Anne Rice: The Wolves of Midwinter

He went on quickly explaining. December sixteenth, two Sundays before Christmas, was the perfect day for the Christmas festival in Nideck, and the banquet here at the house, for all the people of the county. The booths and shops in the “village,” as Felix more often than not called it, would close at dark, and everyone would come up to Nideck Point for the evening festivities. Of course the families must come, Reuben’s and Stuart’s, and whatever old friends either wanted to include. This was the time to remember everybody. And Father Jim must bring the “unfortunates” from his church in San Francisco, and buses could be provided for that.

Of course the sheriff would be invited, and all the law enforcement officers who had so recently been crawling over the property on the night the mysterious Man Wolf had perpetrated his murderous attack on the two Russian doctors in the front room. And the reporters, they’d all be invited too.

They’d have huge tents on the terrace, tables and chairs, oil heaters, and twinkling lights beyond imagining.

“Picture the entire oak forest,” said Felix, gesturing to the woods beyond the dining room window, “completely festooned in lights, tree limbs positively dressed in lights, and the paths strewn with thick mulch, and strolling mummers and carolers roaming about, but naturally the boys’ choir and the orchestra will be on the front terrace along with the crèche and the bulk of the tables and chairs. Oh, this will be too splendid.” He pointed to the rough diagram he’d drawn on the butcher paper. “Of course the banquet proper will be served in this room, continuously from dark until ten p.m. But there’ll be stations properly positioned at all key points for the mulled wine, the mead, the drinks, food, whatever people want, and then all the house flung wide open so every soul in the neighborhood can see the public rooms and bedrooms of mysterious Nideck Point once and for all. No secrets anymore as to the ‘old place’ where the Man Wolf recently ran rampant. No, we’ll show the world. ‘Welcome, judges, congressmen, police officers, teachers, bankers … good people of Northern California! It was through that front room that the notorious Man Wolf rampaged, and out that library window that he vaulted into the night.’ Say the word, young master. Shall all this be done?”

“He means to feed the entire coast,” said Margon solemnly, “from south San Francisco to the Oregon border.”

“Felix, this is your house,” said Reuben. “It sounds marvelous!” And really it did. It also sounded impossible. He had to laugh.

A fleeting memory came back to Reuben of Marchent describing so happily how “Uncle Felix” had loved to entertain, and he was almost tempted to share it with Felix.

“I know this is soon after my niece’s death,” said Felix, his voice reflecting a sudden shift in mood. “I’m well aware of that. But I cannot see our being dark for this, our first Christmas. My beloved Marchent would never have wanted that.”

“People in California don’t mourn, Felix,” said Reuben. “Not that I’ve ever seen anyway. And I can’t imagine Marchent being disturbed by this either.”

“I think she’d heartily approve of the whole thing,” said Margon. “And there’s a great wisdom to letting the press troop through this house at their leisure as well.”

“Oh, I’m not doing it merely for that,” said Felix. “I want a great celebration, a fete. This house must have new life in it. It must be a shining lamp once again.”

“But surely this crèche—you’re talking about Jesus and Mary and Joseph, right?—but you don’t believe in the Christian God, do you?” asked Stuart.

“No, certainly not,” said Felix, “but this is the way these people in this time celebrate Midwinter.”

“But isn’t it all a lie?” Stuart demanded. “I mean aren’t we supposed to free ourselves from lies and superstition? Isn’t that the obligation of intelligent beings? And that is what we are.”

“No, it’s not all lies,” said Felix. He lowered his voice for emphasis, as if gently imploring Stuart to consider things differently. “Traditions are seldom lies; traditions reflect people’s deepest beliefs and customs. They have their own truth, don’t they, by their very nature?”

Stuart was staring askance at him with skeptical blue eyes, his freckles and boyish face as usual making him look like a rebellious cherub.

“I think the Christmas myth is eloquent,” Felix continued. “Always has been. Think of it. The Christ Child was from the first a brilliant symbol of the eternal return. And that’s what we’ve always celebrated at Midwinter.” His voice was reverent. “The glorious birth of the god on the darkest night of the year—that’s the essence of it.”

“Hmmm,” said Stuart with a little mockery. “Well, you do make it sound like more than Christmas wreaths in malls and canned carols in department stores.”

“It’s always been more than that,” said Margon. “Even the most commercial trappings of the malls today reflect the old pagan ways and the Christian ways woven together.”

“There’s something nauseatingly optimistic about you guys,” said Stuart seriously.

“Why,” asked Margon. “Because we don’t mope about lamenting our monstrous secrets? Why should we? We live in two worlds. We always have.”

Stuart was puzzled, frustrated, but in general coming around.

“Maybe I don’t want to live in that old world anymore,” said Stuart. “Maybe I keep thinking I can leave it behind.”

“You don’t mean that,” said Margon. “You’re not thinking.”

“I’m all for it,” Reuben said. “It’s usually made me sad in the past, carols, hymns, the crib, the whole thing, because I never much believed in anything, but when you describe it that way, well, I can live with it. And people will love it, won’t they?—I mean all this. I’ve never been to a Christmas celebration quite like what you’re planning. In fact, I seldom go to Christmas celebrations of any kind.”

“Yes, they will love it,” said Margon. “They always have. Felix has a way of making them love it, and making them want to come back year after year.”

“It will all be done right,” Felix said. “I have just enough time, just enough, and money will be no obstacle this first year. Let the better planning come next year. Why, maybe this year, I’ll try more than one orchestra. We should have a small one out there in the oaks. And of course a string quartet in here in the corner of this room. And if I can get a fix on how many children are coming …”

“Okay, noblesse oblige, I get it,” said Stuart, “but my mind’s on being a Morphenkind, not serving eggnog to my old friends. I mean what has all this to do with being a Morphenkind?”

“Well, I’ll tell you right now what it has to do with it,” said Margon sharply, eyes flashing fiercely on Stuart. “This fete will be two Sundays before Christmas Eve, as Felix has explained. And it will satisfy the desires of your respective families as to all holiday commemoration. It will do more than that. It will give them something splendid to remember. And then on December twenty-fourth, there must be no one here but us, so that we can celebrate the Yule as we’ve always done.”

“Now this sounds interesting,” said Stuart. “But what exactly do we do?”

“There’s time to show you,” said Felix. “If you walk northeast of the house for approximately ten minutes you’ll come to an old clearing. It’s surrounded by large stones, very large stones, in fact. There’s a little creek running beside it, off and on.”

“I know that place,” Reuben said. “It’s like a rude citadel. Laura and I found it. We didn’t want to climb over the boulders at first, but we found a way inside. We were so curious about it.” A flash of memory: the sun slicing through the canopy of branches, the great floor of rotted leaves, and saplings rising from old tree stumps, and the hunkering and uneven gray boulders covered in lichen. They had found a flute there, a little wooden flute, a lovely thing. He didn’t know what had become of it. Surely Laura had it. She’d washed it in the creek and played more than a few notes on it. He heard the sound suddenly, faint, mournful, as Felix went on.