i

Old Gwendol twisted the doorknob as hard as she could with her arthritic fingers.

She had been doing grip strengthening exercises recommended by the local healer, but even so, she felt as though she was exerting all her willpower just to keep her bony green fingers tightened around the knob. She felt an absurd sense of relief as the door pulled open and she found herself facing her boy, Madden.

Not a boy anymore, she reminded herself. Even if he does still have those boyish features of his. She resisted the urge to pinch his cheeks or touch his pointy green ears. He was far too old for that now, a mature adult of thirty summers.

“Hi mum,” Madden said. He smiled, showing all his teeth instead of just the fangs one could normally see even when his dark green lips were closed.

“Hello sonny,” Gwendol said. “I hope you had no trouble getting up the mountain. I’m glad you could find the place after all this time!”

“It has been a while, hasn’t it?” Her son looked thoughtfully off into the distance as if trying to put a number on it. “How long has it been?” he finally asked

Gwendol fought back tears. I promised myself I wouldn’t cry.

“It’s been—” she swallowed down a lump in her throat—“s’been three years, boy. Come and give your old mother a hug!”

Just then, a small head poked around the edge of Madden’s long cloak. Curious yellow eyes stared up into Gwendol’s own as she looked down at the little thing.

Another two heads popped out beside the first one. They were smaller, but no less curious.

“Grandma?” one of the little ones said cautiously.

“Embrus, is that you?” Gwendol asked, her voice almost a coo.

The boy had opened his mouth to answer, when the smallest one Gwendol could see began to speak.

“Grandma… This is Grandma?” said the little girl uncertainly.

“Hold on! Is that my little Neon?” Gwendol asked, bending down with great effort to make eye contact with the child. “No, it can’t be! You are too big. She was smaller.”

The girl giggled and hid her face in her dad’s cloak.

“All right, that’s enough hiding, little ones, all of you come out and line up so Grandma Gwendol can get a good look at you!” ordered Madden with some amusement.

The tall, broad-shouldered goblin’s cloak hid a wide space behind him, but in an instant, the children sprang into motion to obey their father. All six of them lined up, oldest to youngest, travel bags on their shoulders.

Malin, the twelve-year-old bean sprout of a girl who had apparently been standing directly behind her father—otherwise she would not have been hidden from Gwendol’s view—stood tallest. She stood at Gwendol’s eye height. Next was her ten-year-old brother Memphis, just barely shorter, who made an elegant bow when Gwendol looked at him. Then the eight-year-old identical twins, Embrus and Raucus, who kept swapping places in line until their father gave them each a clout on the ear. There was six-year-old Corin who stood picking his nose until Gwendol and Madden looked at him and then immediately straightened up like one of the Goblin King’s own soldiers.

And finally, there was little Neon, the four-year-old, who smiled uncertainly as Gwendol looked in her direction.

All of them stood quietly under their grandmother’s gaze. She thought they were unusually disciplined for goblin youths, but then she saw them looking at the eldest siblings, Malin and Memphis, a bit uneasily. At twelve and ten respectively, they were almost adults in the goblin life cycle.

Oh, I see. The big ones are setting the tone. Ho ho ho! Well done.

“Six beautiful and well behaved children,” Gwendol said admiringly, giving the oldest two a nod of approval.

This was a small family for a pair of goblins, but then, Madden and his mate Maris had started much later than she had. He was practically an old man at thirty years old.

“Wait just a moment,” Madden muttered. He reached under his cloak and started to undo some clasps. Then he pulled out another goblin, the smallest one of the lot, and held the child up to the light.

“A new one!” Gwendol said, putting her hand to her mouth.

Madden nodded. “She’s a wild thing. She wouldn’t be still, so I had to carry her this whole way—with my back!” He grimaced.

Gwendol took the small girl from him and held her close, resisting the natural urge to smother her in kisses for a moment.

“What do we call you, then, dearie?” she asked.

“Gramma!” said the little girl excitedly, leaning in to nuzzle the old woman’s cheek.

“Little Gweneth,” Madden said, grinning. “We knew she was a wild one from birth, so we named her after the wildest person we could think of.”

“Oh.” Gwendol swallowed a lump in her throat. There were so many things she wanted to say. “Thank you,” she finally finished.

“No, thank you,” Madden said. He leaned in close to his mother. “Maris and I appreciate the chance to take a vacation alone for once. We love our little ones, but between children and work, sometimes I forget what it’s like to take a breath just for myself.”

“Well, you can bring them by any time you like,” Gwendol said. “I mean it, and you’d better take advantage of the offer while these old bones are still holding together!”

“Well, I hope I’ll have the chance. You know how work is.”

