Wintersong

The word fell between us, a drop of water in a bowl, sending ripples of fear through me. Now the days of winter begin, and the Goblin King rides abroad, searching for his bride.

  “Oh, God,” I whispered. “Käthe.”

  “Yes,” the Goblin King hissed. “I am patient, Elisabeth. I have waited a long time. A long time during which you never came. A long time during which you grew distant. A long time during which you forgot me.”

  “I never forgot you.” It was true. If I no longer played pretend, then the memory of Der Erlkönig remained lodged in my soul. I could no more remove him from my life than I could remove my heart and live.

  “No?” He lifted a hand to brush an errant curl from my face, but hesitated. He curled his hand into a fist and dropped it back to his side. “Then you denied me, and that is an even greater betrayal than forgetting.”

  I turned my head away, unable to look at him.

  “First your father, then you, and now your brother,” he said. “Only Constanze keeps faith with me now. The days of the Wild Hunt draw to a close, and no one heeds its call anymore.”

  “I heed it,” I said. “What do you want from me?”

  “Nothing.” His voice was almost sad. “It’s too late now, Elisabeth. The game was played, and you are forfeit.”

  Käthe.

  “Where is my sister?” I quavered.

  The Goblin King did not respond, but I sensed, rather than saw, the knife-edged smile on his lips.

  There was only one place Käthe could be. Far beneath the earth, in the realm of Der Erlkönig and his goblins.

  The Underground.

  “The game isn’t over,” I said. “You’ve but made the opening gambit.”

  This time, I made myself look him directly in the eyes. In the bright moonlight, they were two different colors: one as gray as a winter sky, the other a hazel-green, the color of moss peeking through dead loam. Wolf’s eyes. The Devil’s eyes. He could see into the darkness. He could see into me.

  “I chose the wrong hand the first time.” The salt. The audition. Guilt gripped me in a vise; I had chosen Josef over Käthe. Again.

  His smile grew wider. “Very good.”

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll play.” I tilted my head back. “I’ll play your game. If I find Käthe, you will let my sister go.”

  “Is that all?” he said petulantly. “Not much of a game if there’s nothing interesting you’re willing to sacrifice.”

  “The rules were simple, so you said. Finders, keepers. You take, I lose. You hide, I find. Whoever fails is the loser. Let’s say … best of three.”

  “Very well then.” He huffed his shoulders. “But remember, Elisabeth, our childish games are behind us now.” Those wolf’s eyes glittered. “When I play, I play for keeps. Should you fail to bring your sister back to the world above by the next full moon, she will be lost to you forever.”

  I nodded.

  “You lost the first round,” the Goblin King said. “You must win the next two in order to win.”

  I gave another nod. From Constanze’s stories, I knew how it would go. I had failed to protect my sister from the goblin men. I must not fail to find my way to her in the Underground.

  “No tricks,” I said. “No cheating. No taking away my memories. No playing with time.”

  The Goblin King tutted. “I make no such promises. You knew the stakes when you chose to engage with me.”

  I shuddered.

  “However,” he said. “I am generous, after all. I shall promise you one thing, and one thing only. Your eyes will remain open. But you cannot deny me the power to cloud the minds of others as it suits my purposes.”

  I nodded again.

  “Oh, Elisabeth,” he said. “You foolish, foolish girl. How easily you give me your trust.”

  “I play the hand I am dealt.”

  “Yes, and by my rules.” The tips of his teeth glinted. “Beware, Elisabeth. You may prefer the pretty lie to the ugly truth.”

  “I am not afraid of ugliness.”

  He watched me and I steeled myself against his scrutiny. “No,” he said softly. “You’re not.” He straightened his shoulders. “Until the next full moon.” He pointed to the moon in the sky, and for a moment, I thought I saw the hands of a clock pass over its face. “Or your sister is lost forever.”

  “The next full moon,” I repeated.

  The Goblin King moved closer. His hand cupped my chin, and I raised my eyes to his multicolored gaze. “I shall enjoy playing with you,” he said in a low voice. He bent down, and the touch of his breath against my lips was cold.

