Goblin Secrets

by William Alexander

  “You’re a kack,” said Stubble.

  “What did the sign say?” Rownie asked, but they ignored him. They probably didn’t know.

  “Vass should be done with the door by now,” Stubble said, changing the subject, but Rownie didn’t want to change the subject.

  “I didn’t know goblins could come out in daylight,” Rownie said.

  “They have to keep moving if they do,” said Blotches. “Goblins never have a home, any of them. That’s why they live in wagons. The sun finds them out and burns up any building they stay in for longer than a day and a night. That’s why they’re never goldsmiths, too, because it’s sun-metal. They’re only tinsmiths. And iron burns them.”

  “Liar,” said Stubble. “They don’t work with iron because it’s too hard and heavy. Tin’s easier.”

  “And they’re thieves,” said Blotches, as though the other one had just agreed with him.

  “Obviously,” said Stubble.

  “What do they steal?” Rownie asked.

  “Everything,” said Blotches.

  “The smallest child in every family,” added Stubble. “That’s why Graba only sends the oldest of us with tin pots for mending. No one ever sends a small child to the wagons unless they don’t mean for them to come back.” He snickered, three quick snorts of laughter forced out of his nose instead of his mouth.

  “Liar,” Rownie said.

  “It’s true,” said Blotches. “And they eat the children they steal.”

  He started singing a song about thieving goblins. Rownie turned away and looked at the pebble in his hand. “Hello,” he said, whispering low so the other two couldn’t hear him, and then he threw it as far as he could. The rock made a small splash when it hit the River, but the waters did not otherwise react.

  Stubble stopped singing and smacked the side of Rownie’s head. “Don’t get the River’s attention,” he said. “The floods will come for you.”

  Rownie rubbed his head with one hand. He didn’t look up. He watched the River. It was vast, and Rownie couldn’t look at it for long. There was too much of it to take in. He watched until he had to look away, and then he looked at the ravine walls to either side of the River, and after that he looked at the stones in front of him.

  Rownie had a brother older than any of the siblings who shared Graba’s shack, an actual birth-brother. They looked alike, both of them dark with dark eyes—eyes you couldn’t easily see the bottom of. Everyone called the brothers Rowan and Little Rowan. After a while “Little Rowan” shortened into “Rownie.” Rownie had never had a name of his own. Their mother drowned before she’d had a chance to name him.

  He also didn’t know how old he was. Vass kept saying that Rownie was eight years old. She remembered everyone’s birthday, but she didn’t always tell the truth about birthdays, and Rownie suspected that she was lying about his. He was sure he was closer to ten.

  Rownie and Rowan used to throw pebbles together, right on this spot on the Fiddleway Bridge. They would listen to the musicians, and Rowan would tell stories about the River and about their mother; how she had skippered a barge and gone down with it just underneath the Fiddleway. Only Rowan was able to swim to shore. He carried Rownie with him.

  Vass didn’t believe that story. No one can swim through that part of the River, she would argue. The currents are too strong. You would have drowned too. Rowan only shrugged. We didn’t drown, was all the answer he gave.

  Later, he showed Rownie where to toss pebbles down from the bridge. We drop the stones to say hello. It’s like leaving a small pile of stones on a grave. The dead speak in stones. Pebbles are the proper way to tell them hello. So Rownie always said hello when he crossed the bridge, even though he didn’t remember his mother at all, or her barge, or a time before Rowan brought him to stay with Graba because they didn’t have anywhere else to stay.

  Rowan had been gone for a couple of months now. Stubble, Blotches, and the rest seemed to have forgotten about him already—but Graba remembered. If you hear from your brother, she’d say, you’ll be sure to tell Graba, now. A charmer, that one. Your Graba misses her grandchildren, all of her grandchildren, and that one she worries for.

  Rownie had never known Graba to worry about anyone, and Rowan hadn’t even slept in Graba’s shack for over a year. He was too old—sixteen years old—and he took up too much of the straw floor when he slept there. Still, Rownie nodded and promised to tell Graba if he heard from his brother.

  You will do that, now, Graba agreed.

