Shadowsong

by S. Jae-Jones

  There was the slightest pause in the constant hum of conversation, a breath, a beat, when we entered. A myriad eyes turned their gazes upon us, and an icy-hot sensation prickled over my skin. So many faces, so many people, so many expectations. I began shaking, dropping François’s arm and trying my best to fade into the shadows. It was only then that I noticed that the guests weren’t staring at me; they were staring at François. The darkness of his skin against the stark white of his costume. The contrast of my arm upon his. Whispers rippled in our wake as we made our way across the ballroom. Guilt crawled up from my stomach, and I felt as though I were going to be sick.

  “Oh, François,” Käthe said, loud enough to be clearly heard by all those in attendance. “I do hope you reserve a dance for me.”

  The murmurs stopped. Käthe smiled, her sunshine curls twisted into devil horns gleaming a burnished gold in the candlelight. She was the most beautiful girl in the room, and her beauty cast a halo as much as the glow of flame about her head. Her hand was held out to François, a queen of the night extending an alliance to a prince of the sun.

  He did not flinch or falter. Bowing deeply, he took her hand. “I would be honored, mademoiselle.”

  The two of them beamed at each other, their grins grimaces in disguise, teeth bared at the room at large. Käthe and François both glanced sidelong at me, concern and a question writ upon their brows. I nodded at them both, and they swept onto the floor, joining the other couples in a lively quadrille. Black and white skirts swirled over black and white marble tiles arranged in a checkered pattern, and I retreated to the edges of the room, dizzy with nervous lightheadedness. I needed a drink. I needed air.

  I left the dance floor, looking for a place to gather and compose myself. I wandered from room to room in the eccentric and fantastic house of my mysterious benefactor, but everywhere I stepped and everywhere I went was another person, another crowd, another stranger. Banquet tables were laden with food and ice sculptures carved into fantastic shapes—winged beings and horned creatures melting into water. At the center of a room was an automaton, a silver swan that “swam” in a silver stream teeming with fish. It moved its neck and caught one of the fish jumping from the water to the delighted gasps of its audience. The swan did not move with the herky-jerky motion of other automata I had seen displayed in great houses throughout the city, and its incredible, lifelike movements reminded me a little of Constanze’s stories of goblin-made wonders. Magical armor, exquisite metalwork and artistry, jewels possessed of a blessing or a curse, wars had been fought, blood had been shed, and an incalculable amount of money had been spent for the privilege of owning a single one of these treasures. I wondered how much this silver swan cost.

  The oddities did not end there. This unexpected house was full of such unexpected trinkets. In one corner, a pair of silver hands pouring an endless stream of champagne into an endless flute. In another, a pair of whimsical bronze sculptures without form or meaning . . . until one passed them just so and realized the emptiness between them created a screaming face. I threaded my way in and out of these rooms, past bright young things and respectable elders resting their feet and working their lips, looking for peace, looking for calm.

  But there was none to be had. Gossip and speculation filled the space like the buzz of insect wings, rising along with smoke from candles and powder from wigs. The scent of sweat and perfume lay heavy on the air, coating the back of my throat with a warm, moist slickness. Heat rose in waves from damp necks and heaving bosoms, the musty musk of human flesh, close and choking. I thought I caught a glimpse of black, beetle-carapace eyes and twig-like fingers out of the corner of my eye, but it was only the shiny jet buttons of a man’s waistcoat and the spidery embroidery of a woman’s bodice. The sick feeling rose up again, stronger than ever.

  “Looking for someone, child?” said a rich, melodious voice.

  I turned to find a tall woman dressed as a winter spirit. She was dressed in all white, her gown cunningly worked with beads to mimic the glitter of falling snow. She carried a spindle in one hand and wore the withered mask of an old woman, which sat strangely atop her long, swanlike neck. The only thing marring this vision in white and silver was the scarlet poppy pinned to her bodice, a drop of blood in the snow.

  “N-no,” I stammered. “I mean yes, I mean, no, I think my brother might have—” My words tumbled over themselves before I could catch them, spilling out ahead of my racing mind. The sounds of the house seemed garbled, muffled, the music from the other room warped and twisted beyond recognition, as though heard underwater. My vision wavered and narrowed, tunneling down so that near seemed far and far seemed near.

