Wintersong Read online

  * * *

  I did not venture far into the woods, thinking Käthe would keep close to home. Unlike Josef or me, she had never felt any particular kinship with the trees and stones and babbling brooks in the forest. She did not like mud, or dirt, or damp, and preferred to stay inside, where it was warm, where she might primp and be pampered.

  Yet my sister was in none of her usual haunts. Ordinarily, the farthest she ventured was to the stables (we owned no horses, but the guests occasionally traveled on horseback), and sometimes to the woodshed, where the tame grasses surrounding our inn ended and the wild edges of the forest began.

  There was the faint, impossible scent of summer peaches ripening on the breeze.

  Constanze’s warning echoed in my mind. She is for the Goblin King now. I wrapped my shawl tighter about me and hurried off the footpath into the woods.

  Past the woodshed, past the creek that ran behind our inn, deep in the wild heart of the forest, was a circle of alder trees we called the Goblin Grove. The trees grew in such a way as to suggest twisted arms and monstrous limbs frozen in an eternal dance, and Constanze liked to tell us that the trees had once been humans—naughty young women—who displeased Der Erlkönig. As children we had played here, Josef and me, played and sang and danced, offering our music to the Lord of Mischief. The Goblin King was the silhouette around which my music was composed, and the Goblin Grove was the place my shadows came to life.

  I spied a scarlet shape in the woods ahead of me. Käthe in my cloak, walking to my sacred space. An irrational, petty slash of irritation cut through my dread and unease. The Goblin Grove was my haunt, my refuge, my sanctuary. Why must she take everything that was mine? My sister had a gift for turning the extraordinary into the ordinary. Unlike my brother and me—who lived in the ether of magic and music—Käthe lived in the world of the real, the tangible, the mundane. Unlike us, she never had faith.

  Mist curled in about the edges of my vision, blurring the distance between spaces, making near seem far and far seem near. The Goblin Grove was but a few minutes’ walk from our inn, but time seemed to be playing tricks on me, and it felt as though I had been walking both forever and not at all.

  Then I remembered time—like memory—was just another one of the Goblin King’s playthings, a toy he could bend and stretch at will.

  “Käthe!” I called. But my sister did not hear me.

  As a child, I’d pretended to see him, Der Erlkönig, this mysterious ruler underground. No one knew what he looked like, and no one knew what his true nature was, but I did. He looked like a boy, a youth, a man, whatever I needed him to be. He was playful, serious, interesting, confusing, but he was my friend, always my friend. It was make-believe, true, but even make-believe was a sort of belief.

  But those were the imaginings of a little girl, Constanze told me. The Goblin King was none of the things I knew him to be. He was the Lord of Mischief—mercurial, melancholy, seductive, beautiful—but he was, above all, dangerous.

  Dangerous? little Liesl had asked. Dangerous how?

  Dangerous as a winter wind, which freezes the marrow from within, and not like a blade, which slashes the throat from without.

  But I was not to worry, for only beautiful women were vulnerable to the Goblin King’s charms. They were his weakness, and he was theirs; they wanted him—sinuous and fey and untamable—the way they wanted to hold on to candle flame or mist. Because I was not beautiful, I never felt the weight of Constanze’s warnings about the Goblin King. Because Käthe was not imaginative, she never had either.

  And now I feared for us both.

  “Käthe!” I called again.

  I picked up my skirts and my pace, running after my sister. But no matter how quickly I ran, the distance between us never closed. Käthe continued walking in her slow, steady way, yet I never managed to overtake her. She was as far from me as when I had first set out after her.

  My sister stepped into the Goblin Grove and paused. She glanced over her shoulder, straight at me, but she never saw me. Her eyes scanned the woods, searching for something—or someone—specific.

  Suddenly she wasn’t alone. There in the Goblin Grove, standing by my sister’s side as though he had always been there, was the tall, elegant stranger from the marketplace. He wore his cloak and hood, which hid his face from me, but Käthe gazed up at him with a look of adoration.

  I stopped in my tracks. Käthe had a strange little smile on her face, a smile I had never seen before, the thin, weak smile of an invalid facing a new day. Her lips looked bitten, and her skin was wan and pale. I felt bizarrely betrayed, by Käthe or the tall, elegant stranger, I wasn’t sure. I did not know him, but he had seemed to know me. He was just another thing Käthe had taken from me, another thing she had stolen. Wasn’t he?

