In the Coils of the Snake

by Clare B. Dunkle

  Without realizing it, she pulled off the golden bracelet that Marak had given her, too, and the catch tore a jagged gash in her wrist. The blue butterfly, crushed in the act of flying away, fluttered awkwardly to the ground. Overcome with horror, Miranda watched it flop helplessly about. Then she dodged around Catspaw with an anguished cry and dashed out the door.

  The goblin King gazed down at the scattered jewelry. “Guard, come,” he called. The astonished Tattoo appeared at the door, trying to keep his silver face expressionless.

  The King pointed after Miranda. “Follow her outside,” he ordered. “Follow her into the daylight, but don’t let her see you. I’ll send your relief at noon.”

  With a shimmer, the goblin guard changed into a nightjar, a bird that flew at night. He swooped after the fleeing girl.

  • • •

  Miranda stood in the Hallow Hill graveyard on the edge of the forest, not far from the house where her family slept. The tall marble monument gleamed like a ghost in the pool of light from Kate’s magical bracelet. She held the light close to read the inscription. Miranda Richardson, b. October 9,1836, d. April 6,1834. In life, we are in the midst of death.

  It hadn’t even been six months since Marak had worked the magic on them to make them think she was dead. With a chill, she remembered standing inside her house in the deep twilight, sure rounded by their limp, silent figures. The entire estate, the whole village was there by special invitation, and every last one was asleep. The sleepers were dreaming a single dream. They were all at her funeral together. She had walked among them, watching the tears slide down their still faces, listening to their quiet sobs.

  Not even half a year ago she had left them, but there was no wreath or bouquet to show that she was missed. Only a handful of wildflowers lay at the base of the tombstone, their petals withered and dry. She bent to pick them up, her heart aching with grief. That would be little Charlotte, no doubt.

  She sat in the nursery’s deep window seat, a thick curtain between her and the rest of them. Outside, a cold rain drizzled down the glass, the hiss of the drops helping to drown out the shrieks and shouts that arose from the room. The girl was practicing the script character for hot water, and she thought it interesting that this should be one word in goblin when it was two in English. She carefully traced over the golden lines on her magical crystal tablet, at peace with the whole world.

  “LET ME SEE!” howled a voice in her ear, and the small crystal square was jerked from her hand. Miranda sat up, tucking the metal stylus into her pocket, and pushed open the curtain.

  “Look, she’s scratching on her window glass,” announced ginger-headed Jamie, parading around the nursery and waving it over his head. Charlotte and Toria marched behind him, giggling. He tripped over part of a castle and stumbled into an array of tin soldiers that his brother Richard had formed into ranks for the Battle of Waterloo. Their commander was not at all amused at this unexpected turn in the fortunes of war.

  “Watch where you’re stepping, you swine!”

  “Nothing but an old piece of glass,” caroled Jamie. “But she says it has writing on it. What’s it say, Mere-Anda? What’s it say in goblin? “

  “Give it back, Jamie,” she demanded in annoyance. “You know it doesn’t work when you’re looking at it. “

  “Oh, no! just the little green goblins can see it! Tell us about them, if you’re so smart. Tell us how they talk to you in goblin!”

  But this Miranda couldn’t do. She was forced into humiliating silence. The magic allowed her to mention the name of the language. It forbade her to talk about the people.

  Jamie’s procession came around the room again, and Miranda made a grab for the crystal square. The noise increased to a strident roar.

  “What is going on in here?” demanded a young woman, bursting through the door. Her black-and-white uniform might have looked smart at the beginning of the day, but hours of bouncing wet babies, wiping sticky faces, and crawling under furniture for missing doll hats had taken their toll of starch.

  “Simpson, my poor, afflicted sister is writing on her window glass again.” Jamie brandished the offending object.

  Simpson flicked a nervous glance at the silent girl. “Give it back to her” was all she said. Simpson was afraid of Miranda, and Miranda could tell. Most of the servants were. They didn’t like her, either, although she was the only child who obeyed them. Marak had taught her that displaying good manners to everyone, from lords to scullery maids, was a sign of true distinction.

