Wintersong

  A PRETTY LIE

  As the days passed, it was harder and harder to keep hold of my resolve, my convictions, my sanity. Too often I would turn a corner expecting to see a flash of gold or hear the echo of a tinkling laugh. The memory of Käthe in these halls was fading fast, leaving nothing but dust motes in the fading light. Perhaps I had never had a sister. Perhaps I was mad. Perhaps my reason had, in fact, abandoned me.

  Sepperl, Sepperl, what should I do?

  But if reason had abandoned me, then so had my beloved baby brother. More often than not, Josef was to be found with François, the two of them conversing in a mix of French, German, Italian, and music. Master Antonius was anxious to leave, but an unseasonably early ice storm had stopped all travel for a few more days. But the old virtuoso had more to worry about than a few impassable roads; French soldiers crawled our countryside like an infestation of roaches, and the troubling rumors of impending war hung over our heads.

  I shouldn’t have been jealous. I had promised I wouldn’t be jealous. But envy ate me up inside anyway. I saw how Josef’s eyes sparkled whenever he beheld François, how the dark-skinned youth smiled in return. My brother was leaving me behind in more ways than one. Like Käthe and Hans, like Mother and Papa, Josef was stepping into a world that seemed forever barred to me.

  The future sparkled ahead of Josef, a shining city at the end of a long road. His life stretched out ahead of him, exciting and unknown, whereas mine began and ended here, at the inn. With Josef gone, who would listen to my music? Who would listen to me?

  I thought of Hans and his sweet, chaste gestures toward me. I imagined stifled giggles, shared and private jests, basso continuo and treble improvisation. I dreamed of fleeting touches, sloppy kisses, whispered breaths and pants in the dark of the night when we thought no one could hear. I wished for love, the ethereal and the physical, the sacred and the profane, and wondered when I, like my brother, like my sister, would cross that threshold into knowledge from innocence.

  I retreated into the comforting embrace of my klavier more and more as the date of my brother’s departure approached. Without Josef’s guiding hand, the bagatelle grew wild and unchecked. Its musical phrases did not resolve themselves according to a logical, rational progression; they went where my flights of fancy took them. I let them go where they will. The results were slightly dissonant, eerie, and unsettling, but I did not mind. After all, I was not a child of beauty; I was a child of the queer, the strange, and the wild.

  I had the shape of the piece now, its rise, fall, and resolution. It was simple enough, especially for a virtuoso like Josef. I had written it with the violin in mind, to be accompanied by the fortepiano. I wanted to hear my brother play it, wanted to hear how it would transform in his hands.

  A few days later, I got my wish.

  François was attending to Master Antonius, who had taken a “mild chill,” although it seemed more a fit of jealous pique—he wasn’t the only one to have been abandoned by someone he loved, I realized. I found Josef in a rare moment alone downstairs in the main hall, lovingly tending to his violin. Twilight was falling, and the shadows carved the planes of his face into sharp relief. My brother looked like an angel, a sprite, a creature not quite of this world.

  “Think you the kobolds will be out tonight?” I asked softly.

  He startled. “Liesl!” He set down his oiling rag and wiped his hands on his trousers. “I didn’t see you there.” He rose from his seat by the hearth, arms out to embrace me.

  I walked straight into them. With a pang, I realized he was of a height with me. When had that happened?

  “What is it?” he asked, sensing my heartache.

  “Nothing.” I smiled at him. “It’s just … you’re growing up, Sepp.”

  He chuckled. It rumbled deep in his chest, a man’s chuckle, a bass. Though Josef still retained a boy’s sweet soprano, his voice walked the edge of breaking. “It’s never nothing with you.”

  “No,” I admitted. I wrapped my hands around his. “I have something for you. A gift.”

  His brows lifted with surprise. “A gift?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Come with me. And bring your violin.”

  Bemused, Josef followed me upstairs to my room. I led him to the klavier, to where the bagatelle rested against the music stand. I had stayed up late the previous night, wasting precious candlelight to make a fair copy.

  “What is this?” He squinted and leaned closer.

  I didn’t say anything, but waited.