  Viel Glück, Elisabeth.

  Then he was gone.

  * * *

  “Liesl!”

  The voice was muffled, as though heard through ice or water.

  “Liesl! Liesl!”

  I tried to open my eyes, but they were frozen shut. After a few moments, I managed to crack one open, and through the ice and tangled lashes, I could see a blurred shape running toward me.

  “Hans?” I croaked.

  “You’re alive!” He pressed his hand to my cheek, but I felt nothing: no warmth, no sensation of touch, nothing but light pressure. “By God, Liesl, what happened to you?”

  I could not answer. Even if I could, I did not want to answer. Hans scooped me up in his arms and carried me back to the inn.

  I felt nothing but cold, nothing of life, of warmth, or of Hans’s arms around my legs, beneath my back, his hands curled around my chest. It was as though I were dead. I might as well be dead. I had sacrificed my sister for my brother. Again. I deserved to die.

  Käthe, I said. But Hans did not hear me.

  “We must get you inside and warm immediately,” he said. “God, Liesl, what were you thinking? Your mother and Josef have been frantic with worry; Josef even threatened he would not join with Master Antonius until you were found.”

  Käthe, I tried again.

  “Your father was beside himself; I thought he had gone mad! I never want to see him that drunk again.”

  How long had I been gone? It couldn’t have been more than an hour—two at most—that I had spent in the grove with the Goblin King.

  “How—how long—” My throat was hoarse, my voice creaky with disuse.

  “Three days.” The calmness of Hans’s tone did not disguise the very real fear and panic in his voice. “You were gone for three days. Josef’s audition with Master Antonius was three days ago.”

  Three days? How could that be possible? Hans must be exaggerating.

  No tricks. No cheating. No taking away my memories. No playing with time. The Goblin King had broken his promises already.

  But he had not made me any. I shall promise you one thing, and one thing only. Your eyes will remain open. My eyes were open. I remembered it all.

  “Käthe,” I said again, but Hans shushed me with a finger against my lips.

  “No talking now, Liesl. I’m here. I shall take care of you,” he said. “I shall take care of all of you, never you fear.”

  * * *

  Back at the inn, everyone was in a tizzy. Mother embraced me and wept, an untoward display of emotion. The age-old tracks of beery tears stained the grooves in Papa’s cheeks, and Josef, dear Sepperl, said nothing and clenched my hand with white-knuckled ferocity. Only Constanze stood apart, her dark eyes boring into mine.

  My sister was gone.

  I was responsible.

  Mother coddled and fussed over me as though I were a babe, wrapping me in woolen blankets, demanding that Papa place me in his favorite chair by the hearth, bringing me soup and even tea with just a dash of rum.

  “Oh, Liesl!” she said tearfully. “Oh, Liesl!”

  Her intense outpouring of affection discomfited me. Mother and I had never been particularly close; we were each too preoccupied with holding our lives together—Mother the business, me the family. I found it hard to express my love for my mother; we shared an understanding, but we did not share hugs.

  Seeing my discomfor
t, Mother wiped at her eyes and nodded. “It’s good to see you safe, Liesl.” She was once again practical, no-nonsense Frau Vogler, innkeeper’s wife. All hints and signs of her previous breakdown had vanished, save for her reddened eyes.

  “Mother was worried you had run away from home,” Josef whispered.

  I was incredulous. “Why would I run away from home?”

  Josef gave a sidelong glance to Papa, who was hunched in the corner. He looked years older, suddenly haggard and worn and sad. He had always been blithe and gay, a shambling semblance of the bright, vivacious, promising young man he had been. His cheeks, reddened by years of drink, lent him a childish air, and his convivial nature disguised his graver shortcomings to all but those who knew him best.

  “Because … because you had nothing left to live for,” Josef said.

  “What?” I struggled to sit up, but the myriad of blankets draped around me trapped me in a cocoon of knitted wool. “Don’t be ridiculous, Sepperl.”