  “Here.” The woman flagged down a passing server and took two glasses filled with a rich, ruby red wine. “Have a drink, my dear. It will calm your nerves.” She handed me the drink.

  Through the haze of my whirling thoughts, I remembered that I wasn’t much for spirits or wine of any kind anymore. I couldn’t help but remember the last time I had been at a ball such as this, the last time I had drunk from a goblet handed to me by a mysterious stranger. The same uncertainty, the same precarious feeling of unbalance between unease and excitement overcame me, but out of politeness, I accepted the drink. I gingerly took a sip, trying not to grimace at the unexpected flowery aftertaste. To my surprise, the drink did soothe me, the liquor a balm to my raw and exposed nerves.

  “Thank you,” I said, dribbling a bit. I sheepishly wiped at my mouth. “Beg pardon, ma’am.”

  The woman laughed. “It is an acquired taste.” Her eyes through the mask were a pale grass green, startlingly vivid in this color-starved room. “Is this your first ball here?”

  I gave a self-conscious laugh. “Is it so very obvious?”

  She only gave me an enigmatic smile in response. “And how are you enjoying yourself, my dear?”

  “A little overwhelmed,” I admitted. “I was looking for a place to catch my breath. Get some air.”

  The winter woman smoothed a stray bit of hair behind my ear and my hand flew up to catch the wilting poppy still tucked there. It was an uncomfortably intimate gesture from someone I did not know, and the queasy feeling arose again. Glancing about the room, I noticed that all those in attendance—save François, Käthe, and Josef—wore a scarlet bloom pinned to their costumes.

  “Are you sure? It’s quite chilly outside,” she said. “I can escort you to one of the private rooms upstairs if you need a moment to yourself.”

  “Oh no, I couldn’t possibly,” I said, my cheeks flushing. “I—I think I’m overheated. Perhaps a walk outside will do me some good.”

  Those extraordinary green eyes regarded me thoughtfully. “The Count and Countess have a hedge maze in their gardens if you would like to wander.”

  “Oh yes, please,” I said.

  She nodded. “Follow me.”

  I handed my goblet to a waiting server before turning to follow the woman in white through the rooms and corridors to the gardens. She walked with a limp, a clubbed foot peeking out from behind the hem of her skirts as we made our way outside. I knew exactly what her costume was meant to portray. Frau Perchta of the swan-foot, the Christmas spirit who made sure we had spun our allotted amount of flax the previous year. But Christmas was long past and we were nearly to spring with the start of the Lenten season tomorrow. An odd choice.

  We arrived at a set of glass doors in an empty room that led onto a terrace. “The gardens need tending,” she said, a bit apologetically. “They’ve grown a bit unruly. Unsightly.”

  “I’m not afraid of ugliness,” I said. “I rather enjoy a little bit of wildness.”

  Those green eyes studied my face, as though searching for an answer to a question she had not yet asked. “Yes,” she said, placing a hand upon my cheek. “There is the air of the uncanny about you.”

  I coughed, opening the door and stepping out onto the terrace to further avoid her touch.

  “Don’t tarry too long, Elisabeth,” she warned
. “The night is long, and it is not yet spring.”

  Elisabeth. The hairs rose all along my arms. “How did you know—”

  But the woman was already gone, the doors closed behind her. A shining, unbroken line of white lined the terrace, gleaming faintly in the moonlight. I swallowed hard, then stepped over the salt and into the darkness beyond.

  THE LABYRINTH

  i was not alone.

  A handful of guests were also gathered outside, clustered in dribs and drabs around torches planted in intervals about the gardens. A few gentlemen were smoking pipes while their female companions fanned at the blue haze gathering about their faces, huddled close for warmth. Although the days in Vienna had grown almost warm, the nights still nipped at any bits of uncovered flesh like spiteful icy sprites. The cold air felt good against my flushed cheeks, but I wished I had brought my cloak.

  Low laughter and soft murmurs rose in conversation as I descended from the terrace to the gardens, a persistent yet inescapable buzz that followed me like a swarm of flies. I resisted the urge to swat at the words catching at my ears.

