Sunlight and Shadow (5 page)

The silence stretched for so long that I had pretty much decided there was no bird song to answer it, or,
if there was, it lived in a breast that was very far away from mine. I had just risen to my feet, the bells tucked beneath one arm, when I heard the sudden rush and sweep of wings. And then a voice so sweet and clear answered my music that I swear I felt my own heart skip a beat.

“Mercy upon us,” I heard my mother whisper. “You've called down a nightingale. They do say that's the favorite bird of the Queen of the Night.”

No sooner had my mother finished speaking than the nightingale swooped from the branch on which it had landed and alighted on my shoulder. From there, it refused to budge. Together with my family, I returned to the house and went to bed, the nightingale perched upon my headboard with its head tucked against its breast. It became a fixture in our household from that night on.

I never saw it during the day. But, for the next week, each day at precisely the moment the sun slipped over the horizon, the nightingale would appear with that same rush and sweep of wings, finding me no matter where I was. Though I cherished all the birds my playing summoned, I freely admit I harbored a special spot in my heart for this one.

One week to the day after my birthday, there came a night when the moon was no bigger than a crescent of cut fingernail floating in the sky. All day long, my mother was edgy, murmuring under her breath that it was on nights such as this that the
powers of the Queen of the Night, whom she sometimes called die Königin der Nacht, were strongest.

More than that, on such dark nights it had long been whispered that die Königin der Nacht walked abroad. Many had felt her passing, though few had seen her. For only those to whom she wished to reveal herself had the power to see her in the dark.

And, sure enough, as soon as the sun slipped over the horizon in a riot of color, the Queen of the Night arrived.

Her coming made the hillside around my parents' house tremble as it had the day I was born, a thing that convinced my father that the events attending my birth had now come full circle. He only hoped we would all survive them.

How shall I describe her to you, die Königin der Nacht?

Even though I was only eight, my eyes were old enough to recognize her beauty, my heart steady enough to feel the beat of hers and know that it was filled with anger and sorrow in almost equal parts. Her dark hair streamed out from her head, so long and fine it seemed to mingle with the darkened sky. Beaten silver was the color of her eyes. They were filled with tears, and when she wept the tears slipped down her cheeks like a shower of stars.

In her arms, she held an infant. It, too, was crying.

“Selfish, foolish boy!” scolded the Queen of the Night. “Where is the bird that you have stolen from
me? Speak quickly, or I will put an end to your miserable life!”

It was at this moment that the first of several very astonishing things happened, as if what was happening already wasn't astonishing enough. My mother, the same mother who'd panicked at the sight of a group of field mice, stepped in front of me, standing toe-to-toe with die Königin der Nacht.

“How dare you!” she shouted. “Stop threatening my son right this instant! He didn't mean to take anything from you. He's a good boy. Besides …”

Here, my mother reached behind her back, hands flapping as if searching for something. Understanding immediately, my father rushed forward, snatched the set of bells from my hands, and thrust them into my mother's. Triumphantly my mother whipped them around, holding them out before the Queen of the Night.

“It was these that summoned your bird down from the sky. They have been in this family for three generations, given to us by the powers that watch over the universe. I'm thinking that means we're under their protection. You'd better watch out.”

What the Queen of the Night might have replied to this very remarkable speech none of us, not even she, were ever to know. For, at that moment, as it did each evening, the nightingale shot down from the sky. It settled into its usual position on my left shoulder.

“You picked a fine night to be a little late,” I whispered as softly as I could, and felt the soft prick of its beak against my cheek. The wailing of the infant picked up a notch.

“You see? You see?” cried die Königin der Nacht. She held up the child. At this, the next very astonishing thing happened.

“Oh, for goodness sake,” my mother snapped in her most exasperated voice. She turned to me, thrusting the bells back into my arms. “Hold these,” she commanded. “They're yours, after all.”

Then she turned, took two steps forward, and snatched the crying infant from the Queen of the Night's arms.

