by JL Bryan
Chapter Five
The door opened onto a cobblestone road curving through a dark forest. A number of the trees beside the road had little doors built into them. Jason turned and saw that he'd just emerged from a tree himself. He looked up along the trunk and saw it branched out into little limbs overhead, like a normal tree. Impossible. How could it be connected to the tree in Mrs. Dullahan's yard?
It was nighttime, but the forest was illuminated by swarms of fireflies, which glowed in a bright spectrum of winking colors—shimmering gold, fire-red, sunset orange.
He stepped onto the road, and a wooden cart came clattering around the bend. It was drawn by a pair of shaggy blue goats, and driven by what looked like a small girl with long sapphire blue hair that streamed out behind her like a cape.
“Out of the way, road-troll!” she shouted, and Jason scrambled back off the road. As she rocketed past, he thought he saw a pair of waxy, gossamer wings protruding from her shoulder blades. Little glass bottles full of frothy blue milk gleamed in the cart behind her, packed into place with golden hay.
Jason watched her clatter away around the next bend. She passed a low figure in a ratty woolen coat and hat, who strolled along the side of the road. It looked exactly like the little green man Jason had been chasing, only it was three or four feet tall now. Clearly, the creature believed it had escaped Jason. It was even whistling while it walked.
Jason ran up behind it. The creature heard his footsteps and looked back with a smirk, but then gasped and widened its yellow eyes when it saw Jason. The creature lowered his head and began to run.
“Stop!” Jason yelled. He grabbed the creature's arm, turned it around to face him, and then lifted it up by its shoulders.
“You can't be here!” The creature struggled in his grasp, kicking at Jason's chest and stomach. “You must go back!”
“Where are we?” Jason asked.
“You don't know?” The creature breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. Good. Just go back and forget all that you've seen.”
“No. You stole something from my house.”
“Ah, yes.” The creature reached into one of the many pockets in his coat and brought out the ruby earrings. “There you are. Now take them and leave. Go back through the same door. Your life is in danger as long as you're here.”
“And the necklace,” Jason said.
“Necklace, necklace...I don't believe I took a necklace from your house, young sir.”
“Erin's necklace. Gold and emeralds.”
“Doesn't ring a bell.”
“You know you stole it from Erin a few days ago,” Jason said. He gave the little creature a shake. “Give it back.”
“Yes, yes! Anything's possible. Just put me down so I can check my pockets.”
“Forget it.”
“I won't run!” The creature gave a toothy, yellow smile, as if trying to appear innocent. “I swear it by the Sacred Cesspool of Gorbulorgh.”
“The what?”
“The ancestral homeland of goblins!” The little creature looked at him indignantly.
“You're a goblin?” Jason asked.
“Naturally. What did you think?”
“I don't know...a leprechaun?”
“Leprechauns! I spit on leprechauns! I tie their shoelaces together to make them trip and fall! Leprechauns, indeed!”
“Just give me her necklace.”
“As I said, I cannot search my pockets in my present position. You must put me down.”
“Don't even think about running again.”
“I had truthfully not considered it, young sir.”
Jason carefully set the goblin on his feet, but held tight to the collar of his coat. The goblin reached into various pockets, pulling out rings, jeweled broaches, golden watches. “Necklace...necklace...ah! There you are!”
The goblin held out a silver, heart-shaped locket.
“That's not it,” Jason said. “It's gold, with emeralds, like I said.”
“So picky!” The goblin pulled more shiny objects out of more pockets. “I don't seem to have such a thing. I do apologize, young sir.”
“Where is it?”
“I must have added it to my stash-hole at home. Are you sure you wouldn't prefer a nice diamond bracelet instead?”
“I want that necklace,” Jason said.
“Understood, understood,” the goblin said. “Allow me to make an offer. You return home the way you came, and never speak of what you saw here. Tomorrow night, I will return this necklace to your home.”
“No. I want it now.”
“That's not possible!” the goblin said. “I cannot take you with me into Sidhe City. The Queen would have me killed for leading a human here. And you too, for entering her realm uninvited.”
“I'm not letting you go,” Jason said. “I'm not stupid. I know you'll never come back.”
“I am insulted, young sir.”
“Just take me to where her necklace is. I'll leave as soon as I have Erin's necklace in my hand, okay?”
