The Autumn Castle

by Kim Wilkins

  “Awful?”

  “And wonderful,” she added. “So full of wonders.”

  “You will see it firsthand, the first of the royal family in over a dozen years to—”

  Her eyes flicked open and she held up a finger to caution him. “I will not do anything I don’t want to do. I am the queen.”

  “But Little May,” he said—he always called her by this pet name when she reminded him of her status—“what about Christine? You want to see her again, do you not?”

  “Yes, but . . . I know nothing about her. She may be a murderer.”

  “A murderer?” He cawed a laugh.

  “She may be a villain of some sort. Just because she was a sweet child does not mean she has grown into a kind woman.” Eisengrimm stared at her, his bland crow face unreadable. “Change out of Crow. I can’t stand it when you look at me like that.”

  He transformed to Fox—her favorite—and approached, ducking his head for an ear rub. “You are making an excuse, and a poor one,” he said.

  “What if I am? I can do whatever I want—”

  “Yes, yes, I know. You’re the queen.” He sat back and sniffed at the potion in the cup. “How could I convince you that Christine is not a villain, that you will be safe if you make a passage to see her?”

  “I know not.”

  “What if I go ahead of you, watch her for a few days? I’ll see where she lives, what she does, and who she knows.”

  Mayfridh felt her resolve shift again. “Would you?”

  “Of course I would.”

  “But I could still make up my mind afterwards? I could still decide not to go?”

  “Of course.” He met her gaze steadily. “But, Mayfridh, don’t leave it too long. You only have until the end of the season.”

  “I know.”

  With his nose, Eisengrimm tipped over the cup so it spilled out on the table. Mayfridh watched as he lapped up the spell, then lay forward on his paws with his eyes shut. His tail twitched a few times, but then he opened his eyes. “I am ready.”

  “How will you go?”

  “As Crow.”

  “Open your wings.”

  He transformed and spread his shining wings. Mayfridh carefully picked up the two remaining spells, and tucked one under each wing. The golden light disappeared among the black feathers.

  “Be safe, my friend,” she said, and the memory of the last time she had seen her faery parents came back to her. We’re going to the opera. We’ll be back before midnight. “Please be very safe, Eisengrimm.”

  “Mayfridh, the Real World is not so dangerous as you think it is.”

  “I trust that you are right.” She touched his feathered head gently. “Return to me soon.”

  Christine saw the crow as soon as she emerged from the front entrance of the bookshop. It was perched on the hood of a silver Opel parked nearby. When she approached, the bird took to the sky. She paused and watched it for a moment. It’s just a crow. A breeze swept up the street, making red-stained maple leaves swirl around her and then settle on windshields and in gutters. Her heart beat an intense rhythm. Just a crow. It disappeared out of sight over the top of the shops opposite.

  She started walking toward Zoo Station. At the entrance to Uhlandstrasse U-bahn, she hesitated, and considered going underground. At least there would be no crows down there. Then she reminded herself that crows were common city birds, that they had nothing to do with her stupid dream, and that four steps down toward the platform her nerves would all be singing out of tune.

  Among the crowds of people near Zoo Station she felt safe. She checked up and around her. A few pigeons; no crows. She found the platform and a half-second later, her train slid into the station.

  She watched out the window. A flash of black at Tiergarten could have been anything, not necessarily wings. Nothing at Bellevue. Really, this was ridiculous, to get so concerned about a crow. She had probably seen a hundred of them since she arrived in Berlin, and just hadn’t noticed before. Buskers got on at Lehrter Stadtbahnhof and played an enthusiastic rendition of “She Loves You.” Everyone ignored them, and they disembarked before her at Friedrichstrasse. Christine realized her eyes were darting everywhere, looking for the bird. But there were no birds. There were buildings and bridges and banks and brisk autumn breezes, but nothing else beginning with “b.” She turned into Vogelwald-Allee, looked up, and saw a crow sitting on the turret of Hotel Mandy-Z.

