I nodded. I love you, I wanted to say. But I knew those words would break me.
“Elisabeth.”
The Goblin King was smiling. Not the pointed smile of the Lord of Mischief or Der Erlkönig, but a crooked one. Twisted to one side, lopsided and goofy, it cracked my heart open and I bled inside.
He mouthed a word at me. A name. “You’ve always had it, Elisabeth,” he said softly. “For it is to you I gave my soul.”
His soul. I held my music—our music—to my heart. We were sundered forever, never to be with the other again. The grief shattered me, broke me into sharp, jagged pieces. I wanted the touch of his hand, for my austere young man to put me back together, scarred but whole.
But I was already whole. I was Elisabeth, entire, even if I was Elisabeth, alone. The knowledge of it gave me strength.
I straightened my shoulders. The Goblin King and I held each other’s gazes for the last time. I would not look back. I would not regret. He smiled at me and pressed his fingers to his lips in farewell.
Then I turned and walked away, into the world above, and into the dawn.
Ever Thine,
Ever Mine,
Ever Ours.
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN,
THE IMMORTAL BELOVED LETTERS
To Franz Josef Johannes Gottlieb Vogler,
care of Master Antonius
Paris
My dearest Sepperl,
My heart, my love, my right hand, I have not abandoned you. It is true your letters did not reach me, but it is not because you’ve offended or because I’ve left you. No, mein Brüderchen, your letters did not reach me because I was unreachable, because I was gone.
You have undertaken a journey, and so have I: a journey far beyond and just beneath the Goblin Grove. It is a tale full of magic and enchantment, such as Constanze might have told us when we were children, only it is true. Only it is real. Do my stories have a happy ending? You must tell me, for I cannot decide.
I thank you for the news of your gala performance of my little bagatelle and its reception. I pray you do not reveal its true authorship quite yet, despite how popular you claim it’s become. Strange to think of elegant, sophisticated Paris enamored with the works of a queer, unlovely little girl, and I can’t imagine what they would say when the composer of Der Erlkönig revealed herself as Maria Elisabeth Vogler, the daughter of innkeepers.
I would rather not imagine. I would rather see it for myself.
Käthe talks of nothing but publication now, especially after seeing the fee you sent her after selling the print rights to Der Erlkönig. She has taken it upon herself to meet with Herr Klopstock, the traveling impresario, to learn all she can about managing musicians, but I think it is Herr Klopstock’s brown eyes that intrigue our sister more than the details of the work. She misses you. We all miss you.
As for your other request … stay, Sepp. Stay in Paris with Master Antonius, with François. There is no need to come home, no need, for I shall send you a piece of it.
Enclosed are some pages from a sonata I have written, although the last movement is still unfinished. I send it to you with my love, and a leaf from the Goblin Grove. Tell me what you think, and then tell me what the world thinks, for I think it is my best yet, my most honest and my most true.
Yours always,
Composer of Der Erlkönig