  Stubble and Blotches started up a song about floodwaters and falling bridges, which seemed to Rownie a very stupid thing to sing about while actually on a bridge. He left them there and crossed the road, looking for the goblin sign—and looking for some sign of Rowan, just like he always did on the Fiddleway. He found the goblin sign, but only the goblin sign. It had been tacked to the opposite railing with one iron nail. Rownie read it carefully. He was good at reading. Rowan had taught him how. It read:

  THEATRE!

  A Troupe of Tamlin PLAYERS will Delight and

  Astound the Citizens of this

  Fair City at Dusk.

  Discover their Stage in the CITY

  FAIRGROUNDS.

  The stage will be Illuminated by Cunning Devices.

  The Players will present the finest

  Performances of MIMICRY, MUMMERY, and VERSE,

  along with Feats of Musical and Acrobatic Skill to

  Delight every Eye and Ear.

  Two Coppers per Audience Member.

  He read it again. He still didn’t believe it. He read it again.

  Goblins were putting on a play. Nobody could put on a play. Nobody was allowed to put on a play, but goblins were going to. Maybe he could see some of the show before they all got arrested.

  Rownie ran the rest of the way across the bridge, through music from fiddles and whistles and drums. His coat billowed behind him like a sail.

  Act I, Scene III

  BROKEN GEARS AND STACKS OF WOOD filled the alleyway outside Scrud’s workshop. Rownie heard shouting inside. He waited in the alley and rooted through some of the mess of gears until the shouting faded to a low mutter. Then he went in.

  The noise did not actually stop. It never did. Mr. Scrud was always shouting to himself.

  “Hello, Mr. Scrud!” Rownie called out from the doorway, hoping to be noticed now rather than later. The workshop smelled like sawdust and oil, with a rotten smell underneath. Scrud made very good mousetraps, but he never remembered to clean up the mice afterward.

  Planks of wood, bars of copper, and gears stacked in piles and pyramids covered the floor. Dowels stuck out from the plaster of one wall, with ropes, chains, tools, and more gears hanging from them. Clocks hung on the other wall, so many that the wall looked like it was made out of clocks. They all worked, or most of them did—tocking and ticking in rhythms that clashed with each other. It sounded like an argument of clocks.

  Scrud bent over his workbench in the middle of the room.

  “Jellyweed and impsense!” he shouted at the bench. His voice was cracked and tired. He dropped one twisted tool and picked up another from the wall without clocks. He didn’t notice Rownie. There was a gearworked horse’s head on the workbench, and this did notice Rownie. The automaton’s eyes followed the boy as he picked his way across the floor and tried not to step on anything important.

  Rownie took a deep breath. “Hello, Mr. Scrud!” he shouted again. The gearworker scared him, and always had scared him, but Rownie had been here often enough that the fear didn’t matter. He felt it, bright and burning, but it didn’t stop him from standing in the middle of the floor and shouting Scrud’s name.

  The gearworker’s head snapped up. He looked at Rownie. The gearworked horse looked at Rownie. Then both of them looked away, and Mr. Scrud began to mutter in an undertone. He wasn’t shouting. This meant that he was listening.

  “Graba paid more than she needed to pay, Mr. Scrud. Last time you fixed her leg, s
he paid more than she needed to.”

  “Impsense!” said Scrud. He stuck a long pin in the horse’s ear and twisted it. The horse shut one eye.

  “It’s true, Mr. Scrud,” said Rownie. He could see three bottles of gear oil on the shelf behind the workbench. This was what Graba wanted, and Rownie knew that each bottle cost two copper pennies. Two coppers per audience member, the sign had said. Goblin farce, onstage, for two coppers. Maybe they wear masks. Maybe they juggle fire. Maybe they have metal teeth.

  He was very afraid of what he was about to do. He took another deep breath.

  “She overpaid, Mr. Scrud,” he said. “She needs two coppers back.”

  Rownie met Scrud’s glare when Scrud stared at him. He would not turn around and run. He showed Scrud that he would not turn around and run by the way he stood there.

  Scrud reached up onto the shelf behind him, took down a bottle of gear oil, and put it on the bench where Rownie could reach it.

