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I’m sure she was doing her best to look innocent, assuming that’s a thing a bird can actually accomplish. She’d just given me a sharp jab with her beak. It was this that had prompted me to cry out.
    â€œI have an idea,” I went on now. “I’m older than the Lady Pamina, so I must go to bed much later than she does. What if I come every night, just at bedtime? The nightingale will follow me and sing the baby to sleep, Then all will be well.”
    â€œAh!” exclaimed die Königin der Nacht, and her gaze shifted away from me to my mother and father. “I begin to see why your son has called to him the most beautiful song on earth. He has a generous heart. What is your name, boy?”
    â€œI am called Lapin, Madam,” I answered.
    The Queen of the Nights dark eyebrows flew straight up. “Your name means rabbit, yet you call down birds from the sky?”
    â€œIt’s a long story,” I replied. “But, if you please, I really do prefer Lapin. Not everybody knows that it means rabbit. Not everyone around here, anyhow.”
    The Queen of the Night nodded, and I could have sworn I saw a twinkle in her eye.
    â€œVery well. I understand. I thank you for your generous offer, Lapin, but I’m afraid it is impossible. You can’t travel back and forth from your home to mine. The distance is simply too great, even on aswift horse. If your parents and grandparents were willing to consider such a thing, however, there might be another option. You all could come and live with me.”
    â€œNo,” my mother said at once. “Not that we aren’t grateful for the honor you bestow upon us, Lady, but we belong here.” She reached for my father’s hand, and he moved to clasp hers. “This is the life that we have chosen.”
    â€œYou have chosen it, and chosen well,” replied die Königin der Nacht. “But surely your son has a life of his own. Will you deny him? In my house he will have greater scope to discover what his heart holds. And what, in time, it may call to him.”
    â€œNo,” my mother said again. “He is just a boy.”
    â€œPlease, Mutter” I said, surprising everyone present, myself most of all. “Let me at least try. I want to go.”
    And, as I said this, I realized how much it was so.
    â€œOh, Lapin,” my mother said.
    â€œDo not grieve,” said the Queen of the Night. “For I will send him back to visit you when the days are shortest, and his coming will brighten your lives when the dark is long. And this I promise, now and forever: Neither I nor any who belong to me will ever hold your son against his will. Are you content?”
    â€œNo,” my mother answered honestly. “But it is fair, and I will learn to live with it.”
    And that is how I came to be a servant of dieKönigin der Nacht and went to live in her great house which lies inside a mountain.
    Though I missed my parents, I never regretted my choice. Die Königin let me do as I pleased, as long as the nightingale and I were there to sing the Lady Mina to sleep each night. I played the bells in every corner of her great house until the mountain itself rang with birdsong. I watched the Lady Mina grow to be a beautiful young woman. And, from a distance, I did what I could to keep my eye on my mistress’s husband, the Lord Sarastro.
    What he made of me, I never knew, for we never actually spoke. But it was impossible to live in my mistress’s house and not be aware of his presence. Most people think it is the dark that lurks, sly and treacherous. But I tell you that I think it is the light. For it is always hovering, just over the edge of the horizon, waiting to leap out and strike you blind.
    And so, the years passed, moving inexorably toward the moment when the Lady Mina would turn sixteen and leave behind the only life that she had known.
    â€œWhat is it like, Lapin?” she said to me one night in