Wintersong(27)

But …

I thought of my grandmother pouring salt along the windowsills. I thought of her leaving a tin of milk and a slice of cake out each harvesttide. I thought of her strange and eccentric oddities, more ritual than religion, and thought of Mother’s exasperated grumblings, Hans’s pitying looks, the villagers’ scornful gazes. Constanze kept faith with the Goblin King, and what had her faith availed her?

Nothing.

I glanced about my room, at the klavier in the center, at the dinner tray Mother had set on a low table beside it, at the sachet of dried, sweet herbs from Hans.

Time to compose. Favors from the handsomest man in the village. No shame, no judgment upon who I was, and what I loved. It was only the very beginnings of all the things I had ever wished for, and the possibility of happiness—real happiness—stretched out before me, a fork in the road.

What had my lack of faith availed me?

Everything.

Suddenly the clarity was gone.

We stood on either side of the threshold, my grandmother and I, each waiting for the other to cross.





A PRETTY LIE

As the days passed, it was harder and harder to keep hold of my resolve, my convictions, my sanity. Too often I would turn a corner expecting to see a flash of gold or hear the echo of a tinkling laugh. The memory of Käthe in these halls was fading fast, leaving nothing but dust motes in the fading light. Perhaps I had never had a sister. Perhaps I was mad. Perhaps my reason had, in fact, abandoned me.

Sepperl, Sepperl, what should I do?

But if reason had abandoned me, then so had my beloved baby brother. More often than not, Josef was to be found with François, the two of them conversing in a mix of French, German, Italian, and music. Master Antonius was anxious to leave, but an unseasonably early ice storm had stopped all travel for a few more days. But the old virtuoso had more to worry about than a few impassable roads; French soldiers crawled our countryside like an infestation of roaches, and the troubling rumors of impending war hung over our heads.

I shouldn’t have been jealous. I had promised I wouldn’t be jealous. But envy ate me up inside anyway. I saw how Josef’s eyes sparkled whenever he beheld François, how the dark-skinned youth smiled in return. My brother was leaving me behind in more ways than one. Like Käthe and Hans, like Mother and Papa, Josef was stepping into a world that seemed forever barred to me.

The future sparkled ahead of Josef, a shining city at the end of a long road. His life stretched out ahead of him, exciting and unknown, whereas mine began and ended here, at the inn. With Josef gone, who would listen to my music? Who would listen to me?

I thought of Hans and his sweet, chaste gestures toward me. I imagined stifled giggles, shared and private jests, basso continuo and treble improvisation. I dreamed of fleeting touches, sloppy kisses, whispered breaths and pants in the dark of the night when we thought no one could hear. I wished for love, the ethereal and the physical, the sacred and the profane, and wondered when I, like my brother, like my sister, would cross that threshold into knowledge from innocence.

I retreated into the comforting embrace of my klavier more and more as the date of my brother’s departure approached. Without Josef’s guiding hand, the bagatelle grew wild and unchecked. Its musical phrases did not resolve themselves according to a logical, rational progression; they went where my flights of fancy took them. I let them go where they will. The results were slightly dissonant, eerie, and unsettling, but I did not mind. After all, I was not a child of beauty; I was a child of the queer, the strange, and the wild.

I had the shape of the piece now, its rise, fall, and resolution. It was simple enough, especially for a virtuoso like Josef. I had written it with the violin in mind, to be accompanied by the fortepiano. I wanted to hear my brother play it, wanted to hear how it would transform in his hands.

A few days later, I got my wish.

François was attending to Master Antonius, who had taken a “mild chill,” although it seemed more a fit of jealous pique—he wasn’t the only one to have been abandoned by someone he loved, I realized. I found Josef in a rare moment alone downstairs in the main hall, lovingly tending to his violin. Twilight was falling, and the shadows carved the planes of his face into sharp relief. My brother looked like an angel, a sprite, a creature not quite of this world.

“Think you the kobolds will be out tonight?” I asked softly.

He startled. “Liesl!” He set down his oiling rag and wiped his hands on his trousers. “I didn’t see you there.” He rose from his seat by the hearth, arms out to embrace me.

I walked straight into them. With a pang, I realized he was of a height with me. When had that happened?