Wintersong(9)

For me … it was a way for my music to reach ears beyond just Josef’s and mine. K?the might have seen my secret scribblings hidden in the box beneath our bed, but only Josef had ever heard its contents.

“Hans!” Mother said. “I didn’t expect to see you here so early.”

The knife in my hand slipped. I cursed under my breath, sucking at the cut to draw out the blood.

“I wouldn’t miss Josef’s big day, Frau Vogler,” Hans said. “I came to help.”

“Bless you, Hans,” Mother said affectionately. “You’re a godsend.”

I ripped a strip from my apron to wrap around my bleeding finger and continued working, trying my best to remain unnoticed. He is your sister’s betrothed, I reminded myself. Yet I couldn’t help but steal glances at him from beneath my lashes.

Our eyes met, and all warmth left the room. Hans cleared his throat. “Good morning, Fr?ulein,” he said.

His careful distance stung worse than the cut on my finger. We had been familiar, once. Once upon a time, we had been Hansl and Liesl. Once upon a time we had been friends, or perhaps something more. But that was before we all grew up.

“Oh, Hans.” I gave an awkward laugh. “We’re almost family. You can still call me Liesl, you know.”

He nodded stiffly. “It’s good to see you, Elisabeth.”

Elisabeth. It was as intimate as we’d ever be now. I forced a smile. “How are you?”

“I am well, I thank you.” His brown eyes were guarded. “And you?”

“Fine,” I said. “A little nervous. About the audition, I mean.”

Hans’s expression softened. He came closer and took a knife from the cutting board, joining me in twisting, trimming, and tying the sausages. “You needn’t worry,” he said. “Josef plays like an angel.”

He smiled, and the frost between us began to thaw. We settled into the rhythm of our work—trim, twist, tie, trim, twist, tie—and for a moment, I could pretend it was as it had been when we were children. Papa had given us keyboard and violin lessons together, and we had sat upon the same bench, learned the same scales, shared the same lessons. Though Hans never progressed much beyond simple exercises, we spent hours together at the klavier, our shoulders brushing, our hands never touching.

“Where is Josef, anyway?” asked Hans. “Out playing in the Goblin Grove?”

Hans, like the rest of us, had sat at Constanze’s feet, listening to her stories of kobolds and H?dekin, of goblins and Lorelei, of Der Erlk?nig, the Lord of Mischief. Warm feelings began to flicker between us like embers.

“Perhaps,” I said softly. “It is the last night of the year.”

Hans scoffed. “Isn’t he too old to be playing fairies and goblins?”

His contempt was a dash of cold water, quenching the remnants of our shared youth.

“Liesl, can you come watch the vat?” Mother asked, wiping the sweat from her brow. “The brewers are to arrive at any moment.”

“I’ll do it, ma’am,” Hans offered.

“Thank you, my dear,” she said. She relinquished the stirring rod to Hans and walked out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron, leaving us alone.

We did not speak.

“Elisabeth,” Hans began tentatively.

Twist, trim, tie. Twist, trim, tie.

“Liesl.”

My hands paused for the briefest moment, and then I resumed my work. “Yes, Hans?”

“I—” He cleared his throat. “I had hoped to catch you alone.”

That caught my attention. Our eyes met, and I found myself staring at him, bold-faced and direct. He was less handsome than I was wont to remember him, his chin less strong, his eyes closer set, his lips pinched and thin. But no one could deny that Hans was a good-looking man, least of all me.

“Me?” My voice was hoarse, but steady. “Why?”

His dark eyes studied my face, a wrinkle of uncertainty appearing between his brows. “I … I want to make things right between us, Lies—Elisabeth.”

“Are they not?”

“No.” Hans stared at the swirling vat in front of him before setting his stirring rod aside, stepping closer to me. “No, they’re not. I … I’ve missed you.”

Suddenly it was hard to breathe. Hans seemed too big, too close, too much.

“We were good friends once, weren’t we?” he asked.

“We were.”

I could not concentrate through the nearness of him. His lips formed words, but I did not hear them, only felt the brush of his breath against my own lips. I held myself rigid, wanting to push into him, knowing I should pull away.

Hans grabbed my wrist. “Liesl.”

Startled, I stared at where his fingers were wrapped around my arm. For so long, I had wanted to touch him, to take his hands and feel those fingers entwined with my own. Yet the moment Hans touched me of his own accord seemed unreal to me. It was as though I were looking at someone else’s hand and someone else’s wrist.

He was not mine. He could not be mine.

Could he?

“Katharina is gone.”

Constanze had wandered into the kitchen. Hans and I leaped apart, but my grandmother did not notice the flush in my cheeks. “Katharina is gone,” she said again.