“It would be better if you waited here,” the goblin said. “Hide behind those trees. I'll be right back.”
“You're not getting away from me,” Jason said.
The goblin sighed and slumped his shoulders. He looked ahead on the road, in the direction where he'd been walking.
“Slouch,” the goblin said.
“What did you call me?”
“I'm telling you to slouch. Make yourself shorter. Snarl up your lips and try not to look so...human. You don't want everyone in the city staring at you.”
“I shouldn't look human? Where are we, really?”
“Your kind call this the Otherworld.”
Jason gave him a blank stare. “What are you talking about?”
“Annwn. Tïr na nǑg. Faerie. Am I jingling anything loose yet?” the goblin asked.
“Fairies? Like little people with wings? That’s crazy...” Jason thought of the small woman with the translucent wings who'd just driven past. “Are you serious?”
“Obviously, you know nothing of fairies,” the goblin snorted. “Or you would show more fear.”
“We're talking about little people with little wings, right? Like in Peter Pan?” He pointed ahead. “You're saying that girl was a fairy?”
“The most fearsome creatures in the realm,” the goblin said. “It's why they get to name the realm, you see?”
“Whatever.” Jason shook his head. He couldn't imagine little pixies with colorful wings as dangerous. The goblin was obviously just trying to scare him. “Let's get going. I need to get back home.”
“More than you know,” the goblin said. He began walking, and Jason stayed close beside him in case he tried to run.
“What's your name?” Jason asked. “Do goblins have names?”
“We have names!” the goblin snapped. “I am called Grizlemor the Cranky. And you?”
“Jason.”
“Just Jason?”
“Jason the Guy Who Wants That Necklace Back.”
The goblin sighed again. “When we reach the city, look no one in the eye. Say nothing. Just keep behind me and try not to draw attention to yourself.”
The road led them to a great mound of a city, where the buildings were made of stone and live trees with sprawling roots and limbs. The city was arranged in terraces rising up the hillside. High above them, the top of the hill was encircled by a towering wall built of golden hexagonal bricks.
“What's that?” Jason asked, pointing to the huge wall.
“Don't point!” Grizlemor slapped Jason's hand down. “It's rude. That is the Queen's palace. We want to stay far from there. Don't even look in that direction.”
“Okay, calm down,” Jason said. “You really are cranky.”
They walked under a high stone archway carved with the images of flowers and animals. As they stepped into the city, the cobblestone road beneath their feet turned into a street of brigh
tly colored crushed pebbles.
Big swarms of fireflies lit up the city in red, golds, oranges, blues and purples. The stone and living-tree buildings all had round, curving shapes—he didn't see a square corner or a straight line anywhere.
Though it was nighttime, the fairy creatures crowded the city streets, and Jason saw long pastel hair and colorful transparent wings everywhere he looked. The fairies were selling flowers, jewels, rugs, shoes, pottery...all of it strangely small, designed for these people who stood no more than three to four feet high. Cheerful music played everywhere, strings and flutes and bells.
While most of the city dwellers appeared to be fairies, Jason also glimpsed other kinds of creatures mixed in here and there—little people with animal horns, or tusks, or long, pointy ears. He felt dizzy at all the strangeness, and he stooped over as far as he could so he didn't stick up above the crowd. He kept close behind Grizlemor.
“This way! Hide!” Grizlemor snapped, grabbing Jason's arm. They ducked behind a cart full of small, polished hand tools made of stone and flint.
“Why are we hiding?” Jason asked. Grizlemor covered his mouth with a calloused hand that smelled like sour spinach, and then the goblin pointed.
A group of three male fairies stalked down the street, and the crowd parted to make room for them. Their faces were youthful, like all the fairies, but their eyes looked hard, dark, and old. They wore segmented black armor, with their wings jutting out the back. Long swords hung in black sheaths at their hips. They ate fruit and flowers from the merchants they passed, but they didn't pay for it. The merchants just looked down at their feet and let them take whatever they wanted.
“The Queensguard,” Grizlemor whispered. “They'll kill us both if they see you.”
“Ho there!” The tool-seller bellowed at Grizlemor. He was short and stocky, with a beard that nearly reached his belt. “What might I sell you today? We have the finest flints from the Valley of Gog, lovely stone hammers from the Caves of Dormundy—”
“Quiet, dwarf!” Grizlemor snapped. The three armored fairies approached them along the street.
