Wintersong(87)

“And what is that?”

The changeling tilted his head. “That they guard the gateway into the world above.”

A cold, ringing sensation numbed me from head to toe. “A gateway? There is … a gateway to the world above?”

He nodded. “Yes. It lies on the far side of the lake.”

I stared at the lake, at its dark, dark depths, black like obsidian. Like death. Yet on the other side was light. Light and life. If only I could …

“It’s not safe.” The changeling watched me closely. “You cannot cross without a guardian.”

Shame lit my face, and I averted my gaze. I had not known my thoughts to be so transparent.

“Here,” he said suddenly. “I have a present for you.”

Startled, I opened my hand, and he dropped a bundle of wildflowers into my palm. “Thank you,” I said in bewilderment. The flowers were nothing more than clover blossoms, prettily tied with a length of ribbon.

The changeling shook his head. “It’s not from me. She left it for you in the Goblin Grove.”

I went still. “Who?”

“A girl,” he said. “A woman in a red cloak with sunshine hair.”

K?the.

“How—how—” Goblins could only roam the earth during the uncounted days of winter.

“The grove is one of the few sacred spaces left where the Underground and the world above overlap,” the changeling said indifferently. “The girl came by and said your name before dropping the flowers. I took them when she left.”

Of course. Now I understood. I understood why it was always to the Goblin Grove Josef and I ran as children, why it was the only place I ever saw the Goblin King, why I had gone there to sacrifice my music and gain entrance to the Underground.

It was a threshold.

The glimmerings of an idea began to form, fragile and fraught. I turned away from it, afraid to look for the hope rising in me. The changeling turned to go.

“Wait,” I said. “A moment, please.”

The changeling folded his hands and cocked his head to one side. His face was human, but his expression was entirely goblin-like in its inscrutability.

“What—what can you tell me of my brother?”

“Your brother?”

“Yes,” I choked out. “Josef.”

His black eyes glittered. “All you mortals are so alike,” he said. “Quick to be born, quick to die. Like mayflies in the night.”

“But,” I said. “Josef is not dead.”

A slow smile spread across his lips. “Are you so certain of that?”

I turned my head away. “What—” I began, my throat hoarse. “What is Josef?”

The changeling did not reply, but I already knew the answer. In some ways, I had always known the answer. My brother died that night I heard him crying, when the fever ravaged his mortal body, leaving nothing but a corpse. Before the scarlatina had taken him, my brother had been rosy-cheeked and hale, a chubby, good-natured baby. The morning after the fever broke, the thing left in his cradle had been sallow and thin, a queer, quiet creature. We all thought it was the fever. But I knew better.

“How can a changeling live in the world above?” I whispered.

He shrugged. “They can’t, except by the power of—”

“—a wish,” I finished. I wanted to laugh. “I know.”

“No.” The changeling’s voice was amused. “By the power of love.”

The bottom dropped out of my stomach, and I was falling. Suddenly it seemed like the rules of the Underground were changing, and I couldn’t grasp their meaning.

“Love?”

The changeling shrugged again. “You love him, don’t you? Your brother?”

Was he my brother? How could I possibly ask myself that? Josef’s nature did not change the fact that he was the other half of my soul, my amanuensis, the gardener of my heart. Of course he was my brother.

“Yes,” I said. “I love him.”

“Then he stayed for you. None of us have lasted long in the world above, you know. Take us far from the Underground and we wither and fade. You called him by name and loved him entire. That is power.”

I feel severed from the land of my birth, and I can feel my talent fade and grow dull. I feel blinded, deafened, muted.

“Oh, Josef.” I pressed my hand to my anguished heart.

“Do not worry,” the changeling said. “He will return to us soon enough. We all come back, in the end.”





UNFINISHED SYMPHONY

Of all my mortal emotions, hope was the worst. All the others were easy to carry and easy to put aside: anger flashed then burned out, sorrow gradually lightened, and happiness bubbled then disappeared. But hope … hope was stubborn. Like a weed it returned, even after I had plucked it away again and again.

Hope also hurt.

It hurt when, night after night, the Goblin King put me to bed with a chaste kiss upon my brow. It hurt when the clover blossoms from my sister faded, then died. It hurt when I never again heard Josef’s violin from the world above, calling my name in A minor.

It also hurt when I thought of the gateway beneath the Underground lake and the threshold beyond.

So I tried my best to stifle hope. Because hope’s twin was despair, and despair was infinitely worse. If hope hurt, then despair was the absence of hurt. It was the absence of feeling. It was the absence of caring.