  “Oh.” Josef paused. “An entire new piece?”

  “Don’t judge too harshly, Sepperl.” I tried to laugh off my sudden embarrassment. “It’s full of mistakes and errors, I’m sure.”

  Josef tilted his head. “Do you want me and François to play it for you?”

  I flinched. “I had thought,” I said, unexpectedly stung, “that we would play it together.”

  He had the grace to blush. “Of course. Forgive me, Liesl.” He took his violin and rested it beneath his chin. He scanned the first few lines and then nodded at me. I was suddenly nervous. I shouldn’t be; this was Josef, after all.

  I nodded back and Josef lightly bounced his bow up and down, setting the tempo. We gave it a measure, and then began.

  The first notes were tentative, unsure. I was nervous and Josef was … Josef was unreadable. I faltered, my fingers slipping on the keyboard.

  Josef continued to play, reading the notes I’d written with mechanical precision. You could have set a watch by his playing, exact and ruthless. Numbness began to spread from my fingers, traveling through my hands, up my arms, my shoulders, my neck, my eyes, my ears. I had written this piece for the Josef I had known and loved, for the little boy who never skipped out on an opportunity to run away to find the Hödekin dancing in the wood. For the child who had shared half my soul, strange and queer and wild, for the brother who kept faith with Der Erlkönig.

  He wasn’t there.

  It was as though my brother had been replaced by a changeling. The music did not transform, did not transcend in his hands. The notes were muddy, mundane, terrestrial. Suddenly it was as though I could see the cobwebs of delusion I had woven about myself, through which I could see another world and another life.

  Josef finished the piece, holding the last note’s fermata with exacting length.

  “A good effort, Liesl.” He gave me a smile, but it did not quite reach his eyes. “A definite start.”

  I nodded. “You’ll be leaving for Munich tomorrow,” I said.

  “Yes.” Josef sounded relieved. “At first light.”

  “Get some rest, then.” I patted him on the cheek.

  “And you?” he asked, inclining his head toward the piece on the klavier, the piece he had just finished playing. “You will write, won’t you? Send me more music?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  But we both knew it for a lie.

  * * *

  Energy was high when the coaches arrived to bear Josef, Master Antonius, and François to Munich. Guests and patrons and friends from the village turned out to bid them farewell. Papa wept as he embraced his son, while Mother—stoic-faced and dry-eyed—laid her hands over Josef’s head in a quiet benediction. I avoided Constanze’s gaze. Her eyes were dark and clouded, her mouth set in a mutinous line.

  “Glück, Josef.” Hans pounded my brother good-naturedly on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about your family; I’ll take care of them.” He caught my eye and gave me a bashful smile. My heart fluttered, but with nervousness or guilt, I wasn’t sure.

  “Danke,” Josef said absently. His eyes were already distant, already gone.

  “Auf wiedersehen, Sepp,” I said.

  My brother looked startled to see me standing beside him. I was easily lost in the shadows—plain, drab, unremarkable—but Josef had always managed to find me. Tears started in my eyes.

  “Auf wiedersehen, Liesl.” He took my hands in his, and for a moment, it was as though the world had never changed, and h
e was still my beloved Sepperl, the other half of my soul. His blue eyes shone bright as he wrapped me in his arms. It was a boy’s hug, unself-conscious and sincere, the last my little brother would ever give me. When—if—we next saw each other, he would be a man.

  François came to escort Josef to the coach, to Munich, to greatness, to acclaim. Our eyes met over my brother’s head. We did not share the same tongue, but we spoke the same language nonetheless.

  Take care of him, I said.

  I will, he replied.

  I made myself stand and watch as the coach drew away, as it disappeared down the road, swallowed up by mist, distance, and time. One by one, my family returned to their lives: Papa to his chair by the hearth, Mother to her place in the kitchen. Hans lingered longest, his hand on my shoulder. At last I turned to join what remained of my family inside, but Hans stopped me.

  “Hans,” I said. “What is it?”

  He shushed me. “Come. I have something—something I want to show you.”

  Frowning, I let him lead me past the creek toward the woodshed. Once there, he pushed me against the wall.

