The modern world has little use for faeries and their kin. What might have looked like a changeling in a less enlightened time is now merely a man suffering from a hereditary blood disease. A disease, however unusual, however rare, however resistant to treatment is still only a disease and nothing to write home about, assuming that one writes letters at all in such an age as this one. Call it what you will, disease or curse, the end result was much the same. In the prepared speech that Nadir Khan gives to all new employees of the van der Luyden interests, he speaks of an "illness of the blood" and, since it may be true in more ways than one, let us leave it at that.
The van der Luyden mansion is dark as the very grave. The curtains remain drawn from just before the first hint of sunrise to just after the last pale ray of sunlight has left the sky. Nadir Khan makes certain of this, rising every morning long before the sun and retiring only when it is dark. He should be able to trust the servants, but should and can are not the same thing. So, twice each day, he wanders the whole of the mansion, checking every last curtain.
Outside the van der Luyden mansion, the seasons pass from spring to summer to fall, but inside it is forever winter. Cold air filters through the vents into the shadowed rooms, where even the best of electric lighting struggles to shed a dim, feeble glow in the oppressive darkness. The drapes were deep black velvet, the fixtures icy crystal and cold silver, the upholstery shades of lifeless charcoals and grey so that the overall effect was barren and dead. It was a luxurious palace of unfulfilled wants and thwarted desires ruled by a pale prince who grew more silent and withdrawn with every passing year.
Nadir had begun to wonder if his employer was a sane man slowly being driven mad or a mad man slowly plucking away at the last shreds of his ties to reality. How could one ever tell in such a house? He could feel his own warmth being slowly leeched away over every passing day spent in the chilly darkness. He knew that his underlings feared him, could barely look him in the eye, much in the same way that they immediately averted their gaze if Mr. van der Luyden happened to be passing nearby. He wondered if he had instructed them to do so, or if it was done on instinct- Mr. van der Luyden does not wish to be seen, so we shall not see him. It was an atmosphere of utter loneliness in a place that was filled with people at all hours of the day and night, whether it was the day staff answering the phones and doing the heavy cleaning or the night staff who lived on the estate and were entrusted with the privileged rooms- Mr. van der Luyden's personal office, Mr. van der Luyden's music room and Mr. van der Luyden's bedroom- which had to be cleaned and arranged at night because Mr. van der Luyden didn't go out during the day. Of course, in recent years, he rarely went out at night, becoming more and more a prisoner of his illness or his madness or of the creature that had cursed his family long ago, but modern people don't believe in such things.
September was the most difficult time of year. The summer days were far too warm, far too bright and far too long and by September there had been far too many of them. Nadir rarely had reason to go out of doors during the day, but if he did, the sharp summer light would assault his eyes, leaving him blinking and cringing while the close hot air made his senses reel. Even the day employees were worn down as summer drew to a close, and like Nadir, looked forward to the coming of autumn and softer days of fog and gentle grey skies. Officially, the new season would be celebrated at the end of the month, but even a late September evening meant waiting hours for the sunset, being prickled by old summer's dried grasses and harsh air. The true Autumn didn't begin until the Goblin Market returned in the final week of October.
Officially, there was no such thing as the Goblin Market, and because it operated entirely outside the influence of permits or licenses, even those who attended were known to deny its existence. It didn't have a website, the vendors didn't reserve their places and the entertainment was never booked in advance. People simply showed up in a particular place in the wooded hills to the northeast of town at the agreed upon time, which was always began on a Saturday and always ended on Halloween, so that some years the Goblin Market lasted only a day and others it would continue for an entire week. Such was the nature of the event, and no matter what the weather, fine or foul, they always came although how they had figured out the where and when, Nadir would never know. Nadir had discovered it by following Mr. van der Luyden, many years ago now, that very first year he had come to Santa Cecelia.
That year, the Goblin Market had begun early in the week. It wasn't unusual then for Mr. van der Luyden to go out for the night, but for him to slip away night after night seemed entirely out of character. The opera wasn't performing and the symphony was dark, so where was he going? Nadir was convinced that some troublesome devil had taken possession of his ear, egging him on to pry among the other servants until the driver at last confessed that he had been taking their employer into the woods somewhere, but he had no idea where he was going or why. Having ascertained the location, it was easy enough to request the rest of the day off- Mr. van der Luyden never refused such requests- and to drive out himself, parking a safe distance away and then laying in wait for the arrival of the black limousine with its tinted and covered windows.