Gwendol knew only vaguely. Madden worked in Goblin King Bronwen’s mines. When Gwendol was young, the Kingdom had been less productive, more martial. For her and her mate’s service in the armed forces, they had received the patch of land where her cottage now sat.

But Madden wanted to make his own way in the world and let me leave the land to his younger brother Borden.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Well, I’m just going to say a few last words to the children, and then they’re all yours,” Madden said.

He took Gweneth back from Gwendol’s arms, and then he turned around and walked around ten paces away. The children followed him obediently.

Finally, Madden stopped. Gwendol watched him as he bent, put Gweneth down, and spoke to the children as a group.

Though she was old, and he was far away, Gwendol could still make out what he was saying. She had always had sharp ears.

“Be good, kids,” Madden said. “Be just as good with Grandma Gwendol as you are for your mum. No, be better! She didn’t have to invite you to stay with her for the next few weeks. She did it because she loves us, but if you’re not careful, she might rip off your ears and eat them! I don’t know if I ever told you this, but when Grandma was young, people called her by a different name. Bloody Gwendol.”

Gwendol winced as she heard that. No one had attached that modifier to her name in over a decade.

He went on. “Your grandma was feared all through Cymber. She fought in the Great War of Liberation against the humans. She made them fear to walk the Murmur alone.” The Murmur was the name of the nearby forest, which seemed always to be alive with the sounds of muttering voices, despite the fact that no one lived there. It was rumored to be haunted, though Gwendol thought that was ridiculous. “By the end of the war, they had an unofficial policy of patrolling in groups of three. Groups of one and two had an unfortunate habit of vanishing and only turning up in bits and pieces! Some people say that the humans only made peace with us because they were afraid of her wrath. And the Goblin King gave her this patch of land in recognition of her contribution. So just make sure you show her respect.”

Gwendol shook her head. You do not need to go that far, son. In her letters to him, she had written of how she was slowing down in her old age. Now Madden was clearly trying to intimidate the children into obedience while he was gone.

What’s the worst they could do? she thought. Even if they wreck my house, it’s just a wee house. It’s not that important. And if it’s really ruined, I can always move in with Madden. Ho ho ho…

She was distracted for a moment, thinking about that. Moving in with her favorite son. She smiled.

Then her mind returned to the present. The little ones were marching up to her house in a somber line, their little faces serious, from eldest to youngest, with their father at the back shepherding little Gweneth along.

“Please take care of us, grandma,” said Malin. She curtsied and then walked into the cottage through the open door.

“Please take care of us,” repeated Memphis. He bowed his head and entered after Malin.

The line went on, with each of the children repeating the line or some variant and bowing or curtsying, until Gweneth came up.

“Pwease take care of us, gramma,” the little girl said. She forgot to bow or curtsy and just walked in after Neon. Gwendol almost laughed.

“Where in the world did the wee darlings learn these manners?” Gwendol asked Madden.

“They had to meet the King six months ago,” he replied, his eyes following the children into the cottage, a smile playing over his thin lips.

“Well, that would do it,” Gwendol said. Though there was no love lost between her and the King, he did run a tight ship. Madden certainly would not have wanted his children to embarrass the family by failing to greet him properly.

They stepped into the cottage together. Gwendol looked around to make certain that everything looked decent, and Madden gathered all seven of his children in his arms for a bear hug.

“Goodbye, my little loves,” he said. “Just as your grandma is taking care of you, make sure you take care of grandma and each other.”

The children nodded and agreed that they would. Then their father gave Gwendol a last hug.

“Good luck with them,” he said quietly, his eyes showing just a hint of nervousness. “And thanks again.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “They’re in good hands with me.”

Madden left, and the first day was one of play. The children unpacked, and Gwendol chased the little ones around her yard with a stick in her hand—they were playing goblins and humans, with her stick doubling for a spear—while the big two arranged their bedding in their preferred style and looked around Gwendol’s house.

Most goblins of non-noble birth did not own books, but Gwendol possessed two dozen that she had looted from human dwellings she had burned during the war, among other treasures. So the bigger two flicked through a few of her books when they were done setting up their sleeping arrangements.

Finally, as the sun began dipping low in the sky, Gwendol ordered the game to a halt and told the children to go back inside for dinner.

Thank the gods that’s over, she thought. She had sweat sticking in places she had not thought of in years, and she felt in desperate need of a bath.

But first she ate with the children.

Her cauldron had been simmering over the fireplace for hours, and the goat stew, when she finally served it, was rich and savory, thick with potatoes, carrots, onion, bell peppers, wild-picked mushrooms, and crushed tomatoes. Spoonfuls of the mouthwatering broth quieted the chattering children, restoring Gwendol’s cottage to the quiet serenity she had known before their arrival.

