Note: Der Erlkönig was written in 1782 by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and appears here only in part.
4. Get Me Out of Here
The alley stayed in David's mind every day after his run in with Pim. He walked it every night, eyes peeled, senses ready and open. Pim never appeared again, and even the fuzzy moss was no longer at its customary stoop. That was distressing, but it did not stop David from looking and from waiting.
He bought a book on goblins, something second hand, yellowed, and dog-eared, and read it to Baby Joe. Sandra did nothing to conceal her shock. "You're reading? To Baby Joe?"
David bounced the chubby little thing on his knee. "Its favourite position is already reclining. Might as well put something in its fleshy little hands." Sandra frowned at him on her way to the kitchen, David waving goodbye with one of Baby Joe's limp, heavy arms. He barely seemed to register where he was, let alone that David was reading to him. "All right, Baby Blob," he said. "Pay attention now, because this one's important. The Erlking, Baby Blob, is a poem by this chap called Goethe. See if you can pronounce that, now or at any other time in your life. Well, this Erlking, some people reckon he's just a wood sprite, others say he might be a goblin. And not just any goblin, but a goblin king."
Baby Joe stared sightlessly at him, blowing spittle bubbles out of his mouth. David wiped them away as he read.
"I love you, your beautiful form entices me;
And if you're not willing, I shall use force."
"My father, my father, he's grabbing me now!
The Erlking has wounded me!"
The father shudders; he rides swiftly,
He holds in his arms the moaning child.
Barely he arrives at the yard in urgency;
In his arms, the child was dead.
David held Baby Joe above his head, where it gazed down at him as if in a stupor, kicking one chubby leg weakly. "What do you think of that, eh? What a lovely and reassuring tale that is, isn't it, you little blob?" He smiled at Baby Joe, pretending not to hear George protest against David scaring his son before bedtime.
George took David's sudden interest in goblins and mythology in stride. They were now out of steady work, after all. Maybe something had finally snapped within David's logical interior. He had gotten himself hired at some greasy pub, as a waiter, and George often saw him as he headed home, cutting through the same alley he had used back in the days of Jonesing for Change. He caught him bent over a manhole once, tracing the relief letters and numbers like a blind man tracing Braille or some hedge wizard deciphering runes. Runes and David were two things George never thought would come together. Yet here he was, reading stories about goblins and gnomes to his son practically every night.
The alley, meanwhile, waited, silent and dark and patient. It did not even know it was waiting. It knew only that something—something important—was coming down one of its bends. Something that needed to be tested, pushed back and then pulled in. So, every second night or so, the alley shifted. The change was gradual and slow, so that few people wondered about or even noticed new bends, new cul-de-sacs, new archways, new stairs that, should anyone had bothered to follow them, would prove to lead nowhere. To more stairs, perhaps, or to half an arch. These changes occurred only within the deepest corners of the alley, where few people bothered to go. The alley knew that whatever was coming would not be thrown by these changes but, instead, enticed further in.
David gazed up at an ivy covered arch and made a mental note of its position. He had already misplaced the fuzzy moss's stoop beyond any hope of recovery. Last Thursday, his manhole cover had shifted to the right. He wondered if this had always happened, if this was what Pim did. It was a poor way to spend one's life, if that was the case; shifting and moulding some dirty back alley in some small corner of Kent, England. David rather pitied him, when he wasn't busy cursing him for never showing up again.
He dropped down on the crooked steps beneath the arch, his chin resting despondently between his hands. Blasted Pim. Why did he care so much anyway? Goblins existing, he reasoned, granted them no more mystery or import than earwigs burrowing within garden plants. They lived within the soil and ate leaves and stayed right there in their cold, damp spaces and David was pretty sure that they cared not one jot for the humans whose garden they were mangling. Goblins were no different.
Above him, the arch blocked out the moon. David could see less and less of the sky from within the alley with every slow, passing week. The walls seemed taller somehow, the ground beneath him more serpentine. His alley was almost a maze, and it puzzled and annoyed him to no end.
And still, he kept right on coming.
