The Autumn Castle

by Kim Wilkins

  She turned on her side to watch Eisengrimm. His head rested on his paws and his yellow eyes gazed at her serenely. Christine felt an unusual sense of peace around him, despite his size and his strong jaws. His warm voice was friendly and his manner was patient, and he possessed a magical tranquillity she had never sensed in anyone else. “Eisengrimm, can I ask you something?”

  “Please do. I’ll try to answer all your questions.”

  “Can Mayfridh cast a love spell?”

  “A love spell?”

  “You know, to make somebody fall in love with her?” She hated the quiver of her voice, but the question had to be asked.

  To her relief, Eisengrimm did not probe further, nor did he jump to defend his queen of any veiled accusations. “No, Christine, she cannot. The hearts of men are not to be bound by the desires of others. It was ever so, it will ever be.”

  “That’s comforting.” She smiled, then ventured, “Why do I feel so peaceful around you? Is that magic?”

  “I’m flattered. It’s not magic.”

  “Are there many shape-shifters like you in Ewigkreis?”

  “No, I am the only one.”

  “Can you be anything else but a wolf, a fox, and a crow?”

  “I can be a bear. But I rarely take on that form. It causes great stress to my joints and organs.”

  “Can you be a man?”

  His voice was suddenly charged with emotion. “I am not a . . .” he started.

  A long silence beat out, and Christine rose up on her elbows. “I’m sorry, did I say something wrong?”

  “No, no. It is complicated.” He pulled himself up and then paused on the end of the bed, as though he were deciding whether to leave, his gray shoulders hunched against the burden of the decision.

  Christine was curious now. “Were you once a man? Is that why you’re upset?”

  He slumped forward. “Now you have asked, so I must answer you.”

  “You don’t have to. I don’t mean to be nosy or anything.”

  “I do have to. It’s a burden on my heart that I have yet to express.” He turned and sagged down on the bed next to her again. “You are the only person, in over seventy years, who has asked me if I were once a man.”

  “Really?”

  “Shape-shifters exist in faerylands. There is no reason for anyone to suspect I am anything more. Just as you would never ask a bird if she were once a fish, so nobody here has ever asked if I am anything other than I appear. But you, you are from Over There.” He muttered, almost to himself, “You have different questions.”

  “Tell me, then. You were once a man?”

  “Yes. A faery man, not a human man. My name was not Eisengrimm. I was being groomed to be one of Queen Liesebet’s counselors, but I was young and I longed to travel. I had a yearning spirit. I burned and bubbled with imaginings of places and adventures, and the exotic unknown-ness of other folk. I ran away from the royal court, leaving it all behind me, but intending to return one day in the far time. Just as we can make passage between our world and the Real World, we can also make passage between this world and other worlds of faery. I traveled many places. None of them satisfied my desire because, I have since learned, desire does not exist to be satisfied, only to move men. I moved, I kept moving, and it was in the Slavic faerylands that I met Zosia.”

  Shadows deepened in the room and dust motes hung in the air. Christine felt herself grow very still as Eisengrimm spoke.

  “She was a faery witch; not a hideous hag like Hexebart, but a fair-skinned, silken-haired beauty. I was walking through a tall-treed forest near the faery village. She was gathering herbs for a spell, the sunlight shone on her hair, and I was entranced. When she asked me my name, I told her. Something a traveler should never do.

  “We became lovers. I stayed with her for many weeks in her warm stone cottage near the river. Every morning we would wake to the bright sunshine in the window, then she would spend her day in making her spells and potions. I would spend mine admiring her and dreaming about forever with her. And when night fell there were warm fires and spiced wines and tender kisses enough to keep me from noticing what I should have noticed. All was not well with Zosia.

  “Slowly, it became clear that Zosia’s great beauty in appearance was not matched by a great beauty of spirit. She thought nothing of torturing woodland creatures to steal their essence for spells, and her magic was always directed at acquiring new treasures and supplementing her beauty. The first time I pointed out to her that I despised to hear a linnet screaming as she pulled it to pieces, she laughed at me.

