My brother’s eyes brightened when he recognized the ostinato.
Yes, Sepp, I thought. Now we shall play the L’inverno.
He tucked his violin under his chin, his bow poised over the strings. After another measure, Josef closed his eyes and began to play the second movement, the largo, from Vivaldi’s L’inverno.
The melody was gentle and a little melancholy; when we were babies, Papa used to play the largo as a lullaby. The piece was simple enough that three-year-old Sepperl had learned it by ear on his quarter-size violin, but it was a piece to grow on. My brother had experimented with flourishes and improvisations, refining the music until it became something solely his own. No one could wring shades of nostalgia and wistful longing from this movement like Josef. As he grew older and more skilled, he’d continued to practice it over and over until he and his violin were one. Of all the sonatas and concertos Josef knew, this was the one that sounded the closest to his own voice, the one in which his violin sounded the most human.
The violin sang, serenading all those who listened, weaving a spell that made the silence around it sound reverent. Holy.
The largo movement of the winter suite wasn’t long, and all too soon, Josef and I approached the end of the piece. His body was slowing down, taking the last trill ritardando. I strove to match him, slowing down my accompaniment as the last note faded away with a tremulous shimmer.
The quivering memory of that final note held us rapt. Then thunderous applause broke the spell, started by Master Antonius himself. François leaped to his feet with shouts of “Bravo! Bravissimo!”
Josef colored, but his eyes shone as he grinned at François. Without warning, he launched into the third movement of Vivaldi’s L’estate, the presto. Intense and fast, it called for all his abilities as a virtuoso player, and I could not keep up with him. I had adapted the accompaniment to the largo myself, but I hadn’t done the other seasons. François nodded at me and I relinquished my seat to him.
Within a heartbeat, he found Josef in the music and launched into the performance. He pounded the chords where my brother emphasized the shivering trills, he relented when my brother dropped a phrase sotto voce. He knew when to pause to allow Josef’s incredible playing to take flight, where to supplement the holes in the accompaniment to sound seamless. My throat was tight; this slender, dark-skinned youth knew my brother’s unspoken cues even better than I. He could fall into Josef’s rhythms without thought, and he could adapt and modify music he knew and music he didn’t.
Somehow, incredibly, they finished exactly in unison. The hall erupted with praise. Papa clapped Josef on the back, shouting loudly for all to hear that he had taught the boy everything he knows, while Master Antonius could be heard congratulating François’s astonishing impromptu performance.
“I didn’t even know you knew Vivaldi, François, you sly dog!” The violin master turned to Josef. “You!” he said. “Now you are a young man of taste and vision. Vivaldi! Il Prete Rosso, or the Red Priest, as we called him back home. He did much for the violin, you know, even as some people”—Master Antonius shot a look at Papa—“no longer recognize his genius.”
Never mind that it had been I who suggested Vivaldi, not Josef; it was lost in the rush and aftermath of my brother’s playing.
“Thank you, maestro.” Josef’s face was flushed, his eyes aglow. I sought out his gaze to congratulate him, but he had eyes for François and François alone. The youth looked back.
I turned away. Papa shouted and toasted and drank to celebrate his son, and Mother—stern, stoic, unsentimental Mother—wept unashamedly into her apron. Constanze nodded her approval from her nest by the hearth, while Käthe …
My heart stopped.
Where was Käthe?
Gone, a soft voice murmured in my ear.
Startled, I looked over my shoulder. No one was there, but my ear tingled from the brush of someone’s lips. The jubilation continued on around me, but I was excluded, standing outside everyone else’s excitement.
“Käthe,” I whispered.
Gone, the voice said again.
This time I saw him.
He was standing in a far corner of the main hall, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. The tall, elegant stranger.
The Goblin King.
He was the still point around which everything revolved. He was reality where everything else was a reflection. He stood out in sharp relief when everything else was muted, as though we were the only two alive and present in a world of illusion and shadow. He smiled at me, and every fiber of my being reached for him. His very grin could command my flesh to dance.
He nodded, indicating the door that led outside. He moved through the crowd like a wraith, a geist passing through the revelers like mist. They never noticed the touch of his hand as he gently moved them out of the way, only pausing in their conversations as if they felt an unexpected chill. But not a soul saw the Goblin King as he walked among them—it was me, and me alone.
He paused at the threshold of the door, glancing over his shoulder. He lifted a pale brow.
Come.
It was more than a summons; it was a command. I felt the call in my bones, the tug upon my flesh, but still I resisted.
Those icy eyes glittered, and I was afraid. I trembled, but not with cold. I ached, but not with pain. My feet began to move of their own accord, and I followed the Goblin King out of the light and into the darkness.
THE TALL, ELEGANT STRANGER