7 August 1954
I, élodie Fabre Roux, now that I am ill and do not have long to live, write this confession of the goblin curse I brought upon myself and my descendants. I hoped it would die with me, but the last time I was strong enough to go into the woods and see the goblins, they told me it would transfer to one of my children, that it was a curse that would run through our bloodline for a thousand years. I cannot bear this thought and I write all this down for my children in the hopes that they will find some way to break the curse. Even if they cannot, it is only fair they know what has happened to them and why.
As you know, I was born in France and lived there for my first twenty years, before we came to America. I was of a poor family, in Nantes, in Brittany. From childhood I loved your father, Jean-Baptiste Roux, or Jeannot as we called him. He loved me too, but he was from a prosperous family, and when we were eighteen he gave in to pressure from his parents and became engaged to a girl who met their approval. Her name was Fran?oise. I did not hate her nor even know her very well. She seemed meek and well-meaning. But my heart was broken and I knew there was no love between them, nothing like what Jeannot and I felt for each other.
We were Catholic, of course, but in Brittany the ancient ways were also strong, and I had always felt an affinity for the spirits of the land, the fae. I had sensed them, heard their music and voices at night in wild places, seen glimpses of them, and understood there were many kinds of them, in different forms and with a variety of powers.
I also knew it was dangerous to call upon them to use their powers. There were many stories about how this had gone badly for people. But I was young and heartbroken, and determined to try even if it meant danger.
I went into the woods alone at night under the full moon. I cried out to the fae to appear for me.
It was my ill fortune that it was a goblin who answered. I did not know, at that time, how devious they are.
The creature looked no larger than a goat at first, and all composed of branches and earth, or so it appeared. But as it crawled down the tree and into the moonlight, it changed before my eyes until it became a strong old woman in peasant dress. She would have looked normal enough in passing, but when she spoke I saw she had sharp teeth like a wolf. It made me shudder.
She said her name was Redring, and I told her mine.
At those words, Skye sucked in her breath, and everyone paused to glance at her.
Livy had felt the hard resistance in her own voice soften like melting wax the further she read, as confused wonder took over her anger. Skye’s gaze darted to the sketchbook, which Kit had set upon the square side table.
Kit leaned down and picked it up. He held up Skye’s drawing of the goblin for everyone to see: limbs like branches, teeth like a wolf’s, a ring strung around her neck with its stone filled in with blood-red pencil, the only color on the page.
“Redring,” Kit said. The name hung in the quiet room.
Livy felt chilled all over with fear, the way she’d felt watching scary movies as a kid. Grady looked like he felt the same, silent, his arm rigid around Skye. Skye and Kit gazed steadily at Livy, willing her to understand.
Kit set the sketchbook back down and folded his arms. “Go on.”
Livy drew in a breath, found her place, and kept reading.
Redring asked what favor I wished from the fae, and I told her my predicament.
Yes, she said, they could make it so Fran?oise would not marry Jeannot. All they’d ask in return was my ongoing cooperation: a monthly gift of gold, for as long as I lived. “Just a tiny bit, an amount equal to the weight of this little ring,” she said, holding up the silver one she wore on her necklace.
Indeed the ring was an ordinary size, but I knew gold was costly. I told her I was poor and could not get it, not every month certainly.
Redring said, “We will gift you with magic so you can always steal and not be caught, as long as you steal for us.”
I thought of the rich who treated people cruelly and kept getting away with it. Certain clergymen, politicians, merchants, unkind society women. It would only be fair to steal gold from them, I reasoned. Besides, they were rich and would not miss it. I could live with this rule.
But I wanted to make sure they would not kill Fran?oise if I accepted. Of course not, Redring assured. They would just make her not want to marry Jeannot anymore. She would wish to leave him. Then the marriage surely would not happen.
I agreed. God help me, I agreed.
Redring shook my hand to seal the pact, and in so doing she sliced my palm with her nail, which was like a cat’s claw. I cried out. She licked away the blood, which repulsed me, then she told me my tribe and hers were now linked. She let me go, telling me to come back at the next full moon with my first payment of gold. She promised that in the meantime Jeannot and Fran?oise’s engagement would fall apart.
And so it did, but not in the way I expected. Within a few days, I heard Fran?oise was acting strangely, hardly talking, seeming withdrawn and ill, but no doctor could find anything wrong with her. Not in body, at least, only in her mind. She never seemed happy anymore.
Fearful, I spoke to Jeannot. He seemed troubled, but he did smile for me before we parted, and said he was grateful I was still my old self. It filled me with guilt, yet also with hope.
From gossip over the next few weeks I learned of Fran?oise’s increasing distance from everyone. She slipped away to wander in the woods often. She didn’t want to eat or speak. She had no interest in Jeannot or the upcoming wedding anymore.
Then one night she disappeared. Her family, the police, and Jeannot searched the woods and neighboring villages for days. Finally, deep in the woods they found the clothes she had been wearing, all except her gold engagement ring, which was gone along with her. They never found any other trace of her. Most people assumed she had been kidnapped or murdered. Some speculated she had run away with another lover, and we all hoped so. I hoped so most fervently, even if it meant the goblins had enchanted her with a love spell.
Jeannot was upset but not heartbroken. Meanwhile, I had to begin to steal my ration of gold.
I started by picking the pockets of rich folk right under their noses, taking rings and watches and coins. When I said the magic phrase beforehand, “For the tribe,” no one paid any attention at all to what I was doing. Those thefts were enough for the first month’s payment, and when I brought the gold at the next full moon, I dared to ask Redring if she knew what had happened to Fran?oise.
“Of course I know,” she said. “She is alive and well, stronger than ever.”
“And she is happy?” I asked. For truly I did not wish her to be otherwise.