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I took several steps toward her on the loose ground and my feet were swallowed in streams of dirt and stones. There was a gargle of bile and blood in her throat. I heard the hum of taut muscles, the ferocious beating of her heart. She turned toward me with those blank eyes, and I wanted to stop her pain. I wanted to hold her like my mother had held me. I took another step, setting loose a rock the size of my torso. I jumped back to solid ground. This monster wanted me as well. Then I ran. It was late by then.

And more, to find within them all I had sought to know: of my father’s birth and mine; of the origin of my name; of my mother; and of the crime that had kept my father silent. Though he appears to have had me in mind as his reader, I cannot believe he did not wish these words for other eyes as well. This was a singer, remember, who practiced with an open window, so any man or woman passing on the street would have the chance to hear an angel sing. Nicolai Froben London, October 6, 1806 ACT I I.

Twenty years later, when I would first return to that valley, the legend of the priest who had saved the ears of Nebelmatt was still recounted in every tavern. They took me for a foreigner and told me of the gentle priest and the evil witch who laid siege to the town from her belfry, who rang the bells day and night until the villagers began to lose their minds. They told me how the holy priest climbed the track to that church and disappeared inside—God had given him unearthly courage. From the village, they saw his silhouette leap through the trapdoor into the belfry.