“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 Sch?nbrunn 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.