Page 37 of The Goblin and The Dancer
Grik was suddenly shouting. “I said it’s my fault! I . . . I threw the rock that knocked you over the bridge.” His glow stick slipped from his shaking fingers and rolled away from him, bumping into the edge of one of the walls that hemmed them in.“I was jealous of you,” he whispered, “and I didn’t think. I just picked up the rock and threw it.”He couldn’t bear to look at Rosanna, and he couldn’t bear to have either of them look at him. He covered his face with his hands, but it only partially muffled his moan. He cringed at the shocked silence beside him, imagining their censure and knowing he deserved it.
“But . . .” Rosanna said tentatively, as if searching for some way to save him. “You didn’t mean for him to be knocked over the edge.”
“I don’t know,” Grik sobbed. “Maybe I did. I hated you, Paul. I hated you for being an elf and for taking”—he gulped down Rosanna’s name at the last moment—“everything away from me. For looking down on me.” He rubbed at his face, trying to force the words out. “If it weren’t for me, none of this would have ever happened.”
There was a long, horrible silence. Grik picked up his glow stick and wrapped his hands around it, clutching it to his chest, smothering that last, tiny glow so that he was in complete shadow. He didn’t want to see the others’ expressions. He was the worst being that had ever scuttled. There could be no forgiveness for what he had done.
When the soldier finally spoke, he said the last thing Grik was expecting to hear.“You also dove in after me.”
Rosanna jumped in quickly. “That’s true, Grik. And you kept us from drowning in the river.”
“And you didn’t abandon me to the kraken,” Paul added.
“And you’ve been leading us out of here as best you could,” Rosanna finished.
Grik writhed. “But . . .” He was a sinner. Why didn’t they denounce him? Their kindness was almost worse than any hate.
“I forgive you, Grik,” Rosanna murmured, and Grik sucked in air and flinched. They were the words he had never dared hope to hear—and yet they somehow burned him and made him feel more wretched than before. She couldn’t forgive this, surely. It was impossible.
Paul cleared his throat. “I bear no hard feelings against you if . . . if you won’t bear any against me.”
Grik’s mouth dropped open, and he nearly pinched himself. He must be imagining that they were reacting this way. Paul was not only forgiving Grik’s fearful sin, he was apologizing for all that he had said and done.
Their generosity felt unbearable, like something that would collapse at the faintest poke. And the sooner it collapsed, the better. He couldn’t accept it.
“You must not understand,” Grik began wretchedly. “You’re only here because of me.” He swallowed convulsively and glanced towards Paul before looking away. “You were right to feel the way you did about goblins.”
Paul spoke immediately. “Only a goblin could have guided us through these tunnels. It’s because you’re a goblin that we made it this far.”
“It’s because I’m a goblin that we’re in here in the first place,” Grik said bitterly, not quite ready to forgive himself as he scrubbed at his eyes.
“You’re not the only one who has made mistakes, who has faults,” Rosanna urged. “I wish I had been smart enough to realize that you two were . . .” She paused awkwardly.
Grik could guess what she was about to say. She wished that she had been quicker to discern the rivalry between Grik and Paul and had somehow stopped it—as if she were somehow responsible for the tension that had caused them to wind up here in the underworld.
“You’re not to blame!” Grik burst out, sickened at the thought that Rosanna could possibly think any of this was her fault.
Rosanna added hastily and unhappily, “I wish that I was smarter—that’s all.”
Grik was shaking his head emphatically over and over, too sad and too weary to speak, but disagreeing with every word she said. He wished he had the strength to fight her, to tell her that her shame, at least, wasn’t true. But the words were trapped behind a wall of heaviness that was too great to move.
“I wish . . .” Rosanna said softly into the darkness.
They all wished. But it didn’t do any good. They were bound by their weaknesses, just as surely as they were bound by the darkness and the depths around them. The monotony of guilt, of miserable confessions, was like the steady dripping that surrounded them—unending and wearing away at them.
“I’m the soldier,” Paul said suddenly. “I’m the one who has been trained to dealwith disasters . . . to stop things like this from happening. If I had been stronger, I could have pulled you both up that drain.”
Grik’s brow wrinkled. “I don’t think you could have pulled us up that thing at any time.”
He had been trying to help, but when he saw the soldier’s shoulders slump, he realized belatedly that he had said the wrong thing.
Rosanna suddenly snarled from across the room, “You’re both being absurd.”
Paul and Grik turned to look at her, startled.
Rosanna’s hands had closed into fists. She looked angry. More than angry, she looked furious. Grik had never seen that look on her face before or ever heard such venom in her voice. She was nearly spitting.“This is getting us nowhere. We have to do something. We have to shake this off. Can’t you feel it? As if we’re going to be choked or eaten alive. I’m sick of this feeling. I’m sick of it.”
Grik and Paul stared at her, only half-recognizing the fierce girl that stood shakily to her feet, almost trembling with fury.
