A MAELSTROM IN THE BLOOD
i sent our reply to our mysterious new benefactor the following day. Mother had been delighted by the news, and for the first time in an age, I saw her smile. The years fell away from her face, smoothing the furrow that had taken up permanent residence between her brows since Papa had died. Her blue eyes sparkled, her cheeks glowed, and I was reminded that our mother was still a beautiful woman. Several of the guests must have agreed, for they gave her appreciative sidelong glances when they thought she wouldn’t see.
Count Procházka must have been very wealthy indeed, for when we presented his name to the factor in town, we were advanced an ungodly sum of money. After the coach fare, luggage, and wardrobe were taken care of, we still had funds left over. I made good with our vendors in town, establishing new lines for credit for Mother and the inn, but Käthe and I allowed ourselves one small luxury each. My sister bought trimmings for a pretty new bonnet while I bought myself paper and a fresh set of quills, neatly trimmed. It did not matter that I had not composed or touched the Wedding Night Sonata since I had returned from the Underground; I could write in Vienna. I would write in Vienna.
The next few weeks passed by in a blur, a flurry of preparations that seemed to take up every waking minute of our days. I was mostly focused on packing what few belongings we had that would travel easily: our clothes, our shoes, what few trinkets we had left that weren’t sold to the pawnbroker to pay off Papa’s debts.
“What will you do with your klavier?” Käthe asked. We were in Josef’s room, sorting through my things. “Will you have the Count send for it once we are settled there? Or do you intend to sell it ere we depart?”
I hadn’t given the matter much thought. In truth, I hadn’t given music much thought at all.
“Liesl,” Käthe said. “Are you all right?”
“Of course,” I said, making a conspicuous show of sorting and organizing my notes. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
She ran her fingers over the faded ivory keys. I could feel her watching me as she pressed a note here, a note there. F-G-E-D sharp. A-A-A-F sharp. As she played tunelessly, aimlessly, I felt an inordinate sense of jealousy at her freedom, her nonchalance, her indifference. For my sister, music was just noise.
“It’s just,” she said after a moment, “I haven’t heard you play in a while, that’s all.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“You’re always busy,” she observed. “But that’s never stopped you before.”
I felt a pang—of guilt, of shame, and not a little frustration. Käthe was right, of course. No matter how tired I was at the end of the day, no matter how full my hours had been with cooking and cleaning, I had always managed to find time for music, magic, and the Goblin King. Always.
“I’m surprised you noticed,” I said tartly. “I didn’t think you cared.”
“Just because I don’t have your gifts doesn’t mean I don’t notice or care,” she said. “I know you, after all.”
To my horror, my eyes welled up with tears. I had pushed aside and made excuses for my reluctance to sit down and compose for so long that I hadn’t realized my music was a weeping wound that would not heal. Käthe’s kindness was an antiseptic, and it stung like hell.
“Oh God, Liesl,” she said, stricken. “I didn’t mean—”
“No, no.” I surreptitiously wiped at my cheeks. “It’s all right. You didn’t do anything. I’m just overwrought, is all. It’s been a long week.”
Käthe’s penetrating blue gaze was patient, but I did not elaborate. There was a part of me that wished I could confess and confide everything to her. How I hadn’t played or composed in an age because I was unable to face the enormous effort it would take to sit, to work, to labor. Because whenever I worked on my magnum opus, I felt another’s presence beside me—his touch, his kiss, his caress. Because I was afraid she wouldn’t believe me; or worse, that she would.
“It’s nothing,” I insisted, a sudden, absurd urge to giggle bubbling up my throat. “Come, why don’t we play the Ideal Imaginary World to while away the tedium of cleaning and packing? I’ll start. Once we arrive in Vienna and are settled in our new apartments, Count Procházka will throw a ball in our honor. Josef will be there, of course, playing my newest concerto. Perhaps his friend François will be there also, and they will play a duet. And you—you shall be decked out in the finest jewels, with all of Vienna’s most eligible bachelors vying for your hand, plying us with chocolates and sweets and—Ow!”
My sister had pinched me. Again. It seemed to be becoming a habit. Käthe pushed the hair from my face, frowning as she peered into my eyes. “When was the last time you slept?” she asked
I glanced down at my hands. I clenched them into fists, resisting the urge to hide them in my apron pockets.
