Shadowsong (Wintersong #2)(75)
Join me, the reflection said. Join us.
And so Josef fell, down and down and down, into the Underground.
INTO THAT WORLD INVERTED
OBLIVION
i waited one breath too long to chase after my brother.
“Josef!” I screamed. “Sepp!”
The grounds of Snovin Hall rang with my cries as I fled the ballroom after my brother, but nothing but the echoes of startled birdsong returned. Josef had disappeared, vanished, gone to earth, and I did not know how he had run so quickly and so far. No tracks trampled the tangled vines and overgrown weeds, no evidence of trespass or flight. Nothing but crushed poppy petals, scattered underfoot like drops of blood.
“Sepp!” I called again. “Sepp!”
“Fr?ulein?” I whirled around to see Nina standing behind me, a worried look on her face. “Is okay?”
The last thing I wanted to endure was another’s presence, to keep up the mask of civility or a calm countenance. I was neither civil nor calm, and I raged and seethed that I felt compelled to maintain a straight face before her. Who would notice? Who would care? The worst Nina could do was return to the Count and Countess with tales of my rudeness, my unsociability, my erratic moods. Yet despite this, I did not want to frighten her with my monstrosity, the maelstrom that threatened to swallow not just me, but the entire world.
“Yes,” I said, trying my best for a smile. The corners of my mouth shook and quivered, and I felt my lips curling in a snarl. “Everything is fine, thank you, Nina.”
The housekeeper did not look reassured. Instead, she seemed even more concerned. “Is okay?” she repeated, then said something in a torrent of Bohemian I could not understand, accompanied by gestures I could not decipher.
“Yes!” I barked. “Okay. I’m okay.”
I could feel the press of fury and frustration building behind my eyes, a growing headache. I was tired of keeping a tight rein on the feral beast I was inside, and I was tempted to let go, to unleash the wolves and hounds of mania and recklessness upon her. I don’t know what it was Nina saw in my expression, but a strange sort of pity crossed her face. Pity was the last emotion I wanted from her, and I felt my gorge rise.
“Come,” she beckoned. “I show you.”
“Unless you can show me my brother, I don’t care,” I snapped. If she did not understand my words, she could at least understand my tone.
“Come,” Nina said again. Her tone was firm, a mother’s voice, and I did not resist.
She led me back into the ballroom, gently picking up the pieces of Josef’s violin that he had thrown to the floor. A part of me—the part not submerged in the depths of my own feelings of self-loathing and despair—mourned the loss of such an instrument. It wasn’t just that it had been a beautiful Del Gésu; it was that it had survived not only years of wear and tear and abuse, but Papa’s constant pawning off to Herr Kassl’s for drinking money. The housekeeper held the neck and the body out to me in separate hands. I shook my head; I did not know if it could be salvaged.
Nina gave me stern look, as though I were being a fool. I resented being treated like a petulant child by a woman I did not know, to whom I was not beholden in any way. I shook my head again, but she harrumphed before taking the neck of the broken violin and gently removing the scroll.
Ornamental scrolls were not common, and the finial of this particular instrument had been carved into the shape of a woman. Nina pressed the finial into my hand, and I wrapped my fingers around the figure. The woman’s face had been carved with her mouth open in perpetual song, but in certain angles she looked as though screaming with joy . . . or terror. I was discovering more and more with each passing day that the line that divided those emotions was honed finer than the keenest razor.
“Thank you,” I whispered. I said it more to send Nina away than from any sense of actual gratitude.
“Is okay?” she repeated.
No, it was not okay. I wasn’t sure if I would ever be okay.
The housekeeper eyed me warily, as though I were a fragile china shepherdess poised on the edge of a shelf. I forced another smile for Nina, and this time, I did not bother to swallow the growl that escaped my throat. She took the hint, and left.
I looked through the broken windows of the ballroom to the world outside. I should have gone after my brother. I should have tried to find him. I should have gone looking until my eyes went dim and my throat went hoarse, for I was afraid. For him, and of him. Of what he would do. To me, but to himself most of all. I should have, I should have, I should have.
But I did not.
Instead I was trapped in the quicksand of my own mind, reliving each and every mistake I had made with Josef. Every misstep revealed another, and another, and another, a long line all the way back to when we were children. I should have protected him from Papa. I should have seen how miserable our expectations made him. I should have brought him home to the Goblin Grove the instant I understood how it was killing him.
I should have told him he was a changeling.
Sooner. Better. At all. The truth of Josef’s nature was not my secret to withhold, and yet I had. I hadn’t wanted to tell him because . . . because deep in my heart, I knew I would lose him. He would hate me for not telling him, and the longer I held on to the truth, the more he would hate me for my selfishness. It no longer became for Josef’s own good that he did not know; it was for my own peace of mind.