Goblin Secrets z-1

by William Alexander

  He pushed forward, dodging around the knees of many tall people and working his way to the very front. It was easy enough to do.

  The fire juggling ended. The tall goblin extinguished the burning clubs, bowed, and withdrew. A smaller goblin with a trim gray beard and a huge black hat stepped onstage. His face was wide and round, and as he walked, his chin went first in front of him. He leaned on a polished cane, which clacked against the floorboards. He was small—shorter than Rownie—but he moved like he knew himself superior to everyone else gathered there.

  “Ladies and gentlemen!” he said. “You have no doubt heard that our profession has been prohibited by his lordship, the Mayor.”

  Some booed. Others cheered. “We’re only here to see you arrested!” someone shouted from the back of the crowd.

  The old goblin smiled a polite smile. “I am loath to disappoint my audience, sir, but I believe that I myself, and my companions here, are not so inconvenienced by this law. The citizens of this fair city are prohibited from pretending to be other than they are. We, however, are not citizens. We are not legally considered to be persons. This saddens me, because I lived in this city long before any of you were born, but I will have to quibble with that particular injustice another time. You have come for a play. We will give you a play. We are already Changed—the additional change of a mask and a costume will not do you any harm, and it will not break the law.”

  Everyone cheered this time—those who wanted to see the show and those who wanted to see goblin actors dragged off by the Guard, who didn’t believe that any sort of legal loopholes or flummery would prevent this from happening.

  “We will first offer a brief tale to delight the children among you,” the goblin said. He took off his hat, and then pulled out the mask of a giant. The mask had a protruding, furrowed forehead and rows of thick, square teeth. Rownie was surprised that the giant mask had fit inside the goblin’s hat—though it was a very large hat.

  The old goblin closed his eyes. Everyone was quiet in that moment, and respectful of that silence—whether or not they wanted to be.

  He put on the mask and shifted his stance to tower above them all, even though he wasn’t very tall.

  “I am a giant,” he said in a giant’s voice, and it was true because he said that it was true.

  Rownie wanted to try it. He wanted to declare himself a giant. He tried to focus on standing still and not bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet.

  A slight little goblin came onstage with a whip, a wooden sword, and enormous eyes behind a brave-looking hero mask. The Hero tried to outwit the Giant.

  “I’ve heard that you can change yourself into a lion,” said the goblin-hero in a high, crisp voice, “but I don’t believe you can manage it.”

  “Fool,” said the goblin-giant in a very deep voice. “I can change into anything I please!” He dropped the giant mask and pulled a lion mask up over his face with one smooth motion. He snarled and crouched.

  The audience cheered, but it was a nervous cheer.

  “This is not safe,” said an old man who stood beside Rownie. His spine was so gnarled and bent over that he had to turn his head sideways to see the stage. “Don’t believe it is, just because they’re goblins. No masks and no changes, none. Not safe.”

  “That was wonderful!” said the goblin-hero. “But a magnificent lion is not such a small step away from a giant. Can you change into a python?”

  The lion reached into its own mouth and turned the mask inside out. It was a snake now, and it shook slowly from side to side.

  “Astonishing!” said the goblin-hero. “But a python is still such a large creature. You cannot have so much magic as to transform yourself into a small and humble housefly.”

  Metal shutters closed over the stage lanterns. In the sudden dark, Rownie could dimly see the goblin take off his snake mask and toss something in the air.

  The lanterns snapped open. A housefly puppet made of paper and gears began to buzz in circles over the stage. The goblin-hero cracked his whip. The housefly exploded in sparks.

  “One less giant!” the hero shouted. The crowd clapped. Rownie cheered. “But I wonder if there might be any more?” He peered out into the crowd, and then jumped over the side of the stage. “Any giants over here?” he shouted from somewhere in the dark.

  Meanwhile, the old goblin had withdrawn. A gruesome head peered out through the stage curtains, exactly where the dragon puppet had been before. The giant puppet winked at the crowd, one paper eyelid closing over a painted wooden eye.

  The puppet spoke. “We must have a volunteer to play our next giant! The mask will fit a child best.”

