A whisprous moan escaped Christina, and her head lolled to the side, but he barely noticed. He could not draw his sharp, blue eye away from Meredith. “But how...”
“It matters not, my queen.” He loomed closer in just two long steps, his incredible height overshadowing her even though there was still a good amount of distance between them. As if he recognized her disadvantage, the slash of his smile widened.
“What game is this? What have you done to Christina?”
“Your sister came willingly into my market. In fact, she had quite a time there, uninvited. Made such a little pig of herself.”
“What did you do to her, you murderer?”
“I would never harm something you held so dear.” Feigned sorrow softened the hardness of his features, and he turned his good eye toward her. “Your accusations pain me.”
“Good!” She spat. “It is a shame they don’t do more than cause you pain. She's only a girl.”
He looked down the length of his nose at the girl in his arms before lifting his gaze toward Meredith. His milk-white eye peered into her with just as much power as its unscarred counterpart. The hue of his skin glistened unnaturally, enticing her to sway toward him. While his strange eyes fixated on her, she could not look away from that scar, which began above his eyebrow and carved deep into his cheekbone. He moved his head in such a way that a lock of his black hair fell into place atop the mangled flesh, as though her prodding eyes brought him great discomfort.
“I suppose I owe her something. After all, she led me to you,” he said. “My market traversed these lands for centuries, and had she not gorged herself so greedily, I would not be here with you now. How I have desired to look upon your face again. I suppose I owe her a boon.” He stared down at Christina, his face twisted with momentary apathy.
“Then let her go,” she pleaded.
His laughter started deep in his throat, ringing loud throughout the room, and Meredith trembled in its wake.
"Who are you?"
"You know who I am, just as you know why I'm here."
"I swear, I don't. Just give me my sister, please. She isn’t well. I need to get her help, or she will die."
“I’ll tell you what,” he turned a sharp eye on her. “You come home with me now and I will give you the antidote for the poison in her blood.”
“You poisoned her?”
“Not I,” he corrected her. “She poisoned herself!”
"Then give her the antidote!”
“Does this mean you’ll come home and take your place by my side?”
A powerful force inside of Meredith clenched tight against his question. Everything she knew, which was very close to nothing at all, advised her against his bargain. “I… I am not who you think I am.”
“You are exactly who I know you to be,” he told her. “Glylwythiel, my promised bride.”
The music of that name surged through her like fire, but so quickly she could not grasp or make the memory her own. She shook her head to clear her mind and said, "No. You are mistaken."
"Come home with me and learn the truth about who you really are."
Still shaking her head, Meredith stood her ground. “No, I will not come with you and you cannot take my sister. I won’t allow it.”
“But I already have her, my love.”
“I want her back.” Her own helplessness and desperation stunned her. She reached forward to grasp at her sister, but he stepped away and she stumbled. “Give her to me, please.”
“Oh, I’m afraid I can’t do that.” His grin was sickness, the type of sour that rolls inside the stomach after a long and sleepless night. “Not with you so unwilling to compromise.”
“I’ll compromise, if you please just give her back. She’s so young yet, has so much to live for.”
“You speak of her as though she has been no small burden to you.” His eyes roved thoughtfully over the girl in his arms. “She’s held you down for so long, kept you from going out and living your own life, not that you could have made a life worthy of one from your station in this wretched land, but now you can be free of her, Meredith. You can live the life you were always meant to live. You’ll be worshiped and adored. Held in reverence above all others.”
She felt her head move back and forth in silent denial.
“Come with me now. Take your rightful place as queen in my kingdom, and the girl will live.”
His voice was hypnotic, stirring inside her like some twisted magic spell. She tried to wrench the sound out of her mind, to deny what he said about her sister. She never thought of Christina as a burden. Never felt resentful toward the girl. Against their father, maybe, and perhaps even the cruel fate that took their mother away, but never toward Christina. She was innocent.
“Even now, her body dies, and soon she will be free,” he went on. “Is that what you want for her? Freedom? Death?”
Guilt and fear rooted inside her throat like knives, stabbing each time she swallowed. “No.”
“Then come home with me.”
Those strange surges of memory, a life she could not recall linking her to this strange man before her, were like sharp warnings against his offer. She didn't understand why or how she knew taking his hand would be a grave mistake, but something in her heart was sure of it.
Her stare shifted toward the girl. She studied the blue tone of her sister’s flesh, watched as Christina’s chest slowly rose in ragged breath and ached inside with conflict.
“I can’t.”
“Then the girl will die.” Impatience broke his voice like an angry wave.
“No, spare her please,” she begged. “She is just a baby"
“You obviously care nothing for her.” He turned away from her and started toward the door. The hallway beyond was black and empty, as if the bedroom itself opened into some dark, otherworldly domain.
“That’s not true. I would do anything for her.”
“Then accept my offer.”
“No.” Single tracks of liquid heat slid down her face. “There has to be another way.”
“There’s always another way,” he turned back over his shoulder, “but you won’t last a day in the Darknjan Wald.”
The Darknjan Wald, the place in her mother’s stories where the king of the goblins reigned. “If you take her away from me, I will find her.”
