The Snarled Circle Chronicles
10. Der Schwarze Ritter Strauß
Somewhere in the southern part of the testy conglomerate, there was a mansion full of bickering strangers, and among them, a languishing ghost of a boy.
Dedicated to all the Hermanns of the world, and a certain Allister of another
Never in the history of posthumous debacles had one man been so utterly enraged by a slip of paper.
It had flitted out of a recent account book and fluttered down to rest on the dusty carpet. The edges crinkled slightly, and the white creases spider-webbing the surface obscured part of the lazy scrawl across its width. It was roughly pentagonal in shape, though one edge had been ripped in a frayed, fuzzy curve.
It read:
If Gertrude ceases to mutter over my meager grave, I then leave everything to Strauß. I shall write the ethical will later. Do not question my grave for an explanation. Strauß is the most qualified of any to receive what is left.
-H. Ulrich Edelstein.
Knuckles twitching with rage, Albert Mendelssohn picked up the slip and threatened to tear it to pieces before his sister, Hattie, seized it and tried to scrutinize every fiber of the poor thing for a tinier message. Their poofy little dog, Lina, sneezed at the dust and then went back to wagging her tail, unaffected by the nonsense.
"There's nothing else," Albert barked. "I've searched this cursed house a hundred times, and searched it with the Edelsteins and Eidelsteins and Eggelsteins and Tütter and Varter and Trinkenschuh and all their wives and children peeking under the floorboards right next to me. I even searched late that one Thursday evening — the one when we all were forced to eat dinner together and that idiot Epstein choked on a Schnitzel."
"That was a suspiciously large Schnitzel," his sister said.
Albert brushed it off. "That one with the cane — Hermann Something-or-other-stein—"
"I thought he was Hermann Hermann?"
"So now they're just sneaking in here without even being related!"
"No, I believe Hermann Hermann is a cousin of the uncles in Nordreinold. What about him?"
"I think he's up to something. I think he knows where the will is. The real one and the ethical."
At this, Hattie plopped herself down in the dusty musty chair in the corner of the study and beckoned to the dog, who scampered over and jumped up to perch in her lap. A sigh escaped her lips. She stroked the fluffy animal and then trailed her fingers along the spines of account books never to be opened by their owner again.
"Even if there is more to the will than that slip of paper, it doesn't change the fact that all assets and investments are firstly left to one Strauß."
"But there is no one with that name! Hermann searched all the family records!"
"Which Hermann are we talking about now?"
"Hermann… em… it was Hermann Einhorn!"
"He's only five years old. I think you mean Hermann Hermann Einhorn. Or it could be Hermann Hermann."
"Look, can we give all the Hermanns special names to differentiate them?"
"We could, but then we'd also have to give special names to the Alberts and Ludwigs."
"Ach!" Angry Albert bit, and then, seizing Ulrich's will, marched right out of the room. "Come on, Lina, you little gremlin," he called after, and the dog followed at his heels.
Roderich Edelstein sat primly on his chair in the tea room taking indulgent bites and slumping his posture until his shoulders pinched. The morning light glinted off the snow and streaked through the grand bay windows, brightening some colors and utterly whitewashing others. The little glass figures in the china cabinet diffracted beams of red, green, and rainbow onto the edelweiss wallpaper. Roderich had slept until nine; there was no reason not to, especially since he'd been sleeping so well lately, and there was no power lofty enough to stop him from eating another two slices of Sachertorte for breakfast.
No one had paid much attention to Roderich at all the past month. The maids spent enough time as it was cleaning up after the strangers inviting themselves into the mansion to search for a will. Roderich knew his uncle Albert, and he thought he recognized an estranged auntie Ilse from his mother's side, but the rest of the party were completely unknown to him, and he was beginning to think that handful of Hermanns from Nordreinold were trying too hard to look inconspicuous.
