Short Story: A Goblin Tale

[Todd]

Hi Milo, it was a smooth nice read with good descriptive elements. I can always tell when a short story writer is also a poet (though it was easy in this case). If I were to offer any advice it would be the following:

First line: Maybe "I had been" rather than "was still". For me that construction seems to speak of an aging more than years but of lost innocence (could just be me).

You may also want to blend the opening of when the narrator smells the dried oak leaves he remembers the night... have the smell of the natural thing drive the memory.

If you wanted to expand a bit you could contrast Mother's world to Chandra's in a line or two, but it isn't entirely necessary.

I would have liked a little more specific details about the pre-goblin monsters. It wouldn't have to be long but maybe the zhomba bats lured children into their own shadows where they got lost, or some such. I'd like one specific eerie terror detail for the addition. I loved all the goblin detail, but even the earlier King's could have an activity or trait more centered to them. It wouldn't take away from the worst of them was one-eyed Nick. I like that she whispered his name, as if she was afraid she would invoke him and draw his attention. It feels very old sidhe. It might have been good after one story if one of the children spoke the name and she reacted violently (the only time they had ever seen that).

I would have liked to have you do something with the demon fiddlers. They seemed unnecessary if they didn't play. Maybe with the first wrong answer the song sounded like _____ and it removed from your mind the faces of your parents. I think you're missing an opportunity here.

I also think you needed to have one of the riddles somewhere in the piece or maybe through the thin walls have the main character hear the riddles know the answer and be unable to speak (whether that's magic or cowardice I don't care, but I think the reader would want to hear the riddles.

One option if you wanted to expand would be to have the protagonist seek to summon back Nick for his brother. Though this isn't necessary.

I love the ending and absolutely loved the crumble of Autumn's leaves part--beautiful image that tied back to the opening and completes it in a way.

I wanted to get my initial thoughts out. There was much I liked that I didn't comment on. It was a fun read Milo.

Best,

Todd

I was still very young the night my brother was taken. It was many years ago, but I can still smell the dried oak leaves on the breeze. Chandra called us into the living room for story time and Luke, Mary and I gathered and quietly seated ourselves around where she was sitting in rotund majesty on the old rocker; little Bobby perched on her knee. She was a big nigger woman that scrubbed the floors ‘til they glowed yellow and always had a handful of polished pigeon bones in her starched apron pocket. This was during the years before father had passed entirely from this world but lived instead like a shade at the edges of our world, only occasionally stepping out of the whiskey glass refuge of his study. Mother spent most of her days in bed during that time, not sleeping really, but laying in the great bed with the shades drawn and suffering through her existence in the thick Louisiana heat.

We sat reverently as at school during story time as Chandra told tales of the old people, or of zhomba bats or of the demon sprites that passed their mischief where the forest broke in the light of the moon. But that night she spoke of the goblin kings. First she spoke of Fruelagh and Braagh, the jealous twins. She spoke of Grollen and his dog, that slobbering hellhound that bore him. But the name she whispered was one-eyed Nick’s.

Old One-Eye, she said would choose a child just as the night seeped down to the roots of the earth and sneak into their bed chamber through the window. He brought with him three demons and each of the three carried a fiddle. He would wake the child, she said in a hush, and ask them a riddle. They were allowed three chances - after each one, Nick would pound his linden staff to the floor.

“and if the child answered right
old Nick was banished for the night
off to hang by dread-locked hair
in Kindra, the ancient dragon’s lair”

Then she paused and pushed back with her bulging calves to reposition her girth with a groan from the old rocker and she tilted back her head and closed her eyes for a moment and let a slow sigh escape like dust from an old bassoon.

“but if the child answered wrong
Nick stole them off in demon-song
to goblin mines to slave away
pounding rock ‘til the final day.
The overseer, a ruthless master
whipped them raw to urge them faster”

Luke and Mary burst out with churlish giggles to hear such nonsense. I wasn’t really sure, but I laughed along. I was younger and I wanted so much to be as wise and strong. But Billy, I could see the wide fear in his eyes. I knew he wouldn’t sleep that night. Chandra pretended not to notice his discomfort as she lumbered off the chair with him in the crook of her arm and moved up the stairs with a surprising grace to put him to bed. I went to wash up with Mary and Luke and headed up myself, passing Billy’s door on the way to my own. I thought I saa a strange glint of tiny bones hanging by human hair above his door as I skipped double-step past.

It felt like I had just passed into confused dreams of dust and coal when I awoke to the rustling sounds of climbing up the side of the house. I felt the chirp of panic try to escape but I clamped my teeth and bit it back. I have told many times of the sounds I heard that night: First, the subtle lilt of rhymes, backed by the discordant chitin of a bow drawn angrily across the bone of a fiddle. Then, the unmistakable certainty of a staff’s thump on the wooden floor. Then, again, the fiddles that sounded so much like beetles sliding back on back. And again, the thump of a staff. I could hear the harsh goblin's giggle at poor Bobby’s ineptitude with riddles.

To the end of my days I will here the resounding echo of that staff’s last pounding. I’ve told my story, over and over, but nobody believes. Mother said he fell out the window and blew away like the crumble of autumn’s leaves. To this day, I cry some times. Thinking of Bobby in goblin mines.