The Autumn Castle (20 page)

“Magic often gets left over in my hands from using spells,” she replied.

Christine closed her eyes and let Mayfridh’s fingers work the area. The pain was still close by, threatening to swoop back
into place the moment she took her hands away. It wasn’t the same genuine freedom she felt in Ewigkreis, but it was a wonderful
relief anyway. Much more effective than the drugs, which merely dulled the pain, dulling all her other senses with it.

“So, can I ask your advice about something?”

“Sure, go ahead.”

“It’s about my Real World parents. Do you think I should visit them?”

“Why do you want to visit them? I thought you’d forgotten about them.”

“It’s coming back to me, Christine, just as my memories and fondness for you came back. The longer I’m here, the more I think
of them.” In her distraction, Mayfridh had taken her hands from Christine’s back. The pain returned.

Christine willed Mayfridh to continue the massage. “How would you explain what happened?”

“I’d just explain.”

“They’d never believe you.”

“You believe me . . . remember?”

“I don’t know if it’s a good idea to go around putting spells on people.” Christine turned her head, saw that Mayfridh was
sitting back, biting her lip, looking like she might cry. “Hey, don’t listen to me, I’m just tired and snappish.”

Mayfridh’s fingers resumed their massage. “No, you’re right. I can’t go around putting spells on people. I didn’t realize
it before. Sorry.”

Christine let her head hang forward again, taking comfort in the sweet soothing electricity. “Look, forget what I said. You
probably really want to see your parents, and they’d be so happy to know that you’re alive and well, whatever you’ve become.
Maybe you should go. I can’t see the harm in it.”

“Eisengrimm sees much harm in it.”

“Why?”

The magic was fading now as Mayfridh’s last reserves were spent. “I’m sorry,” she said, her fingers withdrawing. “I have no
magic left.”

“Don’t be sorry. Thank you, it was great.” Christine turned over and looked up at Mayfridh. “So what’s Eisengrimm’s problem
with you seeing your parents?”

“Oh, he’s just a grumpy thing.”

“You once told me he was a wise counselor. He’s got to have a reason for advising you against it.”

Mayfridh hitched a sigh and sank down on her belly on the rumpled covers. Christine curled a finger into her hair and pulled
it playfully. “Come on, tell me.”

“It’s not forever, Christine.”

“What’s not forever?”

“This favorable alignment. It’s so rare.”

“I don’t follow you.”

Mayfridh sat up. “You know I can’t tell you where Ewigkreis is. Nor can I tell you where it will be next. It moves every season,
to other places, other times. And wherever it arrives next, there’s no way of contacting you even if I remembered you. Any
passage is binding—it restricts me in a fairly narrow circle.”

“So you mean . . . that this passage between my world and your world . . .”

“Is temporary. Only until the last leaf falls on the birch outside the great hall.”

“And you’ll disappear.”

“No,
you’ll
disappear,” Mayfridh said solemnly, “and I’ll forget you.”

“I’ll forget you after a while too, I guess.”

“No, no. You misunderstand. I’ll forget you immediately. I’ll wake up in the Winter Castle, and everything will be as it always
has been in Ewigkreis, and my memory of you will be so far distant in the corridors of my thinking, that I will never trip
over it and remember you. Unless, of course, our worlds align so closely again, which I very much doubt they will.”

Christine started to realize what this meant: she had only limited time to escape from her pain in the autumn forest. “So
we don’t have long.”

“No. Perhaps until early December. I’ll be gone by Christmas.”

“Eisengrimm—he doesn’t want you to form a relationship with your parents that’s doomed to end so soon, right?”

“That’s right.”

Such a longing filled Christine then, such a rolling, overwhelming desire to be thirteen years younger, to tell her parents
not to take the shortcut, to keep her body whole and unbroken. Relief was slipping away from her, she was consigned back into
her material limits. “He’s wrong, Mayfridh,” she managed to say. “He’s wrong. Even the scantest moments of joy are worth the
pain that follows.”

“You really think so?”

“I know so. I know it with my whole heart. You should definitely try to find them.”

Mayfridh beamed, threw herself on top of Christine and folded her in a hug. “Thank you, you’re right.”

“Just be cautious, okay?” Christine said through a mouthful of crimson hair. “They may have moved back to England. They may
not be around anymore.”

Mayfridh sat back. “I already looked in the phone book. There’s a listing for Frith at my old address at Zehlendorf.” Her
face grew serious. “Though it only listed my mother’s initials, and not my father’s. Do you think that means he’s dead?”

Christine thought that was exactly what it meant but didn’t say so. “Just prepare yourself for any eventuality. That way,
you won’t get hurt.”

Not that it really mattered if Mayfridh got hurt; she would soon forget it all when her miraculous, luscious faery world swung
away forever. Christine struggled with this new despair; the journey had only just started and already it was coming to an
end.

When Christine left for work, Mayfridh went looking for Gerda, but she was not in her apartment. She crept down the stairs
and slunk through the gallery before Mandy, who was talking to a man in a suit, could see her. She knocked at Gerda’s studio
door but nobody answered. She knocked again, then pressed her ear to the door. Sometimes Gerda used electric tools and couldn’t
hear anything else. But all was quiet within.

“Gerda’s not there.”

Mayfridh looked up. It was Jude, leaning in the doorway of his studio, his head tilted to one side. Jude, impenetrable Jude.
The spell Hexebart had given her had been utterly useless. There was no way into this secret of his, and she was unconvinced
that Gerda was right about him, especially after what Christine had told her this morning.

