He had to feel sorry for her – she was staring at the damaged engine as though she had been robbed of her last hope – but he thought that, disillusioned as she was, she might be more receptive to the message he had to finish communicating. When he turned her towards the house she didn't resist, which was encouraging. "Come in with us, you two," he said. "I hope you enjoyed your walk."
Ellen grew tense at that. He hadn't intended to sound as if he was dismissing what she'd seen; after all, the children hadn't encountered anything they couldn't handle. He ought to be able to choose his words more carefully – he'd had enough practice – though he found the task burdensome now that he was brimming with the imminence of an experience beyond words, older than the hindrance of words. "We want to talk to you," he said.
Ellen glanced at him, too briefly for him to meet her eyes. He was unexpectedly relieved not to have to meet them, because he had realised he wasn't referring to her. "We're together," he said loudly, and snatching Ellen's keys from the ignition, strode to the house. "We'll go up," he said.
"Do you think the phone may be working now?" she whispered.
So the car hadn't been her last hope. Perhaps there was always one more so long as you were alive. He had forgotten the phone, but he was willing to pretend he'd had it in mind if the pretence would lure them to the workroom, where he could keep an eye on them and on whatever might emerge from the forest. "We'll have to see," he said.
The reawakening of hope seemed to restore her to herself. As he prepared to unlock the front door she took her keys from him, gently but resolutely. He found her determination both touching and frustrating; couldn't she understand that it was irrelevant? She was clinging to fragments of life as she had always lived it, as if they contained some magic which would revive normality when this winter came to an end, but they were only a refusal to accept that it never would. At least she was opening the door, and it was up to him to ensure that was a first step towards acceptance.
"Quick, you two, into the warm," she said tightly, flapping her hands at them as if she was trying to limber her quilted fingers, and pushed the children into the house as soon as they were within reach. Once she was over the threshold she faltered, blinking at the lit hall. She must be wondering belatedly why their house hadn't yet been overtaken by the winter. Wasn't that his cue to explain that whatever happened, she and the children would be safe with him? If she understood that, he could begin to persuade her that they were being saved for last, to complete the awakening as they experienced it and became part of it – but her concern for the children had already preoccupied her. "Don't stand there like statues, take some things off and keep moving," she urged them.
There really wasn't time for this, Ben thought, especially when it would make no difference, but if he told her so the argument would delay them further. He watched her and the children drag off their outer clothes, hanging them on the coat-stand and piling their boots around it like some kind of sacrifice to the night beyond the door. It was only when they stared at him that he remembered he was wearing a coat and boots himself. "You could have been trying to phone," Ellen said, her voice uneven and accusing, as he hung his coat on the single bare hook.
"We don't want to be separated now."
Her eyes grew suddenly moist, and he sensed that she wanted to run to him. He wondered what she could be thinking: was she remembering the new shape the Wests had formed? He felt as though whatever was dreaming him was using his words to convey more meaning than he had intended. He'd worked with words for so long that they wouldn't let go of him, but he'd had enough of wordplay; it was time to be clear. "Ready now," he said.
As he climbed the stairs she followed him and shepherded the children after him. He couldn't help smiling to himself as she switched on the landing lights; they wouldn't need those for much longer. He opened the workroom door and stood aside for the family to precede him.
Ellen hesitated once she had switched on the light and stepped into the room. For a moment he thought she'd seen what he had seen: a vast swift movement beyond the window, as if the frozen forest had betrayed its stillness for an instant, though he knew it was rather that the disguise of the forest had slipped momentarily as it or its denizen watched her. But she was only bracing herself to pick up the telephone, praying silently that it would work. Never mind: she had brought the children into the room, and he closed the door and leaned against the inside. "See what you can raise," he said.
He watched her approach the desk, the children trailing after her. From where he stood, the room and the desk and her drawing-board and the rest of the contents looked like an entrance to the forest, a last symbolic clutter to be left behind on the route to the truth. He saw that the forest was beginning very gradually to shine, ranks of trees in its depths growing dimly visible as if they or what they hid were inching towards the house. Wasn't there the faintest pallor of frost on the interior wall around the window? Ellen gained the desk and stood staring at the phone, visibly keeping a final prayer unspoken so that it wouldn't dismay the children, and then she thrust out her stiff hand and fumbled the receiver up to her face.
She dropped the receiver at once. It clattered like a bone across the desk until its cord jerked at it, swinging it round with a screech of plastic on wood. Margaret cried out as it fell, and Johnny did when it struck the desk. It was the loudness of the sound which it was emitting that had caused Ellen to lose her grip on it, and at first even Ben thought the sound was only static. Then, as Ellen reached shakily to cut it off, he heard that there was more to it. "Ellen," he shouted.
She had already depressed the receiver rest, but it didn't matter; the sound returned unchanged. It was a mass of whispering, so many whispers that it seemed to fill the room – a sound like wind through a forest, except that it was more elaborate and more purposeful. "Listen, all of you," Ben said in a voice which he heard merging with it. "Hear what it's saying."
Ellen stared uncomprehendingly at him, then her expression became one of loathing. She was trying to pick up the receiver to silence it, her fingers growing clumsier with rage, when Johnny cried "I can hear something."
He'd learned the secret, and Ben was proud of him, though it didn't take much effort to decipher the message – it was rather a matter of relaxing and allowing the sound to make itself clear. "It's calling us," Johnny said, clutching at his mother's arm.
That was why it sounded so elaborate: it was pronouncing all their names at once with its voices like an endless snowfall. Ben saw Margaret begin to hear them, her eyes widening and trembling. Then Ellen managed to seize the receiver and slammed it onto its rest. "What are you trying to do?" she whispered, glaring at him.
He had to speak plainly, he reminded himself. "Give you an idea what's on the way," he said, "so that it won't be so much of a shock."
She looked capable of creating trouble when there was no more time for it. He ought to remember that she hadn't had his advantages – that she'd been confronted unexpectedly with part of the truth when he had been anticipating it all his life – but he mustn't allow her to deny it, even if, given more time, that might have been her first step towards comprehending it. The forest, or the entity it symbolised, stirred again restlessly beyond her and the children, and he felt himself losing patience. "You've already seen more than they have," he told her, lowering his voice to show her this wasn't meant for the children to hear. "Won't you help me get them ready for it? We only saw a tiny hint of what's in store for us, and I know they were your friends, but even so, didn't you think it was beautiful?"