THE BRAVE MAIDEN’S TALE, REPRISE
the brave maiden.
I was sitting with a descendant of the brave maiden. The first of us to die, and the only one of us survive the Goblin King’s embrace.
Until me.
“You . . . you . . .” I began, but my words trailed off into nothingness.
“Me, me,” the Countess repeated, although there was no hint of mockery in her voice. “Yes, Goblin Queen,” she said softly. “She walked away from the Underground, and lived. I am proof. And for hundreds of years, for several generations, her daughters and granddaughters and great-granddaughters were guardians and keepers of the balance between worlds, between the world above and the realms below.”
The crash and thunder of my beating heart hollowed out my ears, drowning all sound and sense. I watched the Countess’s lips move, but could not understand, could not comprehend a single word coming from her mouth. The notion was too big—too significant—to accept. The world narrowed to a small, singular idea.
I was not alone.
“Child? Child?” The scope and scale of my thoughts widened once more to encompass the chair I was sitting on, the room I was in, the person who was speaking to me. “My dear, are you all right? You look quite pale. Konrad, would you bring Mademoiselle Vogler something stronger than coffee to drink? A bit of sherry, perhaps?”
“I’m fine,” I said in a voice that didn’t sound like mine. It came from a place both far inside and outside of me, a voice so calm as to belong to another Liesl, another Elisabeth altogether. “I don’t need a drink.”
She watched me with those vivid, otherworldly green eyes. A jumble of half-started images and words and phrases tumbled through my mind—wife? child? Der Erlkönig’s child? legacy family descendants found uprooted—the noise spinning into a blur of blankness. I blinked, and when I did not respond to her extraordinary claim in the manner she was apparently expecting, the Countess gave a little huff.
“Well,” she said, forcing a laugh, “this is not the reception to my revelation I had hoped for.”
“What was to be my response?” I asked, still in that stranger’s voice.
She gave an elegant shrug. “Surprise? Shock? Gratitude? Anger? Anything other than blankness, to be honest, my dear.”
The Count cleared his throat. “It is a lot to take in, darling.”
He was right. It was too much for my limited comprehension to encompass wholly, so I could only pick at the details as they became clear to me, one by one.
“Are you—are you a child of Der Erlkönig?” Surely that wasn’t possible. A goblin girl told me long ago that no union of mortal and the Goblin King had ever been fruitful. And yet. My hand went to my lower belly. My bleeding had run their monthly courses as usual when I returned from the Underground. I felt a sharp stab of . . . envy? Relief? Emptiness? Exultation?
The Countess shook her head. “No, Elisabeth. I am not a child of Der Erlkönig, unless you mean it in the sense that we—you, your brother, my husband, all those who believe, and I—are all his children. No,” she repeated, her voice growing soft and gentle. “I am a descendant of the Goblin Queen and her consort, a man who had once been the Lord of Mischief and the Ruler Underground. A daughter of a mortal woman . . . and a mortal man.” She looked to her husband, and he laid a hand on her shoulder.
“But they were both mortal . . .” I did not know how to phrase my question, or even what to ask. If what she said was true. If she indeed had powers spanning both the worlds above and below. If, if, if.
“How do I have my gift of opening and closing the barriers between worlds?” the Countess finished.
I nodded.
“Do you know the tale of Persephone?” she asked.
I blinked. “No,” I said slowly, feeling even more lost and unmoored than before. “I don’t believe so.”
“She was the daughter of Demeter,” the Count chimed in. Unlike his wife, his dark eyes were fixed on my face with a strange sort of compassion, even pity. “She was abducted by Hades and forced to become his bride.”
I shuddered, but not entirely with revulsion.
“Yes,” the Countess said. “Persephone ate the fruit of the underworld and was therefore condemned to spend half the year in Hades’s realm, the other half in the world above with her mother.”
A sudden pang of sympathy for Persephone swept through me. Sympathy and envy. Half the year with her family, the other half with her dark beloved. If only, if only.
