The Goblin's Eyes

The goblin had her mother’s eyes, as was common. She also had her grandmother’s and her great-grandmother’s. She kept them in a bag tied to her belt. When her daughter was old enough, she would get the bag along with this goblin’s eyes. It was the tradition.

She hadn’t used them this night, however. Didn’t need to. It was obvious that the frog was nothing but a frog. She did regret, just a little bit, having eaten the thing. It had been plump and full of warts, and she couldn’t help herself. But now her appetite was ruined for dinner.

“Eh,” she mumbled and quaffed the last of the ale in the jug and let out a long belch. The girl had brought three of them. Jugs, that is, not frogs. She must have hoped a larger payment would bring a better answer. “And that’s why you always take payment in advance, isn’t it?” the goblin said, and she tossed the empty jug in the ditch.

She uncorked the second jug and poured some into a bowl for the pig, and scratched the pink swine between the ears as it slurped the bowl empty. The cork shoved back in place, she put the second and third jugs in a saddlebag and climbed aboard.

Looking over her shoulder one last time, she watched the crying girl disappear around the bend. The goblin stuck a long and crooked fingernail in her mouth and plucked a piece of frog bone from between her teeth. She shook her head, her ears flapping against her cheeks. “Stupid girl… frogs ain’t princes and princes ain’t frogs.” But even so, she felt a twinge of pity. A very slight twinge, but more than most goblins ever had to endure.

The old goblin sighed and stuck her thumb-claw in her ear and pulled out a chunk of wax that smelled as bad as it looked. She pulled one of her few hairs from her spotted head and rolled it with the wax until she it was a pebble in her hand. A hollowed reed was retrieved from somewhere in the folds of her body.

She paused. Then she grumbled. She slipped the hair-wax-pebble into the hollowed center and, putting the reed to her disheveled lips, she said, “git home safe.” And she blew.

The hair-wax pebble flew through the air, accompanied by copious spittle. Down the road, the girl stopped, wiped the back of her neck and inspected the stinking glop that had hit her. She already felt cruelly disappointed, and now she was downright disgusted. But she would get home safely that night.

A tap of the goblin’s toes let the pig know it was time to go home, and it turned and trotted along a path only it and its rider could see.

After the pig was unsaddled and sent to rummage for food, the goblin went inside the cave that she called home. It was cold and musty. The floor was covered with sharp twigs and pieces of gnawed bones and rotted flesh. The walls were grimy and the lone chair was covered with more ash and dust than the fireplace in front of it. A pot of something that smelled like it had died at least twice was boiling over the fire, and a small black and white bird was stirring it with a wooden ladle.

“Hmmph…” the goblin muttered.

“What?” The bird stopped stirring. “You didn’t eat the frog, did you? You’ll’ve ruined your appetite.”

The goblin sat in her chair, the dust puffing up then settling back in place. Whatever was in the pot did smell good, and she decided that, frog in her belly or no frog in her belly, she was going to have some dinner.

“I’ve got room,” she said.

The magpie ladled swill into a wooden bowl and gave it to the goblin. “A moth came by today,” it said.

“Mphhmph…” The old goblin slurped her porridge and didn’t look up

“It was a request.”

“Mphhmph…”

“There’s a pregnant woman who wants to know whether her child is going to be a boy.”

“Spfft!” The goblin spluttered and nearly gakked on the wad of whatever it was that was sliding down her throat. “What’s that you say?”

“A pregnant woman wants to know if it’s a boy,” the bird snickered.

“Uh-huh…” the goblin scratched her pocked chin.

It was dangerous for a pregnant woman to meet with a goblin. Goblins had an excellent sense of smell, and it didn’t matter that the baby was still inside the mother’s belly. The aroma of sweet, soft tissue, unfinished organs, and the fluids that surrounded it were irresistible. More than one expectant mother had returned home from meeting a goblin without her baby, inside or out. And it’d been a long time since this goblin had tasted a delicious infant.

“And what was the offering?”

“Anything you want.” The bird flapped its black wings and hopped onto the small stack of firewood.

“You don’t say…”

Equally dangerous was an offer of ‘anything you want’ because a goblin had many things they wanted. Humans made the mistake of believing it would be gold or silver. But there were other things a goblin desired. Unimaginable things.

This made the goblin suspicious.

“Why such an offer?” she raised an eyebrow of three scraggly hairs.

“The woman is the wife of a king across the river and she needs to know because, if it’s not a boy, she’ll have to run away. The king’s beheaded his last two wives who didn’t give him a son.”

