Elisabeth. I was Elisabeth again, and the way he said my name sent a throb of longing through me.
“As you wish, Elisabeth,” he said again, softer now. “As you wish.”
Part IV
THE GOBLIN KING
When all my hopes His promises sufficed,
When my Soul watched for Him by day, by night,
When my lamp lightened and my robe was white,
And all seemed loss, except the Pearl unpriced.
Yet, since He calls me still with tender Call,
Since He remembers Whom I half forgot,
I even will run my race and bear my lot.
—CHRISTINA ROSSETTI, Come Unto Me
DEATH AND THE MAIDEN
Everything was changed. Ever since the night the Goblin King broke me open and laid me bare, the air between us was charged with unspoken emotion. I was a woman remade by his hands; he reached inside me and the music came pouring out.
I understood now what it was like to be struck by divine fire. Our evenings now passed in a fever dream, where we did nothing but make music. I no longer marked the passage of time; yesterday was today was tomorrow, an ouroboros of hours that circled back on themselves. I was burning from within, and I needed no mortal sustenance to nourish me. Sleep, food, drink—all were poor substitutes for the music that sustained me. I lived on music and the Goblin King. The notes were my ambrosia, his kisses my nectar.
“Again,” I demanded as we finished playing the first movement of the Wedding Night Sonata for the seventh time. “Again!”
We had been working on the piece for hours, my husband and I. Every time he played it, I heard and understood something different within the movement. Within me. A piece begun in rage and impotence, transformed into inexorable longing, and yet, not a piece without joy.
I had marked its tempo as allegro.
To be played quickly. Swiftly.
Joyfully.
“Again?” the Goblin King asked. “Have you not had enough music, my dear?”
He was tired. I could hear fear in his playing, fear and fatigue. I had worn him down. I had worn myself down. But I did not care; I did not want to stop. The cage about my heart had been opened and I was flying. I was free for the first time in my life, and my soul soared. I could not play, could not compose, could not think fast enough; my mind outpaced my fingers, and the errors and wrong notes that ensued caused me as much laughter as tears. More, I wanted more, I needed more. If Lucifer’s sin was pride, then mine was covetousness. More and more and more. It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.
“No,” I said. “Never.”
“Slow down, Elisabeth,” he laughed. “I doubt even God Himself could keep up with you.”
“Let Him try.” The blood fizzed in my veins. “I shall outpace even His angels in a footrace!”
“Darling, darling.” The Goblin King lowered his arms to let them rest. “Let it be. The first movement is magnificent.”
I smiled. It was magnificent. I was magnificent. No, I was more than magnificent; I was invincible.
“It is,” I said. “And it could be even greater.” My hands trembled, fingers twitching. I was nervy, excitable, a hound before the chase. Once more, just once more …
The Goblin King saw me shaking and frowned. I snatched my hands from the keyboard and hid them in my skirts.
“Elisabeth, enough.”
“But there is still so much work to do,” I protested. “The theme is sound but the middle passages are—oh!”
A drop of blood fell on the ivory keys. Puzzled, I wiped it away, when another drop fell on my hand. Then another. And another. The Goblin King rushed forward and pressed a kerchief to my nose. Red stained the snow-white linen, blooming across the fabric at an alarming rate. Suddenly, the world wound down and time slowed to a halt. My thoughts, a fleet-footed hart running through the woods of my mind, stumbled and fell.
Blood?
“Rest.” The word was as much a command as a caress. The Goblin King clapped his hands, and Twig and Thistle appeared, one holding a glass tumbler, the other a bottle of a rich amber liquor. He poured me a drink and handed it to me without another word.
“What is this?” I asked.
“Brandy.”
“What for?”
“Just drink it.”
I wrinkled my nose, but took a sip, feeling the burn of the liquor slide down my throat and warm my heart. He watched me carefully as I finished the drink.
“There,” he said. “Feel better?”
I blinked. To my surprise, I did. My hands, which had shaken and twitched with years of pent-up frustration, were finally still. I reached up to touch my face. My nosebleed had stopped, and so had the torrent of song that had flooded from me in the past few days.
“Now.” The Goblin King took away the glass and sat beside me on the bench. “We’ve been playing your music for a long time. Let us pass the time in other ways.”