Greta and the Goblin King

by Chloe Jacobs

  Then again, staying in the forest gave her an element of control. She knew these woods, and she’d still feel close to Luke.

  Neither option would keep her safe more than a couple of days, not with the eclipse dogging everyone’s heels.

  She unbuckled the scabbard from around her waist. Leaning against a tree trunk, she let her legs collapse and followed the thick bark all the way down to the cold ground. She tried not to think about anything as she clutched her weapon in her lap and closed her eyes. Not Siona or Maidra. Not Luke or Isaac. Not Agramon, or what she would do to him when she finally tracked him down.

  …

  The high-pitched screech of her sneakers on the smooth yellow linoleum echoed in the empty hallway. The place was completely empty, which made sense because nobody wanted to stay late on the last day of school. But then, why was she still here?

  Better get out to the parking lot. Mom said she’d be waiting to pick her up as soon as the bell rang so they could finish packing and get to the airport. She and dad had been acting like three weeks in Germany, visiting a nasty old man she’d only ever met once before, was the type of summer vacation every thirteen-year-old girl should be excited for. If Grandpa wanted to see them, why couldn’t he come here instead?

  The strap of her backpack was slipping. She squeezed it and hitched it up on her shoulder. The thing suddenly weighed a ton, as if the books were multiplying just by thinking about them.

  And they didn’t feel like books. Bowling balls maybe.

  Or heads. Two of them. Maybe a pair of ogre heads in fact.

  She stopped in her tracks. Damn it. No, not here.

  She flung the pack off her shoulder, eyeing it at arm’s length for the dark blood she was sure would be seeping through the thin canvas bottom, but there was nothing. It was just a pink and white checkered backpack. Perfect for a teenage girl who had once loved pretty colors, pretty clothes, and pretty bags…

  This wasn’t the last day of school, and she wasn’t thirteen years old anymore.

  None of this is real.

  She dropped her arm and let the bag drag on the floor, looking down at herself. Jeans, t-shirt, sneakers. Yep, typical middle school uniform, but with one major difference: the girl filling those clothes was about four years north of thirteen, and it showed.

  Spinning in a circle, she took in the scene with new awareness.

  Definitely Lincoln Heights Middle School. The lockers were a boring shade of army green, and the long fluorescent lights in the ceiling flickered randomly. She remembered that the janitor had forever been up on his ladder changing those long thin light bulbs, but the flickering always came back.

  She glanced to the right, through the small square window in the door of her old science classroom.

  There he was.

  Isaac was too wide and too tall for middle school. He looked out of place dressed in his heavy winter cloak, perched on a stool at one of the lab benches with his long legs crammed beneath it. He hunched over and squinted into the eyepiece of a microscope.

  Barreling forward with gritted teeth, she shoved the door open with her fist, still clutching the ridiculous backpack. She drew back and threw it at him. He looked up just in time to dodge the oversized missile, and actually smiled at her.

  “How dare you,” she hissed, even as his smile disarmed her. It wasn’t calculating or filled with irony, but honest and open like it had been that first night, and the sight of it tugged at her heart.

  It’s a dream. Only a dream. Not real.

  “How dare you show your face in my dreams again after—”

  “I was not the one who told Leander about your true origins. Do you really believe that I would do that?”

  Yes. No. Maybe? His denial took the wind out of her sails, and she sagged. “You’re the only one who knew.”

  “Not the only one. Leander has long been an ally of Agramon. He is the one you should be afraid of.”

  “And you were aware of this?”

  He paused. “Yes.”

  More lies! “What else haven’t you told me?”

  He deliberately ignored her and pointed to the microscope. “This machine is for looking at things very closely, isn’t it? What kinds of things, do you think?” Then he pointed at something over her shoulder. “And what is that contraption over there?”

  She glanced at the telephone hanging on the wall by the doorway. It was supposed to be for reaching the main office in an emergency, but she remembered her social studies teacher using it to call his wife at home so he could ask what they were having for supper.

  Isaac got up and moved to one of the large windows overlooking the schoolyard and the road. “And that? It has wheels. How does it move?”

  She winced at the sight of the crisp green lawn outside the window and the way the sunshine glinted off the shiny steel roof of the city bus parked across the street. It was the bus she used to take home from school every day.

  There was a billboard for acne cream sticking up over the buildings across the street, and the flowers in the garden along the boulevard were a mixture of pansies and daisies. Greta never would have believed all this detail had been locked away in her brain. Isaac’s ability was definitely torture, but given the right circumstances, maybe it could also be a gift.

  “If you’re manufacturing my dreams, how did you know—?”

  “I don’t create the dream, I only unlock the right doors in your mind to let you release the things I need to see.”

  “And what makes you think you need to see my old school?”

  “I’m interested in the place you call home. This is where you would prefer to be, is it not?” He pointed out the window at a car in the parking lot. “Is that a carriage? In your world, would it move without horses? Are there any horses in your world at all?”

  “Yes,” she answered, taken aback by his excitement. “We have horses, but they’re not like the ones in Mylena.”