“Why doesn’t she just leave now? He doesn’t sound like a good husband at all.”

“Maybe living like a queen is worth it,” the bird shrugged and preened the feathers of one wing.

The goblin watched the embers in the fire and thought for a while. Something didn’t feel right about all of this.

“I’ll think on it,” she said and rose from the chair, her bones creaking almost as much as the relieved piece of furniture.

The old goblin spat into the fire, scratched herself in a few places the magpie had rather not seen, and flatulated an impressive amount of intestinal air. She ambled across the room and laid down on the pile of straw she called her bed, the bag of mothers’ eyeballs held firmly between her leathery hands, and closed her eyes.

Cocking its head from side to side, the magpie watched the old goblin for a few minutes, waiting until she was just getting into the deep river of sleep.

“Wock!” The magpie shouted.

The goblin nearly jumped out of her thick, warted skin. “Blasted bird!” she yelled, reaching around for something to throw at it.

“Wock!” the magpie said again. “Don’t you want to hear the rest of it?”

“Sppaffatt!” Unable to find anything to throw, the goblin spat at the bird. “The rest of what?” Angrily, she rolled over to face away from the nuisance.

“The moth’s message, of course.”

The goblin rolled back and up. “There’s more?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you say so before?”

“You were enjoying your dinner so much – ”

“Tell me!” the goblin growled. “Tell me now, you despicable excuse for a corvid. Or you’ll be magpie stew before tomorrow.”

“The queen will be under the Likho Tree when the moon is full.”

“What?”

“The quee—”

“I heard you!” the goblin snapped. She got up and began walking circles, the cave being too small to pace back and forth, muttering an argument with herself. Her flat feet slapped the ground and the nails of her long toes tapped the hard dirt with each step.

The magpie hopped to wooden the bowl and began eating leftover morsels.

“Full moon’s tomorrow night,” the goblin groused, “and the Likho Tree’s on the other side of the river.”

The magpie tossed something green in the air, caught it with its pointed black beak and swallowed it down.

“Even if I could make it, no goblins ever go to the Likho Tree.”

“Weer-weer-weer,” the magpie chittered, “Anything you want…”

The goblin stopped. She mumbled a bit more, then spat on the floor and announced, “We’re going.”

“We?”

The bag of eyeballs retied to her belt, the goblin began looking around the cave.

“Magpies don’t go out in the dark,” the bird protested.

“You can be my eyes and ears.” The goblin kicked at a pile of bones and looked under the rug made of the hide of an animal.

“You have a bag of eyes and your ears are bigger than any I’ve ever seen. You don’t need me.”

“You can watch the pig.” Wooden pots and mugs flew across the room as the search continued.

“The pig doesn’t need watching as long as there’s something around for it to eat.”

“Ah!” Finding what she was looking for, the goblin grabbed her red cap from under a pile of shiny magpie treasure. She turned to the bird. “You’re going with me because I’m saying you are and that’s that.”

The goblin marched out of the cave.

The bird hesitated for a moment, then flew to catch up.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The gnarled tree crouched at the top of a low hill. A ferocious head of leafless twigs shot up from its neck, and two thickly knotted branches stuck out from either side of its torso. Just above the surface of the grassy knoll it bifurcated into a pair of substantial roots that anchored it to the ground. In the full moon’s light, the tendrils of its malevolent shadow strained in every direction like ill-behaved offspring. Only a little bit of moonlight was able to squeeze through, but it was enough to show a very pregnant woman standing beneath the tree.

A short distance away, the goblin hid behind a large rock. The pig had been left behind in a shallow mudpuddle at the river’s edge. It was better not to have an animal like that too close to the Likho Tree. “Ahhh…” she said, inhaling the scent of the unborn baby wafting towards them. “The only thing better than the smell of a human infant is the taste of one.”

The magpie perched on the boulder, transfixed by something sparkly wrapped around the woman’s ankle. The goblin saw where it was looking.

“Don’t you dare!”

“But I must have it.”

“No! You’ll scare her off. You can have it after.”

“Fine.” The bird hunched down and squatted on the rock. “But you’d better not be lying.”

“Watch the words that come out of your beak...” the goblin growled.

The magpie hunkered down more, sulking, but still enamored by the shiny little chain.

The bird hopped down and rode on the goblin’s globuled rump as she belly-crawled, silently slithering towards the tree. When close enough, she jumped and grabbed the startled woman around the neck. The magpie jumped off her rear to snatch the anklet.

