The Autumn Castle

by Kim Wilkins

  Mandy was nowhere to be found. He hadn’t opened the gallery, answered his door, or picked up his telephone all day. Either he was hiding, or he hadn’t returned from Ewigkreis and the footsteps upstairs had been boards settling, or rats, or something. Christine was worried sick. Mayfridh hadn’t contacted her and Christine didn’t trust Mandy.

  She left Jude sleeping, switched off the light, and closed the bedroom door. Checked the answering machine; nothing from Mayfridh. She sat on the sofa and looked up at the ceiling. Mandy’s floor. No footsteps tonight. In fact, she hadn’t heard them at all today. So far, only Jude had tried Mandy’s door. She checked her watch. It was one in the morning.

  Before she could think better of it, she was on her feet and heading up the stairs to Mandy’s apartment. She knocked. No answer. She knocked again. Remembered that the other time she had been here, his door had been unlocked. She tried it.

  It opened.

  Either he was too rich to care about burglars, or he was doing laundry at one a.m. She nervously backed down a few steps, leaned her head over the railing, and listened. Not a sound: no whir of a washing machine, no footsteps nearby.

  Taking a deep breath, she went inside and switched the light on. One glance told her why the door was open, and what the footsteps had been: Mandy’s apartment had been broken into. It was a mess. Blankets were draped over the sofa and floor, books had been pulled out and left haphazardly over the tables and chairs, food scraps lay on dirty plates everywhere she looked, and the smell of stale rubbish and old sweat hung in the air. Someone had been camping here. A quick check of the television and stereo told her it hadn’t been thieves, but the state of the room told her it hadn’t been Mandy.

  He wasn’t back. He was still in Ewigkreis with Mayfridh. What the hell were they doing there? Christine glanced at the mess around her and balled her fists in frustration. How could she go home to New York without knowing what had happened to Mayfridh?

  She shouldn’t be up here, especially if someone had recently broken in. Whoever had made this mess might still be here or intending to return soon and, besides, she should call the police.

  “Anyone here?” she called, advancing into the kitchen and turning on the light. More food scraps. The intruder had eaten a lot for someone who had only stayed one night. Bugs buzzed around the sink. She checked the bedrooms and the bathroom. The apartment appeared to be empty.

  She hesitated on the stairs up to the second floor. What precisely was she looking for? But she knew: she wanted to see if that narrow door was still locked. She wanted to know what Mandy was up to.

  “Hello?” she called, taking the steps slowly, peering around the doorway to see if anyone waited for her up there. “Hello?” Nobody. In fact, the room seemed much emptier than last time she was here. She gazed around. Of course, the beautiful statue of the woman’s body was gone. Mandy must have sold it, even though it was unfinished. Or perhaps it was finished. Perhaps Mandy thought half a woman’s body made a good sculpture. This thought made her shudder, and she became aware of how vulnerable she was up here alone, with an unconscious Jude the only other person in the building. Christine grabbed a sculptor’s mallet from the shelf and held it firmly in her right hand. She went back to the stairs, leaned over the railing, and listened. Silence. The locked door awaited.

  Perhaps because the front door of the apartment had been unlocked she presumed the mysterious door would be too. It wasn’t. Every deadlock was in place. No access

  Christine ran her fingers over the door, frustrated. The enamel paint was very thick and had dried in a pattern of dribbles. The door itself was narrow and short; Mandy, surely, would need to duck his head and take a deep breath to get through it. A little door, leading to . . . where? A little staircase to a little room where the windows were painted black.

  She turned to survey the room. Perhaps a set of keys hid in the mahogany desk. Hefting the sculptor’s mallet in one hand against imagined enemies, she sat at the desk and began to search it. Pens, pencils, papers, but no keys. She slammed the last drawer closed in frustration.

  “What the hell am I doing here?” she muttered. Mandy wasn’t here; Mayfridh certainly wasn’t. In less than forty-eight hours she had to catch a plane to New York and she couldn’t see how that was possible if she hadn’t heard from either of them. But coming into Mandy’s apartment and searching his desk was not going to help her.

