The Autumn Castle (19 page)

So I fled.

I packed up all I had of value—my sculptures and materials—and loaded them in my car along with the bags full of frozen tissue,
and I left Vienna behind. I drove into the woods and dumped the bags and I kept driving and found myself in Berlin. I withdrew
what I could from my bank account and rented a tiny apartment, and lay low for two years.

As I have said, I am a practical man. When I knew my parents had not heard from me in two years, I began to grow concerned
about my inheritance. I had watched the newspapers and the television reports for all the long months in between, and had
never seen my name mentioned as a murder suspect. Herr Hoffmann, it seems, had decided that as long as I was nowhere near
him, he had no compulsion to report me for having an errant finger in my bathroom. (Or maybe it was a gastric problem after
all.)

Finally, I made tentative contact with my parents. I told them I had been very sick—mental illness runs in our family and
even though I am perfectly sane, I knew they would believe this—and gradually I won back their . . . “affection” is too strong
a word. I won back their grudging decision to name me their heir, as long as I worked once again in finance and gave up my
dreams of being a sculptor.

I did one but not the other. I found Berlin to be the city of my dreams as far as art was concerned, and soon my celebrated
sculptures were outearning my financier’s salary fivefold. I met no more faeries, and I longed to travel again, to take off
in my van and drive through Europe and hunt and kill and sculpt, but still, I did not let my parents down. I had over a billion
reasons not to, in U.S. dollars alone.

Then, at the end of 1989, two wonderful, wonderful things happened. First, the Berlin Wall fell. Second, my parents died.
My opa, who had long been senile and sat rocking like a fool in the corner of my mother’s overdecorated lounge room, took
up a gun on Christmas Eve and shot them both and then himself. The money was all mine.

I was quick to buy real estate in the East and lease it out to businesses. I moved into the top two floors and attic of this
building and began to plan my future. No more close calls with screaming faeries—I had a special room soundproofed. And no
more messy bonings. I began to draw up my designs for a poisonous boiling acid bath.

My faery-boning vat.

He had painted it out.

Christine stared at the painting. It was the following evening. Jude was cleaning his brushes, whistling to himself. She had
come down with the intention of pretending she was seeing it for the first time, of asking him if that blotch of color had
anything to do with Mayfridh. But he had painted it out. A black oval covered it. She was gone.

“Do you like it?” he said, slipping an arm around her waist.

“Yeah, I do.”

“I feel so good about it. I feel like I’m finally getting there, like I’m finally painting the feeling.”

“That’s great.” She was gone. That was a good thing, right? It meant he had momentarily been interested, and then decided
that it was wrong. He had covered her up with black.

But was she still under there?

“Okay,” he said, organizing his paintbrushes and wiping his hands on a cloth, “I’ll get changed quickly and we’ll head out
for dinner.”

He left the room, leaving her standing in front of the painting. There was no need to be jealous. Mayfridh was beautiful and
colorful, and of course she would have caught Jude’s eye. She caught everybody’s eye. But no trace of her color was left in
the painting, and that meant it was all okay, right? Right?

Christine sighed. Jude had been so attentive today. A back massage at six in the morning when she woke with a twinge, a cup
of tea in bed, kisses and cuddles. How could she doubt him? Was this that old feeling of inadequacy, returning in a different
form? Damn all these stupid insecurities, damn her frightened heart.

Jude was at the door. “You like it that much?”

She turned. He had changed into fresh jeans and a buttoned shirt. “Sorry, lost in thought.”

“Come on, I’m starving,” he said, reaching for her hand.

“Jude, do you love me?”

He pulled her close to him and kissed her forehead. “You know I do, babe.”

“You don’t love anyone else but me?”

“I’ve only got room in my heart for Christine Starlight.” He gave her a quick squeeze and stood back to smile at her. “Really,
Christine, I’m
starving.
”

They met Pete and Fabiyan in the gallery, just on their way out for doner kebabs at the local Imbiss. She pulled her coat
on at the door. The Friday night streets were full. Jude and Christine lined up at the Imbiss in the autumn chill, while Pete
and Fabiyan went in search of hot glühwein to wash their dinner down. The foursome found a semiclean table next to a cabal
of punks.

