He led me around to a hidden mooring, where a small skiff awaited us. It was not the barge that had borne me to the chapel; we were at another part of the lake altogether. We climbed into the boat, and that beautiful, unearthly singing that had carried me across on the night of my wedding rose up all around us.
The Lorelei.
They guard the gateway to the world above, the changeling had said.
The skiff moved swiftly over the black waters. My companion and I said nothing as the Lorelei carried us, and presently, I thought I could hear a faint roaring sound beneath their song.
“What’s that sound?” I asked, but I had my answer in a moment.
The lake had narrowed into a rushing current, a river. Faster and faster, the roaring growing louder, the rushing going faster, the rapids getting bigger. I clung to the changeling’s hand, afraid the little skiff we rode would capsize, but it held sturdy.
I don’t know how long we rode the currents to the world above, but at long last the torrent slowed to a trickle, and we found ourselves approaching a hollowed-out grotto. The light was different here. It was a moment before I realized it was because of the light from the world above.
The changeling got out of the skiff and hauled it to shore before helping me out of it. Here and there, shafts of dusty brightness cut through the darkness of the grotto, showing an earthen room with a ceiling buttressed by roots.
“We are beneath the grove,” the changeling said. He pointed above our heads, where a gap between the roots and rocks was just large enough for a small person to crawl through.
He helped me make the ascent, although there were plenty of foot- and handholds to ease the way. At last, I emerged.
The light was blinding. I threw up my hands to shade my eyes, but I could see nothing but endless white. Tears streamed and I pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes, but nothing could cool their burning.
But little by little, bit by bit, my sight began to return. When at last I could bear the light, I removed my hands.
The Goblin Grove. New growth and new life covered branches that I had last seen bare, a lush, verdant green blanketing the forest floor. I breathed deep, and the heady scent of the Goblin Grove in high summer filled my nostrils, indulgence and languid possibility.
“Thank you,” I said to the changeling. “Thank you.”
He did not reply, only watched as I circled the ring of alder trees, so beloved and so familiar to me. I touched every branch and leaf and trunk, reacquainting myself with old friends. When I reached beyond the ring of trees, I felt my fingers brush against something.
I frowned. There was no fence, no curtain, no physical veil, yet there was nevertheless a sense of trespass.
“The barrier between worlds,” the changeling said. “Cross, and you stand in the world above.”
I gave the changeling a sharp look. The words sounded almost like a taunt. A challenge. But the changeling’s face was as unreadable as ever, and he stood patiently in the grove with me, letting me explore the threshold.
Here and there I found traces of Käthe. Bits of ribbon, a scrap of paper with scribbled sketches, and even the beginnings of what looked like a piece of embroidery. I bent down to touch them, and they were real and solid in my hands.
“How is it I can touch and see and smell these things?” I asked, marveling.
“We stand in one of the in-between places,” the changeling said. “These objects are both of the world above and the Underground at once. Until you touch them, they belong wholly to the world above. Until the sunshine girl carries your gift back to her home, it remains Underground.”
I put my hand in my pocket, where the Wedding Night Sonata rested against my hip. “What if Käthe doesn’t see my gift?”
The changeling shrugged. “Then it never leaves the Underground.”
I looked beyond the ring of alder trees. Home was so close, yet so far. If only I could just step outside for a moment, run back home and press my music into my sister’s hands.
A perverse thought came to me. What would happen if I should cross? The sun was high in the sky, and the heat of it was fierce upon my skin. It was the middle of summer, and winter had never seemed so far away. I would not be breaking my vows to the Goblin King if I stepped out and then returned … right? I had given myself to him, to the Underground, of my own free will. I would return. I would come back. I pressed my fingers against the barrier.
I glanced over my shoulder at the changeling, who continued watching me with neither censure nor encouragement in his eyes.
First my fingers, then my hand, then my wrist, then my arm.
At last I was fully on the other side. I could not pinpoint the exact moment I had crossed from the Underground to the world above, but I knew the instant I had. My vision brightened, my hearing sharpened, and my breathing eased. I was alive.
I was alive.
I was alive in ways I had not realized I could be: I felt the thrum of blood pulsing through me, the zinging singing in my veins and beneath my skin. Every particle of dust and dirt, the silky feel of hot Föhn winds from the Alps, the faint hint of yeast and rising dough.
The smell of baking bread. The inn. Mother. Käthe. I fell to my knees. I was here. I was alive. I wanted to tear all the clothes from my body and run naked through the woods. I wanted nothing—nothing—between life and my body. All my senses sang, an overwhelming symphony of sensation, and I burst into tears.
Ugly, wrenching sobs tore through the forest. I did not care whether God, the Devil, or the changeling judged me. I cried and I cried and I cried, and even as the sorrow gushed forth in a torrent of grief and homesickness and joy, a part of me relished the pain. I had not known, until I had stepped out into the world above, just how stifled, how buried I had been.