In the Forest of Forgetting by Theodora Goss

Author:Theodora Goss
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781907881282
Publisher: Papaveria Press
Published: 2015-02-01T13:00:00+00:00

Meister Wilhelm looked even smaller than I remembered, when he opened the cottage door in answer to my knock. He wore a white smock covered with smudges where he had rubbed up against something dusty. From its hem hung a cobweb.

“Ah, come in, Fraulein,” he said. “You must forgive me. This is no place to receive a young lady, with the dust and the dirt everywhere—and on myself also.”

I looked around the cottage. It had changed little since the day Emma and I had eaten green apples on the sagging sofa, although a folded blanket now lay on the sofa, and I realized with surprise that the violinist must sleep there, on the broken springs. The furniture had been pushed farther toward the wall, leaving space in the center of the room for a large table cracked down the middle that had been banished from the Beauforts’ dining room for at least a generation. On it were scattered pieces of bamboo, yards of unbleached canvas, tools I did not recognize, a roll of twine, a pot of glue with the handle of a brush sticking out of it, and a stack of papers written over in faded ink.

I did not know what to say, so I twisted the apron Hannah had made me wear between my fingers. My palms felt unpleasantly damp.

Meister Wilhelm peered at me from beneath gray eyebrows that seemed too thick for his face. “Your mother tells me you would like to play the violin?”

I nodded.

“And why the violin? It is not a graceful instrument. A young lady will not look attractive, playing Bach or Corelli. Would you not prefer the piano, or perhaps the harp?”

I shook my head, twisting the apron more tightly.

“No?” He frowned and leaned forward, as though to look at me more closely. “Then perhaps you are not one of those young ladies who cares only what the gentlemen think of her figure? Perhaps you truly wish to be a musician.”

I scrunched damp fabric between my palms. I scarcely understood my motives for wanting to play the violin, but I wanted to be as honest with him as I could. “I don’t think so. Mr. Henry says I have no musical talent at all. It’s just that when I saw you playing the violin—at the Beauforts’ dinner party, you know—it sounded, well, like you’d gone somewhere else while you were playing. Somewhere with a bird on a tree, and then a storm came. And I wanted to go there too.” What a stupid thing to have said. He was going to think I was a complete idiot.

Meister Wilhelm leaned back against the table and rubbed the side of his nose with one finger. “It is perceptive of you to see a bird on a tree and a storm in my music. I call it Der Sturmvogel, the Stormbird. So you want to go somewhere else, Fraulein Rose. Where exactly is it you want to go?”

“I don’t know.” My words sounded angry. He did think I was an idiot, then.

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