He smiled. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Where is she?”

“She went shopping, I think.”

“Without me?”

Jude wiped a paintbrush on a cloth in his hand. “Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe she’s somewhere else. Has Christine gone to work?”

“She left about five minutes ago.” Half a second too much silence intervened between his sentences and her responses, too
great a fraction of her mind was directed to admiring his dark, smiling eyes. “Sorry, I’m probably disturbing you while you’re
working. I’ll go back upstairs.”

“No, it’s fine. I’ve finished.”

“The painting?”

“Yeah, I finished it just now.”

She felt her tongue hesitate, could imagine too clearly Eisengrimm’s stern voice. Then said, “Can I see it?”

He seemed genuinely pleased. “Yeah, yeah. Of course. Come in.” He held open the studio door and ushered her ahead of him.

She gasped. It was simply the most beautiful painting she had ever seen. Such an ache of clarity where dark swirling gray
wheeled over bright white. Such somber, serious melancholy where brown and black collided. The colors so perfectly mixed that
it looked as though a bright distant star pulsed weakly over the claustrophobic unions of gloomy shapes.

“You like it?” he said.

“Oh, it’s the most beautiful . . .
beautiful
thing . . .”

He stood next to her, gazing at the painting. She felt the warmth from his shoulder. “Thanks. I think it’s the best I’ve ever
done.”

“You’re a genius,” she breathed.

Jude laughed. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

“No, no. Look at it, look at where this shape meets this patch of gray. It takes my breath away. It’s so profoundly . . .
so sad . . .”

He was gazing at her very seriously now. “You really mean it.”

She met his eyes—such beautiful eyes—and had to swallow hard. “Of course I really mean it.”

“You see it, don’t you?” he said, filling up with tension. “You really see it.”

Mayfridh nodded. “I really see it.”

His mouth was open a fraction—surprise. She was overwhelmed with the desire to kiss him, but an instant later he was looking
at his painting again. “What else? What else do you see?” He was agitated, alive with what appeared to be a desperate excitement.

She turned to the painting, feeling the pressure to say the right thing. “I see . . . this swirl of brown . . .” She touched
the painting, felt immediately that the paint was still wet. “Oh, oh no!”

He was laughing, all the sudden intensity gone. “Hey, it’s okay.”

Her fingers were sticky and brown. “It’s not okay. I’ve ruined it. I’ve ruined your painting!”

“No, really, it’s okay.” He was already picking up a brush, repairing the tiny blob of damage. “Look, it’s fixed already.”

“I’m so sorry, so very sorry.” She could feel tears prick at her eyes. All she had wanted was for Jude to like her, and now
she had smudged his favorite painting.

“Don’t be sorry, it’s all right. You weren’t to know it was still wet. Besides,” he said, smiling at her with that wicked,
knowing smile, “it’s kind of nice that your fingerprints are under there now, seeing as how you love it so much.”

She smiled back. “Thank you for being so sweet.”

“All part of the service. Hey, you’ve got paint all over your hand.”

In her distress she had balled her hand up into a fist and smeared the fingertip of paint everywhere. “Oh, dear,” she said,
moving to wipe the paint on Gerda’s overalls.

He stilled her hand. “No, no, don’t do that. You’ll never get it out.”

Before she could appreciate the touch of his hand on hers, it had been withdrawn. He went to the rickety table where his paints
and brushes were kept, and returned with a dirty piece of cloth that smelled of chemicals. “Here,” he said, “hold out your
hand.”

She did so, and he began to rub the paint off.

“You’ll have to wash up afterwards. This stuff is toxic.”

She couldn’t answer, was struck dumb.

He finished wiping her palm and then turned her hand over, examining it for more paint. “Looks pretty clean.”

“Thanks,” she said, knowing it sounded forced.

His fingers lingered on her hand a moment longer, a slow brush of his index finger from the base of her palm, right up her
middle finger, then, agonizingly, departing at the tip. A jolt of white heat. Had he done that purposely? So slowly, so sensually,
the pad of his fingertip against hers, electricity. A big breath stopped in her lungs.

“There,” he said softly. “There, that’s better.”

“Thanks,” she said again.

“Anyway,” he said brightly, “I might just . . . work a little longer on this.” He wasn’t looking at her now, he was folding
the rag, organizing his brushes. “I want to make sure all the shapes are how I feel them.”

“Certainly. I’m sorry to disturb you.”

“I guess I’ll see you at the party tonight,” he said, over his shoulder, not meeting her eye.

“Yes. Yes, you will.” And then when he said nothing further, “Good-bye, Jude.”

He didn’t reply. She backed out, closing the door behind her. The electricity was withdrawing now, and she felt mildly foolish.
Confused. And besotted.

Mayfridh could hardly believe how many people had fitted into Mandy’s gallery for the party. They jostled past each other
to look at the art, glasses in hands, cigarettes on lips, a bubbling hubbub of conversation swelling the room.

“I’d bet everything I had on it,” Gerda said, her words slightly slurred from an afternoon’s preparatory drinking. “Mandy’s
got a crush on you.”

Mayfridh turned to her and shook her head. “I’m sure that’s not true.”

“Every time I look at him, he’s looking at you.” Gerda glanced over her shoulder. “There! He’s looking at you now.”

Mayfridh cautiously lifted her eyes to find him. Gerda was right, but she denied it anyway. “No, he’s not. He’s talking with
Jude and Christine.”