Goblin Secrets

by William Alexander

  “Do you see him, now?” asked Stubble from outside the car. “Have you found him?”

  Vass looked directly at Rownie. “No, Graba,” she said. “He isn’t here.”

  “Be sure about it,” said Stubble. “And bring me back a mirror if you can find an unbroken one, and also a new cushion for my chair.”

  “Yes, Graba,” said Vass. “I think the runt might have ducked into the tunnel. It’s not as flooded down there as it should be.”

  “Seven curses on the several chins of the Lord Mayor,” said Stubble. “He’s pumping the water out of it again. I can hear the breathing and the clanking of his siphons, making it dry. I will go looking there.”

  “Yes, Graba,” said Vass.

  She went to sit at one of the copper tables, crossed her legs, and folded her hands in front of her. She wasn’t so much taller than Rownie while sitting.

  Rownie sat in the chair across from her. “Thank you,” he whispered, and he meant it—but he also meant it as a question. He couldn’t remember a single time that Vass had helped him with anything, and this seemed like an unlikely moment for her to start. It was no small thing to lie to Graba.

  Vass waved his thanks away with one hand. “She treated me like a Grub today. She can’t do that. I won’t let her do that, not to me. She wears them. She uses them to go places. She’s always moving, always, even when she’s still at home and upstairs. But I won’t let her wear me. I’m not a Grub.”

  “Me neither,” said Rownie, and he hoped it was true. “I’ve got a name.”

  Vass smiled her cruel smile. “No, you don’t,” she said. “You just have Rowan’s name, made small. But Graba can’t wear you.”

  Rownie very much hoped that she wasn’t lying. “Why not?”

  “Because you’ve got a little talent for wearing masks,” Vass said. “Why do you think she keeps you around?” She took a cushion from the chair beside her, looked it over, and knocked some of the dust out by whacking it against the table.

  Rownie tried to blink the dust cloud out of his eyes. “Why would masks matter to Graba?”

  “Forget it,” said Vass. “What matters to Graba shouldn’t much matter to you, not anymore. I’m going to douse the lights. We’ll leave then. We’ll stop looking for you, once it’s dark.”

  “Thanks for helping me hide,” Rownie said.

  Vass shook her head, forcefully, like there was something stuck to her nose and she wanted it off. “Don’t thank me,” she said. “I’m not helping you. I’m not doing this for you.” She stood up, still holding the cushion. “Wherever you go after tonight,” she said, “wherever you end up, just make sure to keep away from the riverbank. The River’s angry. The floods are coming.”

  The floods are coming. The floods were always coming, but Rownie couldn’t remember a time when they actually came. It was just something people said—though there was a difference to the way Vass said it, as though the floods were coming soon.

  Rownie wanted to ask what she meant, but Vass was no longer paying attention to him. Her eyes lost their focus and looked somewhere else.

  “My charm is now ended,” she chanted softly. “The knots are untied.” Rownie felt the air change around them. He felt the world change shape to her words.

  The lights went out. Rownie heard Vass leave the railcar in the dark.

  Various Grubs shouted their protests outside. They spoke like Grubs now, and not like Graba.

  “You’re a kack at the witchwork,” said Blotches. “Shouldn’t get to keep your name.”

  “I’m still learning,” Vass answered him, sullen. “And I can’t keep anything lit for long without oil to burn. Maybe we should stick a wick in Greasy and use him for a lantern.”

  “Shut it,” said Greasy.

  “The runt probably doubled back and left already,” Vass said, “or else he went down the tunnel, and the diggers got him.”

  “There aren’t really any diggers in the tunnel,” said Greasy. “Are there?”

  “Oh yes,” said Vass. “Of course there are. Want to see? Should we toss you down there?”

  “Shut it!” said Greasy.

  The noise of their voices faded as they found their way out of the Southside Rail Station.

  Rownie was left alone.

  Act I, Scene VIII

  ROWNIE TRIED TO SUMMON up the feeling that he was haunting the Southside Rail Station, and that other sorts of haunting things should be afraid of him—but he couldn’t quite convince himself that this was true. He felt sure and certain that there were diggers in the tunnel. He felt unsure and uncertain about what Vass had told him.

  Graba can’t wear you—you’ve got a little talent for wearing masks.

  Rowan had been very good with masks. He had been wearing one the last time Rownie had seen him, the last time anyone had seen him. That had been months ago, in a Southside alehouse.

  “This is just a little alehouse show,” Rowan said. “We’ll stand on tables in the back. Maybe the crowd will listen to us while they eat their supper. Maybe they won’t.”

  “Bet the Guard’ll come,” said Greasy. “They’ve been taking actors away. They make ’em into diggers.”

  Rowan smiled, and shook his head. “We’re in Southside,” he said. “Since when does Southside pay much attention to the sillier edicts of our good Lord Mayor? Don’t worry about it.”