“You know, we should have invited Gerda,” Christine said, carefully unpeeling her kebab.

“We did,” Pete said. “She said she was tired. She said she wanted to save her energy for tomorrow night.” He had a chunk of
lettuce and tahini stuck to his chin.

“What’s tomorrow night?”

“The gallery party,” Jude said.

“Had your head under a rock?” Pete said good-naturedly.

“Yeah, a real big one. I thought it was next week.”

Fabiyan pointed down the street. “There’s Gerda. And Christine’s friend.”

Christine turned to see Gerda and Mayfridh approaching. Mayfridh waved happily. “So she’s back.”

“Back?” Fabiyan said. “Back from where?”

“Back from . . . I thought she’d gone home for a while.” Of course, the gallery party. Mayfridh had expressed an interest
in going. Christine shot Jude a sidelong glance. He was concentrating on his kebab; he wasn’t looking at Mayfridh.

“Hi, everyone,” Gerda said as she approached. “You started without us.”

“You said you weren’t coming,” Pete replied.

“Yeah, and then Miss Miranda shows up looking for Christine. How could I say no to her?”

Mayfridh squeezed in next to Christine and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I missed you,” she said with a shy smile. Despite
her jealousy, Christine felt a wash of tender feeling. Mayfridh’s affection was so artless, her warm breath as sweet as a
child’s.

“You weren’t gone long.”

“It was Eisengrimm’s birthday,” Mayfridh whispered in her ear. “He was one hundred and nine.”

“Hey, don’t keep secrets, you two,” Gerda said, poaching Pete’s glühwein. “Miranda, do you need food?”

“I’ll have whatever you’re having,” Mayfridh said.

Christine watched her, and watched Jude, and saw nothing pass between them that didn’t pass between any other two people there.
She forced her fluttering emotions to still. She had been paranoid about Jude’s affection for too long; she didn’t want to
project that paranoia onto Mayfridh. For the last three months Gerda had flirted with Jude shamelessly and nothing had come
of that.
Relax, relax.

Dinner finished, they bought four bottles of wine and headed back to Gerda’s apartment for what Pete called “a piss-up.” By
midnight, everybody was roaring drunk and things were getting rowdy. A knock on the door calmed the room to urgent whispers.

“Shit, shit,” Gerda said, “that’ll be Mandy, for sure.”

Pete turned the stereo down and Gerda went to the door. It was, indeed, Mandy.

“Sorry, sorry,” Gerda said, “we didn’t realize how late it was.”

“It’s fine,” he said, putting his hands out, palms up. “I’m not angry, but I am tired and tomorrow is a big night.”

“Of course,” Gerda said. “We’ll shut up. God, I’m so sorry.”

Mandy’s eyes swept the room and lighted on Mayfridh. Christine felt herself grow uncomfortable. He focused on her with a gaze
that was somewhere between desiring and predatory.

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” he said, walking into the room, hand extended.

“Miranda,” she said, standing up and taking his hand. “I’m an old friend of Christine’s.”

He kissed her hand and backed away quickly, apologizing with a laugh for spoiling their fun, and closing the door behind him.

“We’d better get to bed too,” Jude was saying.

“And me,” Fabiyan agreed.

Christine kept watching the door that Mandy had just disappeared through. So very creepy. She glanced at Mayfridh, who offered
her a grimace and a theatrical shudder of repulsion. So she had noticed it too.

In the moment before Mandy had kissed Mayfridh’s hand, he had bent to her wrist and sniffed her.

C
hristine found herself nursing a hangover the next morning, a cup of black coffee pressed between her hands, as Jude—remarkably
refreshed—left for a morning’s work in the studio.

“I can’t tell you how much I love my new painting,” he said with a self-satisfied grin as he disappeared out the door.