  I was about to march straight into the Goblin Grove and drag my sister back home to safety when the stranger drew back his hood.

  I gasped.

  I could say the stranger was beautiful, but to describe him thus was to call Mozart “just a musician.” His beauty was that of an ice storm, lovely and deadly. He was not handsome, not the way Hans was handsome; the stranger’s features were too long, too pointed, too alien. There was a prettiness about him that was almost girly, and an ugliness about him that was just as compelling. I understood then what Constanze had meant when those doomed young ladies longed to hold on to him the way they yearned to grasp candle flame or mist. His beauty hurt, but it was the pain that made it beautiful. Yet it was not his strange and cruel beauty that moved me, it was the fact that I knew that face, that hair, that look. He was as familiar to me as the sound of my own music.

  This was the Goblin King.

  I came upon that realization with no more surprise than if I had come across the local baker. The Goblin King had always been my neighbor, a fixture in my life, as sure as the church steeple and the cloth merchant and the poverty that dogged my family’s heels. I had grown up with him outside my window, just as I had grown up with Hans and the milkmaid and the purse-lipped ladies of the village square. Of course I recognized him. Had I not seen his face every night in my dreams, in my childish fancies? Yet … hadn’t it all been just that—pretend?

  This was the Goblin King. That was my sister in his arms. This was my sister tilting her head back to greet his lips. That was the Goblin King bending down to receive her kisses like sacred offerings made at the altar of his worship. This was the Goblin King running long, slender fingers down the line of my sister’s neck, her shoulder, her back. That was my sister laughing, her bright, musical bell of a laugh, and this was the Goblin King smiling in return, but looking at me, always looking. I was entranced; my sister was enchanted.

  Enchanted. The word was a dash of cold water, and my senses returned with a jolt. This was the Goblin King. The abductor of maidens, the punisher of misdeeds, the Lord of Mischief and the Underground. But was he also not the friend of my childhood, the confidante of my youth? I hesitated, torn by conflicting desires.

  I shook my head. I had to rescue my sister. I had to break the spell.

  “Käthe!” I screamed. The woods resounded, and a raucous cacophony of startled crows took up my cry. Ka-kaw! Ka-kaw! Ka-Käthe!

  This time the Goblin King took note. He raised his head and we locked gazes over my sister’s stupefied form. His pale hair surrounded his thin face like a halo, like a thistle cloud, like a wolf’s shaggy mane, silver and gold and colorless all at once. I could not tell what color his eyes were from where I stood, but they were likewise pale, and icy. The Goblin King tilted his head in a duelist’s nod and gave me a small smile, the tips of his teeth sharp and pointed. I clenched my fists. I knew that smile. I recognized it, and understood it as a challenge.

  Come rescue her, my dear, the smile said. Come and rescue her … if you can.

  VIRTUOSO

  “Käthe!”

  I rushed forward as my sister collapsed. Panic galvanized me, turning my blood to steel, and I ran to catch her before sh
e fell. My sister leaned against me, her body limp, her pallid face tight and drawn.

  “Käthe, are you all right?”

  She blinked slowly, her blue eyes glassy and unfocused. “Liesl?”

  “Yes.” I frowned. “What are you doing here?”

  We knelt in the Goblin Grove, which was not my sister’s usual haunt. She had led me on a merry chase, searching over hill and dale for her when so much needed to be done before Master Antonius awoke. I was vexed with her—should have been vexed with her—but my thoughts were curiously sluggish, as though thawing after a long winter.

  “Here?” Käthe struggled to sit up. “Where are we?”

  “The Goblin Grove,” I said impatiently. “Where the alder trees grow.”

  “Ah.” A dreamy smile touched her lips. “I came because I heard it.”

  “Heard what?”

  Her words shook something loose in my mind, my thoughts scattering to the floor like falling leaves. But they were only scant impressions—feathers, ice, pale eyes—that disappeared as soon as I tried to hold them, like snowflakes in my hand.

  “The music.”

