The Autumn Castle

by Kim Wilkins

  Christine unlocked the apartment door and called out, “Jude?”

  “In here.”

  Christine looked around as she closed the door behind her. Jude had cleaned the entire apartment. The kitchen gleamed, the ashtrays were empty, the tables were free of the usual piles of books and papers. Jude had clearly had a bad day too. When he couldn’t paint, he cleaned. Obsessively.

  She followed his voice to the main bedroom, where he was smoothing the covers over.

  “I washed the sheets,” he said.

  “Bad painting day?”

  He stood up and sighed. “Awful. Didn’t feel like I was painting at all, just putting marks on the canvas.”

  She reached down to help him with the corner of the duvet, pulled a muscle in her back and winced.

  “Christine?” he said, approaching her.

  “Bad-back day too,” she said, lowering herself onto the bed. “Maybe I’ll just stay here.”

  “Can I get you anything?”

  “Sit down a minute.”

  He sat next to her; she held up her thumb. “Can you see that spot?”

  He peered closely. “Yeah. What is it? An insect bite?”

  “I don’t know. It itches really badly.” She sighed and lay back on the bed. Jude leaned over her and kissed her forehead.

  “Jude, I think I’m going crazy.”

  He smoothed her hair. “No, you’re not. You’re just adjusting to a new city.”

  “It’s not new for me.” She held up her thumb again. “When I was seven, out at Zehlendorf, I pricked this thumb—right where that red spot is—and became blood sisters with the girl next door.”

  He smiled. “That’s a long incubation period for an infection.” His teeth were slightly crooked. That was something she loved about him. A lot of her friends back home were getting their teeth bleached and capped, giving them all the sterile, homogeneous look of movie stars.

  She gently punched his arm. “Don’t make fun.”

  “I’d never make fun.”

  “The thing is, Jude, I can’t stop thinking about her. It’s like an obsession. It’s like my mind keeps throwing her name back at me . . . her face.”

  “Maybe you should try to find her.”

  Christine shook her head. “She was kidnapped. It was one of the reasons my parents left Berlin. She was taken right from her bed, from her house.” And there was some connection with a crow . . .

  “Did they ever find her?”

  “No. She was probably raped and tortured and killed. Poor little kid.”

  “Maybe you never got to process that trauma because you left Berlin behind. Maybe being back here is stirring it all up again.” He patted her shoulder. “You’ll be fine. It’ll pass in a few weeks.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Want me to bring you a couple of painkillers?”

  She propped herself up on her elbows. “Yeah, and a notebook and a pen.”

  Jude kissed her again. “You wait right here.”

  A few minutes later he returned. She dutifully swallowed the two tablets he held out for her, and took the notebook and pen.

  “What are you writing?” he asked.

  “I’m trying to solve a mystery.”

  “A mystery? About the little girl?”

  “No. About a crow.”

  He shook his head. “I’ll leave you to it. I might go wait in the studio with a paintbrush in my hand, see if the Muse drops by.” He backed out of the room and closed the door. A couple of moments later, she heard the apartment door shut behind him.

  Christine rested the notebook on her knees and wrote, “May Frith.”

  Then underneath she listed as many things as she could remember about the little girl: her hair and eye color, her father’s name, her mother’s name, the colors of her bedroom, her favorite toy. And then it started to emerge—ever, ever faintly—the memory of the black wings and the window and . . . No, it was gone again.

  “Crow,” she wrote, and circled it. The painkillers were starting to do their work, and she grew heavy-limbed and sleepy. She put the notebook aside and closed her eyes, trying to force her mind down long-locked corridors of memory. As she drifted to sleep, a flash dashed through her mind and disappeared: wings beating, a little girl shrieking, the wide world outside a window.

  Christine woke in the dark. But not completely dark. The blinds were still open, and the light of a nearby street lamp cast a pale glow on the bed. She was disoriented: still in her work clothes, not under the covers, blinds not drawn. Then she remembered taking the painkillers. Her watch said it was eleven o’clock. Jude was not asleep next to her. She rolled over and eased herself out of bed.