  “I believe in goblins,” said little Charlotte seriously, stopping at her older sister’s knee. “I believe in goblins, and brownies, and fairies in bluebells, and pixies with dragonfly wings—”

  Miranda stalked out of the nursery in disgust.

  Her goal was the pleasant rug by the warm hearth in the music room, but she found herself face-to-face with her mother instead. Til, spectacular in a costly red gown with jet buttons, was accompanied by an ample woman with a comfortable face.

  “Here’s the little goblin linguist now, ” said the woman cheerfully.

  “Yes, Miranda is so clever at her imaginary language,” remarked the elegant Til. “She amuses herself with it by the hour. It’s so beautiful, too! You must see a sample. Sometimes she has me quite convinced.”

  This was a bit much for the embattled girl. Her mother, having grown up in the kingdom, was effortlessly bilingual in goblin and occasionally ridiculed Miranda’s efforts when no one else was there to hear. “You speak it even better than I do!” she said heatedly.

  Til’s smile froze for a second, and her eyes gleamed. Then she turned to the other woman with a lighthearted laugh. “Isn’t it sweet how she includes me in her pretend games!” she purred. “Miranda, my pet, you’re looking quite wild. You need to go to your room for a little rest. I intend to have a chat with Simpson this afternoon about the propriety of her nursery. “

  The girl, routed from the field of battle, went to her room and shut the door. Her mother’s indulgent speech didn’t fool her; she knew perfectly well what that talk with Simpson would mean. Only a prompt and permanent removal to her bedroom would give her the hope of any supper whatever. The room was damp and chilly, with no fire at this time of day, but at least here she could practice her goblin writing in peace.

  • • •

  Alone in the whispering darkness, Miranda traced her name on the glimmering tombstone. Pretend games, she thought wretchedly. That’s just what they had turned out to be. All those hard years with only Marak’s regard and her glorious future to sustain her, and in the end, she had nothing to show for it.

  She couldn’t face the shame of going back to her family. She imagined the trouble that would follow. “There’s that goblin girl,” people would mutter wherever she went. “We all saw her lying in her coffin, and then, one night, she came back.”

  The only thing to do is to follow my plan, she thought. After all, it’s what I told him I wanted. Her eyes stinging with fresh tears, she laid the brittle flowers down at the foot of her tombstone and wandered off into the dark.

  • • •

  The elf lord paced the truce circle, restless, angry, and miserable. He had heard the marriage vows of his sober elves and sent them back to camp, but he couldn’t face their company tonight. He should be rescuing Arianna right now, but he had sent her away himself, after swearing to her father that he would protect her. Overcome by grief and despair, he wandered back and forth, almost incapable of thought.

  A crashing of weeds, and footsteps sounded on the path. Only a human could make that much noise in the nighttime woods. Nir drew back into the shadow of the trees. He had nothing to do with humans. A blinding flash of white light burst into the truce circle, and he quickly turned away. An instant later, the light was gone, but the human remained, stretched on the ground and gasping for breath.

  At once Nir’s magic concentrated on the prone shape, telling him that this human was very important. He frowned in baffled an
noyance. What could a human mean to the elves? But he walked toward it, drawn in spite of himself His magic was never wrong.

  The human was a woman. She was lying facedown in the grass, sobbing, and her hair glowed with the color of dying embers. He stared at her, puzzled. Important for what purpose? He couldn’t imagine what she could possibly be for.

  “Why are you crying?” he asked her quietly, and Miranda held her breath for a second, alarmed. But, of course: Catspaw had had her followed. She should have known that she couldn’t trust him now, not after the other promises he had made.

  “He promised to marry me, the heartless monster!” she sobbed. “But he broke his word and left me with nothing!”

  The elf lord recoiled in guilt and shame at the accusation, half expecting this phantom with the fiery hair to sit up and stare at him reproachfully with Arianna’s black eyes. This very important stranger who wasn’t even an elf. She couldn’t be an elf, could she?