  She halfheartedly checked the drawers again. One of them had carefully stacked notebooks in it, and she pulled them out to leaf through the pages. Perhaps Mandy had stashed the keys between the covers. Most of the books were art journals, full of sketches. One was a ledger of accounts for the hotel. The book at the very bottom, a scrappy spiral-bound notepad, was filled with Mandy’s handwriting. She glanced at the front: from the Memoirs of Mandy Z.

  Christine almost laughed. Trust Mandy to embark on something so narcissistic as an autobiography. He considered himself something of a celebrity. Curious, she opened to the first page and began to read.

  Within moments, her blood had chilled. She turned the page: I have a measureless loathing for faeries. And I am the Faery Hunter.

  “Oh, my God,” she gasped, flipping forward, scanning the pages. Mayfridh was in terrible danger. Did she know it yet? Or was she still assuming Mandy had an innocent crush on her? She read a little farther, sickened by the details. A surreal panic lurched through her. It was one thing to believe in faeries—Mayfridh’s spell had helped to cope with that—but it was beyond imagining that the wealthy billionaire had devoted his life to hunting and killing them. Her head spun, and she had to grab the edge of the desk to reassure herself that what she was experiencing was real. Somewhere downstairs, she heard people arrive home. Gerda and the others. It barely registered as she flicked quickly through the notebook reading snatches here and there. Her stomach clutched against the awful helpless fear. There was absolutely no way for her to get to Ewigkreis to warn or help Mayfridh.

  A scream broke into her train of thought. At first she believed she had imagined it; that it was the scream inside her head that she hadn’t let escape. But then it came again. A woman’s scream from somewhere in the hotel.

  Clutching Mandy’s book under one arm and the sculptor’s mallet in the other, she hurried downstairs and out of the apartment.

  The scream came again, this time followed by a frantic voice. “What have you done? What have you done?” Gerda. Commotion on the landing as Fabiyan opened his door and leaned out, as Pete raced across the landing to Gerda. She stood there, crying, “Where did she go? Did you see her? She’s disappeared!”

  But something was very wrong, because every time Gerda spoke, she spat something from her lips. Christine peered down the semi-lit stairwell as she came down. For a moment, she was reminded of a rabid dog she had seen once, spitting foam left and right, distressed.

  “Gerda?”

  “What the fuck?” This was Pete, taking two steps back from Gerda in horror.

  Gerda turned to him, her eyes wild with terror. “What has she done to me?” And as she spoke, two tiny frogs jumped from her lips and pattered to the ground. Christine looked around her feet: frogs, lizards, locusts, all scurrying away from the loud voices and the panic.

  “Who did this?” Christine gasped. “Who did this to you?”

  “Oh, God! You have to help me,” Gerda shrieked, and a shower of locusts sprayed from her mouth. “She said her name was Hexebart.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Where’s Jude?” Pete asked, as Christine searched for a bucket under the sink.

  “In bed. Unconscious.” She approached Gerda, who sat at the kitchen table in Christine’s apartment, her face flushed and her eyes teary. Christine put a bucket in front of her. “Here.”

  Fabiyan, who sat across from Gerda, watched her in awe. “Where do they come from?” he asked.

  Gerda shook her head, tight-lipped.

  “Okay, Gerda,” Christine said, pulling up a chair, “so
Hexebart did this to you?”

  Gerda nodded.

  “Where? Outside? In your apartment?”

  A nod.

  “She followed you home?”

  No.

  “She was waiting for you?”

  Yes.

  “And she said her name was Hexebart?”

  “Who is she?” Gerda said, and a lizard plopped into the bucket.

  “That is so amazing,” Pete said, leaning over the bucket. “Can I get my video camera and film this?”

  Christine pushed Pete away in irritation. “Hexebart is a witch from Mayfridh’s world. She’s supposed to be imprisoned. I have no idea how she got here, but it must have something to do with Mandy.” She slapped the notebook on the table. “The guy is a homicidal freak. He’s been hunting faeries for decades. None of us had any idea, least of all Mayfridh.”

  “What are you talking about?” Pete asked.

  “I’ll explain in a minute. Gerda, did you see where Hexebart went?”

  Gerda shook her head.