  “When we were younger, Siona and I were both fascinated by the idea that heat and steam might one day be harnessed as a source of power. Once, she and I even designed a carriage that would use such power to turn its wheels without the need for a horse to pull it. We’d both been snapped at one too many times by the ill-natured beasts, you see,” he continued with a chuckle. Something wistful passed across his face. “I suppose I will have to leave the invention of such things to others now.”

  It was his own fault. If he hadn’t fought to be the goblin king, maybe he’d still be able to do stuff like that. Even so, she found herself feeling sorry for him, and shoved her hands in her pockets. Time for a change of subject. “Siona is alive? She’s okay?”

  He paused. “It was close. She was hurt very badly.”

  Greta pressed her fingers to her lips, her stomach plummeting.

  “But she heals quickly,” he reassured her. “She will be fine, and she took great delight in torturing me with all the trouble you caused at Maidra’s.”

  She let out a long breath, but the tight, cramped feeling in her belly wouldn’t go away. How many more people were going to suffer because of her? “I’m glad your cousin torments you. Someone should.” She ducked her head and watched the toe of her sneaker digging at the floor. “I felt bad about leaving her.”

  “She lives, but so does Lazarus. Siona tried to track him down before her injuries became too much, but the faerie is still hard on your trail—and he’s not the only one. Tell me where you are, Greta, so I can protect you.”

  She laughed. “Yeah, like that’s going to happen.”

  “I think she likes you.”

  “Who? Siona? No way. She—”

  “Not everyone in Mylena must be your enemy,” he interrupted. “Not everyone wants you dead. Despite her grumbling, Siona has expressed a desire to be your friend.”

  A friend in Mylena? As unlikely as it seemed, Greta thought she would like to have the strong female goblin as a friend. “And what does that make us?”

  “A king doesn’t have
friends.” His tone had turned flat.

  “Why did you kill your father and your uncle? That night when we met, you talked about so many things, but being king wasn’t one of them.”

  He stiffened sharply, hands curling tight over the window ledge. “Do you care, or are you simply curious?”

  Her mouth fell open. She hesitated, but he’d been there for her when Luke died. He deserved the truth, even if they still had things to work out before she could think about trusting him. “I probably shouldn’t because I’m sure it will only come back to haunt me, but yes, I care.”

  He let out a long breath and nodded. “I didn’t kill my father.”

  “But you did kill your uncle?” She raised an eyebrow. “Why? What happened?”

  “You happened. The night we met, I entered your dreams and discovered your secret.”

  Surprised he’d actually told her the truth, she glared at him. “Just how many times did you spy on me without my knowledge?”

  “It didn’t take more than once to suspect the truth, and not more than twice to be absolutely certain. Although, there were more times…they were just for fun.” He grinned as she blushed, as if he knew she was remembering the way she’d flirted with him. “Your dreams are like none I’ve ever visited.”

  “Should I feel flattered?”

  “Perhaps. They are certainly unique. You don’t always dream about this world,” he lifted an arm to encompass the classroom, “but your identity is in every move you make. Now that I know who you are, I don’t know how anyone could miss it.”

  She pushed a hand through her loose hair. “Because I obviously can’t seem to remember to do up my braids in my dreams?”

  “It’s more than that.” He raised his hand to her face. She thought he would push her hair behind her ears again to check, but he only drew a smooth line high on her cheek with his thumb.

  “The truth is right here,” he murmured. Before she could react, he leaned forward and pressed a kiss to each of her eyelids.

  She gasped, but he wasn’t finished. His hand moved lower and flattened on her chest, right over her heart. “And here,” he murmured.

  Clearing her throat, she straightened her quivering legs, and tamped down on the ache in her chest, but she couldn’t stop her racing heart. She pulled away slowly. “So, um, what does that have to do with you becoming the king?”

  Isaac cleared his throat and stepped back. “After talking with you, and watching you in your dreams, I was…confused. I told my father about you. My uncle overheard and threatened to give you up to Agramon. I defended you, so my father defended me…and he was killed.”

  There was no more sign of the smiling, keen goblin. He opened his hands and turned them over before clenching them into fists. “I had to challenge my uncle to avenge my father’s death, but also to protect you. If he had lived long enough to become the new goblin king, you would be dead by now.”

  She struggled to speak, but what could she say in response to that when she’d done nothing but doubt him and call him a manipulative jerk?

  Stunned, she blinked and shook her head. “But why? Why would you do something like that for me?”

  She drew in a sharp breath as his fingers caressed her cheek, his thumb grazing her bottom lip. He leaned in and her heart pounded hard against the wall of her chest. “Isn’t it obvious?”

  Her eyes fluttered shut as his mouth covered hers in a gentle whisper of touch. Warm and softer than she would have imagined. She didn’t even have time to adjust to the feel of it before it was over, and her whole body swayed forward as he straightened away from her.

  Her protest came out as a jittery croak as she tried to get back on track, but he wouldn’t let her back away completely. Brows furrowed, he took her hand.

  “What does this Agramon guy want from me, to make both Leander and your uncle willing to turn me over?” she asked, captivated by his touch. “If he’s locked away and his evil can’t touch anyone anymore, how is he getting everyone to do his bidding?”

