Wintersong(86)

“The world outside our little sphere, far from the Goblin Grove, is hopelessly mundane. There is no magic, no enchantment. I feel severed from the land of my birth, and I can feel my talent fade and grow dull. I feel blinded, deafened, muted. The only time I feel connected to the earth again is when I play your music.”

Josef paused again, and set his quill down. He stared out the window, a dreamy expression on his face. His left fingers moved up and down an invisible fingerboard, while his right hand moved in smooth, practiced motions. I thought he had finished writing, but Josef picked up the quill and began again.

“I dream of our family often—K?the and Constanze and Mother and Papa. But never you. You are never there. It’s like you don’t exist sometimes. Sometimes I fear you are a figment of my imagination, but the music beside me tells me you are real. I fear I am going mad.”

His fingers gripped the edge of his writing desk so hard, his knuckles turned white.

“I dream of our family, but at other times, I dream of a tall, elegant stranger.” Josef glanced at the slumbering Fran?ois with a look of guilt on his face. “He says nothing, only stands there, hooded and shadowed. I am filled with both terror and relief at the sight of him. I beg him to reveal his face to me, but whenever he pulls back his hood, he is me. I am the tall, elegant stranger.”

If I had breath, it would have been knocked from me. Something terrible was at work here. Something ancient. Something beyond my understanding.

“I wish you would come, Liesl. I wish you would come and bring the magic and music with you. If you cannot come yourself, then send the next best thing. Send me your music. I am so lost without you, without our connection to the Underground.”

I tried to gather my brother in my arms, but like the ghost I was, I only passed through him, nothing more than a breeze in the chamber. Josef looked up again, frowning as the candle flame flickered before him.

“Your ever-loving brother,” he finished. “Sepperl.”

He lightly sanded the still-wet ink and set the letter out to dry. Then he picked up his candle in its holder and walked over to Fran?ois. Josef spread a blanket over the sleeping boy’s form and stood there a moment, watching him sleep. Tenderness, affection, and anguish, all in one. It was a look of love.

Then the scene broke into pieces, shattering and falling about me like shards of glass. A mirror.

A dream.

*

There were tears upon my face when I gasped myself awake. My heart raced, and I was both too hot and too cold, my night shift soaked with sweat, my skin clammy. Although it was spring in the world above, down in the Underground it was always cool, as though Der Erlk?nig carried eternal winter with him wherever he went.

A fire was banked high in my hearth, giving off a comforting heat. But I could not stand to be still, could not bear another moment in my barrow, my prison as well as my home. I pulled out a skirt and blouse from the wardrobe, simple and serviceable. Usually my closet consisted of elaborate gowns, dresses that were more confectionary than necessary. Whenever I opened the wardrobe doors I found something new, and tonight, my wishes yielded something very like what I used to wear in the world above: plain, practical, and warm.

I quickly dressed myself and unlocked my door, emerging into the corridors outside. I was in the mood to wander tonight, and did not care where my feet took me.

I passed the goblin city, glittering in the winking, twinkling fairy lights, passed the enormous ballroom where I had danced with the Goblin King for the first time as husband and wife. But I strode past them all, wanting to go deeper. The paved avenues gave way to narrow passages, rocky and sharp and jagged. Moisture glistened along the walls, the air around me growing damp and dank.

Suddenly, the Underground lake appeared before me.

This was the farthest I could go. My toes touched the edge of the water, sending glowing ripples of light across the surface. The water was cold, colder than an alpine spring, and I minded how these waters flowed into the rivers and pools of the world above.

And then, all around me, the sound of singing. High and clear, the sound of a finger running along the edge of a crystal goblet. The entire grotto rang with its eerie beauty, resounding in my chest and in my bones. The Lorelei.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

I jumped. A changeling appeared, as suddenly as though he had walked through the rocky walls surrounding the lake.

“Yes,” I said cautiously. I had never actually exchanged words with a changeling before. They were the Goblin King’s silent servitors, the swoonworthy swains at the Goblin Ball, the lost and hungry children of the world above, the most mysterious and monstrous denizens of the Underground. I knew next to nothing about them, save that they had been “the product of a wish.” I thought of the night I had made a wish, when Josef was a baby, dying of scarlet fever.

“They are dangerous, you know, the Lorelei.” The changeling sidled closer and I tried not to let my discomfort show. Despite everything, I pitied the creatures, pitied their half-life, their liminal existence. “Beautiful, but dangerous.”

“Yes,” I said again. “I nearly succumbed to their spell the last time I crossed.”

The changeling’s flat, black eyes—goblin eyes in that human face—studied me. “What happened?”

I shrugged. “Der Erlk?nig saved me.”

He nodded, as though this explained everything. “Of course. He would not want you to discover their greatest secret.”