#adelger

“Has Adelger already breakfasted?” I asked Linde.

She gave me nothing but an apologetic shrug, and since my father was hidden behind his newspapers I did not even bother to ask him at all.

After breakfast I tried to just walk past my brother’s room but I couldn’t. With my hand raised, my knuckles hovered over the door. I still did not know how to feel about all the things he knew and all the things he didn’t tell me, about all the truths he had kept from me, again, but I wondered if he had shown up for breakfast at all in the last seven days. If he had shown up for lunch. If he had eaten during dinner. I had not paid attention and as I carefully knocked, my stomach felt as tight as yesterday.

No one responded.

I knocked again. Silence. “Ger?” I bit down on my lips, staring at the door, then knocked again. When there was still no answer, I decided to just open it. “Ger are you … there?” But the room was empty, the bed made and no personal belongings to be found on the ground or chairs. I sighed with relief. At least he was not sick. 

Leaving the door open, I went out to the gardens, then searched in the greenhouses. No Adelger. I knew it didn’t regard me, anyway, he was quite allowed to do whatever he wanted, but I hadn’t even received his gift yet and maybe that would be reason enough to talk to him, to seek some of that perfect glow and light he knew how to spread. My way led past the stalls and library back to the breakfast hall, where my father was now alone, still reading his newspapers. “Papa, do you know where Adelger is? I can’t find him.”

“Have you looked in the garden?”

“Yes.”

“Library?”

“Yes. I’ve looked about everywhere. Did he say he was going to München today?”

My father looked at me for a moment. “Why?” he asked and there was bitterness in his voice. “Isn’t it custom in this family not to tell each other where you go?”

My eyes widened. I knew that my father was meaning me with that, accusing me of having disappeared too often without a note these past days, but I didn’t care. Suddenly I understood where Adelger had gone.

“Linde!” I knocked on her door repeatedly. “Adelinde open.”

“I’m getting dressed right now, Adelor!”

“Linde, did Ger tell you that he was leaving today?” 

“Come back later!”

He had never promised me to stay. It was only me who had always hoped to not be left alone. “Did he tell you that he was going to the Herrlichs?”

This time there was no answer. I hesitated. Now that the question was out I felt like Tyl’s name was hanging all too heavy in the air. My hand was shaking as I readied myself to knock again. The door clicked open and Adelinde’s face appeared. “No, he didn’t” she said, softly, almost in a whisper, and looking at me with those big, silver-blue eyes. If I had been more careful I would have noticed the dark tinge in them but all I knew to worry about was that tightness in my stomach and the panic in my chest.

I wished I could still tell lies from truths, but nothing had ever been more difficult for me.

The tears came easily now, caused by anger, caused by sadness, caused by fear. Storming into my room I threw the door shut before opening my wardrobe where I had hidden the two wine bottles Janina had given me. My wand pointed at them I whipped their necks off by a clean cut, then filled all three glasses, which had once been meant for Linde and Ger, and emptied them in one go. What had my stomach to complain about, wasn’t it churning for days now? Emptying the first bottle by filling up one glass again, I loosened my cravat and went to the window, pushing it open, it was too warm in here. It was always far too warm in here, and everything was full of red energies, a red as dark as my wine, as dried blood, as wounds which had never healed, as stains never cleaned, and I knew that it was all mine, it was all my ugly energies that had poisoned my mother once and drenched my siblings now and caused my father to never see anything special in me. All my bloody wine red. I tried to wave it all out, to kick and shove and blow but the more my anger rose, the more red left my chest and hands, seeping out of me like smoke seeps out of wet wood when burnt. I could do nothing about it. My throat closed up. When my glass was empty, I therefore opened the white wine, perhaps it was going to help. It smelled almost too sweet after the dryness of the red wine, and I cringed. I had never minded desserts, and never minded cake-and-coffee time, but I did not want to think of sweets now, of pasties, of cookies. “Fuck you!” I shouted out the window, my voice splitting in half.

Tears were flooding my face no matter how often I wiped them away as I restlessly paced the room, they flooded my face as though no matter how many of those muttered “Fuck you”s I spit out, there would always still be too much of all that anger and fear inside of me to create new tears.

Eventually my first glass of white wine was drunk too and my body was too numb to still produce more of my energy, I tested it by pushing my palm against the broken bottle neck and when I was sure it didn’t hurt, sure that I was numbed down enough to not poison everything with my presence, I went to my mother’s room. Staggering.

Was this not the only reason why I had declined Tyl’s invitation? Because I had promised my mother to be there for Yule? To hug her? To make sure she would eat right and smile? Was the only reason why I knew I wouldn’t enjoy myself anywhere else but here at the Graf Place my mother? Because I knew that without her, it always felt like something was missing?