  “Have you heard about poor old Karl Rothbart?” I overheard one of the women say.

  “No!” one of the men exclaimed. “Do tell.”

  “Dead,” the woman replied. “Found in his workshop, lips blue with cold . . .”

  Their voices faded away as I pressed myself farther and farther into the garden’s murky retreat, searching for the entrance to the hedge maze. For all that I could not bear my own silence, I wanted the voices of the world around me to disappear. Solitude was different from loneliness, and it was solitude I was seeking.

  At last I came upon the hedge maze. Far from the warm circles of light cast by torch and lamp, the leaves and twigs here were edged in a silver lacework of starlight and shadow. The entrance was framed by two large trees, their branches still bare of any new growth. In the darkness, they seemed less like garden posts marking the way into the labyrinth than two silent sentinels guarding the doorway to the underworld. Shapes writhed in the shadows beyond the archway of bramble and vine, both inviting and intimidating.

  Yet I was not frightened. The hedge maze smelled like the forest outside the inn, a deep green scent of growth and decay, where life and death were intermingled. A familiar scent. A welcoming scent. The scent of home. Removing my mask, I crossed the threshold, letting darkness swallow me whole.

  There were no torches or candles lit upon the paths, and neither moonlight nor starlight penetrated the dense bramble. Yet my footing along these paths was sure, every part of me attuned to the wildness around me. Unlike the maze at Schönbrunn Palace, a meticulously manicured and man-made construction, this labyrinth breathed. Nature creeped in along the edges, reclaiming groomed, orderly, and civilized corridors into a twisting tangle of tunnels and tracks, weeds and wildflowers. Paths grew vague, roots unruly, branches untamed. Somewhere deep in the labyrinth, I could hear the giggles and gasps of illicit encounters in the shrubbery. I was careful of my step, lest I trip over a pair of trysting lovers, but when I came upon no one else, I let myself fall into a meditative state of mind. I wandered the recursive spirals of the hedge maze, turn after turn after turn, feeling a measure of calm for the first time in a long time.

  Somewhere at the heart of the labyrinth, a violin began to play.

  It was as though some part of me that had been asleep was waking up after a deep slumber. Every part of me opened and unfurled toward the sound, my eyes clear, my ears alert. The thin, high wail of the instrument’s voice seemed distant, yet each note was as clear as a dewdrop, the sound surrounding me from every direction: from north, south, east, west, up, down, behind.

  “Josef?” I called.

  I had not seen my brother since he vanished into the crowd earlier that night; he had not been on the dance floor, nor in any of the other rooms I had seen in my efforts to find a way out. I imagined he felt as out of depth as I had and had run to the first place that had felt comfortable, safe. The hedge maze possessed a waiting quality that reminded me of the Goblin Grove, an in-betweenness that reminded me of the long-forgotten sacred spaces of the world.

  A swift breeze rustled the twigs and branches around me, raising the hairs at the back of my neck. The night grew even colder, and I wrapped my arms about me for warmth. There was a strange, metallic smell like the air before a thunderstorm, although the wind that knifed through my flimsy gown was keen-edged and bitter. Dead leaves skittered about me like rats through walls, and the darkness deepened as clouds raced across the face of the moon.

  I reminded myself that I was not alone in the labyrinth, that somewhere beyond these bushes was a pair of lovers enjoying the salt-sweat of each other’s company.

  As I continued on, the voice of the violin changed. It grew deeper, weightier, the sound rich with emotion and resonant with feeling. This was not my brother’s playing. The lightness, the transcendence, the ethereality that characterized his performance was missing. It was another musician.

  And then I recognized the piece.

  The Wedding Night Sonata.

  My teeth chattered and I began to shiver uncontrollably. Fear and frost froze my blood. How could this be? I had never properly shared this piece of music with my brother; the letters containing drafts I had sent him had vanished, unread, into the Count’s clutches. To my knowledge, he had never even heard the piece, for although his ear and his memory were good, not even Josef could recall in perfect detail every note, every pause, every phrase. There was only one other person who knew the Wedding Night Sonata.

