The Goblin Market (Into the Green) (23 page)

When she looked over at him, his face stiffened into a serious mask, one she had never hoped to see, and for the first time since they had started on this journey that very real notion sunk into her. Death was one of the more probable outcomes of their endeavor, and yet she held that possibility as far away from her mind as possible.

“You don’t think...” she started and then stopped herself before the words could form. “I mean, how likely do you think that possibility is?”

“Merry,” he touched her arm. “I take none of this lightly, and though I don’t wish to frighten you ...”

“It’s gone beyond that point now,” she assured him. “I’m in this to the death, if that be my end.”

“You’re very brave,” a soft smile lifted the corners of his mouth.

“So are you.” She wanted to kiss that mouth just then, but she did not. “What do we do then?”

“We keep our guards up,” he said, “keep our senses in check. That is all we can do.”

She looked toward Gorigast and tried to imagine he would never betray her. The loneliness in his eyes, the way he lit up every time he called her his majesty. It made her long desperately to trust him.

She diverted her gaze into the thick, tangled growth to their left, her senses alive now that her expectations had darkened. She almost laughed out loud when she realized that no one, not even Christina, would ever believe all she had endured to save her. She tried to keep that thought as motivation. Soon she would take Christina home, and Christina could marry Wil, and life would carry on as it always had. Wouldn’t it?

No, it wouldn't. After just a single glimpse at the Underground, Meredith doubted very much that her life would, or even could, ever be normal again. She’d never be able to walk away and simply forget, especially not Him. In fact, she had not even missed home since she’d met him, and it was beginning to feel as though she hadn’t been home in hundreds of years.

Only then did she realize that just two nights had passed since she had gone Underground. Two nights, and already she had seen more and gone further than she had ever gone in her entire life. All the folks tucked into the land and town around them, the people she and Christina only ever saw on the rare occasion when they made their way into town, they all seemed more like people she heard about in stories, rather than people she had actually once known.

Even the Meredith who had known those people seemed dreadfully unreal to her now, as though she had only been a skin easily shed and cast aside.

Her mother's stories surfaced in her mind again, but gone was the panic she'd earlier associated with them. Would she become one of those heroines who slipped into the faerie realm and returned many years later under the notion that only a single night had passed and the world had long forgotten her? As dreadful as it seemed, she almost hoped so. She’d never felt right or comfortable in that world.

Knowing she didn’t really belong Upland at all made sense.

And as she looked toward Him, she knew for the first time in her life exactly where she belonged. Wherever he was, she was home.

When he’d reminded her earlier that they could die, she could easily imagine sacrificing herself to save Him and her sister, but she couldn’t even begin to fathom going on without Him.

That was where the concept of time became incredibly tricky once again. For two nights she had known him, and yet it was as though lifetimes had passed since they’d come together. The thought alone of losing him wrenched her soul in ways that made it difficult to breathe, and she couldn’t begin to imagine the agony if it became reality.

She wanted to reach out to him then, hold onto him and tell him it was okay for them to turn back. She’d do anything to save them from whatever lie ahead, even sacrifice her own sister. Her willingness to do anything for him made her wonder about the prophecies, if there was something more to what was going on between them than simple attraction and growing love like the ones she’d only read about in fairytales .

Shame burned beneath her skin upon that realization, but it was true. Yes, she loved her sister, but if she had to choose between Him and Christina in the end, she was mortified to think she could so easily turn her back on her own flesh and blood. But Christina wasn’t really her flesh and blood… was she?

She had to look away from Him then, and it was during this moment—when she’d stopped paying attention to their surroundings—that a slinking black tendril of vine snaked out of the earth and wrapped around her ankle.

 Its grip was sudden and tight, and it drew her backward before a startled scream even left her mouth.

It was as if the world itself had been yanked out from under her, and as she dangled above Him, the trailing plant coiled around her knee, up her thigh and toward her waist.

