Servants were let go, and we had to start keeping the house tidy ourselves. One might expect Clara to like housework, since she was such a stickler for everything, but she didn’t. Not one bit. She was always trying to get the rest of us to do it for her. I believe I was the only one who actually liked washing and scrubbing. It was a good chance to daydream.
But we were still in trouble, dodging lenders in the street in some embarrassing instances. Marta and Trixie were obsessed with snagging husbands, and terrified that word would get out about just how poor we were.
Soon, we were down to the essentials, and there was no hiding it anymore. We had sold the horse and carriage. The only servant left was the cook, and that was mostly because she had been with us so long that she refused to leave, and would work for nothing but food and board. We were no longer invited to social functions, because everyone knew we were on the brink of losing all respectability, and we didn’t have the money to keep up.
We were about to lose the house.
It was time for a serious discussion.
“The dowries!” cried Trixie. “Our good name! Why couldn’t this have happened once we were safely married? I thought I had Danny Martin on the brink of proposal.”
“Someone would probably marry Sabela, even if she had no money.” Marta looked at me. I was the beauty of the family, so much so that Father called me “Beauty” most of the time. It had never sat comfortably with me; I didn’t especially want attention. Most of all, I didn’t like male attention. I could imagine nothing more stifling than to be a married woman in Fairhaven. Likely, my husband would be a merchant like Father, who would travel around, while I was home with the servants and babies.
“But Sabela never pays any attention to men.”
“Not real men. Just the men in books,” Clara said. “Books and tales. Like the goblin king.”
I flushed.
“One gold coin,” she said. “That would pay for this house.”
“But no one ever stays more than a few nights,” Trixie said. “He must get bored of them.” She was the closest to my age.
“Trixie, pay attention. One gold coin would shut up the lenders for a little while. Two gold coins, and we could buy some new clothes. People would think we were doing better again.”
“Maybe he won’t get bored of Sabela,” Clara said. “She’s too pretty. And even a few gold coins would buy us another month to think.”
I thought Father would snap at her that he would never, ever do such a thing to me. He would never send away his youngest daughter to sleep with the goblin king.
“We can’t…ask that of Sabela.” He looked very tired, and heaved a sigh. His hand moved to reach for his pipe, and then withdrew when he realized there had not been money for tobacco.
“But what else do we do? Lose the house?” Clara said. “Lose the house where we grew up, where we were born, where Mother died?”
His eyes met mine.
I looked at the floor, flushing again. It was a funny thing about the goblin king. No, you didn’t go to him unless you needed money, so it wasn’t a thing respectable women were likely to do.
But if you were desperate—
It wasn’t viewed the same way as prostitution. He was a magical creature who never left his caverns. I would never see him again. He would never gossip about me. And then, there was the fact that the women never quite remembered what had happened.
“The goblin king only accepts young women who go willingly,” Father said.
“Last year, I caught Sabela looking at a picture of the goblin king in a book, and she turned just as red as she is now,” Clara said. “I think she might do it.”
“Clara!” I had never liked Clara much. But this was the first time I hated her.
“My beauty, is it true, that you would be amenable?” Father asked, tentative, but even in his eyes, I saw something like hope. Like he just wanted someone to solve his problems. He was getting old, his hair thinning, his eyes growing too weak to read, but I still felt a pang when I realized he would let me go.
“I…” My voice died as I saw them all looking at me, my selfish sisters. Why me? I thought. Why shouldn’t one of my older sisters go instead?
But then I realized that if one of them were to volunteer, a different sort of emotion would pass through me, and it would not quite be pleasant. I don’t really know why I wasn’t entirely terrified of the goblin king, why something called me to go to his door now and indeed, ever since I started to become aware of myself as a woman, but it did. I couldn’t deny that. I didn’t exactly want to go, but if someone must, it would be me. Not my sisters.
“I will go,” I said, forcing my voice to be brave.
“Dear god,” Papa whispered. “What am I saying? Sending you to him?”
I stood up, my resolve building. “I will go willingly, as soon as the sun rises.”
I could hear my sisters letting out breaths of relief.
I had always been the strange one, the one who dreamed of a life beyond this city while the rest of them simply dreamed of handsome husbands and greater riches. Maybe, I thought in panic, as I struggled to sleep that night, I have built up an idea of this goblin king simply because going to see him sounds like an adventure. But what do I think will happen? Some hideous, fanged monster will answer the door, drag me underground, steal my virginity, and throw me out again.
What did I really know of him? I had seen a picture in a book. It might be wildly inaccurate. It might not capture his cruelty. I could hardly wrap my head around the idea that he would actually steal my virginity. I thought he must want something else.
It was certainly too late to change my mind. And even sleeping reminded me of the stakes, because I had a proper bed to sleep in with Clara, a feather cover and bed curtains to keep out the cold. If we lost the house, all these things would go. We would sleep on the floor on straw beds like the poor. One night with the goblin king, in exchange for countless nights of warm beds and soft mattresses. Someone must do something.
So, that morning, I put on my best dress, a clean white apron, a wool cloak, and my good boots. (My only boots, actually—it was easy to forget that I had sold the older pair.) The twins had packed lunch in a basket, for it would take all day to walk to the king’s caves.
They kissed me goodbye, standing all in a row like it was my wedding day. I said very little because my voice would quaver. My insides were quivering and buzzing like a hive of bees was swarming inside me.
“My daughter,” Father said. “Please forgive me. At least we know, they all come back.”