The Goblin's Curse (8 page)

Whoops.
Need some help at the shop, Daddy dearest?

As a matter of fact, yes. I’ll fix us some tea if you come dust and polish the counter, and I’ll tell you of my adventures digging up the blasted treeling.

Deal.
Keelie hurried up the path, relieved that Dad had gotten the little aspen out of the meadow without her help.

Cleaning Heartwood’s counter would be a treat. It was one of the things that had drawn her into her new life when she’d first arrived and was rediscovering her power to communicate with trees. The counter was hewn out of a wide and curvy slice of tree, but what a tree. It must have been immense, and this piece of it lived on. Knots and rings showed through its polished top, and the sides had animal carvings that followed the natural curve of the tree trunk. At night, by candlelight, the carved animals appeared to move. The bottom of the counter was carved to look like roots digging deep in the floor. Whenever Keelie polished it, the wood showed her scenes of its long life.

At Heartwood, Dad was mounting caged crystals onto the back of a chair. “Cleaning supplies are in the back room.” He didn’t even look her way.

On her way to the storeroom, Keelie saw Cricket sitting on the stairs to her apartment, Knot at his side. The cat showed his pointy fangs in a kitty grin. The little goblin brightened and skittered toward her, climbing her jeans and perching on her shoulder as she tidied up, then gathered a pile of soft polishing cloths and a bottle of lemon oil. Knot had fallen asleep draped over the stair, snoozing. She got quickly to work, giving the counter a thin coat of oil, then rubbing it in until the wood glowed.

“That little tree has some issues,” Dad remarked.

“I know. I feel a little guilty about disliking it, since it’s my fault it was planted in that spot.” Keelie refrained from saying “goblin blood” although no one was around to hear.

“Davey helped me dig it up. We used a wheelbarrow to haul it up here.”

Keelie straightened. “Here, where?” She looked around.

Dad pointed at the front corner of the shop, where a large half whiskey barrel held a green-leafed sapling, its roots covered in a tidy brown mulch. “We tucked it in snugly. It’ll sleep for a day or so.”

“Thank goodness, because otherwise
we
wouldn’t get any sleep.”

Dad grinned. “Tell me about it.”

With the tree safely out of harm’s way, Keelie thought about Sean. She attacked the surface of the counter with the polishing cloth, easing her anger and confusion with work.

As she polished, she lost herself in the stories that the wood underneath her fingers was telling. No people ever starred in tree stories, but they were full of heroes and villains and misunderstood younglings.

Feeling very much like one of the defiant saplings in the counter tree’s stories, she put away the polishing cloth and started to dust the merchandise.

“Are you almost ready?” a man in a bushy mustache asked as he passed by the shop, juggling balls as he walked.

“Absolutely!” Dad answered him.

The man pushed a Ping-Pong ball out of his mouth and it joined the whirling balls.

“Hello, Oswald.” Janice struggled across the clearing with a basket stuffed full and covered by a cloth. The juggler bowed to her. “Hello, Heartwood,” Janice continued. “You folks hungry?”

“What’ve you got in there?” Keelie asked, running to help carry the loaded basket.

“A little dinner for my favorite tree shepherds.” Janice placed the basket on the flagstone floor, pulled the cloth back, and showed Keelie that the willow laundry basket was bursting with packages and covered plates. A heavenly aroma rose from one of the packages. “Fried chicken, broccoli, rice salad with nuts and currants, and freshly made rolls,” Janice announced.

She sure knew how to answer an unspoken question. As Janice went to speak to Dad, Keelie watched the woman’s face soften. She’d never have another mother, but Janice might be okay as a stepmom. And then Raven could be her sister.

Dad and Janice spoke, heads together, for a while, then Janice picked up the basket and sashayed up the wooden stairs to their apartment as if she knew he was still watching her. He was.

Oldsters and their romances, Keelie thought. But Dad was such a chick magnet. Maybe Janice would chase the rest away. He was like the elf version of … of … Hob. Keelie laughed at that.

As if. Hob was such an amateur when it came to anything Dad could do.

She returned to her work, absently noting when Janice came back down and returned to Dad’s side again. He would be thrilled at the meal, however, and Keelie’d get to go to bed early tonight. She was exhausted, and she hoped to find a book on the shelves upstairs that would take her mind off that hurtful encounter with Sean. The importance of it was probably all in her mind, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t reliving his words over and over. Could Cricket really grow up to be evil? Herne’s goblins had all been helpful, staying underground and not joining the goblins battling in the Northwoods.

“If you rub any harder, that counter is going to blind people with reflected light.” The voice was manly and deep, but Keelie could only see the extravagantly plumed top of a cavalier hat.

“Sir Davey!” She dropped her rag and ran around to hug her teacher, who was several inches shorter than she.

“I was coming to say hello to your father, and to you too, of course,” Sir Davey said. “But the old man seems to be busy.”

Keelie shrugged. “You know Dad. And Janice came armed for seduction.” She leaned over to whisper, “Fried chicken.”

Sir Davey’s bushy eyebrows rose, vanishing into his musketeer hat. “Well, in that case.” He turned, arms stretched out like a zombie’s and headed toward the whispering couple. “Chicken,” he intoned flatly. “Fried chicken.”

Dad and Janice turned to look at him, and Keelie laughed at the annoyed looks on their faces. Davey turned and aimed a wink at her.

