by S. Jae-Jones
But I was too tired to fight. Moreover, I did not want to fight. I wanted to surrender, because surrender was the greater part of courage.
“I offer myself to you.” I swallowed hard. “Free and of my own will.”
“For yourself?”
“Yes,” I said. “For myself.”
The longest pause of all. “All right.” His words were scarcely audible in the large cavern. “I accept your sacrifice.” By my feet, Käthe began to murmur and moan. “I shall bring your sister to the world above and then”—his breath caught—“will you consent to be my queen?”
I turned my face away.
“Elisabeth.” The way the Goblin King said my name made my heart flutter. “Will you marry me?”
This time, it was a long time before I replied.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I will.”
Part III
THE GOBLIN QUEEN
My life is like a broken bowl,
A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul
Or cordial in the searching cold;
Cast in the fire the perish’d thing;
Melt and remould it, till it be
A royal cup for Him, my King.
—CHRISTINA ROSSETTI, A Better Resurrection
CONSECRATION
The Goblin King took Käthe away without another word. She was in my arms one moment and gone the next, gone before I could say goodbye, before I could tell her I loved her.
I do not know how long I sat there in the oubliette. My mind was blank, devoid of any sorrow or thoughts or music. I should have felt grief. I should have felt fear. But instead I felt nothing but immense weariness, an exhaustion so profound it was like death. Hours, or days, or minutes passed before I felt the light touch of a hand on my head.
“Elisabeth.”
A young man looked down at me, his mismatched eyes soft, the tilt of his mouth tender. It was the tenderness that undid me, undid the strings I’d bound about my heart. Longing, fear, grief, resentment, and desire came tumbling out. I began to cry.
The young man reached out to wipe my tears away, and in his touch there was nothing but kindness. I wanted to take his compassion and wrap it about me for comfort.
An apology hung in the space between us, though he did not speak.
I’m sorry, Elisabeth.
But why would he sorrow for me? My grief belonged to me and me alone, and I could not, did not want to share it with anyone. I did not mourn my life, for it had not been a life worth living. But I mourned the lives I would not have: my sister’s, my brother’s, my family’s. I would never see Josef find acclaim as a musician. I would never travel with Käthe to see the great cities of the world. I would never again hear my name upon their lips.
The Goblin King gathered me in his arms, and I let him carry me back to my barrow room. His way through the Underground was short and straight, but he could bend time and distance to his will, after all. He set me down before my door, still locked with that absurd contraption. Then, with a courteous bow, the Goblin King disappeared.
It was a pleasure to open that door and turn the lock, hearing the solid thunk and clang as the mechanism slid into place. I had done this so many times to my own heart; it was a pleasure to do it to the world.
I was empty. A vessel filled with nothing. Whatever spirit filled me had fled years ago, leaving me with ghost and body alone.
I lit a candle.
I had heard acolytes at the nunnery held a candlelight vigil the night before they consecrated themselves to Christ, much as young brides did the night before their wedding, before they consecrated themselves to their husbands. But how far was I from His grace, deep beneath the earth? While I had dutifully attended Mass with the rest of my family on Sundays, I had never felt the presence of God or His angels. It was only when I heard Josef play that I believed in Heaven.
I would endure this vigil alone, with no prayers in my heart. For what could I possibly pray? A fruitful marriage with lots of children? Could I even bear any, a monstrous thing half-human, half-goblin? Or could I pray for something altogether more selfish, like the life I had never had, a life lived to the fullest?
So I prayed for nothing. I knelt with my hands clasped before the candle, and watched as the flame burned low into the night.
* * *
I say goodbye to the world above.
Farewell, Mother, careworn and abiding,
Farewell, Papa, faded brightness hiding.
Farewell, Constanze, I took your tales to heart,
Farewell, Hans, and your fumbles in the dark.
Farewell, Käthe, I’m sorry I did you wrong.
Farewell, Josef, may you play ever-long.
