Wintersong(78)

And beneath that memory, yet another. And another, and another. Assaults on my tender heart I had suffered until I learned to put my music away in a cage. I had pushed me, the real me, back behind the fa?ade of a good girl, a dutiful daughter. I ceased to be me and became Liesl, the maiden in the shadows. I had been that Liesl for so long, I did not know my way back to the light.

“Because,” I choked out, “I need you to break me in order to find me.”

I rested my left hand against the klavier. The Goblin King sucked in a sharp breath.

“You do not know what you ask.”

I looked into his eyes and pressed a key.

“I do.”

The note hung in the air between us as his pupils expanded, then contracted. Those mismatched eyes shifted from frightened to feral and back again as Der Erlk?nig warred with his better nature.

“You don’t.”

I pressed another key. “I do.”

A long, shuddering sigh escaped him. His hands moved to my shoulders, fingers clenching and unclenching, as though he did not know whether to draw me close or push me away. I pressed yet another key, then another, and then another, calling the wolf from hiding.

“I want you to find me,” I whispered. “Every last bit of me.”

The Goblin King drew away. Our eyes met, and in that moment I saw not the wolf, but the austere young man.

“Elisabeth,” he said. “Have mercy on me.”

My eyes were steady upon his face. “I am not afraid of you.”

“No?” The Goblin King closed his eyes. “Then you are a fool.”

And when he opened his eyes again, the austere young man was gone.

*

Our lips meet in a clash of teeth and tongue. The retiring room falls away, and we fall together, the Goblin King and I. We land on a soft bed of leaves that crackle and rustle with every twitch of our limbs, every sigh of our bodies, and the world around us is dark, secret, safe.

His hands hold my face, drawing me in as though he could drink in my breath, my blood, my life. He is certain and sure; I am artless and awkward. My hands clutch at his back, pressing him close, wanting to feel every bit of him against me like a second skin. The diamonds sewn into the bodice of my gown bite into me, and I itch and I sting and I burn.

You do not know what you ask, he murmurs over and over again into my mouth. You cannot know.

I do not know but I want to learn. I want him to push me to my limits, to find my edges, then call me back. Find my edges, I plead, then obliterate them.

I tear at the fine lace at his throat, find the buttons and seams of his shirt with my fingers. His skin is cool as I pull at his clothes, and the thrill of this touch, this contact, sends shivers through me. I scrabble and claw at my dress, wanting to shuck my finery the way a snake sheds its old self, leaving behind nothing but the impression of the body that once inhabited it. I want to be naked and new, to experience his touch afresh.

Stop, he says, but I don’t stop. I don’t know how to stop. I’m afraid if I stop, I will never start again. So I keep going, trying to work my arms free of my gown.

Elisabeth. The Goblin King pins my wandering hands beneath his forearm, the weight of his body heavy against me. But it’s not the feel of him pressing me into the bed that brings my breath short; it’s the look in his eyes. I see the austere young man, and suddenly I am embarrassed of my eagerness, my willingness to make myself a fool.

I turn my gaze away, cheeks burning. The hand that reaches up to touch my face is cool, and the Goblin King is gentle.

Look at me.

But I can’t.

Elisabeth.

I look, and the austere young man is still there, waiting for me to follow him into the woods. I am no longer ashamed of my wanting, and I tilt my head to kiss him. He warms to my breath and I follow him as we grow wilder and wilder. We stop for breath and now there is a hint of the devil in his angelic face. The wolf has come out to play.

And then we are grasping at each other, gasping, grabbing. We hold each other close, but it’s not close enough, it will never be close enough. Our hands map the hills and valleys of our bodies, exploring, discovering. The fingers of his hand run up my thigh and I gasp, tangling my hands in his thistledown hair.

Time stops. He stops. I stop. We look at each other, a question in his gaze, a reply on my tongue. But we do not speak, and the moment is frozen within my heart—this ask and this answer.

“I wish…” I say hoarsely, but I don’t know what it is I’m wishing for.

“Your wish is my command,” the Goblin King says softly.

I could stop. We could stop. I could fold myself back into the small spaces of my heart, where my music and magic lie hidden, secret and safe.

“You don’t…” His words trail away, and the rest of his sentence hangs unspoken between us. You don’t have to.

A choice. He gives a choice, and it is the truest gift he has ever given me.

“Yes.” My voice is clear. “My answer is yes.”

He presses against me, lost in the wilderness, and the side of his arm catches against my throat. I cough, but the Goblin King does not hear. My gasps are strangled and tears start in my eyes. Fullness. There is fullness.

It hurts. I hurt. I wish lingers on the tip of my tongue, but I swallow it back. I don’t want him to stop. He’s found my edges. I have found my limits. But beyond the border of pain, there is something else.