There was no signature, but there did not need to be. This was not a letter from Frankfurt. This came from a forest under moonlight. The wildness in Hyacinth’s voice was here in his words, in every jagged, hurried line. Even though I had never seen his handwriting before, I recognized it.
Outside, Woferl’s menuett lifted in a crescendo. The notes tumbled after one another, beads on a glass counter.
Somewhere in my mind echoed a laugh, a sound of the night.
I took the letters and put them carefully back in their envelopes. Then I hid them in my trunk, underneath a pile of clothes. Later, I would burn them all.
Hyacinth was calling me back.
THEGHOSTONTHEPARCHMENT
That evening, Papa burst home from the archbishop’s court in a flurry. His mouth was pulled in a tight line.
Woferl, Mama, and I looked up in surprise from the dining table, but it was Mama who recognized with a single glance everything in our father’s expression, for she darted up from her chair to rush to his side. She took his hat before Sebastian could, then touched his shoulder to comfort him before hanging up his coat.
Papa eyed the dishes on the table with a withering gaze. “Fish again?” he muttered. He leaned a hand against the back of his chair and shook his head, over and over, unsatisfied with something. His eyes scanned our home, searching for something he couldn’t quite place.
“What is it, Leopold?” my mother finally asked.
“This flat is so cramped,” he complained, waving a hand inannoyance at the foyer. “I hadn’t realized how small it was until we returned. Look, Anna, at how we can barely fit all our luggage in here.”
“There’s plenty of room, Papa,” Woferl said. “I don’t mind it.”
“Of course you don’t,” Papa replied. “You are still a small boy.” It was rare to hear him short with my brother, and I leaned in, curious and intimidated. His eyes jerked to me and held my gaze. “Nannerl, though, is turning into a young lady. And here you two are, still sharing a room.”
Fear slithered cold into the marrow of my bones. I could hear the unspoken words behind it.The older they are, the less magnificent they seem.I would not be a miracle child for much longer.
Mama leaned over to him and put her hand on top of his. “We can certainly give Nannerl her own room,” she said, still searching for the root of Papa’s mood.
Woferl looked at our mother in shock. “Why?” he asked.
Mama frowned at his interruption. “Woferl. You are twelve. You cannot continue to stay in the same room as your sister—it’s not proper.”
My brother glanced at me, expecting me to protest. When I didn’t, he tightened his lips. I could see the fear in his face at sleeping by himself, left alone to his nightmares and midnight visitors. Perhaps he was still running from Hyacinth in his dreams. I thought of the beasts that had been prowling the French countryside and imagined the faery boy’s sharp teeth digging into my brother’s flesh.
“Yes.” Papa nodded at my mother’s words. “It’s decided, then. We’ll have to arrange accommodations for Sebastian in the next building. Nannerl can take his old chambers.”
Woferl and I exchanged a glance. What would haunt him at night without me there?
He looked down in silence at his dinner. Before my illness and what cracked us apart, he might have protested loudly. Now he twirled his fork against his dish and broke his fish into pieces. Somewhere deep in my thoughts, a figure watched him curiously with a tilted head.
Mama watched Papa closely, picking up something else under his temper. “There has been some news,” she finally said, “that has been unfair to you.”
At that, Papa’s shoulders sagged. “It is absurd,” he answered after a while. “I received no letters, no warning at all.”
“What has the archbishop done?”
“They have stopped my salary, Anna, due to my extended absence. Now that I am back, they have lowered my pay another fifty gulden.”
Mama stiffened at the revelation. “Fifty gulden,” she breathed. “And no reason for it?”
“Only that we have been away,” Papa replied, “which he knew about in advance. He will not agree to us leaving again.”
“And Herr Hagenauer?”
He rubbed the crease between his brows, as if it might come out if he did it hard enough, that it might solve his problems. “He has agreed to give us another month to catch up on our rent. No more.”
A lowered salary. Our unpaid rent. Papa’s complaints about my age. Soon my parents would need to start talking about the matter of my dowry, too, another expense to weigh down the family. I could look into my future and see my path laid out clearly before me. My father would approve of a man who I could bematched with. He would ask for my hand in marriage. I would marry, and like my mother, I would bear children to carry on my husband’s name, leave my family behind for his, and look on as Woferl headed off into the glittering world of operas and concerts and noblemen eager to commission him for his music.