His peaceful expression became bitter. “Even if I drew you a map, you would never find your way alone, not without my blessing.”
“Please.”
“No,” he straightened himself into a defiant line. “If you wish to take the hard road, you will walk it alone and against my wishes, and before all is said and done you will regret refusing my hand because all roads in the Darknjan Wald begin and end with me.”
“And if I find you there on my own, you will give me back my sister?”
Kothar shook his head, his sharp eyes piercing with bitterness. “You’ll be dead before you even breach the threshold of my woods.”
She leaned back and firmed herself against his pronouncement. “My life is meaningless without her, so it will be a small sacrifice to make.”
“Follow the market in the valley to the Darknjan Wald,” he said. “Your heart will know its darkness. If you can find your way through my woods and to my castle, I will give your sister’s life back.”
“I will meet you at your castle gate, mark my words.”
Kothar’s eyes closed for a moment as he lowered his head in sorrow.
“For your own sake, I hope you do not make it.”
He stepped through the doorway, hovered on the threshold of that strange darkness and turned back over his shoulder. “Remember in your darkest hour I would have given you anything.”
CHAPTER THREE
In the strange quiet of Kothar’s absence, Meredith felt a helpless clench inside her stomach. She had bargained with her sister’s life, and if she failed at the task set before her, they would both pay a grievous price. The pressure of that fear caught in the
back of her throat, took her breath away for the moment, and then she swallowed against it with a tentative sense of renewal. She would find a way. She had been holding the world around her together all her life. Why should this be any different? In fact, despite the bizarre otherworldly nature of things, this was exactly the type of thing Christina was famous for.
Her resolve strengthened her frame of mind. She would do whatever it took to save her sister, even if she died trying. She would never give up. Soon, she told herself, it would all be over and the two of them would wake as if from a bad dream, and there would scarcely be any memory of its having happened at all.
Christina would marry Wil Grisham and move away from the cottage, and life would go on as it had always done.
Meredith swallowed again, and then she got dressed. Afterward, she left the bedroom through the same doorway that swallowed Kothar and her sister, and she closed it behind her.
In the kitchen she gathered the worn, leather satchel they carried with them to trade, and stuffed it with whatever provisions she could find. She wrapped a handful of yesterday’s scones in cloth, the quarter wheel of cheese and the last of the bread, which would be too hard to eat in a day’s time. She filled her father's water skin.
Thoughts of her father brought pangs of bitterness into her gut. She’d lost track of how long he’d been gone, and now that she faced her greatest challenge as her sister’s guardian, that bitterness turned ever sourer. She’d spent years making excuses for his absence, explaining to anyone who dared to ask that he was called away on important business, but at the end of the first year, Meredith knew he wasn’t coming back.
Charles Drexler lost his mind after his wife passed away, and as Christina grew day by day, she became a harsh reminder of the woman who died bringing her into the world. By the time she was ten, Chrissy looked so much like their mother, Charles could not look at his own daughter without squinted daggers of resentment.
He was better off gone. Even if his absence destroyed Meredith's hopes for a life of her own.
Stuffing the final provisions into her bag, she slipped into her tattered cloak. She gave the cottage a once over, trying to think of anything she may have forgotten and realized she was stalling. Nothing in that cottage could help her where she had to go.
She slung the bag over her shoulder and without looking back, she walked out the door.
Meredith made her way toward the stable, the rain-slick grass soaking through the thinning leather of her shoes. She looked toward the horizon; the fever of forgotten storm burned orange and lavender against the setting sun. Throwing open the stable doors, she readied the old grey mare and hoisted herself up onto her back.
From the top of the hill, the valley was dark with coming twilight. Swaying green lanterns lined the unearthly darkness. The bitter taste of fear edged at the back of her tongue, and she leaned forward just a little, offering her mount a soft pat on the neck. Reassuring herself more than the horse, she said, “Go on.”
She dug her heels into its ribs and spurred her forward with a commanding click of her tongue. The mare tentatively lifted one hoof, and then followed with the other as it sauntered down the hillside.
The obvious magic of the goblin king’s presence still clung to the air. It pressed tight against her, growing more suffocating with every step closer to his market.
"This is crazy." She glanced back over her shoulder and thought of turning around. She must be on the verge of waking from the horrid nightmare, but reason reminded her that even if it was only a dream, she owed it to her sister to go on.
Each step and the world grew darker, sun settling into the bosom of the earth as another host of clouds swarmed in with the threat of more rain. She hoisted the hood of her cloak up over her head, and shivered.
The horse maintained careful footing in the wet grass as it wound down the hillside. Its massive body shuddered underneath her a couple of times in reaction to an otherworldly chill. A crooked sign drew nearer, growing until Meredith could clearly read the words Goblin Market. Hand drawn red letters leaked down the moldy sign, the b in goblin backwards and the k in market half-cocked to the left. For a moment, Meredith mused that at least she had one skill over her enemy—intelligence.