“But what the story doesn’t say,” her husband added, “is that Persephone returned from the underworld changed. Different. A dark queen for a dark realm. The ancient Greeks dared not even speak her name, for to speak of her was to call her attention. So they called her Kore, which meant maiden.”
A sharp chill pierced through my numbness, sending shivers down my spine. Her name is lost to us, Twig had once said. The brave maiden. Nameless, and gone.
“Persephone returned changed,” the Countess said softly. “And so did the first Goblin Queen. When she reemerged into life from death, she came back different. She awoke with the ability to sense the rips in the world, the cracks, the in-between spaces, and to create them and to mend them. She was both of the Underground and the world above, and she passed that ability on to her children. To me.”
My heart skipped a beat. I remembered the last time I had seen my Goblin King standing in the Goblin Grove, the feel of our hands passing through each other’s like fingers through smoke, like holding on to a candle flame, insubstantial and painful all at once. What would I do for this ability? To pass between realms at will, to touch and hold and embrace my Goblin King in the flesh and not in memory?
“But,” the Countess said, “as you can see, I am the last of her bloodline. The last of us with this ability—this gift.”
Her voice hitched, a slight tremor that would have gone unnoticed if it weren’t for the tears glimmering in her eyes. I did not know if those tears were for a child she could not have, or a child she had had, then lost. Her husband’s hand on her shoulder tightened, the two of them taut and tense in their shared silent grief. Yet his features wore a troubled expression, as though this were a conversation he did not want to have.
“However,” she said huskily. “It appears I am not the last after all.” The Countess watched me, searching for my face for the answer to a question she did not ask. It was a long time before I replied.
“Me,” I said in a quiet voice. “You mean . . . me.”
The corners of her full red lips tilted upward slightly. “Yes,” she said. “You, O Goblin Queen.”
Silence stretched on between us. I did not know what to say. I did not know what to think, or even what to feel. When I made the decision to leave the Underground, I made the choice to live instead of to die, to seize what I wanted from the world instead of resigning myself to my fate. I had promised myself I would live every day as Elisabeth, entire.
But who was Elisabeth, entire? Who was the woman who had been given every opportunity and had failed to seize upon them? Who was the sister who had used her brother’s pain as an excuse to run away from her problems? Who was the composer who sat before her instrument every night, unable to write? Could I find out who she was here, in the dilapidated ruins of Snovin Hall? As the successor to a secret line of uncanny women?
“Is this why you brought me here?” I asked. “To—to make me your heir?” The idea was preposterous. And yet . . .
The Countess smiled, but her eyes were sad. “You have the right of it,” she said. “I thought that . . . that when my Adelaide died, it was the end of the world.” She laughed, but there was no humor in the sound, only an infinite sorrow. “A mother’s grief does feel like the end of the world, it is true, but without another to carry on the legacy, the balance between worlds would fall apart.”
Adelaide. Her daughter. Suddenly, I wondered just whose clothes it was I was wearing. I had put them on this morning without a second thought, merely grateful to shed the filthy, travel-stained dress I had worn for nearly a week straight. The gown and shawl I wore felt itchy, clinging, uncomfortable, as though I were wearing someone else’s skin. I was wearing the trappings of a dead girl’s fortune, shouldering the burden of her mother’s expectations and dreams. I stood up, unable to bear another moment in the presence of my deceitful, duplicitous hosts.
“I must go,” I said abruptly.
“My dear, I know it’s a lot to take in—” the Countess began, but I cut her off.
“You told me I was your guest,” I interrupted. “And as your guest, I would like very much to not be here. In this room. In this house. I need—I need air. I—I—I—” My words tripped over lips, running ahead of the scream not far behind. “And . . . unless you were lying and I am, in fact, your prisoner, I beg your leave. I must—I must go.” My hands were shaking. Why couldn’t my hands stop shaking?
