The Autumn Castle

by Kim Wilkins

  That thought was both comforting and frightening. “I should be with you. If you find her, I should be there to talk to her.”

  “No. No point in both of us being put under some horrible spell.” He squeezed her against him as they approached the road. “Promise that if a lonely little frog comes knocking at the door, you’ll take him in and treat him well? Just in case it’s me?”

  Christine managed to smile. “Don’t joke, Jude.”

  “I’ll be careful. Let’s catch a taxi home.”

  Sitting in the back of the warm, quiet taxi, Christine’s mind still raced and her pulse still hammered. She didn’t see how she could ever sleep. But a short time later, lying in bed next to Jude, the weariness began to override the worry. She dozed and woke, dozed and woke until dawn’s gray light began to seep into the room. It was only then that she noticed Jude wide awake next to her, staring at the ceiling. She considered him through half-closed lids, then turned over to let sleep come again. But not before she had seen such a look of horror on his face that it made her heart chill. He was worried about Mayfridh; desperately worried. All that talk in the past of Mayfridh being able to look after herself, his descriptions of her as irrational and spoiled, clearly had been a feigned nonchalance. Jude was worried like a man in love.

  Christine thought she knew, now, why Jude had wanted to leave Berlin in such a hurry. Perhaps even why he had proposed to her so hastily. Those red and fuchsia brushstrokes may have been dutifully painted out, but they were still under there somewhere. Strong and bright as ever.

  Mandy took the long walk down to the dungeon with a spring in his step. In his stained sack he had the bones of three faeries. He had stacked them under a tree near the lake, but this morning had found them disturbed and a number of them stolen. Wolves, probably. What dog could resist a bone? So he’d thought long and hard about where to put them, and come up with a solution that was both safe and entertaining. If he piled them outside Mayfridh’s cell door, she’d have to look at them every time she wanted to talk to her crow! What a lovely reminder for her of what she’d be reduced to soon enough. But carefully, with her; in the vat, not this business of hacking flesh from bone. His fingers, usually so careful with his sculptures, were growing careless in his excitement. He had cracked and splintered two bones already. He couldn’t risk that happening with Mayfridh’s, not with all the magic infused into them.

  “Good morning, Queen and Counselor!” he called cheerily as he advanced down the final hallway. No answer. He hadn’t expected one.

  He dropped the sack with a clatter, then began to pile the bones halfway between Mayfridh’s door and Eisengrimm’s. “Are you well, Mayfridh?” he asked.

  Again, no answer. A moment’s panic. Was she still there? One glance into her cell reassured him. She sat against a back corner, disheveled and broken.

  “What’s the matter, Mayfridh? You look terrible.”

  “Leave me be,” she spat in her own guttural language.

  “Is there something wrong?”

  “Let Eisengrimm go.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s injured. He’s no use to you, his bones are too small.”

  “Injured?”

  She choked back a sob. “He might be dead.”

  Fear seized Mandy. If the crow were dead, she’d try to escape. He glanced over his shoulder into the other room. “I’ll check for you,” he said, releasing the rope from the ceiling and pulling it toward him. The cage swung up to the barred window of the cell. Eisengrimm was indeed lying motionless on the bottom of the cage. Mandy slid a finger between the bars and poked the bird. No response. “Well, now, it’s hard to tell. Was that a twitching foot?”

  Mayfridh was at the window to her cell. “Leave him be. Let him go.”

  He was fairly certain Eisengrimm was dead, but didn’t want to let her know that. “I won’t let him go, Mayfridh. He’s my insurance policy.” He peered close. The crow was breathing, shallow and slow, but breathing. “He could very well be alive, you know. It’s difficult to say for sure.” He let the cage swing back into place and replaced the rope on the hook. “You’d better be careful you don’t roast him. Don’t open the door, will you? I’ll stoke this fire up nicely to keep him warm while he recovers.”

  “Is he really alive? Are you lying to me?”

  “I don’t think I’ll tell you.”

  She shook the cell door in frustration. The rope jiggled and the cage swayed.

