The Goblin Market (Into the Green) (34 page)

If she fell, there was no telling what would come of her, but she knew it wouldn't be good.

All that kept her going from the moment on was the notion that her sister waited for her on the other side of that dark passageway. She imagined Christina in a fevered daze, moments from death, and that was enough to fuel her to go on.

When she reached the doorway, she fell against the splintered wood, breathing a sigh of relief.

As she gathered herself, she felt in the dark for a handle on the door. Jagged shreds of wood dug into the flesh of her palm, and she had to bite down on her tongue to keep from crying out. Finally, she felt the rusted lever on the door, but when she tried to pull it forward, it wouldn't budge.

She should have known.

Stretching onto the tips of her toes, she peered into the window to see if she could glimpse her sister. "Chrissy?"

Nothing.

"Chrissy, can you hear me?"

"She can't hear you." His voice reverberated through the chasm.

Lanterns blazed to life at both ends of the corridor, revealing just how treacherous the final steps of her journey had actually been. On both sides of the narrow, crumbling passageway, there was nothing, and as she peered over the edge, her heart skipped inside her chest. One false step…

“All of this could have been avoided,” his voice was a cold tone that made her blood feel strange in her veins, “all of your suffering, your hardship, the loss of one you loved so dear… If only you’d come with me when I held out my hand, your heart would not know the sorrows that now weigh it so heavily inside your chest.”

He was right; she hated that he was wright. If only she’d come with him when he’d appeared with the storm she would never have known the love that now empowered her to stiffen her shoulders and stand brave before the king who would stop at nothing to have her.

"You promised I could have her if I came, and I came. Now I want my sister."

"And what will you give me in return?" Kothar was nothing more than a lean shadow at the bottom of the stairs. "She owes a heavy debt to me."

"You tricked her."

"She was a victim of her own greed."

"You speak of greed as though you know nothing of it yourself," she spat. "All of your tricks, your deceit. I know who you are."

"Is that so?"

"Even more, I know who I am now."

"Then you know why we're really here, what you
really
owe me."

Jagged fear and loathing rose in the back of her throat, cutting into her as she swallowed. "Give my sister back her life, and I will keep my uncle's promise to you."

For a moment, he was stunned by her bargain, stepping toward her in silence as he contemplated her words. They had both known it would come to this in the end, but Meredith had tricked herself, allowed herself to be fooled into believing for a flicker of a peaceful moment that it could end another way.

"She's just a girl," Merry went on. "A human girl. And it's not her you really want. It's me."

"You come from a long line of liars," he said. "How do I know I can trust your word?"

"You don't."

"Not a very convincing argument, Meredith."

"Then trust in Glylwythiel," she said. "I was your friend, Kothar. We played together as children, laughed together in the fields and made rings of flowers that we wore around our heads like crowns. I never wanted any of this."

“Then why did you run?”

Lowering her head, her eyes betrayed her emotion, and though she could barely see him, she could feel the flare of his rising temper.

“Why did you run from me?” he bellowed, his sharp voice echoing through that dank dungeon.

“To make my uncle happy,” she whispered. “To keep the peace he fought so long to gain…”

Kothar laughed, “And you see how well that peace served him. Everything he once loved is on the verge of being swallowed by the darkness, my darkness.”

“Why would you punish your own people?” she gasped, a hand lifting to clutch at the bare of her exposed shoulder. “Why would you take away their light?”

“Everything I did, I did because of you,” he took a step into the hideous light, and the way the shadows fell across his face made him look terrifying. “You ran from me, and they hid you from me. They all had to pay, Glywythiel. Don’t you see?”

“And now you will make my sister pay as well?” she whispered. “Because there is naught in your heart but hatred and cruelty.”

“There is naught in my heart but love for you!” he hissed. “If that love has grown dark, it is through no fault of mine.”

“Your heart was always filled with darkness,” she countered, taking a brave step toward him to show him she was not afraid. “It does not know the meaning of the word love.”