More than once, Nadir was certain that he'd been spotted in the open forest and cursed himself for a fool but he pressed on nonetheless until he found himself in the midst of the market with his employer nowhere to be seen. It was laughable really, an upstanding professional man in a suit, threading his way between people who might not have been out of place at a Renaissance Faire or a rock music festival or perhaps one of those science fiction conventions and realizing that he was the one who didn't belong. A woman in brown velvet offered him an apple, which he nervously refused and a man with a painted face juggled anything the passing crowd could think to throw at him. Vendors in stalls proudly displayed hand-embroidered clothes, herbs in glass bottles and beeswax candles in a rainbow of colors in the yellowish glow of a hundred fairy lights and lanterns. Fortunetellers advertised with rudely painted signs outside, and plied their trade under makeshift tents made from their own shawls. There was a constant din of talking, shouting, laughing and music played on pipes or sung in languages Nadir did not understand. And then there was the food, oh the food! Bright oranges and fragrant lemons! Pomegranates with seeds that sparkled like rubies! Cider frothing in mugs and dandelion wine in bottles! Jams and jellies in ever color, even blue! Succulent meats served in pastry and fresh vegetables with bread! In short, it was a sensory cacophony of mismatched colors, clashing styles and discordant sound and that made it all the more intoxicating. Privately, Nadir knew that one day he would return alone to taste the markets fruits and to search among the mysterious potions for the answers that medicine could not provide.
The sound of drumming nearby woke Nadir from his revelry as the mismatched crowd began to move in the direction of a makeshift platform that functioned as a performing stage. There were at least four drummers, no, five and now six, four standing on the platform and two walking amongst the crowd carrying their instruments with one hand and striking them with the other, pounding in rhythm with the beat of the heart and working the crowd into a fever pitch. Just in the corner of his eye, Nadir glimpsed the solitary, still figure of Mr. van der Luyden, standing far off to one side in the shadow of the trees, beyond the reach of the lights, waiting. Then at last, there was a soprano voice, piping high over the relentless beat, singing in a language Nadir could not understand but Nadir understood everything.
As for her, well, Nadir had little interest in her. She was slender. She was pretty. Still, there were better figures on California's beaches and plenty of Hollywood hopefuls with prettier faces. It was her voice that set her apart from any other woman Nadir had seen, and as much as he wanted to deny it, he could not. When she sang, she was surpassingly beautiful and she knew it. This was no child with a talent, but an accomplished siren who understood the power she could hold over anyone who heard her. He never would have expected it of Christine Daaé, the dull little secretary who greeted him before each and every one of the board meetings at Mercy Hospital with the same hope that his commute had been pleasant and announcement that coffee and pastries were in the conference room should he wish to partake. Well, it probably made sense that even a fairy would need a sensible sort of job in the modern world.
She didn't perform in every number. The choir was the focus of the performance, with three soloists appearing from time to time either with the group or individually to vary the program. In addition to the Daaé creature, a girl with black curls played on the flute and the conductor who showed off the skill of his ensemble by picking up a violin and playing alongside the group who were so well rehearsed that they needed no direction. The accompaniment was spare, mostly percussion with occasional strings or harp, which served well enough for what it was. Most of the arrangements were good but one or two were in a completely different class, clearly written by a different hand, with a haunting quality that particularly suited Daaé's voice, and as she sang, she gazed off into the distance and Nadir wondered if she wasn't singing to someone specific. Then the music would grow boisterous again, with the choir fairly swaying in time. In the final number, Daaé hopped off the platform and skipped through the audience, encouraging them to clap along with the bouncy tune. The conductor lifted her back on the platform by the waist and embraced her in what Nadir believed to be called a "bear's hug" before they bowed and even at a distance, Nadir could see his employer's hands tighten into fists in his pockets, and the set of his shoulders growing tense.
Once a man knows a thing, he cannot un-know it. Such is the curse that falls upon the curious. Even worse, the answer to one question begets a series of other questions, and each one was increasingly difficult to answer. The next morning, as he enjoyed his breakfast in the van der Luyden kitchen, Nadir thought about the Goblin Market and remembered a line of verse "We must not buy their fruits…" then looked down at his plate. He had been eating winter's fruits for months already, and sure enough the winter already had a hold of him and it was too late to escape.
Nadir Khan never did, however, go back to the Goblin Market, but that's another story. For the moment, we must leave him walking through the dark hallways of a cold palace just before the dawn closing the curtains against the final assault of summer's sun before summer gives way to autumn. Well, he had never much liked summer even before he ate of winter's fruits.