My anger faded, leaving me drained and exhausted. No, it was not my brother who was a terrible person; it was I. I, who begrudged him the opportunity of a lifetime because it would never be mine.
“You’re not selfish, Sepperl,” I said. “You’re the least selfish person I know.”
Josef glanced at the window of his bedroom, toward the forest surrounding our inn. The sun was setting, lending a bloody cast to everything. My brother absentmindedly ran his fingers over the bridge of his violin. It was a del Gesù, one of the few valuable violins we had left after Papa sold the others to Herr Kassl to settle his debts. The Amatis, Stainers, and Stradivarii were long gone.
“What if,” he said at last, “I made a wish, and had it answered?”
The reddish light threw all the hollows and shadows of his face into ghastly relief. The bruises beneath his eyes and jaw where he rested it against the chin rest were the color of old blood.
“What wish, Sepperl?” I asked gently.
“To be the greatest violinist in the world.” Josef traced the f-holes, lightly sliding his fingers up the neck to rest on the scroll. The scroll was one of the violin’s more unusual parts, carved into the shape of a woman. It was not the woman that was unusual; it was the fact that her face was carved into an expression of agony. Or ecstasy. I was never quite sure. “To play with such beauty as to make angels weep.”
“Then your wish was granted.” I smiled, but the smile twisted in my mouth. If only our wishes had power. I thought of being young and sitting by Käthe’s side in church, our bony thighs pressed into the hard wooden pews. I remembered looking at my sister’s golden hair haloed by the sun, and wishing—no, praying—that I would grow up to be beautiful too.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” he whispered.
“Afraid? Of your God-given gift?”
“God has nothing to do with it,” he said grimly.
“Josef!” I was shocked. We might have been indifferent churchgoers, but God was as ritual and routine as washing up in the morning. To deny Him utterly was blasphemy.
“You, of all people, should know this, Liesl,” Josef said. “Think you that our music comes from God? No, it comes from below. From him. The Ruler Underground.”
I knew my brother did not speak of the Devil. I had always known that Josef had faith—kept faith—with Constanze and the Goblin King. More than Papa. More than me. But I had not understood just how deeply his belief in the uncanny was stitched into his bones.
“How else can you explain the wildness, the abandon we feel when we play together?”
Was Josef afraid he was damned? God, the Devil, and the Goblin King were larger figures in my brother’s life than I had realized. More than either Käthe or me, Josef had been sensitive to the moods and emotions around him. It was what made him a superb and sublime interpreter of music. Perhaps this was why he played with such exquisite clarity, agony, frenzy, ecstasy, and longing. It was fear. Fear and inspiration and divine providence all in one.
“Listen to me,” I said firmly. “The abandon we feel—that is not sin. That is grace. Grace is not a gift bestowed upon you that can suddenly be taken away. It is within you, Sepperl, a part of you. You carry that grace inside. And you will carry it with you all your life, no matter where you go.”
“But what if it’s not grace?” Josef whispered. “What if it’s a favor to be repaid?”
I said nothing. I did not know what to say.
“I know you don’t believe me,” he said miserably. “And I wouldn’t, either. But I remember a dream, and it returns to me piece by piece, night by night. I dream of a tall, elegant stranger who comes to me.”
Josef turned his head, and although it was dark, I could imagine the blush staining his cheeks. My brother had never confided in me outright about his romantic inclinations, but I knew him better than anyone else. I knew, and I understood.
“The stranger places his hand upon my brow, and says I will carry the music of the Underground with me, so long as I never leave this place.” Josef turned his eyes to me, but he didn’t seem to see me. “I was born here. I was meant to die here.”
“Don’t say that,” I said sharply. “Don’t you dare say that.”
“Don’t you believe so? My blood belongs to the land, Liesl. Yours too. We draw our inspiration from it, from the ground beneath our feet, as surely as the trees in the wood. Without it, how can we continue? How can I still play my music when my soul rests here, in the Goblin Grove?”
“Your soul rests within you, Sepperl.” I lightly touched my hand to his breast. “Here. That’s where your music comes from. Not from the land. Not from the woods outside.”
“I don’t know.” Josef buried his face in his hands. “But I am afraid. I am afraid of the bargain I struck with the stranger in my dreams. But now you understand why I’m too terrified to leave.”
I understood, but not in the way my brother intended. I saw his fear, and saw the demons he conjured to justify his fear. Unlike me or Käthe, Josef had never seen anything of the world beyond our little corner of Bavaria. He did not know what delights the world could offer, what sights, what sounds, and what people he could encounter. I did not want my brother to stay home, to stay confined to the Goblin Grove and Constanze’s apron strings. Or mine. I wanted him to go out and live his life, even as it pained me to let him go.