  “No,” Rownie said, standing and breathing. “This time she needs the two copper pennies.”

  The gearworker muttered to himself. He took back the oil, rummaged in his shirt pocket, and put one copper coin on the table. Then he put another on top of it.

  Rownie took the coins. “Thank you, Mr. Scrud,” he said. He left the workshop without running. He left the alleyway without running. Behind him the alley filled up with clanking, metallic noises, and shouts. The metal sounded like Graba’s bird’s legs somewhere behind him. Rownie started running.

  Rownie ran halfway to Market Square, passing familiar fountains and monuments. He stumbled once, caught himself, and paused for breath under the bronze statue of the Mayor. The statue wore a suit with a watch chain tucked into the waistcoat pocket and held out both hands in a way that looked either welcoming or surprised. The metal was old and green-stained, except for the head. The statue got a new head every time the city got a new mayor. Graba had hinted that she would be very pleased if someone stole the Mayor’s statue-head and brought it back to her, but so far no one had worked up the courage to try it.

  Someone nearby shouted at someone else, and not at Rownie. His insides jumped anyway. He slipped the two coins into the only pocket of his coat, and then he walked and remembered how to breathe as he walked. He wanted to run, but one of the Guard might decide that he was running for Bad Reasons and try to catch him.

  Most of Graba’s household hated Northside, and got lost in Northside. The streets here followed different rules. They ran in perfectly straight lines, and met each other at right angles. Rownie knew the landmarks of it, though, and could navigate Northside easily enough.

  He passed the Reliquary, and the Northside Rail Station. A member of the Guard stood watch over the station’s iron latticework doors. The Guard wore a bright, showy uniform. He held a spear with tassels on it and stared at the opposite side of the street.

  Rownie walked by slowly. He wondered why the man was there, guarding a rusted gate. There was only one of him, and if anything crawled up out of the old rail station to break the gate, then one Guard wouldn’t do very much good. The Southside Rail Station did not have a Guard posted at the entrance. It did not need one. If anything nasty crawled up from the depths and came to Southside, then Graba would deal with it. Probably. If she wanted to.

  Rownie passed the station and came to the square, a huge open space of flagstones with a fountain in the middle and market stalls all around. It was already afternoon, and some of the stalls were closing. A farmer with dozens of long braids pulled down a tent pole, letting the canvas roof of his stall billow and dissolve into a puddle of cloth.

  Rownie smelled foods, all kinds. The smells blended together. They ganged up on him and made it very difficult to think about anything else. He lingered by a baker’s stall and smiled. It was his best smile.

  The baker passed him some bread. “Yesterday’s,” she said. “Spoil soon anyway, and there’s no one buying.”

  “Good luck selling tomorrow,” Rownie said, or tried to say around the mouthful of dry bread he was crunching on. She passed him another piece for saying so, and waved him away. Then she pulled at a chain behind her. The stall collapsed, folding back into the wall of the square.

  Gearwork in the stall squeaked like Graba’s right leg. Rownie flinched at the sound.

  He dodged around tent poles and covered wagons, moving away from all the bustle to the fountain in the center of the square. A stone bear, a stone lion, and a stone naga all roared streams of water into a cracked stone basin. He cupped water in one hand, slurping up as much as he could. He dipped his other piece of bread in the basin to soften it, but the water only made it soggy.

  A pigeon flapped onto the rim of the fountain and looked sideways at Rownie. Sideways is the only way pigeons know how to look. Rownie ignored it. He knew it just wanted some of the bread. He didn’t think it was one of Graba’s birds. He didn’t think so.

  Someone grabbed Rownie’s arm.

  “Give me the bread, Rownie-Runt,” said Vass. She had a sack of grain slung over one shoulder. “I’m hungry.”

  “Let me go,” Rownie said. She wouldn’t let him go. He gave her the second piece of bread, and she set down the sack to take it, but she still wouldn’t let him go.