Farewell, all, to you I give my love.
THE WEDDING
There was a bright light in my bedroom when I awoke. I did not remember falling asleep, but at some point during my vigil, I had stirred from my place before the candle and sat by the hearth in my room. I watched the flames flicker and dance before my eyes and composed a hymn—my first—humming and working at the melody until I had gotten it right. I had had no paper on which to write down my thoughts, but it did not matter. That hymn was sacred to that night and that night alone—no one would ever sing it, for God or for me.
The light shone down from the fireplace, slanting in like the morning sun. I squinted. The painting of the Goblin Grove above the mantle—which to my last recollection had depicted a dark landscape—now showed the woods in all their daylight glory. It appeared as though snow had fallen, and the sun shone crisp and bright on its blank whiteness.
I frowned. The light was shining through the painting into my barrow, like a window to the outside world. I got to my feet, bones aching, fingers poised to touch this miraculous thing.
“Tut, tut, what did we say about touching?”
Twig and Thistle were in my room.
“What did I say about knocking?” I returned.
“You didn’t,” Thistle said cheerfully. “You wished for a door and a lock. You didn’t wish us to use it.”
“A problem that shall be rectified immediately.”
“Your wish is our command, Your Highness.” Twig bent her impossibly long and slender body into a bow. The tops of her tree-branch hair scraped the barrow floor.
“My wish is your command regardless,” I said mildly.
Thistle made a face. “Hmph,” she said. “She’s not Her Highness yet.” Her black, beady eyes took me in, from the top of my disheveled head, down my tearstained cheeks, to the tips of my unshod feet. It was hard to discern any recognizable emotion in such a strange and alien face, but I thought I detected a hint of contempt.
“She will be soon enough,” Twig replied. Her words sent a bolt of—of some strong emotion through me. It was not quite fear, but it was not exactly pleasure either.
“Are we—are we to be married soon? The Goblin King and I?”
“Yes. You are to meet His Majesty in”—Twig and Thistle exchanged glances—“the chapel.”
“The chapel?”
“That’s what he calls it,” Thistle said indifferently. “He holds on to his quaint human rituals, but it’s not as though it really matters. What matters,” she continued slyly, “is the consummation.”
I blushed. Of course; in the world above, consummation also sealed a marriage. Then I frowned. Quaint human rituals. I thought of the austere young man in the portrait gallery with the cross and violin in his hands.
“How … how did he—His Majesty come to be Der Erlkönig?” I asked. But it was not the question I held in my heart.
How had that austere young man become my Goblin King?
But neither Thistle nor Twig answered my questions, voiced and unvoiced. Instead, Thistle produced a fine silk dress out of thin air and ordered me to put it on.
“What for?”
“All the other queens came prepared in their finest gowns,” she sneered. “Unless you want to go to your funeral
dressed in filthy rags.”
“My funeral? I thought it was my wedding.”
Thistle shrugged. “There is no difference here.”
I took the dress from Thistle’s hands. It was made of a white silk so fine it was nearly sheer, the cut simple, made to drape rather than fit. A shroud. Thistle also brought out a long veil, even more transparent than the dress and spangled with tiny diamonds, and affixed it to my hair.
Meanwhile, Twig produced a wreath fashioned of branches and alder catkins. I thought of the wedding wreaths I had seen for sale in the village markets, and remembered with a pang the dried wreath and ribbons I had thought to buy for Käthe that fateful day she stumbled upon the goblin merchants. There would be no flowers or ribbons for me, only a coronet made of dead twigs. There would be no sister or mother to act as my attendants, only a pair of goblin girls, one of whom hated me and the other who pitied me. And there would be no blessing made holy by God, only a promise made in the dark.
Once I was suitably attired, Twig and Thistle led me out into the corridor. Thistle marched on ahead, Twig picked up my veil and train, and the three of us wound our way through the labyrinthine passages, deeper and deeper into the heart of the Underground, where my immortal bridegroom awaited me to bring him to life.