The whole mess had puzzled and annoyed him at first. Surely if Ulrich had left a will, his heir would be someone special to him and not one of these distant Hermanns who kept overturning the carpets and sneaking slices of Roderich's cake. But as the days wore on, his will to question the adults withered and wilted. The sound of the swinging door grew as natural to him as the ticking clock, and the annoyances dulled in his mind.
Some angry, productive vestige of life under Ulrich nagged him, but Roderich found himself becoming more and more complacent with the torpid life. He ate cake. He played the piano. He let the strangers step on him. He stuffed away those memories that haunted him and replaced them with the scents of fresh linen and coffee and Kaiserschmarrn and snow. A curse had taken those he loved most, but really, the most sensible thing to do was accept the past and refrain from making more trouble.
Most of the time he slept.
Presently, a little urchin Roderich had never seen in his life waddled into the tea room followed by his lanky father. The little one pointed with a fist at Roderich's slumped shoulders and sockless feet and especially at the chocolate-smeared fork in his right hand. Roderich narrowed his eyes back, and the child gave a sharp chirp.
"That's your cousin Roderich," the father said with a smile full of tartar and coffee breath.
"Is he a Wiener like us?" The little one asked.
"No, but he is a wiener. He sits around all day doing nothing."
"What's wrong with him? Doesn't he want to find the will?"
"He's your uncle Ulrich's son. He knows where the will is, and he's making it hard for everyone by keeping his mouth shut."
"I don't know where it is, and there's nothing wrong with me," Roderich said. "Unless there's something wrong with being annoyed at strangers in one's home."
The little one jabbed a finger out and poked his stomach. "Are you a ghost?"
Roderich buckled forward at the sudden touch. With a disgusted wrinkle of his brows, he pushed the child away with his knuckles and finished the last bites of his cake.
"I'm not a ghost," he growled through his teeth.
"No, little Hermann, he isn't a ghost. But he isn't entirely human, either," said the lanky father.
Roderich set his forehead in his hands and yawned. One slice of Sachertorte remained in the icebox, and he promised himself he would save it for dessert after another exhausting supper with Hermanns Anonymous, (hopefully without the aesthetic of jealous bloodlust. Honestly, if Roderich were mad, another ghost would only exacerbate the madness.) He couldn't eat his feelings here and now. More annoyances would come later…
"You know we're all watching you. Whatever kind of elaborate game you're playing with us will be the end of you."
"Did you even know my father?"
"I knew him the same as all the others, and in the past few days they have begun to talk of strange things. Your aunt said your father was a wizard and he sealed the knowledge of the will inside of you with a magic spell. She said she could see the darkness in those unnatural purple eyes of yours."
"They're not purple. They're blue like my mother's. The glass in these spectacles tints them."
"Your father enchanted you, didn't he?"
"That's private!"
"It's time to stop keeping secrets!"
"You don't even know me! Stop talking to me like you know better about everything!"
More baseless conspiracy theories were thrown about, but Roderich was already finished arguing. He was convinced none of these insufferable money-kissers could read a newspaper and learn what really happened that night at Liutberht, nor could they pull their own ostrich heads out of the sand for one moment to realize they were trying to steal money from a dark wizard's grave.
Thoroughly miffed by the idiocy of social interaction, he quit the tea room and trundled up the stairs to his parents' bedroom, where he tore off his father's spectacles and curled up under the covers in a lonely and miserable heap.
Albert Edelstein and Ilse Marie Götz sat together in the drawing room. It was half past two, and a very relaxing time to chat. Cups of tea lay steaming on the side tables nearest their respective armchairs. Logs were crackling in the fireplace to counteract the works of the frigid winter sun outside.
"Ulrich didn't know a 'Strauß.' Once we make the others realize this, the inheritance will surely fall to one of us," Ilse said. "One. Take. All."
"We wouldn't want anything illegal to happen now," Albert Edelstein tutted from his chair. He was a grossly fat old man whose mustache made it look like a gray squirrel had taken up residence behind one of his ears and hung its tail low under his vulturish nose. He smoothed his coat out over his belly and arched his eyebrows in a smug challenge.
