Shadowsong (Wintersong #2)(84)
Then one morning, the bell rang.
Rehearsals for the latest play had been a disaster, with the playwright adding new lines every third scene while the composer tore out his hair and drank at having to add more bars of music to accommodate the changes. Bramble and K?the ran back and forth between the actors, dropping pins and ribbons in their wake as they tried to finish the costumes before opening night, while Fran?ois feverishly studied the new music as the pages were being rushed to him. In the midst of tumult and disorder of opening night, the ringing of the bell had been lost.
It wasn’t until Fran?ois returned to the dressing rooms for an older draft of the score the playwright had decided he preferred that he noticed the change in the mirror.
“K?the!” he called. “K?the, come quick!”
It was the excitement and astonishment in Fran?ois’s voice that brought her running more than his shouts.
“What?” she cried. “What is it?”
He pointed to the reflection, which showed not the dressing room, but a chamber of roots and rock. Where mannequins stood half-dressed and haphazard around them, weathered and petrified trees were draped with cobwebby lace and rotten silk. Where tables and benches and chairs sat in the world above, the mirror showed troves of gold, silver, and gemstones, a veritable goblin’s hoard of treasure. The only things to remain the same in the reflection as in reality were the bath of salt water, the bell, and the candle, along with K?the’s and Fran?ois’s startled faces.
In the mirror, they watched as the shadow K?the leaned down and picked up something from the bath and dropped it into her apron pocket. The real K?the reached into her own apron and withdrew a silver ring.
She gave a sharp gasp. “This is Liesl’s!”
The ring in K?the’s palm was tarnished with age and wear, wrought into the shape of a running wolf with two mismatched gems for eyes.
“A message from the old laws,” said Bramble from the entryway.
Both turned to face the changeling, who had a soft smile on his homely face.
“What does it mean?” Fran?ois asked.
“It means, Herr Darkling,” Bramble said, “that all is not as hopeless as we feared.”
“What do I do?” K?the asked. “How do I help my sister?”
Bramble smiled. “Keep it. Safe, sound, and secret. It was given to your care for a reason. You are her lighthouse in the dark, Fr?ulein, her bulwark against the tide. Be the anchor that brings her back to herself, for without you, she is adrift.”
The girl and boy met each other’s eyes, as the drumming of spectral horse hooves in the distance faded into the tapping of dancing feet upon the stage, as the audience ooed and ahhed at the poppies sprouting between the boards before them like magic. Fran?ois placed his hand over K?the’s, enclosing Liesl’s ring between their fingers, as their lips moved together in a prayer for their sister and their beloved.
Keep them safe. Keep them sound. Keep them secret.
IMMORTAL BELOVED
Oh God—so near! so far! Is it not a real building of heaven, our Love?
— LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN, the Immortal Beloved letters
amonster stands on the far shore of a glowing lake, waiting for the barge bearing his bride to return.
He had stood in this very spot before, when he was a man and a king, when he played on his violin the image of a young woman through her music—her thoughts, her passions, her dreams. He had stood in this spot several times before that, greeting each bride as she made that last journey from life to death, but he never played his violin for them.
Never played their thoughts, their passions, or their dreams for them.
The high, thin singing of the Lorelei fills the cavern surrounding the Underground lake as a boat makes its way toward him, leaving a glowing trail in its wake. The multicolored light of the water illuminates the figure in the barge, laid out like a corpse with hands clasped and eyes closed. She is clad only in a chemise, still damp and transparent, her dark hair a rat’s nest of tangles and snarls about her head. Only the shallowest movement of her chest betrays her breathing, and the monster curls and uncurls his twisted hands in anticipation.
He knows he should be good, he knows he should want her far from here and from him, but the goodness within him had been stolen from him by the old laws. Where once he might have felt affection, he now feels cruelty; where he had once felt tenderness, he now feels lust. His queen is not beautiful, but it does not matter. Her flesh is warm all the same.
Yet as the barge draws near, the hollowness within him rings and echoes. Where a heart might have been on a human man, the monster had only emptiness, for he had long ago torn out the remnants of his mortal self and given it away.
To her.
It is only then that the monster begins to fear.
And the man begins to hope.
THE RETURN OF THE GOBLIN QUEEN
sanity was a prison and now I am free, free to be shapeless, free to be formless, free to be nonsense. I wake up with gold in my mouth, fairy lights strung between my teeth like candy floss. I giggle as they light up my insides and dance, wiggling through my body like fireflies through a summer night. I am a summer night. I am heat and humidity and languidity, and I lounge upon my throne like a cat, like a queen, like Cleopatra. My throne is a bed, my receiving chamber a barrow, but I twist the reality in my mind, giving me a room full of wonders and splendors. Furniture of porcelain and glass, a hearth draped in silk and wood, tapestries woven of root and rock. My lashes are moth wings, my crown wrought of crystal and serpent scales. My royal robes are spun of spider webs and darkness, my maquillage the blood of my enemies.