windows, and with a feeling of disappointment, she went about her usual chores. Of her particular sylph friends only Linnet turned up, and she seemed listless, and soon left.
The milk was set out in pans to rise; she skimmed off the cream and put the separated milk and cream in the “special” pantry where things were not allowed to spoil. Giselle made herself something to eat and had her breakfast up in her room with a glass of milk she had set aside. There still was no sign of Johann.
As listless as Linnet had been, Giselle turned over pages in the history books that Mother had left her to study. Truth to tell, she didn’t think she was a very good scholar at the best of times, and right now, with vague discontent standing between her and the pages, she wasn’t making much headway with them.
So she set the books aside and turned to another tedious chore, which at least had the virtue of requiring attention without concentration.
She unwound her braids from her head, unbraided them, and began combing out her hair.
This was a far different task for her than it was for Mother. Giselle’s hair grew at a rather astonishing pace.
Right now, it was roughly twice as long as she was tall, unbraided, and when Mother returned it would be time for her to cut it again. There was an entire chest full of locks of hair as long as Giselle was tall. Mother said this had something to do with her magic; certainly the smaller of the Air Elementals, the pixies and other little things she had no name for, had something to do with it. Mother was no help there, except to call them elber, sort of generally. Some of them looked like very tiny sylphs, some like fantastic winged creatures that were part insect, part human, and part plant. They all liked to play in her hair when she unbound it; she let them, because they untangled it as they went.
The rate at which it grew varied. It could grow as much as a foot in a week, though only rarely. It generally grew about a foot a month, which meant she had to unbraid it, comb it out, and rebraid it at least once a week. Washing it took almost half a day.
Mother used to joke that she should just let it keep growing and never cut it, saying then you could let yourself down out of the window by your own hair. As a child that had always made her giggle.
As usual, as soon as she took her hair down and began to unbraid it, the little Air creatures turned up, showing none of Linnet’s listlessness. She was very glad for their help, because when it got to its current length, it was practically impossible to comb and braid without their help. Today they made a game out of it, as if her locks were the ribbons of a Maypole, and did most of the work for her.
They had gone, and she was pinning up the coiled braids on the top of her head, when she heard a melodious whistle that sounded nothing like a bird just outside the west window.
Hastily she stabbed the last hairpin in place and practically flew to the opening, and laughed with delight to see Johann Schmidt standing there below. He looked even handsomer in the sunlight, and his eyes were, as she had suspected, a vivid blue.
He swept off his hat to her as he had last night, and now she could see he was dressed in hunting gear of loden green wool, just like the men of the Bruderschaft wore. She wondered for a moment if he might be one of their number—
But he wasn’t wearing the silver Saint Hubert badge they all wore on their hats. Instead, it was a fanned cluster of pheasant feathers in a silver holder.
“Good morning, fair maiden!” he said, cheerfully.
“It’s nearly afternoon,” she corrected, perhaps more sharply than she had intended, but she was vexed with him. Hadn’t he promised to be here? And how long had she waited for him? Hours and hours!
“So it is. I don’t suppose you could spare a bite to eat?” he replied, without seeming to take any notice of her temper. “I looked about, but there doesn’t seem to be a friendly inn hereabouts.”
She relented immediately. “We’ve plenty to spare,” she said truthfully. “I shall bring you something.”