Winter's Tale

Set in a mythic version of New York City stretching from the late 19th century to the dawn of the third millennium, the novel envisions the city as a living organism governed by hidden forces of justice, love, and balance, surrounded by a mysterious white cloud wall that marks the boundary between ordinary existence and something beyond.

The story begins on a winter dawn when a white horse escapes his stable in Brooklyn and crosses the Williamsburg Bridge into Manhattan. At the Battery, the horse encounters Peter Lake, a burglar fleeing armed pursuers led by Pearly Soames, the terrifying chieftain of the Short Tail Gang. Peter Lake leaps onto the horse's back, and they escape.

Peter Lake's origins are unusual. His parents, immigrants turned away from Castle Garden, a processing center for newcomers, because they had tuberculosis, set him adrift as an infant in a miniature ship. The vessel washed ashore on the Bayonne Marsh, where fierce clamdiggers called the Baymen raised him until the age of 12. Sent to Manhattan, he was placed in a corrupt orphanage, where a genius mechanic named Reverend Mootfowl trained him as a master craftsman. As a young man, Peter Lake witnessed a dying child alone in a tenement hallway, an image that haunted him for life. He joined the Short Tails but betrayed them when Pearly planned to massacre the Baymen. The Baymen destroyed the gang, but Pearly survived and rebuilt it, marking Peter Lake for death.

Mounted on the white horse, Peter Lake stakes out the mansion of Isaac Penn, the wealthy publisher of The Sun newspaper, and breaks in. He finds that Isaac Penn's daughter Beverly is home alone. Beverly has tuberculosis and is dying. She sleeps outdoors on the roof, watches the stars for hours, and possesses visionary knowledge beyond ordinary experience. When Peter Lake hears her play a transcription of the Brahms Violin Concerto, he is overwhelmed. She discovers him in the doorway, and they embrace.

Peter Lake takes Beverly to meet her family at the Lake of the Coheeries, a remote settlement in upstate New York. Isaac Penn accepts Peter Lake despite his criminal past and speaks of justice as a luminous design beyond ordinary understanding, one that Beverly has already glimpsed. On New Year's Eve, they dance at Mouquin's, a fashionable dance hall, where Beverly's presence mysteriously paralyzes Pearly and the Short Tails. Beverly dies in March. Isaac Penn dies soon after, and the Penn family scatters. Peter Lake wanders the city with the horse, whom the Baymen call Athansor.

Pearly assembles more than 2,000 gang members to ambush Peter Lake on the Great Bridge spanning the East River. After a desperate fight, Athansor leaps from the bridge and flies. They break through the cloud wall into a world of rushing white mist, where Peter Lake sees celestial animals and a high, clear realm but cannot breathe. He throws himself off the horse and falls back through the clouds, vanishing entirely. Athansor flies on alone.

The narrative shifts forward in time. Virginia Gamely, raised by her widowed mother at the Lake of the Coheeries, travels to New York when a brutal winter threatens starvation. She reconnects with Jessica Penn, a childhood friend, and is hired at The Sun, eventually becoming a provocative editorial columnist. Harry Penn, Isaac Penn's son and publisher of The Sun, protects Virginia for reasons no one at the paper understands.

Hardesty Marratta, son of an astrophysicist and fleet owner in San Francisco, inherits a golden salver, an heirloom tray inscribed with the declaration: "For what can be imagined more beautiful than the sight of a perfectly just city rejoicing in justice alone" (280). Choosing the salver over his father's entire fortune, he crosses America and reaches New York, where he meets Virginia. They marry. Virginia's son Martin, from a previous relationship, and their daughter Abby form the new family. Asbury Gunwillow, a young sailor blown to New York by a mysterious wind, becomes the pilot of The Sun's launch. Christiana Friebourg, who as a child encountered a white horse that fell from the sky, escapes a wealthy patron and takes a job at Harry Penn's house. She and Asbury fall in love through their shared apartment wall before ever meeting.

Meanwhile, Peter Lake is pulled from the freezing harbor by a ferry crew with bullet wounds and no memory. He wanders the city as a derelict, haunting the Maritime Cathedral, a waterfront landmark, and a tenement rooftop that smells of pine fires from another century. At a dinner at Petipas, a garden restaurant, he appears at the fence; little Abby Marratta walks through the bars and falls asleep in his arms. He is hired as chief mechanic at The Sun under the name "Mr. Bearer," demonstrating encyclopedic knowledge of old machinery.

An enormous ship arrives in the Hudson. Praeger de Pinto, The Sun's managing editor, investigates and discovers its occupants: Jackson Mead, a mysterious bridge-builder; Mootfowl, somehow still alive; and Cecil Mature, Peter Lake's former companion in the Short Tails, now called Mr. Cecil Wooley and serving as Mead's chief engineer. Mead declares his purpose is to build a bridge of light to stop time and bring back the dead. When the mayor stonewalls the investigation, Praeger runs for mayor and wins in a landslide.

As the millennium approaches, Athansor is found enslaved in a mill, and Pearly claims him. Abby Marratta falls gravely ill. The Marrattas travel to the Coheeries, where Athansor rescues them from the Short Tails, but Abby cannot be cured. Hardesty embarks on a desperate odyssey seeking miraculous power to save her but fails. Abby dies. Peter Lake arrives at the hospital, recognizes the dead child as the girl from Petipas and as the dying child he saw in a tenement hallway a century before, and tells the Marrattas to bury her and dig her up, declaring she will live.

Harry Penn, now nearly 100, recognizes Peter Lake as the man from Beverly's time, unchanged after 85 years. He drives to the Coheeries, finds the village massacred by Short Tails, and burns the Penn house following Beverly's deathbed instructions. At The Sun, he shows Peter Lake portraits of Beverly and of Peter Lake himself. Peter Lake's memory returns completely. Virginia also learns why Harry Penn shielded her career: Her childhood grief over her father Theodore's death in the war had broken Harry Penn's heart.

The city erupts in fire as the millennium arrives. Jackson Mead throws Battery Bridge, a multicolored beam of light rising from the Battery, but it fails and disappears. Peter Lake starts every machine at The Sun with a touch, keeping the building lit while the city goes dark. He finds Athansor, mounts him, and rides through the ruined city as visions of all the city's ages flow together.

Peter Lake sends Athansor home. The horse fails to fly several times but finally rises through the cloud wall, never to return. In the Maritime Cathedral, Pearly confronts Peter Lake with the remains of a butchered horse, but Peter Lake hears the thunder of hoofbeats: the real Athansor ascending. He places Pearly's sword against his own neck, says "Only love... Drive hard" (742), and allows himself to be killed.

On the harbor, Martin watches Abby's body aboard The Sun's launch. Her fingers stretch. She breathes. Her eyes open. She is alive. The city appears infinitely complex and holy, and the waters turn to shimmering gold.

The epilogue reports that Jackson Mead, Cecil Mature, and Mootfowl disappear. Harry Penn dies. Jessica Penn bears Praeger's child to guide The Sun into the future. Mrs. Gamely marries Craig Binky, publisher of the rival tabloid The Ghost. The novel leaves open Peter Lake's ultimate fate, declaring it a question each reader must answer.