The Goblin Market (Into the Green) Page 6

  Meredith grappled with her choices. She knew he was right. Kothar himself had said she would probably never reach the Darknjan Wald alive. Perhaps with Him's help, she would have a better chance of saving her sister.

  A smile tugged at her pale, bruised mouth, and she nodded. “I accept your offer, and will meet with this brother of yours.”

  “Wonderful!” He clapped his hands together.

  Sir Gwydion Dale crossed his arms and shook his head, as he muttered the words, “One day you will be the death of us both, Him of the Green. I get the feeling that day is not so far away as I would like it to be.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Meredith rung as much of the water from her cloak and dress as she could, but as they started on their journey to see the Historian, Sylvanus, she felt a great chill and an ache in her head. She was silent as they traveled, barely even listening as her strange new companions bickered back and forth like agitated siblings, rather than servant and master. Her distracted mind played over the events of the last few hours and the things that seemed to tie everything together.

  The song her mother scolded her for as a child, the one about a goblin king searching for a bride. Kothar claimed to be searching for her, and when Him mentioned that the market was created for her—that she was the one the goblin king searched for—a bizarre sense of recognition rippled through.

  The instances must be related, but as Meredith tried to wrap her mind around it, her head felt strange and fuzzy. She could only hope Him’s brother had answers for her.

  As they traveled the pixie glared up at her from time to time. The bitterness of his stare made her feel uncomfortable, especially when Him leaned nearer to her and said, “Don’t mind Sir Sourpuss. He’s just angry because our meeting with you postponed our annual hunt.”

  She glanced down at Sir Gwydion. “I apologize for interfering with your plans.”

  “As if that were the only thing of concern,” Gwydion pursed his lips tightly together and puffed in dismissal. “Lord Reckless will see us to our death before the night is through, I am sure.”

  “Were we not ingrained with chivalric code before we could even speak?” Him asked the pixie. “It was our duty to do right by this maiden.”

  The words that next escaped Sir Gwydion were hidden under frustrated sighs and a furrowed brow. Him ignored the pixie, and returned his attention to Meredith.

  “You know, I’ve never met an Uplander before. I want to know everything about you and your life.”

  “There really isn’t much to tell,” she began. “I’ve lived a rather simple life until now.”

  “Until now? Do you mean that this is your first real adventure?”

  The enthusiasm in his face sparked a hint of excitement inside her as well, but she tried to stifle it with reason. “I don’t know that I would call it an adventure.”

  “You’ve faced the goblin king and his wicked market all in one night. I’d say you’re off to quite an adventurous start.” He grinned. “Tell me about your sister.”

  “My sister.” A thoughtful sigh escaped her as knots of worry tightened inside Meredith’s stomach. “Christina loves to make mischief and get herself into trouble, obviously. I’ve spent the better part of sixteen years following behind her and cleaning things up.”

  “You are a good sister.”

  “She hasn’t anyone else. Our mother passed in childbirth and our father...”

  Him waited well into her long silence before asking, “Your father, do tell me about him. What is he like?”

  “I don’t know.” Her tone gave way to bitterness. “Not much of a father at all, I suppose. It’s been years now since he left us alone.”

  Astonished, Him lifted his arm in comfort across her back and asked, “But who cares for you, if not your father?”

  “I care for things.” Meredith had not been so candid with anyone in all her life, she realized, and there was a brief flash when she asked herself why she was spilling her life’s story to this strange, green man with antlers and a pronoun for a name. She cleared her throat then, and nodded with certainty. “I take care of Christina, and myself. It hasn’t always been easy, but I’ve done my best.”

  Until now, a silent, guilty voice inside her whispered.

  That silent voice put a stop to her willingness to chatter, and she turned to Him and asked, “Tell me about yourself, please? I’ve never met anyone like you before.”

  “There are no Hunters in the Upland?” He wagged the thin arc of his brow at her.