"You would frame me in a heartbeat," the lady said. "Don't you start thinking you have special privileges because Ulrich was your little brother. Gertrude was my little sister, and I'm entitled to her assets first and foremost."
"You're an old spinster. Your dead duchess sister deserves it more than you."
"I lost two sisters that night. You only lost a… a fellow in what? Manufacturing? You're as much a twisted businessman as he was. You want to absorb his assets and invest doubly for yourself!"
"Why are you being so competitive? What would you do with a scrap of my brother's cash?"
"I'd clean this filthy mansion. And then I'd take poor Roddy and give him a bath and a haircut and send him to boarding school so he stops inhaling dust and haunting the place all day long."
"Heh! Rather than be a mother for him?"
"You've seen it in his face. The last thing he wants is anyone caressing him. The boy doesn't need to be comforted. He needs to do something. To, to have a purpose."
"I won't argue with you over Roderich's welfare. You'll be adopting him as far as I'm concerned. Herma and I have enough grandchildren to feed already. My question is of why you'd fight me over this pot-pourri pit when you could have better gains in the Battle of Liutberht?"
"The Duke of Liutberht has a direct heir by blood — his son Hermann Otto, who's sleeping upstairs just like Roderich probably is."
"There's something wrong with that Roderich. I greeted him the other morning and he only nodded his head and ducked out of sight. He has no respect. Better that one of us uses the inheritance to toughen him up.
"Either that or he's simply mad. The other night he was pouring salt into his parents' bedsheets and claiming it kept away evil creatures. He can't be 'toughened up' in any case. A little etiquette would suit him better."
"Well, we'll see to him later. Ulrich obviously didn't intend to leave anything to a mad son. And Hermann Otto is only an infant. He can't decide for himself what to do with the influence his father's position held. Why don't you adopt both boys and become a regent?"
Ilse's thin eyebrows raised so far up her forehead it took on the texture of a wrinkled toadskin. "You think I'm so stupid!? Why don't you evaluate your words before you spew them into the moldy air? There is no "Battle of Liutberht." The only ones who were so adamant as to remove anything from the castle were some foreign family who wanted to burn their relative's body in dragonfire. Liutberht is cursed, and until we find a wizard who can tell us it's not, no one's going back in there."
"You'd better protect its cursed assets, then. I wouldn't be surprised if a robbery has already taken place within the past month or so."
Ilse snorted. "You kid yourself. With the imp scare going on? The last time I was up in Nordreinold, the boutiques were so hysterical, they sooner proffered me a wristlet of red currants than a summer bonnet. Liutberht is quite safe. Of course, you hardly need to know that. You would spend hours trying to convince me to look into Liutberht when you know it's a lost cause."
"So it seems. But Otto's inherited the ring at an unfavorable time in his life. It doesn't fit his finger now. Who knows whose finger it will fit in ten or twenty years' time?"
"You're wicked."
"So are you, milady. Be patient, now. If we're both looking to carve up Edelweiss, we must wait until the dust clears and it becomes obvious enough we are the heirs."
"My big girl bloomers are on, Albert. Don't cross me."
"Disgraceful."
A door slammed below the floor.
It was the second or third slam within twenty minutes, and certainly the loudest of the night. Roderich rolled over in bed. His hair was long and dark and hanging in sweaty strings over his face — nothing of its usual soft, silky splendor. He wiped it out of his eyes and cringed at the amount of oil sliding under his fingers. He'd bathed four days ago. He could go another day without it. All these strange new odors couldn't be cause for concern. And who was to smell him anyway? He had nowhere to go and no one to see.
He didn't want anyone to see him anyway. Not in this state, with red-rimmed eyes and numerous wet spots on the pillow he was cuddling. In the morning he would sleep, but now insomnia was clocking in and dragging up all the dark memoranda, carelessly filed away and forgotten for a time, but now double-marked in red and purple ink.
"What am I doing?" He whispered to the darkness. "I'm supposed to be doing… something… but I hate all the noise. Why can't it just be quiet?"