“Liesl.”
I closed my eyes.
“Is it . . . is it the Goblin King?” Her voice was soft.
I flinched. “No,” I said quickly. “No, of course not.” It may not have been the truth, but neither was it entirely a lie.
Käthe was quiet, but I could feel her eyes upon me. “I wonder,” she said after a moment, “if it’s not Vienna you’re running toward, but a kingdom you’re trying to outrun.”
I sucked in a sharp breath and opened my eyes. It was as though my sister had pulled a splinter from my heart that I hadn’t even known was there. “Käthe, I . . .” But my voice faded to nothing at the look of pity on her face.
“You can be running toward something or running from something, but you cannot do both at once,” she said gently.
Tears burned along my lashes, but I refused to let them spill. “Who says I’m running at all?” I said, forcing a laugh. Käthe’s laughter came more easily now, and I wanted her to smile, to joke, to look away from the dark corners of my soul so they would not be subject to the sunshine of her sympathy.
But my sister did not laugh. “Ah,” she said softly, “but what’s the use of running”—she lifted her eyes to mine—“if you are on the wrong road?”
* * *
As the weeks went on and our time at the inn wound down to a close, my sister’s words needled me, pinpricks of guilt and resentment poking holes in my comfortable avoidance. I hated how Käthe had made me confront my lack of composing, my inability to sit down and play. It had been easier to believe the pretty lie that I had been too busy, too tired, too preoccupied, too anything but scared to revisit the Wedding Night Sonata.
But the truth was far uglier.
I did not want to work on the Wedding Night Sonata.
The fear was easy to face. So much was lost in translation from my mind to the page, and I was afraid the music I played would fail to do justice to the music I heard in my head. I was not skilled enough, not trained enough, not good enough.
But I had vanquished these fears before. I had spent an age Underground cracking open my ribs to lay my insecurities bare before me, to face them without flinching. I had the courage and fortitude to conquer my doubts, and I would not back down now.
It was the hope I could not bear.
Don’t look back, the Goblin King had told me. And I hadn’t. But in the moments between sleeping and waking, the hollows that loneliness carved from my soul were large enough to swallow me whole. Playing the Wedding Night Sonata conjured up ghosts, both literal and metaphorical.
I could have let it rest. I could have passed the time with my klavier in other ways, with other composers, other compositions. Yet the abyss always beckoned at the sight of those black and white keys, the temptation to break my promises and run back and back and back.
The coach that would bear us to Vienna was arriving in three days. Nearly all was in readiness, and all that was left was to pick up the flotsam and jetsam of our lives. For Käthe, those were her ribbons and trimmings and other pieces of finery and frippery, and for me, it was the klavier.
We had managed to sell the instrument to a merchant in town, who had amassed enough wealth to want to enrich it with musical accomplishments. He had even managed to hire a tutor all the way from Munich to teach his wife and daughters how to play. The young man would be arriving after we had gone, but the merchant would be bringing along a hired wagon and some hired hands to bring the keyboard back to his home on the morrow.
It would be my last night with the klavier; I ought to say goodbye to it like a proper friend.
After the inn had settled down for the evening, I sat down at its bench, feeling both awkward and not. The feel of the wood beneath my thighs was the same as it had always been, yet somehow different, somehow new. I was relearning the instrument, experiencing it with fresh fingers and fresh eyes. I had forgotten how to take it for granted.
Moonlight edged my world in silver, illuminating the yellowed keys of the klavier, turning them a dull gray. I ran my hands over the keyboard, and hesitated, my fingers poised with notes unplayed. A prickle skittered along the side of my neck, invisible spiders crawling up my spine, an unseen breeze stirring my hair against my skin. I shuddered, trying to brush away the cobwebs of doubt. The weight of a promise sat heavy on my breast, hung from a chain about my throat. A wolf’s-head ring. His ring.
I played a few chords, softly, quietly, although I was far enough removed from the rest of the inn in Josef’s old room that the guests would not overhear. I ran through a few scales, warming up my fingers before settling into some exercises by Clementi. I was avoiding another song, another melody that was fighting its way to the forefront of my mind.