  “Help me carry the chicken feed home,” she told him. “The Grubs brought the eggs, but they left me to carry the feed myself. It’s heavy.” Vass called the rest of the children in Graba’s household—the ones without names, the ones who had to make up their own names—“Grubs.” She usually said it in a singsong sort of way. Graba’s Grubs, Graba’s Grubs.

  “Can’t,” Rownie said. “I have to do something for Graba.”

  “Do what?”

  “Deliver a message.”

  “What’s the message?”

  “I can’t tell.”

  “Then I think you’re lying. I think there isn’t really any message, so you should help me carry the chicken feed.” She put the rest of the bread in her mouth and swung the sack at Rownie. He caught one end to keep it from knocking him over. Vass pushed him, and they started walking south. They walked very slowly south, away from the fairgrounds and away from the goblins.

  Vass was twice as tall as he was. She could run much faster than he could. She would catch him if he ran.

  They reached the south end of the square. The Guard had already left his post at the rusted station doors, market-time duties done for the day.

  Rownie jerked one way, pulling Vass with him, and dropped the sack as he bolted the other way, toward the rusted gate. He pushed against the metal latticework and squeezed through, stumbling in. He felt Vass’s hand reach in after him and catch at the edge of his coat. He pulled back.

  “Stupid runt!” Vass shouted.

  “I have a message from Graba!” Rownie was angry that she wouldn’t let him deliver it, even though there wasn’t really any message to deliver.

  “Stupid,” she said. “So stupid. Now the diggers will get you. Can you hear them? Can you hear them behind you?”

  Rownie took a step backward, farther in. He didn’t look behind him. “It’s all flooded,” he said. “They dug the tunnel into the River, and now it’s all flooded.” Everyone knew that. The Mayor wanted to build a railcar track between Northside and Southside. He kept trying, but the tunnel kept flooding.

  The Mayor also wanted to tear down the ramshackle buildings of Southside and replace them with roads that moved in straight lines. That’s what Graba always said.

  “Folks still hear them digging,” Vass told Rownie. “So the diggers are still down there, in the rail tunnel.” She let that thought sink in for a while. It sank. Rownie thought about diggers with skin all gray from soaking in River water. He thought about how they would only remember digging, how they would always move forward and break things in front of them with shovels or pickaxes or just their hands. Diggers were people without hearts, without any will of their own, and they just kept doing whatever task they were set to. Rownie wondere
d if any of them had struck off downward, disoriented by the flood, and if they might pop out the other side of the world someday. He thought about the tunnels behind him, haunted by digging.

  “I’ll protect you,” Vass told him, as sweetly as Vass could say anything. “Come out and carry the sack.”

  Rownie stepped backward again. “No,” he said. Now he haunted the tunnels. Now he was something to be afraid of.

  Vass spit on the ground. Then she smiled, and it looked like Graba’s smile in miniature. “Where’s my gear oil, runt?” she asked.

  Rownie’s heart beat like it wanted to run off without him. “What oil?” Vass had left the house already when Graba gave him the errand. Vass couldn’t have known about it.

  “Stop it!” Vass yelled, and Rownie didn’t think she was yelling at him. Her eyes were shut. All the muscles of her face were tightly scrunched. “You can’t! I’m not a Grub. Stop it, stop it!” Vass stumbled away, out of sight. She took the grain sack with her.

  Rownie stood absolutely still. He did not understand what had just happened. He carefully put it on a shelf in the back of his mind, with other things he did not understand.

  He listened for shovel sounds and shuffling steps behind him. It was quiet, cold, and heavy in the station, just a few feet from the warm open bustle of the market where Vass might still be hiding, waiting for him.

  He stood as long as he could, and then he stood for longer. He did not look behind him. He did not hear shovels or steps or any other sign that the diggers were coming. He finally took three steps of his own and squeezed out through the iron doors.

  Vass was gone, and most of the market was gone. A few open wagons rolled away from the empty square. The sky was a darker blue than it had been. Almost dusk. He ran.

  Act I, Scene IV

  A CLOSED WAGON STOOD IN THE CENTER of the fairgrounds. It had walls and a rooftop, like a small house on wheels. A crowd had gathered beside it. The sky was still blue overhead, but the sun was already gone.