The door slammed again, and a drunken tune sailed up from under the floorboards.
Roderich straddled the pillow and squeezed it tighter, burying his nose into the plumpness. His heart quickened in his chest, and for a moment he forgot to breathe. Another hot tear dribbled down his cheek. He closed his eyes and tried to take deep, even breaths, but ended up alert again. The corner of the side table was so fascinating to look at. He could stare at it for hours, and he had already.
What else was fascinating? The clod of dust on the rug? The slowly-shifting moonbeam shining through the talon-marked window? The spidery dreadlock of brunet hair his auntie Ilse had cut from the back of his head and stuffed messily into the hair receiver on the dresser? The salted sheets stuffed into a clump in the corner?
His untouched supper?
In that southern corner of the testy conglomerate was a mansion full of souls, and Roderich was still looking up from the darkened corner of a purple corner, so pitifully niche and introverted and different that even if someone would take the time to understand and accept him, he would be unhappy over the time it took for understanding to happen.
No one was left to understand him, and the oblivious mass of shriekers and door-slammers and jolly normal folk were too cold to open their arms for him. He had no say in this inheritance debate. It was as if he were only a ghost, good for nothing but insight into Ulrich's faded mind. And the ones who questioned him were also mere ghosts — flitting in and out of his conscious plane faceless and nameless, yet always strange and malevolent.
He wanted desperately to join the world, and yet a discerning mind and a defective, atrophied set of social skills rendered the world a frightening bureaucracy. Others were born knowing all the emotional bylaws and familiar clauses. Others didn't judge a new environment at the first cautious glance. Others were zealous to turn the absurd mundane and the mundane hostile, and zealous to inform the weak and anxious of the changes. (Such was the rhythm of youth.)
Who was really the thin-wristed fiend approaching him? The imp with impunity, or the swap-child whom no one knew lived, afraid to put himself forth, lest the imp become frightened and threaten to devour him?
Roderich rolled out of bed. He took a box of matches from the side table drawer and lit the nubs of candles around the room. Then he sat on the pile of sweaty sheets and began to eat his onions. He should have been asleep, but his natural clock now designated daytime as night and nighttime as the daily grind of negative self-talk. There was really no reason for other activities to ensue. It was too cold to go outside, and it was too annoying to go downstairs. Even playing the pianoforte couldn't bring as much pleasure as it once had, and when it did, he became self-conscious and banished himself from it again.
When he finished, he put the plate aside and contemplated whether to fetch that last slice of Sachertorte. He'd need to find his slippers and don a blanket cape to stay warm downstairs. And goodness, was he presentable? How purple were the blotches under his eyes? He reached across the side table and grasped the little mirror he'd pilfered from his mother's jewelry box. Roderich sucked in his breath and prepared himself for the horrors.
Which were… completely different than he expected.
"That's… that's a trick of the light," he muttered as he glared at his expression in the glass. "They're…"
He rubbed both eyes to confirm he wasn't wearing his father's spectacles. It was true he'd grown used to them sitting perched on his nose — for familiarity, or maturity, or as a way to keep his face from looking plain — he wasn't sure. The last time he'd looked at himself without them was… before the night at Liutberht.
And…
"This can't be true. My eyes… "
They were such a clear color, like the false, sun-blinded view of a pond in winter. Not blue like snow crystals, but purple like some enchanted gleam shining plainly from the depths. The purple didn't glow like magic. Rather, it floated heavily upon the pale plainness of his face as a grim and beautiful anomaly. A deep shade sunk in the center, and out from this lay the delicate fibers of lighter and lighter lavenders until the pink of his eye whites were reached. It was so naturally wrong that for a moment he believed he was dreaming. Or perhaps, that he was a ghost. A ghost just like Gilbert, who would haunt Edelweiss in the shape of a cursed bird that tore open memories and left everything to question again.
Roderich dropped the mirror. He peered down with purple eyes at the thin wrists and thinner, quivering fingers that had gripped it so weakly. He placed them on his warm chest and felt beneath the solid bones and the rushed, panicky heart.
