there is no pain, only a sigh of relief. I cut through the cage of bones that surround my candle, and reach inside. The flame is sure and steady, and I hold it aloft, illuminating the space around me.
The cavern is gone, and I am alone. I am back in the hedge maze at Procházka House, but the shrubs are made of memories, the path of poppies. I tread on the souls of the stolen and sacrificed as I walk through the winding paths of my mind. Thoughts burst underfoot like bubbles, leaving bits of feeling in my wake as the flowers sigh their names.
Ludvik
Adelaide
Erik
Samuel
Magda
But as I wend and wind my way through the labyrinth, I realize I am walking in a river of blood, the walls of the Daedalian pathways built of bone. The hedges and bramble vines pulse and throb and breathe, warm and slick to the touch. Like skin. Like flesh.
Ich bin der umgedrehte Mann.
I am the inside-out man.
There is a glow emanating from the center of the labyrinth, and I follow the light, leaving the darkness behind me. As the corridors of the hedge maze open up, I find myself in a space very much like the ballroom at Snovin Hall—a beautiful, soaring cathedral of a space with light and glass and mirrors everywhere. The sunshine and moonlight and star glow of other worlds stream in through the windows, dust motes hanging upon the beams like fairy lights in the Underground. It is a sacred space, a sanctuary, and it is the holy hall of my heart.
In the middle of my heart is an altar, a bronze basin of oil standing upon a wooden plinth carved into the shape of a tree. I touch my candle to the oil and set it ablaze, wondering if I were to meet some version of myself like a priestess, an oracle, or a queen.
No one arrives.
There is only me, my own inadequate self reflected in the mirrors around me.
One of my reflections crooks a finger at me, beckoning me close. I obey, walking up to the girl in the mirror. I have long since made my peace with my own lack of beauty, but it is jarring to see my skin animated by another version of myself. I study my face with new eyes, as though I am a stranger to myself, finding myself both more and less critical of my features. The weak and pointed chin, the horselike nose, the thin lips are all still there, but the animated eyes and defined cheekbones are new. Or rather, they seem new, for when I speak, they are the first parts of myself I notice.
The first parts other people see.
Who are you? the reflection asks.
“I am Liesl,” I reply.
She shakes her head. Who am I?
I blink. I remember a conversation—a game—I played with the Goblin King oh so long ago.
I am a girl with music in her soul. I am sister, a daughter, a friend, who fiercely protects those dear to her. I am a girl who loves strawberries, chocolate torte, songs in a minor key, moments stolen from chores, and childish games.
“You are Elisabeth, entire,” I say to my reflection.
Her smile looks sad. Are you?
Am I? As I turn to peer into each of the mirrors, I see a different facet of myself: the girl with music in her soul, the daughter, the friend, the sister. These are all parts of me, entire, yet I did not know until this moment how I had fractured myself, unable to understand how to fit these pieces together into a whole.
There are mirrors, and there are windows, and through the windows I see different worlds, different lives, those precious people I have taken into myself. Mother, Constanze, and Papa can be seen through the windows to my family, while K?the and Fran?ois sit together in another. But of all these pretty pictures and vistas into other lives, only K?the stares back.
Liesl, she says.
In her hand she holds a ring. I peer closer, and see it is the silver wolf’s-head ring I threw into Lorelei Lake, the one my austere young man gave to me as a promise.
I keep you secret, she says. I keep you safe. Until the day you return to me, I hold your heart.
Our hands meet palm to palm through the glass, our heads nodding in unison.
The light fades in my sister’s window, but a candle continues to burn.
I take a slow turn about the room then, looking through each window for glimpses of my brother or the Goblin King. But try as I might, I cannot find them, for there are myriad windows, myriad memories to sort through.
You are looking in the wrong places, my reflection tells me.
“Where should I look?” I ask her.
Not out at the world, she says. But back at yourself.
In the mirrors.
Then I understand.
Josef and the Goblin King are not their own, entire, but me. They are not real, but puppets of shadows and flesh. I did not see them as whole and human, for how could I, when they are the foundations upon which I stand?
Choose, the old laws told me. Pay the price, and the other goes free.
The sacrifice was not paid by my blood. It will be paid by my soul. To choose Josef or the Goblin King is to choose the part of me I am willing to give up: my brother, or my austere young man. The gardener of my heart, or my immortal beloved. My capacity for grace, or my potential for mercy.
For Josef is my grace. He is the unprompted, unlooked for, unplanned stranger in the night, the one I fed and clothed and loved as my own. I am a better person for loving my brother, although I have done a poor job proving it to him or myself of late.
“I’m sorry, Sepperl,” I say to my reflection. Her form ripples and changes, and standing before me is a changeling. He has my brother’s features and a goblin’s eyes. He smiles at me and tilts his chin over my shoulder. I turn around to face another mirror.
The austere young man.
It is not the same person I left on the cavern floor with my brother and the old laws. This man is different: younger, fresh-faced, his mismatched eyes as vivid and intense as new-dyed hues. Nor is he truly an austere young man, despite the sober and somber clothing he wears. There is the sparkle of mischief in his expression, and a twist of wickedness to his lips, yet in the depths of his eyes there is an agelessness that speaks of wisdom both learned and earned.
“Who are you?” I whisper.
He nods at me. You know who I am, Elisabeth.
“You are a man with music in his soul,” I tell him. “You are the one who showed me a way to myself, when I was lost in the woods. My teacher, my playmate, my friend.” I choke a little on the sobs rising from my throat. “You allowed me to forgive myself for being imperfect. For being a sinner. For being me.”
If my brother is my grace, then the Goblin King is my mercy. I look from one to the other. How can I possibly choose? I have fallen upon an ancient weapon, but how can I possibly cut out my own heart and survive?
Josef steps forward, hand outstretched. The Goblin King steps forward as well, a mirror image to my brother. I hold out my hands to each, and their shapes blur and merge, until I can no longer tell which is my mercy and which is my grace. Perhaps they are both. Perhaps they are neither.
Choose.