  He held up a cautionary finger. “Be careful now, Mayfridh. I’m not much of a handyman. That cage could drop at any second if you’re too rough with the door.”

  But now she had caught sight of the bones, piled artistically with the three skulls sitting on top. Her face grew pale.

  “Oh, no . . . who . . . ?”

  “Ah, this is the start of my collection. I hope to add to it before I leave. I can’t tell them apart now, of course. All faeries look the same once you pull their skin off. But one of them is a woman from your kitchen, one a young man named Sig from the outskirts of the village, and the last was a farmer I caught wandering the edges of his field alone, looking for his dog.” He glanced up, a smile on his lips, to see if she was listening. Her knuckles were white around the iron bars, her eyes glassy and frantic.

  “Mandy,” she said, her voice little more than a choked whisper. “Has it grown very much colder outside?”

  Mandy frowned, a finger of fear touching his heart. “Yes, it has. Why?”

  “Has the west wind grown stronger? Are the last leaves being torn down?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “What you’re doing is upsetting the balance of the seasons. Winter is coming early.”

  “Why should I care?”

  “Because when winter comes our world will move; you’ll be trapped here forever. And if you stay, you’ll eventually become one of us. One of the very creatures you loathe so much.”

  “You’d say anything to make me go.”

  “I’m telling the truth.”

  He watched her for a moment, transfixed. Then shook his head and pointed to the pile of bones. “There’s your view. I’ll add to it later today. Enjoy it in the meantime, and careful you don’t cook the bird.” He turned and stalked back up the corridor, angry with her for making him fearful. Carefully, carefully, he checked the long hallway before emerging aboveground, then darted out into the wild garden.

  Mandy turned an eye to the sky. The clouds were slate gray, making the late afternoon prematurely dark. A frosty bite hung on the air. And, in the almost-bare branches, a cruel wintry wind began to play.

  Christine put down Mandy’s notebook memoir on the coffee table and rubbed her eyes. She had read every ghastly word now, and was more frightened for Mayfridh’s safety than before.

  The door to the apartment opened and Jude walked in.

  “Any news?” she asked hopefully. He had been checking with Fabiyan, who still kept a vigil at Mandy’s, hoping for Hexebart’s return.

  Jude shook his head. “She hasn’t been back. No footsteps on the stairs, nothing. Gerda’s nearly out of her mind, convinced she’s going to be spitting worms for the rest of her life.”

  Christine tapped the notebook. “This makes for interesting reading.”

  “I know. I glanced through it.”

  “But you didn’t read it in detail.” She picked up the notebook and flipped it to the last page. “He’s absolutely ghastly.”

  “I believe you, Christine. I don’t want to hear it.”

  “Listen,” she said. “‘Now I know I want Mayfridh’s head. I will use her gleaming skull, and fill it with plaster and—’”

  In three quick steps he was across the room, tearing the notebook from Christine’s hands and slamming it shut. “I said I don’t want to hear it.”

  She’d done it on purpose; she knew she had. She wanted to see how he would react. “Sorry,” she said.

  He handed back the notebook and grabbed his coat off the back of a chair.
/>   “Where are you going?”

  “Back to the park at the bottom of the street.”

  “You’ve already checked there twice.”

  “I’ve just got a feeling Hexebart might show up there.”

  Christine shrugged. “It can’t hurt.”

  He pulled his coat on. “Be careful. If Fabiyan calls, if Hexebart turns up at Mandy’s again, I don’t want you to go anywhere near her. Let Fabiyan deal with it until I get back.”

  “But Jude—”

  “Christine, you’ve suffered enough. I won’t have you suffer more. She could put some awful spell on you.”

  “Or you.”

  “But it’s my job to protect you. Just let me do that, okay?”

  Christine gazed at the cover of the notebook, feeling like a useless, pitiable creature. His job to protect me. As though he were a kindhearted social worker. “Okay, I’ll stay away,” she said.

