The Kingdom of Back(64)

What I did not know was what I now wished. A part of me needed to return to the Kingdom of Back, to set right what I had done wrong. The Queen of the Night had tried to warn me, yet I had not believed her. The king’s champion had called out for me to come back, and yet I had thought him an ogre and fled. The river guardian had tried to keep me out. And yet, I had helped a monster. I had to fix what I’d done.

But a part of me still yearned for my wish, feared that I had lost it forever. Could I be remembered, without Hyacinth’s help? Was I now doomed to be forgotten, if I did not continue along with Hyacinth’s demands? I want what is mine, I’d told him. I still did.

And a part of myself that frightened me—a whisper in the shadows, a figure waiting in the woods—wanted to see my brother walk into the air. He would turn lighter and lighter until you could barely make out his shape. And when you finally blinked, he would be gone.



* * *





Weeks later, we finally returned to Salzburg.

I leaned out of our carriage to admire the Getreidegasse as we passed through it, even though Sebastian and Mama told me to sit properly. The touch of the air, the smells that came with late autumn, the old wrought-iron signs that hung over the storefronts—it was all still there, in exactly the same spots they’d been when we’d first left years ago. For a moment, I forgot all about Hyacinth and my music and let myself indulge in the returning familiarity of this place. My heart hung on a hook, raw with anticipation, as we drew close to the row where our flat would be.

Here was home. Here, also, might be a letter from Johann, written and addressed to me. I tried to conjure up his hopeful face in my mind, the way we’d talked and laughed in my old dream. What might he say in a letter? Was he still traveling through Europe, visiting universities? Did he have plans to come to Austria? It didn’t matter to me. All I knew was that, if his letters had arrived, I needed to get to them before my parents did.

Beside me, Woferl sensed my tenseness and turned his face up to study mine. In the light, I saw the first hints of his adolescent cheekbones. How quickly he had turned twelve. How swiftly I had turned sixteen. We did not have many years left together now. I looked nervously away from him and back to the street. The feel of his eyes on me seeped through my back.

Papa hopped out of the carriage when it’d just barely come to a stop. Down by the entrance to our building stood Herr Hagenauer, our landlord, and he beamed as Papa came up to him to close his hands in a hearty shake. There was a hasty conversation about the rent, about giving us more time to pay for the months we’d been gone. I waited until Woferl slid off his seat to follow our father before I reached out to touch my mother’s arm.

“Mama, please,” I whispered, my gaze darting to where Papa and Herr Hagenauer were chatting loudly. She glanced back at me. “Can you get our mail and see if there is any for me?”

Her brows lifted in surprise. “Just for you, Nannerl?” She knew to whisper it.

I flushed hot and hoped no one else could see it. “Yes, Mama,” I murmured.

She frowned. “And from whom?”

“His name is Johann.” I swallowed, suddenly unsure whether Mama would keep a secret like this for me. “He attended one of our concerts and said he wanted to write with his best wishes.”

My words trailed off under my mother’s stern gaze. “A boy,” she murmured. “And does your father know who Johann is?”

“He did not like him very much. Please, Mama,” I whispered, turning my eyes down. “He is writing from Frankfurt.”

I didn’t know what she saw in my face to make her take pity on me. Perhaps my expression triggered for her memories of long ago, of an age when she was not yet married. Whatever the reason, she sighed, shook her head, and stepped off the carriage, holding her hand out to take Sebastian’s outstretched one.

“I will see to it,” she said over her shoulder to me.

And sure enough, by the time we reached our flat with our luggage stacked around the door, and Papa had stepped out in a hurry to the archbishop’s court, Mama found me alone in the bedchamber and handed me three brown envelopes, written in a curling script.

I glanced up at her, relieved, but she did not speak. Instead, she squeezed my shoulder once, then left the room and quietly closed the door. Outside, the muffled sounds of Woferl playing the clavier wafted to me. He would be preoccupied for a while yet, so much had he missed his instrument. My attention shifted back to the envelopes in my hand. I sat with my back to the door, so that I could stop anyone who might want to come into the room, then fluffed my skirts out around me and pushed a finger underneath the first envelope’s flap. The wax seal broke with a single pop.

The handwriting on the letter inside matched the script on the envelope itself—curling and beautiful, the writing of a cultured boy—and I found myself smiling as I read it.

    To my Fr?ulein Mozart,

Do you know, when I returned home to Frankfurt, the very first thing I did was sketch what I remembered of you? I am sketching a great deal. I’m afraid my art is not as miraculous as yours, but I am doing it all the same, drawing just as you may be composing.

My father has decided to send me to law school here in Frankfurt. I’d wanted to find a university farther away, but staying in Germany will not be so bad, and I can hope to receive letters from you more frequently.