She cried out again, this time in sheer terror as the vine tightened around her.

“Merry!” Him leapt toward her, a hand stretched forward. “Reach for my hand.”

“I can’t!” Meredith lengthened her fingers and struggled as the plant twisted in loops up both of her legs. It yanked her from the path like a predator dragging its dinner back to its den deep in the forest.

She kicked, but like a hungry jungle reptile it wound tighter the more she struggled against it.

Wild screams scraped her throat as she felt the vines pulling her in two different directions.

“Him!”

“I’m coming, Merry,” he cried. “Reach for me!”

“I can’t reach.” Her eyes stung with furious and frightened tears, and her stomach lurched with the swaggering suspension of her body. “Please!”

“Gorigast, find the source of the vine!” He called out to their guide. “Gorigast!”

Only the elf had scurried off in fear, and Him just caught a glimpse of the elf's back disappearing into the thicket.

“You useless bastard!" he cried. "Hold on, Merry! Hold on!”

Her own screams rang in her ears, and her mind swam in terror. Hysterical, she thrashed and fought against the suffocating vines drawing her away from the path and into the darkest part of the Wald.

“Him! Please!”

Terror poisoned her mind, and she was losing the fight. In the distance she could barely make Him out, as he’d become a furious blur hacking and cursing at the twisted, writhing thing taking her over.

A roaring agony sounded, and the tendrils that held her gripped even tighter than before. She could barely breathe already and as the landscape wavered before her, she cursed her guilty mind for even thinking of sacrificing her sister. It was her punishment for thinking of herself, of her own happiness over her sister’s safety.

“Merry,” her mind swayed against the familiar sound of Him’s voice.

The vines spiraled and looped around her torso and squeezed her chest so tight that every inhale only intensified its hold on her. It crushed her insides.

“I’ve almost got it, Merrry. Hold on, please! Hold on!

Him hacked his sword through the root of her attacker, but the vegetation still resisted her rescue.

Her bones painfully resisted the pressure, and what little breath she was able to draw came in small, desperate gasps. Her heart was a furious machine, thrombing wildly inside her chest. The snaking length of the plant probed her face, as if feeling for her mouth and nose, and then it pushed against her gritted teeth.

It was too strong and quickly forced her jaws apart, but she desperately chewed it away before it could slide down into her throat and tear her apart from the inside out.

Bitter juices numbed her tongue, activating her gag reflex. Bile rose, and she spit chewed bits of leaf and vine into the air.

As if it realized its own peril, the vine wrapped around her mouth then like a gag, and tightened so that she could no longer close her teeth over it.

Beyond panic, Meredith embraced a state of delirium edging on euphoria.

So this was death, she surmised. Stories had always made it appear more glamorous, and often more peaceful.

A voice in the back of her mind willed her to relax, as the more she struggled the harder it seemed to punish and abuse her in its grasp. Parts of her had already gone numb where the circulation had been cut off, and it would only be a matter of time before her entire body was at peace.

“Reach for me, Merry,” Him called from the ground below. “Don’t let it take you! Reach for me, please!”

Her vision was so blurred she could no longer make out Him below. She saw the flash of his hand, reaching fingers stretched in desperation until they wrapped tight around her own fingers.

 “I almost have you,” he shouted reassurance. “Feel my hand there, Merry, take hold and I will pull you free.” He swore with rage as he struggled to save her.

The monstrous vine resisted, tightening and fighting to keep her, but where she had fought before, she now relaxed until she felt herself falling. Tendrils loosened. Some of the smaller ones fought to hang onto her, but they were not strong enough to maintain her weight and snapped as she fell toward the earth.

Him, waiting below with open arms, was knocked backward, and they tumbled to safety near a patch of mushrooms.

“It’s all right,” he told her, smoothing her hair. “I’ve got you now.”

Him scanned her face, and neck, hands searching every inch of her body for injury and signs of lingering vine. “I have you now. You're safe," he promised. "You're safe."