The longer I played, the easier it began to feel. There were no ghosts in my home, no regrets or longing made flesh. But it wasn’t only my mind that carried memories; it was my muscles, my fingers, my heart. Slowly, but surely, the music began to change.
The Wedding Night Sonata.
No. I wrenched my thoughts away from the past and toward the future, my brother, Vienna.
Vienna. Where one could attend a concert of the newest symphony by Haydn, see the latest play by Schikaneder at the Theatre auf der Wieden, or mingle with the greatest minds of our generation in a myriad of coffeehouses and salons. Vienna, where artists and philosophers flooded the streets, conversation flowing like wine. Vienna, where there were no sacred spaces, no places where the worlds above and below existed together.
Where Josef was free.
Where I might be free.
I clenched my fists, wringing sour notes from the klavier. No. I will not. I would not.
Yet like a boat borne backward along the current, I found myself sinking back into the music. My music. In my memory and in my mind, a violin began to play the second movement, the adagio. I closed my eyes and let myself be swept out to sea.
I let myself drown.
Elisabeth.
Images rose up behind my closed lids. Long, elegant fingers across the neck of a violin, the smooth motion of a bowing arm, the rise and fall of a body in thrall to a musical tide.
I played.
Working on the sonata was as easy and as difficult as falling asleep. My body instinctively knew how, even if my mind had forgotten. My fingers found their places on the keyboard, occasionally forging new paths, new combinations. Composing was the process of working through an idea, the gathering of snippets of melody, of sound, of rhythm, of harmony. The refinement of phrases, counterpoint, and supporting lines. Drafts upon drafts upon drafts until a theme emerged, a story, a resolution.
I did not have a resolution.
Elisabeth.
A weight settled onto the bench beside me. The scent of pine and deep woods filled the room, tinged with the edges of ice and winter, though the spring rains had already begun outside. My breathing grew shallow and quick as I tried to silence the thudding of my racing heart.
Elisabeth.
A cool breeze, the barest breath, a whisper against my ear. The Goblin King had always called me Elisabeth.
“Be, thou, with me,” I whispered to the listening dark.
My skin tingled as a tender touch brushed the hair from my face, the softest press of lips against my cheek. My hand flew up to my face, as though my fingers could capture his kiss in my grasp.
“Mein Herr,” I said, voice trembling. “Oh, mein Herr.”
There was no answer.
I wished I had a name to call him. You cannot love a man with no name, he had said. He had thought he was doing me a kindness. The man he had been was nothing more than a shadow now, his name irrelevant, lost to the old laws as the price he paid to become Der Erlkönig. But it was not a kindness. It was cruelty—cruel to be here in the world above, alone, alive, and apart, our story abandoned.
“Please,” I said hoarsely. “Be, thou, with me. Please.”
A sharp intake of breath. A gasp of pain. The weight on the bench beside me shifted, and I waited for the feel of the Goblin King’s arms around me once more.
But when I opened my eyes, the room was empty.
It was always empty.
I buried my face in my hands, and cried.
A soft, shushing sound, the sound of branches rubbing together in a winter wind filled my ears. I thought of Twig and Thistle, my goblin handmaidens, of their long, crackling fingertips brushing against their dry, scaly palms. Goblin applause.
I rose to my feet. “Hullo? Is anyone there?”
Silence answered, but it was not an empty quiet, not as it had been before. I fumbled my way across the room, thrusting my hands out before me. Grotesque, otherworldly creatures resolved themselves into drapes, chairs, and other mundane, everyday objects.
I was alone.
And yet.
I should sleep. Fatigue wore down my defenses like a rising tide against a dike, leaving me vulnerable to the vortex at the heart of me. I undressed down to my chemise and quickly climbed into bed, shivering against the night.
Darkness doused my eyes, but sleep did not come. I reached for its shores, straining and swimming toward slumber, but it remained out of reach. I desperately wanted to rest, to shut my eyes and my mind and my heart.
Don’t think. Feel.
“Oh, mein Herr,” I sighed. “I wish I could. I wish I could.”
As my mind drifted into slumber, I felt the weight of a name upon my heart. I wrapped my hand around his ring at my throat and tried to wake up, tried to remember, but it was gone before the dreams came.