Just a girl. Just a maiden. But I wasn’t just a girl; I was the Goblin Queen. I was his Goblin Queen, and I wasn’t afraid of the wolf, that untamable wildness that could tear me limb from limb and bathe itself in my blood.
I walked toward the klavier and sat down on the bench beside him. The Goblin King’s eyes flashed with surprise, pleasure, and not a little wariness.
“I may be just a maiden, mein Herr,” I whispered. “But I am a brave maiden.”
I raised my shaking fingers to the keyboard and formed a chord. C major. I felt the Goblin King’s body bend in a long sigh.
“Yes, Elisabeth,” he breathed, lifting his hand to cup my cheek. “Yes.”
But I did not play. Instead I brought my right hand up to cover his, then pushed it down to rest against the column of my neck.
“Elisabeth, what—”
He tried to pull away, but I had him in my grip. I leaned into him, daring him, tempting him, to push against where my life fluttered beneath his thumb. I could sense the wolf shaking in him, chafing at his bonds. I wanted the wolf; I wanted his hunger, a ravenous desire that could obliterate me. I wanted to be obliterated. I wanted to be made anew.
“You are,” I said, “the monster I claim.”
He was trembling now. “You do not know what you ask.” Panic touched his words, even as savagery played across his features.
“Oh, but I do.”
A memory rose to the surface: little Liesl waiting patiently on the landing at the top of the stairs. Waiting for her Papa to return from an audition with a famous impresario. Sepperl was only three years old then, already showing incredible promise on the violin, and Liesl was eager to show her father just what she could do. She had diligently practiced a Tomasino chaconne on the quarter-sized violin until it was perfect. But when Papa came home, he came home stinking of ale, his Stainer violin missing from its case. Liesl played for him as he entered the inn, a triumphant piece of welcome, but he snatched away the violin and snapped it in half over his leg. You will never amount to anything, he said. You are half the talent your brother is.
“I could hurt you,” the Goblin King said, and I felt that promise in his hands. My lifeblood in his grip, my throat bared to him in submission.
“I know.”
Another memory, bubbling up from beneath the pain of the previous one. Josef playing a piece I had written, Papa coming into the back room to praise his son for his efforts. So wild, so untamed! Papa had said. We must get this published, my boy; you have the potential to change music as we know it! Josef demurring, telling our father that the true author of the piece was me. Papa’s face hardening. A decent effort. But you must be less lofty in your ideals, Liesl. You must grow up and stop indulging in these romantic flights of fancy.
“Then why, Elisabeth?” the Goblin King murmured. “Why?”
Ten years ago. Ten years ago, when I was nine, and composing alone, and in secret. I had stolen two candles we could ill afford and was up until the wee hours of the morning, profligate with my music, my papers, my flames. And Papa, Papa asleep in bed with Mother, a rare occurrence that was sure to leave Mother smiling and Papa generous. The world was asleep, and I was alone.
Until Josef found me. Liesl? he’d asked in his sleepy baby’s voice. Liesl, why are you awake?
Anger, anger and jealousy, flaring as quick as lightning. My hand twitching, knocking a candle over, sending burning wax everywhere.
It hit Josef in the face.
His cries waking the house, Papa shouting, Mother crying, Käthe trembling, Constanze hiding, and all around me, fire. My work, in flames. A hand cracking upon my cheek, leaving a mark redder than the burn on Josef’s skin. His would fade into nothing. Mine would disappear too, disappear along with three years of careful work, all gone in flames and ash.
And beneath that memory, yet another. And another, and another. Assaults on my tender heart I had suffered until I learned to put my music away in a cage. I had pushed me, the real me, back behind the façade of a good girl, a dutiful daughter. I ceased to be me and became Liesl, the maiden in the shadows. I had been that Liesl for so long, I did not know my way back to the light.
“Because,” I choked out, “I need you to break me in order to find me.”
I rested my left hand against the klavier. The Goblin King sucked in a sharp breath.
“You do not know what you ask.”
I looked into his eyes and pressed a key.
“I do.”
The note hung in the air between us as his pupils expanded, then contracted. Those mismatched eyes shifted from frightened to feral and back again as Der Erlkönig warred with his better nature.
“You don’t.”
I pressed another key. “I do.”
A long, shuddering sigh escaped him. His hands moved to my shoulders, fingers clenching and unclenching, as though he did not know whether to draw me close or push me away. I pressed yet another key, then another, and then another, calling the wolf from hiding.
“I want you to find me,” I whispered. “Every last bit of me.”
The Goblin King drew away. Our eyes met, and in that moment I saw not the wolf, but the austere young man.
“Elisabeth,” he said. “Have mercy on me.”
My eyes were steady upon his face. “I am not afraid of you.”
“No?” The Goblin King closed his eyes. “Then you are a fool.”
And when he opened his eyes again, the austere young man was gone.
* * *