  “What music?” That half-woken memory tickled again, an itch I could not scratch.

  “Tut,” she said, turning her smile on me. “You, of all people, should have recognized it. Can you not hear the sound of your own soul singing?”

  A grotesque grin crossed my sister’s face, bloodless lips stretched thin over a gaping, wine-dark maw. I recoiled.

  “Is something the matter?”

  I blinked and her smile was gone. There was a little pucker to Käthe’s lips, petulant and pouting, and she was wide-eyed, apple-cheeked, and beautiful once more. But there were dark smudges beneath her eyes, her complexion pale and wan.

  “Yes,” I said irritably. “The fact that we’re here and not there, back at the inn.” I helped my sister to her feet. “What were you doing out here?”

  Käthe laughed, but it did not sound like her own. There were hints of dark winter woods and cracking ice beneath those bright, pealing tones, and my skin prickled, my mind itched.

  “Having words with an old friend.”

  “What old friend?” I focused on getting Käthe to her feet, and draped her arm about my shoulders. Her skin was cold and clammy beneath my touch, and she felt more like a corpse than a living girl.

  “Tut,” she said again. “How you’ve forgotten the old days, Elisabeth.”

  I froze. Käthe made no move to continue on without me. She watched me, her head tilted to one side, a half smile on her lips, both mocking and sweet.

  My sister never, ever called me Elisabeth.

  “You always spoke of him as a friend, you know,” she said in a soft voice. “A friend, a playmate, a lover.” Her expression changed, sharper, sly. Her chin seemed pointed, her cheekbones like a knife. “You said you would marry him someday.”

  Hans. No, not Hans. He was back at the inn. An old friend in the wood, a girl in a grove, a king in his kingdom …

  That itch in my mind grew unbearable. Desperately, I clawed at it, scrabbling and digging for a memory I could not find. Something was missing. Something was gone. What had we been doing before this? How had we gotten here? Foreboding rose within me, foreboding and fear, rising like dark waters in a flood.

  “Käthe,” I said, voice cracking. “What—”

  A mane of silver and gold, a pair of eyes as cold as ice, a challenge in a smile. I almost had it, almost uncovered it—

  Then my sister laughed. It was her own proper laugh, bright and musical. “Oh, Liesl,” she said, “you’re too easy to tease.”

  Darkness and shadow were gone, the feeling a spell had been broken. “I hate you,” I groaned.

  Käthe smiled. I thought I saw that flash of bloodless lips and a wine-dark maw, but it was her own sweet smile. “Come,” she said, taking my arm in hers. “We’ve wasted enough time. Master Antonius will awake at any moment and I’m sure Mother has worked herself into a frenzy.”

  I shook my head and gathered myself, letting my sister lean upon me as a crutch. Together we limped back home, back toward reality, back toward the mundane.

  * * *

  Käthe was right; Mother was in a frenzy. Master Antonius had awoken from his nap when we returned and the entire inn was in an uproar. Constanze and Mother were the midst of a screaming match, while Hans hovered awkwardly in the corner, broom in hand, too polite to intervene, too cowardly to leave.

  “Absolutely not!” A loose curl slipped from Mother’s cap and she pushed it aside with a floury hand. “I will not permit it! Not tonight of all nights.”

  Constanze held a large burlap bag in her hands. A queer jolt ran through me as I saw she had been pouring salt along the windowsill, every threshold, every entrance.

  “It is the last night of the year!” She pointed an accusatory finger at Mother. “I will not let this night pass without protection, whether you will or no.”

  “Enough!” Mother struggled to wrest the salt from Constanze’s grip, but the old woman’s hands, as gnarled as oak roots, were surprisingly strong. “I have no patience with this today, not with Master Antonius and Georg disappearing on us again.” She caught sight of us. “Käthe! Come help me.”

  My sister took the broom from Hans and began to sweep.

  “You!” Constanze shot me a dirty look. “You must help me. You mustn’t let Der Erlkönig in.”

  I flinched, and looked from my mother to my grandmother.

  “Liesl,” Mother said with exasperation. “We’ve no time to indulge these childish fancies. Think of your brother. What would Master Antonius say?”

  “And what of that one?” Constanze nodded her head at Käthe. “Think ye she needs no protecting? Mind how you choose, girlie.”

