The Goblin's Curse by Gillian Summers

Author:Gillian Summers [Summers, Gillian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Llewellyn
Published: 2012-06-01T06:00:00+00:00

Four hours later, Keelie threw her pillow at the goblin tree in the corner of the RV’s living area. “Shut up.”

She’d gotten two hours of sleep before the tree had started singing pub songs about wenches. Loudly.

Oh, the pretty lass was quite the wench.

But she never washed, she had a stench.

It added more verses as it went along, and it was clearly no Grammy hopeful.

Keelie sat up. “We should have known not to put that tree where it could hear Tarl and the mud men.”

Knot meowed angrily, walked over to the little angry tree, and unsheathed his claws. “Meow firewood.”

“Threaten me all you want, stinky cat, but you don’t scare me,” the goblin tree shouted out loud. It pushed its face though its bark and stuck its green tongue out at Knot.

Keelie lowered herself back onto the sofa, hoping to go back to sleep.

“I saw you naked when you showered,” the tree continued. “I sent the image to all the trees around the mountain.”

Keelie blushed with embarrassment. “Silly tree. There’s a lot of serious stuff happening here. Besides, I don’t care. What do trees care about naked people?” But it gave her pause that the tree had spoken aloud. It was growing in power.

Keelie couldn’t stay in the RV another moment with the obnoxious thing. If she’d had the Compendium, she would’ve used a silence spell on it and then, just in case, sent out a forget-it spell to the trees so they wouldn’t remember the image of her naked.

A wave of regret washed over her as she remembered the Compendium. Cricket climbed on top of her head, as if sensing her sadness.

Keelie’s tree sense kicked in. Hrok?

Lady Keliel, your father is still in the elven village, and he will be so for many hours. He says you need to rest.

Thank you, Hrok. She paused. Hrok, can you sense the goblins? Are they near the entrance to Under-the-Hill?

No, milady. They have moved, but we do not know where. We sense they are near.

Yesterday, you told me that the goblins are your friends. I find it hard to believe that a tree could say that.

Oh yes. We like them very much.

Later, Hrok.

Keelie abruptly ended the conversation. She’d have to be careful talking to trees about goblins if they thought the goblins were their friends. Something was badly wrong with them, and with Dad too. She thought about her actions the past two days, but couldn’t think of anything strange about herself other than bone weariness and a growing hatred for the smell of woodsmoke. Whatever was going on, it was affecting more than tree shepherds.

A knock at the door interrupted Keelie’s thoughts.

“Hey, Human. Somebody is at the door. Can you ask them if they have some fertilizer? It will be an improvement over the company in this place.” The goblin tree swatted a branch at Knot as he strolled past on his way to the door.

Knot hissed and smacked the air in front of the pot.

Keelie needed a shovel to bury … no, to replant the tree in some clean, nourishing soil that might help with its attitude.

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