The Autumn Castle

by Kim Wilkins

“Tomorrow,” she said. “I’m leaving tomorrow. I want to fetch my mother from the hotel and take her back to her place tonight, get her settled in, and say good-bye. And then . . .”

  “You’ll forget all this, won’t you?” Jude asked.

  Mayfridh nodded.

  “I wish I could forget,” he said wistfully.

  Mayfridh looked as though she were about to say something, then thought better of it. “I’d better go,” she said. “I don’t have much time.”

  “Stop by tomorrow on your way to the passage,” Pete said. “Say good-bye properly.”

  She smiled tightly. “I’ll see.”

  As she left, Gerda yawned widely and picked up the memoir again. “Come on, Fabiyan. Let’s go turn off the vat and put this notebook back.”

  “I’ll come,” said Pete.

  “Do you need any help?” Jude asked.

  “No, you two stay here and . . .” Gerda shrugged, didn’t finish the sentence.

  Within minutes they had all left, the apartment door had closed, and Christine was alone with Jude. She felt trapped inside herself with anger and pain. Jude slid onto the sofa next to her. It seemed he didn’t know what to say either.

  Finally, she turned to him. “Do you still intend to marry me?”

  He looked startled. “Yes. Of course.” But he didn’t sound sure, not anymore.

  “Okay, then. Before we get married, is there anything you want to tell me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Is there something you need to get off your chest? Something you haven’t told me?”

  His dark eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why do you think that? Has somebody said something to you?”

  “Jude, just tell me. If there is something you’ve concealed from me, tell me now. I want to hear it from your lips. I don’t know what I can forgive if it goes too long unspoken.”

  His eyebrows curved up and a look of guilty pain crossed his face. “Oh, Christine. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, it just happened.”

  Seeing him in distress softened the edge of the anger. “Didn’t you know? Didn’t you know I’d understand an accident?” she said.

  “I fell in love with her, Christine,” he said. “And when you weren’t here and she was, I just—”

  Christine bolted upright, startled. “What? What are you talking about?”

  Jude’s face took on a bewildered expression. “What are you talking about?”

  “You and Mayfridh . . .” she sputtered. “You . . .”

  He was nodding. “Yes. Isn’t that what Gerda told you?”

  “Gerda didn’t tell me anything.” So not only had Jude betrayed her and lied to her, Mayfridh had too. “Did this happen before I sacrificed my hand to help her, or after?”

  “Before,” Jude said softly. “And after. But don’t be angry with her, be angry with me. I’ve let you down, I’ve—”

  “Oh, shut up, Jude. Just shut up.” She stood, fished the engagement ring out of her pocket and handed it to him. “I’m sick of your self-pity. I’m sick of your egotistical nobility.”

  “Christine, don’t do this. We’ll get over it. I want to marry you. Mayfridh’s gone, I belong with you.”

  “The worst thing, Jude, is that you don’t even know why I’m angry.”

  “You’re angry because—”

  “Don’t!” she shrieked. “Don’t even pretend for a moment to understand me. I know what you did, Jude. I know. So you slept with Mayfridh? What’s one small betrayal like that? Really?”

  Jude shook his head. “Christine, I don’t follow.”

  Seconds ticked past. Christine felt her heart thumping in her throat, her face felt hot. Despair and resentment choked her.

  “I could have forgiven you for killing them,” she said at last. “I can never forgive you for making me your charity project. You took my dignity from me.”

  The blood drained from his face. His mouth moved but no sound came out.

  She stalked toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” he squeaked.

  “I need to talk to Mayfridh.”

  “Christine—”

  She turned, held out her silver hand in a “stop” gesture. “Don’t come near, don’t follow me. I can look after myself.”

  She slammed the door behind her and raced down the stairs. The pain in her back pulled her up on the front step. Rain cooled the hot blood flushing her face as she walked down to Friedrichstrasse to find a taxi.

  Diana sighed as Mayfridh helped her through the front door of the house at Zehlendorf.

  “I honestly thought I might never be coming back,” she said.