As if the market recognized her approach, it sprang to life like a bad dream. Lanterns flickered, displaying an ugly green glow along the pathway through the market, lighting booth after booth. The first one on the left was a bagatelle table, and across the path a rickety wheel of fortune. Bone pegs echoed and clicked against the clapper as the wheel spun around and around.
“’Ello, pretty,” a thick voice called out. “Kumquats ‘ere. Get’cher kumquats ‘ere. Plump and juicy, sweet ter eat.”
A short, hideous creature snorted at her from the bagatelle table, yellow eyes glinting in the pale light of the lantern. His mouth twitched into a sharp-toothed and blackened grin that caused Meredith’s horse to whinny and step backwards in fear.
She pulled on the reins, but the horse fought against her command with a loud cry as a gravel-laced voice called out from the market, “Sweet meats! Sweet meats comin’ this way!”
A series of gruff, whistling whispers echoed all around, and the horse reacted violently, bucking in horror. The mare’s terrified screams rent through the night, and Meredith tried to calm the beast with soft pats along its neck, but it jerked and danced until she felt her body flying backward, the breath torn from her stomach as she connected with the ground. She crawled out of harm’s way as the horse continued to buck and bray in a frenzied panic. It danced and screamed into a frothing frenzy, finally circling and dropping into an exhausted heap on the ground.
Meredith took a cautious step toward the horse, but that gargling-sand voice cried out, “Sweet meats! Sweet meats!”
Several hideous shadows swarmed out of the darkness and covered the horse’s body in a fury of appetite. Gnashing teeth and slick lips smacked as they tore the old horse to pieces bite by bite. It thrashed and screamed, stomping and bucking until one of the nasty little beasts chewed through the cords of its strong legs and sent it tumbling into the mud. The mare gave nothing more than a defeated whine before it fell, and gore-soaked chunks of flesh and hair leaped into the air.
Meredith’s stomach lurched.
“Sweeties for the sweet!” A voice behind her startled Meredith and she dashed forward, a yelp escaping her against her will. “Won’tcha have one of me fine peaches? A cherry?”
“I don’t think I will try any of your peaches, or your cherries!” She clutched the folds of her cloak tight.
“Come now, come!” He held a golden orange against the green light. “We’ve only the tastiest treats and sweets.”
“I don’t care much for sweet things.” Or ingesting poison, she thought.
“A sweetie with no taste for the sweets?” Pale light illuminated his hideousness, the thick, gray skin and wide, yellow eyes above a nose that pointed from his face like a bent and broken finger. Ragged lips stretched into a horrible grin, revealing rows of nail-sharp, blackened teeth. “Why I ain’t never heard such a lie.” Light glistened against a thin stream of stickiness that leaked from his nose.
“It’s no lie,” Meredith assured him. “I’ve no tooth for sweets, but you can tell me which way to the Darknjan Wald.”
The thing laughed, if such horrible ruckus could be called laughter, and then said, “Nope. Couldn’t tell yer.” He sniffed and the sticky stream snaked back into his nose. “Or maybe I just wouldn’t.”
Horror deepened inside her as she recalled the goblin king’s warning that she would not even make it through his market, much less to the edge of the Darknjan Wald. The wretched thing before her answered to Kothar, and had likely been ordered to end her journey before it even started.
Urged then by the same vein of anger and desperation that sent her on a fool’s quest in the first place, Meredith straightened herself arrogantly and looked down on the goblin before her.
“No, I do
n’t suppose a repulsive little thing like you would be very helpful,” she said.
The goblin’s upper lip curled into a snarl. “An look ‘oos talkin' like she's somethin' to look at.”
“You called me pretty just moments ago.”
“An’ that was afore yer insulted me,” another snort. “I’m tryin’ ta make a livin’ ‘ere so move along wif yer, if yer ain’t gonna to buy nothin’.”
“I insulted you because you killed my horse, and tried to murder my sister!” Her temper rose with every word. “You and your nasty little friends.”
“So’s ‘at’s what yer think then, is it? That we tried to kilt yer sister?”
“That is what I know.” She started to turn away from him, back toward her felled horse, which was little more than half-eaten. “And I’m not about to just stand here and let you kill me too.”
“Hear that, Glorngk?” The goblin called across the pathway to the bagatelle table. “She’s not ‘bout to let us kilt her too.” A scraping sound, which mocked laughter, gurgled from the creature's throat.
Glorngk appeared from below the wooden barrier of his poorly assembled kiosk, and a horrified gasp escaped Meredith when she saw his hideous mug. His head was three times too big for his frame, and wobbled atop his shoulders. Glorngk snarled at her, exposing the razor putrescence of his mouth.
“And just where do she get off finking she has a choice?” Glorngk’s sharp laughter joined with the raucous cacophony of his companion, and suddenly there were others—shadows looming in the darkness, crawling into the swaying, creepy green light.
“Maybe it don’ts know that there’s lots mores o’ us than there are of its,” a high pitched voice reasoned before its owner stepped into view. This goblin was short, no more than a meter high, but she could tell he was incredibly strong, and fierce just by the way he angled his hideously deformed body.
The Goblin Market (Into the Green) Page 4