Shadowsong (Wintersong #2)(35)

At last I came upon the hedge maze. Far from the warm circles of light cast by torch and lamp, the leaves and twigs here were edged in a silver lacework of starlight and shadow. The entrance was framed by two large trees, their branches still bare of any new growth. In the darkness, they seemed less like garden posts marking the way into the labyrinth than two silent sentinels guarding the doorway to the underworld. Shapes writhed in the shadows beyond the archway of bramble and vine, both inviting and intimidating.

Yet I was not frightened. The hedge maze smelled like the forest outside the inn, a deep green scent of growth and decay, where life and death were intermingled. A familiar scent. A welcoming scent. The scent of home. Removing my mask, I crossed the threshold, letting darkness swallow me whole.

There were no torches or candles lit upon the paths, and neither moonlight nor starlight penetrated the dense bramble. Yet my footing along these paths was sure, every part of me attuned to the wildness around me. Unlike the maze at Sch?nbrunn Palace, a meticulously manicured and man-made construction, this labyrinth breathed. Nature creeped in along the edges, reclaiming groomed, orderly, and civilized corridors into a twisting tangle of tunnels and tracks, weeds and wildflowers. Paths grew vague, roots unruly, branches untamed. Somewhere deep in the labyrinth, I could hear the giggles and gasps of illicit encounters in the shrubbery. I was careful of my step, lest I trip over a pair of trysting lovers, but when I came upon no one else, I let myself fall into a meditative state of mind. I wandered the recursive spirals of the hedge maze, turn after turn after turn, feeling a measure of calm for the first time in a long time.

Somewhere at the heart of the labyrinth, a violin began to play.

It was as though some part of me that had been asleep was waking up after a deep slumber. Every part of me opened and unfurled toward the sound, my eyes clear, my ears alert. The thin, high wail of the instrument’s voice seemed distant, yet each note was as clear as a dewdrop, the sound surrounding me from every direction: from north, south, east, west, up, down, behind.

“Josef?” I called.

I had not seen my brother since he vanished into the crowd earlier that night; he had not been on the dance floor, nor in any of the other rooms I had seen in my efforts to find a way out. I imagined he felt as out of depth as I had and had run to the first place that had felt comfortable, safe. The hedge maze possessed a waiting quality that reminded me of the Goblin Grove, an in-betweenness that reminded me of the long-forgotten sacred spaces of the world.

A swift breeze rustled the twigs and branches around me, raising the hairs at the back of my neck. The night grew even colder, and I wrapped my arms about me for warmth. There was a strange, metallic smell like the air before a thunderstorm, although the wind that knifed through my flimsy gown was keen-edged and bitter. Dead leaves skittered about me like rats through walls, and the darkness deepened as clouds raced across the face of the moon.

I reminded myself that I was not alone in the labyrinth, that somewhere beyond these bushes was a pair of lovers enjoying the salt-sweat of each other’s company.

As I continued on, the voice of the violin changed. It grew deeper, weightier, the sound rich with emotion and resonant with feeling. This was not my brother’s playing. The lightness, the transcendence, the ethereality that characterized his performance was missing. It was another musician.

And then I recognized the piece.

The Wedding Night Sonata.

My teeth chattered and I began to shiver uncontrollably. Fear and frost froze my blood. How could this be? I had never properly shared this piece of music with my brother; the letters containing drafts I had sent him had vanished, unread, into the Count’s clutches. To my knowledge, he had never even heard the piece, for although his ear and his memory were good, not even Josef could recall in perfect detail every note, every pause, every phrase. There was only one other person who knew the Wedding Night Sonata.

“M-mein Herr?”

It could not be. It shouldn’t be. There was no crossing the veil, no breaking the barrier between worlds. What could this possibly mean? The skittering around me escalated into a frenzy of scratching. It no longer sounded like leaves skipping across still-frozen ground, but fingernails—claws—scraping over stone.

Mistress.

I startled and glanced over my shoulder. I could make out no familiar shapes in the darkness of the hedge maze corridors. No human shapes. Branches and brambles reached for me with grasping hands as I passed, bursting forth from the walls like sudden shoots and saplings. Stone urns and marble benches warped and shifted into leering gargoyles, and I tried not to look at them, tried not to imagine beetle-black eyes and cobweb hair.

Your Highness.

It was but the whispering wind. The same wind that brought with it an unseasonably wintry chill, the scent of ice, of pine, of deep waters, and underground caverns. It was a memory, a ghost, my longing made manifest, not my mind gone awry. But as the underbrush shivered and danced, it unfolded itself into the shape of a girl.

“No,” I said hoarsely.

A face grew from the ragged leaves, a long nose, pointy chin, narrow cheeks. It was a familiar face, a face I had thought I would never see again.

“Twig?” I breathed.

The goblin girl nodded, dipping her branch-and-cobweb-laden head at me in acknowledgment. In respect. Spots of granite dotted her green-brown arms like bruises, patches of stone crawling up the side of her face like a disease. She scratched at the patches as though they pained her, and she looked as though she were in agony. The only time I had ever seen Twig turn into stone was when she had violated one of the old laws to tell me what had happened to the first Goblin Queen. My heart twinged with pity—pity and fear and longing—and I reached for her, hands trembling.