The Autumn Castle (48 page)

“Jude,” she said, shaking his shoulder lightly. “Jude, wake up. It’s urgent.”

“Mmm?”

“Wake up,” she said, her voice cracking over a sob. “It’s life or death.”

He reached out a hand for hers. “Christine? Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m fine,” she said, sinking down next to him and letting the tears come, “but Mayfridh’s in terrible danger.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

She explained as fully as she could through her helpless tears. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she could see Jude’s face
take on a bewildered desperation as sobriety crashed in on him.

“Oh, Jesus,” he said when she had finished, pressing his fingers to his forehead. “Oh, God.”

“I have to find Hexebart, I have to—”

“No!” he cried. “No, I don’t want you anywhere near her. Stay away, stay far away.”

“But she might help.”

“From what you’ve told me, it’s more likely she’ll turn you into a frog.”

“I have to get to Ewigkreis.”

“I know, I know.”

“Mayfridh’s in terrible danger.”

He raised his voice. “I know!”

She drew back, startled. “Jude?”

“I can’t take this anymore. I don’t want you to go to Ewigkreis. What if Mandy kills you too?”

“He hunts faeries, not people.”

“You just told me he boils faeries alive. I can’t predict where he’ll draw the line.”

“You can come with me, then. If we can find a way to get across, you can come and we’ll find Mayfridh together.”

“Yes, but how? How does Mayfridh get back and forth?”

“The passage.” Christine snapped her fingers. “Yes! It will stay there until the winter comes. Mayfridh doesn’t need twine;
perhaps we can try it.”

He sprang out of bed. “Okay, I can’t just lie here and talk about it. I have to do something. Let’s go down to the Tiergarten;
let’s try the passage. I’ll go crazy if I have to sit here useless another moment.”

“Agreed.” She watched him lace his shoes. “Jude, I can’t bear to think of what Mandy’s doing to her. What if he’s torturing
her, or killing her slowly, or—?”

He reached out and pressed his fingers to her lips. “Don’t paint pictures in my head,” he said gently. “Please, Christine,
don’t make it worse than it already is.”

Hexebart is cold, but she doesn’t mind so much. She’s having trouble getting used to all the soft things and warm spaces,
and out here in the branches of this tree, with the stars and the wind above her, Hexebart feels a little more like her old
self.

Besides, there’s a special kind of thrill in being outside looking in. Oh, yes.

Through your window, through your curtain

Hexebart can see you certain,

Sees you sleeping in your bed,

Not a worry in your head.

Ha! This is fun. This woman’s name is Diana, and she is the nasty pig princess’s mother. She is old and ugly and sleeps in
a yellow dress with bare elbows. Nothing special at all about her. But Hexebart can make her more special.

Hmmm, let’s see. She’d be more special if she only had seven fingers, or eight toes. She’d be more special with no nose and
only one ear. She’d be very very special with a head like a donkey . . . Where should Hexebart begin?

Yes, yes, Hexebart knows she’s taking out her hatred of the little princess on this sour old woman. But Hexebart has been
down a well for years and years, and she misses Liesebet so sorely, sorely so. Diana isn’t Liesebet. Diana is just a stupid
human with ten fingers and ten toes, and Hexebart will fix that soon, you’ll see. Everyone will see. Such fun, oh, such fun,
rum-a-dum-dum.

Dark and windy, and faraway sounds of trains and streetcars, and leaves falling and skittering, and moonlight shifting and
flickering in the blustery shadows. Even though Christine was certain she stood precisely where the passage lay, nothing happened
when she took a step forward. She readjusted her starting position and tried again. Nothing. Without the twine, it was useless.
Jude sat a hundred feet away, reading Mandy’s diary by the light of a torch. He glanced up.

“Christine, you’ve been trying for half an hour,” he called. “It isn’t going to work.”

Christine sighed. “I know. But I can’t go home. I can’t just leave her.”

Jude closed the diary. He raised it with his right hand. “How could we not have known?”

“Until Mayfridh came along nobody believed in faeries.” She joined Jude on the bench. “If we’d found it we would have called
it imaginative fiction. Grisly, in keeping with his horrid personality. But fiction.”

“When Mayfridh gets back, we won’t show it to her. I mean, that stuff about her parents . . .”

“It’s horrific. She doesn’t need to know.”

Jude slid his arm around her waist. “It’s cold. We should go home. Think of another way.”

“Yes. Yes, I know.” Still they didn’t move. The silence between them drew out, filled with the sounds of the trees moving
and shivering. “Jude, Hexebart may be able to help.”

“I don’t see how.”

“She’s got all the magic. She could send us across to Ewigkreis.”

“Yes, but she wouldn’t help us, Christine. You’ve told me: she’s bitter and full of hatred and she despises Mayfridh. Why
would she do anything to help?”

“Because Mayfridh’s the queen. She’s under some kind of magical oath, but I’m not sure how far it extends. We know Hexebart
is around here somewhere. If we can find her we could ask. The worst she could do is say no.”

“The worst she could do is turn us all into frogs.”

Christine put her head in her hands. “I’m so tired I can’t think,” she said. “What time is it?”

“Four o’clock.”

“I’m afraid to go to sleep. I’m afraid to stop searching for an answer even for an instant, in case that’s the instant he
chooses to kill her.”

“We’ll think better after a few hours’ sleep. Come on.” He rose and held out his hand to her. She took it reluctantly and
they walked to the edge of the park.

