The Goblin Market
A short story about faerie commerce and true love
I’ve been missing Faerie lately, and this one came to me a couple of days ago. I wrote some of it in the kitchen, some in the orthodontist’s waiting room, and the rest at my desk (in my lunch break - obviously...) Although, of course, Christina Rossetti had done the groundwork in 1859.
2004
"I think we both need some time to cool off. I'll meet you back at the car."
Marc stands on the trail, watching Luke stamp down the hill in his forest green North Face jacket, his hiking boots crunching on the loose stones of the path.
Luke has been Marc’s best mate for nearly a decade, since they started university together. They'd always got on, but recently their relationship had become somewhat strained. Marc had thought a hike in the national park would fix things - it was something they both enjoyed, being out in nature, tackling the routes with the steepest inclines. But then he'd gone and shot off his mouth, criticising Luke's fiancé, Stella - again. It was stupid because Luke is crazy about Stella, doubly so because Marc actually likes her - she's friendly and intelligent, wickedly funny. She's good for Luke too. They love each other, and that's the problem.
Marc doesn't head down the path after Luke. It's going to take more than a minute for him to calm down. He veers off the trail and into the trees, striking out uphill, feeling the burn in his thigh muscles as his legs pump up the steep slope. His breath comes faster, he starts to sweat. He pushes himself harder, lengthens his stride, in a vain attempt to distract himself from the turmoil in his mind.
He is frustrated, more than anything. Angry at himself for making snide comments about Stella because he can't say what he really means: If you marry her, you'll break my heart.
He's been in love with Luke for years. He can't tell him, though. It would make everything between them awkward forever after; he might lose Luke as a friend, and he can't take that risk. Yet it seems impossible to Marc that Luke doesn't already know. What he feels is so intense that he's sure it must radiate out of him like heat, or crackle on his skin like static electricity.
Suddenly, above the huff of his breath and the crackle of dry pine needles and twigs underfoot, Marc hears music. Not the tinny sound of a smartphone, but real music: fiddles and drums and something that sounds like pan pipes. The melody is haunting, almost disturbing somehow, but it draws Marc on and, without even making a conscious choice, he follows the sound.
He crests the hill he's been climbing and finds himself in a wide clearing. The space is crowded with stalls, people milling about between them and vendors calling their wares. Marc experiences a moment of disjointedness, imagining he's wandered into a farmers market, but then realising there couldn't be one up here, so far from a serviceable road. Besides, this is nothing like any farmers market he’s ever seen - like nothing he’s seen outside a movie. Panic grips him for a split second at the thought he might be losing his mind. Finally, he relaxes. He's dreaming, of course. He pinches his own arm, but nothing happens. He'd always thought that was the trick to waking from a dream - that's what all the stories he'd read as a kid seemed to suggest. There was telling the time too - you couldn't read clock faces in dreams - so he checks his fitness tracker, but the screen is blank. He must've forgotten to charge it. Then he remembers: you can't read in dreams, you can't make out the letters. So he turns to the stalls, to the painted banners and handwritten signs, to chalkboards and placards.
He can read them all.
Dragon hide doublets 2 for 1.
1 vial of widow's tears free with every purchase!
Medallions forged in the eye of a storm.
Charms for protection and provocation.
Marc closes his eyes for a moment, but the sounds continue. The eerie music, the rumble of indistinct chatter, accompanied now by the lilting calls of market vendors.
“I have amulets, newly cursed.”
“I have drink to slake your thirst.”
“I have flowers to unmake your mind.”
“I have secrets only Death can find.”
He opens his eyes. Everything is as it was before he closed them. Directly in front of him is a stall covered in tiny vials, the liquid inside them glowing rose and amber, violet and emerald green. The vendor is speaking in a sing-song voice that carries across to him:
“My stall with opportunity is laden;
Come buy my wares, ye mortal maiden.”
She turns towards Marc and fixes him with yellow eyes.
“Ye mortal lad, don't hesitate;
Come buy the draught to change your fate.”
She has feathers instead of hair on her head, and a sharp raptor's beak where her nose should be. From her back sprout wings, angular, with long wingtip feathers like a bird of prey. Marc finds, strangely, that he is not afraid or even discomfited by her. His feet, of their own accord it seems, lead him towards her.
"What do you sell?" he asks. His voice sounds thick in his ears, almost slurred, as if he's been drinking.
"See for yourself," the vendor replies, spreading her arms wide, indicating her rows and rows of tiny bottles. "Each vial contains only one dose, but I can guarantee lasting results. One dose is all you will need."
Marc bends to read the labels: Delirium, Desire, Devotion ... He still doesn't really believe any of this is real, but his eyes scan ahead to the Ls anyway. Loathing, Longing, Loyalty, Lunacy, Lust.
"There's no Love," he tells the stallholder.
"Naturally," she replies. "You can't buy love."
"But you can buy desire and longing and lust?"
"As you see. But love is different. It's something you must earn."
"I'm afraid that's impossible - in my situation."
"I see. You wish to change the one you love." It's a statement, not a question. "But then he will no longer be the one you fell in love with. He will not be himself."
Marc nods. She's right, of course. He knows you can't force one person to fall in love with another; it's what all the fairy tales say.
"Then can you make me fall out of love - with him?"
The vendor smiles.
"That isn't my area, but I know one who can help you." She points a delicate hand, heavy with rings the colour of obsidian, towards a stall on the other side of the market. It has a banner strung above it: Wordsmith.
"Tell her the Peregrine sent you."
Marc nods obediently. As he wends his way through the crowd, he hears the other vendors' songs.
“Poisoned apples! Enchanted hats!”