  I glanced from the spilled salt to my sister. Protection against the Goblin King. Then I thought of Josef, and chose not to risk his already precarious position with the maestro. I took the broom from my sister’s hands and began sweeping the salt away. Constanze shook her head, her shoulders slumped with resignation.

  “Now,” Mother said with satisfaction. “Käthe, go make sure your brother is ready for his audition, and I will put my husband’s elderly mother”—she glared at Constanze—“to bed.”

  “I’m not tired,” Constanze snapped. “I’m not infirm or feeble in my wits, despite what my son’s harried wife”—she matched Mother glare for glare—“might say.”

  “Listen, old woman,” Mother began. “I have given up my career, my family, and my children’s futures for you, and a little gratitude would be appreciated—”

  Just then Papa returned. He returned with a song on his lips and violin case in hand, jingling and rattling with every step.

  “Got to go, got to go, got to leave this town, leave this town!”

  “You!” Mother’s nostrils flared. “Georg, where have you been?”

  “Käthe,” I whispered. “Why don’t you and Hans take Constanze upstairs to her room? I’ll make sure Josef is ready once I’m finished here.”

  My sister gave me one long, unreadable look, then nodded. Hans gently took Constanze’s hands as he and Käthe led our grandmother away.

  “And you, my dear, stay here; when I’m back, when I’m back, when I’m back again, back again, on your doorstep I’ll appear!” Papa leaned forward to plant a kiss on Mother’s lips, but she pushed him away.

  “Master Antonius has been here these several hours past, and the man of the house nowhere to be seen! I could just—”

  The rest of her tirade was lost in the sounds of a muffled kiss. Papa dropped his case to the floor, holding his wife close as he whispered beery blandishments in her ear.

  “’Tho I can’t be with you all the time, my thoughts are with you, my dear,” he sang in a soft voice. “When I’m back, when I’m back, when I’m back again, back again, on your doorstep I’ll appear!”

  I could see Mother’s body bending, growing pliant in Papa’s embrace, her protests mo
re and more halfhearted as Papa plied her with a kiss, and another, and then another, before she broke at last with a laugh.

  Papa grinned with triumph, but it was only a temporary victory. He had won a laugh from Mother, but by the look in her eyes, he would lose the war.

  “Go clean yourself up,” Mother told him. “Master Antonius waits in the main hall.”

  “You could join me,” Papa said, waggling his brows outrageously.

  “Shoo,” she said, giving him a shove. Her cheeks were pink. “Go.”

  Mother started when she caught sight of me in the shadows. “Liesl!” she said, smoothing her hands over her hair. “I didn’t think you were still here.”

  I swept the last of the salt into the dustpan and tossed it into the fire. Even in the midst of my own family I was easily forgotten.

  “Here, I’ll take that.” Mother took the broom and dustpan from my hands. “Heaven knows where else that old witch got to before we stopped her.” She shook her head. “Salt, pah.”

  I shrugged, picked up a damp rag, and wiped down the countertops. “Constanze has her beliefs.” I was overcome by a sudden stab of misgiving. Salt was an old superstition, and I was not usually one to gainsay superstition, but I had just broken faith with my grandmother.

  Mind how you choose.

  “Well, she’s welcome to them on days when a famous violin master is not here,” Mother said. She nodded to the countertops. “Once you’re finished in here, go find your brother and make sure he’s ready for tonight.”

  She left the kitchen, grumbling as she went. “Salt. Honestly.”

  As I finished cleaning the kitchen, I tripped over something on the floor. Papa’s violin case. It lay open on the flagstones, empty of its instrument, but littered with a handful of silver Groschen in its place.

  It seemed as though I was not the only one to pay a visit to Herr Kassl today.

  I shut the case, took the money, and put both away in a safe place.

  * * *

  For a moment, I considered chasing after Käthe instead of Josef. Ignoring Constanze’s warnings had unsettled me more than I cared to admit, and the guilt scratched at me from within. I frowned. There was something I could not remember, but the more I grasped at it, the more it slipped away. Then I shook my head. No, it was not a time for childish fancies. I set my concerns about my sister aside and went in search of my brother instead.