newly married. How in love with her he’d been. Sara, with her wild red hair and sparkling eyes. Sara, who could see the future. He remembered her as a little girl in the schoolyard, telling him, “Martin Shea, you are the one I shall marry.” How he’d handed her that silly glass marble. She still had it in a little box with Gertie’s baby teeth and a silver thimble that had belonged to her mother.
Flashes of their life together filled his head and heart: the Christmases they’d had; the time they went dancing at the hall over in Barre and the wagon wheel broke on the way home so they had to spend the night in the wagon, huddled together under their coats, happy. There were painful memories, too. The loss of the babies Sara carried inside her. The death of little Charles; how Sara held him in her arms, refusing to let go, refusing to accept that he was gone. And, of course, the loss of their darling Gertie.
“Sara,” Martin moaned as he passed the barn, feet crunching through the snow. “My Sara.” He fell, and struggled back up to his feet, leaving the white ground smeared with red, like a wounded snow angel. Maybe she’d be there in the doorway, waiting for him with the gun. Maybe that’s what he deserved.
Almost there, Martin, he told himself.
Yes, he was almost home. He wanted, more than anything, to go inside, climb the stairs one last time, and get into bed. He wanted Sara to cover him with quilts, to lie beside him, stroke his hair.
Impossible wishes.
Tell me a story, he would say. An adventure story—the story of our lives together.
As he came across the yard, he saw a figure out back, near the little graveyard. The person saw him and slipped behind the old maple tree.
He moved closer.
“Hello?” he called weakly. “Sara?”
But no one was there.
He must have imagined it.
Such an imaginative boy he’d been once. A boy with the heart of a hero. A boy who’d been sure great adventures awaited him.
He heard the front door bang open behind him, and turned to see Sara stumbling down the steps. Sara, his Sara. Ever radiant.
But something was different. Something was wrong. She moved awkwardly, and her face was stricken with terror.
Behind her, an old woman came through the doorway. She was holding Martin’s rifle, pushing the barrel into Sara’s back.
“Sara?” Martin called, turning toward them. “What’s happening? Who is this?”
Sara lifted her head. “The woman who killed our little girl,” she said. She looked at him with such agony on her face. “Oh, Martin, I’m so sorry,” she said. “For ever thinking it could be you.”
And I for being sure it was you, he thought.
He saw the way the wicked old woman’s face twisted into a hideous grin and knew he had to do something. Even if it was his last act here on earth, he had to save his wife. His beautiful Sara. How could he have thought she would hurt Gertie? He’d been wrong. So wrong.