The Winter People by Phyllis A. Whitney

Author:Phyllis A. Whitney
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504046978
Publisher: Open Road Media Romance
Published: 2017-08-09T04:00:00+00:00

9

I knelt beside the splintered alabaster, sick with horror, too shocked to think clearly. I could only pick up bits of bruised, translucent stone and try vainly to fit them back into what remained of the piece. Obviously, the head was done for—smashed beyond any possible repair.

From what seemed a great distance I heard Glen calling to me, asking what had crashed. My voice seemed to crack, and no words came. Then it was Glynis who ran up the stairs and a moment later stood behind me in the open doorway, staring at what lay upon the floor.

“Oh, no!” she cried, and I looked up at her in desperation. She had done this—not I. But I would be blamed. That was the plan.

“You’ve managed well, haven’t you?” I said.

She stared me down with her dark, slightly glittering eyes. “I? What have I to do with this? You’ve been jealous of Glen’s work all along. Jealous because he paid more attention to his beautiful creation than he did to you. So now—”

“What has happened?” That was Glen on the stairs. I could not bear to see his face—yet I could not take my eyes from him.

It was like watching someone I loved being fatally stabbed. His expression of curiosity gave way to stunned disbelief, followed by the beginning of pain—and then agony. He pushed me aside and bent over the poor broken thing on the floor. He knelt to pick up a bit that had been a curve of mouth and chin—and the effect upon me was macabre. It was I who lay there shattered. Not a piece of cold alabaster, but my own flesh and blood. It was I who would never be put back together again. This was the moment at the window of the inn multiplied a thousand times. I would rather face fire than the death of hope in Glen’s face.

When he could manage to speak, he turned to his sister, not to me. “How did it happen?”

Glynis dropped to her knees beside him and put both arms about him. “Darling—don’t look like that. Don’t suffer so. I can feel it inside me—the pain. What a vicious, cruel thing for her to do.”

He let her hold him for a moment, as shattered in himself as the alabaster head. Then he moved away from her touch, stood up to face me, and his eyes were like hers—the same glittering black.

“You’d better tell me,” he said.

I was too sick at heart to be anything but blunt. “I opened the door and the head fell over and smashed. It was propped up on that dressing table bench. Someone put it there to block the door.”

Glen moved toward me, and I don’t know what he would have done if Glynis had not stepped between us. “Wait, Glen! Don’t do anything foolish. She’s silly and young. And she has no idea what an artist’s work means to him. Perhaps she didn’t intend it to happen. Glen, listen to me!”

I flattened myself against the wall, listening in fascinated horror as she went on.

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