Ghosts of Winter by Rebecca S. Buck Page B

over the river, crossed it, and climbed a little way up the gradual slope of the meadow on the other side. From there they could see the tree-lined river, the bridge, and back up the slight hill to Winter itself. There had been a hard frost that night, and the grass and leaves were still glistening brightly. They paused next to a bush bearing bright red berries and gazed back at the picture before them.
    “It’s beautiful from here,” Maeve said. “It could almost inspire me to paint a landscape with Winter as the focal point.”
    “Yes. Who’d ever think it was such a prison?” Catherine was used, by now, to expressing her innermost feelings to Maeve and had made no secret of how she felt increasingly trapped in the house.
    “People and ideas keep you trapped, Catherine, not the house.” Maeve told her, not for the first time.
    “I know. If it was just walls, then I could escape.”
    “You’ve escaped in your mind. That’s a very good place to start,” Maeve said, touching her arm lightly. As always, Catherine felt the tension grow through her whole body at the feel of Maeve’s hand. Suddenly hot despite the chill of the day, she tugged uncomfortably at the thick ribbons which held her bonnet in place beneath her chin.
    “Why don’t you take that thing off?” Maeve, who wore a loose fur-trimmed hood herself, suggested. “You’re so trussed up against the cold I’m surprised you can breathe at all.”
    “I didn’t want to catch a chill,” Catherine replied, thinking it sounded quite a pathetic excuse.
    “I promise you won’t die if you take your bonnet off outside, Catherine,” Maeve said, her voice filled with laughter. “Have you ever actually felt the breeze blowing through your hair?”
    “Not that I recall.” Catherine removed her gloves hurriedly and reached up to the bow beneath her chin. That loosened, she unfastened the strings concealed beneath it, which actually kept the hat secure, and removed it. The air felt very cold where it crept over her exposed head. She felt as though she had woken up after a long sleep and washed her face in icy water.
    “You might as well be wearing another hat! Loosen your hair,” Maeve instructed, eyeing Catherine’s braided locks and the practical snood which covered the back of her head. Catherine smiled and did as she was told, removing the pins that held the snood in place and releasing the length of her hair from the fine netting. This done, she allowed the braids to fall forwards and untwisted them, until her hair fell in a solid dark brown curtain around her face and shoulders.
    “Don’t you feel liberated?” Maeve reached for Catherine’s hair and took several locks between her fingers, lifting them and allowing them to fall back into place slowly. “You have beautiful hair.”
    Catherine felt the liberation Maeve talked of. It grew, as Maeve’s fingers slid through the waves of her hair, into an exultation. In these moments it was as though she knew herself for the first time, she was only just seeing the world in all its colours and brightness. The brightest point of all was Maeve, whose beautiful pale face, flushed slightly pink, was only inches away from hers, smiling at the beauty of her hair. Her mind was blank, her body seemed to act on its own impulse, as she leaned closer to Maeve and pressed her lips against her friend’s pink, smiling mouth.
    As though she was not at all surprised, Maeve kissed her back without hesitation, and it seemed to Catherine their lips were made to fit together. Heat surged through her, sensations she’d never known pulsed through her veins. For those seconds, everything that had ever been wrong in her world was put right, and there was nothing but the power of the emotions that drew her to Maeve. They were kindred spirits, and more.
    Too quickly, Maeve pulled back from her. Catherine reached for her to draw her back, but Maeve pushed her hands away gently. The haze cleared, and Catherine’s vision