  The audience responded with a stunned silence. No one knew if this was a joke. No one knew if it was funny. Everyone knew that even goblinish legal loopholes could never allow an unChanged child to wear a mask.

  Rownie expected to hear some sort of official person make an official refusal. He waited for members of the Guard to come forward and forbid any such thing. But there were no members of the Guard nearby. No one said anything at all.

  “The child will be perfectly safe!” said the giant puppet. “You there! The tasty-looking one with a hat. Would you like to perform?” It licked its lips with a long puppet tongue, and the crowd finally laughed a nervous laugh. Someone—a father, uncle, or older brother—pulled the child with the hat away from the stage.

  The giant puppet searched with its wooden eyes. “You!” it called out. “The one wearing a flower necklace. Play a giant for our story here, and I promise that you will absolutely not spend the next thousand years enslaved in underground caverns. We would never do any such thing.”

  “No!” the girl shouted back.

  “Very well, delectable child.” The puppet’s eyes moved. “Is there any one among you brave and foolish enough to stand on this stage and impersonate a person of my own great stature?”

  Rownie waved his hand in the air. “I’ll do it!” He wasn’t afraid. He felt like he would be even less afraid if he could stand high up above everyone else. He wanted to command attention, like the old goblin had just done.

  The crowd cheered him on, but cruelly, convinced that something awful would certainly happen to him onstage and that they would get to watch it happen. The goblins would take him, and then the Guard would come and take away the goblins. It would be an excellent spectacle to see.

  The old man with the bent spine tried to hold Rownie back with one gnarly knuckled hand. “Stupid boy,” he said. “Stupid, stupid boy.” Other dissenting voices cried out from people unwilling to let a child take such a risk.

  Rownie pulled away and tried to climb onto the stage, but he couldn’t quite manage it. The stage resisted.

  “I offer a compromise!” said the giant puppet. “He may hold the end of an iron chain. The front row of the audience will hold the other end. You can yank him away to safety if the performers here look likely to bite him or curse him or possibly steal him away. Are we agreed? Is this protection enough?”

  Some still shouted no, but the rest were louder:

  “Let him try it!”

  “He’ll be fine if he holds iron.”

  “Stupid kack has it coming if he doesn’t!”

  Rownie ignored them all. He focused on the giant puppet. The puppet looked down at him. He could see that its eyes were only wood, carved and painted, but he still kept eye contact with it.

  “We are agreed,” the Giant said, and withdrew behind the curtain.

  The goblin with the trim gray beard and the floppy black hat returned to the stage. He took off his hat and drew a length of chain from it. He spread the chain across the front of the stage and nodded to Rownie.

  Guess they can touch iron, Rownie thought. Blotches is such a liar. He took one end of the chain. Other hands took the opposite end.

  He pushed forward. He still couldn’t climb onto the stage. It wasn’t very high, but the air would not move aside for him.

  The old goblin reach
ed down. “Give me your other hand,” he said in a smaller version of the Giant’s booming voice.

  Rownie reached up, took the goblin’s hand, and scrambled onto the stage. He stood, let go of the hand with the long, green fingers, and held the chain. He faced the curtain, away from the audience. Suddenly he didn’t want to turn around and see the crowd looking back at him. He didn’t feel set above everyone else, like he’d expected to. He felt at their mercy. He tried to swallow, but his throat was dry.

  The old goblin watched him with gold-flecked eyes half closed, considering. “Tell me your name, brave and foolish boy.”

  “Rownie,” said Rownie.

  The goblin’s already wide eyes widened. “Rownie? A diminutive of Rowan, I believe. How very interesting.” He tipped his hat. “A pleasure. My own name is Thomas, and I have been the first actor of this troupe and of this city since before the walls and towers fell.” He picked up the discarded giant mask, setting it on Rownie’s shoulders. It was heavy. The paint on it smelled funny.

  “Stand there,” the goblin whispered, pointing. “I will give you your lines from backstage.” He passed through the curtains. Rownie was alone in the center of the platform. He stood where he was supposed to stand, and turned around.