  Mayfridh slid Diana’s suitcase inside and closed the door behind her. “We need to talk about that, Mum.”

  “Have you reconsidered? Can you take me with you?”

  Mayfridh felt the familiar rush of guilt. “I still don’t know.”

  “It’s Jude, isn’t it?”

  “I’ve asked him to come with me. He’s said no, but—”

  “But you hope he’ll change his mind.”

  “Tonight, he said something that gave me hope.” I wish I could forget. Until he had spoken those words, Mayfridh had accepted that she had to let him go and take Diana with her back to Ewigkreis. Now the decision was not so clear. “It’s not that I don’t love you, Mum. It’s not even that I don’t love you as much as Jude. But I have to think about my kingdom. About heirs, about the future.” This was only partially true, but she saw no reason to bruise Diana with the whole truth: that everyone ran second to Jude in her heart. Deep down, she hoped at any moment to hear the phone ring, for him to contact her to tell her he’d changed his mind.

  Diana shook her head sadly. “I’m tired. I was having such a nice dream when you came by and woke me.” She smiled. “I’m glad you’re back safely. Will you be leaving in the morning?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll get a good night’s sleep.”

  “Me too.” Her body was heavy with magic, with the responsibility that it brought. It terrified her to return to Ewigkreis with it, to be the sole guardian of such a burden. All the years that Hexebart had hoarded it, Mayfridh had been left to cultivate a carefree heart. Now the thought of the empty castle, the quiet fields, became nightmarish: a hollow place to fill with years of duties and obligations. Her mother’s house here in Zehlendorf was so warm, so loving and free by comparison. “I’ll miss you so much.”

  “Shh, now. Save all that for the morning,” Diana said, extending a gentle finger to Mayfridh’s lips.

  A knock on the door made them both jump.

  “Don’t answer,” Diana whispered urgently.

  “It’s all right, Mum. Hexebart is gone. Mandy is gone.” It was Jude, it had to be Jude.

  Diana shrank back in the hallway as Mayfridh went to the door and opened it.

  “Christine?”

  “I need to talk to you.” Her hair and clothes were wet, and she wore an expression of rancor and resolve.

  Mayfridh turned. “Go on, Mum. Go up to bed. I’ll wake you in the morning.”

  Diana tried a smile and headed upstairs, still slow on her bandaged feet. Mayfridh held the door open for Christine. “Come in, then.”

  “No. You come out. I want to walk.”

  “It’s cold and it’s wet.”

  “It matches my mood,” Christine said. “Come on.”

  Mayfridh shrugged and stepped out of the warm pool of yellow light into the dark, drizzly outside. They walked in silence down the path and up the empty, cobbled street. Rain caught in her hair and pasted her clothes to her skin.

  “Christine?” Mayfridh said, after five minutes had passed and Christine still hadn’t said anything.

  “Over there,” Christine said, pointing to a little stone church.

  “All right.” Mayfridh followed her across the road and through the iron gates. Christine ascended the steps and sat down on the stoop, just behind the dripping eaves. Mayfridh joined her. A gust of wind sho
ok raindrops from nearby branches. A car sped past, a brief light in the darkness.

  “Okay, listen to me,” Christine said, turning to Mayfridh with an urgent gaze. “I know everything, okay? I know everything about Jude, and about you.”

  Mayfridh hung her head. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Do you love him?”

  Mayfridh started to mumble something about passing attractions and the heat of the moment, then decided that Christine deserved better. She deserved for someone to tell her the brutal truth. She lifted her head to meet Christine’s gaze. “Christine, I love him with a passion so primal that I can’t give words to it.”

  “He’s in love with you,” Christine said. “He told me so.”

  “Oh.”

  “I love him too, Mayfridh. I love . . . I love his eyes, and his hands and how sometimes they’re dirty with paint.” Christine’s eyes filled with tears. She blinked them back. “But he doesn’t love me.” Her voice trailed to a whisper.

  “I think he does, but in a different way from—”

  “He doesn’t love me,” Christine said forcefully. “He feels sorry for me, he feels responsible for me. He feels no passion or desire for me.”