The two of them pulled, but the chain around the woman’s leg held firmly attached to the hand of the old hobgoblin hiding on the other side of the tree.

And then the four of them were suspended in the air, held by misshapen hands of rough bark, and the tree was stomping across the glen with its treasure.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Ouch!” the goblin snarled and dug her teeth into the twig twisting around her belly. “Watch where you’re putting your thorns, you rotted piece of wood. You’ll be tinder for my fire before this’s all over.” She turned to the red-capped hobgoblin wrapped in a netting of twig-fingers. “You had to meet under the Likho Tree, didn’t you!”

“Of course I did, Edwina,” her estranged husband answered.

“That was a long time ago,” Edwina snapped back. She curled into the branches carrying her and sulked for a bit, then said, “where’d you get the pregnant woman?”

“Found her wandering in a field downriver,” answered Morris.

“I wasn’t wandering!” they heard the woman say from somewhere down below. “I was tending the sheep.” They ignored her.

“You always knew how to lure me out,” Edwina smiled, in spite of herself. “Of course I knew it wasn’t no queen nohow.”

“A queen?” the woman shouted, “If I was a queen do you think I’d still be here with you?”

“Yes,” Morris said.

“Woot,” the magpie called from one of the topmost tree-fists. “Can I have that chain when you’re done with it?”

The tree trundled across the valley, towards the woods.

“I know what you’re after, Morris.”

“Then why don’t you hand it over?”

“It ain’tn’t time yet.”

“Her birthday’s next week. Tradition’s tradition.”

“I’m still using my own eyes, thank you very much. Hey! Watch the thorns!” Edwina slapped at the offending branch again.

“Yoo-hoo!” the woman called, “what do I have to do with all of this?”

“Nothing to do with you,” the magpie answered. “Just your baby.”

“What’s my baby got to do with it?”

“Woot. Do you really want to know?”

“Hush! All of you!” The goblin-tree shook every branch on its body. “You’re giving me a headache.”

“You could let us go,” the bird suggested.

“Nah,” the tree said. “Family’s expectin’ stew.”

“Come on, Edwina. It’s her turn.”

“Nope. Not yet.”

“Confound it, you old hag of a goblin woman!”

“Flattery will get you nowhere.”

“Does anyone feel like telling me what’s going on?” the woman called up.

Morris crossed his arms, scowled, and looked away from his wife.

Edwina crossed her arms, glowered at her husband, and looked in the other direction.

“It’s all about that sack of eyeballs on the goblin’s belt,” the magpie said.

‘Which goblin?”

“Me,” said Edwina. “And it’s gonna stay on my belt until I say it don’t.”

“It’s supposed to go to her daughter on her birthday,” the bird continued, “and she doesn’t want to give it up. I guess that part’s obvious.”

“Yes, I can see she’s attached to it. Why?” Then the woman said, “Wait. Did you say eyeballs?”

“They’re my mum’s,” said Edwina, “and her mum’s and her mum’s and hers and so on back as far as the family goes.”

“And now it’s Neddy’s turn to get the bag,” Morris said, still looking away.

“Who’s Neddy?”

“Her daughter,” said the magpie.

“So,” the woman tried to work it out. “You,” she tried to point but her hands were held tight by the rough twig-hand. “Morris caught me to lure Edwina out and to try and get the bag from her. But Edwina doesn’t want to give it up yet.”

“That’s pretty much it,” said the magpie. “And I’m getting that chain when it’s all over and done.”

“Hmph!” Morris scoffed.

“How am I a lure?”

“I told you, it’s not you. It’s the baby inside.”

The woman looked down at her belly, then up towards the goblin woman. “You wouldn’t!”

“Oh-hoh! Wouldn’t I! It’s been years since I’ve had a baby.” Edwina considered her words and laughed, “Years since eatin’ one. Even more years since birthin’ one.”

“Those are just horror stories.”

“No,” said Morris. “It’s all true.”

The woman grew silent, trying to remember all the tales her mother and grandmother had told her.

Edwina and Morris grew silent, mulling how angry they were at the other.

The magpie watched as the Likho’s long strides brought them closer and closer to the woods.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“What’s that smell?” the woman wrinkled her nose in disgust.

Morris looked out through the wooden bars of the cage where they had been unceremoniously tossed. “Broth for the stew,” he said.

“It doesn’t smell like any broth I’ve ever made,” she pulled up a fold of her skirt and tried to bury her nose in it.

“You’ve never made stew like a goblin does,” said Edwina.

The magpie hopped onto the woman’s foot and began pulling at the chain around her ankle. She kicked him off.