For the span of eight heartbeats, the same number of years that I had lived, nobody else did anything at all.

“There now, there now,” my mother crooned to the infant as she rocked it gently, a thing that only seemed to make it wail all the louder. I saw die Königin der Nacht pull in a breath.

We are all about to die, I thought.

That was the moment the nightingale fluttered from my shoulder to my mothers, threw back its head, and began to sing a song so beautiful I swear it made the stars come out. The infant abruptly stopped wailing, hiccuped exactly once, and began to suck its thumb.

“There now,” my mother said again as she gazed
down at the infant in perfect satisfaction. As for me, I kept my eye on the Queen of the Night. I wasn't so certain she was finished with us yet.

“This is my daughter, Pamina,” die Königin der Nacht said after a moment, in a voice just like anyone else's. “The nightingale was singing, just as it is now, at the moment she was born. Ever since, it has had the power to soothe her, a power even stronger than a mother's love. But, a week ago, the bird flew from my side and did not return. Since then, my daughter and I have had no rest, by day or by night.”

“She's beautiful,” my mother answered. “But I think that she's too warm.” She pushed the cloak in which the baby Pamina was swaddled back from her head. “Oh my.”

Beneath the cloak, the baby's hair wasn't dark like her mother's, a thing I think we had all expected, but bright and shining as the morning sun, curling up from her head like steam rising from water set to boil. And in this way, I saw the beauty of the Lady Pamina for the very first time.

“So it is true what the old tales say,” my father murmured, speaking up at last. “Night and day are joined together, and they have made a child.”

“As you see,” the Queen of the Night replied. “But until she turns sixteen, she is mine alone, to raise as I see fit. To prepare her for what is to come. But I'm hardly going to get anywhere if I can't even get her to go to sleep at the proper time.”

She turned her beaten-silver eyes on me.

“Please,” she said, and I heard my mother catch her breath. “Release the nightingale. Let her come home.”

I tried to open my mouth, to explain the way I thought things worked, and discovered I couldn't move my jaw. The Queen of the Night, die Königin der Nacht, had just said please. How on earth could I say no?

It was the nightingale who finally helped me out. With a great cascading waterfall of notes, she ended her evening song. The Lady Pamina was, by this time, fast asleep in my mother's arms. The nightingale now left my mother's shoulder and returned to mine. She bumped her round, soft head against my jaw, as if to knock some sense into it.

“If you please, Your Majesty,” I managed to get out.

“Pamina,” said die Königin der Nacht. I think she was trying to put me at ease by letting me know her name was the same as her daughter's. I wasn't so sure it helped any, though. The most powerful being I had ever encountered, was ever likely to encounter, had just given me permission to call her by her first name.

It was all a bit much for an eight-year-old.

“If you please, Your Majesty Pamina,” I said, and was rewarded by the glimmer of a smile. “I would if I could, but I don't think I can.”

Not particularly eloquent, I admit, but it did get
the point across. Not only that, I'd managed to mean no without actually having to say it right out loud.

The Queen of the Night's dark eyebrows drew together. “Explain,” she said. “Why not?”

“No bird who has ever come to me has left me again, not for good,” I said. “I don't know why. I'm sorry.”

“It's the bells,” my father said. “The sound of them just plain gets inside your heart. If their sound calls to you, then you must answer. More than that, it is your wish to answer, just as it becomes your wish to dwell forever with the player of the bells.

“The bird stays not because my son keeps her captive, but because there is no other place that she would rather go. Wherever he is, that is now the place where she belongs. She cannot return to you, not in the way you wish. The bells have called and she has answered. The nightingale has given, and been given, her heart.”

“That is it exactly,” my grandfather put in.

The Queen of the Night was silent for a very long time.

“I perceive that you speak the truth,” she said at last. She opened her arms, and my mother placed the sleeping Pamina into them. “What, then, shall become of my daughter?”

“Ow! All right!” I cried.