  “Leave me alone,” she called out to it, fumbling for her key.

  At that moment, the front door opened and Mandy stepped out. “Good evening, Christine.”

  “Hi, Mandy.”

  “Did I hear you talking to somebody?”

  The crow fluttered down and came to rest on a first-floor windowsill. Mandy must have seen Christine flinch, because he asked, “Were you talking to the crow?”

  “Yeah,” she said, trying to laugh at herself. “I’d swear he’s followed me home.”

  Mandy eyed the crow. “From Charlottenburg? No, I’m sure he hasn’t. Perhaps you saw his twin earlier. They all look the same, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Although they can probably tell each other apart.” He turned his attention to Christine again. “I’ve been meaning to ask you. Have you been out of the city at all since you arrived? A day trip? A weekend in the country?”

  She shook her head, wondering where this line of questioning was heading. “No.”

  “Really?”

  “Why do you ask?” An indistinct sensation of uneasiness crept up her spine. She had been on a day trip all right; all the way to faeryland and back. Had he overheard her talking to Jude? But no, she’d barely told Jude anything about the dream.

  “The other night at dinner you seemed remarkably . . . refreshed.”

  “Probably had something to do with lying flat on my back for nearly a week.” Crows, faeryland, Mandy. She just wanted to get inside, take a warm shower, and crash in front of the television all night. “Do I still seem ‘refreshed’ now?”

  “No. Sorry for my bluntness. You now seem just as you were when first I met you.” He smiled, revealing those tiny teeth, not much bigger than milk teeth. “You must think me odd, Christine.”

  Hell, yes. “No. I’m used to artists. Four years with Jude, you know.”

  He patted her shoulder. “I’ll leave you to go inside out of the cold. Look, your crow has decided you’re home safely and you no longer need his guardianship.” He pointed up at the sky, and Christine saw the black outline of the bird against the gray clouds. A sudden twinge of memory snapped into her mind.

  “Oh,” she gasped.

  “Christine?”

  “Nothing,” she said, forcing a smile. “Good night.”

  He buttoned his coat and trudged down the street. She watched the crow as it disappeared into the distance, and finally she remembered why those black wings had been plaguing her memory for weeks—and why they horrified her so much.

  Mayfridh sat in the spell chamber, a bowl of water resting on the table in front of her. She tried to breathe very softly so the water would remain undisturbed. In the bowl, she could see what Eisengrimm could see as he darted around Christine’s corner of the Real World. She had seen busy streets and shiny cars, shops and building sites, and Christine’s home on a leafy street. She had even seen the man she assumed was Christine’s beloved, a large black-haired fellow who had touched her shoulder very gently and carefully. He was rather an ugly man, but Christine was a plain little thing and couldn’t expect much better.

  Mayfridh sighed and leaned forward, sending ripples swelling out across the surface of the water. Plain little Christine had a lover and Mayfridh didn’t and never had. She had not yet met a man whom she could imagine spending more than a few minutes with, let alone a lifetime. Eisengrimm had caused a number of men—handsome, powerful, strong—to be brought to the castle for her review, but none of them had appealed to her. Love was such a complicated function. How was it possi
ble that anyone ever found love when it was dependent on so many mutual perfections?

  Oh, but she was lonely.

  She closed her eyes and let herself imagine visiting with Christine in the Real World. They would reminisce about their shared childhood, they would talk about love; perhaps Christine would introduce her to her other friends and the black-haired man. Leaves were falling every moment and the Autumn Castle would have to be left behind, and then she would forget Christine again. She would be friendless and alone once more.

  “I will go, then,” she whispered, watching her breath dance on the water. “Come what may, I will go.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I thought you had a morning off.” “I do.” Christine turned from the dresser and smiled at Jude, who had just woken up.

  “Then stay in bed. Sleep in, with me.” He patted the mattress.

  She turned and resumed dressing. “No. I’m going out to Zehlendorf.”

