The Autumn Castle (57 page)

The door was unlocked. He looked up as she closed the door behind her. He was crouching next to a box, stacking it full of
paint tubes and brushes.

“Packing?”

“Going home. As soon as Christine comes back.” He stood and stretched his back. “Did you find Hexebart?”

“Not yet. I suspect she’s with Mandy.”

“And where’s Mandy?”

“I don’t know. He’s not here?”

“We haven’t seen or heard him. And we would have heard him in this creaky old place.”

“Where could he be?”

Jude shrugged. “One of the richest men in Berlin? Anywhere. In any hotel. In any one of his apartments.”

Mayfridh ran a hand through her hair in frustration. “Damn him, and damn Hexebart.”

“Don’t go near him alone, Mayfridh,” Jude said, his face serious. “Promise me you’ll take one of us with you.”

She gazed at him. “I’ve hurt so many people.”

“What do you mean?”

Of course, he didn’t know about Christine, nor Eisengrimm, nor her mother. And how could she bear it if Jude was the next
victim of Hexebart’s magic, or Mandy’s violent nature? “I’m so confused,” she said, her voice cracking on a helpless sob.
“I don’t know where to start.”

He approached her, put a gentle hand on her elbow. “Hey, it’s okay. If Hexebart’s with Mandy, we’ll find him. We’ll start
by phoning all the hotels in town. Then we’ll try Mandy’s solicitor, his secretarial service . . . someone must have heard
from him.”

His tender voice, his soft eyes, heaped woe upon her woe. “Oh, Jude,” she said, folding against his chest. His arms caught
her tentatively. “Won’t you come back with me? I can’t be happy without you.”

“You’ll forget me.”

“I don’t want to forget you. I want to look at your face every day for the rest of forever.”

“I don’t deserve that happiness,” he said, “and you won’t remember me once winter comes, so you won’t suffer.”

“I will. Somewhere inside I know I’ll suffer. It will be a scar on my soul.” She turned her face up to him. “Tell me that
you’ll think about it.”

“I won’t think about it. Don’t make me think about it. You know it’s wrong. You know I don’t belong in your world. I belong
here, and I have to take care of Christine.”

“Just ten seconds . . . for ten seconds tonight, before you sleep, think about it. Ten tiny seconds of your life. Please,
Jude, please. Don’t leave me with no hope at all.”

He smiled. “Ten seconds, then. That’s an appropriate amount of time to think about my plans for a few hundred years.”

She leaned into him and encircled his waist with her arms. “Kiss me, my love.”

He kissed her, his hands moving to the small of her back, pressing her hard against him. “I love you,” he muttered.

Then the door burst open.

Mayfridh and Jude dropped their arms and jumped apart, but it was too late. Gerda glared at them with steely blue eyes.

“Gerda,” Jude gasped. “Gerda, don’t—”

“Don’t what?” Gerda demanded, and Mayfridh was horrified to see a lizard jump from her lips and land on the floor. “Don’t
interrupt your fun? Don’t stop you from cheating on your fiancée? Don’t spit fucking locusts and beetles?” She turned on Mayfridh
and pushed a finger into her chest. “When were you going to come and fix me? Before or after you betrayed your best friend?”
Such a barrage of insects and small reptiles sprang from her mouth that Mayfridh couldn’t count them.

“I can’t fix you,” Mayfridh said. “Not yet. I didn’t bring any spells. I have to find Hexebart.”

“You’re doing a fine job of looking for her, aren’t you?” A tiny frog landed in Mayfridh’s hair and became entangled. With
a shriek, she loosened it and it dropped to the ground.

“Gerda, calm down,” Jude said.

“You know what?” Gerda said. “I will calm down, but only because I hate the feeling of these things coming out of my mouth.
Though I
will
ask you one question.” She held up her index finger for emphasis. “Will you tell Christine about this, or will I?”

When Mandy finally slept, it was on the bare floorboards next to the vat, with the fluorescent lights still on overhead, and
his arm hooked around the Bone Wife’s ankle. He dreamed about her completed, with strong arms for carrying things, with a
mane of bright hair that he could almost see, with Mayfridh’s face painted onto the front of her gleaming head. Waking, seeing
his Wife standing there unfinished, filled him with a great sadness. If Mayfridh didn’t return, it could be years before she
was ever whole.

He lay still for a moment, looking up at her, then hunger and discomfort made him lock the boning room carefully behind him,
and go downstairs in search of breakfast.

The soft, early morning light in his lounge room was a welcome relief to his eyes, but the mess that Hexebart had made startled
him. She lay asleep on the sofa surrounded by empty food tins, by wrappers and scraps and dirty plates and spoons. The sofa
had been pulled close to the television—which was blaring an American news broadcast—and in the process the rug had been bunched
up. He bent to straighten it, and noticed it was wearing at least half a bottle of spilled tomato ketchup. A glimpse of the
kitchen through the doorway told him that the mess wasn’t confined to just one room.

“Hexebart!” he bellowed.

She woke with a start, her eyes bleary and blinking. “What? What is it?”

“You promised me you’d be tidy.” He swept his arm around him to indicate the mess.

“Yes, yes.”

“You’ve made a terrible mess.”

“I’ll clean it, I’ll clean it. Only don’t throw me out, no, don’t throw Hexebart out. Hexebart can help you.”

Mandy stalked to the kitchen and began searching for food. All the bread was gone, all the cheese and the cold meats in the
fridge had been gnawed on and left unwrapped on the bench, so he threw them out. He switched on the coffee machine. The cupboards
were open and all that remained in them were condiments and two tins of beans. He opened the freezer and found a bag of peas.
Hexebart, in the space of one night, had almost cleaned him out of food.