  “‘You are too fragile,’ she said. ‘Where is your bravery and strength when such a small creature can soften your man’s heart?’ From then on, she reveled in taunting me about my delicate manner. I tried to take the mockery in good heart, I loved her still. But the brutality and the vanity did not abate, and I braced myself every morning for her next act of selfish cruelty.

  “The very worst came soon after. You see, from time to time, bewildered humans from the Real World wander into faerylands by accident. So it was that a Real World traveler crossed into Zosia’s woods. While I was not home—I had gone to the village to collect milk and flour—he stopped at her house to ask for help. Poor fool. Zosia was no doubt delighted to see him. My heart trembles to think of his last moments. By the time I returned, she had chopped him into pieces.

  “When I saw the blood upon the hearth, I felt a terrible sickening hatred growing inside me. ‘What have you done, Zosia? Have you sunk to murder?’

  “‘He was just a human, no worse nor better than the squirrels and foxes who have given up their essence for my magic.’

  “I found myself backing away from her instinctively, my hand reaching for the door behind me.

  “‘Where are you going?’ she demanded, her eyes narrow and flinty.

  “‘How can I continue to love you when you are so brutal and vain?’ I said.

  “‘You will continue to love me as you always have,’ she said, practical as ever. ‘I see no reason why it should be otherwise.’

  “Her confidence angered me, partly because it was true. I had been a slave to my desire for her. ‘Perhaps I never loved you, Zosia. Perhaps I was bewitched by your beauty. I can no longer stay here with you. You are heartless.’”

  Eisengrimm stopped and sighed, his head sagging forward on his paws and his eyes fluttering closed. “Zosia became enraged. As I turned to the door to leave, I felt a magnetic net of magic envelop me and pull me back into the room. Zosia fixed me with a glare, and with her free hand reached into the pocket of her bloodied apron and pulled out a spell.

  “‘Zosia, no. Let me go,’ I said. Like anyone faced with a sudden horror, I could not believe that it was truly happening, that she would truly hurt me. I was wrong.”

  “She put you under an enchantment?”

  “My body ran with a peculiar, fluid sensation, as though my skin were milk and my bones were toffee. ‘You shall be changed,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Of the first four creatures you see you may take your choice, and you shall be that creature until you are foolish enough to love again.’”

  Eisengrimm opened his eyes. “I felt my heart charge. If I could get to the village without seeing four other creatures, I could see a man, remain a man. But the woods were deep and too treacherous to close my eyes. As soon as I burst out the door of the cottage, I saw a crow sitting on a branch peering down on me. I thought, not a crow, their voices are so ugly. I ran on. Next I saw a bear napping in a clearing. I thought, not a bear, their bodies are so cumbersome. I ran on. Next I saw a fox running through the grass. I thought, not a fox, they are hunted for sport. I ran on, hoping to make it to the village before seeing another animal. But it was not to be.

  “I saw a wolf, and my body began to burst its seams. Bones and organs crushed against one another, my skin ran with tingles and trembles. I heard Zosia from far away, her wild voice dark on the wind, calling, ‘Choose your new form.’ But I could no
t. I wanted to be none of those beasts. I thought perhaps if I did not choose, I would die, and maybe that would be better.

  “I collapsed to the ground and closed my eyes, waiting for death. I did not die. When I arose, I was in the shape you see now.”

  Christine reached out and touched a large gray paw, fascinated. “A wolf.”

  “Yes, and I can be any of the other animals as I choose. The only thing I cannot be is a man; the only thing I cannot be is my true self.”

  “But the enchantment can be broken?”

  “Zosia made it all but impossible. I returned to her immediately to rail at her, to beg her, to threaten her with my teeth. She was intractable.

  “‘The enchantment will only be broken when you are foolish enough to fall in love again,’ she said. ‘The woman you love will have to utter your true name.’”