  “What’s at Zehlendorf?” Then before she could answer, he said, “Oh, your old house.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Do you want me to come?”

  She buttoned up her blouse. “If you like. I’m going on the bus though. There are tunnels on the train line.”

  “Would you prefer me to be there with you?”

  She shrugged. “It might be nice.”

  “You’re not going to knock on the door or anything?”

  She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on her jeans. “No, I don’t know the new owners.”

  “Then why—?”

  “I just want to see it again. I want to collect my thoughts and put the past behind me.” Where it belonged, instead of turning up in wild hallucinations.

  “Okay then, I’ll come.”

  “Then hurry. I’m catching the ten o’clock bus from Zoo.”

  The sky was dark and heavy outside and Jude muttered about forgetting his umbrella. The bus dropped them off on a busy suburban street lined with bakeries and parks. Christine looked around for remembered landmarks.

  “That church was there,” she said. “My street is behind it.”

  “It’s pretty here,” Jude said, following her.

  “Yeah, it always was.” She took him down a narrow side street. The road was cobbled and the gutters filled with leaves. “We were only here for just over a year. From ’77 to ’78.” She smiled at him. “David Bowie came over once. I sat on his lap.”

  “Was he a friend of your parents?”

  “Um . . . yeah. They kind of knew everyone.” She paused on the corner. A dark blue Mercedes swept past. “This is the street.”

  “Come on then. What are we waiting for?”

  “Good question.” What was she afraid of? The whole point of coming here was to sort out the memory of the crow once and for all. “Jude, do you believe that some things are so disturbing that you can bury them under deep layers and forget them?”

  “Of course. Psychiatrists make their living out of stuff like that. Why, is there something really disturbing on this street?”

  She shook her head. “Not really. I mean . . . I was six . . . seven. Some things get into your imagination and run wild.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Come on,” she said, grabbing his hand and leading him across the road. “I’ll show you.”

  Christine recognized all the houses. Their high-peaked roofs and painted shutters had barely changed in twenty-five years. There were more trees than she remembered, more traffic noise in the distance, and lots of cars parked in the street. “That one was my house,” she said, pointing out a painted white house with a cobbled path and tidy gardens. “That one was the Friths’.” This house was the worse for wear, with an overgrown garden and peeling shutters. “And that window up there . . .” She pointed to the window directly under the gable, and found she couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “What is it?” Jude asked. A drizzle had started to descend.

  “That’s where it happened.”

  “What happened?”

  Christine found it hard to begin. Now she had remembered everything, she was experiencing all the childish fear and sadness again. “May and I had declared each other blood sisters the day before. My thumb was still hurting when I turned up at her place early the next morning. I crashed in as I always did and Mrs. Frith said that May wasn’t awake yet, but that I could go up and wake her. It was a Saturday. I raced up the stairs, I had a new book to show her I think . . . or a record to play her. My parents were always bringing home records, strange experimental music, but May and I didn’t care what it sounded like. We just loved new records, poring over the covers and the inside sleeves and . . . Sorry, I’m rambling.”

  “It’s okay, babe.”

  “So, I knocked gently on her bedroom door and called out to her, then went into her room. She had a fabulous room. She was really spoiled and her mother had spent so much time painting her bedroom all these wild colors and with scenes from faery tales on the ceiling and . . . anyway, I went in and approached May’s bed. But May wasn’t in the bed. There was something else underneath the covers.”

  “What was it?”

  “I called out for May, and I stepped closer to the bed, peering at it. A lump under the blankets moved, too small to be May. I must have held my breath a full minute, staring at it, wondering if I’d imagined it moving. Then it stirred again. I reached out and flicked back the covers, and a huge, black crow was sitting there looking at me. I shrieked and stumbled back. The crow spread its wings and cawed, that awful noise they make . . . I swear it pierced my eardrums. Then it darted up, into my face, like it wanted to steal my eyes. I screamed again, covering my face. When I looked, the crow had taken off out the window. That’s when I noticed it was open. May never slept with the window open. Her mother had a weird phobia about it.

