The Goblin's Crown

Chapter Sixteen: Mab

A child's small, chubby hand grips its mother's slender fingers. Its soft skin feels the roughness of her hands. Pretty hands, marred from a life of toil. The mother smiles at her child. The smile is full of warmth and unspoken love. Golden ringlets escape her cap and sway as she rocks the baby back and forth. Back and forth. They dance around a face once beguiling. A face ruined just as her hands were ruined. On the air, a sweet song drifts barely audible over the shouts of tussling little boys. A father's gentle lullaby. The mother kisses her child's fat little hand as tears drip from tired blue eyes. The baby wails at its own mother's kiss. The cry grows hoarse and pitches wildly until it becomes a goblin's shriek. The baby's hand turns gray then black, its little hand becoming a creature's claws. It tears and rips at its mother's face until both it and its mother liquefy into a puddle of ink and blood.

When I woke up, my pillow was wet with tears. I wiped my eyes dry hurriedly, ashamed. I hadn't had that dream in years. Dream...no... memory. A memory mixed with a nightmare. One of only a handful of memories I had of my mother. She'd died when I was too young to have made many. I was perhaps three summers old at the most when fever took her. I only knew that her name was Catherine and what little my brothers told me. For them, her memory was a sharp knife. One to be put away and never held, never touched, but forgotten until it was desperately needed. The one thing I did remember vividly was her hair. It was the same color as mine and the twins'. All sunshine. When I was young, I would often dream...or imagine her...standing by the hearth, fire lighting her hair, making it gleam and glow like gold. Once my father died, however, I became consumed with his loss and my mother faded away into a distant echo.

I shivered in the cool room. I could see that our fire had died. The servants had wisely chosen not to disturb us to check it. I pulled the blanket up to my nose and turned in bed to curl up against Knut, hoping that he may be able to give me at least some warmth, but found instead that he was gone. His side of the bed lay empty. An imprint of his form was the only proof he was ever there. Sniffling, I slipped from the bed, dragging my blanket with me. I looked around our chamber and peeked into the study adjoining it. He was nowhere in sight, so I grumpily got the fire going and padded out onto the balcony to admire the glittering city below. "You could have at least left a note." I huffed in annoyance, propping my chin on my knuckles at the railing. "I can't read, but the thought would have been nice." Was it so much to ask to still have my husband lying next to me when I woke up the day after my wedding? My entire body grew hot as I recalled what had happened between Knut and me just hours prior. It wasn't as horrible as I'd imagined. In fact, it was sort of...nice? God, what was wrong with me? I blamed the wine.

I shoved away all thoughts concerning Knut and I pondered, instead, over the dream. The image of the mother's world-weary face refused to fade. The father...my father's voice, singing his children to sleep, still rung in my ears, leaving the space beneath my breast as hollow as the goblins' god. Years had passed since I'd had that dream last. Was it guilt that made my mother's memory return? Guilt for what I was about to do to my own flesh and blood? Was it my mother, begging me to stop from beyond the grave? If it was, her pleas were falling on deaf ears. Jasper had shown no remorse when he doomed me and the twins to die and I didn't feel the slightest bit of guilt for wanting to see him suffer for it. Really, I didn't. Really. Really.

Suddenly, like ink spilling onto the page of a book, the city's twinkling was blotted out. Every candle, torch, and fireplace were snuffed out and the entire Underground was plunged into impenetrable darkness. I gasped in horrified surprise, clinging to the railing of the balcony just to know where I was. Knut had fixed my eyes to help me see through the Underground's gloom, but not even his magic could cut through this darkness. I screamed, hoping someone would hear me.