Wintersong(53)

“Liesl,” Käthe said. “Are we getting close?”

I dared not lower my flute to comfort my sister. The Goblin King’s eyes glittered beneath his hood. I raised my chin and met his gaze squarely.

There was nothing of my soft-eyed young man in him now; this Goblin King was all shadow and illusion, Der Erlkönig in his most elemental form. Trickster. Seducer. King. I searched his face for any hint of the austere youth from the portrait in the gallery, my Goblin King. But he was not there.

I squared my shoulders and turned to Käthe, playing a jaunty little Ländler. It was one of the most cheerful melodies I knew, and I playe it with all the lightheartedness I could muster. The little wrinkle of concern never left my sister’s brow, but her face relaxed into a tentative smile. Käthe wasn’t one to dissect the moods and tones of a piece of music, but even my non-musical sister could respond to what I was saying without words.

All is well. Do not worry.

Käthe followed in my footsteps as we approached Der Erlkönig. The wind grew stronger, no longer a playful sprite, but a malicious spirit. It pushed, it pulled, it argued, it threatened. It bit at my fingertips and lips, turning them stiff, numb, insensitive. The sound of its wuthering rose higher than the thin voice of my flute, drowning out my melodies. Käthe huddled close as I struggled to play over the wind, but it was a battle we were losing. My sister slipped farther and farther away from me, my apron strings leaving her grasp. So close, we were so close …

“Give up, Elisabeth,” Der Erlkönig crooned. “Let go, my dear. Lay down your flute and rest. Stay with me.”

I closed my eyes. I could no longer feel the instrument between my numb fingers. I was tired, out of breath, and out of ideas.

“Yes,” he hissed. “Gently, slowly—”

My lips left the flute, my hands slowly lowered to my side. But to yield was not always to lose. I was not defeated yet.

Mother had taught us all to sing, just as Papa had taught us all to play. While none of us had her gift of song, she taught us all how to control our breathing, how to project our voices, how to shape the air within us to produce an enormous sound. I took a deep breath, filling my lungs down to my stomach with air. I found a pitch I could comfortably sustain: high enough to be shrill, low enough not to shred my vocal cords.

I opened my mouth and screamed.

I let the sound fill my head, resonate in the hollow spaces of my face, and pushed outward. Der Erlkönig faltered, stunned by the intensity of my scream. He stumbled back, throwing his hands up against the sound.

I took one step forward; Der Erlkönig took one step back. I kept moving forward, but the distance between us never closed. I wanted to meet him, confront him, push him out of the way with my bare hands, make him admit defeat at my feet. I reached for him, but my fingers passed through the fabric of his cloak. He was as insubstantial as a will-o’-the-wisp. He vanished in an instant.

Käthe and I were alone in the passageway. The air grew still and warm, the silence about us stifling. I began humming, a tuneless hum that was more resignation than reassurance. Käthe slid her hand into mine and squeezed it comfortingly, her palm surprisingly warm.

I glanced down at the flute by my side. It was smoking slightly, but not from heat. Frost rimmed its joins, the frozen wood of its body almost too painful to hold. I brought it back up to my mouth, my lips sticking to the ice-rimmed metal embouchure. A sigh misted across the surface as I began to play once more, my breath forming clouds before me.



It was my first encounter with Der Erlkönig on that long, endless night, but it would not be the last. Over and over again, he appeared before me, taunting me, misleading me, tricking me. I stood stalwart and unwavering, walking past his apparitions and through his illusions. It was easier, somehow, when I thought of him as the terrifying and enigmatic figure of myth from Constanze’s stories, rather than the Goblin King with whom I had danced as both a child and a young woman. There was nothing of my Goblin King within Der Erlkönig.

Each triumph against Der Erlkönig strengthened my resolve and determination, but I grew overconfident. I had bested his supernatural tricks; I had not reckoned on his psychological ones.

I was playing the flute again—I alternated between singing and playing in an effort to preserve both my voice and my breath—when I heard the violin.

I who had grown up with Papa, I who had nurtured Josef’s developing virtuoso talent, had never, ever heard such playing as this. The violinist played a piece I did not know. I did not recognize the composer, though I thought I could hear Bach’s contrapuntal intricacy, Vivaldi’s elegant expressiveness, and Handel’s grandiose charm within the piece. There was devotion in every strain—devotion, reverence, ecstasy—and I nearly wept from the beauty of it. I stopped humming.