The Autumn Castle (6 page)

“Oh, my God. Christine!”

“I can’t get up, Jude.”

In an instant he was kneeling in the spilled spaghetti, his hair wild and his shirt splattered with paint. “What happened?”

“I backed into the corner of the table. I blacked out.”

“The corner of the . . . oh, God, that’s my fault. I moved it today. I’m so sorry. Christine, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, just . . . can you help me into bed?”

Slowly and gently, he eased her to her feet. With infinite care he led her, one agonizing step at a time, back to the bedroom.

She gratefully stretched out on the soft bed. The pain was still hot and sharp, but at least the hard floor wasn’t adding
to her discomfort. “Jude, I’m going to need the blue tablets.”

The blue tablets. How she hated taking them. They were the strongest painkillers she had, but they also made her tongue heavy
and her mind cloudy. They would knock her out swiftly, but she would wake in a weary fog.

“I’ll get them,” Jude said.

She listened to him in the kitchen—finding a glass, opening the bottle of pills—and contemplated the dream. It wasn’t growing
hazy like dreams did. It was staying fresh and clear like a memory. A moment later, Jude was there with a glass of water and
two of the tablets in his palm, and the material demands of pain dispelled her reflections.

“Second time this evening, huh?” Christine said, smiling.

“You’re such a brave girl to smile.”

“I had the weirdest dream while I was out. Remind me to tell you about it some time.” She swallowed the tablets and settled
back; tears welled up and she was unable to hold them in.

“Christine, I’m so sorry,” Jude said, his fingers frantically smoothing her hair. “This is all my fault. I would give anything
not to see you in pain. Everything is my fault.”

“God, Jude. It hurts. It hurts so much.” And she found herself wishing she were back in faeryland with her childhood best
friend, a shape-shifting wolf, and a witch who lived in a well.

Where did she go?” Mayfridh sprang from her seat, sending Eisengrimm scrambling to the floor. “Eisengrimm, where is she?”

Eisengrimm sniffed the place where Christine had stood.

“Well?” Mayfridh demanded. “How could she leave?” It had been so long since Mayfridh had spent time with a real friend.

“She must have been pulled back into her own world, Majesty.”

Mayfridh returned to her seat, pouting. “It was very rude of her to leave like that.”

“I don’t think she had any control over it.”

“Oh, Eisengrimm, I
remember
Christine. We played together as children in the Real World. I loved her so much. And yet I had forgotten her for so long.”

“It’s the way in our world, you know that. Seasons change—”

“Yes, and memories bury themselves too deep for us to find them. But now I remember it all.”

“A sympathy of time and blood, Mayfridh. Our world and hers have aligned. Their season must be the same as ours, she is nearby,
and her blood in your veins attracted her.”

Mayfridh sighed, leaning her head on the side of the chair and idly running her fingers over the carvings in the wood. “You’re
so wise, Eisengrimm.” She held out her hand and beckoned him forward, rubbed his smooth ears. “Do you think she’ll come back?”

“I don’t know,” he said, “but with Hexebart’s help I believe I could learn more.”

“Hexebart! That wizened old grape. She becomes more and more willful. It’s not fair, Eisengrimm. It’s
my
magic.”

“Hexebart is selfish and stubborn.”

“I should cut off her feet,” Mayfridh muttered. “I should slice off her nose.” Then remembering what Eisengrimm had suggested,
she said, “Why do you speak of Hexebart helping you?”

“I stole a hair from Christine’s head when first I saw her in the forest. Hexebart could weave a spell with it, and we could
learn all about her world.”

“Do you think we could bring her back?”

Eisengrimm transformed into Crow and fluttered to the window. “I doubt she’d be willing to return,” he said, “but there may
be another way to see Christine.”

“What do you mean? Where are you going?”

“I’m going back to the forest to find the hair, and then I’ll pay Hexebart a visit.” He cocked his head and fixed Mayfridh
with a golden eye. “Then, Queen Mayfridh, we can send you through.”