  Faces watched him from the dark. Rownie could hear them murmuring and mumbling. He knew from the sound that some were worried, and others delighted, and all of them were sure that something awful was about to happen.

  Rownie drew up his shoulders, pushed out his chest, and tried to be very tall. He was a giant. He was something awful. He was going to happen to somebody else.

  The curtain whispered behind him. “What noise was that within my father’s house?”

  Rownie roared. “What noise was that within my father’s house?”

  “I smell trespassing blood,” the curtain went on. “Now show yourself.”

  “I smell trespassing blood. Now show yourself!”

  The goblin-hero jumped back onto the stage. “Hello!” he said. “I have heard boasting that giants can transform themselves into anything they please. I’ve come to see if that proud boast is true.”

  “This truth will be the last you ever learn!” Rownie said, echoing the curtain behind him.

  The goblin-hero laughed, but it was a frightened laugh. “It would be worth it. Can someone so tall transform into a small and unChanged boy?”

  No lines or instructions came from behind the curtain.

  Rownie took off the mask with one hand. He set it on the stage beside him, and then held out his arms as if to say Look at me! The chain clinked in his other hand.

  “Well done!” the goblin-hero said. “You are small, now, though you still look fierce—”

  Rownie grinned. He still felt fierce.

  “—but I bet you cannot change into a bird.”

  The lantern shutters snapped shut. The goblin tossed a paper bird in the air. At that same moment the front row of the crowd, spooked by the sudden darkness, pulled the iron chain and yanked Rownie forward. He tumbled off the edge of the stage.

  He felt hands trying to catch him, but he fell through them, hit the ground, and rolled onto his back. He could see the glowing paper bird fly above the dark silhouettes of people standing around him. The bird exploded in sparks, and a cloud of paper feathers drifted down.

  “One less giant!” said the goblin-hero from the stage.

  Rownie got to his feet. Those around him poked and pinched his arms to make sure he was still there and still real. Then the giant puppet returned, and then roared. It captured their attention. It almost captured Rownie’s attention, but he looked away. He didn’t want to be reminded that he was outside the story now. He wanted to savor how it had felt to be in the midst of it.

  A hand emerged from the red cloth that skirted the bottom of the platform. It waved him closer.

  Rownie looked around. No one else had noticed, not even the old man with his neck craned sideways.

  The hand waved again. Rownie felt like he was about to jump over the side of the Fiddleway.

  He ducked underneath the stage.

  Scene V

  IT WAS DARK BENEATH THE STAGE platform. Rownie had to hunch forward like the old man with the bent spine. He turned his head to look around. It didn’t help.

  A lantern shutter clicked open, but only slightly. Rownie saw gold-flecked eyes staring at him from behind a pair of eyeglasses. “Well done,” the goblin, the one to whom he had given two copper coins, whispered. “Yes, it was well done. Do you need something to drink? I find lemon tea soothing after speaking to a crowd.”

  “Okay,” said Rownie. His neck started to hurt. He sat on the ground, so he wouldn’t have to hold his head at odd angles anymore. The goblin handed him a wooden mug, lacquer-smooth and filled with hot tea. He smelled it and took a sip. He tasted lemon and honey.

  “Tell me your name, yes?” the goblin said.

  Rownie glanced at her over the edge of the steaming mug. She was smiling, but he couldn’t tell what kind of smile it was. This was strange to him. He always knew exactly how the rest of Graba’s household felt, because none of them knew how to hide it. Graba herself never bothered to conceal her moods and wishes—her face was as easily readable as words spelled out in burning oil in the middle of the street. Rownie was used to that. The goblin, however, wrote her smile in a language that Rownie didn’t know and couldn’t read.

  “Rownie,” he said.

  “Hello, Rownie,” she said. “I thought that this might be your name. Mine is Semele. Yes, it is. And I am wondering whether you have heard news of your brother.”

  Rownie stared at her. He knew what she had asked him, but he didn’t understand why she had asked. “My brother Rowan?”