  “Did she leave by the door, or did she just disappear?”

  “Door.” A tiny frog jumped from her lips. Pete caught it and put it in the bucket.

  Christine ran a hand through her hair. “I have to find her. She’s my only hope of getting back to Ewigkreis. I have to warn Mayfridh. Or save her, if it’s too late to warn her.”

  Pete held his hands up, a “slow down” gesture. “Wait, Christine. You’re seriously going to try to find this witch? Look what she’s done to Gerda.”

  “Gerda’s still alive, at least. Mandy wants to kill Mayfridh and use her bones for a sculpture. I bet Hexebart was squatting at Mandy’s. Maybe she’ll go back there.”

  “Will she take the spell off?” Gerda said, spitting locusts and frogs.

  “I don’t know. But if I find Mayfridh, she can take the spell off.”

  Fabiyan was flicking through Mandy’s memoir. “Where did you find this?”

  “In his desk.”

  Pete leaned over his shoulder, reading a line Fabiyan pointed out for him. “Oh, my God. Is this for real? This guy is a psycho.”

  Christine’s eyes ached and her heart sped. “I feel so helpless.”

  “We will help if we can,” Fabiyan said. “Anything you say.”

  “Okay. Right, Fabiyan, can you go up to Mandy’s and keep an eye out for Hexebart? If you see her, don’t approach her. Just call me. Trap her up there if you can, lock her in. Pete, can you take Gerda back to your place? Don’t make her say anything and don’t film her.” She handed him the bucket. “Gerda, hang in there. It may only be a temporary spell. If not, I’m sure Mayfridh or Eisengrimm will be able to fix it.” She glanced back toward the bedroom. “I’d better wake Jude and tell him what’s going on.”

  Pete led Gerda out and Fabiyan warily took the stairs up to Mandy’s apartment. Christine closed the door behind them. Her knees shook and for a moment she had to steady herself against the doorway. Was Mayfridh already dead? The thought was unbearable; Mandy preying on her like a cat preys on a butterfly. But then, if Mayfridh were dead, surely Mandy would have returned by now. She clung to that thought. Until he came back, she could convince herself that Mayfridh was still alive.

  Christine entered the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. Jude, in exactly the same position she had left him, was fast asleep.

  “Jude,” she said, shaking his shoulder lightly. “Jude, wake up. It’s urgent.”

  “Mmm?”

  “Wake up,” she said, her voice cracking over a sob. “It’s life or death.”

  He reached out a hand for hers. “Christine? Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

  “No, I’m fine,” she said, sinking down next to him and letting the tears come, “but Mayfridh’s in terrible danger.”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  She explained as fully as she could through her helpless tears. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she could see Jude’s face take on a bewildered desperation as sobriety crashed in on him.

  “Oh, Jesus,” he said when she had finished, pressing his fingers to his forehead. “Oh, God.”

  “I have to find Hexebart, I have to—”

  “No!” he cried. “No, I don’t want you anywhere near her. Stay away, stay far away.”

  “But she might help.”

  “From what you’ve told me, it’s more likely she’ll turn you into a frog.”

  “I have to get to Ewigkreis.”

  “I know, I know.”

  “Mayfridh’s in terrible danger.”

  He raised his voice. “I know!”

  She drew back, startled. “Jude?”

  “I can’t take this anymore. I don’t want you to go to Ewigkreis. What if Mandy kills you too?”

  “He hunts faeries, not people.”

  “You just told me he boils faeries alive. I can’t predict where he’ll draw the line.”

  “You can come with me, then. If we can find a way to get across, you can come and we’ll find Mayfridh together.”

  “Yes, but how? How does Mayfridh get back and forth?”

  “The passage.” Christine snapped her fingers. “Yes! It will stay there until the winter comes. Mayfridh doesn’t need twine; perhaps we can try it.”

  He sprang out of bed. “Okay, I can’t just lie here and talk about it. I have to do something. Let’s go down to the Tiergarten; let’s try the passage. I’ll go crazy if I have to sit here useless another moment.”

  “Agreed.” She watched him lace his shoes. “Jude, I can’t bear to think of what Mandy’s doing to her. What if he’s torturing her, or killing her slowly, or—?”

