“Ah.”
As she rose from the hearth, so did he from his chair.
“Well, goodnight,” he said.
When she heard his door close, she crept upstairs and entered her own room. She knelt at a spy-hole which she and her husband had discovered soon after taking over the inn; the previous owner had evidently been something of a voyeur. She herself wanted to be sure that this man who called himself Simon was just that: a man. She had been chastened by her encounter with Marguerite.
When he finally began to undress, she had already imagined that he might reveal a body covered with scales or strange growths. But there was nothing: just a leanly muscular frame, with a line of dark hair running down the centre of his belly to the denser hair at his groin. He withdrew a book from his satchel, got into bed and began to read by candlelight. She waited. He was facing her and once, when he looked up from his reading and stared in her direction, she had the uncanny impression that he knew she was there. But the spy-hole was well concealed and he could not have been aware of her scrutiny. Soon afterwards he snuffed out the candle and all was dark.
When Stella rose the next morning she found that she had neglected to lock her bedroom door. Simon had already risen and she saw him dragging a fallen birch trunk from a nearby copse into the back yard. She watched him from the window as he went to the woodshed and returned with an axe before stripping down to his undershirt.
The axe flashed in the wintry sunlight and the blade bit into the wood. He worked steadily and methodically, tossing the logs into a pile against the wall. Stella went downstairs and took the crow outside. It immediately began to emit its harsh kraaa sounds. Normally she imagined that the bird was soliciting guests when it crowed, but on this occasion the cries seemed less welcoming than admonitory.
The fire was already ablaze in the hearth. She put on water to heat for his bath. When he came inside she asked him if he wanted the water brought to his room.
“As you wish,” he said.
She put the bath in front of the fire instead, not wanting him to risk a chill. Then she took her husband’s accounts ledger and retired to the vestibule.
A short while later she heard him calling her. She went to him.
“A towel,” he said.
“Forgive me.”
She fetched one from the laundry cupboard and held it out for him. He wrapped it around his waist and climbed the stairs to his room. That evening she also took a bath, adding dried lavender to the water. She was about to take his dinner up to his room when he appeared.
“Have you eaten yourself?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Then join me.”
She set the table beside the fire and produced a bottle of wine from the supply which Thomas had always kept in their room.
“A toast,” she said, “to the new season.” He drank, and then they ate. Afterwards he sat down in the rocking chair and lit his pipe.
“How did your husband die?” he asked.
“A wasting disease, according to the village doctor.” She paused. “More wine?”
He accepted a glass. She had been tempted to tell him about Marguerite but caution had prevailed. She drained her own glass and filled it up again. Outside, water was dripping from the eaves of the building. She had to bring the crow inside each evening, but the thaw was well advanced now and soon he would be able to spend the night beneath the moon. She drank more wine, studying her taciturn visitor and wondering whether he had a family. Something told her he came from the city, though whether he was travelling to or from there, she could not say.
The bottle was empty, and she fetched another from her room, telling him that it had always been their habit to share a bottle or two with their first guests of the season. He accepted another glass, but when that was empty would take no more.
She fell to talking of the villagers, telling him of their fears of the city and the strange stories they told of its inhabitants. She was hoping it would provoke some revealing comment from him, but he said nothing, puffing on his pipe and staring calmly at her as she spoke. The wine had gone to her head, and her whole body felt warm. She undid a button at the neck of her shirt.
“Do you have a wife?” she asked.
“I spend much time travelling.”
He seemed content that this was answer enough; she did not prompt him.
“When did you marry?” he asked.
“Three years ago.”
“What brought you to this place?”
“My husband received an inheritance on our marriage and wanted to start a new life in a new place.”
Again he made no comment. She set her empty wine glass aside. “Tell me, should I credit the stories which the villagers tell of the city?”
“It would be better to go there and form your own conclusions.”
“But are there such creatures as they speak of?”
“The only creatures I know are humans and animals.”
“But some have--special gifts?”
“Most surely. There are few anywhere who do not.”
The candle on the table guttered and went out, leaving them in the blood-orange light of the fire. Simon rose and tapped his pipe against the chimney, then bade her goodnight.
Stella sat staring into the fire, watching the flames devour the wood he had chopped for her. Eventually she rose and climbed the stairs. His room was in darkness, and when she knelt at the spy-hole, nothing could be seen.
That night she had a vivid dream of Marguerite and another guest who had stayed at the inn during the summer. Stella had forgotten his name, but he was a handsome young man whom Marguerite led to a large bed covered with tiny, writhing snakes. Then his face changed into that of another young man she remembered, and then another. As they lay down together, the dream slipped away.
The next day she was able to uproot several turnips from the small garden which she cultivated at the rear of the inn. That afternoon she asked Simon if he would help her bury her husband.
She had not entered the cellar since the morning after the snowstorm. Although the thaw was now well advanced, the cellar was still icy cold and her breath misted as she descended the stone stairway with Simon at her shoulder.
She had a sudden image of Thomas making love to her: he was a stout, red-faced man who snorted and panted, flacks of spittle gathering at the corners of his mouth, his eyes bulging. He lay on the stone slab where she had left him. The snow which had covered his body had hardened and crystallised during the winter so that he seemed to be encased in frosted glass. Then she saw that despite the coating of ice, a rat had gnawed away his face.
She tried to dislodge his body from the slab, but it would not budge. Silently she pleaded with Simon to help her, but he watched, unmoving, until finally she ran past him up the stairs.
He made her sit in an armchair and brought her a mug of strong, sweet tea. Then he returned to the cellar and brought the body up on the handcart which was used for moving wine casks. He took it outside and left it in the woodshed.
“We have to bury him,” she insisted.
He shook his head. “Not until he’s unfrozen.” That night the temperature dropped sharply and it began to snow. Stella sat at the window, watching the world turn slowly white again. Simon had already retired, leaving his pipe on the arm of the chair. The fire in the hearth was dying; she added more wood before retiring to her room.
Through the spy-hole she saw him reading by candlelight. With the snowfall a pervasive silence seemed to have settled on the inn, and she had the impression that they were two people trapped, frozen in by the weather. She imagined Simon removing her husband’s body from the woodshed and chopping it into pieces which he then fed to the fire.
At length she undressed and got into bed. She always slept nude, piling more blankets on her bed as the winter advanced until she felt like an animal cocooned in a deep burrow. To her surprise, sleep came easily. She dreamt of her husband, remembering the time in summer when a party of six guests had arrived, bound for the city. She had gone to fetch him to help prepare their rooms and had found him asleep face-down on their bed, a winy vomit surrounding him. In her dream the vomit was the colour of bile, and when she rolled him over there was a dark hole where his face should have been. Then the young men of whom she had dreamt earlier were standing in the doorway, pointing at him and laughing. She was smiling at them.