  He dropped his gaze and watched their entwined fingers. She thought he’d brush off her questions, but he only shook his head. “Your people are the reason my world is in chaos, and you are also the only cure for it.”

  She’d heard that before and still didn’t understand it, but a stab of sympathy went through her as his shoulders slumped. He was being pulled in too many directions. He may not have wanted to be king, but once he took on that responsibility he didn’t seem like the kind of person who could disregard the demands of his people—and all of them seemed to want her blood.

  He would have to make a choice sooner or later—his people or Greta—and she wasn’t naïve enough to believe he would choose her, even if she was the reason he’d become king. She tugged her hand back and stuffed both deep in the pockets of her dream-conjured jeans.

  His gaze followed her, slowly traveling up her torso and chest until they were staring into each other’s eyes. She swallowed past the dryness in her mouth as the air sizzled between them. She thought he would take her hand again, pull her closer, taste her—hopefully more deeply than last time. She wanted him to so badly, it was an ache low in her belly.

  He didn’t do any of that. His gaze fell and he took a deep breath, as if he needed to regain his equilibrium as much as she did. After a long moment, he said, “There was a time when Mylena and all its creatures lived together harmoniously. The land was fruitful and green. We shared a bond with the Great Mother, and in return she provided us with everything we could ever want or need.”

  “Sounds like my world’s creation story and probably a hundred thousand other ones. This is where you tell me the part about the deadly apple and the naughty snake, isn’t it?”

  Isaac frowned. “It was a paradise, until a demon defiled our world with his evil.”

  “Just like I said…naughty snake.”

  “This snake was called Agramon. He destroyed everything within his reach until the Great Mother was forced to retaliate in the only way she could; with ice and snow. And still, the demon wreaked havoc for centuries. He was eventually driven deep into the mountains and imprisoned with magick, but the land was already tainted, and the Great Mother’s daughters—the two moons—punished the Mylean people for failing to protect her.”

  Luke had told her a long time ago that the people of Mylena hadn’t always been slaves to its moons, and that the curse of the eclipse was a punishment. “Why should I believe this is anything but mythology?”

  “There is truth in every mythology. Agramon was originally from your world. He came through the portals between our worlds.”

  She stifled a shiver. “All of this was eons ago. Even if humans were originally responsible for letting this phantom menace of yours loose, I didn’t—”

  “No phantom,” he said. “Flesh and blood, and very powerful. It is said that only when humans are held accountable for their betrayal will the demon leave our world, and Mylena’s bond with the Great Mother can be restored.”

  “What?” He had to stop talking in fairy-tale speak.

  “It’s you,” he said. “You’re the one that releases Agramon. The demon’s followers are scouring my land as we speak, putting my people in danger, all because he wants you. And I can’t afford to waste time chasing you across three counties.” He sounded impatient. “You will tell me where you are so that you can be protected.”

  He still hadn’t said how or why or what the demon needed her for. And apparently, he wasn’t going to. “Nobody asked you to protect me, Isaac. I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time.”

  Her stomach clenched painfully at the look in his face, but she shook it off. Even though her heart ached and her lips still tingled from her first-ever kiss, nothing she’d just learned changed anything between them. She would never be accepted in his world, and he couldn’t serve his people if he had to waste all his energy protecting her.

  The last spark of hope she hadn’t even realized she’d been harboring died, leaving h
er feeling bereft and hollow.

  “Greta.”

  “Forget it, Isaac.” Crossing her arms in front of her, she forced a cool laugh. “Just leave me alone. You go your way, I’ll go mine.”

  He flinched as if she’d hauled back and slapped him. His mouth opened and closed. “You haven’t listened to anything I’ve said.”

  She couldn’t make eye contact. “And why should I? You haven’t said anything I need to hear yet.”

  “I can’t afford to waste time arguing with you. Just—”

  “Then by all means…” She extended her arm and raised her brows. “I believe you know the way out.”

  She came awake with a start, jerking forward and taking deep breaths. The cold had seeped through her clothes and put an uncomfortable ache in her bones, although from the position of the suns in the sky she couldn’t have been out very long.

  “Goodbye,” she whispered with a sigh. She didn’t want it to be this way—especially after all she’d learned—but it was for the best.

  Blinking, she stretched her neck from side to side and reached for her sword.

  It was gone.

  Chapter Nine

  She jumped to her feet and reeled around. There were fresh tracks in the snow, but they’d been laid over top of hers, following right up behind the tree she’d been sitting against and then around. Whoever it was had turned to face her then. Good God, had she really slept so deeply she hadn’t even been aware of the threat?

  “Looking for something?”

  She spun towards the source of an unfamiliar male voice. A figure stepped from the relative protection of a tall, needly shrub. A large hood obscured his face, making it difficult to determine the extent of the trouble she was in. He was too wide for a faerie and too tall for a sprite, but short for anything else. Greta calculated that he only topped her by an inch or two, if that.

  Her hand clenched into a fist at her side as she saw her blade in his hands. How had he gotten that without waking her?