  “Hans.” I struggled against him. “What—”

  He shushed me. “It’s all right,” he said. This was the most of Hans’s body I had ever felt against my own: his hand on my wrist, his chest against mine, his thighs against my hips, the heat of his skin warming mine. “It’s all right,” he repeated, and gripped me closer. There was an urgency to his touch, a need that stirred my blood.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  But I knew. I had both dreaded and desired it.

  His hand pressed against my lower back, pushing our lower limbs together. His right hand released my wrist to slowly come up to caress my cheek. “What I’ve wanted to do ever since I met you,” he breathed.

  And then he kissed me.

  I closed my eyes and waited, waited for the fires within me to ignite. I had imagined, dreamed of, and yearned for this moment for a long time: the moment Hans would take me in his arms and press his lips to mine. Yet in the precise moment it came to pass, I felt cold. I could feel his lips, his breath, and the tentative brush of his tongue against mine, but he aroused no emotion save vague surprise and detached curiosity.

  “Liesl?”

  Hans had pulled away, trying to read my expression. I thought of Käthe, but it was not the shape of my sister’s body that lay between us.

  You might prefer the pretty lie to the ugly truth, the Goblin King had said.

  I had. This entire life was a pretty lie, and I had thought myself strong enough to resist it. What a fool I’d been, to fall for the Lord of Mischief’s tricks.

  “Liesl?” Hans repeated, hesitant and unsure. This was all a lie, but what a beautiful, beautiful lie it was.

  So I kissed him back.

  In the dark of the night, with my back turned to my sister so she would not notice, I had pretended to feel Hans’s hands on me, his fingers questing for all the secret hollows and crevices of my body. I imagined his lips and tongue and teeth, I imagined desire so forceful he nearly burst with it, matching the roughness in my restless limbs with his own violence.

  The intensity of my kisses startled him, his surprise resonating through him from head to toe. He released me.

  “Liesl!”

  “Was this not what you wanted?” I asked.

  “Yes, it is, but—”

  “But what?”

  “I didn’t expect you to be so forward.”

  Somewhere, deep in the forest, I thought I could hear an echo of the Goblin King’s laugh.

  “Is this not what you wanted?” I repeated, angrily wiping at my mouth.

  “Of course,” Hans replied, but I heard the uncertainty in his voice. The fear, the disgust. “Of course it is, Liesl.”

  I shoved him away. Fury unfurled from me, a rising wave of frustration.

  “Liesl, please.” Hans grabbed my sleeve.

  “Let me go.” My voice was as dead as I felt inside.

  “I’m sorry. I just—I just thought you were pure. Chaste. Not like all those other girls, easily spent, easily satiated.”

  I went rigid. Käthe.

  “Oh?” I asked tightly. “What other girls, Hans?”

  His brows furrowed. “You know,” he said vaguely. “The others. But they don’t matter to me, Liesl. They’re not the sort of girls you marry.”

  I slapped him. I had never raised my hand against anyone in my life, but I hit him with all the strength I had. My palm stung where it struck his cheek.

  “And what sort of girl am I?” I asked in a low voice. “What sort of girl do you marry, Hans?”

  He sputtered, but did not form a response.

  “When you said pure, you meant plain. When you said chaste, you meant ugly.”

  My words hit him in all their hideous truth, exposing him for what he truly was. I half expected, half wanted Hans to react, to grab my arm and tell me I was overreaching my bounds. But instead he stumbled back, his hands going limp, submissive.

  My lip curled. “I wanted you once,” I said. “I thought you were a worthy man, Hans. And deep down, I think you are. But you are not worthy of me. All you are is a pretty lie.”

  Hans reached for me, but I kept my hands to myself.

  “Liesl—”

  I looked him straight in the eye. “What was it your father used to say?”

  Hans said nothing. He turned his head away.

  “What’s the use of running, if we are on the wrong road?”

  THE UGLY TRUTH

  I ran straight to Constanze’s room.

