The Kingdom of Back(65)

I think of you often. Sometimes I imagine I will catch you standing outside our local bakery shop, or out in the square, just like I’d seen you that day in London. But then I suppose I am just a simple young man, with optimistic thoughts. Please tell me if you’ll come to perform in Frankfurt again. I will wait for you.

Until we meet again, I will be your hopeful

Johann



I was glad that no one was here to see the blush on my face, but I touched my cheeks and did not feel ashamed of it. I folded the letter and reached for the second. Outside, Woferl finished playing one menuett and began another, one I’d never heard before. Perhaps he was making it up as he went. I didn’t dwell on it as I eagerly began to read Johann’s next letter.

    To my Fr?ulein Mozart,

You may not know it, but word has reached Frankfurt that you and your family have taken the Dutch completely by surprise, and that they cannot believe their good fortune. I heard of this in passing on the street. Think, Nannerl, that you have as a young woman already earned such popularity as to be mentioned by strangers in passing! I am more astonished and impressed by you than anyone I’ve ever met.

I am writing a poem. I have discovered that my writing skills are quite a bit stronger than my painting. I am relieved that you have never seen my art. I should be embarrassed.

If you are ever in Frankfurt, as you know, I will always be at leisure to see you.

Johann



I leaned my head back against the door and closed my eyes. Johann could not know that anything he heard on the streets about me was always solely in reference to my brother. Still, the brightness leaking from his words warmed me. The dream I’d once had of us sitting under a night sky now came back to me, as fully formed as if it had really happened.

I let myself savor it until I heard Woferl finish his second menuett and begin playing a third, a melancholy piece in a minor key. Then I broke the wax seal on the third letter and began to read.

I flung it away in fright. A soft cry escaped from my lips.

    My Darling Fr?ulein,

You have helped me. A bargain is a bargain. Come to me in Vienna, and I shall take you to the ball.



There was no signature, but there did not need to be. This was not a letter from Frankfurt. This came from a forest under moonlight. The wildness in Hyacinth’s voice was here in his words, in every jagged, hurried line. Even though I had never seen his handwriting before, I recognized it.

Outside, Woferl’s menuett lifted in a crescendo. The notes tumbled after one another, beads on a glass counter.

Somewhere in my mind echoed a laugh, a sound of the night.

I took the letters and put them carefully back in their envelopes. Then I hid them in my trunk, underneath a pile of clothes. Later, I would burn them all.

Hyacinth was calling me back.





THE GHOST ON THE PARCHMENT



That evening, Papa burst home from the archbishop’s court in a flurry. His mouth was pulled in a tight line.

Woferl, Mama, and I looked up in surprise from the dining table, but it was Mama who recognized with a single glance everything in our father’s expression, for she darted up from her chair to rush to his side. She took his hat before Sebastian could, then touched his shoulder to comfort him before hanging up his coat.

Papa eyed the dishes on the table with a withering gaze. “Fish again?” he muttered. He leaned a hand against the back of his chair and shook his head, over and over, unsatisfied with something. His eyes scanned our home, searching for something he couldn’t quite place.

“What is it, Leopold?” my mother finally asked.

“This flat is so cramped,” he complained, waving a hand in annoyance at the foyer. “I hadn’t realized how small it was until we returned. Look, Anna, at how we can barely fit all our luggage in here.”

“There’s plenty of room, Papa,” Woferl said. “I don’t mind it.”

“Of course you don’t,” Papa replied. “You are still a small boy.” It was rare to hear him short with my brother, and I leaned in, curious and intimidated. His eyes jerked to me and held my gaze. “Nannerl, though, is turning into a young lady. And here you two are, still sharing a room.”

Fear slithered cold into the marrow of my bones. I could hear the unspoken words behind it. The older they are, the less magnificent they seem. I would not be a miracle child for much longer.

Mama leaned over to him and put her hand on top of his. “We can certainly give Nannerl her own room,” she said, still searching for the root of Papa’s mood.

Woferl looked at our mother in shock. “Why?” he asked.

Mama frowned at his interruption. “Woferl. You are twelve. You cannot continue to stay in the same room as your sister—it’s not proper.”

My brother glanced at me, expecting me to protest. When I didn’t, he tightened his lips. I could see the fear in his face at sleeping by himself, left alone to his nightmares and midnight visitors. Perhaps he was still running from Hyacinth in his dreams. I thought of the beasts that had been prowling the French countryside and imagined the faery boy’s sharp teeth digging into my brother’s flesh.

“Yes.” Papa nodded at my mother’s words. “It’s decided, then. We’ll have to arrange accommodations for Sebastian in the next building. Nannerl can take his old chambers.”