He saw the ruby eyes, as if in a dream, and he knew.
"It all really happened, didn't it. He's alive."
Gilbert was alive, and Gigi's songs couldn't penetrate the gloom. Gilbert was alive, and Ulrich's spells could not remove the curses. Gilbert was alive, and some great evil had turned the good and the wicked to stone. Gilbert was alive, and his twisted, sadistic magic had bent and broken Roderich's bones not in forgotten dreams, but in cold, frightening reality.
Shivering, Roderich wrapped the dark blanket around his shoulders like an impenetrable cape. He placed his father's spectacles on the bridge of his nose and pushed them up to frame the purple eyes. He combed his stringy hair with his fingers until it frizzed with static and stood on end. Then he left the room that maddened him and made his way downstairs to devour that last slice of Sachertorte and tell the merrymakers to shut the hell up.
When he reached the bottom of the stairs, his uncle Albert Edelstein was returning from the kitchen with the exact prize perched on a plate.
"That's mine!" Roderich barked from the bottom step.
His uncle swung his head in a drunken arc and fixed his little eyes upon the creature. "Go back to bed. You're mad, and it's the middle of the night."
"I'm not mad. You give me that cake, or I'll take it from you. It's mine. I saved it for after my supper, and it's mine! It's mine!"
"You've eaten nothing but cake for two weeks."
"You've eaten nothing but cake your whole life."
"Excuse me!?"
"Albert? What's all this?"
Ilse Marie Götz crept into the entryway like a frazzled mouse. She placed her hand on Albert's shoulder and jumped when she saw Roderich on the stairs.
"Roddy, you should be in bed."
"So should you," said Roderich. "I'm sick of all this noise. Why can't you go home? If there isn't a will, then there isn't a will. Bureaucracy is stupid and slow anyway."
The lady tugged on Albert's sleeve. "I've got Angry Albert Mendelssohn almost drunk enough to believe me, and Hermann Einhorn Hermannstein and his lackeys are about ready to drop the whole story about Ulrich enchanting Roddy. I almost feel as if we can send them all home and get it all settled in town tomorrow by ourselves. It's a piece of paper! Hardly a legitimate will by itself."
"What do you mean by that?" Roderich asked. "Have you found it? The will?"
Ilse did not smile.
"What does it say? Why wasn't I told about this? How long ago did you find it? A few days? A week? Why isn't it legitimate?"
"It's not a will. It's just a piece of paper we found that says everything belongs to some 'Strauß' if Gertrude can't receive it. There's no real will but that."
"Who is Strauß?"
"No one knows, and that's why it's maddening. Now up, up, up you go back to bed. And first thing in the morning, I'm giving you a bath. You're starting to reek like a man."
"No," Roderich said. And with this, he stomped straight between them into the drawing room. Where his precious pianoforte had once stood in the center was now a glassy-eyed man laughing hysterically in the middle of the carpet. He pointed a shaky finger at the newcomer and howled.
"There he is! Get him! Say the magic words and make him tell us where it is!"
"I think we just need his wizard blood," laughed the woman next to him. "He's got the same blood as Ulrich, so he must be powerful."
"That's not how it works. Both of you shut up," said a third man, obviously more sober. He approached the son and gripped his shoulder. Roderich instantly jerked away. "I'm Albert Mendelssohn," he said.
"Angry Albert," chirped his sister next to him.
"Fine. Angry Albert. Don't mind all the Hermanns. At least, we think they're Hermanns. Or Hermannsteins. I think the Einhorn part is made up. It sounds too fantastic to be real."
"I want to see the will," Roderich said. "Show me that piece of paper."
Angry Albert shifted uncomfortably in place. He looked to his sister for assurance, but her face was blank. Albert Edelstein, who had just walked in, was looking particularly miffed. Ilse wore a more concerned expression from her perch behind her in-law.
"Show him," rasped a Hermann.
Angry Albert brought forth the crinkled little paper and handed it to Roderich. "That's all there is," he said. "It's not special at all."