“Of course, Fräulein,” the Count said before his wife could interject. “Our house and our estate are yours to wander.”
“But Otto,” she protested. “The Hunt, the unholy host? We brought her here to keep her safe.”
“If she isn’t safe at Snovin, then she isn’t safe anywhere,” the Count said shortly. “Here,” he said gently, turning to me. He reached into the pocket of his waistcoat, withdrew his fob, unclipped the chain, and placed it in my hand. “Take this.”
“Your watch?” I asked, bewildered. My restlessness was going to burst from my eyeballs in a rush of blood and fury if I did not leave within the next instant, Wild Hunt or no.
“A compass.” The Count opened the fob, showing a beautiful compass with a golden needle spinning slowly round and round and round. “And a rather significant piece of iron, in fact. A small measure of protection against the unholy host, but moreover, it is your way back. Should you get lost at Snovin, the compass will always point you here.” He pointed to the ground beneath his feet. “To this very room. It was built over a large lodestone, so the needle will always point here. To home.”
Home. For better or for worse, this was home now. It would be home forever, if the Procházkas had their way. But I would not dwell on that. Could not. One day at a time. One step at a time. As long as those steps took me away from the Countess, her history, and her hopes.
“Thank you,” I whispered to the Count. “I shall keep it safe.”
He nodded. “You are dismissed, Fräulein.”
I fled.
* * *
I threw opened the glass doors of the morning room and ran onto the veranda. The snow from the previous night had mostly melted with the sun, but a light dusting remained, sugaring the tops of dead weeds and grasses with a pale, white frost. I did not know where to turn. If I had been back at the inn, I would have run to the Goblin Grove. But here, in an unfamiliar house on unfamiliar terrain in an unfamiliar country, I was lost. In more ways than one.
The grounds would have been well-manicured in summer perhaps, but now everything was a tangle of overgrown brambles, vines, and early flowers that may have tried to bloom in a thaw—all withered, desiccated, dead. In the distance, on the edges of the estate, pine trees marched in orderly fashion around the perimeter—uniform, straight, and, tall. Beyond this ring of perfectly groomed trees rose the tops of undulating forest hills. To the left, the weak morning sun glinted off the glass roofs of a greenhouse, and to the right, a bright carpet of scarlet. I squinted. It looked like a field of wildflowers. Of . . . poppies? It seemed impossible in a clime this high in the hills and too early besides, for the blooms did not blossom until summer.
But late-winter poppies were one of the least impossible things I had discovered today.
A soft breeze gently whistled about the estate, bringing with it unquiet whispers. I held the Count’s compass in both hands. It was surprisingly heavy for such a small object, as though it contained magnitudes more than it revealed. I watched the needle spin aimlessly around its face, almost like watching the hands of a clock chart the hours in quarter time. As I moved farther away from the house and toward the wilds outside, the needle steadied, an arrow pointing straight behind me toward the lodestone in Snovin Hall. Where North might have been on an ordinary compass, a poppy was painted in beautiful detail. On the other side, an exquisite miniature of the melusine as seen on the Procházka crest where South would have been. The melusine put me in mind of the Lorelei in the Underground lake, her fishtail trailing in blue-green waters. Straight ahead of me, a path cut through the pine trees, disappearing into a trail up the hill.
I took it as a sign. A direction. A way. I set my feet upon the path, and walked.
It turned steep shortly after leaving the tame grounds, growing narrow and a little treacherous. The trail turned back on itself over and over, cutting into the hill face as it ascended up the slope. My breath came short and I broke into a sweat as I climbed, but the exertion and exercise calmed the unsteady turmoil and turbulence that had rocked and roiled me since the Countess’s revelation about her history and my future. My step was sure, my eyes clear.
At the summit of the hill was a lake.