  He reached out and pressed his fingers to her lips. “Don’t paint pictures in my head,” he said gently. “Please, Christine, don’t make it worse than it already is.”

  Hexebart is cold, but she doesn’t mind so much. She’s having trouble getting used to all the soft things and warm spaces, and out here in the branches of this tree, with the stars and the wind above her, Hexebart feels a little more like her old self.

  Besides, there’s a special kind of thrill in being outside looking in. Oh, yes.

  Through your window, through your curtain

  Hexebart can see you certain,

  Sees you sleeping in your bed,

  Not a worry in your head.

  Ha! This is fun. This woman’s name is Diana, and she is the nasty pig princess’s mother. She is old and ugly and sleeps in a yellow dress with bare elbows. Nothing special at all about her. But Hexebart can make her more special.

  Hmmm, let’s see. She’d be more special if she only had seven fingers, or eight toes. She’d be more special with no nose and only one ear. She’d be very very special with a head like a donkey . . . Where should Hexebart begin?

  Yes, yes, Hexebart knows she’s taking out her hatred of the little princess on this sour old woman. But Hexebart has been down a well for years and years, and she misses Liesebet so sorely, sorely so. Diana isn’t Liesebet. Diana is just a stupid human with ten fingers and ten toes, and Hexebart will fix that soon, you’ll see. Everyone will see. Such fun, oh, such fun, rum-a-dum-dum.

  Dark and windy, and faraway sounds of trains and streetcars, and leaves falling and skittering, and moonlight shifting and flickering in the blustery shadows. Even though Christine was certain she stood precisely where the passage lay, nothing happened when she took a step forward. She readjusted her starting position and tried again. Nothing. Without the twine, it was useless. Jude sat a hundred feet away, reading Mandy’s diary by the light of a torch. He glanced up.

  “Christine, you’ve been trying for half an hour,” he called. “It isn’t going to work.”

  Christine sighed. “I know. But I can’t go home. I can’t just leave her.”

  Jude closed the diary. He raised it with his right hand. “How could we not have known?”

  “Until Mayfridh came along nobody believed in faeries.” She joined Jude on the bench. “If we’d found
it we would have called it imaginative fiction. Grisly, in keeping with his horrid personality. But fiction.”

  “When Mayfridh gets back, we won’t show it to her. I mean, that stuff about her parents . . .”

  “It’s horrific. She doesn’t need to know.”

  Jude slid his arm around her waist. “It’s cold. We should go home. Think of another way.”

  “Yes. Yes, I know.” Still they didn’t move. The silence between them drew out, filled with the sounds of the trees moving and shivering. “Jude, Hexebart may be able to help.”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “She’s got all the magic. She could send us across to Ewigkreis.”

  “Yes, but she wouldn’t help us, Christine. You’ve told me: she’s bitter and full of hatred and she despises Mayfridh. Why would she do anything to help?”

  “Because Mayfridh’s the queen. She’s under some kind of magical oath, but I’m not sure how far it extends. We know Hexebart is around here somewhere. If we can find her we could ask. The worst she could do is say no.”

  “The worst she could do is turn us all into frogs.”

  Christine put her head in her hands. “I’m so tired I can’t think,” she said. “What time is it?”

  “Four o’clock.”

  “I’m afraid to go to sleep. I’m afraid to stop searching for an answer even for an instant, in case that’s the instant he chooses to kill her.”

  “We’ll think better after a few hours’ sleep. Come on.” He rose and held out his hand to her. She took it reluctantly and they walked to the edge of the park.

  “Promise me we’ll only sleep a few hours,” she said. “And promise me that we’ll look for Hexebart tomorrow.”

  “I’ll look for her. We’ll leave Fabiyan up at Mandy’s, and I’ll search for her. You can finish reading Mandy’s notebook in detail, in case he’s left any clue.”

  “How will you search for Hexebart? She could be anywhere.”

  “I’ll start in the park at the end of the street,” Jude said. “I don’t think she’s ‘anywhere.’ I think she came to play with Mayfridh’s friends. Why pick on Gerda otherwise? I think she’s nearby.”