Yet there was definitely something odd about the little note in Roderich's eyes. Perhaps the curve of the eszett or the ghosts of fold-lines past struck some fantastically happy memory, and after staring for a few more seconds, the absurdity of it all came crashing down like the whole of Edelweiss was falling around him.
"What?" His uncle asked.
Cautious and curious and definitely confused, Roderich stepped over to one of the bookcases, where, from the dusty bottom shelf, he withdrew a leatherbound journal. More memories were pulsing now. He thought he remembered the curl of a feather and the sour fold of a pinkish beak…
"Strauß!" He exclaimed! "Strauß! It was the name my mother called me when I was very little! B-because she was drawing the family as birds, and I was so skinny and tall for my age she decided to call me Strauß, and look! The way Strauß is written on the note! It's her handwriting, not Ulrich's! She wrote the word Strauß there!"
He held up the journal, and on the yellowed, open page was a smudged little sketch of "Roddy der Strauß" standing near a pond with his stubby wings all fluffed and the wispy feathers of his head all dark and curly. His long neck was held high and proud — nothing resembling the current Roderich with his back bent and his legs quivering in surprise.
"Well, if it's not Ulrich's handwriting, it doesn't even matter, then. That's not his will. It must have been a joke on Gertrude's part," said Albert Edelstein.
"Then there's no Strauß, and the obvious heir is me!" Ilse shrieked.
"That can't be a legitimate will for Gertrude."
"Well, it's not legitimate for Ulrich either!"
"Then you don't get anything."
"And neither do you!"
All at once, an explosive amount of arguing broke out, and not even the sensible Angry Albert could pay any attention to the forgotten son of Ulrich, who now stood mesmerized as the will suddenly fused itself to the paper in the journal and was eaten by the illustration of Roddy der Strauß. A nervous frown crinkled the corners of his lips, and his stomach suddenly rejected the idea of Sachertorte, though he raged at his uncle still.
Then the calligraphy of Ulrich Edelstein bubbled up from the paper and floated above the head of the awkward, smiley bird.
If I am gone, the black study is open. You will find the ethical will in the appropriate grimoire.
Good… good… great… anything, could it be? The journal dropped from his hands, and the awkward bird gave a little squawk when the cover pressed down on his feathers again. Roderich's head scurried with noiseless snowy static. The blood pounded in his ears and the breath left his body as he almost tripped running up the stairs. He let go of the blanket cape and watched as it fluttered to the ground motionless behind him. The moonless window swallowed up his footsteps.
The black study. The black study is open. Roderich repeated the mantra as he approached the loathsome door. He'd been in this place countless times before, though he couldn't remember each occasion individually. Magic happened in this room — both helpful and terrible magic. Magic that strengthened his bones and magic that accidentally broke them again. Magic that faded and dulled his memories more than Gilbert's ever had. Magic that was never meant to snap him, but to steadily reshape him from a cursed, mad boy into a strong and ruthless young man.
He turned the handle, and the door opened.
"Appropriate grimoire… which one would that be?"
He checked all the potion books he and his father had consulted behind his mother's back. (Or had they?) No, he couldn't question it anymore. Anything that seemed muddled in his memory definitely happened. He and his father had definitely turned to potions in hopes of flushing the dark magic out of his hand. And the potions had failed. They never reached his hand. They only churned and bubbled in his stomach until he felt his insides were changing into wax. One night he'd gotten sick on that corner of musty carpet and begged to stop for the night, but there had been two more potions to try, and he'd drunk them because he hated Gilbert and he hated magic and he wanted it all to be gone.
Ruthless. The word was meaningless. Had he been ruthless when trying (and failing) to fight Gilbert? Or had he been ruthless when working to spite the imp in return? With hexes and spells against those malignant flute sonatas he couldn't get out of his ears in the darkest hours of the morning?
