It was Christmas Eve; it was late; it was snowing hard. The first taxi driver and the sed refused to take me so far out of town on such a night, but the third, indifferent of expression, must have been moved by the ardor of my request, for he shrugged his shoulders a me in. 「We』ll give it a go,」 he warned gruffly.
We drove out of town and the snow tio fall, piling up meticulously, flake by flake, on every inch of earth, every hedge top, every bough. After the last village, the last farmhouse, we found ourselves in a white landscape, the road indistinguishable at times from the flat land all about, and I shrank into my seat, expeg at any moment that the driver would give up and turn back. Only my clear dires reassured him that we were in fa a road. I got out myself to open the first gate, then we found ourselves at the sed set, the main gates of the house.
『I hope you』ll find your way back all right,「 I said.
『Me? I』ll be all right,「 he said with another shrug.
As I expected, the gates were locked. Not wanting the driver to think I was some kind of thief, I preteo be looking for my keys in my bag while he turhe car. Only when he was some distance away did I grab hold of the bars of the gate and clamber over.
The kit door was not locked. I pulled off my boots, shook the snow off my coat and hung it up. I walked through the empty kit and made my way to Emmeline』s quarters, where I knew Miss Winter would be. Full of accusations, full of questions, I stoked my rage; it was for Aurelius and for the woman whose bones had lain for sixty years in the burned-out ruins of Angelfield』s library. For all my inward st, my approach was silent; the carpet drank in the fury of my tread. I did not knock but pushed the door open a straight in. The curtains were still closed. At Emmeline』s bedside Miss Winter was sitting quietly. Startled by my entrance, she stared at me, araordinary shimmer in her eyes.
「Bones!」 I hissed at her. 「They have found bo Angelfield!」 I was all eyes, all ears, waiting oerhooks for an admission to emerge from her. Whether it was in word or expressiesture did not matter. She would make it, and I would read it.
Except that there was something in the ro to distract me from my scrutiny.
『Bones?「 said Miss Winter. She aper-white and there was an o in her eyes, vast enough to drown all my fury. 」Oh,「 she said.
Oh. What riess of vibration a single syllable tain. Fear. despair. Sorrow and resignation. Relief, of a dark, unsoling kind. And grief, deep and a.
And then the nagging distra in the room swelled sently in my mind that there was no room for anything else. What was it? Some-tiraneous to my drama of the bones. Something that preceded y intrusion. For a faltering sed I was fused, then all the insignifit things I had noticed without notig came together. The atmosphere in the room. The closed curtains. The aqueous transparency Miss Winter』s eyes. The fact that the steel core that had always been r essence seemed to have simply gone from her. My attention narrowed to ohing: Where was the slow tide of Emmeline』s breath? No sound came to my ears.
『No! She』s—「
I fell to my knees by the bed and stared.
『Yes,「 Miss Winter said softly. 」She』s go was a few minutes ago.「
I gazed at Emmeline』s empty faothing really had ged. Her scars were still angrily red; her lips had the same sideways slant; her eyes were still green. I touched her twisted patchwork hand,