08-30-2013, 02:48 PM
I was still young the night my brother was taken. It was many years ago, but the memory is as fresh as the smell of 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 on the floor around where she was sitting in rotund majesty in the old rocking chair; little Bobby perched on her knee. She was a big nigger woman that scrubbed the floors ‘til they glowed yellow. She carried a handful of polished pigeon bones in her starched apron pocket. This was during the years before father 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 blinds drawn, suffering through her existence in the thick Louisiana heat.
We sat in reverent quiet during story time as Chandra told tales of the ancient people who still lived among us as gnarled trees or of zhomba bats who steal children away to their caves to feed on their souls 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, the 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 he would 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. She chanted:
“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 impish giggles to hear such nonsense. I wasn’t really sure, but I laughed along nervously, hoping they didn't sense the hesitation. But Bobby, 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 Bobby’s door on the way to my own. I thought I saw glint of tiny bones hanging by human hair above his door as I skipped double-step past.
It felt like I had just sunk into a confused dream of dust and coal when I awoke to the rustling sounds of something 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' shells scraping against each other. And again, the thump of a staff. I could hear the goblin's harsh 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.
We sat in reverent quiet during story time as Chandra told tales of the ancient people who still lived among us as gnarled trees or of zhomba bats who steal children away to their caves to feed on their souls 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, the 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 he would 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. She chanted:
“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 impish giggles to hear such nonsense. I wasn’t really sure, but I laughed along nervously, hoping they didn't sense the hesitation. But Bobby, 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 Bobby’s door on the way to my own. I thought I saw glint of tiny bones hanging by human hair above his door as I skipped double-step past.
It felt like I had just sunk into a confused dream of dust and coal when I awoke to the rustling sounds of something 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' shells scraping against each other. And again, the thump of a staff. I could hear the goblin's harsh 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.