She turned around. My sister’s lips glistened—red, sticky, and sweet—her pout swollen as though she had just been thoroughly kissed.
In her hands was a half-eaten peach, its juice dripping down her fingers like rivulets of blood.
SHE IS FOR THE GOBLIN KING NOW
Käthe did not speak to me on our walk home. I was nursing a foul mood myself: my irritation with my sister, the unsettling encounter with the fruit-sellers, the shivery longing the tall, elegant stranger had stirred in me—all swirled together into a maelstrom of confusion. A misty quality shrouded my memories of the market, and I could not be certain if it hadn’t all been a dream.
Yet nestled in my satchel was the stranger’s gift. The flute jostled against my leg with every step, as real as Josef’s bows in my hand. I wondered why the stranger had gifted the flute to me. I was a mediocre flautist at best; the thin, ghostly sounds I could produce on the instrument were more strange than sweet. I wondered how I would explain its existence to Mother. I wondered how I could explain it to myself.
“Liesl.”
To my surprise, it was Josef who greeted us at the door. He peered at us from around the posts, hovering uncomfortably on the threshold.
“What is it, Sepp?” I asked gently. I knew my brother was nervous about his upcoming audition, what it would cost him to show his face to so many strangers. Like me, my brother hid in the shadows; unlike me, he preferred it there.
“Master Antonius,” he whispered, “is here.”
“What?” I dropped my satchel. “So soon?” We hadn’t expected the old violin master until the evening.
He nodded. A wary expression crossed his face, his pale features pinched with worry. “He made good time over the Alps. Didn’t want to get caught out by an early snowstorm.”
“He needn’t have worried,” Käthe said. Both Josef and I turned to look at her in surprise. Our sister was gazing into the distance, her eyes a glassy glaze. “The king still sleeps, waiting. The days of winter have not yet begun.”
My pulse beat hard. “Who’s sleeping? Who’s waiting?”
But she said no more, and merely walked past Josef into the inn.
My brother and I exchanged a glance. “Is she all right?” he asked.
I bit my lip, remembering how the goblin fruit had stained her lips and chin with something like blood. Then I shook my head. “She’s fine. Where is Master Antonius now?”
“Upstairs, taking a nap,” Josef said. “Mother told us not to disturb him.”
“And Papa?”
Josef slid his gaze from mine. “I don’t know.”
I closed my eyes. Of all the moments for Papa to disappear. The old violin virtuoso had been a friend of Papa’s from the Prince-Bishop’s court. Both Master Antonius and Papa had left those days behind them, but one had traveled further than the other. One had just finished a post as a visiting resident at the court of the Austrian emperor, while the other found solace at the bottom of a beer barrel every night.
“Well.” I opened my eyes and forced my lips into a smile. I handed Josef his newly repaired bows and gathered an arm about his shoulders. “Let’s get ready to put on a show, shall we?”
The kitchen was a flurry of baking, boiling, broiling. “Good, you’re back,” Mother said shortly. She nodded at a bowl on the counter. “The meat is spiced, so start trimming the lengths.” She stood over a large vat of boiling water, stirring a batch of sausages.
I put on an apron and immediately began measuring the sausage casing to twist and tie into individual links. Käthe was nowhere to be seen, so I sent Josef to go look for her.
“Have you seen your father?” Mother asked.
I dared not look at her face. Mother was an extraordinarily lovely woman, her figure still slim and youthful, her hair still bright, her skin still fair. In the half-light of dusk and dawn, in the in-between hours, in the golden edge of a candle flame, one could see how she had been renowned throughout Salzburg not only for her beautiful voice, but for her beautiful face as well. But time had graven lines at the corners of her full lips and between her brows. Time, toil, and Papa.
“Liesl.”
I shook my head.
She sighed, and a world of meaning lay within that sound. Anger, frustration, hopelessness, resignation. Mother still had the gift of conveying every shade of emotion through voice and voice alone.
“Well,” she said. “Let us pray Master Antonius won’t take offense to his absence.”
“I’m sure Papa will be back in time.” I picked up a knife to hide the lie. Trim, twist, tie. Trim, twist, tie. “We must have faith.”