My hand was shaking when it reached for the door handle. How long was it since I had not entered it? When had my mother started to forbid us to go in? When had she started to put gloves to our hands and forbid us to poison her space with our energies? And how was it possible that I still remembered her room as though I had only been there yesterday?

The curtains. The never-opened windows. The bed, the blankets over the desk and the often-locked door to the bathroom, the colour of the fabric that enveloped the bed, the wallpapers and the black-painted mirror. And everything was plunged in dark blue clouds of her energy. Yes, it looked just like it had the last time I had seen it. My mother was missing, but her energies weren’t.

I nodded and followed in silence. Was this about all the missed lunches in the past few days? He could not possibly be mad at me for being bored during Yule dinner, I was always like that, and he was used to it. And Adelger had been quite perfect so why would he worry about me? It didn’t make any sense. So perhaps the fact that I had not risen to Haus Silber yet? I sighed and closed the door to his office behind me as he asked me to and took a seat behind his desk. It felt just like facing a teacher. Then again, I had always felt like facing my father when I had faced my teachers...

“What did I do?”

“Sit.”

I obliged.

“Adelor,” Yes, indeed, that was my name. I looked at my father, warily, as he folded his hands into each other, opened them again, brought them to the armrest of his chair, fidgeted a bit and then finally lay them still, “you are soon reaching your 20th birthday and you are soon finishing your education, that is to say, you are soon entering a new stage in your life, in your-, in your manhood.” I stared at my father, bewildered. Was he smiling? “And I believe it is time for you to-, to accept that.”

Well, I wasn’t going to disagree with that and I knew where this could be coming from, given that I had done nothing but to fool around all Yule, but why in Merlin’s beard did he look so incredibly solemn and … excited about it? “Yes..?”

“Well, I’ve seen you’ve gotten along quite well with Mina?”

“Sure.” Had I?

“Her mother and I, we’ve talked for a bit and we think she would-, well, we think Mina would complement you quite well.”

I blinked, very slowly, incapable of taking my eyes off my father’s face, which was shining with so much eagerness and, indeed, cheerful excitement. He hid it, of course, behind his habitual stern expression but the glisten in his eyes spoke quite a lot. “Mina Reich?”

“Yes.” He nodded and I realised that he wanted me to say something.

“You haven’t arranged the marriage already, though, have you?”

My father looked a little distraught. “No, of course not. You know that I would never take away your choice to choose yourself.” That was true. Even if he had never made not-marrying an option for either of his children, he had always insisted that he wanted us to at least try to marry out of love. But why telling me about Mina, then? Why talking to me about it now?

“Papa, I know that I need to look out for wives. Making me consider Mina is nice, but she’s a First Year at Schluchtenburg, she’ll be there for at least another two years. If not arranging the marriage right now, why are you telling me this now?”

And as if someone had blown out the fire of a candle, my father’s face darkened. “That is another thing.” he said. “I wish you stop sleeping with the servants.”

Had I been staring at him with puzzlement before, I was now staring at him in shock. “The servants?” In my mind I tried to think of all the servants I could have possibly have ever wanted to approach, from the fairly handsome cook to the incredibly attractive Muggle postman who passed our house on the north side every Saturday morning, but none of them had ever even talked to me and-... “Janina?!”

“Janina?” my father asked. “She is not even Fräulein Metzger to you anymore? Adelor, please tell me you have not fallen in love with Fräulein Metzger-,”

“No!” Was that possible? He really meant Janina? “No, papa, I haven’t! Janina and I, we’re friends-,”

“Friends!”

“We are! We’ve never-,”

“Now, that’s enough, Adelor.” my father said and his voice rose a little, forcing me into silence. Once he was sure I would not speak into his words again, he went on, his voice softer. “We have all done it at some point. You’ve been seen inviting her to your room and smiling at her whenever you saw her. It’s all right, we will not punish you for it, in fact, I am  rather proud to hear of such, uh, acts. They are proof of a good character and of a healthy-, healthy future. But at some point it’s important to stop the games and focus on love. On someone you can love and legally marry, that is. And-, and Fräulein Metzger is of course not an option.”

I knew that of course, but still it shocked me to hear it out loud, spoken by my father. The way he was saying this. Was it possible that he had never expected me to marry until I had been careless with Janina? Was he therefore so happy? “I know that. I don’t intend on marrying her. We’re just friends.”

