Shadowsong (Wintersong #2)(30)

The following morning I awoke late. K?the was already gone, the gowns I had finished vanished along with her. The boys too were missing, but Fran?ois had left me a note stating that he and Josef had left with my sister to run errands and prepare for Carnival. The Procházkas’ black-and-white ball would be held in two weeks, and there was no time to lose.

It had been a long time since I had had any space to myself. The solitude felt strange, like an old dress I had not worn in a year. It sat oddly on my shoulders, as though I had forgotten how to fill it out, how to wear it. Back at the inn, any bit of time alone had been rare and therefore precious. I had been cautious not to spend my minutes and seconds carelessly, instead choosing to place all my waking moments by myself to that which I held so dear.

My music.

The table in the front room was a mess of papers, blunt quills, and spilled ink. I could see where my sister had spent the morning refining her ideas for our costumes for the black-and-white ball—half-finished sketches of lace and ribbons and silhouettes scribbled onto any bit of blank space—on bills of fare, torn pages from our accounting ledger, on the backs of abandoned compositions. One could trace the progression of K?the’s thoughts from page to page, as her vision became sharper and clearer. These endless attempts at perfecting and refining were both foreign and familiar to me. I understood this process of creation and genesis. This genius.

Or I had once.

One of the first things we acquired once we were settled in our apartments was a klavier. Fran?ois and I had spent days hunting through shops selling all sorts of keyboards: harpsichords, virginals, and even the newer pianofortes that seemed to be all the rage in town. We had marveled at the nuance and tonality of these modern instruments, the control in sound just the subtlest of touches could wring. I could see the longing in Fran?ois’s eyes, the hunger in his strokes, but unfortunately there was no room in our apartments for a pianoforte.

In the end we decided upon a clavichord, small enough to fit in our cramped home and discreet enough not to bother the neighbors. It was not an instrument to practice performance on, but one to compose and write upon. A tool for me rather than for Fran?ois, who was the better musician.

It had lain untouched ever since we purchased it.

You’ve been playing, I see.

And you haven’t been composing, I see.

I ran my hands over the keys. A fine layer of dust had already settled over the instrument, and my fingertips left questioning trails in their wake. I waited for some mood or inspiration to strike me, for the desire to play to overtake me, but there was nothing. Solitude around me and silence within me. I had not dreamed once since we came to the city. The voice inside me—my voice—was gone. No ideas. No drive. No passion. My nights were quiet. Blank. The dullness was seeping into my days.

I had thought that by leaving home—leaving him—I could escape my own inability to write.

I wonder if it’s not Vienna you are running toward, but a kingdom you are trying to outrun.

Excuses were easy to find for my lack of composing and creativity. Here in Vienna, it was easy to hide my cracks behind the everyday tumult and turmoil of city living. Eruptions of mania or melancholy could be attributed to ordinary, quotidian frustrations: the price of bread, the backsplash of an emptied chamber pot, the shouts and screams of joy, sorrow, rage, and surprise of complete strangers, the calculated indifference of casual acquaintances. I was overwhelmed by the variety of sights and sounds we encountered on the streets—musicians, artists, noblemen, beggars, cobblers, dressmakers, grocers, merchants, landlords—people of every shape, every size, every creed, every color.

But in a city of thousands, I had never been more lonely.

It wasn’t just my relationship with Josef that had grown tenuous and fragile. K?the was by turns tender and frustrated with me, for I was a beast to be around. I trailed regrets and reproach in my wake, my moods as mercurial as quicksilver. I strained even Fran?ois’s infinite patience—pleasant and productive one moment, sullen and snarling the next. I knew I was insufferable, yet my irritability was a force both beyond and beside me. Even I found my own whining exhausting at times. I vacillated between rage and despondency, furious I couldn’t force happiness on myself. I had everything I had ever wanted. I was here. In Vienna. At the start of my career.

That wasn’t going anywhere.

If I hadn’t spent any significant time working on the Wedding Night Sonata since I walked away from the Underground, it was because I didn’t want to look at the monsters in my mind. Think of that spectral touch upon my hair, my cheek, my lips. That sigh across my skin. That murmur, that whisper of my name across the veil. I had been terrified of what those echoes of memory had meant. A breaking down of barriers, but between what? The veil between worlds? Or my sanity?

So I had abstained. Refrained.

I understood better then why Papa had always needed just one more drink, just one more. The temptation to open those wounds, to call upon those feelings and sensations, to indulge in the Goblin King’s presence—whether real or imagined—by working on the Wedding Night Sonata had been nearly irresistible.

I had been so, so good.

But I was so, so lonely.

It was easy—too easy—to imagine the Goblin King as my savior from sorrow. The keys of the clavichord beckoned, like the sight of laudanum to an addict. Just one taste. Just one more. Just enough to dull the pain.