  He closed the door quietly behind him. She dropped the notebook on the floor next to the sofa and stretched out, closing her eyes. She had slept only a few fitful hours, her mind turning over the problem again and again. They had pinned too many hopes on finding Hexebart. First, Hexebart might not even help. The witch hated her queen: why should she do a single thing to benefit Mayfridh or her friends? Second, and most pressingly, Hexebart had disappeared. She hadn’t returned, there was no trace of her anywhere. So if Hexebart didn’t make another appearance . . .

  Christine sat up, the agitation sparking to life once more in her stomach. She needed to get to Ewigkreis. Even if she had no idea what she’d do when she got there, she needed to go. And if Hexebart wouldn’t help her, and if Mandy had taken her ball of twine, and if only faeries could use the passage that Mayfridh had drawn between their two worlds, what could she do?

  She took a deep, shuddering breath. There was one other method of getting there. She knew this, because it was the method she had used the very first time.

  Pain, extreme pain.

  Her back twinged just thinking about it, and all the nerves in her body resisted the idea. She eyed the edge of the table. It could all go wrong: she wouldn’t hit herself hard enough; she’d flinch at the last moment and cause horrific pain with no passage across to Ewigkreis to relieve it; or she’d misjudge and hit herself at the wrong angle, in the wrong place, causing more damage. Her eyes were drawn to Mandy’s sculptor’s mallet, still resting on the table. Jude could do it. He knew the spot exactly from years of finding it to massage the pain away, and he’d be able to judge the force and distance better than she could. If he’d do it. If she’d let him do it.

  Hexebart was still their best option. Mayfridh had told her about an oath the witch was under. Perhaps that was a bargaining point. Christine pulled herself up off the sofa. She wondered if Fabiyan had had any luck getting past the locked door to the attic. Presumably, if Hexebart could open Mandy’s apartment door, she could open that one too. She might even be up there right now, listening to their conversations and laughing at their distress. Despite Jude’s warnings about approaching Hexebart, Christine knew she was the only person who could deal with the witch.

  Fabiyan looked up as she opened the door to Mandy’s apartment, alarm quickly replaced by relief. “Oh, it’s you,” he said.

  Poor Fabiyan, on witch-duty by himself.

  “Hi. Do you want me to get Pete up here to relieve you for a while?”

  “He takes care of Gerda. It’s better if Jude come and stay with me.”

  “Jude’s gone down to the park to look for her.” She sat down on the sofa, next to him.

  “Again?”

  “Yeah, for some reason he’s convinced that’s where he’ll find her.”

  “I hope he is right. I have never like witches.”

  Christine smiled at him. “You speak as though you’ve always believed in them.”

  “The village where I grew up, many miles outside of Svislach, tells stories about a witch named Chyornaslova.”

  “A local legend?”

  Fabiyan nodded. “She comes to children in the night and leans over them, and if they smell her breath they must pretend to sleep and not open their eyes. If they open their eyes, she says word to them, and that word make them go mad and kill their sisters and brothers and parents.”

  “And do you think she’s real?”

  Fabiyan’s eyes dropped to his lap. “Perhaps,” he said. “When I was ten, I wake up one night because I hear breathing nearby. I keep my eyes closed very tight, afraid of Chyornaslova. I still hope this is only my mother or father. But the person sit very close and still next to bed. She smells different from anyone. She smells stale and old and like onions. Then, I feel her lean on bed, her weight pressing against my chest and her breath hot in my face. I want to scream, or push her away, but I remember the stories and so I pretend I sleep. Not for me is going mad and kill my family. Already, I can see very clearly how I do it. I can take knife from kitchen and I can cut them up and there would be very much blood and screaming. The imagining won’t go away and my heart almost burst of fear.” He shook his head. “After two hours, she finally leave. By the morning, I say myself it is only nightmare.

  “Years later, when I took my own little boy to visit at the village, my mother told him about Chyornaslova and I wished she hadn’t, because he was only five and very fearful. He slept in our bed that night, buried under the covers like frightened little animal. I told him again and again, ‘Evgeny, there’s no such thing like witches.’” Fabiyan paused with a sigh. “I lie to my son. What will I tell him when I go home?”