  “Well, we have men who hunt, but I suppose if you are a Hunter, then no, there are none like you where I come from.”

  “How peculiar.”

  “And no pixies either.”

  Sir Gwydion Dale seemed rather put out when he replied with, “You don’t say?”

  “In fact, there are no creatures of extraordinary greatness at all where I come from,” she told them. “Only animals, birds, fish... human beings.”

  “There is nothing ordinary about human beings,” Him said.

  “Chrissy claimed once that she saw a faerie at the edge of our garden. She was very small, and I didn’t believe her, but I suppose it is possible, isn’t it?”

  “Quite possible,” Him nodded. “Especially if you are who I think you are. A guard was probably sent to watch over you.”

  She was still baffled by his curious talk about her hidden association with Kothar and the Goblin Market.

  “The Fae travel Upland all the time. They are fascinated by the odd lives humans lead, and from time to time they have been known to disappear into the human world, completely devoured by their own fascination.”

  “Or their desire to wreak havoc and carry on mischief,” Sir Gwydion added.

  “I’ve never been myself,” he explained. “To the Upland, I mean. I’ve a brother who’s been, but all the tales I know have come from the elders, from those who used to travel freely between our world and yours.”

  After all she had been through in her short time Underground, she couldn’t imagine a single dazzling thing about the world she came from to compare or even lure the magnificent creatures Upland.

  The Goblin Market faded with every step, the misted path they followed devouring it bite by bite. The grass was still green, though perhaps it was a lusher shade of green, and beside them loomed what she believed to be the very forest at the edge of the valley she and Christina had often dipped into to gather wild mushrooms. There was something different about it though, something she felt rather than saw, and it tingled against her skin as if the life around her reached beyond the veil of invisibility to touch and become one with her.

  She looked toward the darkening sky, the black cloud edged in the gold of a setting sun.

  She drew air into her lungs and held it. When she finally sighed, it was as she began to speak, “The Upland, as you call it, is not so different than here. This place is more alive, I think. It’s more alive than anyplace I have ever been.”

  Even she was surprised by the spring in her step when she looped around, the magic in the air inspiring her to forget her pain and troubles for a moment.

  “I feel the trees breathing, the heart of the earth beneath my feet, and if I stretched high enough, I know I could pluck the stars right from your sky, but where I come from, stars are out of reach, and the earth speaks to no one, and trees... trees are trees and nothing more.”

  Him was preoccupied by her description. “I see.”

  Silence swirled in around them as they journeyed on. Meredith was distracted by the call of birds in the trees above and droplets of rainwater falling from the leaves onto the earth below. The wood they traveled beside grew darker with every step, and frog songs echoed from their nearby marshy home. It was a night orchestra unlike any she ever heard before, and it lightened her spirit.

  “It is so beautiful here,” she murmured.

  Him glanced downward at Meredith, his mouth twitching into an inspired grin as he admitted, “Yes, but tonight
it seems more beautiful than it ever has before.”

  “Oh, please.” Sir Gwydion moaned.

  Meredith's face flushed with the warmth of flirtation. It must have been something in the air, or the lingering poison still in her blood that made her act so bold. She became suddenly conscious of their closeness as they walked together, the taut, well-defined muscles of Him’s arm stretching against the free swing of their movement. She breathed in the earthy smell that clung to him—like the rich essence that always seemed to precede a storm. It was a comforting smell, both natural and enticing, and the prickling awareness of desire pulsed in her belly.

  Desire. What a strange and exiting thing, she pondered. She had felt it before, of course, but not as strongly as she did whenever she stole a glance at the Hunter beside her.

  “Your world,” Him broke the silence, and brought her wandering spirit reluctantly back into her body. “It sounds somewhat bleak and uninspired. Is there nothing living there which rouses your spirit and brings you joy?”

  “Flowers,” she admitted. “The birds and animals. I love to sit in my garden in the spring and watch them come back to life after the long sleep of winter. It’s magical. Here though, it seems like everything is always alive. The magic is evident and clear, but there is nothing so obvious where I come from.”