  “What is your true name?”

  “I cannot tell you. To utter my own name would mean that the enchantment remains permanent. My love would have to travel to Zosia’s woods and find it there, with great danger to herself. Nor can I tell anyone who has not asked directly that I was once a man. As I have said, you are the first person in over seventy years who has asked.”

  “But when you fall in love can’t you—”

  “I am already in love, Christine.”

  “And she’s never asked about you? About your past? About why you are as you are?”

  “You assume she loves me in return. You assume that she is not too grand and not too proud to care about the heart of a wolf. You know her, Christine, you know what she is like.”

  Christine was puzzled a moment, then gasped. “Mayfridh. You’re in love with Mayfridh?”

  “And so you understand, she will never ask me. She has only ever known me as I am. Besides, she is too . . . self-involved to concern herself deeply in the fates of others.”

  “Can I tell her?”

  “No. Any direct efforts by me or by somebody acting for me are bound to make the enchantment stay forever.”

  Christine bit her lip, not sure what to say. “Could you try to fall in love with somebody with more potential for helping you?”

  “You know that hearts do not behave rationally. At least, mine does not.”

  Christine sat back, staring at him. “I’m so sorry. How can you stand being around her all the time?”

  “I endure it, Christine, as best I can. I feel love, but none of a man’s desire, which is a small blessing. And I haven’t given up hope altogether. I may live another three hundred years. Luck may yet be with me.”

  Christine turned to the window and was surprised to see the sky brightening outside. “That’s weird. I thought it was afternoon when I arrived.”

  “It was.”

  “But the sun’s coming up. It must be morning.”

  “It is.”

  Christine shook her head. “But what happened to night?”

  “The Autumn Castle is morning or afternoon. Always either, never neither.”

  She checked her watch. Ten hours had passed. “Oh, my God.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  She hurried to her feet. “I thought time must pass slower there.”

  “Time here has no relation to time in the Real World.”

  “I’ll have to get back home. Jude will be worried.”

  Eisengrimm leapt from the bed and moved to the door, all dutiful counselor again. “Of course,” he said. “I will lead you back to the woods.”

  Hotel Mandy-Z was quiet when she arrived. She hoped Jude would still be working and hadn’t missed her. She pushed open the door to his studio but he wasn’t there. The room was in darkness, but she could make out the shape of a large canvas on the easel, and it appeared to have paint on it. So Jude had overcome his latest block. She switched the light on to look at it.

  Gray. Black. Brown. And in the corner, at the bottom, on the right, a splash of mingled crimson and fuchsia.

  She stared at it for long moments, then switched the light off and went upstairs, trying to get used to being back in her own bones, aching and pulling. No light under the door from Gerda’s apartment. Maybe she had taken Mayfridh out drinking. No light under the door from Jude’s apartment. Maybe he was with them, and hadn’t even missed her. She closed the door behind her and went to the bedroom.

  He was there, sound asleep, his hair tangled and disarrayed against the pillow, one warm, smooth shoulder exposed above the covers. She sat lightly on the edge of the bed, still in her coat and boots, and reached out to smooth his hair. He stirred, but then settled back to sleep.

  “Please don’t fall in love with her, Jude,” she whispered in the dark. And then realized she had named the very thing of which she was most afraid.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Mayfridh stepped into the long shadows of afternoon in the autumn forest, hoping she was in time. It was Eisengrimm’s birthday, and she had given orders for a banquet. It had slipped her mind completely—the Real World was so intoxicatingly charming—but luckily Christine had reminded her with something she said.

  “How well do you know Eisengrimm?” Christine had asked.

  And the light had flickered in Mayfridh’s head. Eisengrimm. The birthday banquet. As much as she would have loved to stay and explore the Real World more—shopping with Gerda was more exciting than she could give words to—Eisengrimm’s banquet was important. He was her most trusted friend.