“That is untrue. I love you so much that if you promise to marry me and rule here as my queen, I will send the girl back to the Upland.”

The memory of Him ebbed in the back of her mind, the brokenhearted knowing she would never feel his arms around her as long as she lived, the distant ache of a life without ever hearing the sound of his voice.

She had nothing else to live for, and she knew she could never return to the life she'd known in the Upland herself.

She was broken.

"I will marry you," she licked the salt of tears from her lips. "And be your queen."

He sighed, the tension smoothing from his face as he arrived to stand before her. “At last, we see eye to eye.”

“And as your bride to be, I ask for a boon.”

“Name your boon, my Queen.”

“Allow me to return my sister to the mortal world alive, and see her married, and I will do anything you ask of me.”

Kothar contemplated her request for a moment. He was quiet so long that Meredith began to fret that he would not concede to her wish, but then he smiled thinly. “As you wish, however this boon does not come without its price.”

“What else would you have me do? I've already said I would marry you.”

"I want your heart and your love, not just your hand."

It was something she could never promise, not after all she'd been through with Him, but it was her sister's only chance. Her tongue thick in her mouth, the heart in her chest a piteous, broken thing, she would let him have it. What good would it do her to keep it for herself?

"As you wish, my king."

A triumphant grin spread to the corners of his face. The wicked gleam in his eye sickened her, but she swallowed her pride and her fear. He could have her heart, but she would never truly love him. And by the time he realized that, it would be too late.

"You have the cycle of one moon to put your mortal affairs in order,” he said. “On the next full moon, I will come for you and bring you home.”

She looked into his face and nodded firmly, “I will be waiting.”

He gently grasped her small frame, holding her gaze in the fleeting darkness. There was happiness in his good eye, and it made her feel sick.

Kothar leaned down and brushed soft lips against her forehead. "Don't try to run from me again, Glylwythiel. Punishment for such a crime would be darker than you could ever imagine, even in your most wretched of nightmares."

“Of course not,” she felt her mouth move into a stiff smile. “I will do as you wish.”

“There's my good girl.” His hand rested along the curve of her cheek. “Now close your eyes…” His voice became slow, dreamy. “…and listen…for…the rain.”

Obediently, she closed her eyes. She could still feel the grip of his fingers tight on her shoulders, and behind her Meredith heard the slow, pulsing drips and drops that had led her to the dungeon.

Drip-drop, drip-drop-drop, until one by one they became patterned steadily over some strange surface that seemingly hovered above her. She felt light as a dream and floated through the world as though she was nothing more than her spirit.

“One moon, Merry. One moon...” his hypnotic voice echoed deeply within her until it because sharp as a whisper, and for a moment she felt the warmth of his lips across her brow.

Then she came awake to the sound of distant, rumbling thunder.

*****

At first Merry wasn’t sure it was thunder she heard because she felt cotton-headed and lethargic as she tried to lift herself from the floor. The rippling liquid folds of sleep wrapped tight around her and made it almost impossible for her to think.

She drowsily blinked free from the grasp sleep had upon her, and sat at a strange angle—half propped on her elbows on the hard wood of the bedroom floor, and half listening now.

And then it all came rushing back to her memory. Kothar let her return to see her sister into another's care.

 “Christina?” She looked to the empty bed, its tousled sheets amiss and one pillow half-dangling over the edge “Christina?”

The stifled din of voices from the other room grew silent, and then footsteps sounded just outside the door. The door creaked on its frame, stiff and stuck from the humidity of the last storm.

Christina appeared, momentarily shadowed by the hallway behind her, but her pale countenance and chestnut hair shone through the darkness like a bright beacon of hope.

“Merry, what are you doing out of bed? You’ll catch your death in your present state. Come lie down. Let me take care of you.”

The younger girl rushed into the room and guided her bedazzled sister toward the ruffled bed. “There, there.” She helped Meredith into the bed and fluffed the pillows behind her before drawing the blankets up under her chin. “You’ll catch your death at this rate,” Christina told her matter-of-factly.

