Weekend Writing Warriors: 12/16

This 8-10 sentence blog hop is hosted by The Weekend Writing Warriors. (Click the link for the list of participants, or rules if you want to join!)

Here’s a WIP from NaNoWriMo 2017, currently titled King Under the Mountain. Set in Casper, Wyoming, in a world where goblins trade in magical goods with humans, traveling from their world to ours through stone circle gates. But if humans aren’t wary in their dealings with goblins, they can find themselves stolen away! Stephanie and Alix, cousins, are biking home from a party, a bit drunk, when Alix falls off her bike and throws up.

Luckily, her cousin left an obvious trail even in the rapidly darkening shadows, so it only took a few moments for Alix to catch sight of the sequin-decorated cream cardigan Stephanie wore.

Stephanie heard her, and ran faster, dodging past tree branches and shrubs, and then she broke out into a clearing.

Hot on her heels, Alix didn’t spot the danger until it was too late. The first thing she noticed was Stephanie skidding to a stop, and whipping around to face her. Then the moonlight spilling over Stephanie’s face, highlighting how her eyes widened in terror.

A cold wind knifed through the clearing, carrying whispering voices speaking in an unknown language, and raising new tears in Alix’s eyes. She blinked them away furiously, the pale figure of her cousin wavering in front of her.

Then Stephanie was gone.

Heart racing, Alix moved closer, cautiously, until she could see the truth too clearly to dismiss it. The clearing stood empty of anyone but her, and the only sign of what had happened was a ring of toadstools dotting the grass.

*    *    *

I took inspiration from “The Ballad of Tam Lin,” and Christina Rosetti’s “Goblin Market.” The idea of people being stolen away, and a loved one journeying to get them back (though Tam Lin was stolen by the Queen of the fairies), and the bustling goblin markets with their dangerous fruit from Rosetti’s poem sparked this adventure. Alix and Stephanie are college freshman, 18 and 19 respectively, and cousins sharing a dorm room. They have just left an off-campus party where they did some drinking, and are biking back to the dorms in the evening.