Shadowsong (Wintersong #2)(58)

I took it as a sign. A direction. A way. I set my feet upon the path, and walked.

It turned steep shortly after leaving the tame grounds, growing narrow and a little treacherous. The trail turned back on itself over and over, cutting into the hill face as it ascended up the slope. My breath came short and I broke into a sweat as I climbed, but the exertion and exercise calmed the unsteady turmoil and turbulence that had rocked and roiled me since the Countess’s revelation about her history and my future. My step was sure, my eyes clear.

At the summit of the hill was a lake.

Its appearance was utterly surprising and unexpected, a wide expanse of vivid blue-green opening up beneath me. The path from the forest emerged onto an outcropping of rock that jutted out over the water several feet below the ledge. It was as though I had stumbled upon a secret. The existence of this lake was completely hidden from view from both Snovin Hall and the drive into the valley we had taken the day before, hardly visible even from the path I had hiked. It emerged from the forest like an enchanted gem, sparkling like a startling aquamarine against the brown and gray of the late winter woods and sky.

The surface of the lake was as smooth and as flat as glass, a perfect mirror for the ring of trees that encircled it, yet it seemed to reflect the sky of another, more vivid world. A faint mist hovered over the surface, a dreamy haze, and it seemed much warmer here than it was just a few feet below on the trail. A murmuring breeze stirred the mist atop the lake and to my shock, it was steam, not mist, for it blew warm and moist across my face.

Liesl.

I startled. The wind whispered my name, as though carrying someone’s call an incalculable distance. The steam atop the lake swirled and twirled and parted in the breeze, but it did not disturb the placid, pristine surface of the water. I stepped closer to the edge, peering over the sheer drop down to the water.

Liesl, the wind whispered again.

I looked up and scanned the other side of the lake, searching for a form or figure. Stories of the Wild Hunt, of the elf-touched and elf-struck returned to me. Would I be taken? Or killed? Was I mad? Or merely suffering from a fit of nerves? In the labyrinth of the Procházkas’ hedge maze, I had seen Twig and the Goblin King. Or at least, I thought I had. But there was no one else in this secret, secluded space, not even a figment of the imagination. I was alone, no one but me and my reflection in this unexpected sanctuary.

Liesl.

I looked down. A face stared back at me from the glass-smooth depths of the water, blue eyes, gold hair, apple-pink cheeks, a face I knew intimately.

But it wasn’t mine.

It was K?the’s.

Startled, I drew back. K?the’s head disappeared from view, but when I peered over the edge and into the lake again, she was still there.

“K?the?” I asked, while her lips mouthed Liesl? “K?the!”

Dropping to all fours, I crawled forward on my belly, reaching for the water, for my sister, for the vision before me. Was it magic? Or was it madness? In that moment I did not care. I saw my own anguish and concern and worry for my family reflected in K?the’s eyes, the surprise and shock of the uncanny in the everyday.

Fran?ois! I could see her call for the black boy over her shoulder. Fran?ois! Bramble! Come quick!

I could not see where she was, for beyond her I could see nothing but the blue-green depths of the lake. Was she still in Vienna, in Frau Messner’s boarding house, being cared for by the Procházkas’ associates? Or was she back home in Bavaria, at the inn with Mother and Constanze and the Goblin Grove? I wanted to reach through the water, to swim to the bottom, to her.

“Fr?ulein?”

I whirled around to see Nina standing behind me, a frightened expression on her face. Her hands were outstretched, thrown up before her as though to stop me—or to catch me. I realized then how I might appear to the housekeeper: a distressed young woman perched on the edge of a drop into a lake.

“Oh no, I’m fine, I’m fine,” I said, getting to my feet and brushing the dirt off my skirts. Nina was gesturing frantically, beckoning me back from the ledge. “I’m all right,” I repeated, even though she could not understand me.

I must have been here longer than I thought, for the sun was lower on the horizon than I expected. Nina gestured again, miming eating and possibly something about the Count or Countess. Not wanting to distress her further, I nodded and followed her back to Snovin Hall, but not before taking one last, longing glimpse at the enchanted lake and the mirrored world over my shoulder.

Mirrors.

Whatever I felt about the Countess and her unbelievable lineage, one thing was true. Snovin Hall was steeped in the uncanny. Like the Goblin Grove, it was perhaps one of the last sacred places left, thresholds where the world above and the Underground overlapped. I thought of what the Count had told me that morning, that the mirrors remained covered in their house to close off the shadow paths between worlds. The lake was a mirror, and a window to elsewhere. Perhaps I could open my own window to elsewhere.

In the meanwhile, I would beg of my hosts some ink and paper for a letter and write to my sister.





the wheelwright said there was a wolf-wraith in the woods.

The townspeople ignored his claims. For years the wheelwright had claimed to see fantastic sights in the woods: bears that walked on hind legs, wolves that changed into men, and goblins who stole maidens away. As vivid as these visions were in the wheelwright’s mind, they left no traces on the world in which he lived.