  “Jude?” she called, opening the bedroom door a crack and peering out. Not there. Probably in the studio still, finally painting something.

  Her back felt marginally better. She stretched up, felt a twinge. She carefully put one foot in front of the other and made it to the kitchen, where she poured a glass of water to drink by the light of the open fridge.

  Starving. She hadn’t eaten since lunchtime. She crouched to inspect the contents of the fridge and found some leftover spaghetti. Jude probably hadn’t eaten either. Perhaps she could make them both some dinner and take it down to the studio. She grabbed the bowl and backed up.

  Bang!

  Jude, in his housecleaning frenzy, had moved the table. Its corner struck the small of Christine’s back, sending a shooting barb of pain deep inside her spine. The bowl jumped out of her hands and crashed to the floor. Her fingers went to her back, searching vainly for the place to switch off the awful pain. A hot gush of white noise swept past her ears, making her head spin. Oh, no, she was going to black out. Her body wasn’t able to process the pain, was choosing oblivion instead. She felt for the table, tried to hold herself up, heard a twisted groan that she barely recognized as her own. A whoosh of fluttering wings battered her head. The world went white; then gray; then, finally, black.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Relief. Instant, marvelous, floating relief. I must be dead.

  Because never, in the past thirteen years, had she been completely without the pain. She savored it, the loose drifting freedom in her back. Relief, glorious relief. It was overwhelming and intoxicating and—

  Wait a minute. Where the hell am I?

  Christine opened her eyes and was dazzled by golden slanted sunshine. A canopy of trees stretched above her, their leaves stained with the tawny streaks of autumn. She lay on a bed of leaves; the world smelled damp and earthy.

  This must be a dream: she had blacked out and slipped into a dream. But could that be right? She had been unconscious a number of times in her life and had never dreamed, not even in her long coma. Unless she had dreamed and hadn’t remembered on waking. The thought struck her heart sadly: to know such pleasure yet not remember was tragic.

  She sat up, determined to memorize everything. But the forest yielded more details than she could commit to memory. This dream landscape was perfectly realistic. For a startled moment, Christine wondered if she had somehow strayed down to a remote corner of the Tiergarten in her stupor, and fallen asleep among the leaves. But no, the trees were too vast and the air was too quiet.

  A flutter in the branches behind her caught her attention. She peered into the dark, but could see nothing. An instant later, the fluttering approached from her left. She cried out as a shining black crow swooped down and plucked at her scalp. Cowering under her hands, she waited for it to return. But it settled on a branch nearby, gazing at her, one of her long brown hairs in its beak. Christine rubbed her head. Why did that hurt, when her back didn’t? The bird spread its wings and took off. This was the most vivid dream she had ever experienced.

  She rose, reveling in the easy movement. The trees thinned out a few hundred feet in the distance so she headed in that direction, walking a few paces and then running, a laugh on her lips. The trees parted and she emerged in a rocky ravine, bathed in golden light. Across the slope
was a path, leading her eye up to . . .

  A crooked little castle.

  “My God!” she exclaimed, laughing. Its slender twisted turrets, long, fluttering flags, and curved stone walls hovered in the distant golden mist of setting sun. What an imagination she had. If Jude had dreams like this, he’d never have painter’s block again. Then she smiled to herself. Jude could dream this and still he would paint monochrome abstracts.

  She picked her way over the slope toward the path. It was difficult; she was still wearing the black dress she had worn to work that day, and her feet were bare. A pair of dream-shoes and dream-jeans and a more level dream-ground would have been useful. A rancid smell wafted toward her. She turned her head but saw nothing behind her. She walked on. She was nearly at the path when she glanced up and saw that she was about to drop a bare foot into a stinking mess of rotted flesh.