  “’Tis a pity,” Him lamented, his brow furrowing. “It is good then that you have escaped the drab world that held you prisoner.”

  She’d never thought of herself as a prisoner before, and for a time that notion hung heavy in my mind.

  They still skirted the edge of the woods, but Meredith could feel the trees within calling out to her. Silence, once more, and Meredith concentrated on the strange combination of their feet upon the path. Him’s animal skin boots disguised his footfall completely, but her shoes rustled through the grass, while Sir Gwydion’s tiny feet chimed as he walked. The bells he wore on his shoes were so small, she barely heard them at all, and wouldn’t have had she not honed in her senses on the mystical, tinkling sound of his every step. Stone and grass, dried twig and leaf crunched beneath her own feet, and combined with Sir Gwydion’s bells, orchestrating a strange, but beautiful song.

  “How far is the Darknjan Wald from here?” she wondered.

  Him sauntered to a slow stop and lengthened his neck. He leaned close and asked, “Do you see that hill over there?”

  Meredith followed the slender length of his finger. “I see it.”

  “On the other side of that hill there is a river and the remains of an old bridge. When you see it, you will understand it’s purpose. It is the very place where one kingdom ends and the other begins.”

  Sir Gwydion spoke up, “It’s as though the hideous darkness reached out to claim the bridge as its own.”

  Meredith's shudder was intensified by the dampness of her clothes. Him moved in closer, as if to warm her with his nearness.

  “We will enter the grove soon,” he told her.

  She glanced back over her shoulder once more, the market and valley as lost as the tiny hill she once called home. She thought of her sister, wondered if she was feverish, if anyone was caring for her. Did the girl even know she was coming, that she was doing everything she could to save her from whatever cruel fate Kothar had planned? She tried to imagine that wherever Christina was, she was safe, suspended in some fairy tale sleep while Meredith battled evil to come to her rescue, but as she recalled the emptiness she had seen in the goblin king’s pure, white eye, she couldn’t be so sure that her hopes would be realized.

  The trees on her left thickened, the foliage growing more dense as they traveled onward, and the distant hill Him pointed out to her disappeared as they slid into a deep copse of trees.

  Many of the trees were of familiar ilk: oak, ash, beech, rowan, willow, maple, spruce, pine, but beyond that there stretched at least half a dozen more trees for which there were no names in her vocabulary. Some dripped with leaves in the distinguished shape of crescent moons that shone silver against the growing darkness all around them. Others held round pearly seeds of gold and green, and from the taller trees above them there rained a continual shower of spiral pods that seemed to dance all the way to the impenetrable forest floor.

  With every step, they delved deeper into the magical woods. Silver light reached through the treetops, caressing their skin almost physically.

  Beside her Him spoke animatedly about the scenery, showing her special landmarks she was sure she would have no memory of once they passed, but it all seemed so familiar. As if in another lifetime, perhaps, she’d walked through those woods hundreds of times and knew every knot in every tree, where every type of flower grew. But how could that be? She had never been to those woods before in her life.

  Him’s enthusiasm lit the way, and his voice was as familiar to her as if they had always been friends and only just reunited after a long spell apart. It was an eerie feeling, one she both enjoyed and felt terrified of.

  Him spoke of his brother Sylvanus, of the kingdom itself, despite the occasional throat clearing from Sir Gwydion.

  “Do you see that table there?” He gestured toward an immense slab of limestone covered in a thick green carpet of moss. “Note how the trees around it make a circle,” he pointed out. “That is where the Oak Fathers held council before the Great War.”

  “They no longer hold council there?” She wondered.

  “They no longer do anything,” a sardonic sigh escaped Sir Gwydion.

  “The Oak Fathers were all lost in the Great War,” Him explained. “Including my own.”

  Meredith did not know what to say.

  “It has been so long, and I was little more than a boy myself then.”