  “Her parents burst in then, all panicked and angry with me for screaming. Then her mother said, ‘Where’s May?’ and I said I didn’t know, but there had been a crow in her bed.”

  “That was the day she disappeared?” Jude asked.

  Christine nodded. “Yep. The police arrived, like, nine minutes later. I’d been sent home, but the police came to speak to me. Dad had to translate everything for me, I was too upset to remember any German except ‘krähe’—crow.”

  “Did they figure out what the crow was doing there?”

  Christine gazed up at the window. It was firmly shut against the October drizzle. “No,” she said, “because they didn’t believe me. I was too little, I wasn’t a reliable witness. Everybody thought I’d made it up. At least, everybody except Mrs. Frith.” She pointed at the Friths’ house. “She turned up one day, about two weeks after May had gone missing. My parents were reluctant to let me talk to her. The poor woman was nearly insane with grief and anxiety. She smelled terrible, like she hadn’t bathed since it happened. She kept demanding to know . . .” She trailed off into a long silence.

  “What?”

  “It’s crazy, Jude.”

  “Go on.”

  “She kept demanding to know what the crow had said to me. It was terrifying and it sowed a seed in some dark corner of my mind.”

  “What it said to you?”

  “Yeah. Oh, Jude. If you knew what a relief it is to me to remember all this. It’s all been barricaded back there in my head, making me feel weird feelings and dream strange dreams. You know, I got spooked when I saw a crow the other day. I thought it had followed me home.” Finally she could laugh at herself. “God, I even told Mandy that it had followed me home.”

  Jude slipped an arm around her and gave her an affectionate squeeze. “Ah, don’t worry, nobody’s crazier than Mandy.”

  Christine sighed, gazing at her childhood home. “You know, I’d hardly even thought about Little May all this time.”

  “You’ve been on the other side of the world, you’ve been living your life. Being here in Berlin has made you remember things, that’s all.”

  “I guess you’re ri
ght. There are lots of memories for me here.” She imagined knocking on the door of her old home, and finding her parents inside, safe and happy and enjoying their retirement. The impossible thought brought fresh tears to her eyes. It was so damn unfair. She sank into Jude’s side and he pressed her against him.

  “What’s wrong, Christine?”

  “I miss them.”

  “I know.”

  “Sorry for being all emotional.”

  “It’s okay.” He stroked her hair. “It’s okay, you’re allowed to be emotional.”

  “You’re all I’ve got, Jude. Without you, I’d have nothing.”

  She felt his chest stiffen momentarily, as though he were clutching his breath against some burden, and then relax. “What’s wrong?” she asked, standing back.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” he said, looking puzzled. “Why do you ask?”

  “I thought . . .” Maybe she’d imagined that moment of caught breath, and everything it might have signified.

  “Look, we’re getting wet,” Jude said gently. “Do you mind if we go find a cafe somewhere?”

  “Sure. Okay, sure.” They headed back the way they had come through the misting drizzle. And even though her fingers were growing cold in the autumn chill, Christine tried not to clutch Jude’s hand too tightly.

  Mayfridh couldn’t remember being more frightened in her life. “You there, pack my warm cloak. And you, find that gold pin I wore on my birthday.” She heard her own voice shake as she ordered three servants about—she had forgotten their names, she always forgot their names—while they packed a trunk for her to take with her.

  “Could I advise, Queen Mayfridh, that you don’t take such a big trunk with you?” This was Eisengrimm, as Wolf, lying amongst the rumpled white bedcovers with his face resting on his front paws.

  “What do you mean?” she demanded. Eisengrimm could be infuriatingly calm in the most hectic of circumstances.

  “You can come back for clothes. You can make the passage back at any time. And besides, you know that your clothes don’t look like Real World clothes. You’ll want to go shopping as soon as you get there.”