  Christine touched his shoulder. “You’re very brave and kind to wait up here when you’re afraid.”

  “What else can I do? Mayfridh, she may die.”

  “That’s right.”

  “She is beautiful person.”

  “Easy to fall in love with,” Christine sighed.

  “You are beautiful person too, Christine. I would wait here the same for you.”

  “Thanks, Fabiyan. But right now, I need your help trying to get into that doorway to the attic. I suspect Hexebart might be up there.”

  “I have looked everywhere for key.” He swept his arms around him. “It is nowhere here.”

  “Let’s check the desk upstairs again. We’ll pull out the drawers. Maybe he’s stuck the key to the bottom of one.”

  They ascended to the next floor and emptied Mandy’s desk. Christine shook every book; Fabiyan crawled around on the floor checking underneath drawers and in crevices and crannies. Still no key.

  “Such an important key, maybe he keeps close to his heart. He wants nobody to go up there.” Fabiyan hitched his thumb toward the door. “Christine,” he added quietly, “what is up there?”

  “A vat for boiling flesh off bones. I’ll loan you the notebook to read.”

  “It is in English, I read it only slowly,” he said with a self-conscious laugh.

  She went to the door and peered down the crack between door and jamb, touched the locks as if they could give her any clues. “What a pity we can’t just call the police. We have evidence of multiple murders by Mandy, of a break-in and assault by Hexebart . . .”

  “Faeries and witches. Not so much police business, you would say?”

  Christine laughed. “No, not so much. I’d better get back home. Jude will kill me if he knows I’m up here. I’ll send him up as soon as he gets in, so you don’t have to wait alone.”

  She ran into Jude on the landing. He lowered his brows. “Where have you been?”

  “I dropped in on Fabiyan for a moment.”

  “I thought I told you not to go up there.”

  “Sorry. Any luck in the park?”

  He opened the door to the apartment and shrugged off his coat. “No, nothing. I’ll go back later.”

  “You need to go upstairs and wait with Fabiyan. He’s frightened to death alone up there.”

  “Okay, okay, I will.” He ran his hands through his hair, making it stick up at odd angles.
“Christine, please stay away from the witch if you see her.”

  “Jude, I don’t think we’re going to see the witch. I think she’s avoiding us, or she’s into some other mischief elsewhere. I hate to think what.”

  “But we have to find her. How else can we get to Mayfridh?”

  “I’ve thought of a way.”

  His eyes grew puzzled. “What way?”

  She quickly explained; his expression grew increasingly horrified. “No way, Christine. Not a chance.”

  “But Jude—”

  “I’ve spent the last four years trying to help you with your pain. I’m not going to risk injuring you worse than you are already.”

  “It’s our only hope.”

  “Look, Hexebart was in this building just last night. She’ll be back.”

  “Jude, I really think—”

  “No!” he shouted, and she almost jumped backward from shock. “No, I won’t hurt you.” He turned quickly, embarrassed. “I’m going upstairs. Call me if you need me.”

  She waited in silence while he left, then sank into the sofa. No, I won’t hurt you. Too late for that.

  Knock, knock, there’s someone at the door.

  Hexebart waits for Diana to turn off the vacuum cleaner. It’s a cool, clear morning and Hexebart likes the sun on her back. Footsteps. Then, the door opens.

  “Can I help you?” Diana asks.

  Hexebart smiles. Diana is all unsuspecting and smiles back.

  “Can I help you?” she says again.

  Hexebart thinks for a while, her bony finger poised on her lip. What could she say now that would be the very funniest thing? The very shockingest thing? The very nastiest thing?

  Diana’s smile is beginning to fade and Hexebart must think quickly. “Who are you, and what do you want?” Diana says.

  “I’m Hexebart, and I’d like to eat your toes,” Hexebart says.

  Diana’s face goes pale, her lips pull down, her eyebrows shoot up. Hexebart laughs and pops a spell from between her fingers and Mayfridh’s mother falls to the ground with a thump.