“Käthe,” I said, voice cracking. “What—”
A mane of silver and gold, a pair of eyes as cold as ice, a challenge in a smile. I almost had it, almost uncovered it—
Then my sister laughed. It was her own proper laugh, bright and musical. “Oh, Liesl,” she said, “you’re too easy to tease.”
Darkness and shadow were gone, the feeling a spell had been broken. “I hate you,” I groaned.
Käthe smiled. I thought I saw that flash of bloodless lips and a wine-dark maw, but it was her own sweet smile. “Come,” she said, taking my arm in hers. “We’ve wasted enough time. Master Antonius will awake at any moment and I’m sure Mother has worked herself into a frenzy.”
I shook my head and gathered myself, letting my sister lean upon me as a crutch. Together we limped back home, back toward reality, back toward the mundane.
* * *
Käthe was right; Mother was in a frenzy. Master Antonius had awoken from his nap when we returned and the entire inn was in an uproar. Constanze and Mother were the midst of a screaming match, while Hans hovered awkwardly in the corner, broom in hand, too polite to intervene, too cowardly to leave.
“Absolutely not!” A loose curl slipped from Mother’s cap and she pushed it aside with a floury hand. “I will not permit it! Not tonight of all nights.”
Constanze held a large burlap bag in her hands. A queer jolt ran through me as I saw she had been pouring salt along the windowsill, every threshold, every entrance.
“It is the last night of the year!” She pointed an accusatory finger at Mother. “I will not let this night pass without protection, whether you will or no.”
“Enough!” Mother struggled to wrest the salt from Constanze’s grip, but the old woman’s hands, as gnarled as oak roots, were surprisingly strong. “I have no patience with this today, not with Master Antonius and Georg disappearing on us again.” She caught sight of us. “Käthe! Come help me.”
My sister took the broom from Hans and began to sweep.
“You!” Constanze shot me a dirty look. “You must help me. You mustn’t let Der Erlkönig in.”
I flinched, and looked from my mother to my grandmother.
“Liesl,” Mother said with exasperation. “We’ve no time to indulge these childish fancies. Think of your brother. What would Master Antonius say?”
“And what of that one?” Constanze nodded her head at Käthe. “Think ye she needs no protecting? Mind how you choose, girlie.”
I glanced from the spilled salt to my sister. Protection against the Goblin King. Then I thought of Josef, and chose not to risk his already precarious position with the maestro. I took the broom from my sister’s hands and began sweeping the salt away. Constanze shook her head, her shoulders slumped with resignation.
“Now,” Mother said with satisfaction. “Käthe, go make sure your brother is ready for his audition, and I will put my husband’s elderly mother”—she glared at Constanze—“to bed.”
“I’m not tired,” Constanze snapped. “I’m not infirm or feeble in my wits, despite what my son’s harried wife”—she matched Mother glare for glare—“might say.”
“Listen, old woman,” Mother began. “I have given up my career, my family, and my children’s futures for you, and a little gratitude would be appreciated—”
Just then Papa returned. He returned with a song on his lips and violin case in hand, jingling and rattling with every step.
“Got to go, got to go, got to leave this town, leave this town!”
“You!” Mother’s nostrils flared. “Georg, where have you been?”
“Käthe,” I whispered. “Why don’t you and Hans take Constanze upstairs to her room? I’ll make sure Josef is ready once I’m finished here.”
My sister gave me one long, unreadable look, then nodded. Hans gently took Constanze’s hands as he and Käthe led our grandmother away.
“And you, my dear, stay here; when I’m back, when I’m back, when I’m back again, back again, on your doorstep I’ll appear!” Papa leaned forward to plant a kiss on Mother’s lips, but she pushed him away.
“Master Antonius has been here these several hours past, and the man of the house nowhere to be seen! I could just—”
The rest of her tirade was lost in the sounds of a muffled kiss. Papa dropped his case to the floor, holding his wife close as he whispered beery blandishments in her ear.
“’Tho I can’t be with you all the time, my thoughts are with you, my dear,” he sang in a soft voice. “When I’m back, when I’m back, when I’m back again, back again, on your doorstep I’ll appear!”
I could see Mother’s body bending, growing pliant in Papa’s embrace, her protests more and more halfhearted as Papa plied her with a kiss, and another, and then another, before she broke at last with a laugh.
Papa grinned with triumph, but it was only a temporary victory. He had won a laugh from Mother, but by the look in her eyes, he would lose the war.
“Go clean yourself up,” Mother told him. “Master Antonius waits in the main hall.”
“You could join me,” Papa said, waggling his brows outrageously.
“Shoo,” she said, giving him a shove. Her cheeks were pink. “Go.”
Mother started when she caught sight of me in the shadows. “Liesl!” she said, smoothing her hands over her hair. “I didn’t think you were still here.”