  I should have gone to my grandmother before. Gone the moment I returned from the woods, gone the moment I knew Käthe was stolen. Instead, I had let my grandmother hover on the edges of my awareness like a ghost, unable or unwilling to face the ugly truth. Guilt crawled up my throat, leaking from my eyes.

  The door to her quarters was shut. I raised a hand to knock when a querulous voice called, “Well, come in, girl. You’ve dawdled long enough.”

  It was true.

  I pushed open the door. Constanze sat in her chair by the window, looking out into the forest beyond.

  “How did you know I—”

  “Those of us touched by the hand of Der Erlkönig recognize his own.” She turned to face me, her eyes dark and sharp. “I’ve been expecting you for weeks.”

  Weeks. Had it truly been that long? I tried to count the days I had lived in this false reality, but they blurred together, connecting seamlessly without end.

  “Then why not come seek me?” I asked.

  Constanze shrugged. “It is not for me to meddle in his affairs.”

  Angry words beat against my lips. I swallowed them down, but a few emerged as a choked, incredulous laugh.

  “And you would have him change the world as you know it?” I asked. “You would let Der Erlkönig win?”

  “Win?” She thumped the floor with her cane. “There is no winning with Der Erlkönig. Or losing. There is only sacrifice.”

  “Käthe is not a sacrifice!”

  My sister’s name boomed like a thunderclap between us. I felt the seams of this false reality come apart at her name, tearing holes in the fabric of my confusion. Käthe. I remembered her sunshine hair and bell-like laugh, her jealousy of Josef and her admiration of me, the way only a little sister could admire me. Grace, she had said. Cleverness and talent. That’s much more enduring than beauty. I thought of her thousand thoughtless hurts and kindnesses and the ache of missing my sister, muffled by misdirection and lies, flared into sharp relief.

  I buried my face in my hands.

  I heard Constanze stir in her seat, turning to face me. If she were a different sort of grandmother, she might have beckoned me close so that she might place her gnarled hands upon my head, stroking my brow while murmuring comforting words.

  But Constanze was not that sort of grandmother.

  “Well, girlie, what is it you want from me?” she snapped. “Tell me
quickly so you’ll leave me in peace.”

  Constanze hardly ever called either Käthe or me by our names, given or otherwise; we were always “girl” or “you,” as though we were extraneous, superfluous, or otherwise unimportant.

  “I want…” My voice was hoarse, barely a whisper. “I want you to tell me how to gain entrance to the Underground.”

  She said nothing.

  “Please.” I lifted my head. “Please, Constanze.”

  “There is nothing you can do,” she said, and the finality of her words was worse than her contempt. “Haven’t you been listening? Your sister is for the Goblin King now. It is too late.”

  Until the next full moon, or your sister is lost forever.

  How much time had passed in this fever dream? Had the full moon risen? I tried to count the weeks, but the passage of time had gone unmarked in my halcyon daze.

  “It is not too late.” I prayed it was true. “I have until the next full moon.”

  This time Constanze’s silence was less scornful than surprised. “Did he … did he speak to you?”

  “Yes.” I wrung my hands. “In the Goblin King’s own words, I have until the next full moon to find my way into his realm.”

  But she did not seem to hear a word I said. “He spoke … to you?” she repeated. “Why you?”

  I frowned. Acid no longer etched her tones with biting distaste, but a lingering vulnerability traced her words. In them, I heard, Why you … and not me?

  “Have you—have you met Der Erlkönig?” I asked.

  It was a long moment before she replied. “Yes,” she said. “You are not the only maiden to have had foolish, girlish dreams of Der Erlkönig, you know. You are not the only one to have danced with him in the wood. Like you, I once dreamed he would take me away, to be his bride in the Underground.” She looked away. “But he never did. Perhaps,” she said sardonically, “I was not pretty enough for him either.”

  Sympathy beat in my chest for Constanze. Unlike Käthe, unlike Mother, Constanze understood what it was to be plain, overlooked, ignored. Käthe’s and Mother’s beauty ensured they would never be forgotten; their stories would live on in someone else’s narrative, as beautiful women always did. People would remember their names. Women like Constanze and me were relegated to the footnotes, to the background, nameless and unimportant.