The Autumn Castle (54 page)

Mayfridh approached and sat on the bed next to her. “I’m so sorry.”

“It isn’t your fault. I don’t blame you.” The strain in Christine’s voice told a different story.

“If there’s anything I can do . . .”

“Can you make it magically grow back?”

Mayfridh couldn’t tell if Christine was serious. “I . . . no. That’s not possible.”

Klarlied tied off the bandage. “Perhaps Queen Mayfridh can have a smith from the village make you a hand of silver,” she said
in her melodic voice, “then she could enchant it so it behaved like a real hand.”

Christine turned eager eyes on Mayfridh. “Can you do that?”

“It would only work while you were here.”

Her shoulders slumped forward again. “Oh.” She lay down on the rough blanket, her bandaged wrist across her chest.

Mayfridh shifted to the next bed, touched Eisengrimm’s ears gently. “Do you think he will live?”

Klarlied went to a side table, where she washed her hands in a deep basin. “I do. He’ll need a lot of rest. Some of his bones
are crushed. But he is a shape-shifter, and they are resilient.”

Mayfridh gazed at Eisengrimm’s face. As with any friend, she had long ago ceased to see his physical features. The fact that
he was a wolf rarely crossed her mind. But now, looking at him unconscious, she was acutely aware of the gray fur around his
muzzle, slightly darker under his chin, of the whiskers around his nose, the pink of his gums and the white flash of his teeth
as he twitched in a dream. She leaned to kiss his bristly head. “I wish he’d wake up.”

“The longer he slumbers, the more he heals.”

Mayfridh glanced at Christine, then said to Klarlied, “Could you leave us alone a few moments?”

“Of course, your Majesty.” Klarlied took the water basin under her arm. “Call me if you need me.”

When the hessian curtains swung closed behind Klarlied, Mayfridh leaned over Christine.

“I have to find Hexebart,” she said.

“I know,” Christine replied. “We should go back.”

“You took a serious blow to your back. If you stay here a little longer it will have time to heal before the pain returns.
And Klarlied can tend to your wound.”

“So could a nice, modern German hospital.”

“No, it couldn’t. You used a spell on the wound. Klarlied is a witch, she knows how to treat a wound which has been enchanted.”

“You think I should stay here?”

Mayfridh nodded. “A little while. Then somebody would be here when Eisengrimm wakes.”

Christine turned her head to look at Eisengrimm. “What if the seasons change? It’s getting very cold.”

“I’ll send one of the royal guard to mind the giant birch. A warning will be dispatched.”

“Do I even have a choice about when I go back? I mean, the first time I came, I got home just by waking up.”

“We can anchor you here with a spell—then when it’s time to go, you can use the passage in the forest as I do.” Mayfridh touched
her hand. “You are partly faery, the passage will work.”

Christine frowned. Mayfridh could tell she didn’t want her to be alone with Jude.

“You don’t think Hexebart will come back of her own accord?” Christine said.

“I doubt it. Her passage was from the dungeons. A royal guard waits there, but she would expect that. If she doesn’t return
and the seasons change, we’ll be left without any magic. Our race will die off.”

“Oh,” Christine said, casting her eyes down.

They sat quietly in the warm room for a few moments, listening to Eisengrimm’s breathing. The golden sun faded out of the
window, and velvety twilight settled over them.

“I’m very sorry, Christine,” Mayfridh said.
For everything. For your injuries, for knowing Jude’s deception, for loving him so passionately.
“You’ve done so much for me, and I can’t think how I deserve it.”

“Perhaps little girls who become blood sisters just grow up to do this for each other,” Christine said.

“Maybe you’re right,” Mayfridh said.
Or, at least, they should.

“You’re the only person left who knew me when I was who I really am. Before the accident.”

“And who are you now?”

Christine shrugged. “I’m different. I’ve been beaten up by the world.”