Was he ruthless when he ate cake in spite of all the glares from the adults who didn't respect him? Was he ruthless when he gave in to his crushing grief and slept all through the day and halfway through the night? What was ruthlessness? Was it courage? Persistence? A roar in the face of others' distaste and his own internal fear?
Or was it fear itself? The willingness to recognize that he was frightened and scarred, and the willingness to let it all out — to play his heart's true song, and to know himself as the bearer of a strength not visible, but tangible all the same?
To know that in a country indifferent, nothing was oppressive or discouraging to any man but the darkening of his own mind?
He found a book with an ostrich-feather binding, and just within the front cover were three perfectly crisp, clean legal documents. The first two were dedicated from Ulrich to Gertrude and from Gertrude to Ulrich, if one should pass before the other. The third was folded into the first two, and Roderich was afraid to look at first, as if it held some curse he could not bear to take.
He saw his name at the top of the document.
And from that name down was the legal and ethical will of Ulrich Edelstein, bequeathing all assets and investments and general knowledge of his lesser-known projects to his younger son.
"It's not real," Roderich snarled. "I'm mad. I'm the sick one. He was always disappointed in me…"
...You are a prodigy. You're smarter than either of your siblings, and your right brain functions as well as your left. I would never trust Johannes with anything when my genius son could manage it better…
"I'm not a genius. No one tells me that."
...Never pity yourself — especially in the presence of others. It is unproductive and makes you look foolish. Cultivate your identity as well as you are able until you are satisfied with yourself, and then immediately turn to cultivating your agency. You were weak in your childhood, but whenever this reaches you, I would hope you became successful in those endeavors you became passionate about. You have my intellect and strength for strategy. Use them. Rise out of your own consciousness and look upon the world as a dependent of yourself. Hiding the will was your mother's idea, and your finding of it was a test of your intellect and will. Now to solve the issue of inheritance, as there are inevitably those who won't believe you are my heir, you must utilize what I haven't seen from you at the time of this writing. Confidence and determination…
"I'm not strong enough. I don't want to be strong enough," he told the paper. "I'm not even inspired anymore. I miss… I miss you and mama so much. But I can't break the spell on you. I'm frightened of magic."
...Your inheritance should include all my darker artifacts. Whether you use them is your choice, but be wary of the power you could hold. It is far better to be productive in a natural way. Keep your distance from "wizards," and never call yourself one…
"I won't trust any wizards. I promise. But... maybe…"
He crept toward the bureau, which was covered in a thin layer of slimy dust from neglect. In the drawer behind, just as he remembered, were the various wands his father had always been polishing. With his left hand, he drew out the favored bluish wand, and with his right, he rubbed and clawed at his aching chest.
With the will in his pocket, and gripping the wand between two fingers, he closed the door to the black study and made his way toward the stairs.
"Roderich?" His uncle crooned from the shadows below. "Where did you take that will? You haven't hidden it, have you? It's no use to you."
"It's every use to me," he called out. "I told you! I am Strauß! I am the heir to Edelweiss!" He tried to sound strong, but his voice grew weaker with every syllable. He couldn't be strong enough. Strength was foolishness, anyway.
"Any one of us could say he is Strauß. A drawing proves nothing."
"Then what does this prove?" He asked, now squeaking. He ran toward the stairs, and in an instant was tumbling down step after step after catching his foot on the blanket. His heart seized, and he gasped. A harsh-sounding syllable broke in his throat. He saw his feet and then the carpet and then his feet again, but he never saw the bright cerulean flash that burst from the tip of the wand and shattered the grand bay windows of the drawing room.
A collective gasp rose from the ruckus. Roderich, with a few bumps on his head and new tears in his eyes, regained his footing and pointed the wand at anyone who dared stare at him. His nerves were frazzled and fried. Every fiber of his being was humming and swollen with a swirling cold energy. Fear. No, confidence. No, only adrenalin. Magic? Surely not.
"I am Strauß," he said, pulling the will out of his pocket with a trembling left hand. "I am the heir to everything, and that… that includes all my father's dark spells!"
"Roddy, put that down," Ilse warned.