Meredith broke down and relaxed against him until she was as limp and useless as the dying vines he had destroyed to save her. Low sobs caught in the back of her raw and aching throat, and she choked and gagged on them, still tasking the acrid juices that dried the insides of her cheeks and made her tongue feel numb and useless.

Him cradled her close and promised again and again that she was okay. As he pressed soft lips against her forehead and nestled his chin against her cheek.

“You’re all right now, love,” he whispered. “I’ve got you, it’s all right.”

She shook her head, but the protest welling inside of her never emerged.

Things were not okay, and they very well might not ever be okay again. She buried her face in the crook of his neck and tried to quiet her own sobs. Her burning eyes closed, she wished that when she opened them next it would all be over, that the world would be right again, but she had already come too far and experienced too much to ever walk away without finishing her task.

"You should have let it take me,” she finally said.

She moved away from him and stared bleary-eyed toward the tangled mass of dead vine still twitching like a dying snake on the ground.

“Don’t be foolish, Merry. I will never let anything harm you.”

“If you knew what I was thinking…" she started. “ The horrible thoughts I was thinking… No, I deserved to be punished.”

“Thoughts do not equal actions.” He reached out to turn her face, but she pulled away from his hand. “Whatever thoughts you entertained were only thoughts and nothing more, Meredith.”

"I was thinking about how easy it would be to leave her to her fate with Kothar,” she admitted. “If it meant that I might escape and spend an eternity with you.”

She could feel his stare willing her to meet with it, but she was too ashamed.

“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” she said.

“Merry,” he reached for her again, this time laying a hand on her shoulder. “There are things in this world that you just can’t stop. Destiny, for example,” he paused and lifted a finger to circle a curling tendril of her hair. “Love… I don’t pretend to know what you were thinking, or even to defend your thoughts from you, but I know if I were asked right now to choose between my own brother and a future with you, I would bid Sylvanus farewell and live with the guilt later.”

Her throat felt heavy and constricted with emotion, and though there was so much she wanted to say, she just let him hold her until the sound of bird calls growing nearer alerted them both.

She lifted her head from his chest and looked toward the sound. A gasp of surprise escaped her, and she scurried to her feet to take it in.

Gorigast had been right, and now before them was the evidence of the changes in the Wald. It had come alive just a few dozen feet from where they stood. Green shoots of grass sprung up, the tired trees sprouted new leaves, and a host of small animals scurried curiously through their new surroundings as if they'd only just woken from hibernation after a long winter nap.

“It is coming alive again." Him moved in close and rested a hand on the small of her back.

She nestled into him and shook her head in disbelief. “But how? Why even?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

“It’s as though it is following us.”

“Or perhaps just you,” he noted. “Maybe it is some enchantment of Kothar’s, a spell to lure you back.”

“Maybe.” Thinking then of Kothar, she turned away from the Wald come to life and faced the heavy path ahead. “We should go.”

"If you're sure you're ready."

There was no such thing as ready anymore, only confirmation and resolve that she must move on.

Him nodded and moved to gather their belongings, which had been scattered in the fray.

“We’ve lost our guide, you know.”

“I know.” She scanned the brush and shadows but caught no sign of Gorigast. The part of her within that had trusted and pitied him ached with sorrow, and she wondered if all along he had been leading them to that place to trap them.

Him held out the bag she’d been carrying her few belongings in, and she slung it over her shoulder.

“We’ll have to find our own way now,” she said.

"We will," Him promised.

She wanted to believe him.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

When the drakwn vine sprung up from the ground and grabbed hold of the queen, Gorigast’s first and only thought was to run, and so he ran until he could no longer hear the sounds of her screams clawing at his ears. And then he huddled in the shadows and cursed himself.

“Coward!” He pounded his balled fists into his face, immediate spasms of pain pulsing through the bone. “Stupid fool, stupid coward!” He wheezed. “If his queen is dead he’ll have your head!”