“To the Real World?” Mayfridh’s chest tightened with fear. Her parents had made a passage to the Real World and never returned.
Although many faeries made the passage on the rare occasions when the worlds aligned, Mayfridh had developed a terrible anxiety
at the merest suggestion that she do so. Despite this, Eisengrimm persisted in encouraging her to go if she had the opportunity.
He believed it would expand her horizons, make her a better queen and a more accomplished ruler.

“Consider it an adventure, Mayfridh,” he said.

“I won’t go,” she said.

“We shall see,” Eisengrimm replied, spreading his wings and flying away.

“I won’t go, I will not go,” Mayfridh called after him. But her stomach lurched and her heart sped. This time she might; this
time she just might.

Hexebart is tired of this old well, yes she is. She’s tired of the cold and the cage and the damp and the ugly frogs. Hexebart
is tired of spinning and weaving spells for the nasty little changeling princess.

Spin, spin, spin and weave,

Hexebart can never leave.

Oh, oh! Oh, oh!

Beastly Queen Mayfridh. Not the real queen, no. Just a cuckoo in the nest. When Hexebart sees the dead body of the real queen,
then Hexebart will believe. Until then, all the magic stays here in the well. Hexebart sits in the cage and spins until her
fingers dribble blood, and Hexebart dreams of eating the horrid little queen with a knife and a spoon. And Hexebart saves
all the magic for herself.

Mine, mine, mine,

Until the end of time.

Hexebart is good at saving things. When the bossy wolf asks for special spells and gives her special stuffs, she rubs them
between her scabby fingers and if she likes them she keeps a little. Hexebart has many stuffs. See . . . she has buttons and
a silver clasp; she has a scrap of swaddling and a rusty thimble; and here inside this pea shell . . . here, Hexebart has
half of a strand of long brown hair. It’s human hair.

Human hair, human hair,

Humans all live Over There,

And when her time in here is through,

Hexebart will go There too.

Hexebart clicks her tongue and keeps spinning and weaving. Spinning through the night, spinning through time, saving a little
something for herself.

H
ey, the cripple walks. It’s a miracle,” Pete exclaimed.
Gerda shot him an irritated glance. “Glad you could make it, Miss Starlight. We saved you a seat.”

Christine laughed. “I don’t mind being called a miracle, Gerda. On Tuesday I thought I might have to spend the rest of my
life on my back.” Fabiyan pulled out a chair for her and she eased into it, Jude hovering around in concern. They were at
a bent table outside a cheap Tex-Mex cantina on Georgenstrasse, right under the train line out of Friedrichstrasse Station.
“But now I’m recovered, I need beer.”

“Get the girl a beer,” Gerda said to Pete.

“I’ll get everyone a beer,” he said. “With a bit of luck Mandy will foot the bill.” He shot out of his chair and headed for
the bar.

“Mandy?” Jude asked.

“He’s coming,” Gerda replied. “Sorry. He caught us at the front door and asked where we were going.”

Jude reached for Christine’s hand and squeezed it affectionately. “I guess we can’t keep avoiding him.”

Christine shifted in her chair, trying to make herself more comfortable. The truth was that her back was still throbbing and
pulling, but she had been flat out in bed for four days and needed to get out. Not just out of bed, but out of her own claustrophobic
head.

“Why, thank you, Gerda,” Mandy said, horrifying Christine by pulling up a chair next to hers. “Tell the waitress to bring
out a tray of dips and so on. Dinner will be on me tonight.”

Pete cheered and joined Gerda in finding a waitress. Mandy smiled at Christine, baring an uneven row of small yellowed teeth.
“I see you are up and about. Jude told me you hurt yourself.”

Christine shrank back an inch. “Yes, I’m feeling better.”

He clicked his tongue. “A nasty business, falling in the kitchen. You know most accidental deaths occur at home.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes, it is. You may worry more about flying, or driving, or swimming. But you’re far more likely to meet your death by slipping
in the bath.” He smiled.

