The Kingdom of Back

by Marie Lu

  Woferl woke up crying one night, and as Mama rose from her slumber in a nearby chair and hurried to his side, he told her that he could not see. Even candlelight hurt his eyes so much that he kept them closed all the time. Red spots began to appear on his skin, slowly at first, and then more and more quickly, like a wildfire to an untouched forest. I could hardly recognize him through the smallpox rash. Whenever he burst into a fit of coughs, I thought it sounded like Hyacinth’s laughter. I would look for him at night, but he did not appear to me.

  I woke the next night, trembling. From my open door I could see candlelight still flickering in Woferl’s sickroom. I rose then, wrapped my blanket around me, and made my way to him.

  Mama slept quietly in the chair at the corner of the room, while my father lay with his head in his arms at the writing desk. I saw an unfinished letter to Herr Hagenauer crushed beneath his elbow. I walked carefully, so that I would not wake them, and sat down beside Woferl’s bed. Through the flickering candlelight and the windowpane I could see the hints of floating shapes, the cloaked figures that seemed to haunt us in a way that others could not notice, waiting patiently beside the glass. I turned to look at Woferl, who tossed and turned in his fitful sleep.

  “Nannerl?” he whispered.

  I blinked. Woferl suddenly turned his head in my direction, although his eyes—still swollen shut—could not see me. Instinctively, I reached for his hand and pressed it between mine. His skin was hot to the touch.

  “I’m here, Woferl,” I said.

  He tried to smile, but the pain stopped him. “You came to see me,” he said.

  I swallowed. “Of course,” I said. “You are my brother.”

  “Do you think I will get better? Is the smallpox very bad?”

  The weakness in his voice cracked my heart. “It is not so bad,” I lied. The shapes outside the window grew larger, so that I could see their bony arms and long, spindled fingers. “The smallpox will disappear in just a few days.”

  Woferl shook his head. He did not believe me. “I wish I could see you,” he whispered. His hand slipped out of mine and reached up for my face. I let him touch my cheek and held it there for him, so that he could feel the coolness of my skin.

  My music notebook called to me. I thought I could hear its notes coming from my room, fragments of my composition. A tingle ran through my body at the sound.

  Hyacinth. He had come to call. The time was near.

  “Nannerl,” Woferl said suddenly. He turned his face to me. “I’m sorry about your compositions.”

  At that, I turned sharply back to him. “What?”

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  I swallowed, afraid of what he might say next. “What do you mean?”

  “The six sonatas that Papa took from you. He should not have done that.”

  I was silent. My hands pulled Woferl’s away from my cheek so that he could not feel the tremble of my jaw. How long ago was it that our father betrayed me? I had tried to bury it away in my heart, didn’t think Woferl would ever speak aloud to me about it. Now the memory of it all came roaring back, stabbing so hard at me that I winced in pain.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw a small movement. A tiny patch of mushrooms was growing on the dresser top, right beneath the light of the candle. They were a shiny black and dotted with scarlet.

  Woferl struggled to get closer to me. “I didn’t tell him, you know,” he said. “I didn’t tell Papa about your music. I did not think that he would ever find them, but he did, for he was searching for a pair of cuff links he had lost. I could not stop him from going there.”

  He spoke frantically, as if he knew he was fading away. I patted his hand, clucking to him softly so that he would not work himself into a frenzy. “I know,” I whispered. “It’s all right.”

  “They are yours,” Woferl went on. “And they are better than anything I could have written.” He took a deep breath. “All I’ve ever wanted, Nannerl, was to be like you. It is still all I hope for. I need you to know. I need you to know.” He repeated it several times, urgent in his fever.

  All I’ve ever wanted.

  And suddenly I realized that, here, kept safe within the small chest of my brother, was my wish all along. I’d despaired so much of ever seeing it come true, had spent so much effort turning toward my father for validation, that I’d never taken the time to look in Woferl’s direction for it.

