The Gilded Cage by Lucinda Gray Page A

shifts that mark the melting of ice on branches. This chorus was one of George’s favorite springtime sounds.
    The path stops at the lodge, so from there I trudge along uneven ground, over buried roots and half-submerged stumps. My breath is smoke on the air. The forest covers several hectares, and after five minutes I look back and realize I can no longer see the house’s wide lawn through the trees. The woods around me whisper with an icy wind, and a faraway branch cracks. My breath stops, ragged. Another crack, this one closer, and Stella speeds off toward the sound.
    â€œStella!” I cry, but it comes out like a croak.
    I take a few steps after her, but she’s gone.
    â€œDammit, Stella,” I growl.
    I listen for the patter of her paws, but hear nothing.
    Then, I feel the unmistakable weight of being watched, of somebody’s eyes on the goose-bumped skin of my exposed neck. I turn in a slow circle and see nothing but trees.
    I tug my coat tighter to my throat. It might just be the cold.
    â€œStella?” I say again, my voice a near whisper.
    A crow caws in response, just behind me, and I nearly jump out of my cloak. It sits hunched on a low branch, its eyes black buttons. I wave my hands at it. “Stop watching me, you awful thing.”
    The crow flaps lazily through the trees. I walk toward the place where Stella disappeared, calling her name. When I see prints in a patch of snow, they look too deep to belong to such a little dog—perhaps they were left by a fox or a deer; I can’t tell. A voice in my mind, unbidden: Just torn up, as if in spite. “What nonsense,” I say aloud, and feel foolish. Then there’s a single, urgent bark, sounding terribly faraway. I yell out to my dog, but when she barks again, it’s muted by snow and seems to come from no particular direction at all.
    The trees look identical, and snow paints the ground an eerie shade of blue. The sky is flat gray where I can see it through the trees, and I find no shadows by which to navigate.
    Then I feel it again, the eyes on my neck. I hold myself perfectly still, counting to three, and then spin around.
    A flash of dark movement, something retreating into the wood some yards away. In my shock I stumble backward, stepping on the hem of my cloak and falling to the ground. My breath catches in my throat as I strain to see through the trees, ignoring the freeze spreading through my backside. I daren’t move. There’s something there, standing motionless behind a tree. I can sense its shape, rising and falling, rising and falling, with slow, deliberate breaths. Then it shifts again, detaching itself from a trunk and slipping away.
    Then I shriek as wet fingers graze my neck … until I realize that it’s only Stella’s cold nose. I let her snuff into my skin another moment, wondering what I just saw. If I saw anything at all.
    â€œYou’re a menace,” I mutter to my dog, climbing to my feet and dusting off my cloak.
    I press on into the trees, picking up a broken branch to use as a walking stick. And a childish part of me mutters, just in case I need it . The woods are dark and I’m beginning to doubt my path when I see a small hill rising out of the trees just ahead, covered in frost-stiffened brambles. I know that George could not resist such a vantage point. When I scramble to the top of it, dropping my makeshift stick in the snow, I see that I’m right. I lift the painting into place before me, and it becomes a surreal window onto bare painted branches, imposed over the snowy landscape. Just as it appears in the painting, only the upper portion of the house is visible, and I realize I’ve come a considerable distance. I know, with absolute certainty, that I am standing on the place where my brother spent his last hours. Tracing the vast, lonely landscape with my eyes, I say a silent prayer that the white birches were still in his sight when he died.
    Stella