The two markedly different conditions of her home gave the grandmother pause. If she closed her eyes, the meal was so quiet that it was almost as if she was home alone again. Her life on the mountainside was an almost isolated one.

There was Cerysa, the local healer, who lived much further down the mountain. She and Gwendol saw each other every once in a blue moon.

But with Madden working on the other side of the mountain in the King’s mines, and with the forest uninhabited by sentient life, there were no other neighbors. The closest ones were the humans who lived across the valley, and Gwendol never saw them.

I really am isolated here, she thought. All alone.

Her mind started to form the idea that perhaps, before the children came, she had been lonely. But she pushed that thought away. On some level, she knew that if she once decided that she had been lonely as an empty nester, she knew there would be no going back to living by herself. When Madden returned, she would end up asking if she could move in with him and his brood. He had always been her favorite.

And she was not sure she wanted to do that right now.

After all, I worked hard for this land. I fought and bled for it, she thought fiercely. The King did not award land grants to just any goblin. Though she had felt a little embarrassed by Madden bringing up her service in the war, he had said nothing untrue. If she left, she would forfeit the land back to the King. Though he would do nothing with it, the cottage and surrounding fields would no longer be Gwendol’s. She did not want to move away and see all her work go to waste.

If only I could get Madden and Maris to move here. That would solve it…

But her boy had always been fiercely independent.

“It’s getting to be about the little ones’ bedtime.”

Gwendol refocused on the present to find Malin standing in front of her.

“Bedtime,” Gwendol repeated.

“Aye,” said Malin. She pointed at the windows, where the day’s light was dying. “We usually put them to bed around sundown. If that’s all right with you, of course, gran.” Her tone was carefully deferential.

“Yes, it’s all right with me, sweetie,” Gwendol said. She was still a little dazed from the sudden transition to her home being full of all these little bodies again. It had been almost fifteen years since her youngest left home to seek his fortune.

“Thank you.” Malin nodded and then went around telling all the little ones it was time to go to sleep.

Gwendol helped tuck them in and then kissed each of the little ones on the forehead.

“I pray the gods give you good dreams,” she said quietly to each child as she did so.

She walked back over to Malin and Memphis, who were the only children out of bed.

“Do you think they’ll be wanting a story?” Gwendol asked.

“We’ll tell them one,” said Memphis. “If that’s all right.” He held up one of her books. “We don’t get to read much at home. Only if dad takes us to the King’s Library. So we would enjoy getting to read out some fresh stories.”

“You don’t want me to do it?” Gwendol asked.

“Not unless you really want to,” Memphis said.

“We both like holding and looking at the book,” Malin added.

“Well, all right,” Gwendol said. “I’ve actually been wanting to have a bath. Would you children be all right if I go down the mountain and have a dip in the river?”

“We’re hardly children,” Memphis scoffed.

“What Memphis means to say, gran, is we can handle being alone here for a little while,” Malin said, shooting her brother a look.

Memphis opened his mouth to say something back, but Gwendol spoke up and cut off the potential argument before it could happen.

“All right then, I’ll leave you two young adults in charge,” she said brightly. “Don’t burn my cottage down while I’m away!”

In Gwendol’s experience, her fireplace was safe enough, and her earthen oven was outside of the cottage, so she had no real concern the house might burn down while she was gone, but the words had their intended effect.

“You’ve got it, gran!” Malin straightened up and gave a salute to make a soldier proud. Memphis matched her posture.

I love these kids, Gwendol thought, suppressing a laugh. I see so much of Madden in them.

Then she went out into the rapidly unfolding night sky. She closed the door behind her and held still for a little while, her long pointed ears perking up to better hear what was going on inside her little house. As she heard the first lines of the story, she realized the older children were telling the younger ones quite a violent tale: “The Tragedy of Andronikos.” Gwendol just shook her head.

I hope it doesn’t give them nightmares. But this is how you build courage. You have to know there are scary things out there.

She stepped away and immediately felt overwhelmed. On her mountain—it was so quiet up here that she often thought of it as hers—the sky felt bigger than it ever had when she had lived in goblin settlements, or when she had been in the Murmur—or when she had raided human towns. The vast openness of the expanse had a great majesty. It never failed to remind Gwendol of how small she was.

As she walked down the mountain, the starry night reminded her of what she would be giving up if she left this place.

I would have to be mad to leave this beauty, she told herself. The children are just so cute that I took leave of my senses temporarily.

Gwendol walked down a mile until she reached the forest line, then moved along a well trodden trail until she reached the river. Then she shucked off her clothes, slid into the river’s gentle current, and allowed the water to wash the residue of the day away—and temporarily, some of her aches.

Unknown to Gwendol, at that very moment, a group of humans were entering the forest from the valley side.