  It was my wish not to be forgotten, to have a place within hearts when I was gone. To be remembered by the world.

  But it was my brother’s wish to be like me. He was the one who handed me quill and ink. He was the one who remembered.

  Tears blurred my vision. All around us, vines had begun creeping up the walls and around the bedposts, their leaves a glittering black, their flowers tiny and white. Nannerl, the whisper came, calling for me. The kingdom had finally come to claim my brother.

  Woferl gave me a thoughtful expression. I hurriedly wiped away my tears. Although I knew he could not see them, he seemed to know I was crying.

  “You did not look through the final volume,” he said at last.

  “No,” I answered. “How could I? I saw your name printed on the cover.”

  “You did not see the final copy of Die Schuldigkeit, either. I remember you walked out of the room, complaining of the air.”

  I thought back to the oratorio we had written together. “I did not have the strength to see your signature on it.”

  “I did not sign either with my name, you know. I could not do it.”

  I continued to look at him, more surprised now than anything. Such a thought had never crossed my mind. “What did you sign them as, then?”

  “I signed them Mozart.”

  I leaned forward. “Just Mozart?”

  “Yes. For both of us. We are both Mozart, are we not?”

  Woferl paused and made a gesture with his hands, as if to write something down. I broke out of my thoughts long enough to see it, then rose and walked over to where Papa slumped on the writing desk. I carefully took the quill and inkwell, my hands brushing past ivy leaves and tendrils as I did, and then a sheet of paper. I returned to Woferl’s side. With both hands, I helped him find the quill and dip it in the inkwell. He touched the paper, then pressed the quill down.

  He smiled at me. I was too stunned to say anything in return. I simply leaned closer, then laid my head gently against his swollen cheek. His breathing became shallower, a hissing tide between lulls. I hummed for him. He tightened his grip on my hand.

  The glow of blue fireflies had begun to flood the room, darting impatiently from one place to the next. This was the moment Hyacinth had been waiting for. I could hear him calling for me, the music of my composition seeping into the air and his whispers accompanying it.

  Nannerl. My Fräulein. It is time.

  Woferl was suspended between two worlds. The time had come to lead him out of this world forever and into the kingdom beyond.

  When he had fallen asleep, I took the quill and ink and placed them back on the writing desk. Then I left the sickroom, returned to my own room, and found the music notebook tucked underneath my bed. I cradled it in one arm. Black mushrooms dotted the floor, but disappeared wherever my feet landed.

  I went to my brother’s door. Then I passed it by and headed down to the main entrance.

  Nothing stirred in the night except the kingdom itself, which had begun to grow faster, its dark grasses lining the steps of the stairs, its poisonous vines and leaves suffocating the buildings. I could hardly feel my bare feet against the rain-soaked pavement of the street.

  The woods of the kingdom lined the side of the city, the path into them shrouded in black. I halted in my steps to gather my courage. My shadow wavered under silver light. I looked up to see the twin moons aligned at last with each other, forming a single bright disk in the sky.

/>   Then I stepped onto the path and disappeared into the woods.

  THE QUEEN OF THE NIGHT

  The path I took was lit by nothing more than slivers of moonlight. The tortured trees of the kingdom sighed in the wind, leaning their bare branches and roots toward me as if to pull me to them. I went on, careful to avoid the dark water pooled near their bases. For a while, I couldn’t be sure where I was heading. The path could have led down to the white shores, toward the hidden grotto where the trapped queen lived. Or to the castle, where I would meet Hyacinth.

  I tried to turn in the direction that I thought would take me to the beach. My feet padded quietly down the winding path. My breaths came shallow and swift. What if Hyacinth kept me from going there? What if he appeared at the end of the path, waiting for me?

  The piece I had composed played on the night air, a melancholy melody that drifted between the trees. There were no faeries lighting the path tonight, for all of them must have abandoned the woods to join Hyacinth at the castle. I was grateful for their absence. If one were here, it would surely tell Hyacinth the news of my presence. But he was distracted by the festivities he was throwing tonight, waiting for me to bring my brother to him.

