Goblin Ball (16 page)

“That actually makes sense to me.” Lexi sat in a sort of hanging couch, her feet dangling. She faced the abbess who lay on her side in a duplicate contraption, propped up by pillows.

The chairs hung from the ceiling of a veranda that looked out on lush green lawns that rolled down to a small freshwater lake. The air was fresh, warm, and scented with flowers. Lexi was pretty sure this wasn’t heaven, but how could heaven possibly be any better?

The abbess, Fraelyn, bit into a slice of apple from a plate of fruits and scones on the cushion before her. Her long hair, a salt-and-pepper mix of coal-black and steel gray, was kept in place by a circlet of a silver and gold apple blossoms. She wore a pale green silk tunic. Her arms were bare, and though her skin was firm enough and her biceps were well defined, it was clear she was on the older side of age.

“There is no king in Dumnos for the Oracle to serve anymore,” Fraelyn said, “and the mundane world can’t see the mystic as well as it once did. You may find it hard to live there. But there will always be Avalos. You’ll have a home on the island whenever you want it. It’s my great hope that one day you’ll take your place here as abbess.”

“Do I have any special powers?” Lexi asked. “Now that I’m the Oracle?”

“Quite a few, I’m sure.” Fraelyn shrugged. “Can you turn yourself into a goose?”

“I never thought about it. But not likely.”

The abbess smiled indulgently, and Lexi knew she’d sounded childish. Not what she’d intended—though what
had
she meant by coming here? Nothing in particular, she realized now. She hadn’t been drawn to Avalos by a question but by raw need. She had read the word in Lydia Pengrith’s journal, and the very idea of the island had hooked her imagination and sparked a frisson of desire.

Avalos…
A secret island, a safe haven to the persecuted wyrd in medieval times, yet forbidden to most—irresistible.

After leaving the love potion with Morander, Drang had taken her to a portal which led to a place near Mudcastle. There she’d used the lilac portal to get to Igdrasil and Tintagos Bay. She’d absently leaned against the world tree, and—independent of her intention or will—a bolt of pure energy had surged through the tree, coming from both heaven above and hell below, and infused her, body and soul, with… power? The life force? The energy that informs all things? She didn’t know.

She’d called for Velyn and the
Redux
. And he came. The boat had emerged from the mist, the beautiful man with tattooed crosses on his arms at its helm and six strong women at the oars. She’d transported instantly from Igdrasil down to the rocky shore and taken Velyn’s outstretched hand.

It had all felt so natural. It had never occurred to her that Avalos might reject her.

“In the usual things, your power will be enhanced,” Fraelyn said now. “Spells such those as I’m sure you read of in Lydia Pengrith’s journal—which, it must be said, the countess took much of her material from Kaelyn’s writings and all the credit too. Anyway, in addition to trifles like spells—”

“Do you call the Great Wyrding a trifle?” Lexi said.

“Great Wyrding!” The abbess scoffed. “My stinky right foot. For all the bother it brought to Dumnos, and might bring to the world, you may call it great. But yes, I do call it a bothersome trifle.”

“My dad is having a bear of a time with the Clad,” Lexi said. “I don’t understand much about it, but it’s to do with the wyrded iron.”

“Exactly,” the abbess said. “The Sarumen want to exploit that iron for the profit they can get out of it, no matter the harm they may do others. It was a sad day when the Bausineys lost control of the Clad.”

“I wish I could help,” Lexi said.

“Perhaps one day you might. But let me suggest a more contemplative way of life. For millennia, wyrding women, and men, have lived quiet, meditative lives here, away from the world. I see you wrinkle your nose. You’re young. You need to live first. Perhaps life on Avalos will better appeal in fifty years’ time.”

“Perhaps.” Lexi hadn’t lived one year. She couldn’t imagine fifty.

“I will admit being the abbess is mostly administrative. Not a lot of glory in it but necessary for the greater good. But the island is lovely, the weather always perfect, with fresh fruits and vegetables produced year round.”