He went forward, his emotions laboring every new step. The tip of the wand faced his aunt, then his uncle, then Angry Albert and his sister and their dog, then a Hermann, then a Hermann Hermann and a Hermann Hermannstein.
"Get out of my house. All of you. Now."
"Put that wand down immediately," his aunt hissed. It was not a command, but a warning. Her voice was almost motherly, and for a moment, Roderich thought it was the voice of the mother he so missed. But he held the wand firmly and repeated his command.
"Leave. I am Ulrich's living son, and I'm his chosen heir. The rest of you get out."
"You're hardly an heir. You're… you're mad! Who believes him?" Albert Edelstein scoffed from the doorway.
Roderich turned to look at him. He took a deep breath and felt past the pounding of his heart against his ribs. Slowly, he lowered his arm, and his grip on the wand lessened. His purple eyes drifted downwards toward the floor. He spied a place to sit on the carpet, out of the way, and almost lifted one sockless foot to go there.
But he saw that the last slice of Sachertorte had been eaten by his uncle, and faster than he had ever done anything in his life, (which was perhaps not saying much,) he had raised the instrument of the arcane back to its rightful target, and with a word he knew by heart, for it was the only magic he could truly remember, he cast a spell.
There was a great white flash.
Roderich collapsed upon the floor.
And Albert Edelstein never remembered a thing.
"Now you lead."
Roderich shifted his arms so that his hand was firmly on his auntie Ilse's waist. With a coy smile, he gestured to the right before placing his other on her shoulder and leaning into a new dance. He tripped over his shoes a few times, scoffing as he did so, but once his aunt obliged to his mistakes, he grew smoother and more relaxed in his art. His shoulders lessened their tension, and he brought purple eyes up to glisten at his partner's enjoyment.
They were in the little ballroom of Edelweiss. The silent dance was confusing to Roderich's mind, but he could not be in two places at once. (He was at least very happy the pianoforte was back where it belonged under the patched-up window.)
"Will any lady want to dance with me someday?" He asked, taking a moment to brush a silky strand of hair out of his face. Washed and styled, it was almost fluffy in its gentle bouncing waves. He fancied it was beginning to grow thicker, too, and softer than it had ever felt before.
"You will," said Ilse. "With all this practice, you're becoming a little gentleman right before my eyes, and I know that one day, a very lucky and special girl will think you're the most handsome young master she's ever seen."
"If my nose doesn't get too long and pointy."
"Oh, don't be concerned about your nose."
"It's going to look like a beak. I can already tell."
"Then you'll be unique. A special nose to go with those special eyes."
"I wish I knew why they changed. Could it have been all the… the curses?"
"I know nothing about magic, dear. You'd need a good fairy to tell you that. Now, em, prepare a seat for your lady and play a song for her."
Roderich nodded. When he was seated at the pianoforte, he looked out the window for a few moments. Crystal flurries of snow fizzled through the frozen air. It was much too cold to go outside, but at least the day granted him an amiable sunbeam that warmed his shoulders under his new coat and granted him a mysterious sense of relief. His mood had fluctuated again, from despondent to moderately contented, but he could not make himself consider it.
He straightened up his posture until he was perfectly stiff and dignified, and then he closed his eyes and played and imagined that he was tall and handsome and desired by all the maidens in the land.
~N~
Strauß = Ostrich! An Austrian Ostrich… from Ӧsterreich.
There are some fan theories that Roderich is Jewish because of his surname. I don't intend to confirm this because of the craziness of the AU, but I thought it would be interesting to include the concept of an "ethical will," which is like a letter of good conduct and advice that a father writes for his children. And of course I played around with the names. I hope this is an accurate representation of the sheer and boundless number of Hermanns in Germany.
Is this series dark enough yet? Uff da, art mimics life.
Next episode: A mysterious magical reaction and an identity under fire! Can Gilbert be a brother?
Published by Syntax-N on FanFiction . Net 13 February 2020. If you're alone this Valentine's Day, remember pillows don't judge! Don't repost.