  At last, when I thought I could go no farther, the woods ended, and the path led out onto the shore of white sand. With a start, I realized that the kingdom had permitted me to take the path that my heart wanted to follow. And my heart had led me to the trapped queen.

  The ocean was no longer the calm blue I remembered. Now it was so dark that I could no longer see the sand sifting at its bottom, and when I dipped a toe into the water, it no longer felt warm but as cold as the winter sea. I sucked my breath in sharply as I waded in, letting the icy water shock my skin. A short distance away rose the rocks beneath where the grotto lay.

  I glanced back once at the woods behind me, half expecting to see Hyacinth waiting for me on the shore, his head tilted at me in expectation. But he was not there.

  I turned back to the ocean, took in a deep breath, and dove.

  At first, I could see nothing. The water swallowed me whole, pushing against me as I swam deeper, my arms searching for the rough surface of rock. I went on and on, until my lungs began to burn. Had it taken this long for Woferl and me to find the grotto’s entrance when we last entered it? Had it only been a nice memory, the warm, sweet water and the glowing cavern?

  What if it was no longer there? Perhaps I was too late, and the Queen of the Night had perished alone.

  Just as I thought my lungs might burst, my hands scraped along rock that curved inward into a tunnel. I pushed myself frantically through the black water, reaching blindly, until I hit the end of the tunnel and felt it curve sharply upward. My legs kicked with the strength of my last breath.

  I surfaced with a terrible gasp.

  The cavern had grown darker since the last time I saw it. The blue flowers that had draped down from the cavern ceiling in sweet garlands, filling the air with their heady scent, had withered and died, leaving behind their shriveled shells. The night flowers that crawled along the walls, lighting the space with their blue glow, had turned scarlet as they died, their skeleton husks littering the cavern floor with an ominous red hue.

  I swam toward dry ground. As I went, the silhouette of a figure hunched against the rock walls, her head in her hands, came into view.

  Her shoulders shook as she cried. Her legs were still melted into the cavern floor, trapped eternally there. Her wings looked even more tattered and faded than I remembered, hanging limply against her back—but tonight, there was a golden glow about her, as if some remnant of magic were stirring in her blood.

  The twin moons. Their alignment. I remembered that this would be the night when her power would be at its height, and then I recalled the Sun’s love for the queen, how he had bestowed her with the magic of his fire.

  She did not look up at my approach until I pulled myself out of the water. It must have been the sound of my dripping against the rock that shook her out of her reverie. Her face jerked up, and her dark gaze locked straight on to mine. There was no white in her eyes at all. Suddenly I remembered Hyacinth’s old warning to me, that she was a witch who was not to be trusted, and I felt myself yearning, even now, to heed his advice.

  Then her sobs quelled some as she took me in, tilting her head this way and that. At last, a glint of recognition appeared.

  “You tricked me,” she said. Her blue lips curled into a snarl as her voice echoed off the cavern walls, repeating the words over and over. You tricked me, you tricked me. “Hyacinth’s little Fräulein.”

  I forced my hands to stop trembling and myself to move forward. “He tricked me too,” I whispered. “He told me that you were the Queen of the Night, but not that you were once the queen of Back.”

  At my words, she froze. She eyed me suspiciously, as if not quite believing me, and for a moment I thought that perhaps she didn’t remember her past at all.

  Then she said, “How do you know this?”

  I could barely force the answer from my lips. “Because Hyacinth entered the tallest tower of the castle and killed the princess confined there.” There were tears in my eyes now. “Because I did not know any better, and helped lead him there.”

  The queen’s suspicion changed to shock. In that shock, I suddenly saw not a faery, nor a creature, but a woman who’d once had a son and a daughter. Her dark eyes blinked, turned moist, filling up until fresh tears ran down her cheeks. It had been her daughter in the tower, and the realization made her crumple there, defeated.

