The Autumn Castle

by Kim Wilkins

  In the distance, a police siren wailed and ebbed. She shouldn’t be here. She should be far away from Jude. Every second they were together they were coconspirators, sharing too much unspoken intent, but she couldn’t go back to Ewigkreis yet. As soon as she returned Eisengrimm would persuade her to unburden her miserable heart, and he would have only scorn for Jude. And so he would mutter and mumble and sermonize until winter came, and every precious sensation she felt for Jude would be spoiled.

  Her mother’s house, then. With a guilty twinge, she realized she hadn’t even contacted Diana since her return. Mayfridh swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up. This early hour of the morning wasn’t the most polite time to show up at Diana’s door, but she had to get away from Hotel Mandy-Z and from Jude and from Gerda with her endless questions.

  In the bathroom, she rinsed out her mouth and splashed her face with cold water. The clothes she had worn the previous day were hanging on the towel rack and she pulled them on. The light from the bathroom reflected past Gerda’s open door. Mayfridh paused in the doorway, considering whether or not to wake Gerda and tell her she was leaving. Gerda was fast asleep, sheets and bedspread askew, wearing a white singlet, her arm thrown up over her pillow, revealing a hairy armpit. Snoring, ever so gently. Mayfridh smiled and backed away, closing Gerda’s bedroom door behind her. She picked up her shoes and let herself out of the apartment and down the stairs.

  In the foyer she paused. A faint glow from the gallery. She glanced around the corner. Light, coming from under Jude’s studio door.

  The next few moments stretched out like elastic, and it seemed she had stood there forever, knowing that Jude was awake in his studio, knowing that she should just leave as she had intended, but being pulled toward his door. Hanging on to the threshold of the gallery as if it could hold her back.

  Her feet decided for her, and she was moving barefoot, her shoes still in her hands, toward the light. The dark gallery was cluttered with paintings and sculptures, and yet it seemed so empty as she crossed through it, the abandoned emptiness of a room where someone has died and left his possessions, meaningless, behind. Her hand was on the doorknob; she turned and pushed.

  Jude looked up. The first thing she noticed was his legs, long and pale and bare. He wore only a white shirt, unbuttoned, and a pair of boxer shorts with cartoon characters on them. Then she noticed his eyes. Dark smudges under them. He hadn’t slept either.

  He said nothing. The room was in chaos: the easel on its side, a canvas thrown down, paint tubes spread about. He had a large paintbrush in his hand, dripping brown paint. Behind him, the wall was a mess of monochrome shapes, still wet.

  “You’ve painted the wall,” she said, knowing it was an empty nothing to say, but needing to say something. She closed the door behind her.

  “Yes,” he replied. “The canvas wasn’t big enough for . . .” He didn’t finish his sentence, but she knew what he meant.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  He dropped the brush and moved toward her, reaching for her. She took a step back but he caught her and pressed her against him so hard it pushed her breath from her lungs. “Hold me,” he said.

  Was there anything else she could do? Her arms went around him. His lips were on her throat and something long trapped inside her rose up with her breath and gasped out of her. “I love you,” she said.

  His lips moved to her cheek, her nose, and finally her mouth. He pressed his lips against hers fiercely, and she let him crush her in his arms. His tongue tasted of tobacco and whiskey. She tried to say “I love you” again, but the sweet violent kiss barricaded the words inside her. She twined her fingers in his hair. His own fingers were descending down her blouse, popping the buttons free one by one. He stood back, slipped the shirt from her shoulders to reveal her bare breasts. Then his lips were on her nipples, kissing, biting, sucking.

  She shuddered with an acute sense of vulnerability. No man had ever seen her breasts before; no man had ever kissed her before. Jude raised his head and pressed her to him again, and this time she could feel the hard warmth of his erection through the silk of his shorts.

  “Jude,” she said, her voice unsteady. “I’ve never . . .”

  He stood back a pace, his eyes curious. “What?”