“Wings of butterflies, birds and bats.”
“Gowns spun from cobwebs in the moonlight!”
“Rings forged from pain at black of midnight.”
“Come buy, come buy, don’t hesitate,
Lest time slips by and you’re too late.”
The creature behind the Wordsmith's stall isn't calling out. She has no need; there is a knot of people around her table and she is serving them patiently, one by one, taking each off to a smaller table behind the first. Marc waits his turn, staring at the other patrons. One has green skin and antennae sprouting from her forehead, another has bat's wings and sharp, pointed teeth, while still another is covered in scales. He sees cats' eyes and snakes' eyes, but no human eyes like his. The Wordsmith herself has olive skin, but every inch of it that is visible is covered in minute, swirling script. Feathers hang from her earlobes and her hair is a mass of ringlets so black they seem to have a bluish tint. Her eyes are dark with no whites at all, like insect eyes, or pools of tar, or inkwells.
"Ah," she says when Marc reaches the front of the queue. "The boy with the broken heart."
Marc opens his mouth to protest. He doesn't think his heart is broken, but perhaps she is right. Perhaps it has been breaking day by day for years. His love doesn't sit in his chest like a warm glow as he feels it should; his feelings for Luke are always tainted. The anticipation of seeing him tinged with the knowledge that he will leave, the joy of being with him tarnished with the pain of knowing he can't ever feel the same way as Marc does for him.
So Marc nods. Yes. He is the boy with the broken heart.
"And what do you want to do about it?"
"Stop feeling the way I do - for him, for Luke. Can you do that?"
"Certainly. Come with me."
The Wordsmith motions Marc to come around behind the stall, to the little table, and take a seat.
She draws out a piece of parchment from a box and flattens it on the table. Then, she dips a quill into an inkpot and prepares to write.
"Tell me your name in full."
"Victor Marcus Allinson - double L, I, N. Victor and Marcus both with a C."
Marc watches as his given name flows from the end of her quill in curling gold letters.
"Who sent you here?"
"The Peregrine."
The Wordsmith continues to write, but the script is illegible to Marc.
"What are you writing?" he asks.
"The particulars," she replies, offhand. "There!" She signs the document with a flourish, then leans over suddenly and plucks a hair from Marc’s head. He flinches, more surprised than alarmed, and merely watches her without question as she melts wax over a candle, uses it to affix his hair to the parchment and adds a seal - a feather crossed with a double-headed axe.
“How does it work?” he asks, feeling slightly dazed.
“I can’t tell you that.”
"Well, then, what does it cost?" asks Marc, unhooking one arm from his backpack strap and swinging it round to retrieve his wallet.
"My services cost no coin," the vendor replies, waving him off.
"So what happens next?" Marc asks, uneasy now. In his experience, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
"Exactly what you wished for."
Marc holds out his hand for the parchment, but the Wordsmith rolls it up, business-like, ties it with a blood-red cord, and stows it in another box.
"This is for us," she says. "When the time comes. Now, be off with you, mortal lad, and do not squander what we have given you. To be free to love and be loved is a great gift that very few receive.”
2025
"Yeah, sure. I'll be home soon, babe," Marc hangs up the phone, still smiling. He adds a Bounty - Joshua's favourite - to the shopping basket, even though they're both supposed to be on a health kick. Still, when you're pushing 50, you've got to have the occasional treat. He glances up, meaning to head in the direction of the fresh fruit and salad, and comes face to face with a woman in a bird mask. Then, a feeling of cold, sinking dread grips him as he realises he recognises her, and it's not a mask: the Peregrine.
Over the years, Marc has almost convinced himself that the goblin market was an illusion, a weird mindfuck from all the emotions tearing him up in his Luke Phase. But part of him always knew it was real, knew he'd made some kind of deal that day, the implications of which he didn't understand. His life, what he had now with Josh, had been bought at a price, and now he was about to find out what that price was.
In her hand, the Peregrine is holding a roll of parchment, and he knows before she unrolls it that it's the one with his name at the top, with the feather-and-axe seal at the bottom, his hair and the Wordsmith's curling signature.
She holds it out to him, and he finds he can read the letters after all. It's all there, in shining gold ink.
The client, Victor Marcus Allinson, will relinquish his unrequited love and fall in love with one who loves him in return. They will remain together one score mortal years, whereupon the client shall enter into a period of indentured servitude in exchange for services rendered. He shall serve the Peregrine in her own lands until either she releases him from her service or he perishes, whichsoever shall occur first.
Marc knows he can’t argue, knows instinctively that he relinquished all rights along with his love for Luke that day at the market. He is grateful, too, that he didn’t know what the document said until now. He has lived 20 years in a loving relationship, in blissful ignorance, instead of having the knowledge of its predestined end hanging over his head.
"How long have I got to - to say goodbye?" he asks.
"We leave now." The Peregrine tells him.
"But Josh will think -"
"Josh knows you love him," she says, and Marc nods, although tears are springing to his eyes.
"You tricked me," he says, "all those years ago."
"Did I? I call it a bargain. There are those who would give a great deal more for two decades of true love."
"But it wasn’t enough. I want more."
"Mortals always do," says the Peregrine lightly. "Now, come, we will tarry in your realm no longer. You belong to me now. Come."
Author’s note
The missing persons case concerning Victor Marcus Allinson (48), known as Marc, was never closed. Although staff at the mini market where he was last seen recognised his face, and indeed found his abandoned shopping basket, no one could remember seeing him leave the premises. The CCTV gave no clues either; there had been some technical glitch. On the footage, Marc appeared to be talking to the air, and then he simply disappeared into it.
Great writing and storytelling.