The Goblin Market (Into the Green) (2 page)

“A treat for the sweet?”

“Oh.” She hadn’t realized how close she’d come. Christina actually had to stop herself from reaching out to touch the smooth skin of an apple. “I have never seen this market here before,” she noted. “Where do you come from?”

She took note of how wretched the little man in front of her was to behold, and how his companion vendors, who sold everything from armor and weaponry to sparkling trinkets and wares for the kitchen, were equally hideous. Their small black eyes glinted horrible green in the light from their lanterns, and their wicked gazes roved over her as though she were some tasty morsel meant for them to nibble on.

“From the dark grove beyond, we bring word that our king is searching for his lost queen.”

“The king?” she asked. “We’ve had no word here about the queen,” Christina said. “Has she been kidnapped?”

“Worse still,” said a strange little with voice as thick and sticky as molasses. “She’s up and run off before the wedding.”

Christina peered over her shoulder at him and he grinned; two rows of malice-sharp, yellowed teeth gleamed against the creepy light. “Of what queen do you speak? Surely not Elsbeth?”

The little men exchanged queer expressions and then the fruit vendor said, “We don’t know no Elsbeth.” The vendor reached a filthy hand down into the platter of cherries. He filled his palm and then stretched the hand toward her. “Have a sweetie.” A blackened, pinkish tongue slipped out of his mouth and traced the edge of his cracked lower lip. “No finer fruits will ever be found. Have a cherry. Try a berry. Help yourself.”

“But I haven’t a coin to pay you,” she said.

The market produce glistened magically, as though bathed in magnificent moonbeams. Christina could almost taste it as she imagined the juices bursting in her mouth when she punctured the skin with her teeth. The aroma of strawberries so luscious they were near overripe wafted up to meet her, mingled with the bouquet of freshly cut melons of every kind.

She had never felt so hungry, and suddenly the thought of not tasting just one little blueberry devastated her. She slouched into a pout.

“No coins,” the weird little man snarled. “Go on, then.” He brought a tray decorated by a colorful assortment of fresh cut citrus. “Have yourself a little taste, love.”

“I shouldn’t,” she hesitated out of mere courtesy, but inwardly she battled against herself to resist.

“Why deny?” He taunted. “Go on,” he said. “Just a little tasty for the tasty.”

Christina veiled her excited eyes with heavy lids, but the quickness of her hand when she reached out to pluck a treat from the platter gave her eagerness away.

Behind the shadows, the goblin vendor grinned.

“There’s a good girl,” he said. “Go on then, help yourself. Have an apple.”

The first fruit she’d popped into her mouth was a plump little raspberry that exploded gloriously against her tongue. A dribble of juice spilled onto her lip when she gasped, but she quickly licked it away and reached with greedy hand to pluck a firm red apple from the table. Her teeth snapped through the flesh and the succulent sap leaked down her chin. Christina suckled the sweetness from her lower lip, and wiped a hand across her chin before devouring the apple right down to the core.

Grapes spurted delectable liquid, warm ripe strawberry juice coated her throat, and her head swam with desire to gobble every piece of fruit on that table.

A crusty voice called from behind her, “Lookit her go!”

Another added, “A right greedy little pig, that one.”

A voice more powerful and commanding than all the others observed, “A greedy pig indeed.” It was musical in its incantation of that simple observation, but Christina was so consumed by her desire to devour she hardly acknowledged the regal power behind that voice.

She dug her fingers into a basket of berries, her hasty touch bruising and squeezing while she stuffed as many into her mouth as she could fit. Other hand reaching, she barely gasped when a hard grip seized her by the shoulder. The small escape of breath that left her was not surprise, but fear that she might be denied one more taste of the sweetest, most perfect fruit she had ever sampled.

“Tell me little girl,” the hand spun her around quickly and she stifled a cry of protest. “Do you always take far more than you are offered?”

His shadow alone overpowered her slender frame as peculiar shades of twilight mixed with the otherworldly green light of the lanterns. She looked up into the carefully etched features of his face, which hovered inches from her own. He was handsome in ways Christina had never even dreamed men could be. He was tall and the rippling fabric of his cloak lay over broad shoulders. Unlike Wil, who was strong from hard work, this man was powerfully built, an obvious warrior born from a long line of men bred for battle.