He would wake up tired and listless every morning in his flat above the butcher shoppe and sleepwalk through the morning until it was time for his noonday shift at the Moliere Pub, and then he would work until seven at night and then shuffle over to George's for supper and he would only smile when he read from his book or when he wandered his alley.
"And why, you dolt?" he said. He plucked at a patch of sour grass at his feet and scattered the blades between his fingers. "What do you come out here for?" He sighed. It was a tired sound, much deeper than David had meant it to be. He had intended to sound exasperated at himself, instead his shoulders drooped and his eyelids grew heavy, something keenly sorrowful stirring within him.
"I want to get out of here," he said. "I've wanted to get out of here for some time now. Away from George and our failed band, away from that butcher shoppe flat and away from that useless job I've gotten myself. I just want to get out of here."
He wrapped his arms around his legs and rested his head against his knees. It wasn't like him to be melancholic, and he wanted whatever mood this was to pass. He tried to laugh at himself, but the sound came out weak and half-hearted.
It was then that a faint blue something caught his eyes. Not silver blue like the moonlight, and not blue like a manmade neon sign. This was an odd blue, odd like the fuzzy moss's green light. Breath firmly trapped within his throat, daring to hope, David raised his head.
The manhole had shifted again. Or so David thought, at first. The blue glow was certainly round, designs visible along its interior, like the manhole markings. When he bent to inspect it, though, he saw that it was not a manhole at all. It wasn't even any kind of covering. The light was coming from the ground itself, as if someone had drawn out a rune or spell in glowing ink. He reached out his hand, tentative, before pressing one finger to the light. It pulsed, shifting sideways, before it returned to its original place.
The alley rumbled within itself, stones grinding out unintelligible words in low, cavernous voices.
David reached out for the circle once more, this time with both hands. He pressed his palms flat against it, fingers splayed. He gazed in awe as the lights arranged and re-arranged themselves around his fingers, flipping and twisting like disturbed earthworms. His lips drew back over his teeth, his eyes bright and excited. Here was something at last. Something wonderful.
"Get me out of here," he whispered.
The blue circle remained as it was. David frowned. "Oh, come on, now. You're not going to start glowing on me and not be anything. What are you? Are you sentient?" He looked up at the wall in front of him, at the steps and the arch behind him, at the darkness above and all around him. "Can someone—something—hear me? Something is here with me in this alley; I've already seen it. Pim! I've already seen you! What is this thing?"
The rustle of dead leaves fleeing on nimble feet down stone steps and then, out of the darkness, a rusted, creaking whisper. It echoed within David's head, so that he could not be sure if it was high-pitched or low and deep within the ground.
"What does he want?"
"I want to get out of here."
"Phaugh," said a second voice, one like bark and dead leaves. Pim. "Is not even a proper request, that's not."
The first voice whispered again. "What does he wish?"
Pim made a sound like a startled crow. "Oi now, wot's the big idea, eh? Goin' 'round givin' thinks in silver platters and wotnot. 'E is ter think for 'eself, or I as won't be—"
"Enough," the whisper boomed, although its voice never seemed to rise. "What does he wish?"
David stood quite still. He could feel his heart, beating frantic fists against the walls of his ribcage. George and Sandra were back at their flat, tucking that blob of a Baby Joe into bed. Every other member of the band had blown away like so much trash, and David could not say that he missed a one of them. But George he thought of with a pang of regret. George was his friend, the only life he had really known since he was fifteen. He felt his heart grow heavy within his chest, but his mind was clear. He looked down at the glowing blue circle and he knew what he had to say.
"I wish goblins would take me away," he murmured.
"Is that what he wishes?"
David nodded.
"His wish may be granted."
For a moment, David wondered what it would feel like, being taken by goblins. He wondered if Pim alone would grab hold of him, or whether hundreds would rush at him, or whether the disembodied voice of the alley itself would somehow grow arms and pull him into a wall or suck him into the circle or something. He wondered if it would hurt.
He had not even begun to wonder properly before something sharp and clammy shoved him from behind and then he was falling forward and he was falling into dark and endless nothingness.