Five pairs of eyes turned in my direction, four mortal and one a great deal more. But they all did
exactly the same thing: They stared straight at me and at the nightingale perched upon my shoulder. I'm sure she was doing her best to look innocent, assuming that's a thing a bird can actually accomplish. She'd just given me a sharp jab with her beak. It was this that had prompted me to cry out.

“I have an idea,” I went on now. “I'm older than the Lady Pamina, so I must go to bed much later than she does. What if I come every night, just at bedtime? The nightingale will follow me and sing the baby to sleep, Then all will be well.”

“Ah!” exclaimed die Königin der Nacht, and her gaze shifted away from me to my mother and father. “I begin to see why your son has called to him the most beautiful song on earth. He has a generous heart. What is your name, boy?”

“I am called Lapin, Madam,” I answered.

The Queen of the Nights dark eyebrows flew straight up. “Your name means rabbit, yet you call down birds from the sky?”

“It's a long story,” I replied. “But, if you please, I really do prefer Lapin. Not everybody knows that it means rabbit. Not everyone around here, anyhow.”

The Queen of the Night nodded, and I could have sworn I saw a twinkle in her eye.

“Very well. I understand. I thank you for your generous offer, Lapin, but I'm afraid it is impossible. You can't travel back and forth from your home to mine. The distance is simply too great, even on a
swift horse. If your parents and grandparents were willing to consider such a thing, however, there might be another option. You all could come and live with me.”

“No,” my mother said at once. “Not that we aren't grateful for the honor you bestow upon us, Lady, but we belong here.” She reached for my father's hand, and he moved to clasp hers. “This is the life that we have chosen.”

“You have chosen it, and chosen well,” replied die Königin der Nacht. “But surely your son has a life of his own. Will you deny him? In my house he will have greater scope to discover what his heart holds. And what, in time, it may call to him.”

“No,” my mother said again. “He is just a boy.”

“Please, Mutter” I said, surprising everyone present, myself most of all. “Let me at least try. I want to go.”

And, as I said this, I realized how much it was so.

“Oh, Lapin,” my mother said.

“Do not grieve,” said the Queen of the Night. “For I will send him back to visit you when the days are shortest, and his coming will brighten your lives when the dark is long. And this I promise, now and forever: Neither I nor any who belong to me will ever hold your son against his will. Are you content?”

“No,” my mother answered honestly. “But it is fair, and I will learn to live with it.”

And that is how I came to be a servant of die
Königin der Nacht and went to live in her great house which lies inside a mountain.

Though I missed my parents, I never regretted my choice. Die Königin let me do as I pleased, as long as the nightingale and I were there to sing the Lady Mina to sleep each night. I played the bells in every corner of her great house until the mountain itself rang with birdsong. I watched the Lady Mina grow to be a beautiful young woman. And, from a distance, I did what I could to keep my eye on my mistress's husband, the Lord Sarastro.

What he made of me, I never knew, for we never actually spoke. But it was impossible to live in my mistress's house and not be aware of his presence. Most people think it is the dark that lurks, sly and treacherous. But I tell you that I think it is the light. For it is always hovering, just over the edge of the horizon, waiting to leap out and strike you blind.

And so, the years passed, moving inexorably toward the moment when the Lady Mina would turn sixteen and leave behind the only life that she had known.

“What is it like, Lapin?” she said to me one night in the year in which she was fifteen years old. We were doing a thing we often did, gazing out the window of her mother's observatory. A full moon gazed back down. As always in the evening, the nightingale was with us, though the bird now preferred the Lady Minas shoulder to my own.

“Is it hard to leave behind all that you have known?”

“What's hard is never having an evening free from questions,” I said. For the Lady Mina always had at least one up her sleeve. At my reply, she smiled. “I left what I knew of my own free will,” I said, “though I was just a boy at the time.”

“And I may not. Because my departure is a bargain already made, one in which I had no part. That's what you mean, is it not?” the Lady Mina both pronounced and asked at once.