  Mayfridh didn’t answer. They sat on the church step for a long time while the drizzle fell around them, their shoulders huddled against each other for warmth.

  At length, Christine drew a deep breath. “Mayfridh, I came to ask you to take me with you.”

  Mayfridh pressed her hands to her eyes. “Oh, no.”

  “Is it a possibility? I could be without pain. I could forget Jude and all he’s done to me.”

  Mayfridh could have laughed. She had two people in the queue for passage back to Ewigkreis, neither of them the one she wanted to take. Then a new thought—or perhaps a thought she had entertained before and dismissed—began to circle around her mind. A way for her to be with Jude, with her mother. A way for Christine to be released from her grief and pain. A way for Mayfridh to be relieved of the terrifying burden of her sovereignty. The cost was dear, very dear. But all around her people had sacrificed themselves for her life and her happiness. A restitution was due.

  “Mayfridh?” Christine was asking. “Is it possible?”

  Mayfridh took Christine’s good hand in her own. “Christine, how would you like to be the queen?”

  Mayfridh paced up and down her white chamber, window to door, waiting for Eisengrimm’s return. Ordinarily, she would be thrilled to be excluded from a meeting of officials, but today she wished she could be there as they discussed her future. She stopped at the window; the birch was almost naked. How could she stand it if they said no? How could she stay in this bare, empty place forever? How could she forget about Jude?

  Pace, pace.

  Her bag was already packed in the event that they agreed. Just a few souvenirs of Ewigkreis. A miniature of herself and Eisengrimm, two dresses she couldn’t bear to leave behind, a carved puppet she had loved as a child. Apart from that, she was ready to go, ready to start a new life in the Real World as Jude’s wife. Christine and Jude were waiting on the other side of the passage for the verdict. Christine by now had organized money and a place for them to live in New York. New York! It sounded like the most heavenly place in the universe. But if her plans fell through, if the village had voted against her choice of replacement . . . Just keep pacing. Eisengrimm will be here soon.

  Right on cue, the door swung inward and Eisengrimm slunk in. As usual, his face didn’t give much away, but his shoulders were slumped forward, a defeated gesture.

  “Oh, no,” she said. “They said no, didn’t they?”

  Eisengrimm shook his head. “Mayfridh, they said yes. Christine is well liked by all who have met her on her visits.”

  “Yes? They said yes?” She felt her heart lift. “Then why do you look so . . . sad?”

  He approached, leaned his head against her hip. “Because you’re leaving, dear girl. I’m sad because you’re leaving.”

  Tears pricked her eyes. “Don’t, Eisengrimm. Don’t you make me cry.”

  “Come, let’s walk down to the passage. Have you got everything you need?”

  She lifted her bag off the bed and took a last look around her white chamber. “I think so, yes.”

  He led her to the autumn forest in silence. Once they arrived at the passage, she felt a sudden nausea grip her. This would be the last time she ever saw Eisengrimm. Even though Jude and her new life in the Real World waited on the other side, she barely had the courage to take one step toward the passage.

  “I’m glad that you have found happiness, Little May,” he said. His voice strained around the words “and I’m glad that Christine will be our new queen.”

  “You could have been king, you know. If you weren’t so reluctant.”

  “A wolf king? Perhaps I could have ruled if I had a queen by my side. But not alone.”

  Mayfridh laughed. “Well, if you weren’t a wolf I’m sure I could have married you,” she said lightly, “but we are what we are and must act in faith with it.”

  His head hung forward, and she knelt to embrace him.

  “Good-bye, old friend,” she said.

  “Good-bye, Little May.”

  She glanced at the passage. “I want to go, but leaving you feels like—”

  “Feels like losing a piece of my heart.” His voice cracked. Mayfridh was taken aback by the uncharacteristic display of emotion.

  “Yes.”

  “I won’t forget you,” Eisengrimm said, collecting himself.

  “I’ll never forget you either. We won’t forget each other. The forgetfulness is Christine’s balm, not ours. Be as good to her as you’ve been to me.”

  “I will.”

