Published by: Strange Horizons, March 15, 2010

Photo by Suzie T Creative Commons

The Story: Annie has a goblin for a friend — a short and well dressed fellow with yellow, hungry eyes. He leaves her gifts of golden trinkets, but when Annie’s mother learns about this green-skinned friend, she begs Annie to tell him to leave her alone, scared he’ll steal Annie away. But Annie likes the goblin, so she only banishes him to the far end of her bedroom instead of out of her life completely.

And so he watches her, silently. Day after day. Waiting for her to change her mind.

The Craft: Character Arcs

SPOILERS

If characters made sensible decisions, then there’d never be a story. Annie is no exception to this. She’s presented with a series of choices involving her interactions with the goblin, fueled by her shaky relationship with her mother, and eventually her daughter, too. As a child, Annie is enamored with the shiny trinkets that the goblin provides for her. She calls him a friend, though evidence of that is somewhat lacking. She’s friendly to him, yes, but their relationship seems to be a bit on the opportunistic side. Annie gets what she wants from him as a child and a teen — trinkets and companionship — but the goblin never gets what he truly wants.

It’s no wonder why Annie uses the goblin so. She finds out that her own mother had promised Annie to the goblin in exchange for success, which maybe explains a little why the goblin seems to be intent on marrying Annie. She banishes the goblin for good this time, then pursues her own life so she can buy her own trinkets, acquiring a family along the way. Her marriage dissolves, and when motherhood momentarily drives Annie to her wits’ end, she again calls upon the goblin and asks him to take her daughter away. But he doesn’t want the child. He wants Annie. Too late, she banishes the goblin again, and although her daughter is perhaps too young to understand what has happened, a great rift opens up between them. Annie carries out her motherly obligations, as well as she can raise a child that hates her. And at her daughter’s high school graduation, Annie sees her goblin, her tool, standing near the bleachers as he always has. There she kisses him, a kiss that paints her invisible to the world and her obligations, free to be the girl she’d meant to be.

I liked that this story chose the road less traveled, the character whose nature does not change. Annie uses the goblin in the beginning, and is still using him in the end, stringing him along, getting everything she needs from him and offering him nothing in return. For a brief moment in her life, she does try providing for herself, so driven to be something better than her mother that she alienates her husband and daughter in the process. Annie follows through with her motherhood obligations, but at the first opportunity regresses back to that carefree girl dancing, twirling.