* * *
Deep below the labyrinth was a lake.
After descending what seemed like an endless spiral of stairs, we came upon its desolate shores. Its black expanse appeared suddenly from nowhere, its dark waters lit by candelabras fashioned like arms holding torches. Dripping stone teeth glittered as they bit into the lake, and beautiful pools of blue-green light rippled from where rock met water. Fairy lights danced in the grotto, and a barge floated at the bottom of the stairs as though waiting for me to enter.
“Where does this lead?” I asked. My voice echoed in this watery underground cavern, scattered like light in a prism.
“The lake itself feeds into small rivers and streams down here,” Twig explained. “And then on to springs and wells in the world above.”
“But that is not your destination.” Thistle pointed to the barge. “This will lead you straight to where the Goblin King awaits you on the other side.”
“Am I to cross alone?” My words trembled.
“For now, yes,” Thistle said.
“Who will guide me?”
“There is only one place to go,” Twig said gently. “Straight across. The Lorelei will take you there.”
“The Lorelei?”
“Listen not to their songs,” she warned. “They lure mortals to a watery grave with the sweetness of their music. Not even we are completely immune.”
“Are they not of your kind, then?”
Twig shook her head, the cobwebs of her hair quivering. “The Lorelei have been here long before goblins found the hills and mountains of this land. Once they were as populous as the leaves in the trees, but more and more of them were driven underground by the spread of you humans.”
“It’s been a very long time since they’ve had a mortal in their midst,” Thistle said with a toothy grin. “I don’t much like your chances.”
“Shush,” Twig admonished. “The Goblin King needs her. We need her.”
“Hmph,” was all Thistle said. She looked expectantly at the barge at my feet.
I hesitated.
“Scared?” she sneered.
I shook my head. It wasn’t the nixies under the black water of the lake that frightened me; it was the dark figure who waited for me on the other side. This long journey, the last of my maidenhood, I was to take alone with no one beside me. The loneliness of it all pierced my heart.
Twig and Thistle helped me into the barge and gently pushed me from the mooring. A bright trail of blue-green light stirred in my wake, the ripples of movement waking the glowing luminescence into life. The multicolored light played against the sheer white of my gown and veil, and the glittering beauty of this underground grotto stole my breath away.
As soon as the barge embarked from its mooring, a high, thin, sweet singing sound rose into the air around me. The sound of fingers running over the rim of a crystal glass, but clearer, more bell-like. There were no words to this enchanting music, no structure, but the web of sound ensnared me in its haunting spell.
Despite the warnings, I leaned over the edge of my boat for a closer look. Dark shapes stirred beneath the trail of light, and against my better judgment, I reached out to touch it. Where my fingers dipped into the water, more glittering ripples grew, the glowing droplets clinging to my skin when I lifted my hand from the surface. Something soft caressed my palm as I let my hand drift farther and farther into the water, gentle fingers wrapping themselves around my wrist.
The shapes beneath the surface grew clearer, and I saw a young woman peering back at me. Her eyes were an inky black, her hair a pale spring green. Her skin was a marvel: pale and shimmering with a myriad rainbow shades like the scales of a fish. But it was her face that arrested me: wide cheekbones, a flat nose bridge, and pouting lips. She was the loveliest creature I had ever seen.
She emerged from the water, a creature of light and shadows. Her hand lifted to caress my cheek and the singing intensified with her touch. Her glistening lips moved in the changing lights of the grotto, and I leaned even closer to drink in the whispering sounds of her mouth. I wanted to feel that impossible singing in my body. I closed my eyes, and breathed her in.
A discordant screech cut through the music.
Startled, I tumbled back into my barge, sending the boat rocking. The Lorelei hissed in annoyance and dove back underwater. I lifted my fingers to my mouth, still feeling the cool touch of her lips against mine. The nixies thrashed beneath the boat, threatening to capsize me. The discordant screech sounded again and the waters stilled.