True, it was lovely here. Lexi looked out at the grounds and the lake beyond. On the bridge to the lake, a hunched figure shuffled toward the center island, and she could swear it was Max. Without thinking, she pulled the scoping glass from her hidey pouch for a better look. It
was
him. But why?

“I see you have Igraine’s scoping glass,” the abbess said. “It was given to her by her teacher and guardian, Kaelyn, right here in this room. Another sign you belong on Avalos, perhaps.”

Lexi slipped the glass back into her hidey pouch, not wanting to explain that she’d pretty much stolen it. The ring was different. She knew it belonged on her hand. But just as surely, she knew the glass belonged to her mother, and she was ashamed for having taken it.

She changed the subject. “Tell me something about being abbess that’s fun.”

“Fun. Hm. Let me think. The abbess can communicate with the high gods.”

“You mean I could talk to Brother Sun and Sister Moon?”

“Exactly. You could intercede on behalf of all humanity, high and low, the important and powerful and, more importantly, the obscure and powerless.”

“Can you? Can you talk with Brother Son and Sister Moon? Could you ask them for a favor now?”

“I could,” said the abbess. “What do you have in mind? Don’t you already have everything your heart could desire?”

“Far from it,” Lexi said. “But this isn’t for me. This is for Max, the goblin. You know him. He’s the one who made the sword that’s held in the stone on the little island in the middle of the lake here.”

“Yes, I know the one.”

“He always does everything for everybody, and he never asks anything for himself. But inside Max is very sad. Even a goblin, and especially a goblin who is so good, deserves a little happiness.”

“And what is it that you want to ask of the high gods?”

“Only this. I want them to lift the goblin curse. I want them to make Max—and all the goblins—beautiful again.”

“You don’t ask much, do you, my dear?”

II. Cissa

Cissa followed an acolyte
into the main abbey at Avalos and down the corridor. The judgment rolled off the acolyte in waves, but Cissa just lifted her chin high and said hmph. The last time she was here she’d met with the same prejudice against the fae. She hadn’t let it get in the way of her goal then, to find the fairy cup, and she wouldn’t let it now.

“It is a great pleasure to see you again, my dear Cissa.” The abbess was so kind, her smile so genuine, that Cissa believed her.

But seeing Fraelyn again was shocking. Cissa had forgotten how short-lived humans were, even abbesses of Avalos.

“I’m… very happy to see you, Abbess.” She jumped up onto the hanging couch opposite Fraelyn’s.

“Then why are you crying, dear one?”

“Because I never thought I would—see you again—and now that I do, you look so old and frail. I wish…”

“Now, now. There is nothing to wish for. Not for me. I have everything I could want, and the world is just as it should be.”

“But you’re going to die.”

“Yes,” the abbess said. “Which is also as it should be.”

Cissa looked away, out at the grounds, and saw Lexi walking toward the lake. “So she
is
here. That’s good.”

“I remember the first time I saw you,” the abbess said. “You were such a spitfire then, full of righteous indignation and determined to right the wrong you felt had been done to your brother. We let you stand beside Igdrasil and yell and scream for hours and hours.”

“It felt like days.”

“Perhaps it was.” Fraelyn sipped her tea and chuckled. “But you would not give it up. You would not let it go. I said to let you scream to the highest heaven for seven years if you wanted to come, but Velyn wouldn’t have it. It was Velyn you have to thank for pleading your cause. He said if we didn’t want fae on the island we should never have allowed the fairy cup to stay when Kaelyn first brought it to us for safekeeping.”

“Ha! So technically, you allowed me on the island the moment you agreed to shelter the cup,” Cissa said.

“You’ll make a wise queen yet, my dear.”

“I don’t know, Abbess. I do want to be a wise queen, but it’s so hard.”

“You’re too much alone,” Fraelyn said. “You must take a husband.”

“I suppose so. Eventually.” She thought of her prince and his wonderful kisses. “My mother had a consort.”

“I don’t think that will do for you, my dear. You need more than Sifae did. Not a consort, but a true husband and partner. There is someone, isn’t there?”

