His. Despite what the Goblin King said, the austere young man still lived within him. No magic, no spell, no trick had given my Goblin King his extraordinary way with the violin. The power did not belong to Der Erlk?nig; this gift was his, and his alone.
“I can leave,” I offered. “If you would like to worship in private.” I thought of the night I had trespassed upon him here, in this very chapel, and felt shame settle over me like a cloak.
He held my gaze for a long moment. “No, stay,” he said at last. “Stay, and be with me.”
I had demanded every last bit of him last night. His body, his lust, his name, his trust. But there were corners of his soul I dared not ask to reveal; even as I understood the need to hold some things sacred to yourself alone. His piety was one of them. The enormity of what he was granting me whisked my shame from me, replacing it with a sense of awe.
There were no pews in this chapel; there had only ever been one member of the faithful. So I sat down on the steps of the sanctuary, folded my hands, and let myself be with him, to accept this gift.
The Goblin King lifted his bow to the violin and closed his eyes. I watched him take a deep breath and begin the count in his head.
The piece began with a declaration, a proclamation of joy. The phrase repeated itself a few times before it was joined by a chorus of voices. The Goblin King skillfully conveyed them all through various shades of emotion and nuance, one after another, each in turn. All proclaiming Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah! beneath his fingers. Then a pause, a breath, before he resumed; a stately sonata, reiterating the glad tidings of the first proclamation.
I had known he played beautifully. Like Josef, the Goblin King played not just with skill and precision, but with love. Yet they were as different from each other as night and day. My brother played with purity, but the Goblin King played with devotion. Josef’s talent with the violin had always been that of ruthless clarity. Nothing of the earth could touch my brother’s playing; he trod upon the ether and the air, the notes transcendent and oh so beautiful, so beautiful.
But the Goblin King’s playing was weighty; the notes held depth and gravitas. Emotions my brother had not yet learned: grief, tragedy, loss. The Goblin King’s virtuosity was earned.
The piece came to a close, the last note fading into the silence between us. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath.
“It’s beautiful,” I whispered, not wanting to break the reverent hush in the room. “Did you write it?”
He opened his eyes slowly, emerging from a trance. “Hmmm?”
“Did you write it? It’s exquisite.”
He smiled. “No. I did not write it. But you could say it wrote me, in a manner of speaking.”
“What’s the piece called?”
A pause. “The Resurrection. One of the Mystery Sonatas.”
“Where did you learn it?”
Another pause. “At the abbey where I was raised.”
Such tiny crumbs from his past. I swallowed each morsel like it was my last meal. I hungered for him, for the austere young man, for every bit of him I could not have.
“Which abbey?”
His only response was another smile, with just the tiniest hint of teeth. The Lord and the Goblin King worked in mysterious ways, and I rather wished they didn’t.
“Who wrote the piece?” I pressed.
“Are we in another round of Truth or Forfeit?” he teased.
“Only if you wish it.”
He paused before giving his answer. “I do not know who originally composed it.” His eyes were distant, his fingers absentmindedly thumbing the strings on the violin. “I stole bits and pieces of song from the cloisters whenever I could, listening at corners and fingering the notes with an imaginary violin. I adapted the sonata as best as I could from memory.”
I tried to place the sonata in time from my slipshod, piecemeal history lessons. It lacked the melodic musicality to which we’d grown accustomed in the world above, and sounded a bit old-fashioned. But it lacked the structure of a sonata as I knew it, a little wild, a little fluid. We had both skulked in the shadows, the Goblin King and I, eavesdropping on things to which we had no right.
“You could expand upon the themes,” I suggested. “The scordatura is a little unusual, but it might be interesting to take the melody and play it again in a minor key.”
He laughed and shook his head. “You are the genius, Elisabeth, the one who creates. Me? I am a mere interpreter.”
The pain that stabbed me was sudden and fierce. I turned my head away so the Goblin King would not see me cry. My little brother had once told me that exact thing, before I came to the Underground, before I understood the difference between genesis and exegesis. I was too full of me, too full of my memories. I was drowning in the mire of my childhood dreams, and the unbearable pleasure of the present.
I felt the comfort of his presence settle down beside me on the steps. The Goblin King rested a gentle kiss on my shoulder blade, but said nothing, waiting for me to pull back my emotions, waiting for me to compose myself.
“Who—who taught you to play the violin?” I managed, clearing my throat of the sadness lodged there.
I felt him smile against my shoulder as he mumbled an answer.