  “Yes, Rowan,” said Semele. “A decent young actor, that one, and he has been missing for some time. Have you heard from him?”

  “No,” Rownie said, suspicious. If he had heard from his brother, he probably wouldn’t tell anyone about it—not Graba, and certainly not goblins.

  “Well,” the goblin said, “please tell him hello if you see him. In the meanwhile, I wonder if you might be interested in remaining with us. We have many performances to make—we play at the Broken Wall tomorrow and down by the docks on the day after that—and we very certainly could use another voice, another pair of hands. Is this something you would like?”

  Rownie blinked. Yes, he would like to stand onstage again. Yes, definitely yes. “It might,” he said aloud, still suspicious. Living in Graba’s household had taught him to be suspicious whenever anyone offered him exactly what he wanted. “Can I watch the rest of the play first?”

  “Of course,” said Semele.

  Rownie finished his tea and set the mug on the ground. Semele pointed to the back of the wagon. Rownie half walked and half crawled underneath the stage. He emerged between the cloth’s edge and a wagon wheel.

  He could hear a fiddle and a flute from the wagon’s roof, and then singing, beautiful singing. He paused to listen, and he wondered what to do.

  He did not actually get to decide. Metal shrieked against metal. Wood and brass talons closed around him from behind.

  “Where is my gear oil, runt?” Graba hissed in Rownie’s ear.

  She lifted him up with a bird’s leg as though he weighed less than dust or a name or a crumpled scrap of paper. Then she wrapped her arm around his waist and set off with long strides.

  Rownie squirmed. Graba held him close and sniffed.

  “You smell wrong,” Graba said. “You smell like thieving and tin. You smell unsettled. Did Semele brew you Change potions?”

  “No, Graba,” he tried to say, but he couldn’t actually say it. She held him tight, and his breath came out in short gasps.

  Graba strode across the green and onto the roadway, moving fast. Rownie thought furiously about different ways he might escape or explain himself. He thought and thought and came up with nothing and more nothing.

  They passed beneath the statue of th
e Lord Mayor. Graba spat at his feet. They crossed the Fiddleway and passed beneath the Clock Tower. Graba spat at the foot of the tower.

  Graba strode into Southside. They passed through an open lot of hard-packed dirt and broken plaster walls. It was a place where old buildings had fallen over, and new ones had not yet come and might never come. Night birds pecked in the dirt. Two peacocks slept on the top of a brick chimney that stood alone, without walls.

  “This was home, a long while ago,” Graba said as they went through. “This was mine. Every place I put down my shack is mine, though none of them ever own me.”

  Rownie said nothing. Breathing was all he could do.

  Graba stopped, finally, outside her own shack. Vass and Stubble peeked out through the window that served as their only door. Rownie expected his older siblings to look smug. He expected them to gloat. Someone was in trouble, and it wasn’t either one of them.

  They didn’t look smug. They didn’t gloat. They looked afraid.

  Until this moment Rownie had been startled, surprised, and scared of what might happen next. Now he felt fear, bone-deep inside him. Now he knew that Graba was upset over worse than the loss of two pennies.

  Graba would never fit through the small window-door. She climbed up the sides of the alleyway instead, one long leg stretched out to either wall. She hoisted them both onto the roof, and then lifted half of the shingled rooftop like a box’s lid. She climbed inside and tossed Rownie into the far corner of her loft. The rooftop fell shut above them. Birds shrieked and flapped their wings. Graba settled onto her stool. She watched Rownie with pale eyes. “Did you eat what she gave you?” she whispered. “Did you drink what she offered?”

  Rownie stared back at her and said nothing. He needed to know what kind of trouble he was in, and he didn’t know.

  “I can burn you,” Graba said. It was almost kind, the way she said it. “I can burn goblin gifts out of you, now. I should do that, before you start to Change into one of them, just as she did. I should burn away whatever she gave you.” She lit the iron stove, took a mortar and pestle down from a high shelf, and began to pound dried leaves into a fine powder. She chanted softly to herself. She never took her eyes away from Rownie, and Rownie never took his eyes away from her. The only light in the room came from the door of the stove.