  “But still,” she began. “You must miss him.”

  “I suppose I miss his wisdom, but the things he taught live on in me,” Him decided. “Aside from that, I hardly knew him.”

  Meredith’s heart ached when she thought about her own father. In light of Him’s loss, she felt guilty for earlier wishing her father dead. She struggled against her own shame, all those years of pride and anguish refusing to give in so easily.

  He left them. He left them time and time again, only that last time he hadn’t returned.

  Outside of Meredith, a strange force pressed into her woe, strangling and squeezing her painfully.

  Him went on talking beside her, repeating the one tale of their father’s valor his eldest brother had passed on to him when he was a small boy, but as he spoke a continual claustrophobic paranoia wrapped itself around Meredith's body and mind. Suffocating fear pressed bruisingly in upon her while she watched their surroundings with caution. She looked toward her guide and the tiny pixie beside him with paranoia and doubt, her slippery mind snaking around thoughts of deception.

  She scolded herself inwardly for how easily she allowed herself to trust them… strangers in a strange world… so soon after the goblins in the market had done their best to destroy her and end her journey before it started. Were these more of Kothar’s minions, sent to distract her from her task and draw her further and further away from her sister?

  Unaware of her growing distrust and anxiety Him pointed out desolate clearings, battlefields upon which distant relations had fought honorably and died. She tried to focus on the sound of his voice, to battle against her own mind and the disharmony of her ill thoughts. She envisioned Kothar, imagined him sitting in some dank castle, huddled cold inside his own robes and watching with that milky eye in a large looking glass as she wandered unawares—drifting away from saving her dying sister.

  Like the coming of a thousand voices, her doom was whispered back to her.

  They are not your friends.This is a trap

  All of it was some horrible trap designed to keep her from ever reaching the Darknjan Wald or her sister.

  They lead you to your doom.

  Her heart thundered wildly inside her with the realization of this horror, the wood around them eerily silent.

&n
bsp; Sir Gwydion stopped in front of them and held a hand up to keep them from passing or stumbling over him. “Dark thoughts have silenced the wood,” he noted. “Either one of our minds has become ensnared, or there are enemies in our midst.”

  “I have no dark thoughts.” Him turned over his shoulder to look at her. “Meredith?”

  It took a moment for her to process what Sir Gwydion said, the words playing over and over in her mind.

  Dark thoughts have silenced the woodland.

  Her previous thoughts came flooding back to her, the images of betrayal she’d dreamed inside her mind; her growing fear that she was trapped stoking the flame of anxiety within. “I...” she stuttered over that syllable as if she’d been slapped from a frenzied state of mind and now stood staring around her in horror. “I was thinking that you were all part of his plan,” she admitted quietly. She lowered her eyes from their prodding stares. “That this was a trap, and you were leading me astray...”

  “We should not have brought her this way,” Sir Gwydion crossed his arms. “Her own mind will destroy her before we even make it halfway through.”

  “Meredith,” Him touched her elbow, and she jerked away, startled by the gesture.

  They were on to her. They knew. Her awareness would be her downfall.

  “Meredith, you must get a hold on your mind,” Him said. “The wood we travel is Ambiance Grove, a forest enchanted by the elders. It turns the dark thoughts of intruders against them and drives them mad.” He searched her face, his large, soulful eyes so innocent. “Even though you are our guest, your mind is not accustomed to the pressure of the enchantment. Your thoughts are working against you.”

  Sir Gwydion explained, “The Luna trees feed on the dark energy and turn it into light.”

  “How horrible!” She gasped.

  “It is not designed to harm you, or those like you, but it is meant to keep our land and our kingdom safe. After the Great War...” Him’s voice trailed off into a murmur of thought she barely heard, her own thoughts jumbling over it until the firm press of his fingers into her skin drew her back to the moment. “Our people were separated, and it became impossible to discern friend from foe. Only with the employment of such magic could our realm remain safe.”