Shadowsong

Mother caught sight of me by the door. “Oh, Liesl,” she said hoarsely. “I didn’t hear you come in.” She ducked her head, fishing about her apron pocket for something I could not see. It was only when the light of the late morning sun struck her cheek that I realized she had been crying.

I was thunderstruck. Mother, who had suffered twenty-odd years of emotional abuse from Constanze, never once cried before her children or her mother-in-law. It was a point of pride for her to endure with stoicism the very worst excesses of my father and my grandmother, but this had broken her. She was sobbing over spilled salt, agonized tears of anguish.

I did not know what words of comfort to offer, so I reached into my pocket for my handkerchief and silently handed it to her. The only sound was Mother’s wretched weeping, a sound which terrified me more than any screaming match. Mother was resilient. Resolute. Resourceful. Her hopelessness more than her hiccoughs frightened me.

“Thank you, Liesl,” she said thickly, dabbing at her eyes. “I don’t know what came over me.”

The weight of the Goblin King’s ring lay heavy on my breast, strung on a simple length of twine. Whatever the ring’s true value, it was worth infinitely more to me. My austere young man had given it to me when we made our vows, and again when we broke them. The ring was a symbol of the Goblin King’s power, but more than that, it was a promise that his love was greater than the old laws. One could not place a price on a promise.

But there was something missing perhaps—a soul, a spark. It was like hearing the words of a favorite poet translated into a foreign tongue.

Perhaps they had expected too much. Talent was fickle, after all, and those who burned brightest with it often did not last.

Not even Papa had been able to make peace between them, for he always deferred to his mother even as he preferred to side with his wife. “If I weren’t already certain of your comfortable perch in Hell, thou haranguing harpy, I would pray for your eternal soul.”

Constanze banged her hand on the table, making the letter—and the rest of us—jump. “Can’t you see it is Josef’s soul I am trying to save?” she shouted, spittle flying from her lips.

We were taken aback. Despite her irritable and irascible nature, Constanze rarely lost her temper. She was, in her own way, as consistent and reliable as a metronome, ticking back and forth between contempt and disdain. Our grandmother was fearsome, not fearful.