Sleeping Helena (14 page)

In the ballroom, Thekla surveyed the crowd with pleasure. Her announcement was sure to shock Helena, but she’d soon come around. Thekla had pulled every string she knew how to pull, made offers, and moved mountains. Helena was going away; the university was pleased to have her and they understood her special needs. Thekla stroked the table in front of her, ran one gnarled finger along its edge. It held Helena’s presents and more. Thekla laughed. She would foil Kitty’s curse altogether and still send Helena off to school, and there was nothing Kitty could possibly do to stop her.

Louis had taken the best care of his rifle; Thekla had watched him clean it so many times she had memorized the procedure. Thekla had never liked the device. It was ugly and loud, but it was also a part of Louis. It had been found on the lakeshore, near his body. No one knew Thekla had kept it.

Upon their return to Bayern, she had taken it from its hiding place, cleaned it, oiled it, and made sure it was in good working order. She hadn’t even been sure why she’d done it until now. She had practiced her aim in her room late last night, got used to the rifle’s awkward weight. The rifle was loaded and today she was ready to use it.

Thekla looked through the room for her grandniece
—
it was almost six o’clock. The blood rushed from her face as her eyes flitted from person to person.

Neither Helena nor Kitty was there.

No.

Thekla reached under the table.

She was so close.

She could not let Kitty win now.

Thekla wished for the strength of youth as she clutched the rifle and hurried painfully down the hall. She heard a voice and followed it.

Kitty sat with her legs crossed, calmly smiling. She did not seem surprised to see Thekla.

Thekla raised the rifle and aimed it at Kitty’s head. She curled her finger around the trigger. “Where is Helena?”

Two old women gazed at each other across the span of years. They were old, they were young, they were old again.

Kitty looked into Thekla’s eyes and thought of all of the years lost between them, and then let them go. She was prepared to die.

It was the only way Louis could live.

What a strange place to put a gift, though at least here it was well hidden from Thekla. And from herself, Helena thought as she felt her way up the stairs. Certain that life was a part of her, like beauty and grace and the others, she puzzled over the nature of a gift kept behind a locked door. She reached the top without finding an answer. There was a ledge along the wall. Her hands passed over a book of matches and beside them, a candle in a round holder. She put a flame to the wick and it lit with a flare, revealing another small door. She rattled the handle
—
this one was locked. She looked at the key in her hand.

It fit snugly into the lock and turned with ease. The small room was cold and bare, except for a mirror that hung across from her, and a tiny window high up in the wall. Helena put her nose as close as she could to the mirror without doubling her vision and clutched either side of the frame. She saw herself clearly for the first time in years.

A gift opened ravenous jaws.

Hunger surged and sent a shock through her body. She felt faint and clung to the frame. The nail Karl had hammered in to hold the mirror was unable to bear her weight and gave way. She and the mirror both fell to the floor. The mirror broke into a hundred pieces. Helena lay among them as though dead.

Downstairs, four women heard the glass shatter.

Kitty’s eyes widened. Her spell wouldn’t work with the mirror broken and she had never foreseen this.

Thekla was startled. Her finger involuntarily tightened on the trigger and began to pull it back.

Eva had seen Thekla reach under the table, pull out a long object and hurry to the door to the hall. She had covered her mouth, wide in shock, when she’d seen what Thekla was holding.

Oh god, Eva had thought. She
is
mad.

Eva had rushed after her. When she entered the room to find her fears realized, she spoke without hesitation.

“I give the gift of sleep.”

Like Kitty, she had never specified a recipient. Eva had no time to think; she opened her gift for them all.

Motes of dust halted in mid-flight, trapped as though weightless in the air. Outside, the roses shuddered. Inside, all slept in place. The rifle still aimed at Kitty’s head. Kitty sat, eyes open, on the chair. In the grand ballroom the dancers turned and stopped, like suddenly wound-down toys.

Upstairs, Helena vanished.

In the kitchen, Hope found her forgotten bundle and tied it around her neck. As she made the final knot in the cord she, too, heard the mirror break.

Hope expected the worst and was not surprised when she found it.

Upon entering that lonely room, a lesser woman might have fainted. Hope never dreamed Thekla owned a rifle, much less knew how to use one. Thank goodness she’d not been able to do so
—
Eva’s counter-spell had suspended them all. Hope put her hand on Thekla’s arm to remove the rifle.

It wouldn’t budge; Thekla was hard as stone.