  “I’ve never done this before.”

  “Never?”

  She shook her head. A silent moment passed between them; his fingers were drawing away from her body.

  “But I want to,” she said hurriedly. “I want to do everything. I want to do whatever you want me to do. You just have to show me.”

  Jude’s gaze dropped to her breasts. He moved closer again, his hands at the zipper on her skirt. It slipped over her hips and fell to the floor. He lifted her against him and carried her to the wall of the room, pressed her bare back into the still-wet paint. His hands pinned her shoulders as he kissed her throat, her breasts, her belly. The paint felt sticky and soft and slimy all at once. She tried to keep her head bent forward, to keep her hair from trailing in the paint, but he stood and crushed his mouth against hers again, forcing her head back, pushing her whole body into the wall.

  “Will you forget this?” he murmured against her lips, her chin. “Will none of this have ever happened?”

  “I’ll forget everything,” she said, the sadness a cold barb. “I’ll forget you.”

  He kissed her and kissed her until her breath was short and her head dizzy. Then he grabbed her hand and pulled her to the sofa, tipped off the rags and the empty paint tubes, and laid her down. The paint on her back stuck and pulled on the rough material of the sofa. Still he kissed her, as if he never wanted her to breathe again. She almost wanted to suffocate, surrender all under the weight of passion. His hands were all over her body, smudging her with paint. His lips left her face and descended between her breasts. He removed her knickers and wiped his painty hands clean on them, casting them aside into the chaos on the floor of the studio. The swelling feeling of vulnerability returned. The most private parts of her body, areas she had never even explored, and he was down there with his eyes and his fingers and his tongue and, oh, what a velvet searing pleasure rocked her body then, and somehow the vulnerable feeling became part of the pleasure, a strange liberation. He lifted her ankle and rested it on the back of the sofa, and she lay there with the paint gluing her to the sofa and her hair tangling into sticky clumps and closed her eyes and Jude was doing the most incredible things to her body and every hot nerve was shuddering and trembling and tensing tighter and tighter and—

  Mayfridh covered her face with her hands so she wouldn’t shriek and wake up everyone in the building. The pleasure was almost unbearable. And then, strangely, thankfully, it released in warm rhythmic waves. Her heart pounded in her ears, her toes trembled.

  Jude covered her body with his. “I’ll be gentle,” he said.

  “Do whatever you like,” she gasped.

  He fumbled himself out of his shorts and moved into her slowly. She let her body relax and mold to his. A different pleasure this time, a feeling of wholeness and rightness and emptiness leaving, like the most perfect embrace it was possible to know. She wrapped her legs around his back and his breath was very hot on her neck.

  “Don’t forget me,” he said.

  “I won’t,” she said, even though it was a lie.

  “I love you,” he said.

  “I know.” She clung to him, feeling his hot skin through his shirt, allowed herself to be loved, to be embraced, as she knew she may never be loved or embraced again.

  They lay there for long minutes afterward. She thought about the paint drying in her hair but didn’t worry. She thought about the door to the studio being unlocked but didn’t worry. There was nothing after this moment. This was the only moment, and nothing before or after could ever count.

  Then he pulled himself away from her and readjusted his clothes and sat slumping forward with his hands crossed between his knees.

  She sat up, looki
ng for her clothes. They were strewn about the room. She left them there for the time being. “Jude? Are you okay?”

  He raised his head. She noticed for the first time that he had paint smudged all over his face. She touched her own face, presuming it would be the same.

  “I’m not okay,” he said.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Everything.”

  She reached for his hand, but he pulled it away gently and stood up.

  “Where were you going?” he asked.

  “Pardon?”

  “When you came down here, you were dressed. You were going somewhere.” He picked up her clothes as he said this, and handed them to her.

  “I was going to stay with my mother.” She dressed herself quickly, awkwardly, while he watched her.

  “Good,” he said. “We can’t . . .”

  She took a deep breath. “I know we can’t. But we did. And you told me you loved me.”