  “Just don’t wear a mask of Graba,” said Vass. “She hates the thought that anyone might ever take her place.”

  “You imitate Graba’s voice all the time,” Rowan reminded her. He switched into a Graba-voice of his own. “Run some errands for me, child. Go fetch me the sun and the moon and the stars by suppertime. Do that for me, now.”

  Rownie laughed, and Rowan laughed. It felt like the same laugh.

  Vass didn’t laugh. Her forehead creased. “Masks are different,” she said.

  “Do you get to wear any big, scowly pirate masks?” Rownie asked his older brother.

  “Looks like you’re wearing one already,” Rowan told him. He reached down and poked Rownie’s real nose with the tip of one finger. “Nice mask, there.”

  “Yours is even scowlier,” Rownie said, and then the two of them tried to top each other for the best scowly face until it was time for the show to start.

  “Here,” said Rowan. “Hold my coat until the play is done.” He gave Rownie his dust-colored overcoat, and then ducked behind a curtain made of two sheets and a broomstick.

  The characters in the play didn’t have proper names. The hero was called Youth, and he went on adventures and kept trying to do heroic things. Rowan, behind a bearded, grinning mask, played Youth’s best friend, Vice. He carried a broken sword, pulled pennies out of other actors’ ears with a quick sleight of hand, and used the pennies to buy wine. He kept trying to get Youth to drink his wine.

  Once, Rowan looked out into the audience, caught Rownie’s eye, and winked behind the Vice mask.

  “He’ll get arrested,” said Greasy. “They’ll take him away and torture him, and then they’ll make him into a digger.”

  “Shut it,” said Vass. “I’m trying to listen.”

  “They will not. They will not.” Rownie whispered twice. But it was right at that moment that the Guard marched through the door.

  The alehouse became very quiet. Everyone put down their mugs and their plates.

  The captain of the Guard stepped onto a stool, and then onto a table. The patrons whose table it was quickly moved their food out of his way. The Captain unrolled a parchment, cleared his throat, and read from it.

  “It is not lawful to wear masks in Zombay. A barge sailor has learned his skill and craft, but an actor may wear a mask and mimic his manner without any such skills. If the actor tried to steer a barge, he would run it aground.”

  The actors laughed. “Probably,” one of them said.

  “A Guard has earned the right to wear a sword,” the Captain continued, “through service and sacrifice. An actor cheapens that right by wear
ing a mask and swinging swords for show.”

  No one laughed. One of the actors was playing a Guard. Wide wooden gears protruded from the actor’s mask where the eyes should be. The small glass gears of the Captain’s eyes rotated in short, ticking increments as he read.

  “It is a great honor to be an alderman. An actor can siphon away this honor by wearing masks and robes to mimic the outward show of their office. Therefore, by order of the Lord Mayor of all Zombay, the business of plays will cease. Players are liars. Citizens may not be players and must not pretend to be other than they are.”

  The rest of the Guard arrested each actor and led them away from the makeshift stage. Rowan still wore his mask, and the mask was grinning. Rownie couldn’t see what his brother’s face was doing underneath.

  They marched Rowan to the door beneath the ticking glare of the Guard Captain, who still stood on the table. Rowan’s mask grinned up at the Captain. Then Rowan kicked one of the table legs. It broke. The Guard Captain fell forward with a clang and a crash.

  Rowan jumped aside, dodged around flailing arms, and disappeared into the back rooms, where the kitchens were. Rownie could hear broken plates and angry yells after two of the Guard followed Rowan. The Captain got to his feet and shouted in his very loud voice. One of his copper boots was dented, and the foot stuck out at an odd angle.

  “We’d better go,” said Greasy.

  “Obviously,” said Vass.

  Rownie stared at the kitchen doorway. He wanted to follow his brother. He wanted to know for sure and certain that Rowan had gotten safely away. But too much had happened, too quickly, and now the commotion was already over. He held Rowan’s coat tightly to him while he followed Vass and Greasy. They all slunk out and away from the alehouse.

  Rownie had hoped that his brother would be waiting for them at Graba’s shack, even though he was too old and too tall to still sleep there. He couldn’t bunk with the rest of his troupe, not now that everyone had been arrested, and the shack would be a very good place to hide him from the Guard. The Guard always kept clear of Graba. But Rowan didn’t show up to hide in the shack. Days and weeks went by without any word.

  He’s still hiding, Rownie told himself, over and again. Maybe he sailed away downstream to get clear of the Guard. But he’ll come back, and then we’ll sail away together and fight pirates, or else we’ll be pirates. He’ll come back.

  Rownie wondered how his brother would find him now that he had run away from Graba’s household and was curled up in an abandoned railcar and listening for diggers in the tunnel.

