I ran forward, but the instant my fingers touched her skirt, both she and the Goblin King vanished. Where my sister had lain, there was nothing more than a scrap of silk fluttering in the breeze, caught in the branches of a birch tree.
“Liesl!”
K?the’s voice was muffled. I whirled around, desperately following the sound of her cries. There she was, caught in a cage of branches; but no, it was nothing but a tree growing from a net of brambles. Then I saw her at the mercy of several goblin swains, her arms pinioned behind her back. They no longer looked human despite their comely forms, their lascivious grins no longer inviting, but threatening.
I chased after them, but it wasn’t K?the in their clutches; it was me. I was surrounded by tall, elegant goblin men, made in the mold of their king—languid, beautiful, cruel. I felt the touch of their lips against my skin, little love bites against my throat, as though they meant to devour me. But no, they weren’t goblin men at all, but dead winter branches: their twigs shredding my clothes and hair to ribbons.
“Liesl!”
K?the’s cries were faint, but somehow closer. As though she were beneath me, buried somewhere deep in the earth. I fell to my knees and clawed at the dirt, digging frantically.
“Give up, Elisabeth,” the Goblin King urged. “Give up and surrender to me.”
His voice was everywhere and nowhere at once. He was the wind, he was the earth, he was the trees, the leaves, the sky and the stars. I fought against him and the forest fought back, confusing my sense of time, distance, and even self.
“Liesl!”
A muffled thumping. I cleared away the leaves and twigs and rocks and dirt before my hands hit something as hard and smooth as glass.
“Liesl!”
Beneath my hands was K?the, trapped behind a sheet of ice. A frozen pond? I ineffectually beat at the surface, calling her name. Was she drowning? I screamed with frustration, clawing and scratching and pounding until my palms cracked and bled, leaving bloody smears over the ice.
Suddenly, the frost cleared beneath me, revealing a frantic K?the. But for the panic on her face, she seemed hale. Yet when I peered closer, everything was all wrong. My head spun; beneath me was not the depthless black of a frozen pond, but the starry infinity of a winter sky. K?the was not staring up at me, but down, as though kneeling beside the pond instead of floating within. Her hands struck the ice in rhythm with mine, but I could no longer tell which way was up. Was I trapped underground? Or was she?
“Give up, Elisabeth.” The Goblin King’s face was reflected in the smooth surface of the ice, but when I turned, there was no one behind me. “Let go.”
But I would not. I searched for something—anything—I could use to smash the ice between my sister and me. But there was nothing. No stone, no branch, no twig.
Then I remembered the goblin-made flute. I had thrust the instrument through the waist of my skirt once we passed from corridors to tunnels in the Underground, when I was no longer able to play it for crawling about on my hands and knees. My hands fumbled for the flute, untying the strings that held my apron, skirt, and modesty together. I did not care. I tore at my clothes and freed the instrument.
A flicker of uncertainty crossed the Goblin King’s eyes, still reflected in the ice beneath me. “Don’t, Elisabeth—”
But I never heard what he was about to say. I raised the flute above my head with both hands. The wind caught in its myriad keys and stops, playing a sweet whistling melody, drowning out all other sounds.
Then I brought the flute down like an ax with all my strength.
RESURRECTION
I opened my eyes to a bright light. I flinched and lifted a hand to shade them, but could make out nothing. It was bitterly cold, but the air was crisp and fresh and carried with it the scent of openness.
“I’m impressed.”
I squinted into the shadows. I could just make out the lanky, willowy form of the Goblin King in the darkness, but it was his eyes that caught the light and gleamed like a wolf’s.
“Against all odds, you’ve managed to break me, Elisabeth.”
My laugh was as rough as the gravel beneath my hands. As my eyes adjusted, I saw that the Goblin King and I were slumped against the ground, like two soldiers fallen in battle. We lay in an earthen chamber, illuminated by a bright light overhead.
The full moon.
I sat up, wincing as my body—cold-stiffened and battered—gave a mighty protest. “K?the,” I croaked.
The Goblin King rose and nodded his head. “Yonder.”
A small, rumpled form lay on the ground a few feet away from me. I tried to stand, but the world spun beneath me, and I collapsed. I brought myself to my hands and knees and crawled to my sister’s side.
K?the was unconscious, but her breath misted lightly into the chilly air around us, the pulse of her heart faint but steady. I glanced at the Goblin King.
“She’s alive,” he said. “And well. Well, maybe a little worse for wear. But she is unharmed, and will come to no harm, once she wakes up in the world above.”
I stroked K?the’s brow. Her skin was cool, but beneath my touch, her flesh felt like living, breathing skin.