Its appearance was utterly surprising and unexpected, a wide expanse of vivid blue-green opening up beneath me. The path from the forest emerged onto an outcropping of rock that jutted out over the water several feet below the ledge. It was as though I had stumbled upon a secret. The existence of this lake was completely hidden from view from both Snovin Hall and the drive into the valley we had taken the day before, hardly visible even from the path I had hiked. It emerged from the forest like an enchanted gem, sparkling like a startling aquamarine against the brown and gray of the late winter woods and sky.
The surface of the lake was as smooth and as flat as glass, a perfect mirror for the ring of trees that encircled it, yet it seemed to reflect the sky of another, more vivid world. A faint mist hovered over the surface, a dreamy haze, and it seemed much warmer here than it was just a few feet below on the trail. A murmuring breeze stirred the mist atop the lake and to my shock, it was steam, not mist, for it blew warm and moist across my face.
Liesl.
I startled. The wind whispered my name, as though carrying someone’s call an incalculable distance. The steam atop the lake swirled and twirled and parted in the breeze, but it did not disturb the placid, pristine surface of the water. I stepped closer to the edge, peering over the sheer drop down to the water.
Liesl, the wind whispered again.
I looked up and scanned the other side of the lake, searching for a form or figure. Stories of the Wild Hunt, of the elf-touched and elf-struck returned to me. Would I be taken? Or killed? Was I mad? Or merely suffering from a fit of nerves? In the labyrinth of the Procházkas’ hedge maze, I had seen Twig and the Goblin King. Or at least, I thought I had. But there was no one else in this secret, secluded space, not even a figment of the imagination. I was alone, no one but me and my reflection in this unexpected sanctuary.
Liesl.
I looked down. A face stared back at me from the glass-smooth depths of the water, blue eyes, gold hair, apple-pink cheeks, a face I knew intimately.
But it wasn’t mine.
It was Käthe’s.
Startled, I drew back. Käthe’s head disappeared from view, but when I peered over the edge and into the lake again, she was still there.
“Käthe?” I asked, while her lips mouthed Liesl? “Käthe!”
Dropping to all fours, I crawled forward on my belly, reaching for the water, for my sister, for the vision before me. Was it magic? Or was it madness? In that moment I did not care. I saw my own anguish and concern and worry for my family reflected in Käthe’s eyes, the surprise and shock of the uncanny in the everyday.
François! I could see her call for the black boy over her shoulder. François! Bramble! Come quick!
I could not see where she was, for beyond her I could see nothing but the blue-green depths of the lake. Was she still in Vienna, in Frau Messner’s boarding house, being cared for by the Procházkas’ associates? Or was she back home in Bavaria, at the inn with Mother and Constanze and the Goblin Grove? I wanted to reach through the water, to swim to the bottom, to her.
“Fräulein?”
I whirled around to see Nina standing behind me, a frightened expression on her face. Her hands were outstretched, thrown up before her as though to stop me—or to catch me. I realized then how I might appear to the housekeeper: a distressed young woman perched on the edge of a drop into a lake.
“Oh no, I’m fine, I’m fine,” I said, getting to my feet and brushing the dirt off my skirts. Nina was gesturing frantically, beckoning me back from the ledge. “I’m all right,” I repeated, even though she could not understand me.
I must have been here longer than I thought, for the sun was lower on the horizon than I expected. Nina gestured again, miming eating and possibly something about the Count or Countess. Not wanting to distress her further, I nodded and followed her back to Snovin Hall, but not before taking one last, longing glimpse at the enchanted lake and the mirrored world over my shoulder.
Mirrors.
Whatever I felt about the Countess and her unbelievable lineage, one thing was true. Snovin Hall was steeped in the uncanny. Like the Goblin Grove, it was perhaps one of the last sacred places left, thresholds where the world above and the Underground overlapped. I thought of what the Count had told me that morning, that the mirrors remained covered in their house to close off the shadow paths between worlds. The lake was a mirror, and a window to elsewhere. Perhaps I could open my own window to elsewhere.
In the meanwhile, I would beg of my hosts some ink and paper for a letter and write to my sister.