The Baroness

Castle Tuysenbobel perched atop the hill like an old hound that had long forgotten why it scrambled up there in the first place, but refused to climb down out of pure stubbornness. Its walls were built of stone that grew dark and slick with sweat in the rain, while cracking with a dry snap in the summer heat, as if someone were gnawing on bones. The corridors smelled of mold, old wax, and that unmistakable stench items acquire when left unthrown for two hundred years straight—because throwing anything away would mean admitting one’s great-grandmother was an idiot for buying it.

At night, rats rustled inside the walls with such enthusiasm it seemed they too were searching for magnetic fluid—the very same fluid Baroness Eleonora Charlotta Amalia von Tuysenbobel read about in Herr Mesmer's treatises.

The castle servants were as ancient as the castle itself. The caretaker swept the hallways once a week, but the dust returned anyway—patiently and inevitably. Frau Greta, the cook, looked at people as if they were unbutchered piglets. And the Baron had been away at war for half a year now, with no one knowing whether he would ever return, or in what shape if he did.

Kaspar von R. drifted down the second-floor corridor—not on business, but simply because he could not sleep. His room was freezing; he wrapped himself in a blanket, but sleep refused to come. So he stood up, pulled a doublet over his nightshirt—for walking through the castle in nothing but a nightshirt was like walking naked, only worse, as everyone could see how poor you were—and set off to wander in the dark.

The corridor was pitch-black, as were all corridors in Castle Tuysenbobel, for the windows were small and candles were spared. "Because wax," the Baroness used to say, "is not merely wax; it is material for magnetic experiments, and every stub must be accounted for."

It smelled of mold, dampness, and old wax that dripped from candles to freeze on the floor in uneven streaks. It smelled of mouse droppings—the very ones the caretaker swept once a week and which returned again. It smelled of staleness—that peculiar scent of things that lie around too long and forget why they were ever needed.

Yet at the end of the hall, there was a patch of light.

And a different scent.

The door to the Baroness’s chamber stood ajar—by a hand's width, no more. The Baroness believed fresh air was essential for the circulation of ethereal currents, which was why the door was never fully closed, even in winter, when the draft blew so hard the candles died and Kaspar caught cold.