  She hurried up through the castle gate and into the overgrown garden—where the leaves grew weary and the thorns grew conspicuous—skidding to a halt near the great hall. Relax. Hilda had taken care of everything. The long table had been erected, the musicians from the village were tuning their instruments, branches of evergreen decorated the walls.

  “It’s all ready then?” she asked as Hilda bustled by.

  Hilda paused, startled momentarily by Mayfridh’s appearance, then said, “Yes, yes, Queen Mayfridh. Eisengrimm is in your chambers. I have just sent one of the cooks to fetch him. Take your seat, Majesty. You’re just in time.”

  There was no time to change out of her Real World clothes, so she sat at the head of the long table in her red velvet minidress and lace-up boots while others gathered around the sides of the room.

  The pipes struck up a solemn tune and Eisengrimm slunk in, his head darting around to take in the scene.

  “Oh, a banquet!” he exclaimed.

  “Dear friend,” Mayfridh said, rising from her seat to greet him. “Happy birthday.”

  “What have you done to your hair?”

  “Sit down,” she said, holding a chair out to him.

  He jumped into it. The other guests were seated and Mayfridh took her place at the head of the table while the village musicians played.

  “I don’t like it,” Eisengrimm said over the music.

  “You don’t like what?” Mayfridh responded irritably.

  “Your hair. It was such a beautiful color before.”

  “But now it’s even more beautiful, do you not see?” She held a strand out. “Real World colors.”

  Eisengrimm harrumphed and put a paw on the table to draw his trencher closer. “Not everything in the Real World is better than our world.”

  “Oh, Eisengrimm, be not so gruff. Of course I do not prefer the Real World. I just like its colors and its noises and its smells.”

  A servant came by and loaded their plates with hunks of roast meat. The musicians changed to a lively tune and voices in the room grew loud, the roar of the fire grew hot. Mayfridh sipped her wine and for a moment compared this room to the crowded jazz club her new friends frequented. Now it was hard to choose. She had always loved her own world so much, but there was a sparkling edge to the Real World that was missing in this rural place; a sense of knowing and presence that was as smooth and as toxic and as addictive as the cigarettes Gerda had introduced her to.

  And, of course, there was Jude.

  “Tell me of the Real World,” Eisengrimm said, licking gravy from his chops. �
�What have you done with your time?”

  “I have met all of Christine’s friends, and I spend my time talking and drinking and shopping with them. They are all artists and Jude paints the most wonderful pictures. They capture the very essence of the Real World.”

  “Have you put aside any silly fancies towards him?”

  Mayfridh thought about the collection of Jude’s possessions—a tarnished cuff link, an old T-shirt, and a wad of chewed gum—wrapped safely in the bottom of her bag. “Of course.”

  Eisengrimm fixed her with a yellow stare. “Really?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Christine wanted to know if you could perform love spells. I presume she suspects your interest.”

  Mayfridh felt herself blush, Gerda’s words of admonishment still stinging. You’ve got to learn to hide it better. “I have since learned to control my interest, as I have no intention of acting upon it.”

  “Good,” Eisengrimm said, “good.”

  “But, Eisengrimm, I suspect Jude does not truly love Christine.”

  “And why do you suspect that?”

  “Because he . . . he has a secret.”

  Eisengrimm’s snout creased into a sneer. “A secret?”

  “Gerda said so, Christine’s friend. Gerda said that he doesn’t really love Christine and that he has a secret.”

  “Gossip in the Real World is the same as gossip in our world. It should never be listened to, let alone repeated.”

  She rolled her eyes. Sometimes Eisengrimm was so righteous.

  “I do not find it surprising that Jude loves Christine,” Eisengrimm continued. “She is gentle and rare and always sees the best in people. It is on Christine that you should be focusing your attention.”

  Mayfridh smiled. “Oh, Eisengrimm . . . but there is someone else in the Real World I wish to make contact with.”

  “Who?”

  “My parents.”