  He knelt beside her and reached out to test her, barely brushing her glowing hair. She didn’t feel the touch, but he felt it, his magic snapping through him like a plucked harp string. His fingertips burned as if he really had touched an ember, and he knew what pure pose she was to serve for the elves. What, but not why. It made no sense at all! And it would lead to more suffering — suffering that he would have to cause, as if he hadn’t caused enough already. His magic was so brutal, so thoroughly cruel. He watched her cry, angry at the thought.

  “You should have been at home with your own people,” he told her. “Your people shouldn’t be out at night.”

  “My people?” muttered the miserable girl. “I have no people.”

  Nir sat down and considered the absurdity of this statement, thinking about his tiny band of elves. “No human can ever say that,” he replied. “Your people are everywhere. They cover the earth like ants.”

  “They’re not my people,” she sobbed. “They traded me away before I was born. All my life, I was raised to be the King’s Wife. All my life! And now, on the night of our own wedding, he’s marrying someone else.”

  Nir stared at the girl in complete horror. A human raised by goblins? How ghastly! And now the foul beast had thrown her out since he didn’t need her anymore, just where Nir would happen on her and his magic would find a use for her. If only that repulsive creature had taken better care of her!

  “You were his responsibility in any case,” he said in disgust. “He should have kept you down in the caves since you liked it there. He shouldn’t have let you out to roam the woods alone.” Alone. He concentrated. She wasn’t alone. He raised his head very slightly and detected the unnatural bird sitting in the branches about twenty feet away.

  The goblin bride’s sobs died away to a confused sniff, and she put out a hand to sit up. That white light stabbed out again with a painful brilliance. Nir shielded his eyes. Swiftly, he touched the shining bracelet on her hand, and the blinding light was extinguished.

  Miranda gave a gasp. She didn’t know what had happened; she only knew that she was in the dark. She sat up, frightened to see how black the night was, barely able to make out anything in the faint starlight. She located the shape of someone quite near her on the grass and drew back and peered at him anxiously.

  “Who are you?” she wondered. “How could you talk about him like that? Didn’t he send you to follow me?”

  “Did he send me?” murmured the elf lord, flicking a glance toward the abnormal bird. “I’m no goblin.” She stirred uneasily, her human eyes trying to make out something about him, and his attention was caught by the gash on her arm. “Did that monster bleed you, too, before he threw you out?” he asked in a cold voice. Miranda had forgotten the cut. She jumped as fingertips touched the gash in the darkness.

  “Oh! No, I did that,” she admitted. Then she cried out in pain as the fingertips seared across the wound like hot coals. She jerked her arm away and cradled her wrist, but she found there no break in the skin.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know that hurt. The goblins must have special spells for that, but I don’t know any healing spells. That’s the only way I know to heal.”

  Miranda shivered. “How could you do that?” she asked in awe. “What are you if you’re not a goblin?”

  “You said he was a heartless monster,” the quiet voice answered. “Then tell me what I am. I promised to marry a girl, too. But I brought her here and gave her to a creature out of her nightmares, and I watched that creature drag her away without lifting a hand to help her.”

  “You’re the elf lord!” she exclaimed. “You gave him your own bride!” She thought about this in amazement. “You’re two of a kind, aren’t you?” she concluded with venomous scorn. “I haven’t been taught the right words to describe you great lords.”

  In his misery, Nir felt the justice of this remark and found himself grateful for it. “I’m sure Arianna agrees with you,” he murmured, looking at that angry, sightless face. He gave the goblin bird a wary glance. Time to act. “What were you going to do now?” he asked without particular interest, considering how to accomplish his goal.

  “I’m going to kill myself,” Miranda declared. Jerked out of his own thoughts, the elf lord stared at her in shock. “I’m going to wait until the sun rises, and then I’ll drown myself. There’s a lake about an hour’s walk from here, and one side is a bluff straight into the water. I’ll sit on the cliff and watch the sun come up, and then I’ll throw myself in.”

  Nir continued to stare at her, outraged at the idea. This certainly made his task more bearable. “Why would you do such an evil and absurd thing?” he demanded. “It’s ridiculous to use your death as some sort of futile punishment.”