The barge had stopped moving now that the Lorelei had abandoned me, and I was alone in the middle of a black lake. The grotto still rang with the echoes of that harsh screech, shattering the crystalline singing that had filled it moments earlier. I sat in my barge, trembling with fear and something more—a shivery sort of anticipation brought on by the near-kiss and near-drowning by the beautiful young woman.
As the disturbances in the flat, glassy surface faded away, so too did the glowing light. Darkness fell over me, broken only by the twinkling of fairy lights and the strange, carved-arm torches at the edges. I did not know how to move forward; I was too wary now to risk putting my hands back in the water, and my barge had no pole or oar with which to propel myself. I wondered what inhuman creature had cried out to drive my seducers away, whether it would come swooping to claim me, now that its rivals had gone.
And then, in the distance and impossibly far away, was the warm, grainy voice of a violin. Suddenly I recognized that discordant screech; it was the sound of a violinist running his bow indiscriminately over his strings, wielding their harsh squeal like a scythe. My treacherous heart lifted—Sepperl, come to rescue me!—but my mind knew better. It was not my little brother. It was the Goblin King.
As the violin continued to play, the barge began to move of its own accord, as though it too were drawn to the music. I held my breath as the Goblin King played a processional, a stately entrance for his mortal bride as the boat bore her smoothly over the dark, glassy water.
It was a long journey to the far shore, and as I drew closer, the music changed. It transitioned from stately processional to something simpler: a repeating melodic motif, a jaunty little tune, something like the warm-up exercises Papa had me and Josef play when we were younger. I frowned. I recognized this little piece. The little notes galloped and skipped about me like children around a maypole, tugging at my memory.
It was mine. The piece was mine.
I had composed a number of little écossaises when I was a young girl, after some traveling French musicians had played at the inn. It was a dance in the Scottish style, they told me, and I had been charmed by its liveliness. The compositions were simple enough and I had written
them for the klavier, but hearing them played on the violin brought me images of Josef practicing in the back bedroom. He could not have been much older than six, and me ten.
I had all but forgotten the existence of this little piece, which was probably my best effort in the series. It was gone now, gone with the rest of my compositions in a blaze. And yet, it still lived in the Goblin King’s hands.
The écossaise faded into a Lieder, one I had written in a romantic fit when I was a girl of fourteen. The heat of shame and embarrassment singed me, and I cringed to remember the moody, melancholy maiden I had been, mooning over Hans like the lovestruck child I was.
The Goblin King continued playing my repertoire as the boat reached the far shore. He played from my childhood, through my foolish girlhood, and on to my burgeoning womanhood. Listening to him play was hearing my mind made tangible. He knew exactly when and how to push and give, to give shape to my musical musings as I had imagined them. He played my music like a sculptor, fashioning and molding and building it until it produced a perfect image of myself. Josef played like an angel, but whatever I had composed for my brother was written around him: his strengths and flaws. The Goblin King interpreted me, and showed me a vision of Liesl I had heretofore not known. He played me.
It hurt. Hearing my music like this, played in the hands of someone who understood me so completely—in a way not even my brother had known—hurt. My music was elegant, transcendent, ethereal, and I could not bear to behold its beauty. I longed to pull it back beneath my skin, to hide it away in the shadows where it properly belonged, safe where no one could judge it for its flaws.
The last notes of my music faded over the lake as the barge soundlessly glided to a halt on the opposite mooring. Ahead stood the Goblin King, haloed by the flickering torches behind him. From this distance he seemed forbidding, his tall height accentuated by the long black cloak draped over him and the crown of antlers at his brow. I could not see his face, but the violin and bow hung loose at his sides.
For a moment, we stood and stared at each other in silence. The beat of my excitable heart thumped louder at the sight of him. The awkward and self-conscious way he held his instrument made my blood pulse harder. Was this my soft-eyed young man? But the Goblin King put his violin and bow away, and he was as mysterious and implacable as a statue once more.
