But now the fruit-sellers had caught sight of us and our longing glances. “Come, lovely ladies!” they sang. “Come, sweet darlings. Come buy, come buy!” One of them tapped out a rhythm on the wooden planks that served as their table, while the others took up a melody. “Damsons and apricots, peaches and blackberries, taste them and try!”
Without thinking, I began to sing with them, a wordless ooh-oo searching for harmony and counterpoint in their music. Thirds, fifths, diminished sevenths, I played with the chords beneath my breath. Together, the fruit-sellers and I wove a shimmering web of sound, haunting, strange, and a little wild.
The vendors suddenly focused their eyes on me, their features sharpening, their smiles lengthening. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and I let the melody drop. The touch of their eyes was a tickle on my skin, but behind me I could sense the gaze of an unseen other, as palpable as a hand caressing my nape. I glanced over my shoulder.
The tall, pale, elegant stranger.
His features were shadowed by a hood, but beneath the cloak, his clothes were fine. I noted the glint of gold and silver thread on green velvet brocade. Seeing my inquisitive expression, the stranger stirred and folded his cloak about him, but not before I caught a glimpse of dun-colored leather breeches outlining the slim shape of his hips. I turned my face away, my blush heating the air about me. He seemed familiar, somehow.
“Brava, brava!” the fruit-sellers cried once they had finished their song. “Clever maiden in red, come take your reward!”
They waved their hands over the fruits on display, their fingers long and slim. For a moment, it seemed as though there were too many joints in their fingers, and I felt the brush of something uncanny. But that moment passed, and the merchants picked up a peach, offering it to me with open hands.
The fruit’s perfume was thick on the chill autumn air, but beneath the cloying smell was the tang of something rotten, something putrid. I recoiled, and it seemed to me these sellers’ appearances had changed. Their skin had taken on a greenish tinge, the tips of their teeth were pointed and sharp, and instead of fingernails, they seemed to have claws.
Beware the goblin men, and the wares they sell.
K?the reached for the peach with both hands. “Oh yes, please!”
I grabbed my sister’s shawl and yanked her back.
“The maiden knows what she wants,” said one of the vendors. He grinned at K?the, but it was more leer than smile. His lips seemed stretched a little too far, his yellowed teeth sharp. “Full of passions, full of desire. Easily spent, easily satiated.”
Spooked, I turned to K?the. “Let’s go,” I said. “We shouldn’t tarry. We need to stop by Herr Kassl’s before heading home.”
K?the’s eyes remained fixed on the array of fruit laid before her. She looked sick, her brows furrowed, her bosom heaving, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright and feverish. She looked sick, or … excited. A feeling of wrongness settled over me, wrongness and fear, even as a hint of her excitement roused my own limbs.
“Let’s go,” I repeated. K?the’s eyes were dull and glassy. “Anna Katharina Magdalena Ingeborg Vogler!” I snapped. “We are leaving.”
“Perhaps another time then, dearie,” sneered the fruit-seller. I gathered my sister close, draping one arm protectively about her shoulders. “She’ll be back,” he said. “Girls like her can never put off temptation for long. Both are … ripe for the plucking.”
I walked away, pushing K?the ahead of me. Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed the tall, elegant stranger again. From beneath his hood, I sensed him watching us. Watching. Considering. Judging. One of the fruit-sellers tugged at the stranger’s cloak, and the man bent his head to listen, but I felt his gaze upon us. Upon me.
“Beware.”
I stopped in my tracks. It was another one of the fruit-sellers, a smallish man with frizzy hair like a thistle cloud and a pinched face. He wasn’t more than the size of a child, although his expression was old, older than Constanze, older than the forest itself.
“That one,” the merchant said, pointing to K?the, whose head lolled against my shoulder, “burns like kindling. All flash, and no real heat. But you,” he said. “You smolder, mistress. There is a fire burning within you, but it is a slow burn. It shimmers with heat, waiting only for a breath to fan it to life. Most curious.” A slow grin spread over his mouth. “Most curious, indeed.”
The merchant vanished. I blinked, but he never returned, leaving me to wonder if I had dreamed the encounter. I shook my head, tightened my grip on K?the’s arm, and marched toward Herr Kassl’s shop, determined to forget these strange goblin men and their fruits: so tantalizing, so sweet, and so very far out of reach.
*
K?the shook me off as we drew away from the fruit-sellers. “I’m not a child what needs looking after, you know,” she snapped.
I tightened my lips, biting back my sharp retort. “Fine.” I held out a small purse. “Go find Johannes the brewer and tell him—”
“I know what I’m doing, Liesl,” she said, snatching the purse from my hand. “I’m not completely helpless.”