Mayfridh leaned in and kissed her forehead, then rose to leave. “I must go before the sun comes up again. Time is passing
too quickly.”

“He asked me to marry him.”

Mayfridh froze. “Jude?”

“We’re getting married as soon as we’re home in New York.”

Mayfridh forced a smile. “I’m so happy for you. Jude is . . . lovely.” The profound inadequacy of the word was clumsy in her
mouth.

“Tell him I’ll be home soon.”

“I will.” Mayfridh took a last loving glance at Eisengrimm, and headed out into the twilight.

C
urse those squeaking stairs!
In the dead of night they were as loud as gunshots. Mandy crept slowly, slowly. He didn’t want any of the artists to know
he had returned. What had Christine said?
Everybody at the hotel knows what a monster you are.
He couldn’t risk them interfering with his work. Maybe, in a few days, when he’d spent some time with his Bone Wife, he would
call his solicitor and have them all evicted. Not too hastily, though. He still hoped that Mayfridh would return and he could
fulfill his plans for her. How it pained him that she had slipped through his grasp.

His own lounge room alarmed him. So bright with color! Hues were bleeding into everything now, not just a bright object here
or there. He could see the carpet was the color of grass, the sofa the color of Christine’s blouse, and the rug on it a lighter,
warmer shade of her blood. He paused for a moment, gazing. Then he noticed the mess. Empty plates and food scraps and pillows
where they shouldn’t be. Who had been here?

Tiptoeing now, he explored the rest of his flat. He was alone. He couldn’t risk being discovered, so he unlocked the door
to the dark staircase and headed up to the soundproof boning room. He was a large man, and the bag of bones was heavy and
cumbersome. The stairway was so narrow that he had to breathe in tight and yank the sack behind him, but finally he had his
booty safely in the attic room. He tipped the bones out on the floor. Gorgeously, a pale blue sheen covered them. He had never
seen it before, and spent a few precious moments holding them aloft in the light, tilting each this way and that to enjoy
the pale color. Christine’s hand was among his stash. He scooped it up and sniffed it. Faery bones. No doubt at all about
it. She was a human with the hands of a faery. One could say he had done her a favor by removing it.

He turned the hand over; what a special prize. He already had a plan for the bones inside. He settled on the floor cross-legged,
like a child excited about playing, and pulled off the cheap shining ring on the engagement finger. He cast it aside and it
rolled into a corner of the room. The work of art he had planned would prove far more precious a jewel. He reached for a blade
and started to work.

The black windows allowed him no access to the night outside. Still, it must be growing dark because it was growing cold.
He padded downstairs for warm pajamas and returned to his work. Carving, joining, polishing, under the fluorescent lights,
solitary and creative in a dark, sleeping world. The early hours of the morning passed. His hands ached, his eyes stung. A
tiny sliver of light from a scratch in the window. Dawn approaching.

He held up the product of his hours of labor. A delicate chain of glistening white, every link carved lovingly out of the
fine bones of Christine Starlight’s fingers.

Mandy turned to the Bone Wife, waiting patiently for him. A pity she had no neck to hang it around, but he approached and
slung it over her waist. Her fine hips stopped the chain from sliding all the way to her feet. It fell in a soft V between
her thighs.

He fingered the chain gently, turning the links over and over. What a fine sculptor he was. What a brave hunter and unique
artist. And with a pile of bones waiting for him (not quite the pile he had hoped . . . ) it wouldn’t be long before the Bone
Wife could wear her new necklace about her gleaming white throat.

Mandy stood back and admired her. “Come, my love,” he said, “we shall dance.”

With that he stepped in and grasped her about the hips. He stepped back, and she stepped forward; he stepped forward, and
she stepped back. Slowly at first, then in a circle. Mandy began to laugh. She was actually getting the hang of it. “Yes,
my dear Wife, that’s good.”

Step, step, around in a circle. He hastened his pace; she kept up. Soon they were whirling around the vat as the city woke
up far below.