“How . . . interesting.”

“What’s your fear, Christine?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“What accident do you fear most of all?”

Jude leaned forward and curled a protective arm around Christine. “Mandy, Christine lost her parents in a car accident.”

“I am so sorry,” Mandy said, smiling and nodding. “I hadn’t meant to upset you.”

“It’s fine,” Christine muttered, reaching for her beer. She noticed Mandy watching her hands move, and his nostrils flared
slightly. She barely controlled a shudder. He glanced up at her quickly, a puzzled look crossing his face.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, dreading the answer.

“Nothing. You reminded me of . . . something.”

“Something nice, I hope?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he stood up, said, “I should mingle,” without any trace of humor, and plonked himself down at the
other end of the table between Pete and Gerda.

“You okay?” Jude asked, his breath soft against her ear.

“Yeah. It’s good to be out.”

He gently kissed her cheek.

“I love you, Jude.”

“I love you too.”

There, he said it, it must be true.
Cling to it. Too late. Already a part of her heart reminded her that he never said it first; that his love was reactive,
not spontaneous, so she must love him more than he loved her. Then she got sick of herself, sick of her weird abandonment
issues. So she’d lost her parents when she was eighteen; it didn’t excuse all this babyish fretting at the age of thirty-one.
If he didn’t love her, then he deserved an Oscar for the previous four years’ performance. She put it out of her mind, determined
to enjoy herself for at least a couple of hours.

The food was good, the beer was better, and around ten o’clock Mandy paid the bill and departed, telling them all he was an
early riser. The remaining five pulled the chairs closer around the table, a circle of cigarettes was lit, and Gerda said,
“I cannot stand him. I simply cannot stand him.”

“He’s creepy,” Christine agreed. “The way he looks at people.”

“The way he looks at you,” Pete said. “I’d never noticed it before tonight.”

Christine shivered. “Gross. Don’t mess with my head.”

“What do you hate most about him, Jude?” Gerda said, blowing out a long stream of cigarette smoke.

“The way he looks at Christine,” Jude said, laughing. “Truly, Christine, didn’t you see? He sat up there and kept sneaking
glances at you all night. I think you’ve won his heart.”

“Don’t,” Christine protested. “I mean it, Jude, he gives me the creeps.”

“How about you, Fabiyan?” Gerda said, speaking slowly. “Do you hate Mandy?”

“He come to me on the Wednesday,” Fabiyan said. “I think he will ask me about my new sculpture. No. He ask me to make him
a point.”

“A point?” Pete asked.

Fabiyan mimed plugging an electrical cord into a wall. “Yes, for electricity.”

“He asked you to install an outlet?” Christine asked. “Are you kidding?”

Fabiyan shook his head.

“That’s so disrespectful. You’re an artist,” Gerda said, enthusiastically stubbing her cigarette on the side of the table.
Fabiyan looked puzzled so Christine translated into German for him.

“Did you do it?” Jude asked.

Fabiyan nodded. “I feel I must say yes to him.”

“I hate him because he listens to the worst music in the universe,” Pete said. “New Age Pan flute music, and classical symphonies
with a pop backbeat. Sometimes he puts it on in the gallery when I’m trying to work in the studio and it’s counter-inspirational.”

“I’m with you on that one,” Jude said.

“And there’s something weird about the way he moves,” Pete added. “He’s this big, lumbering fat guy, and yet he has this uncanny
speed and accuracy. I’ve seen him catch a fly in mid-flight.”

“No way!” Jude exclaimed.

“Yeah. He let it out a window. For a horrible moment I thought he was going to eat it.”

They all laughed, then Gerda tapped out a cascade of ash and said, “I wish I had a good reason to hate him, but I think I
just hate him because he’s hateable.”

“Unbelievably hateable,” Christine agreed.

“Irrationally hateable,” Gerda continued, “because he’s generous, he loves art, he’s devoted his life to the development of
artists from all over the world, and he never interferes creatively with any of us.”