Goblin King by Kara Barbieri

Author:Kara Barbieri
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

13

THE YAWNING GRAVE

I WASN’T SURE, but I was expecting to feel like I was falling when I jumped into the void. Instead, it was almost like I was rising, floating, my body caught in the air and held there in some space and time that existed solely for that moment. My eyes were closed, and when I opened them, I still didn’t see myself fall even though the roots of the world tree should’ve been rushing past me. They went down and down and down forever, and yet still, no matter how far I traveled down, I didn’t feel like I was falling.

Reaching out, I grabbed one of the roots and my vision went blurry, transporting me to another place in time.

Specifically another place in another time, as I stood in front of my parents and watched as they tanned hides and sewed them together, dyed white wool and white pelts of animals; even the shoes themselves were made of white leather. A me who was not really me shivered in the body I stood in.

Something wriggled in my brain and screamed at me to leave, that my thoughts weren’t welcome here—where was here? Why was I here? Why was I thinking I’d be anywhere else but here? Hadn’t I been observing my parents doing this for weeks? Hadn’t I been listening to my mother sobbing when she thought that we were all asleep? And the other members of the village—the men and the women—hadn’t they treated me somewhat nicer or at least with more respect? And why had my sisters repeated my name to their children so often when they would hear it for their entire lives anyways?

I fidgeted in the open hall of my home, unable to stop my fingers from shaking. Why would I be anywhere else? Why was I even thinking such a thing? This was my home. This was my body. There was nothing wrong with it. Nothing wrong at all. I must’ve caught a fever or something because I was led back to a space by the fire by my sister, blocking off the actions of my parents, and giving me a place to rest.

“Janneke,” my mother said softly, coming forward. She gracefully knelt beside my bed and bent my head forward as she kissed my brow. We’d never really got on as well as me and my father had. Too different of people, too different of personalities. But I loved her. She loved me, and I could feel it in her kiss. But her eyes were watering. “My sweet girl.”

Blinking in surprise—it wasn’t often I was referred to as my birth gender—I frowned at her. “What’s wrong? Father, Mother, what’s the matter?”

Both of them were close to tears. Worry gnawed in my stomach as they looked at each other before my father sighed heavily and spoke. I stood shocked and numb as he explained the circumstances of my birth, the goblin that nearly stole me as a child, and the deal he made

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