  I waited, frightened, for her to unleash her wrath on me. Instead, she looked up at me with a sad gaze and shook her head. “He tricked you,” she said. “Just as he’d once tricked me.”

  “What do you mean?” I whispered.

  “The girl in the tower was you, child,” she said. “You still live, just as your brother does. But Hyacinth will take you both tonight, if you are not careful.”

  Both of us. I trembled, struggling to understand her.

  If Woferl was the princeling of Back, then I was the princess. It was why I saw so much of myself in the girl trapped at the top of the tower, how I’d felt like I was looking into a mirror. Perhaps it was even why I seemed to feel the pain of Hyacinth’s teeth sinking into her in that moment, why I woke with visions of blood staining my hands.

  She was me, and I was her.

  Hyacinth had devoured the part of my soul trapped in that castle. What he really wanted now was the rest of my heart. The entirety of me. And after I brought him my brother tonight, he would let the illness overcome me and take me with him too.

  “Wicked souls always seek to trap us,” the queen told me. Her voice was so lyrical, so sad in its sweetness, that I could feel the crack it made against my heart.

  “What did he do to you?” I whispered.

  “I was a young queen who loved her husband and was eager to rule her kingdom. Oh, I had so many ideas! The king would sit and listen to me for hours, writing down all I wanted to do for the villagers. Give food and homes to our poor.” Her eyes shone for an instant with the past. A wistful smile played on her lips. “And then, in the woods, I encountered a young faery.”

  I could see it now, the queen’s first encounter with Hyacinth, how she must have been as hypnotized by his charms as I once was.

  “He cast a spell on me and led me farther and farther from home. When I tried to find my way back, I only stumbled upon the white sands of this shore.” She looked away. “He imprisoned me in here, cursing my legs to forever be trapped as part of this cavern, until the day someone came to free me.”

  She turned her eyes up to me again. The glow around her pulsed with a life of its own. “Here I am. And here you are. Have you come to free me? Or are you his messenger again, to put me out of my misery?”

  I stared back at her, remembering her fury and frustration the la
st time I’d seen her.

  “Is it possible to find what you’re looking for?” I finally asked her. “Is it possible to get what you want?”

  “These are questions I cannot answer for you, child,” she replied. “But we must still try.”

  My gaze shifted to the night flowers growing along the wall. There were only a few left now, dying because the spirit of the queen was dying as well. I walked closer to one and ran my finger delicately along its enormous black petals. It cast its scarlet light against my skin.

  Fill the night flower with water, the queen had said to me when I last stood in this grotto. Pour it on my feet. Free me!

  I closed my fist around the stem of the flower. I pulled hard. The stem cracked, the flower coming free into my hand. I walked to the grotto’s pool and knelt over it, filling the flower with water. Then I returned to the queen and held it over her feet.

  “Perhaps,” I said, “we should have helped each other all along.”

  THE RETURN OF THE QUEEN

  From a distance, we must have looked like a timid pair, the queen and me. She walked behind me, her form small and fragile in a riding cloak. Beneath her hood, I could see nothing but the line of her lips. But there was a strength about her tonight. When she looked at the night sky, to where the twin moons hung aligned, her shoulders straightened and she tilted her head up as if to soak in the sight. The light of the moons was a reflection from the Sun, I realized, and even this small bit of heat seemed to feed her heart. I could feel the warmth emanating from her skin, see the yellow glow growing around her, highlighting her features underneath the cloak.

  Her breaths quickened as the distance between us and the castle shortened. When the first tall spires began to peek through the trees, she paused in her tracks, as if she could no longer bring herself to move forward. I stopped to look at her.

  She had not seen her kingdom since it had first fallen. Her memory of this place was one steeped in beauty, filled with the love of her people and the affection of her king. Now it was emptied, the square no longer packed with smiling crowds or bustling merchants, the moat filled with dark water.