Little Cricket hopped up onto the counter and slid halfway across its slick surface. Keelie caught him just before he flew off into space, then headed over to where the adults were, to tell them the story of the munched rubber elf ear and Sir Ian’s undignified reaction. Janice would have to take her word for it—she couldn’t see Cricket.

Sean would come around. He was probably overwhelmed as always with his responsibilities as head of the jousters. The show depended on him, and he’d gotten here weeks after the faire had opened. As soon as he got situated, he’d relax. Things would be back to normal soon. She could just feel it.

five

Keelie crouched down to warm her hands at the fireplace. She smiled at her mother, who was knitting in the armchair next to her. This was a dream. Knitting needles were alien to her attorney mother.

“I miss you so much. I’m glad you stopped by for a visit, but you need to go.” Mom’s voice was gentle but firm.

Keelie stood up. “I don’t want to go. I miss you, too.” Dream or not, Mom seemed real. Keelie stretched a hand out to touch her.

“Don’t. You have to wake up.” Mom’s eyes were still on her work, the wooden needles slipping up and down, in and out, knotting the strands of orange yarn into a glowing pattern against the gray and black swirls.

Keelie coughed and opened her eyes, the dream fading although the misty swirls remained, whooshing overhead in choking billows.

Fire.

All sleep gone, Keelie sprang to her feet. “Dad! Dad!”

Her father’s cough came from across the room, where his bedroom area faced the front windows. Then his groggy response vanished. “Get out, Keelie! Take nothing, just go!”

Take nothing? Keelie put her feet into her shoes and grabbed her roomy purse, which hung from her bedpost. The floorboards were hot, and she could see the orange glow of flame between the cracks. Her heart pounded. The shop was on fire, too. She felt her way toward the door. The smoke was impossible now, like a thick, gagging blanket.

She dropped to her knees and crawled, coughing. She couldn’t breathe. She pulled her T-shirt up and held the hem over her nose as she felt her way, on her knees and one hand, toward the wall. The wall would take her to the front door.

Her shoulder banged into something hard and objects rattled above her. One struck her head, then rolled to the floor. The pain stopped her, robbing her of what little air she had, and her hand closed on the object. It was a wooden frame (yellow pine, from Alabama). Keelie couldn’t see the picture, but she knew it was one of the photos of herself that Dad kept on a little chest by the front door.

“Keelie, why did you stop? Are you near the door?”

Glass exploded behind her and a wave of fire rolled over her. If she’d been standing, she would have been scorched. But the light of the fire showed Dad scuttling toward her, a towel over his face. Knot was riding his shoulders, claws dug in, his eyes wide with fear and his orange fur puffed out so that it looked like he was on fire, too.

“Keep moving,” Dad commanded, and she turned and hurried toward the door. The floor was blistering hot now, and Keelie got up and walked in a crouch. The fire sounded like ten trains and a tornado were beneath and all around them.

She reached the door and touched the knob, but it wasn’t hot. In her school’s fire safety training, she’d learned that a hot knob meant fire was on the other side. If the stairs were on fire, there would be no way out of their apartment.

She turned the knob and pulled the door open, gulping in a great breath of fresh air. Behind her, that same air fed the flames. Suddenly, she was on her face with a big weight on top of her. Heat roared overhead.

“Are you okay?” Dad said in her ear. “I tried to warn you, but you opened the door too fast.”

“Yeah.” Her voice came out as a dried-out whisper. Hands reached out through the smoke that now blanketed the stairs outside, and she found herself in Tarl the mud man’s gigantic grasp.

“Hold still, little girl. I’ll get you out of here.” He picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder. “Zeke, you behind me?”

“I am. Knot, run ahead.” Her father’s voice was reassuringly strong.

Keelie watched the cat dash down the stairs as she left Heartwood for the last time—upside down, over Tarl’s shoulder, bobbing in time to his rushed stride down the stairs. She saw Knot pause to look up at Heartwood, then run into the woods.

“I’ve got to reassure the trees,” Dad said. Immediately, his soothing tree speak calmed the trees around them and Keelie realized that their panic had fueled hers. She tried to add her calm to his, but found only fear within.

Tarl set her down, coughing, by the trees at the other edge of the clearing, then ran back to Heartwood. A crowd had gathered and she was surrounded by concerned voices, but she brushed away their hands and turned to watch the fire.

Hob was at the edge of the crowd, looking up in wonder, the flames dancing in his shiny eyes.

Something about his expression reminded Keelie of someone else, but she couldn’t think of who, because she suddenly remembered the Compendium. The one and only, the record of all elven magic, entrusted to her so that she could learn from it. It was under her bed.

She ran back toward the steps, her lungs hurting from the smoke and the effort. Hands grabbed at her, but she twisted away and ran up the stairs. She only got halfway up before her father’s arms grasped her and pulled her away.

“The Compendium,” she cried. “Dad, I have to save it.”

“It’s too late, Keelie. It’s not worth your life.” His voice was rough, as though he’d smoked his way through a million packs of cigarettes.

She kicked free and turned to head back up the stairs, but the greedy fire was now leaping from tread to tread and wrapping around the handrail like a flaming garland. If she’d gotten to the top, she would not have been able to leave again. She backed away, her heart squeezed tight in her chest.

Heartwood, her father’s beautiful shop, seemed like it was being eaten by a flaming monster. The fire licked up to the trees, and their cries of fear echoed once more in her head. The whole forest was roaring in alarm. Above her, the branches were trembling with the weight of the
bhata
who’d come to watch.