  “M-mein Herr?”

  It could not be. It shouldn’t be. There was no crossing the veil, no breaking the barrier between worlds. What could this possibly mean? The skittering around me escalated into a frenzy of scratching. It no longer sounded like leaves skipping across still-frozen ground, but fingernails—claws—scraping over stone.

  Mistress.

  I startled and glanced over my shoulder. I could make out no familiar shapes in the darkness of the hedge maze corridors. No human shapes. Branches and brambles reached for me with grasping hands as I passed, bursting forth from the walls like sudden shoots and saplings. Stone urns and marble benches warped and shifted into leering gargoyles, and I tried not to look at them, tried not to imagine beetle-black eyes and cobweb hair.

  Your Highness.

  It was but the whispering wind. The same wind that brought with it an unseasonably wintry chill, the scent of ice, of pine, of deep waters, and underground caverns. It was a memory, a ghost, my longing made manifest, not my mind gone awry. But as the underbrush shivered and danced, it unfolded itself into the shape of a girl.

  “No,” I said hoarsely.

  A face grew from the ragged leaves, a long nose, pointy chin, narrow cheeks. It was a familiar face, a face I had thought I would never see again.

  “Twig?” I breathed.

  The goblin girl nodded, dipping her branch-and-cobweb-laden head at me in acknowledgment. In respect. Spots of granite dotted her green-brown arms like bruises, patches of stone crawling up the side of her face like a disease. She scratched at the patches as though they pained her, and she looked as though she were in agony. The only time I had ever seen Twig turn into stone was when she had violated one of the old laws to tell me what had happened to the first Goblin Queen. My heart twinged with pity—pity and fear and longing—and I reached for her, hands trembling.

  My goblin girl held out her hands to me in turn, but our fingers passed through the other’s like smoke. Her lips moved but no sound emerged but the sighing of the mistral breeze.

  “Twig?” I rasped. “Twig? What is it?”

  She opened her mouth to speak, then choked, the patches of stone on her skin seeming to writhe and grow.

  “Twig!”

  The covenant is undone. There was terror in her depthless black eyes, the first human emotion I had ever seen on a goblin’s face. It is corrupting us. Corrupting him.

  Him. The Goblin Kin
g. My austere young man.

  “Twig!” I grabbed her hand, but got nothing but a fistful of thorns. “Twig!”

  Save us. Twig cried out in silent anguish, her body cracking, popping, snapping in unnatural ways as she resisted crumpling back into bush and brush. Save him.

  “How?” I cried over the screaming wind. “Tell me!”

  My goblin girl’s eyes rolled back in her head as vines burst from the ground, crisscrossing her body like chains around a prisoner. With tremendous effort, she lifted a hand and pointed a many-jointed finger at my feet.

  The . . . poppies . . .

  Looking down, I saw that I was standing in a river of red, a trail of blood leading away from me like a guided path of scarlet petals.

  “Twig?”

  Nothing remained but stars, winking at me through bramble branches. I thought I could hear the rumble of thunder in the distance, a gale howling just beyond the edges of the hedge maze. Hoofbeats and the baying of hounds in a hunt. The Wild Hunt.

  The old laws made flesh: given steel and teeth and hounds to reap what they are owed.

  Heart hammering, I raced along the path of poppies, trying to outrun and outpace the clang and the bang of alarm bells ringing in my mind. Behind me, I thought I could hear heavy breathing, the thudding footfalls of a pursuer. Turn after turn after turn, until I lost sight of the flowers and understood too late that I had become lost in the labyrinth.

  And still the violin played on.

  I pressed a hand to my breast, trying to catch my breath. A name came to my lips—Josef? Käthe? François?—but who would find me here, alone and anonymous? I thought of the Goblin King, and the burn in my chest intensified to a soul-deep ache.

  The bushes rustled behind me. I turned to look, and gasped.

  Looming in the shadows was a figure, skin night-black and eyes moon pale. Fingers broken and gnarled like desiccated vines curled around the neck of a violin, the resin cracked and peeled with age. A crown of horns grew from a nest of cobwebs and thistledown, but the face that stared back at me was human. Familiar.