  Hans’s hand stayed me in my seat. “Liesl.” His voice was kind. “We know how hard you worked to keep this family together. We know what you did for Josef, how you worked your entire life to further his career. We know you neglected your own hopes and dreams for his future. We know your own parents often passed you over in favor of him.”

  A prickling sensation overcame me. Hans was echoing all my selfish and unkind thoughts, validating my every frustration. Yet I felt no relief, no triumph, only a vague sense of dread.

  “That still doesn’t explain why you all thought I would run away,” I said crossly.

  Hans and Josef exchanged looks. I distrusted this new sympathy between them.

  “You haven’t been well lately, Liesl,” Hans said. “You’ve taken to spending long periods of time alone and in the woods.”

  “That’s not so unusual,” I said.

  “Of course not,” Josef said. “Only … you keep telling us you’re searching for someone, someone who needs your help desperately.”

  I stiffened. “Käthe.”

  The boys exchanged another look. “Yes, Liesl,” Hans said carefully.

  The thought of my sister sharpened all my senses and mental faculties. “Käthe!” I said again, and this time I managed to disentangle myself from my nest of cloaks and blankets. “I must find her.”

  “Hush,” Hans soothed. “There is no danger. Everything is all right.”

  I shook my head. “If I’ve been gone for three days, then Käthe must be in even greater trouble. Have you sent any search parties after her? Have you had any luck in finding her?”

  Josef worried his lower lip. His blue eyes shone with tears as he took my hand. “Oh, Liesl.”

  The cold hand of fear gripped my heart. I misliked what I saw in my brother’s face. “What is it?” I asked. “What have you to tell me?”

  Over my brother’s shoulder, Constanze hovered over us like a bird of prey. Her face was dark, her expression both smug and grave.

  “Oh, Liesl,” Josef said again. “I’m so very glad you’re safe. But I must ask you: who have you been searching for? None of us understand what you’ve been talking about. Who, my dear, is Käthe?”

  Intermezzo

  THE IDEAL IMAGINARY

  No promises, the Goblin King had said. Your eyes will remain open, but you cannot deny me the power to cloud the minds of others as it suits my purposes.

  As Josef prepared for his departure with Master Antonius and François, Mother insisted I keep to my rooms and “recuperate.”

  “You deserve a rest, my dear,” she said. “You’ve worked so long to take care of us; let us now look after you.”

  I’m not ill! I tried to say, but it was no use. The harder I searched for everyone’s missing memories of my sister, the more convinced they were that reason had abandoned me.

  It was not my mind that had broken.

  Or was it?

  Käthe was gone, but she was more than gone; she had never existed. All traces of her were wiped completely from our lives and nothing remained, not even a strand of her golden hair. No dried wildflowers from the meadow. No ribbons. No lace. Nothing. She had simply never been.

  Your eyes will remain open.

  My eyes were open, but they could no longer trust what they saw, for it was not what they remembered.

  One morning I awoke to find the klavier from Josef’s rooms had been moved to mine.

  “Who put that there?” I asked Hans. “How did you move it without my hearing?”

  Hans frowned. “The klavier has always stood in your room, Liesl.”

  “No,” I said. “No, it has not. How could it? Josef and I practiced in his rooms upon it.”

  “You and Josef always practiced on the fortepiano downstairs,” Hans said. His tone was patient, but his eyes were worried. “This is your own personal klavier, Liesl. See?” He pointed to a stack of music laid across the lid, with notes scrawled in my hand.

  “But I never—” I picked up the notes. It looked to be the start of a composition, one I could not recall ever having written. I lightly tapped out the melody on the keyboard. Major seventh, my notes said.

  The memory of a stolen moment before my brother’s audition returned to me. A little something to hold your promise, he’d said. Major seventh, of course that’s what you start with.

  But was it a true memory, or a false one? Had I already begun writing this before our conversation? Or was this yet another dream I had wished into existence?

  Hans placed his hands on my shoulders and guided me to the bench. His touch was intimate, but my mind recoiled. He was not mine. He had never been mine.