Then she misplaced a dainty foot and came crashing down. Mandy fell down next to her, kissing her pale curves. “Never mind,
never mind, my darling. Soon you will be finished, and there will be so much magic in you that you will dance like a ballerina.”
He laughed, sitting up and shaking his head. His body cried for sleep, to be horizontal in a warm soft bed, but the bones
were just within his reach and his fingers craved them like a sinner craved absolution. He crawled over to the bones and began
to sort.

As she walked up Vogelwald-Allee through the blustery November wind, leaves skidding and overtaking her left and right, Mayfridh
made a deal with herself. It was up to Jude: if he asked about Christine first, then she would let him go. She would let him
continue his deception with Christine (poor Christine, how that guilt swirled in her stomach like bad cream) and say good-bye.
But, if his first concern was for Mayfridh, then she would know that his love for her was more than his pity for Christine.
And she would do everything to make him hers.

She steeled herself as she opened the front door to the hotel. Mandy could be around here somewhere; she had to be on her
guard. She recalled his face in the half-light of the dungeon, full of hate and longing, and it made her shudder with fear.

Inside the hotel, all was quiet. She hurried up the stairs to the sanctuary of Jude’s apartment and knocked on the door. Her
heart was hammering fast. He opened the door. His face grew pale. He grabbed her hand and yanked her inside, kicking the door
closed and embracing her. “Mayfridh,” he gasped, “thank God you’re all right.”

She knew she had won.

For a few moments there was nothing but the warmth of his arms and the beating of his heart, and then he drew back, took a
breath. “Where’s Christine?”

“She’s still in Ewigkreis.”

“Why?”

“To recover.” She looked pointedly at the sculptor’s mallet on the kitchen table, deciding not to tell yet that Christine
had lost her hand. That knowledge would confuse his feelings; Mayfridh liked it better when it was obvious he loved her.

“When will she be back?” he asked.

“Perhaps a day or so.”

For nearly a full minute they stood gazing at each other. Mayfridh knew she had so little time for standing and gazing—Hexebart
was still loose—but she was frozen. He was frozen.

Then he seized her and kissed her—passionate, violent kisses—and her body was surrendering and surrendering, with hot blood
and lips and eyes; and she was consumed by that blissful feeling of emptiness withdrawing, of loneliness vanishing, of happiness
being possible. Sometime.

Afterward, they lay in a tangle of clothes and warm limbs, breathing slowly in the afternoon shadows. Sunlight, dappled and
dimmed by branches moving outside, shone on the sill and the carpet but didn’t reach the sofa. Mayfridh shivered and pulled
her blouse over her shoulders.

“Jude,” she said, “would you be my king?”

He opened his eyes. Alarmed. “What?”

“Would you come back to Ewigkreis with me and be my king? Raise heirs with me, grow old with me . . .” The panic in his eyes
finished her sentence. “Jude?”

“I can’t, Mayfridh.”

“You can. You’d become one of us, you’d live four hundred years. It’s a beautiful place. You could paint all day and never
have to worry about anything.”

He fell silent and she sat up, looking down at him.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Would you do it?” he countered, his voice touched with anger. “Would you give up everything and join me in my world?”

“But I have so much more to lose,” she said. “My magic, my power, hundreds of years of youth and beauty.”

“I belong in the Real World,” he said. “I belong in a place where there are urban spaces and traffic noises and cynicism and
alienation. All the things that drive my art. What would I paint in Ewigkreis? Landscapes?”

“Forget I asked.”

His voice dropped to a whisper. “I belong with Christine.”

“You don’t. You belong with me. You know it, you feel it.”

“I don’t know what I feel.”

She climbed to her feet and straightened her clothes. She had expected him to say yes. He loved her, she knew he loved her.
If it wasn’t for Christine . . . a surge of anger and resentment swept through her. Christine, with her plain face and her
infinite ability to make people pity her.