I stared at the parchment. It was as if I were looking at a ghost of myself on the page.I was here,the harmony said.
When I started writing again, I did not change my style. I let it stay mine, the flutes and the horns. Every flourish, every trill and arpeggio. It was distinctly different from Woferl’s work, but to me, it still matched the piece, made it whole. And perhaps no one would ever recognize my hand in this, no one would clap for me when it was performed—but my brother would see it, know it for what it was. So would my father.
Papa will tell me to fix it,I thought. This piece was not my own to do what I wanted.
But I left it anyway.
Woferl paused from his work on the strings to read over what I had written. I peered at him from the corner of my eye, wondering if he would tell me to change it too, if our father’s voice would come out of his throat.
I knew he saw the shift in our styles. But a beat of time passed, and he said nothing.
Finally, he sighed. “Oh, Nannerl,” he said.
It was not an exclamation of exhaustion or exasperation. Nor was it some desperate attempt for him to win me back, empty praise in the hopes of an affectionate response, or even some trick from Hyacinth with words laced in cunning. In his voice, I heard a yearning that reminded me of our younger days, whenhe would sit in the morning sun and lean his head against my shoulder, watching in wonder while I played. It was love for what I’d written. When I looked more closely at him, I could see tears at the corners of his eyes as he read my music over and over, as if playing it repeatedly in his head.
He didn’t look at me, so he couldn’t see the softness that came briefly over my face, the small smile that touched my lips.
He nodded at the measures, then bent his head again and continued on without a word. I felt the burden on my chest, there for so long since my illness, shift, turn lighter. His dark hair had grown into a longer tail tied at the nape of his neck. His feet still dangled a short distance above the floor, as they had when he was a child. As I stared at him, I felt a certain pity for this little creature, caught by a different limb in the same snare as me.
“Nannerl?” he said after a while.
I paused in my writing to look at him. “Yes?” I said.
He hesitated, then spoke again. “Thank you.”
For helping me,was the part of his sentence that remained unspoken. In that moment, I thought he might address what happened with my sonatas. I halted in my work to look at him, my heart quickening, waiting for him to say it. Would he? The seconds dragged on. I realized that I was hoping he would, so that we could bring this ugly scar between us out into the open.
Woferl’s shoulders seemed weighed down. He wrote a few more measures in silence before he spoke. “I saw Hyacinth last night, in my dream,” he said softly.
I hadn’t heard Woferl mention the kingdom in months. Even hearing his name on my brother’s lips seemed to chill the air. “What did he want?” I asked.
“He runs after me,” Woferl said. He looked pensive now, andweary. “I cannot escape him. He lingers, now that I am alone.”
The cold prickled my skin. Hyacinth was here, in our home. What was he telling my brother?
“If you’re afraid,” I said to him, “you can come to me. I won’t tell anyone.”
He nodded once, but his expression looked pale and unsure. There was more to Woferl’s story, I could sense it—but he just kept writing, the light feverish in his eyes.
We wrote late into the night, until Woferl collapsed in exhaustion against the clavier stand. I helped clean his hands of ink stains, and then carried him to his room before retiring to my own. There, unable to sleep, hollow from the absence of my brother beside me, I lay awake and let my heart burn from what Hyacinth wanted with my brother.
Woferl was in danger. I could sense it now, the ice hanging in the air, waiting for him. Hyacinth was coming for him—somehow, someway. And I didn’t know how to protect him. I turned to my side and stared at where moonlight painted a silver square against the floor. Would he climb through my brother’s window in the night, while we slept? When would he do it? How?
The darkness in me, thesomeone elsethat I’d felt in my chest, stirred now. It painted for me a vision of Woferl whispering to Papa about where my compositions had been hidden.Have you already forgotten?the voice reminded me.Why do you protect him?
I tossed and turned, haunted by what the faery might do, until I finally heard my door creak quietly open to reveal Woferl stealing into my room. He hesitated by the door, not uttering a word.
How did he still look so small?
I stayed silent for a moment, unwilling to invite my brotherinside. But then I pictured Woferl alone in his room, listening for Hyacinth to appear.
I waved him over. “Come here,” I said.
He crawled into my bed and snuggled beside me, just like he used to. His small body trembled. I brushed my fingers through his hair and let the voice in me slowly fade. There Woferl stayed, listening to my humming, until he finally drifted into a dreamless sleep.
THERETURNTOVIENNA
We finished the archbishop’s oratorio in nine days, a day later than he requested. The time passed so quickly, I couldn’t remember the separation between one morning and the next. Everything blurred together into an endless string of feverish writing. We spoke little to each other, except to exchange ideas and notes about the composition. Every night, Woferl came to my room and huddled beside me in bed.
