I could feel the press of fury and frustration building behind my eyes, a growing headache. I was tired of keeping a tight rein on the feral beast I was inside, and I was tempted to let go, to unleash the wolves and hounds of mania and recklessness upon her. I don’t know what it was Nina saw in my expression, but a strange sort of pity crossed her face. Pity was the last emotion I wanted from her, and I felt my gorge rise.
“Come,” she beckoned. “I show you.”
“Unless you can show me my brother, I don’t care,” I snapped. If she did not understand my words, she could at least understand my tone.
“Come,” Nina said again. Her tone was firm, a mother’s voice, and I did not resist.
She led me back into the ballroom, gently picking up the pieces of Josef’s violin that he had thrown to the floor. A part of me—the part not submerged in the depths of my own feelings of self-loathing and despair—mourned the loss of such an instrument. It wasn’t just that it had been a beautiful Del Gésu; it was that it had survived not only years of wear and tear and abuse, but Papa’s constant pawning off to Herr Kassl’s for drinking money. The housekeeper held the neck and the body out to me in separate hands. I shook my head; I did not know if it could be salvaged.
Nina gave me stern look, as though I were being a fool. I resented being treated like a petulant child by a woman I did not know, to whom I was not beholden in any way. I shook my head again, but she harrumphed before taking the neck of the broken violin and gently removing the scroll.
Ornamental scrolls were not common, and the finial of this particular instrument had been carved into the shape of a woman. Nina pressed the finial into my hand, and I wrapped my fingers around the figure. The woman’s face had been carved with her mouth open in perpetual song, but in certain angles she looked as though screaming with joy . . . or terror. I was discovering more and more with each passing day that the line that divided those emotions was honed finer than the keenest razor.
“Thank you,” I whispered. I said it more to send Nina away than from any sense of actual gratitude.
“Is okay?” she repeated.
No, it was not okay. I wasn’t sure if I would ever be okay.
The housekeeper eyed me warily, as though I were a fragile china shepherdess poised on the edge of a shelf. I forced another smile for Nina, and this time, I did not bother to swallow the growl that escaped my throat. She took the hint, and left.
I looked through the broken windows of the ballroom to the world outside. I should have gone after my brother. I should have tried to find him. I should have gone looking until my eyes went dim and my throat went hoarse, for I was afraid. For him, and of him. Of what he would do. To me, but to himself most of all. I should have, I should have, I should have.
But I did not.
Instead I was trapped in the quicksand of my own mind, reliving each and every mistake I had made with Josef. Every misstep revealed another, and another, and another, a long line all the way back to when we were children. I should have protected him from Papa. I should have seen how miserable our expectations made him. I should have brought him home to the Goblin Grove the instant I understood how it was killing him.
I should have told him he was a changeling.
Sooner. Better. At all. The truth of Josef’s nature was not my secret to withhold, and yet I had. I hadn’t wanted to tell him because . . . because deep in my heart, I knew I would lose him. He would hate me for not telling him, and the longer I held on to the truth, the more he would hate me for my selfishness. It no longer became for Josef’s own good that he did not know; it was for my own peace of mind.
Was I worried he would run away to the Underground? Did he even know how? Did I know how? I was overcome with a sudden, fierce, unspecified anger. Toward the Underground. The Goblin King. The strange and queer and uncanny that had dogged me my entire life. If I had just been normal, if I had just been ordinary, none of this would have happened. I wouldn’t be trapped in a house of madmen and dreamers with an unholy host at my back because I wouldn’t be Liesl. I wouldn’t be me.
I wanted to kick and scream. A toddler’s temper tantrum crawled up my throat, and the desire to break and smash and cry made my fingers twitch with pent-up frustration. At times like these, I used to run to the klavier and pound my emotions into the keys, reveling in the cacophony of discord. I used to make noise with intent and purpose, to sound my barbaric and untamed self into the void. More than anything, I wanted that now.
Your music creates a bridge between worlds.
I hadn’t tried since coming to Snovin Hall. To play. To make music. For a while I thought my reticence had been a fear of reprisal, of what my power could do to the fabric of the world. But perhaps my reticence had simply been a matter of reluctance; I had wanted so badly to leave that part of myself behind. The part that had walked the Underground. The part that had married—and loved—the Goblin King. I was so focused on being Elisabeth, alone, I had not thought about what it meant to be Elisabeth, entire.
And that meant embracing my past as well as an uncertain future. I was so determined to not wallow in my misery that I made myself lonely; I pushed away memories and feelings and connections not only to the Goblin King, but myself. I had mourned, but I had not let myself grieve. I had not let myself feel.
Don’t think. Feel.
Determination and drive had returned, and with that came desire. For expression, for fulfillment, for self-destruction. I walked to the virginal in the musicians’ gallery and sat down at its bench. The keys were coated in years—decades, perhaps—of dust, but the strings were still in tune. I pressed my fingers into the notes, wringing chords and phrases from the strings and plucking mechanism. The Wedding Night Sonata had lain unfinished for a long time because I had not known how the story ended. But I realized I had not known how it ended because I had not resolved my own emotions—about my music, about my Goblin King, but about myself most of all.
The Wedding Night Sonata had been about me. My feelings. Rage, anger, frustration, fear had been the first movement. Longing, tenderness, affection, and hope had been the second.
Hatred was the third.
Hatred, and self-loathing.
I knew where to go. I was going to play. I was going to compose. I was going to open my veins and let my music run onto the keys.
I was going to open the veil between worlds.
I should have been afraid. I should have been careful. But I was a Pandora’s box of desperation and recklessness; once opened, I could no longer be closed. I cared about everything and nothing, and I wanted nothing more than oblivion. If drink had been Papa’s vice, then the Goblin King and the Underground was mine.
I waited for the ghostly wail of his violin.
I did not wait long.