I had no faith of my own, but the Goblin King had his, and it was his faith in me that would be my courage. The Lord works in mysterious ways.
He took my hands in his. “Rejoice, for you shall live,” he said softly, “and I shall rejoice with you.”
I kissed his hands. His eyes were worried, but his mien was calm. He was being strong for me.
“I do solemnly swear,” he said, “that I return the gift of your life, selflessly and selfishly given.”
It was hard to speak through my tears. “And I do solemnly swear,” I said, “that I accept my life, taken from your hands of my own free will.”
The Goblin King retrieved the chalice from the altar and offered the goblet to me.
“Let us drink,” he said. “And break our troth.”
THE RETURN
My reign as Goblin Queen was ended.
I knew the moment my power had broken, for the passages around me had rearranged themselves. The chapel and the Goblin King had vanished, and I was on my own. No more would my path through the Underground be straight and clear. I had no map, no compass to guide me, but I knew where I had to go. To the shores of the Underground lake, to find the skiff the changeling had moored in its secret dock, and row and ride my way to the world above.
The Underground was far less civilized without the grace and protection of my power as Queen. Goblins scuttled underfoot, their long, multi-jointed fingers click-clacking over stone, beetles skittering in the dark. Their beady eyes shone down on me, the watchful touch of a thousand inhuman eyes at my back. The eerie, watchful, waiting silence had a shape and texture to it. It brushed over me like dark, musty cobwebs, which clung to me no matter how much I tried to shake them off. The silence raised all the hairs along my arms, sending prickles of ice and needles up my spine, and with each step I took, fear and dread increased a hundredfold.
They will not make it easy. But I have faith, Elisabeth, faith in you.
I was careful of my step, but the malice of the Underground was deviously clever. A crevice suddenly opened up beneath my feet, and I tripped and wrenched my ankle. Wincing with pain, I trod on the hem of my skirt, tumbling head over heels. I wiped at my stinging chin.
Blood.
The instant a drop of my blood hit the earth, a storm of hissing arose. This was the opportunity the goblins had been waiting for.
The clacking cacophony grew and swelled, like waves approaching some distant shore. Hands burst from beneath my feet—hands like gnarled and twisted branches, growing from the earth like brambles or vines. They grabbed at my ankles, my hair, my dress, my shoes, any part of me they could reach.
“Stop!” I shouted. “Stop!”
The corridors echoed with the sounds of their hands coming free, rattling off like gunshots. I covered my head and my ears as hands burst forth from the walls and the ceiling overhead, reaching, reaching, reaching. The hallways echoed with my screams.
“Stop! Please! I wish you would stop!”
But my wishes no longer had any power here. Crawling hands, myriad eyes, pointed teeth, all reaching to devour me, tear me apart limb from limb. Fingers twined about my feet brought me crashing down onto their waiting hands, a creature felled by a snare. I shrieked, struggling to break their grip, but their knobby fingers were strong. The hands bore me down into darkness, musty and rank with the sour scent of my panic.
Oh, God, oh, God, I thought. I will be buried alive.
Buried alive; what an ignominious end. Sacrificing my life for spring had been noble, but this? This was a terrible way to die. Not with a bang, but a whimper. I thought of the trees in the Goblin Grove, their uncomfortably human branches, and wondered if that was to be my fate, my limbs and shape immortalized by dead wood.
“What do you want from me?” I cried.
You, you, you, their hissing voices returned. We want you. You cannot leave the Underground, mortal, not without paying the price.
“What price?” Goblin hands crawled over my mouth and neck, as though to strangle the sounds coming from me. “Tell me and I shall pay it!”
The scuttling hands stopped. A few of them broke away to join together, their curled fingers and thumbs forming two eyes, a nose, a mouth. I was staring into a face.
There were only holes where the eyes should have been, only darkness inside its maw of a mouth. Yet I sensed a presence there, many goblins joined into a singular entity. I stared into the abyss, and found it staring back.
“What is it that you want?” I asked.
It was a while before those fingers could work together to form lips, a tongue, words.
You have something that belongs to us, mortal. Myriad voices joined together as one, a dissonant mass of pitches.
“What—”
It lives in the world above. More hands had come together to make a more complete face. High cheekbones. A pointed chin. Curls. The features were familiar. Free from our reach. Our influence.
Cold fear trickled into my veins, slowly turning me to ice. “No.”