He looked down the length of his slender nose at her, one eye hidden beneath the sleek cut of his ebony hair, while the other reflected the light back at her. The slow wind moved through his hair to reveal the other eye, milk white beneath the slice of a hideous scar.

She shied back with a frightened intake of breath that forced her to swallow the mouthful of berries she’d only just pushed between her teeth.

“I had no coin… and the little man, help yourself, he said…” Her frightened voice tapered off into a whisper. “He said to help myself.”

“No coin, said he?” Amusement colored the man’s tone. “But surely you didn’t think that meant no payment.”

Christina wrenched herself from his grasp and dove toward a display of juicy grapes. She popped one into her mouth and then another, her teeth busting through the skin as the juices exploded against her taste buds. “I’ve never tasted grapes so sweet.”

“Perhaps the color of your eyes,” he said, “or a year’s worth of memories.”

Her jaw tightened as she turned to look back at him over her shoulder. “Who are you?”

“I am Kothar,” pride lifted his sharp chin. “I am king.”

Laughter bubbled from deep inside of her so powerful that even she was surprised by the sound of its peals echoing off the silent hillside. “A king, you say?” She croaked and clutched her sides, which ached with her own unexpected amusement.

Kothar’s gaze narrowed over her, and his mouth tightened with disdain. “Not a king. The king.” A throng of shadows circled around him and stared hungrily at Christina. “Name a fair price for the damages done here tonight,” he urged the small army behind him.

“Three of her curls!” A sluggish voice leapt from the crowd.

“I want her teeth!” another said.

“Let’s take her eye.”

“Now, now,” Kothar held up a hand to stay their demands. “Perhaps the debt can be paid with truth.”

Christina’s mind grew numb and stupid with the slow poison of indulgence. She wavered unsteadily where she stood, the spinning inside her mind making it difficult to remember even the simplest of things. She lurched sideways, her head dizzy and her belly sick. Her throat tightened and constricted with spasms of nausea, but no matter how her desperate body heaved in protest, she could not expel the goblin’s fruit from her body.

The man in front of her stretched and wavered right before her eyes, and she reached toward him to try and steady herself. Christina tumbled forward, the fabric of his cloak slipping through her trembling fingers. When next she turned her head, she was on the ground staring up at him.

“Tsk, tsk,” Kothar tutted.

Thoughts circled through her mind as the market around her spun. Once around, twice and then she saw the distant orange glow from the lantern Meredith had hung out to guide her home.

“Merry,” a limp hand reached toward the light. “Help me.”

Clear, powerful laughter wrapped in a collection of jagged chuckles circled around her.

“Even now the poison of your own greed creeps slowly through your veins.” Kothar knelt over her. A sharp grin sliced across his expression. “It’s only a matter of time before you sleep.”

“I…” Words felt like briars in her mouth. “I want to go home.”

“Of course you do,” there was no sympathy in his tone. “But first we require payment for what you’ve taken.”

The sound of a thousand ragged voices seeking vengeance caroused around her. Terrified she tried to draw her hands up over her face, but even they were numb and heavy as lead on the ground beside her. Her body began to wretch and heave to no avail, and though she tried in desperate horror to gain control of her senses it was no use.

Above her, the king reached into the folds of his cloak and brought forth a locket. Unclasped, the hinge swung open to reveal a faded image painted within. Christina’s eyes could scarcely focus on the picture, but there was no denying the golden rings of hair, thin oval face and perfect smile.

“Merry,” she whispered, reaching for the locket in Kothar’s hand.

Kothar swiped his hand away, the locket clicking closed within. His unscarred eye grew wide with curious excitement as he studied the portrait inside. “You know this girl?”

Christina swallowed against the dryness in her throat and rasped, “Merry.”

“Her name is Merry, you say?”

Her head felt so strange that she couldn’t even feel it move in agreement.

“Where can I find this Merry?”