But my father wasn’t listening. “Stop with the lies, Adelor, I don’t like to be lied to.” He paused, challenging me to disagree but I didn’t I just looked at him, disbelief written all over my face. When he understood that, he went on. “I have merely asked to talk to you so you know that if you or your brother find the idea of being engaged to Fräulein Reich agreeable, then neither her parents nor I will stop you.”

If my brother and I were to court the same girl, I would never stand a chance. I huffed.

My father took this as an insult towards his suggestion and his face darkened back to his somber self. “Now go and tell your brother that I want to talk to him, too.”

“What? Did he sleep with the servants, too?”

“Adelor!”

I pushed my chair back, shrugging. “We’ve all done it!”

My father sat on his chair and just stared at me, as I turned and left. Just as I reached the door, though, I was called once more.

“Yes?”

“I hope it does not surprise you, that I was forced to let her go.”

I rolled my eyes and turned. “Who?”

“Fräulein Metzger.” he said and his eyes were still on me, “In light of the fact that you are too likely going to get attached to her in way we cannot accept, I could - as you understand - not keep her in this house any longer. Don’t worry, though, I wrote her a good recommendation letter with which she will easily find a new job.”

My throat closed up.

All the moments before in this office, I had merely been confused, puzzled, surprised, shocked. But it had been about my own future, my own cage, and I had long stopped worrying or rebelling against it. White hair and holes in my ears were all I bothered to give him now. I didn’t care about not being free, I was long used to that thought. But Janina! She had done nothing wrong! It had been entirely my own fault, my own bad luck, my own stupidity. I thought of her beautiful smile every time we had caught glances at dinner, and the hilarious night playing cards that had ruined everything because it had made me feel so wonderfully light and safe… Fuck. I felt tears prickling in my eyes, so I turned and said nothing.

“He fired her.” I said, when I finally found Adelger in the greenhouse. I had first gone to his room but upon knocking, the door had clicked open and revealed it empty. So I had searched for him in the library, then in the gardens, and finally found him not long after.

“I know.” he said as he got up from his spot on the ground by the plants.

My stomach tightened some more. “Of course you do.” I hissed, eyes narrowing in the childish wish of wanting to disappear, of pain bringing those tears closer and closer to my eyes. “Of course you do! Because you always know, and I never know! Because I’m blind, and never realise that what I’m doing is ruining someone else’s life! Of course you knew! Of course you knew it and of course I didn’t.”

Adelger was silent. He didn’t even try to fight with me but because I did not dare looking at his face I didn’t know if that was because he was annoyed or hurt. Eventually, possibly when he saw that I’d neither speak nor look at him, he sighed and wiped his hands on an old rag. “She was only going to be here for a year, anyway. Those few months don’t-,”

“Stop lying to me!” I interrupted him, and just like my father I felt my voice rising when I said this. Noticing it, hating it, I looked aside, still not wanting to see Adelger’s gaze on me. I had meant to be silent, to say nothing, to burden him with my accusing silence, but now I couldn’t hold back my words again. They came in a stutter, slowly, and spoken barely above whisper. “I-, I know you knew. I’m-, I’m just so sick of always fucking up, of always being the idiot who learns last, of-... I’m just so sick of it. I know you knew, I don’t-, I don’t want to hear excuses, or accuse you, I didn’t-, I didn’t come to tell you, anyway, I came to-...”  I came so you could make me feel less sad. I couldn’t say it. Partly because I was choking on my own breath as so often, partly because it was all too self-pitying, and who was Adelger to care? I took a breath and pushed my words out at once. “I came to tell you that father wants to talk to you.”

“Ah.” I looked up, only a thin veil of tears keeping me from seeing my brother’s face. There was a shimmer of something in Adelger’s eyes but it disappeared fast. “I’ll better be going, then.”

I nodded but did not follow him.

As he reached the door, I stopped him just like my father had stopped me in his office.

“Yes?” Just like me, he did not turn around at first.

“Julius’ father was fired for the same reason, right? Because I was in love with him.”

Adelger glanced at me over his shoulder and gave me a weak smile.

I don’t know for how long I stood in the empty garden house, nor do I remember how I got back, but when I was back in my room, my hands were holding the two wine bottles Janina had chosen for me a few nights ago. I had never gotten the chance to drink them, just like I had never gotten around to play cards with my siblings. Now Janina was gone and it felt like my siblings were farther away than ever, too. No one would notice if I drank the wine myself, no one would miss it, and no one would ever have to see me drunk.

I turned away and went to rest by the window. No owls in sight, what a somber night. My chest still felt tight and my throat still kept closing up, but no tears came, no matter how long I stood by the window and longed for some friendly words from … anyone. Friends. Family. Strangers. Just some friendly words, some reassurance, a kiss to the forehead to bid me goodnight.