  She shrieked and scrambled back, falling onto her buttocks. A pig, it was just a pig. Dead, eyeless, its stinking flesh black and the ground beneath it stained.

  A light click-click sounded behind her. She turned. The crow again. A shudder moved through her body as she imagined it plucking out the dead pig’s eyes. She got to her feet, shaking and confused. She had fallen down and felt no irritation of her old injury, so she must be dreaming. But everything seemed so real and fluid, not at all like the surreal and disjointed images she was used to in dreams. A thread of panic wormed into her stomach.

  Just be calm. Maybe unconscious people dream differently than sleeping people.

  The crow cricked its head to gaze at her, its golden eyes wary. She headed off toward the path, trying not to look at the dead pig. It would be really good to wake up now, to be back in the apartment with the broken spaghetti bowl.

  But she banished the thought as soon as it occurred to her. A return to the apartment was a return to the pain and, oh, it was going to be excruciating after that bruising she’d taken against the corner of the table. No, she would stay a while in this pain-free world; enjoy the relief if not the scenery.

  She checked on the crow and was startled to see a wolf sitting where the bird had been. She swallowed a shriek.

  “Okay . . .” she said to the large gray creature. “I know this is just a dream, and it’s my dream, so you can just get lost. I don’t want you in my dream.”

  And then it spoke to her: opened its mouth and said something. Not English and not German—or, at least, not any version of German she recognized—and she took comfort in that. Dream gibberish, at last.

  “Yeah, whatever, Mr. Wolf. Just stay away.”

  She wished she hadn’t left the forest. Everything had been fine in the forest. She warily glanced at the path, and saw two figures with a cart and horse. The wolf wasn’t following her. She picked her way toward them.

  “Vienc si!” This was the wolf, calling out behind her.

  Christine turned. “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “Vienc si!” he said, but she realized he wasn’t talking to her at all. He was calling to the men with the cart.

  She whirled around to see them running toward her. They wore plain brown tunics, belted in the middle, and peculiar woolen hats. Christine put up her hands and said, “Now, just wait a second. I don’t mean anybody any harm.”

  One of the men was upon her an instant later. She struggled with him briefly, but then the second man was there, throwing a sack over her head and bundling her over his shoulder.

  “Hey. Hey, this is my dream! Stop it! Put me down.”

  She heard muffled voices, but couldn’t make them out. The men carried her for a few moments and then dumped her, she presumed in the back of the cart. She kicked, but they had tied off the sack. “Let me go!” she shouted. The sack stank like animal sweat and urine and she held her breath for as long as she could.

  “Jesus,” she said. “Jesus, that stinks.”

  They bumped up the path. She hoped the wolf was gone at least. Next time she got the opportunity to talk to someone, she would have to try German.

  She twisted around, trying to make herself comfortable. A tiny pinpoint of light came through the sack up near her forehead. She pushed her finger through the hole to make it bigger, and peered out. They were crossing into the castle grounds, under a raised iron gate whose spikes pointed toward the earth. The walls rose above—pale gray, but stained with sunset colors—then disappeared behind her. The cart rolled across a courtyard toward a dark front entrance, a heavy wooden door set back in a lichen-covered recess, and an inscription in the stone above them. She read it, and groaned.

  M A Y F R I D H

  So, first the crow, and now her childhood best friend, May Frith. Every recent obsession was making its way into this dream. She half-expected to find her headless mother waiting inside the castle. This wasn’t fun anymore; too fine a thread separated dreams from nightmares.

  More muffled voices. The cart stopped. Christine shrank back into the sack, bracing herself for what twisted scene her dreaming consciousness might conjure up next.

  Rough hands grabbed her legs and shoulders and she was lifted out of the cart and carried away. A few moments later, she was dumped on a hard floor. A woman’s voice barked orders, and the sack was opened. Christine was released and roughly pulled to her feet.