  She stood and deliberately turned away from him. “Good-bye,” she said softly. He didn’t say another word as she stepped through into the Real World.

  It was early evening in the Tiergarten. Christine’s face was pale and fearful in the dark. Jude smoked and paced. Mayfridh stepped out and they both looked up.

  “Well?” Christine asked.

  “It’s been approved. They’re waiting for you.”

  This news didn’t appear to bring Christine any relief, and Mayfridh gave her shoulder a squeeze. “You are sure you still want this?”

  “Of course.”

  Jude stood uncomfortably nearby, not sure whether to embrace his old lover or his new lover.

  “Then,” Mayfridh said, “I declare you queen.”

  “Queen Starlight.” Christine laughed.

  “Hold perfectly still while I transfer the royal magic to you.” Mayfridh enclosed Christine in a warm hug, felt her skinny body tremble. The magic began to pass between them. In every second Mayfridh felt lighter, more carefree, the weight lifting and lifting, the muscles around her heart loosening and her lungs filling to their full depth. Finally, the transfer completed, she stood back.

  And saw that Christine was beautiful.

  Nothing about her face or hair had changed. She still had the same eyes, nose, cheeks. Something from within illuminated them, made her seem intense and noble. Mayfridh glanced at Jude. He had noticed too. His bewildered eyes were fixed on Christine’s face. Anxiety pulled in Mayfridh’s stomach: now she had relinquished her role as queen of the faeries to become an ordinary human, would she lose as much beauty as Christine had just gained?

  Mayfridh took her place at Jude’s side.

  “It’s time to go,” she told Christine.

  “Gladly,” Christine said with a wry smile. She turned to Jude. “I won’t remember you. Good-bye.” It was said kindly, with relief rather than bitterness.

  “Uh . . . good-bye,” he said.

  “I’ll remember you, won’t I?” she said to Mayfridh.

  “Yes. You’ll remember everything that happened in Ewigkreis, though some of it may not make sense once the Real World memories are gone. But you won’t remember . . . the bad things about me. The things that happened here.”

  �
��Good.” She glanced all around her. “Good.”

  “Eisengrimm will take care of you,” Mayfridh said. “Now you must go. They’re waiting for you. They’ll want to perform the coronation before the season turns.”

  Christine’s hands trembled as she pushed her hair out of her eyes. “Okay, then.”

  Mayfridh took her friend’s fingers in her own. “Long may you live, Queen Starlight.”

  Christine squeezed back. “Yeah,” she said, turning away now, moving toward the passage. “Long may I live.”

  Mayfridh glanced at Jude. Uncertainty all over his face. She took his hand in hers, realized she was clutching it too desperately.

  Christine stepped through the passage and disappeared.

  The coronation had been organized in less than a day. Newly minted Queen Starlight, Christine sat at the head of the table in the Autumn Castle, a huge and noisy banquet whirling around her. Outside the great hall, a wicked wind stalked the castle grounds, the forests, and the village. Huge fires in all the grates kept its cold fingers at bay. Eisengrimm sat close by, keeping watch on her.

  “How are you feeling, Christine?” he asked.

  “You keep asking me that,” Christine laughed.

  “You look pale.”

  “I’m always pale.”

  “You look frightened.”

  She sighed. “I’m often frightened.”

  “Don’t worry. At any time we could all wake up at the Winter Castle, and you’ll forget your fears. And you have me to guide you through the duties and obligations.”

  “I look forward to it.” She rubbed his ears and glanced around the hall. Many of the villagers had been invited, and a few of them gazed at her fondly, raising their glasses and shouting blessings as she caught their eyes. Klarlied, the new royal witch, gave her a warm smile from across the room. A comforting welcome. A new life of simple plea-sures and people, of learning her magic with Klarlied and becoming a good ruler with Eisengrimm, of peaceful spaces and freedom from pain. Why the misgivings?

  “Everyone feels a little anxious at the turn of the seasons,” Eisengrimm said, as though reading her mind.

  She leaned her head on his shoulder. “I have no right to be melancholy. You’ve lost your love forever.”