“Promise me we’ll only sleep a few hours,” she said. “And promise me that we’ll look for Hexebart tomorrow.”

“I’ll look for her. We’ll leave Fabiyan up at Mandy’s, and I’ll search for her. You can finish reading Mandy’s notebook in
detail, in case he’s left any clue.”

“How will you search for Hexebart? She could be anywhere.”

“I’ll start in the park at the end of the street,” Jude said. “I don’t think she’s ‘anywhere.’ I think she came to play with
Mayfridh’s friends. Why pick on Gerda otherwise? I think she’s nearby.”

That thought was both comforting and frightening. “I should be with you. If you find her, I should be there to talk to her.”

“No. No point in both of us being put under some horrible spell.” He squeezed her against him as they approached the road.
“Promise that if a lonely little frog comes knocking at the door, you’ll take him in and treat him well? Just in case it’s
me?”

Christine managed to smile. “Don’t joke, Jude.”

“I’ll be careful. Let’s catch a taxi home.”

Sitting in the back of the warm, quiet taxi, Christine’s mind still raced and her pulse still hammered. She didn’t see how
she could ever sleep. But a short time later, lying in bed next to Jude, the weariness began to override the worry. She dozed
and woke, dozed and woke until dawn’s gray light began to seep into the room. It was only then that she noticed Jude wide
awake next to her, staring at the ceiling. She considered him through half-closed lids, then turned over to let sleep come
again. But not before she had seen such a look of horror on his face that it made her heart chill. He was worried about Mayfridh;
desperately worried. All that talk in the past of Mayfridh being able to look after herself, his descriptions of her as irrational
and spoiled, clearly had been a feigned nonchalance. Jude was worried like a man in love.

Christine thought she knew, now, why Jude had wanted to leave Berlin in such a hurry. Perhaps even why he had proposed to
her so hastily. Those red and fuchsia brushstrokes may have been dutifully painted out, but they were still under there somewhere.
Strong and bright as ever.

Mandy took the long walk down to the dungeon with a spring in his step. In his stained sack he had the bones of three faeries.
He had stacked them under a tree near the lake, but this morning had found them disturbed and a number of them stolen. Wolves,
probably. What dog could resist a bone? So he’d thought long and hard about where to put them, and come up with a solution
that was both safe and entertaining. If he piled them outside Mayfridh’s cell door, she’d have to look at them every time
she wanted to talk to her crow! What a lovely reminder for her of what she’d be reduced to soon enough. But carefully, with
her; in the vat, not this business of hacking flesh from bone. His fingers, usually so careful with his sculptures, were growing
careless in his excitement. He had cracked and splintered two bones already. He couldn’t risk that happening with Mayfridh’s,
not with all the magic infused into them.

“Good morning, Queen and Counselor!” he called cheerily as he advanced down the final hallway. No answer. He hadn’t expected
one.

He dropped the sack with a clatter, then began to pile the bones halfway between Mayfridh’s door and Eisengrimm’s. “Are you
well, Mayfridh?” he asked.

Again, no answer. A moment’s panic. Was she still there? One glance into her cell reassured him. She sat against a back corner,
disheveled and broken.

“What’s the matter, Mayfridh? You look terrible.”

“Leave me be,” she spat in her own guttural language.

“Is there something wrong?”

“Let Eisengrimm go.”

“Why?”

“He’s injured. He’s no use to you, his bones are too small.”

“Injured?”

She choked back a sob. “He might be dead.”

Fear seized Mandy. If the crow were dead, she’d try to escape. He glanced over his shoulder into the other room. “I’ll check
for you,” he said, releasing the rope from the ceiling and pulling it toward him. The cage swung up to the barred window of
the cell. Eisengrimm was indeed lying motionless on the bottom of the cage. Mandy slid a finger between the bars and poked
the bird. No response. “Well, now, it’s hard to tell. Was that a twitching foot?”

Mayfridh was at the window to her cell. “Leave him be. Let him go.”

He was fairly certain Eisengrimm was dead, but didn’t want to let her know that. “I won’t let him go, Mayfridh. He’s my insurance
policy.” He peered close. The crow was breathing, shallow and slow, but breathing. “He could very well be alive, you know.
It’s difficult to say for sure.” He let the cage swing back into place and replaced the rope on the hook. “You’d better be
careful you don’t roast him. Don’t open the door, will you? I’ll stoke this fire up nicely to keep him warm while he recovers.”

“Is he really alive? Are you lying to me?”

“I don’t think I’ll tell you.”

She shook the cell door in frustration. The rope jiggled and the cage swayed.

He held up a cautionary finger. “Be careful now, Mayfridh. I’m not much of a handyman. That cage could drop at any second
if you’re too rough with the door.”

But now she had caught sight of the bones, piled artistically with the three skulls sitting on top. Her face grew pale.

“Oh, no . . . who . . . ?”

“Ah, this is the start of my collection. I hope to add to it before I leave. I can’t tell them apart now, of course. All faeries
look the same once you pull their skin off. But one of them is a woman from your kitchen, one a young man named Sig from the
outskirts of the village, and the last was a farmer I caught wandering the edges of his field alone, looking for his dog.”
He glanced up, a smile on his lips, to see if she was listening. Her knuckles were white around the iron bars, her eyes glassy
and frantic.

“Mandy,” she said, her voice little more than a choked whisper. “Has it grown very much colder outside?”

Mandy frowned, a finger of fear touching his heart. “Yes, it has. Why?”

“Has the west wind grown stronger? Are the last leaves being torn down?”