She tried to say no, but her eyes betrayed her when she looked toward the distant lantern atop the hill. Kothar’s gaze followed, his lower lip trembling as the slow wind whispered through the hair that fell loose upon his cheek.

“Glorngk, bring the girl water,” Kothar commanded before he pushed up off the ground and hovered beside her. His gaze was still fixed on the swaying lantern, fist clenched around the chain that held the locket.

Christina’s eyes felt heavy and thick with tears. Her mind was even thicker; the thoughts trudging through it like heavy boots in quicksand. She was going to die, but it had been worth it. She would do it again too, all for the taste of a single berry, and then a rush of cold, slick water washed across her face. The water was rank and stagnant, but she swallowed greedily, choking as the creature continued to pour.

Clarity flickered through her mind, and though very little made sense, she felt strong enough to pull herself up from the ground.

And then she was standing, and with the last bit of strength she had, she began to stagger away from the market, in the direction of the swaying lantern on the hilltop. Her legs felt like heavy tree trunks growing roots each time one of her feet touched the ground and behind her the hypnotic song of the market began to play once more.

“Should we stop her, Sire?”

“No,” Kothar shook his head. “Follow her to the house on the hill and wait for me there.”

CHAPTER ONE

Meredith told herself when she sat down to read, she wasn’t going to fall asleep in the chair. Even as the hour grew, she resisted the temptation to look at the clock every few minutes and reminded herself that Mrs. Grisham loved to dote on Christina. The woman adored her little sister, and would do everything she could to keep her there for supper, and afterward she would have Wilhelm walk her home, but Meredith worried nonetheless.

Christina had a careless way about her sometimes and was always getting into trouble no matter how carefully everyone else seemed to watch her.

After hanging out the lantern, Meredith settled into the chair beside the fireplace with her favorite book. The book belonged to her mother when she was a girl, and the decades of use and appreciation showed heavily on a cover so worn the gold-embossed title had almost completely rubbed off.

Meredith was rereading her favorite story, a tale of two princes in competition for the love of a goddess disguised as a young peasant girl. The princes were brothers and the enmity between them so strong that not even the blood bond they shared was powerful enough to bring them back together. As the younger brother was thrown from his horse in the midst of his most dangerous task, Meredith leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. She hugged the book to her chest and felt herself easily begin to drift off to sleep.

Dreams set in quickly, and Meredith found herself swaying between bodies on a crowded ballroom floor. She reacted stiffly to the gloved hand that clutched her close, but soon the masked stranger twirled her elegantly through a host of bizarre faces. They spun again and leaned into a dip before he drew her upright and once again they spiraled across the dance floor palm to palm. Fur-faced creatures with sharp, pointed ears and sunken eyes mingled with gawping cat-eyed women who purred with laughter as they swirled around Meredith and her mysterious partner.

Far off in the night she heard the lonely gong of a bell tower striking once, twice, thrice, and for a moment her mind grasped for some meaning in the bell’s toll.

Four, five, six clangs of the bell against the silent night.

Time.

Seven, eight, nine…

Elegant couples swished and swayed this way and that in perfect mimicry of some grand, high gala.

Ten, eleven, twelve…yes, twelve.

Twelve o’clock, but where was Christina?

A silent pause lingered after the echo of the twelfth bell, and she felt there should have been something more, something else to follow, but nothing came. It was as though in that single moment time stopped to catch its breath. Her dance partner surged forward, causing Meredith to stumble over herself. Echoes of cackling laughter rippled through the dream until they were completely silenced by a thunderous thud that brought Meredith out of her dream gasping desperately for air.

Like time, she too had been holding her breath.

The book fell from her lap onto the floor. Meredith blinked drowsily through the remnants of dream still clinging to the slow spur of consciousness fluttering in her mind. Ears burning, heart throbbing, a droplet of sweat rolled down her side from just under her arm into the fabric of her shift. She shuddered, a bodily attempt to ring the last bits of that strange dream from her mind, and then she heard the song. Slow. Melodic. Not quite a waltz. The instrument was a distant human voice.

She sat upright in the chair and scanned the room, her eyes immediately drawn to the wide opened door.