“Isn’t there anything we can trade with him? It?” the woman asked.

“The Likho goblin ain’t like other goblins,” said Edwina.

“But, surely, there’s something,” the woman said, eyeing the bag on Edwina’s belt.

“Oh, no you don’t! Don’t even think about it.”

“What good’s it gonna do you if you’re in a pot of stew?”

“She’s right,” said Morris.

“You’d say anything to get this bag for Neddy,” Edwina scoffed.

“Tell me again,” the woman tried to sound calm, “why don’t you want to give it to your daughter. Neddy, is it?”

“Yes, Neddy,” said Morris. “It’s because she’s selfish, that’s why!”

“Blast the day I met you, you old buttered hobgoblin!” Edwina screeched. “I’d’ve never had a daughter and this bag’d be mine forever’s.”

“You don’t mean that.”

Edwina glared at her husband for an extra amount of time, for good measure, then said to the woman, “When a goblin girl gets to a certain age she get the bag. And she gets her mother’s eyes.”

“You mean – “

“My eyes go in the bag when she gets it. But I’m still usin’ them!”

“Well, I can see the problem…” the woman said.

“Woot. Good one.”

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Still good,” chittered the bird.

“Does it have to be your eyes?” the woman asked.

“It’s always been that way,” said Edwina. “It’s tradition.”

“Bah, tradition,” the woman said. “I’ve broken more traditions than my father will ever know.”

Morris sat up. “Tradition is tradition!”

Edwina ignored him. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

“Yes,” the woman said, “maybe it could be any eyes.”

“Could be the father’s,” Edwina looked at her husband.

“Needs to be the female’s eyes,” he said, scooting away from his wife.

“Says who?”

“You know,” said the magpie, “there’s another set of eyes you could use.”

“Not mine,” the woman shielded her face, then her belly. “Not the baby’s either.”

Edwina inhaled. A bit of drool dripped from her lip.

“You’re not eating my baby!” The woman stood and put up her fists.

“Heh!” Morris laughed. “Will ya look at her?”

“Reminds me of myself,” Edwina chuckled.

“I wasn’t going to say it,” Morris said, “not out loud, at least.”

“Hullo?” the bird interrupted. “Does anyone want to know what I’m talking about?”

“Not usually,” said Edwina.

“I’ll listen,” said the woman.

“The Likho. It’s got eyes, doesn’t it?”

The woman and the two goblins turned to look at the huge goblin standing over the boiling pot, stirring the contents with its festered hand.

“And how do you suggest we get them?”

“Do I get the chain?”

“Yes,” said Morris, “you can have the chain, if you get us out of here.”

“Wouldn’t do me much good if we weren’t out of here, would it?”

“You wretched bird,” Edwina barked, “just tell us.”

“You see that plank of wood on the wall there?” the magpie said to the woman. “Can you reach it?”

“Yes, but I don’t see how –”

“And do you have any chalk with you? In your pocket or somewhere?” As a master thief, the bird knew humans always carried things in their pockets. Chalk was often one of those things.

The woman found a pocket within the folds of her skirt and dug out a small piece of chalk. She held it up for all to see.

Edwina and Morris grew nervous. They knew what chalk was for.

“Now, for the next part,” said the magpie, “you two are gonna want to cover your eyes.”

“Wait a minute,” said the woman. “I think I know what you’re thinking, and I think I should get something out of this. Considering how I’m the only one who can do it.”

“What is it?” Morris asked from behind the large hands covering his face and eyes.

“I get to keep my baby.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

They ran as fast as their feet could carry them, the magpie close behind with a silvery chain hanging from its beak. In the woods, nests in trees were emptied as every bird fled to the skies. Deer hid in caves, joined by bears who’d rather hide from whatever wrath was causing the commotion than having an easy meal.

The Likho screeched and blindly hurled tables and chairs across the cave. A brownish goo oozed from the sockets where his eyes had been. There’d been no choice. The wretched human’s handwriting on the wall cursed his vision and so the eyeballs had to be removed. If they’d stayed put, who knows what contracts to the mists of time the demon-woman of Asmodeus would bind them to. The eyes must be yanked out and tossed to the ground. where they rolled across the floor.

As she escaped, Edwina found the Lokhi’s eyeballs rolling across the floor, and she scooped them up with a leathery hand and dropped them into the bag of eyeballs that would be given to Neddy next week for her birthday.

“Tradition! Hah! Tradition can scag itself,” she laughed and grabbed her husband’s hand.