“You'll not quiet me, goblin!” the dwarf replied. “Why, I'll speak all day of the fineness of these hand-crafted tools, good for all manner of carpentry, masonry, sculptory, or makery! Only the best stones, only the best—”
“Fine, fine, I'll buy one!” Grizlemor handed the dwarf a golden ring from one of his pockets.
“Ah, the gentleman goblin would like to trade at last!” the dwarf said. He sniffed the ring, licked it, then bit it with his wide teeth. “And what is your pleasure today? I have chisels of the greatest quality—”
“I don't care, just be quiet!” Grizlemor whispered.
“Perhaps your friend would like....” The dwarf's brow furrowed as he stared at Jason. “What manner of Folk are you?”
“He's an ogre,” Grizlemor said.
“An ogre! He's hardly ugly enough for that!”
“Among his people, he is considered the ugliest ogre of all,” Grizlemor said.
The dwarf turned to face the three Queensguard fairies approaching his cart. “And how might I serve you, great fairies of the Guard?”
Grizlemor tightened his grasp on Jason's mouth. If the armored fairies leaned too far over the cart, they would see Jason and Grizlemor hiding there.
“Dwarves require a special license to sell inside the city walls,” one of the Queensguard fairies said. “Do you have your paperwork in order?”
“Oh, yes, sir...” The dwarf reached under the cart and patted his hand across an empty shelf. “I'm certain I have the scroll here somewhere...”
“There is a fine if you don't have your scroll,” the Queensguard fairy said.
“Of course, of course,” the dwarf said. He held out the gold ring that Grizlemor had given him. “Will this suffice for today?”
The fairy took the ring and inspected it. Then he closed it in his fist, and the three black-armored fairies continued along the street.
The dwarf frowned at Grizlemor. “I suppose you'll want to complete your purchase now.”
“Forget about it,” Grizlemor said. He stood and pulled Jason to his feet. “Come along, young...ogre. We have business ahead.” Grizlemor led him along the street.
“Thank you, good sir!” the dwarf yelled after him. “This was my best sale of the day! I would appreciate your repeat business, gentle goblin!”
“Why won't he be quiet?” Grizlemor muttered under his breath.
The goblin took them to a quieter area of the city, where mossy stone walls lined the street. Little round wooden doors were built into the wall, only a few inches apart from each other.
Ahead of them, Jason could hear enchanting music, like nothing he'd ever heard before. It soothed him and energized him at the same time. He wanted to dance his way down the street.
“Here we are.” Grizlemor approached one of the round wooden doors. “My very humble home. I shall check my stash-hole...where are you going?”
Jason had passed right by, barely hearing the goblin. The music drew him forward, as if it had taken control of his feet.
Grizlemor hurried to catch up. “We've just passed my house.”
“What is that music?” Jason asked. He followed the curved street around until he saw the source of it.
Ahead of him, there was a small park full of wildflowers at the intersection of two curving streets. People danced at the middle of the park—and they didn't look like fairies, but normal people, between the ages of ten and twenty, boys and girls, all different races, all dressed in very different clothes. They danced within a ring of large, spotted mushrooms.
Four musicians sat outside the ring of mushrooms on a woven-grass blanket. A hairy orange creature, bigger than a normal man, pounded a hand drum. Tusks jutting up from his lower jaw kept his face in a permanent snarl. A pink-haired female fairy played a small silver harp inscribed with floral-shaped runes. A young man with goat horns and hooves blew into an instrument made of a row of hollow reeds, arranged from shortest to longest and lashed together.
The leader of the band seemed to be the fairy with dark, violet-streaked hair and a matching violet heart tattoo on her arm. She played a six-stringed instrument with a neck that bent sharply back toward her. Jason recognized this as a lute, a kind of medieval guitar. She sang as she played, in a language Jason didn't recognize, and her voice was beautiful. She walked among the other musicians, nodding in approval as they played.
“We've missed our stop, young sir,” Grizlemor said.
“What's happening here?” Jason said. “That music...”
“Makes you want to join in the dance, doesn't it?” Grizlemor smiled with his blunt yellow teeth.
“Those people dancing aren't fairies, are they?”
“They are human children. Like you.”
“I thought you said humans weren't allowed here.”
