So I answered the Goblin King’s question the only way I could. “Do you not like my new dress?” I blurted out.
That certainly surprised him. “I—uh—what?”
“My dress,” I said. “Is it not to your liking?”
His eyes were both bewildered and wary. “It is lovely, Elisabeth.”
“And me? Am I lovely?”
The Goblin King frowned. “You are in a mood tonight, my dear.”
He had not answered me. Suddenly I could not bear to remain seated. I rose to my feet and paced back and forth before the fire. I was in a mood—for a fight.
“Answer me,” I said. “Do you think me lovely?”
“Not with the way you’re acting at the moment.”
I laughed, a nigh hysterical sound. “You sound like my father. It’s a simple question, mein Herr.”
“Is it?” The Goblin King gave me a sharp look. “Then tell me, my dear, what would you like to hear? The simple answer, or the honest one?”
I trembled, although whether it was from hurt or fear, I did not know. “The truth,” I said. “You’re the one who showed me that the ugly truth is preferable to a pretty lie.”
It was a while before he spoke. “I think you know the answer, Elisabeth,” he said in a low voice.
I closed my eyes to stop the tears. Despite everything, I had hoped it would be different. That his desire could somehow make me lovely, could transform me from a sparrow into a peacock.
“Then why?” My voice tripped over the jagged edges of my sorrow. “Why do you want me?”
“I’ve answered this before, Elisabeth, I—”
“Yes, yes, I’ve heard it all before. You loved the music in me. My soul is a beautiful thing. Once I give you myself, entire, you’ll—” I hiccoughed. “You’ll give yourself, entire.”
The Goblin King said nothing, only watched me with his mismatched gaze.
“But that means nothing to me, mein Herr. Your words mean nothing to a queer, unlovely little girl.”
There was a scrape across the floor as the Goblin King pushed back the bench to get to his feet. His treads were light and nearly soundless, a wolf’s in the snow. Yet I could sense him cross the space between us. He placed a hand upon my brow.
“Loveliness of the spirit is worth more than loveliness of the flesh,” he said gently. “You know that.” I opened my eyes and slapped his hand away. I felt the shock of that slap reverberate through both our bodies, from his startled expression to the stinging of my palm.
“Now that,” I said, “was a pretty lie.”
For a moment, I thought the Goblin King would try to console me, soothe me the way a parent would placate a cranky child. Then a spark lit his eyes, a glint of malice. His mouth twisted, and the sharp tips of his teeth gleamed in the firelight.
“You want the ugly truth, Elisabeth?” he said. “Very well then, you shall have it.” He paced the floor before me, a wild creature pacing its cage. A wolf prowled in his heart, and it wanted very badly to be free. “I wanted you because you are queer and strange and unlovely. Because a man could spend an age—and believe me, I have—with an endless line of beautiful brides, their names and faces blurring before him. Because you—queer, unlovely you—I would remember.”
The Goblin King smiled at me by way of a snarl. My pulse quickened in response, and deep within me, the knots I had tightened about my heart began to loosen. My blood rose to meet his and I stood from my chair, breathing hard.
But he turned away before I could touch him, before his wildness could mingle with mine. I let my hand drop.
“What is eternal life but a prolonged death?” the Goblin King asked. “I live in tedium unending, dying just a little more each day, unable to truly feel.” He walked back to the klavier and ran his hand lightly over the keyboard.
I had no response. We were as far from each other as we could be in that moment; he on one end of forever, me on the other.
“Your intensity, your ferocity,” he said quietly. “I crave it, Elisabeth. I do.”
He sat down on the bench and pressed a key, then another, and another. Each note resounded in my breast, echoing in that hollow, hallowed place where my music lived.
“I would give anything to feel again.” His voice was low, so low I could scarcely hear it. “And for a long time, I thought I never would. Then I heard you play your music for me back in the Goblin Grove. For the first time in an eternity, I hoped—I thought—”
Another silence fell over us, thick with secrets and things unsaid. I could taste the questions at the back of my tongue, but swallowed them down.
“Your music,” he said at last. “Your music was the only thing that kept me sane, that kept me human instead of a monster.”
A breeze raised goose pimples along my arms and down my back. The Goblin King did not look at me as he continued to play, stringing notes together like beads on a necklace.
“And that,” he said, “is the ugly truth, my dear. I could have your hand in marriage, your mind, your body, but what I truly want, I cannot have.” He turned his head away. “Not unless I break you.”
Not unless he broke me.
It wasn’t until this moment that I understood.
“I am not afraid of you,” I said quietly.
“Oh?” The Goblin King lifted his head. “I am the Lord of Mischief, the Ruler Underground,” he said, mismatched eyes glinting. “I am wildness and madness made flesh. You’re just a girl”—he smiled, and the tips of his teeth were sharp—“and I am the wolf in the woods.”