  “I have to be with Christine.” Her name came out very softly, as though he almost couldn’t bear to say it.

  “Don’t be guilty.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  She nodded.

  “It will mean nothing,” he said. “You’ll forget.”

  “You’ll remember.”

  “I already have lots of guilty secrets to remember,” he replied, “but you have to go now, and we should never see each other again.”

  Reality swerved in on her, and the last shred of that beautiful moment in his arms was snatched away. He was right. This was ending, this was already over. The pain in her heart paralyzed her.

  “Go, Mayfridh, please,” he said, and he blinked as though tears might be approaching. “Please go, it’s hurting me.”

  She picked up her shoes. Her body felt stiff and awkward. “I’ll go,” she said.

  “Please.”

  She took a step toward him, stole one last kiss from his lips. “Good-bye,” she said

  “Forget me,” he said.

  And then she was moving back through the empty gallery, out the front door with her coat, and into the cold, dark street.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Christine lay down among the fallen leaves in the autumn forest and breathed, deep and full. The relief. The relief. She almost regretted coming; coping day to day with the reality of the pain had driven this feeling toward forgetfulness, so she hadn’t missed it as keenly. Now, knowing she would soon have to bid good-bye to the freedom for always, a niggle of anxiety—maybe desperation—worked its way into her stomach.

  She opened her eyes and she was startled by how different the forest looked. The trees were almost bare, and the rich colors had faded. Now everything appeared to be gray and sickly yellow. She sat up and peered into the layered mist. Some of the trees were completely naked. Winter was drawing very close.

  “Eisengrimm!” she called. She wanted to see the birch outside the great hall. If it was as stripped of its leaves as some of these trees were, she feared that the last leaf was only hours away.

  The gate opened, and Eisengrimm appeared, his gait still stiff.

  “You’re not recovered yet?” she asked, standing to follow him inside.

  “Nearly. Just a few bruises left. I feel fine unless I have to change, so I just stay Wolf and hope that Mayfridh doesn’t need me to fly off somewhere.”

  “The giant birch,” Christine said. “I need to see it.”

  “You can see it from the chamber window. Winter is still weeks away. You’re not to worry.”

  Christine stretched her arms over her head. “It’s divine to be here again.”

  “I’ve missed you,” he said. “Tonight the village is celebrating the winter blessings. Will you accompany me?”

  “I don’t know. I probably shouldn’t stay long.”

  “There will be dancing and singing and plenty of hot mead. Have you danced since your accident?”

  They were entering the castle now. Eisengrimm led her up the corridor to the winding stairs.

  “No,” she said, “but that’s okay because I was never a good dancer. Two left feet.”

  The last phrase troubled Eisengrimm, even though it had translated into his own language. “Two of the same?”

  “It’s just an expression,” she said, giggling. “Sorry.”

  “Oh, I see. Here.” He indicated Mayfridh’s white bedchamber. “This is your chamber for as long as you choose to stay. Mayfridh insisted.”

  Christine flopped down on the bed. “This bed is so comfortable.”

  “The chest under the window is full of Mayfridh’s old dresses, from when she was in her teens. She thought they might fit you. Choose one you like for the party. I’ll come for you in an hour or so. That’s if you’ve decided to attend?”

  Christine bit her lip. It sounded like fun, and both Eisengrimm and Mayfridh had reassured her she still had plenty of time to get home. “Okay. Okay, I will.”

  “I’m glad. Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be back soon.”

  Christine rose from the bed—so much easier without the ache in her back—and flipped open the chest. The dresses were mostly in shades of gold and russet. She wriggled out of her work clothes and pulled out a dress of tawny red. The weave was rough against her skin but a quick search of the rest of the chest revealed they all had the same texture. Right down at the bottom of the chest she found a gold circlet for her hair. She went to the window in her new clothes and gazed out. Sunset was deep gold; the birch had lost only half its leaves. She let herself relax. From far away the scent of wood smoke drifted. The quiet was all around her; no traffic, no voices, no hum of electricity. Just leaves in the wind, faint birdcalls, the steady rhythm of her own heart. Peace eased into her bones, made her spirit warm. Only now, in such a moment of tranquillity, could she appreciate how jangled—physically and emotionally—she usually felt.

