Wintersong(126)

His voice seemed to come from the cracks, the nooks and crannies through which the wind from the world above whistled and wuthered. I tried to stand my ground, tried to push against the cruelty he wielded like a scythe, but I was shriveling, curling, drying up inside.

“Stand in the world above as you are, Elisabeth Vogler, and be judged as your father judged you: talentless, forgettable, worthless.”

Elisabeth.

Papa never called me Elisabeth. Within our family I was always Liesl, occasionally Lisette, and sometimes even Bettina. But my father never called me by my full name; it was a name reserved for friends, acquaintances, and the Goblin King. It was a name for the woman I had claimed myself to be, not the girl I had been.

“Then let the world judge me as I am.”

I opened my eyes. The changeling who wore Papa’s face had done a good job of it; the ruddy cheeks, the sunken eyes, the patchy skin. But his face held a malice that my father never had, an intentional cruelty that could be wielded with precision. Papa was a blunt instrument, his blows made indiscriminate by drink.

“Stand aside,” I said, “and let me pass.”

The changeling smiled, and his features shifted. “As you wish, mortal,” he said, giving me a sweeping bow. Then he snatched the Wedding Night Sonata from the stand, the sheets of paper written all in my own hand, and began to rip them apart.

“No!” I cried, but the flautist came to hold me, while the others joined the first in shredding my music to pieces. The changelings savaged my work, bits of paper floating and falling in the air like snow, settling in my hair, my eyes, my mouth, tasting of bitterness and betrayal.

So much lost. So much effort, all to ash. Those early works Papa had burned in retribution for burning Josef’s face. The pieces I had written in secret, all sacrificed to gain entrance to the Underground and save my sister. And now this, my latest and possibly greatest, all gone, gone, gone.

I screamed and sobbed, but it was only after the last few notes had fallen to the floor that the changelings released me.

“No matter,” said one cheerfully. “I’m sure you can re-create it, if you’ve the talent you claim.”

Then they abandoned me in the empty cavernous ballroom, the echoes of their spiteful laughter ringing in my ears.



I arrived at the shores of the Underground lake.

I had been stripped of everything—my confidence, my esteem, my music—but still I forced myself onward. They could take everything else away from me, but I had myself, entire. Elisabeth was more than the woman who bore the name, more than the notes she produced, more than the people who defined her. I was filled with myself, for they could not take my soul.

I glanced about. I had come to an unfamiliar shore, and could see no barge or skiff to bear me across. I stared across the great black expanse. Its glassy surface seemed deceptively calm, but beneath those obsidian depths, danger lurked.

The Lorelei.

As though called by my thoughts, glistening shapes rippled beneath the water. I squared my shoulders. I had come this far. I had faced the goblins. I had faced the changelings. I would face the Lorelei. If I could not row across, then I would swim.

There was no way through but down.

I took a step into the lake and gasped when the water touched my skin. It was cold; colder than ice, colder than winter, colder than despair.

The Lorelei swam closer, drawn to my presence like pikes scenting blood. One by one, they emerged, breaking free of the glassy black in a shower of glowing droplets.

They were so, so beautiful. Beautiful in the way the Goblin King was beautiful, a relentless symmetry to their features that was both alluring and terrifying. They were as naked as newborn babes, but their voluptuous, feminine shapes seemed molded by a hand that did not understand their function. So perfect, so flawless, nary a dimple or nipple or hair to betray any hint of humanity. Their flat black eyes focused on me, and they moved toward me with sinuous, flowing grace.

I was up to my waist in the water now. The closest Lorelei reached out with her hands, and my arms lifted of their own volition to meet hers. She smiled, row upon row of prickly teeth, and moved in to press that jagged grin against my skin.

The others swam close, fanning out around me, encircling me, entrapping me. Their hands stroked my face, my hair, my limbs, my waist. I was numb but I felt their fluttering touches slide up between the valley of my thighs, the ridge of my spine where it met the curve of my backside, the underside of my breasts. My body, so like theirs and not. One tangled her fingers in my hair, undoing the plaits I habitually wore in a coronet about my head, letting the dark locks fall into the water. The weight of my hair dragged me down like an anchor.