Hope touched the pouch at her neck in gratitude. She had devised several spells of her own to protect her from Helena’s gifts. Helena’s charm and grace never swayed Hope, her beauty went all but unseen, and when Eva’s spell put the household to sleep, Hope had been unaffected. Though Hope had erred in leaving Helena, the success of her spell buoyed her up. It was good to find she had not lost her touch. There was still Kitty’s gift to consider, but for that Hope relied on another.

No one, not even Kitty, could match wits with Hope’s young charge. All Hope had to do was find her.

Hope quickly discovered the secret stair and chided herself for not knowing about it. She felt her way along the wall until she reached the top, where she stopped and caught her breath at the small door. It was unlocked. She pushed it open. Faint light from a sliver of window illuminated the room well enough for Hope to see the scattered fragments of mirror on the floor.

She bent down carefully, picked up a large piece of glass and held it to the light.

Hope rarely accepted a fact as a fact unless it came with strong evidence, but mirrors most often present their own proof. For vanity’s sake they reflect an image. For magic’s, they retain it. Hope turned the shard over in her hand.

This was certainly magic, and of the very worst kind.

What was Kitty doing? Ah well, Hope thought. She could not ask her now. Hope could see Helena’s face in the thin broken glass, as though it had been painted there, but Kitty’s spell did not end with mere reflection. Helena should have been standing in front of the mirror, frozen like everyone else. She could not have left the room
—
Hope would have seen her. Helena was nowhere. That meant there was only one place she could be.

Hope would not begin to guess at Kitty’s motives, nor did they really matter at this point in time. Helena would figure it out, if only she could be reached. Whether Kitty intended for it or not, Helena had slipped through the mirror. She could only return from wherever she was if the glass could be repaired.

Back in the kitchen Hope gathered her tools: a lamp, a glue pot, a paintbrush, a stool for her to sit on, newspaper on which she could do her work. She returned to the secret room, basket of goods in hand, and made herself as comfortable as possible. Hope sang to herself as she pieced the mirror together, used the brush to line jagged edges with glue, and laid them out on the paper. The mirror spread beneath her hands as the past rushed up behind her. She saw Helena in every shard she touched.

Thekla was out of bed early on the morning of Katza’s sixteenth birthday, haunting the kitchen in search of a fresh bun or two. Louis was there before her with his gun, a long, gleaming rifle that made Thekla nervous. She knew he was proud of his skills, but the thing made an awful noise when fired that always hurt her ears.

“Where are you hunting today?” she asked in the hope he would stay for a moment and talk with her.

Louis put his hand under her chin. “The same place as always, little sister, beside the lake. Why aren’t you in bed? The sun has yet to shine and here you are, wide awake.”

He smiled at her; it seemed to Thekla the sun didn’t need to shine when Louis was in the room.

She rubbed her eyes. “I couldn’t sleep. I had a dream.”

“Was it a terrible dream?” The look in his eyes was kind, as though he knew how bad dreams could spill into one’s waking.

“Very. There was a dragon sleeping in a forest and it was going to eat me when it woke up. I ran and ran but couldn’t get away from it.”

Louis looked into her eyes and gave her courage. “Dragons do not eat little girls, I promise you that. In any case, the dream is done and you are with me, safe and sound. There are no dragons here.”

“Will you stay and tell me a story?”

Louis shook his head. “I cannot. The sun will rise and chase all of the game away. When I return, you’ll get your story. Will you wait?”

Thekla nodded, but Louis was already gone.

Louis felt sorry for Thekla, but he was in a rush. He caressed the envelope concealed in his coat pocket. It had arrived the night before, delivered by a silent messenger on behalf of the king. Louis had recognized the seal as soon as his hand closed on the letter. His heart fluttered even now as he thought about it.

The bearer of the message did not know its contents; this was their little secret. Louis thought it proof he’d not been wrong about their feelings for each other, something he’d worried over ever since the night he and Ludwig met. He remembered it well.

The snow had blown in and covered his legs when he opened the kitchen door, but Louis never thought to brush it off. The man had been much larger than Louis imagined; his presence had flooded the room. The Magic King had been there, in the very ordinary kitchen, and he was an incredible figure. Louis did not see a man past his prime, or a man lost in the throes of madness. The king had seemed as sane as any other as he stood with his cloak dripping water onto the floor.

For the king it had been shelter from the storm, a haven in the dark night and adventure. For Louis, the king had personified love. After years of longing for the idea of the king, there he finally was, right in front of Louis. He would never recover from his first meeting with King Ludwig II. Impressionable and impressed, Louis had taken the sodden cloak from the attendant’s hands and hung it on a hook by the fire. He could do nothing then but gaze upon his king.