“They've only come to dance. They stumble in, here and there, all over the world. Through fairy rings—” Grizlemor pointed to the ring of mushrooms “—and other little doors to Faerie. They dance until exhausted, then return home in the morning.”
“Why?”
“Because they cannot help it. The music draws out their energy, and their energy recharges our magical atmosphere.”
“Are the instruments magic?” Jason asked.
“All things in the realm run on magic,” Grizlemor said. “Now, if we could go back and conclude our business, young sir...”
Jason continued to watch, hypnotized by the fairy music. His body swayed, and his feet moved, wanting to dance.
“I want to stay and listen,” Jason said.
“You should come with me.”
“Just a minute longer,” Jason said.
The goblin sighed again. “Stay right here if you must. But do nothing to call attention to yourself. I will return with your necklace, and then you must return home.”
“Sure,
sure...” Jason said, barely able to pay attention to the goblin. The music was amazing, opening his heart, making him feel every emotion at once. He hardly noticed when the goblin shuffled away.
Then the dancers began to fall, exhausted. When they hit the ground, they disappeared. The kids faded from view until the circle of mushrooms was empty, and the musicians stopped playing.
Jason blinked several times as he remembered himself. For a minute, he'd been unable to think of anything but the music. He'd never heard anything like it, music that made him feel excited and blissful while it played, and then sad and lonely when it stopped. The instruments really must have been magic.
The lute-playing fairy lifted the strap from her shoulders and laid the lute down on the grass blanket. She stretched and said something to the band. The four of them walked across the street and into an open-air cafe, where they bought drinks served in large, cup-shaped yellow lilies. The two fairies and the little goat-man sat at a stained-glass table, in chairs made of delicate little strands of wood. The huge, hairy drum player had to squat beside them because his giant orange butt would have obviously crushed the fairy chairs.
Jason glanced behind him. Grizlemor was nowhere in sight, and he wouldn't be surprised if the goblin wasn't planning to return. There were countless little round doors packed in tight rows along the wall—Jason would never be able to figure out the one to Grizlemor's house.
On the other hand...he wondered what his band could accomplish if they had those magic fairy instruments to play. He imagined crowds of people entranced by the music, unable to stop dancing until they fell over from exhaustion. With the magic instruments, they'd be able to get gigs all over Minneapolis, maybe even play somewhere in Chicago. And that would make Erin extremely happy, probably more than any stupid necklace.
Jason strolled up the street to the little park, keeping his head low. He checked across the street, down the alley. Nobody in the band was looking this way. They looked pretty exhausted from their set.
Jason picked up the lute. It was carved from heavy, dark wood with runes carved all over the surface. The tuning pegs glittered like gold. Violet amethysts were embedded here and there in the soundboard, and instead of an open sound hole, it had three floral shapes carved under the strings. The lute felt warm and inviting in his hands, heating his fingers like sunlight.
He looked over at the cafe again. So far, nobody had noticed him. Even with all the fireflies, there was still some darkness in the city night.
Jason could barely fit the little lute's leather strap over his shoulder and neck. The instrument pressed tight against his back.
He picked up the drum, which was covered with more of the strange fairy runes, and also had a strap for carrying and wearing. The interior was hollow, so he placed the reed pipes and the little silver harp inside it. Then he slung the drum's strap over the opposite shoulder from the lute.
Jason glanced sideways toward the fairy cafe as he started back down the street. The fairies were chatting rapidly now, as if energized by their drinks.
He walked away feeling extremely nervous, but he resisted the urge to run until he was out of sight of the cafe. Then he took off down the street, going back the way he'd come, through the crowded market.
The theft wasn't such a bad thing, Jason reasoned, because obviously the fairies were using the instruments to take advantage of people. Luring kids down here, draining them of their energy, sending them back exhausted...that didn't seem like a very nice thing to do. What had the goblin said? The fairies stole young people's energy to help power their magic.
He followed the curving roads out to the stone arch, then really put on speed when he hit the cobblestone road through the dark forest. He ran past tree after tree with the little doors built into them, until he saw an arched green door in an old elm. It looked like the door through which he'd entered the world of Faerie.
Jason ducked and entered the door, and closed it tight behind him. He ran up the spiraling root-and-dirt staircase. The stairwell grew narrower, darker and more cramped as he climbed back to his own world.