Meredith reached upward and touched the wan skin of her sister’s face. The circles beneath her eyes were as dark as faded bruises, but there was a gleam in them that foretold healing and wellness was not far off.

“You’re feeling better, then?”

“I feel like a new day has dawned,” Christina said, lightly sitting on the edge of the bed. “You took such good care of me, Merry. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be here at all, and now I’m going to take good care of you.”

“I’ll be fine,” she whispered, though in truth her body had never felt more exhausted than it did just then.

“Fine after you rest, I’m sure. Now close your eyes and I’ll sing you a lullaby.”

Meredith couldn’t help the small grin that perched over her lower lip at the precious sound of her sister’s lilted voice. She became lost in it, her feverish mind playing in a realm between the past and the present, in a place where her sister sat beside her mother’s memory and sang sweetly about a world no one would ever believe to be true. She closed her eyes, knowing she was safe for the moment, that she was free for the moment, and that freedom lulled her to sleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Meredith lingered over the edge of the garden, her eyes cast down over the hill, into the place where the goblins held their market not so long ago. It was an open valley now, green with new growth and no trace of goblin or market.

All she had to do was close her eyes and she could still see it there as clearly as she had seen it the night she’d set out to save her sister.

 Beyond the empty market place nothing seemed familiar anymore, for she’d been to the Underground. She’d experienced firsthand the mysterious, natural beauty of the fairy realm, though all of that seemed now as though it were nothing more than a distant memory, a fevered dream during the sickness that had nearly claimed both her and her sister’s life.

Meredith knew that it was not a dream. Once the illness passed, and Meredith was able to return to her daily activities, she became aware of a subtle difference about herself that confirmed the strange and painful dreams that haunted her every night's sleep.

She was with child—a small gift, a reminder of the sharing of her heart on that one night that now seemed to have taken place in another lifetime.

Inside her grew the seed of redemption, and though she could imagine what Kothar would do when he discovered this fact, Meredith felt certain that somehow, some day, the child she carried would make everything right again.

In two nights time the moon would be full again, and then he would come and take her away. She had promised him that much, and for her sister’s life she felt it was a fair price, but now she had more to worry about than her sister. Meredith reached into the front pocket of her apron and ran her hand along the sharp edge of the mask she kept with her at all times.

The magic's ebb had waned in the Upland, but she could still feel it pulsing through her fingertips, reaching desperately to connect with her body. She drew it out of the pocket just enough that she could look upon it, the gold and silver beauty glinting in the sun and nearly blinding her.

“What have you got there, Merry?” Christina approached her from behind, so light on her feet that Meredith hadn’t heard her.

“Oh,” Meredith quickly dropped the mask back into her apron. She turned to smile thoughtfully at her sister. “It’s nothing,” she stepped in and looped her arm through her sister’s. “Nothing for busy brides to worry their pretty little heads over. Shouldn’t you be modeling Mother’s gown so Mrs. Grisham can take it in?” She narrowed a stern gaze over her sister, and then teased, “You’re like a little bird in that body of yours. It’ll be a miracle if she can ever make it fit you properly.

Christina playfully smacked at her sister. “This body is a blessing, I’ll have you know. It’s not fit for farm work, and so I’ll never get as big as that old hen.”

“That old hen? Honestly Chrissy, that’s no way to speak of your future mother-in-law. Especially after all she’s done for you!”

An exasperated groan heaved from the younger woman’s chest and she let her weight fall into Merry’s. “Must you remind me? She’ll be the death of me, I can already tell… The way she’s always fussing with everything and busying herself. It’s dreadful. I hope I’m never like that when I’m a wife and mother.”

“She’s not so bad, really,” Merry lowered her arm behind Christina’s back and drew her close. She genuinely cares for you and Will too. You’re a very lucky girl, Christina, and it’s time you settle down and make a life for yourself.”