She smiled.
Good.
When Jude enjoyed what he was doing, she felt the glow of his reflected happiness. Christine sipped her coffee and rolled
her neck, trying to clear away the cobwebs. She was going to have to go sober at tonight’s party.

There was a knock on the door. “Come in, it’s not locked,” she called. It had to be someone from inside the hotel or they
would have buzzed downstairs. She braced herself, hoping it wasn’t Mandy.

Mayfridh, beautiful without makeup, wearing one of Gerda’s outsize T-shirts and a pair of her denim overalls.

“Hi. You want a coffee? I just brewed it.”

“Yes, please,” Mayfridh replied, “black with no sugar.”

Christine smiled as she poured the coffee. “Hell, you went hard-core real quick. Wasn’t it like a week ago I could barely
get you to drink this stuff?”

“Everything in the Real World is so intoxicating. Especially the toxic things.” Mayfridh took the cup gratefully and sipped
from it. “You look tired.”

“I am. And I’m supposed to work this afternoon. My boss has a wedding to go to.” She shook her head. “I’m going to be a real
live wire at the party tonight.”

Mayfridh was glancing around her. “Your apartment’s nicer than Gerda’s. Why is that?”

“I think she just doesn’t clean up after herself.” She swept her hand around. “Jude, however, is a neat freak, especially
when he’s got painter’s block.”

“Would you let me see the rest?”

“Sure.” Christine led her to the short hallway. “Okay, there’s the bathroom; you’ve already seen that. This is the spare bedroom.”
She opened the door on four empty suitcases and a billion dust motes. “As you can see, we don’t use it. And this is our bedroom.”

Mayfridh entered ahead of her. “It’s nice.”

The bed wasn’t yet made and the curtains were still closed against the weak morning sun. “We can’t really get used to these
German pillows. Jude keeps telling me to go buy some regular ones, but I always forget.” Christine sank down in the chair
next to the dresser, and Mayfridh sat on the end of the bed. “I think he’s getting a bit annoyed with me.”

“Do you and Jude fight much?” Mayfridh asked.

Christine shook her head. “Hardly at all. He’s very patient.”

“Are you going to get married?”

Christine perched her coffee cup on the dresser. “Maybe. One day. I’d like to, anyway.”

“Have you talked about it with Jude?”

“Oh yeah, of course. It’s complicated. You see, I get a big inheritance when I get married, and I think Jude is wary of what
people might think if he asks me to marry him. He told me he wants to wait until he’s financially stable in his own right.
I accept that.” And she tried really hard to believe it, because it was better than suspecting he didn’t want to marry her
because he didn’t really love her.

Mayfridh was frowning, her head tilted to the side.

“What’s the matter?” Christine asked.

“Does Gerda know all that?”

Christine knew where this was going. “Ah, Gerda. Don’t listen to a thing she says about me or Jude or my money. Gerda just
makes up her own version of events and doesn’t care about the truth.”

“You don’t like Gerda?”

“I like her a lot. She’s a lot of fun, but she’s really gossipy.”

Mayfridh sank back on the bed. “Humans are something of a mystery to me.”

“You mean you don’t have gossip in Ewigkreis?” Christine finished the last of her coffee.

“I suppose we do, though it’s less complicated. Come and sit by me, I want to ask your opinion on something.”

Christine eased herself out of the chair and moved to the bed.

“Is your back sore?” Mayfridh asked, moving over to make space.

“A little. It’s always worse if I’m tired or sick.”

“Lie on your stomach. I can make it better.”

“How?”

“I’ll show you.”

Christine turned and lay down on her stomach. Mayfridh searched the curve of her back with her hands.

“Tell me when I hit the spot,” she said.

“Up a bit . . . there.” Christine felt the warmth of Mayfridh’s fingers through her shirt, and then a soft, lightly penetrating
feeling like electricity. It spread the pain apart, making it lose its grip on her bones.

“Wow, that’s amazing. How do you do it?” Christine asked.