The Goblin Market (Into the Green) (4 page)

A mist shrouded glen surrounded her, and strange music created by the rustle of leaves and tingling chimes murmured under an intense current of silence. Tendrils of fog snaked against her skin like cold, curious fingers, the density drenching the loose fabric of her gown. She reached outward, but barely recognized the outline of her own hands just inches in front of her.

A rush of footsteps jarred the earth and swirled the fog as a strange form darted to her left.

Heavy laughter unfurled in the distance, and the silver soup of the air darkened with a deliberate shadow.

“Who’s there?” She called out.

The shade answered; an undecipherable, masculine whisper echoed against the quiet valley.

Terrified, Meredith wanted to turn and run, but then Christina called out, “Merry, help me.”

She stepped tentatively toward the sound and the shadow retreated deeper into the fog with every step she took.

“Christina?” She cried. “Chrissy? Where are you?”

A second figure pattered by, the footfall lighter. Its movement disturbed the fabric of her gown and sent shivers of fright rippling over every inch of Meredith’s skin.

“Chrissy?”

She reached forward again, the silver essence swirling in her hands but imparting no secret. Scurrying steps disturbed the air, and her hand snatched out, hoping to capture something physical. Whatever shade played in the shadows skirted just beyond her reach.

“Christina, please?”

A sultry whisper echoed her name, “Meredith.”

"Who’s there?” She spun toward the sound.

“Alone on the hilltop, he waits for the day. Cloaked in the darkness so that he might prey upon pretty maidens who don’t have a clue. Beware little maiden, the king comes for you.”

He stepped out of the vapor, his black cloak rippling in stark contrast to the silver. Half of his face was hidden behind the length of ebony hair that fell over his eye. There was no mistaking the half she could see. She knew that face; some distant part of her remembered the smug smile he wore, but she could not place the moment in time where they once met.

Meredith swallowed, fear wrangling against reason, “You?”

“You look surprised to see me here.” Malice slashed at his lips with razor precision, his grin sending shivers of terror through her. “Did you think you could hide from me forever in this place?"

Her head moved in slow denial, back and forth until an overhead shadow swooped in to distract her attention. The raspy caw of a crow startled her and she lifted her hand to shield her eyes from the gold burn of the sun wrapped in folds of silver. Another crow swam toward her, dipping low in torment, its disquieting cry tearing through the air.

“I am coming for you,” he said. "I am coming to bring you home…"

The opalescent curtains of fog swirled away, revealing the garden she tended to so carefully. The cottage was behind her, Meredith realized, and she looked back over her shoulder through the window. She could see herself and her sister sleeping inside, and the sight sent rippling chills through her.

“I am coming for you...”

Meredith's tight throat struggled to pass air into her lungs as she shot up from the bed like a stone from a slingshot. Her heart pounded between the bars of her ribcage, but was quickly disguised beneath the distant rumble of thunder. The timepiece on the bedside table ticked away the hour. Late afternoon. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, and when she remembered why, she turned toward the unmoving shape in bed beside her.

“Christina?” Tentative hands reached out to pull the quilt away.

A soft mutter of complaint escaped Christina, whose burning skin glistened with specks of cold sweat. The girl’s eyelids fluttered in the black and sunken beds around her eyes, as though pulsing furiously with nightmare.

Meredith gripped Christina’s hand and squeezed the clammy fingers inside her own before instinctively rubbing them in an attempt to warm them. A stifled and terrifying sound dragged through the aching chasm of her throat, as she brought those frigid fingers to her cheek. She kissed them and laid them down on Christina’s chest.

“You're going to be okay, my little love” the hoarse whisper of her voice barely put a dent in the still silence between rumbles of thunder. “I will not let you die, Chrissy” she promised.

Meredith re-wrapped Christina’s body in the warm cocoon of blankets in hopes that the layers would somehow provide warmth enough to battle that otherworldly chill. All the while, she blinked away tears of fright and hopelessness, trying desperately to envision her sister well again on the sunlit horizon in her mind, traipsing carefree through a field of colorful wildflowers, her chestnut curls bouncing against her shoulders as laughter filled the air.

Meredith climbed off the bed and walked toward the window. Beyond the curtains, the darkening sky was brutal, and disorienting. They slept through much of the day, and with evening on the brink, she wasn’t sure where she might turn for help. She contemplated riding to the Grisham farm, but rolls of thunder sounded again and a few early droplets of rain pelted the window and rooftop. She would never make it to the Grisham's and back before the storm hit.

She had never felt more helpless and alone, not even when their father left them years before.

Clouds spread across the sky like a bruise over flesh, snuffing out the final white-gold light of the sun, and in the distance forked tongues of lightning lashed out to brighten the darkness. It drew her attention to the garden, pale and unfertile after the long winter, and the sight reminded her vaguely of the dark dream that woke her. Looking in upon her sleeping self from the window outside, the same chills that licked her flesh in dream rose in tiny bumps over every inch of her skin. The haunting whisper of a promise she barely understood echoed in her mind, and she started to back away from the window.

Her retreat was stalled by a flutter of movement outside. A small dark flurry of wings soared and fought against the rising wind, before a second crow joined it against the clouded backdrop of sky. They struggled against the keening airstream, two crows like the ones she'd heard in her dream.