Cissa looked up sharply. “How… how did you know?” For some reason, her breath caught, and her emotions burst as if they’d found a secret way out.

“I know nothing,” the abbess said. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”

“It’s… it’s m…my prince charming…” The tears started falling again. Maybe it was being on the island, but her feelings were intensified, over the top. All the longing and frustration she’d pent up since her eyes turned green came flooding out. “I know I…I sh…shouldn’t. I think it runs in my f…f…family.”

“What does, dear one?”

Dear one.
No one had called her by such sweet names since her mother died. She hadn’t realized how much she missed it.

“L…lo…love!” There. she’d said it. “I love him! I’ve loved him for a thousand years, and more, and there’s n…n…nothing I can do a…ab…about it! And I don’t know where he is.”

A handkerchief appeared in front of her face. She snatched it out of the air and blew her nose.

“There, there,” Fraelyn said. “Go ahead, blow.”

“I’m sorry, Abbess,” Cissa said. “I don’t know what’s got into me. I’m s…so un…happy.”

“Of course you are, darling. One of the greatest sorrows of life is loving on the inside and not being able to show it on the outside.”

“It hurts,” Cissa admitted. “But what can I do? I’ve tried to bring him back to me, but none of my spells have worked. He m…mu…must not lo…love me.”

“Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he does,” Fraelyn said. “Soon you will know.”

“What do you mean? Do you know who he is? Where he is?”

“I know that you will see him again, this year, at Faeview, on Mischief Night.”

“Huh?” Cissa blew her nose one last time and tried to absorb what she’d just heard.

“Lord and Lady Dumnos must give a ball in Lexi’s honor, to introduce her to the people. Tell her parents they must say that Lexi was away with the
Tuatha Dé Danaan,
trapped in their realm until she turned seventeen, and that her time tether brought her back to seven seconds after she’d disappeared from Tintagos.”

“That’s a good story,” Cissa said. “Morning Glory knows a woman with a shop in Tintagos Village who loves the lore. She’ll spread the word among the humans, and enough will believe her—or pretend to.”

She blew out her breath. She couldn’t believe how much better she felt, just getting it all out.

And what news! She was going to see her prince charming again, and so soon.

“At the ball you will dance with your true love,” Fraelyn said, as if she’d read Cissa’s mind. “I have seen it. Moreover, the Dumnos fae will be healed through the marriage of its queen, and on the day you’re wed, the dark will be banished forever.”

“Golly.”

III.
Max

“Max, hello!”
Lady Lexi waved from the bridge and broke out in a run. She seemed to have grown another few years older since he’d last seen her. But wasn’t that only a day or two ago?

He had come to look at
Mistcutter
and do his usual penance. Once, he’d nurtured hopes of breaking the curse and restoring the goblins’ physical beauty. But that was long ago. At last, he’d come to accept the way things were. Wasn’t that the lesson of the curse, after all? The will of the high gods must always supersede his own.

“I have news,” Lexi said with youth’s dramatic flair. “Prepare yourself. It’s exciting.”

The girl sat down beside him on the bench. Out of her hidey pouch, she pulled the scoping glass he’d once decorated for Igraine. As she turned it absently in her hands, a sense of déjà vu came over him.

“I’m ready. What’s your exciting news?”

“The high gods have relented,” she said. “Brother Sun and Sister Moon have agreed to revoke the goblin curse.”

He realized then it had been a mistake to think of this creature as a child, or even as a young woman. She was more than child, woman, human, or fae. She was an old soul, spiritual granddaughter of one of the fallen. Had the high gods sent her to save them all?

“There’s a catch, of course,” she said with a wink, and her violet eyes flashed in the Avalos sun. “There’s always a catch.”

“Tell me.”

“My parents will give me a ball on Mischief Night to introduce me to the people of Dumnos. The abbess and I have it all worked out how we’ll explain my… age.”

“That’s gratifying to hear.”

“At midnight, all Dumnos goblinkind will be released from the curse.”

“That sounds too simple.”

“I haven’t told you the catch yet.”

“Of course.”