  After all that she’d been through that evening, Miranda wasn’t prepared to sit through a lecture. “I don’t have to justify myself to you!” she snapped. “Go play with your silly elves!”

  Her bracelet began to glimmer. Miranda saw a remarkable face looking into hers, a face possessed of a cold, splendid beauty. His black eyes gleamed with anger, and his look was calm and stern. He seemed very much like an avenging angel, and she cringed in surprised dismay.

  He continued to gaze at her, implacable. “You couldn’t justify yourself at all,” he said severely.

  “Oh, yes, I could,” she replied, gathering her confidence, “and I’ll do it the way you great lords do. My people think I’m dead; I can show you my tombstone. It’s best for my people that I really be dead. As long as the people get what’s best,” she concluded bitterly, “it doesn’t matter what happens to one insignificant woman.”

  “Child, I would have said,” he remarked. “How old are you?”

  “I’m seventeen!” she replied in indignation.

  “Then you are a child,” he concluded. “I was sure of it. That’s justification for your foolishness, I suppose.”

  Offended, Miranda turned away, and he didn’t speak again. Her battered feelings, her chaotic thoughts spiraled down into wretchedness. The force of her anger washed away, leaving her dull and tired. Nir studied her profile as her expression slowly changed to dreary misery, his own face cautious and calculating.

  “You still have half a turn of the sky before the sun rises,” he said. “But this great lord has to work a spell tonight. Will you do something for me? Do you see these white flowers?” He pointed at the small lilies springing up here and there out of the grass. “I need twenty-eight of them. Will you gather them for me?”

  Miranda shrugged apathetically. She had always hated waiting for things and having nothing to do, so she began picking the lilies, searching for them by the faint light of her bracelet. He took them from her as she brought them and plucked them from the stems, pulling out their golden insides to leave a small hole at the back of each one. Twenty-eight, he thought to himself as she handed him a flower.

  “I think that’s the last one,” she said.

  “Do you?” he asked inattentively. “Wait a little, you can help me count them.” He reached
into his tunic and withdrew a small leather bag. Opening the top, he blew a quick breath into it, and the bag inflated like a child’s balloon. When he let out the air, he was holding a leather bag about four times its original size. Miranda stared at it in surprise. It looked perfectly ordinary.

  “Here,” said the elf lord, and he piled the blossoms up in her hands. Then he climbed to his feet and plucked the flowers back one by one, examining them for flaws and dropping them into the bag. As he did she began to wander slowly toward the great trees, not watching where he was going. Miranda, walking beside him, counted the flowers out loud. She wished he would stop walking. It was hard to hold a mass of loose blossoms, walk, and count all at once.

  “Twenty-eight,” she announced as they reached the circle of trees. The preoccupied elf lord carefully tugged the bag shut and tied it to his belt, still wandering. Miranda walked with him, interested in the thought of the magic.

  “What is the spell for?” she asked, curious, stepping close beside him to squeeze through the first ring of trees. She didn’t know of any goblin spells that used flowers unless they were crushed like herbs.

  “Do you really want to know?” murmured the elf absently, look.ing up at the dark crowns of the ancient oaks.

  “Yes,” she said. She had always liked magic. He glanced back down at her then.

  “It’s for you,” he said. And the instant they passed the great trunks, his hand closed over her wrist.

  Chapter Six

  Miranda stopped, bewildered. “Let me go!” she cried, her tired brain wondering what this meant. She tried to pull away, but although the elf held her with only one hand, her jerks and tugs didn’t even attract his notice. He had turned and was staring intently at the trees above them, his right hand held up in readiness and his whole body still.

  As the goblin bird came swooping toward them, the elf made a quick movement, and there was a rustle in the trees overhead. A net of twigs and leaves arched swiftly around the flying bird, trapping it in a split second inside a living cage. Nir studied his handiwork. The bird was completely enmeshed. It would take hours to peck and claw apart the encircling twigs. But if it changed back into a goblin, the fragile branches would break under its weight and send it crashing to the ground below. The elf lord laughed, well pleased at the goblin’s humiliating quandary.