  And this moment was temporary. And there was a Real World full of people and commitments to remember.

  She sighed and turned her back to the window. Another trunk near the bed caught her eye. Eisengrimm wouldn’t return for an hour. Surely it would be all right to explore a little.

  In the trunk she found books, all written in English. So this was how Mayfridh had kept her native language. The collection was strangely anachronistic in this medieval setting; mostly eighteenth- and nineteenth-century volumes, but some more recent editions of children’s books by Enid Blyton and C. S. Lewis. Christine wondered how she had acquired these, or maybe Liesebet had acquired them for her. They were dusty and looked like they hadn’t been touched for years.

  She lay on the bed with a Famous Five book and waited for Eisengrimm to return. By the time he opened the door, she was nearly dropping off to sleep.

  “Christine?” he said gently.

  She sat up and yawned. “Sorry. I was just so comfortable.”

  “I’m glad you were comfortable.”

  “I’ve never slept without pain. Not in thirteen years.”

  “Do you still want to come to the party?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Come on, then. I have a carriage waiting.”

  “A carriage?”

  “It’s the appropriate way for a special guest of the queen to travel.”

  Christine smiled. “Oh yeah? The first time I came you had me brought to the castle in a pig sack on the back of a cart.”

  Impossible to tell if Eisengrimm was smiling as well.

  The carriage stopped at the bottom of the slope where the cobbled village road started. Eisengrimm leapt off and urged the driver to help Christine down. At first she opened her mouth to insist she needed no help, but then she told herself to enjoy it. Let them treat her like someone special. She’d spent a long time being someone very ordinary.

  Half-timbered cottages with thatched roofs lined the street. Deep shadows advanced along the road in front of them. People bustled in and out of their homes, taking firewood down to an enormous bonfire near the town well. Christine and Eisengrimm arrived
at a low-roofed tavern, overflowing with noisy drinkers.

  “Come, Christine,” Eisengrimm said, leading her toward the door, “I shall introduce you to some of the villagers.”

  Christine thought they would have to push through the crowd, but everyone stood aside to let Eisengrimm pass. Merry and happy, they bent to stroke his tail or touch his back, saying, “The best for the winter to you,” and “Many blessings.” At the bar, Eisengrimm stretched his paws up and ordered Christine a drink. When he returned to all fours, he called out, “Good afternoon, everyone.”

  Every pair of eyes in the room was suddenly turned toward him and a hurried hush fell.

  “I’d like to introduce Christine Starlight,” he said, “a visitor from the Real World and a special guest of the queen.”

  The crowd broke into cheers and applause and began to huddle and gossip again. Christine took a sip of her drink—warm, spiced wine, rich with the scent of cloves—and was glad to be in a bar not choked with cigarette smoke. Apart from the woody aroma of a few pipes, the air was clean. There was something organic about the tastes and the smells, and she relished it.

  The door to the tavern opened, and two musicians with pipes pushed through the crowd to a square of empty floor under the mullioned window. More cheers. They cramped themselves into a corner and started to play merry music. Within seconds dancers were crowding into the space.

  “Is everybody drunk?” Christine asked.

  “Yes, except you and me.”

  “I’ll do my best,” she said, lifting her glass and draining it. “How about you?”

  “No, I’ll stay sober and look after you,” he replied with a twinkle in his eye.

  A tall man with a gingery beard approached them. He was dressed in a plain brown tunic and pants. “Did I hear your name was Starlight?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she replied warily.

  “It’s a beautiful name. Care to dance?”

  Christine shrank back from him. “I don’t know . . . I can’t dance and—”

  “Can’t dance? Have you never learned?”