  “Here, Liesl,” he said gently. “Play. Compose. I know how much your music brings you solace.”

  Liesl. Had I always been thus? I thought I could remember the words Fräulein and Elisabeth upon his lips, a distance so vast it could only be bridged by awkwardness.

  “Hans—Hansl.” The endearment tasted strange upon my tongue.

  “Yes?” His gaze was tender, and wrong. Hans had never looked at me this way, never regarded me as anything but a sister.

  “Nothing,” I said at last. “Nothing.”

  * * *

  I had awoken into a new world, a new life. Reality had snapped in half: truth on one side, lies on the other. But which was which? I struggled to match its jagged edges, but the pieces did not fit.

  My “convalescence” kept me confined to my room, where I could do little else but compose. My attempts to leave my confinement, to find Josef, to find Constanze, to run to the Goblin Grove, were all met with kind but firm rebuttals. The Goblin King had said he would not make it easy. I had expected inhuman tasks, supernatural quests, epic battles to bar my path, but what I had not expected was plain, ordinary human compassion. Rest, dear, was their repeated refrain. Rest.

  And I … I could not help but be seduced.

  It was easy, so damnably easy, to sit at the klavier and let the world outside continue with its twisted regularity. So easy to tinker upon the ivory keys and let my mind take flight, to turn my confusion and longing and unsettled desires into music. So easy to compose … and forget.

  This was the way life should have been.

  This was the way life had always been.

  The scrap of melancholy, the promise I had begun for Josef, grew into a mournful little bagatelle. I had decided on the key designation and tempo—A minor and common time—but try as I might, the rest of the piece would not fall comfortably into place.

  The melody and themes were the easiest to write, and were therefore laid to paper first. Then came the work of figuring out chord progressions and subordinate harmonies, for which I relied heavily on the klavier. I was not Josef; I could not pull them from my head, but I could notate which sounded—no, felt—right to me.

  After a while, I abandoned writing down my thoughts one phrase at a time and let myself play without pause. I improvised, I experimented, I wandered. Papa said real composers worked within the strictures set up
on them, but I wanted to be free. I would shape the world to fit the music in my soul.

  I had never composed something solely on my own before; Sepperl usually sat on the bench with me, correcting my mistakes in structure and theory. The music of Bach, Handel, and Haydn had been composed from the mind; I composed from the heart. I was not Mozart, infused with divine inspiration; I was Maria Elisabeth Ingeborg Vogler, mortal and fallible.

  A shadow cut the light seeping in from beneath my door.

  I immediately stopped playing.

  “Who’s there?”

  There was no response, but the light, shuffling footsteps gave her away.

  Constanze.

  “What is it?” I repeated.

  The footsteps faltered, then stopped. A cold knot of dread formed in my stomach, and I was a child again, caught with my hand in the sugar. Music was an indulgence, and too much sweet would spoil me. I had other tasks, other chores, other duties to attend to.

  Käthe.

  For a moment, there was utter clarity. I rose from the bench and ran to the door. Constanze kept faith with Der Erlkönig. Constanze would remember.

  But …

  I thought of my grandmother pouring salt along the windowsills. I thought of her leaving a tin of milk and a slice of cake out each harvesttide. I thought of her strange and eccentric oddities, more ritual than religion, and thought of Mother’s exasperated grumblings, Hans’s pitying looks, the villagers’ scornful gazes. Constanze kept faith with the Goblin King, and what had her faith availed her?

  Nothing.

  I glanced about my room, at the klavier in the center, at the dinner tray Mother had set on a low table beside it, at the sachet of dried, sweet herbs from Hans.

  Time to compose. Favors from the handsomest man in the village. No shame, no judgment upon who I was, and what I loved. It was only the very beginnings of all the things I had ever wished for, and the possibility of happiness—real happiness—stretched out before me, a fork in the road.

  What had my lack of faith availed me?

  Everything.

  Suddenly the clarity was gone.

  We stood on either side of the threshold, my grandmother and I, each waiting for the other to cross.