YOU WILL COME TO THE WOODS AND CHOOSE YOUR MATE.
The phrase played on repeat in Skye’s brain. It was more stomach-turning than any other piece of the spell, even the part about leaving the human world and becoming a goblin. Hanging out in the trees in another form, okay, maybe she could find a way to make peace with that, as long as she were autonomous and got magical powers out of the deal, which seemed likely. But being obliged to choose a mate? From among them?
She shuddered.
It was a mild afternoon for January, the temperature almost fifty, and she was wandering in their overgrown backyard for some fresh air. Livy was at work; Skye was home alone. The forest loomed close, just across the railroad tracks. She chewed on a fresh fir needle. It filled her mouth with a sharp green flavor, which combated the taste-memory of saccharine fruit. She prowled back and forth, gaze combing the dark trees. Her feet were chilly in her rubber boots, but at least not wet. She hugged herself for warmth; her black crocheted sweater let too much cool air through its holes, and all she wore under it was a tank top and jeans.
The part of her compelled by the spell that wanted to enter those trees and choose a mate was the unnerving thing.
But she didn’t have to. She had fought it so far. In the past month she had gone for walks alone, even along the same forest path as before, and had not heard the goblins, nor called out to summon them. Of course, it had been daylight, so they wouldn’t have shown even if she had.
It’d be light for at least another hour. Skye could, theoretically, wander into the woods again and come home, and still remain human for one more day.
Livy had come back yesterday from a date at Carol’s with Kit Sylvain, smiling and humming. “He’s a total womanizer,” she’d said to Skye. “He kissed my hand. Can you believe that? It was kind of cute actually… anyway, he’s fun to talk to, but I can’t imagine anything’ll come of it.”
Still, she’d been just about glowing.
It made the non-enchanted part of Skye’s heart ache with longing. God, to be able to date again. A human guy, not a goblin. To chat, laugh, kiss. Another perfectly normal part of life stolen from her.
She spat the fir needle out of her mouth, unlatched the gate, and strode out. In a minute she was across the weedy grass of the greenway, and up and over the railroad berm with its seldom-used tracks. She trotted down the other side and along the barbed wire fence until reaching the spot where the fence ended and a footpath led into the woods.
She walked down it, the same path where she’d so foolishly accepted the goblins’ invitation. Cloudy gray light filtered through the ceiling of branches. Silence wrapped around her. High above, a crow cawed a few times, and a car swooshed by somewhere in town. Her feet squelched through the carpet of needles. She breathed in the familiar wet forest scent that now triggered a combination of intense desire and terror.
I’m defying it, confronting it, not giving in to its draw, she insisted to herself.
She reached the spot where the lines of glowing mushrooms had led her off the path. White shelf-shaped mushrooms did still stick out of the fallen logs, but they grew in no particular pattern now, and she doubted they would glow if she cupped her hands around them to shut out the light. They were just mushrooms. In frustrated defiance, she left the path, stepping over the low branches of evergreen huckleberry that stuck into her way.
After several paces, she stopped and looked around. Still the everyday forest. Another car whooshed past in the distance, and when she craned her neck she spotted the white edge of the railroad signal back on the tracks.
You had to be invited, and accept that invitation, before the forest turned into faeryland. And that had to happen after dusk. She got that now.
Movement caught the corner of her eye, accompanied by a thump of shoes on the ground. She turned her head. Someone was walking down the path, headed toward town. From her partly shielded position in the bushes, Skye watched the newcomer.
He was a young man, around her age. A little lanky, but he had a pretty enough profile and a pleasant thatch of dark hair.
The idea sizzled through her in a second, leaving her hot and trembling.
Come to the woods and choose your mate.
They never said it had to be a goblin. And even a total stranger, as long as he was human, was better than a goblin.
Maybe this wouldn’t even work, wouldn’t do a thing to save her. But she felt the magic ricocheting inside her, rising to the ready.
Skye stepped toward the path.
Grady Sylvain stomped through the forest, barely registering the majestic mossy trees he’d been so stoked about on his summer visits to this town.
Another “Sorry, the position’s been filled” from a Seattle restaurant this morning when he’d called to follow up on what he’d thought was a promising conversation last week. Then another two hours wasted this afternoon in searching Seattle apartment listings online, and still finding nothing remotely affordable except places that looked like crack houses.
He’d moved to Bellwater after Christmas, three weeks ago. He had expected it to be a step up from Moses Lake out in central Washington, where he grew up. At least he was technically closer to Seattle now, his dream destination. But it turned out Bellwater—an idyllic bayside town in summer, all stand-up paddleboards and ice-cream cones—became a nothing-happening town in winter.
He wasn’t even that near Seattle. The city was two hours away, one hour of which involved a ferry ride, and he’d only been over there twice to pound the pavement and look for a cooking job. Jobs, like apartments, were being devoured in Seattle ferociously, and employers could afford to be picky. The places he longed to work didn’t want some kid from Moses Lake with a community college degree. The places that did offer him a job dispirited him just to be in them, so he had politely said he’d consider them, and left, hoping he’d never be desperate enough to accept those.
Apartment hunting had been equally frustrating: oh, you don’t have a job yet? Then no, you can’t lease an apartment. And rent prices staggered him, especially for the tiny living spaces they came attached to.
So here he was, stuck in Bellwater, skinning his knuckles on greasy car bolts, cooking for his cousin because there was no one else to appreciate it, and tonight was Friday and that didn’t even matter since he had no one to go out with and nowhere to go. Did becoming a grownup and seeking a real job suck this much for everyone?
Something moved at the edge of his vision, out in the trees. He slowed and looked.
A girl stood there, well off the path, just her head and shoulders visible, framed by leafy branches and bare twigs. She stared at him, her eyes imploring. She took a step toward him, then paused.