  She found herself in a dank stone room, with dark vaulted ceilings, woven bronze and amber tapestries, and high narrow windows. Tree branches obscured any light from outside. The air smelled damp and yeasty. Was this a movie set she had seen once? If so, why was she dreaming of it? A pity she’d had to leave her therapist back in New York—he would have reveled in all this cryptic symbolism.

  In front of her, a round dais rose from five stairs, and in the middle, sitting on an elaborate golden chair under a hanging wooden wheel of candles, was the most beautiful woman Christine had ever seen. The woman was addressing her in an angry voice.

  Christine still couldn’t make out the language, but some of it sounded German, so she said, “Ich verstehe nicht”—I don’t understand—all the time gazing at the woman. She wore a soft brown dress, gathered by tight ribbons crisscrossed around the waist, and long trailing sleeves embroidered in gold. A golden belt with seven keys on it hung low on her hips. Her hair was a rich coppery red, and hung in a thick, waist-length plait over her shoulder. Her face was as pale and soft as a small child’s, her mouth a plump rosebud, her cheeks flushed red, and her dark blue eyes fixed on Christine with an expression mixed of anger and curiosity. The wolf sat faithfully at the beautiful woman’s feet.

  Christine realized she was surrounded by the two men from the cart, three other men, and a woman, all of whom eyed her apprehensively.

  “Ich verstehe nicht,” Christine said again, slowly in case her pronunciation was bad.

  “Aha,” the woman said, nodding to indicate that Christine’s point was understood. Then the woman rose from her throne—a throne, that must make her the queen—barked orders at the assembly, and descended the stairs to take Christine’s hand.

  “Kom.” It was close enough to “come” in any language she knew, so Christine allowed herself to be led, several people and the wolf following her, around the back of the dais to a wooden doorway. The queen stepped forward and threw the doors open, admitting a shaft of golden light into the cavernous room. She led them into an overgrown garden of trailing vines and wild hedges, all spattered with the first yellow streaks of autumn. Beyond the garden they reached a slope that led to a crumbling stone wall and an iron gate. The queen ushered Christine ahead of her into dense trees.

  Christine hesitated. Was she going to be taken back to the place where she had first arrived? Was she being sent back to her own world, where a week of painkiller-induced half-existence was waiting for her? For a moment she couldn’t decide which was worse—dreams or reality—but it appeared the choice was out of her hands anyway.

  “Kom,” the queen said again, pulling Christine’s hand gently.

  “Okay, okay,” she muttered, and the
queen looked at her sharply, but didn’t pause, leading her deeper into the forest. The sun had now almost disappeared over the horizon, but its flaming golden fingers bathed the scene. Christine could hear the noises of little animals at work in the forest, and the skitter of lonely leaves dropping to the ground, early casualties of the season. Finally, they came to a clearing surrounding a crooked stone well. The woman released Christine’s hand and leaned over the well.

  “Hechse!” she called. “Hechse!”

  It sounded like the German word for “witch,” and Christine steeled herself for what ghastly thing might emerge from the well.

  A stream of words Christine didn’t understand was directed down into the dark. Then slowly, as if by magic, the reel began to creak and roll upward. Christine watched as, squeak-clunk-squeak-clunk, something heaved itself out of the well. A black shape appeared, an ancient rusty cage. It drew slowly above the stones, then stopped with a lurch. Hunched over inside it, dressed in smeared rags of an indeterminate color, was a white-haired hag with a wispy beard.

  The queen seized Christine and forced her forward.

  “Hey,” Christine cried in protest. Four other pairs of hands were on her, and she was forced to her knees in front of the well, her head held down on the cold stone.

  The queen directed more commands at the witch and, without warning, the hag’s bony gray hands shot out and clapped Christine deafeningly around the ears.

  “Ouch!” Christine cried, then heard somebody say, “Don’t complain, we do you a favor.” Only, she didn’t really hear it. She heard something completely different—a sentence in that garbled half- German they all spoke—and yet when it entered her ears and slid into her mind, it turned into words she understood completely. She raised her head, gasping.