He turned to see her in the doorway, trying to charm him with a smile. He shuddered.

“Did you eat everything?” he asked.

“Hexebart only ever eats bread and water in prison.”

“You could have left some for me.”

“I left the meat and the cheese.” She indicated the rubbish bin.

“You’d already chewed on them.”

Hexebart approached the bin and reached inside. “I’ll fetch them.”

“No, no. We don’t eat food that’s been in the rubbish. Not in the Real World.”

She shook her head and clicked her tongue. “What a waste. What a terrible waste.” Then she turned, bright-eyed, and said,
“Mayfridh came back.”

Electricity. “What?”

“She came back last night, but now she’s gone again.”

“Where has she gone?” Frustration clawed at him. She had been here, in the hotel, and he’d slept through it.

“Hexebart was listening the house, yes she was. Hexebart can hear everything that goes on.”

“Where is she?”

“She came and she kissed Christine’s lover. Gerda found them and sent her away.”

“Where is she now?”

“She went to stay in a hotel.”

“Which one?”

“I don’t know,” Hexebart said, pouting at his ungrateful questions. “She didn’t say.”

Mayfridh, in a hotel, probably nearby. Could he make discreet inquiries? Find her? Kill her while she was alone? What were
the risks involved?

Hexebart was talking again. “But she’ll be back. She’ll be back very soon, I know, because she’s looking for me and she thinks
I might come here.”

Mandy was suspicious. What could this foolish old woman have that Mayfridh wanted? “Why is she looking for you?”

“Because I’m a poor prisoner and she’s a mean little sow and can’t bear it that I’ve esca-aped.” A song ensued, about escaping
and about the dungeon. There was no way of telling if she was lying, or crazy, or perfectly serious.

Mandy opened a tin of beans and took a spoon from the drawer. “I’m going to my bedroom for a few hours’ sleep. Next time you
hear her come, wake me up immediately.”

“Yes, Immanuel.”

“If you’re so good at listening to the house, tell me next time they’re all out. I’ll go shopping for food.”

“Ooh, yes, Immanuel. I’ll listen very hard.”

“Good.” He moved through the lounge room on his way to his warm, soft bed. “And clean up your mess.”

“Yes, Immanuel. Yes, I will.”

He didn’t believe that for a moment.

Christine leaned out the window of Mayfridh’s bedchamber, trying to imprint upon her memory the view of Ewigkreis laid out
before her. Russets and golds and the wind playing on the trees; the river lazy in the east, the Eternal Woods dim and mysterious,
stretching into the distance.

“It’s so beautiful and I can’t take it with me,” she sighed.

Eisengrimm spoke from the bed behind her. “Perhaps you should have brought a camera,” he said, a smile in his voice.

She turned her back to the window. His ribs were still wrapped in bandages, but his vigor and movement were returning. “A
photograph never captures a place. The smell, or the silence, or the way the light moves.” She glanced over her shoulder.
“Part of me really doesn’t want to say good-bye.”

“You can stay a little longer if you like.”

Christine shook her head. “I have to get back to my own world. I’ve left them alone together for long enough.”

“How’s your hand?”

“Comfortable.” She held up the velvet-lined silver hand that Klarlied had ordered from the silversmith. It was an exact match
for her remaining hand, with intricate carvings, and jointed fingers. A shortage of magic in Ewigkreis meant it remained unenchanted.

“A pity we couldn’t make it work for you.”

“It wouldn’t have worked back home anyway. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.”

“It matters to me. I regret your injury very deeply.”

She sighed and turned to the window once again. The giant birch was almost bare. Winter was close. “You’ll forget it.”

“If I could remember, I would. I’d remember you forever.”

“How much of autumn is there left, do you think?”

“A week at most. Mandy’s work upset the balance. We’ll have a long winter, but the seasons will right themselves by spring.”

“It must be beautiful here in spring.”

“It’s always beautiful here.”

Christine took a last look around the room. So many months ago, when this adventure started, she had found the low roof beams
and the dank smells uninviting. Now she had grown fond of the Autumn Castle, its dusty corners and its grimy windows and the
layers of white linen to sleep in. Perhaps it was simply appealing by association: here she felt no pain. Soon she would be
consigned to pain for the rest of her life.

“What’s the matter, Christine?” Eisengrimm asked.

“Thinking about how I’ll feel when I go back. Thinking about my back. It’s really going to hurt. Jude had to hit me hard.”

“I wish you the best with it,” he said, “and I wish you the best with Jude.”

“Yeah, and I wish you the best with your pain and your love.” She sank down on the bed next to him. “What’s wrong with us,
Eisengrimm? Why can’t we find somebody who loves us perfectly, wholly, and completely?”

“Very few people do find that somebody, Christine. It’s rare.”

She lay on her back, enjoying each breath that ventured into her lungs, wishing and wishing and not even sure what she was
wishing for.

“It’s time to go,” she said.

“Good-bye, Christine.”

She sat up and leaned over to hug him gently. “I will miss you so much.”

“I hope your life is full of wonders.”

“I hope your life is full of joy.” She took one last look out the window, one last look at Eisengrimm. Found tears on her
lashes. “Good-bye,” she said.

“Good-bye. Maybe some day . . .”

“Maybe. You never know.”

Christine made her way down to the passage—a dreamy mirror of afternoon colors standing in the forest. She stepped through
into the painful embodiedness of reality. Behind her, the Autumn Castle had disappeared, and Berlin traffic sounded in the
distance. She took a moment to catch her breath, then headed toward Hotel Mandy-Z.