Despite the great effort it took, the pair of them perched at last in the sparsely budded branch of the oak tree in the yard. Gooseflesh dotted Meredith’s arms as their stark cries screamed like a warning against the coming storm. She reached up to rub the otherworldly chill from her skin, and tried to shake that strange dream from her mind.

That face. Where had she seen that face before? And his voice…

“Alone on the hilltop, he waits for the day. Cloaked in the darkness so that he might prey upon pretty maidens who don’t have a clue. Beware little maiden, the king comes for you."

As if in answer to the strange rhyme, her lips moved over the words, "Goblin King, Goblin King, choose your bride. Goblin King, Goblin King, be quick, betimes. Before this night is through, my king, choose your queen, give me your ring.”

Flickering lightning strobed in distant pulses as the growling thunder drew nearer. The current of the wind rent the atmosphere, which answered in continual howls of protest and woe. It tore through the tiny leaves that had only recently unfurled on the trees, and the branches screamed in pain.

She knew she should light candles. Soon it would be black as pitch and she’d never find her way around the cottage in the dark, but before she could move away from the window, a shadow behind the trunk of the oak captured her attention. Like the ripple of a cloak against the wind, a black cloak, before it disappeared into the form of the tree.

Meredith’s throat constricted with fear. Was she still dreaming? Feverish and lost in a world of twisted nightmares, for it all felt too familiar. She could hardly hear the cawing crows over the wind, but she watched them perch steady against it in the branches. Her gaze glued to the tree, she watched for signs of that cloak again, and after several minutes, reason returned to her mind. If there had been a cloaked figure there, the wind would draw the fabric into plain sight.

Her mind was obviously playing tricks on her. Maybe she was coming down with whatever Christina had, she thought, backing away from the window and refusing to look over her shoulder despite the compelling desire to double-check the shadows.

Meredith hurried into the other room for the tinderbox. She grabbed two fresh candles from the drawer, lit one and started down the darkened hallway. Frigid air moved through the passage and the fresh smell of rain blasted her senses. The flame of the candle etched away at the darkness, flickering in reaction to the obvious wind, and she wondered if perhaps the window had blown open in response to the maddening torrent now raging like a beast outside.

Once more, her body reacted by sending rippling chills dancing across her skin. Her eyes widened with fear when she reached the threshold of the door and saw the curtains whip against the strong current of wind rushing gusts of rain in to wash the floor. And then she saw the strewn sheets unraveled and trailing toward the floor. Her mouth opened in panic, but no sound escaped her.

Meredith stood in the doorway for several seconds, trying to piece together the bits of confusion fluttering about her mind. The wind drew at the strewn mess of her hair, bringing her back to her senses, and she quickly guarded the sputtering candle flame with a cupped hand. Her gaze roved over the empty bed where her sister had lain moments before

“Christina?”

As if in answer to her call, thunder cracked the sky, spilling out a sudden rushing wall of rain.

“My god,” she gasped. “Chrissy? Christina?”

Hot candle wax dripped onto the top of her hand, and she drew in a harsh and startled breath through clenched teeth. The sound inspired laughter behind her, and she spun quickly to find the cloaked figure from her dream standing at the edge of the bed, Christina’s limp body draped across his arms.

“They’re so frail, humans.” Hooded, he did not look up at her, but studied the pale girl in his arms with a sense of curious sympathy, a veil of ebony hair curtaining his face. “So easily crumpled and broken, like flower petals under foot.”

“Who are you?”

He laughed, “You know who I am.”

Meredith shook her head, “No.”

“Oh, I think you do.” When he lifted his face, the hood of his cloak fell away and revealed loose wisps of black hair falling into place over a ragged scar. “Just as I am sure you know exactly what I’ve come for, my queen.”

The sound that escaped her was not so much a laugh, as it was an incredulous scoff. “Your queen?”

“You are as beautiful as I remember." The tilt of his head softened his expression. “Even in this less than perfect form.”

Meredith could not deny that he was handsome, and devilishly so, but the deep scar that dragged across the left half of his face had dulled the eye, marking it milky white and seemingly sightless.

“I am not your queen.”

“Not yet,” the jagged tear of his grin widened. “But you will be. You were promised to me, and I have waited endlessly for you.” He was decorated with brilliant jewels that seemed to shine with a light all their own, and atop his head rested a silver crown wrought with sharp spikes of smoked crystal.

A distant flicker of memory grappled with her mind. Little Meredith spinning in circles and singing that rhyme.

“Alone on the hilltop, he waits for the day. Cloaked in the darkness so that he might prey upon pretty maidens who don’t have a clue. Beware little maiden the king comes for you.”

“I have searched lifetimes for the singer of that rhyme,” he remarked. “Your family hid you well, but this foolish human you call your sister gave you away without a care.”

“What have you done to my sister?”

“And your human mother worked so diligently to keep you from my sight. I wonder what they told her about you…”

“You’re lying.”

She was surprised by the precision cruelty of his laughter.

“Am I? Are you so sure?”

A sharp breath caught in her throat, stunning her as though the wind had been knocked out of her. Trembling, her mind grasped at flickers of forgotten memory, but none sparked strong enough to help her make sense of what was happening.

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.