  He tried to remember the giant mask on his shoulders. He tried to imagine himself as a giant, towering and untouchable. He also tried to imagine himself Rowan-like, moving easily through the world and laughing along with everything in it. He wrapped Rowan’s coat more tightly around himself and curled up on the cushioned railcar seat. He felt very small.

  Sleep was impossible. Then the rushing excitement of running and hiding drained away from him and left exhaustion behind. Somehow he slept.

  He dreamed that Rowan still wore the vice mask he had been wearing at the alehouse. The mask grinned. That was what it did best.

  Dream Rowan reached up and turned the mask inside out. It became a mask of Graba, with one eye squinting and the other eye wide. Then it was Graba who stood there, and no longer Rowan. She perched on the edge of the goblin stage. She reached behind her with one bird’s foot, a real bird’s foot covered with black and purple scales, like a guzzard’s. She pulled back the curtain. Behind the curtain was the River. It flooded through and covered the stage and covered the city.

  Rownie woke up. He felt the cushioned chair underneath him, expecting to find the straw floor of Graba’s shack. He didn’t, and he didn’t know why—not until he gathered up all the pieces of yesterday and put them back together in his head. Then he remembered how alone he was.

  Sunlight peered down through the tarnished glass of the arched ceiling, outside the railcar. It was morning. Pigeons roosted on the tops of the hanging clocks. They seemed to be ignoring him. He didn’t think they were Graba’s birds. He didn’t think so.

  He crept out of the station and slipped through the bars of the rusted gate. A few scattered people were going about their morning business. He picked a direction and started walking.

  Zombay was a different place to him now, and for the first time in his life Rownie felt lost in it.

  Act II, Scene I

  ROWNIE WAS HUNGRY. This was usually true. Hunger was a constant background noise buzzing in the back of his head and the bottom of his stomach. But yesterday he had spent more effort than usual, running toward goblins and away from Grubs, and now he needed some of it back.

  He let his legs take him in search of food. He found some outside the tin-roofed house of Mary Mullusk, a pale woman who thought that her family was trying to poison her. She rarely took more than one bite of anything before she threw it out her window. Rownie got there just in time to catch a green apple as it came sailing across the street.

  “I wouldn’t eat that,” Miss Mullusk called to him. She sounded calm for someone who believed herself surrounded by poisoners. “It’s a tainted thing.”

  Rownie bit into the apple, smiled, and shrugged. It tasted fine. It tasted perfect. She shook her head and left the window. He waited to see if she would toss away any other tainted things, but she didn’t.

  It started to rain. Rownie tightened his coat and breathed in rain smells of dusty mud and wet stone. He tried to clear his head. He was still tired and still alone. It was worse than how he felt on days when Graba moved her shack without warning anyone first or telling them where she intended to go. Rownie knew where the shack was this time, but he couldn’t go back there. It was no longer home.

  He missed Rowan. But he didn’t know where Rowan might be, and he didn’t know where to start looking.

  The heavy rain faded to a drizzle. Each misty droplet seemed to hang perfectly still, as though someone had shouted “Stop!” at the rain, and the rain had listened. Rownie moved through the hovering drops.

  He decided to start with the alehouse in Broken Wall, where he had last seen his brother, to find out if anyone there knew anything at all. This was what you were supposed to do when you lost something—go to the last place you remembered seeing it, even if it had been a couple of months ago. He also had another reason to find the alehouse. We play at the Broken Wall tomorrow, the old goblin had said. She had offered him welcome. Rownie could be a part of the goblin troupe. He could be a giant again. He could help them put on plays. Or he could slave away for thousands of years in goblinish underground cities, if that’s what they really wanted him for.

  Broken Wall was the name of the alehouse, and also the name of the neighborhood. It was a part of Southside where most of the buildings had been pieced together with stone from the old city wall—or else carved into the larger, solid blocks of the old city wall. It was a long walk to get there, and it took Rownie most of the day. He didn’t hurry. He didn’t run. His legs were still sore, and he had only scrounged up a single apple. Hunger was still there, buzzing in the middle of him.

  When he got to the alehouse, he found goblins in the outside yard. Thomas stood on the roof of their wagon. He was shouting and waving his big black hat.

  “I will write you into our next play!” Thomas roared. “I will sculpt your face into grotesque caricatures and paste them onto small, ugly puppets!” The alehouse windows and doors were all shut. No one seemed to be listening to the old goblin, but he continued to roar invective at the walls. “I’ll pen your name into immortal verse, and for a thousand years it will be synonymous with ridicule and scorn!”

  Rownie stood at the corner of the building and wondered what the fuss was about. He was glad to see a familiar face—even one with a long nose and pointy ears—but he didn’t want to stand between a cursing goblin and the object of his ire. He didn’t want one of the curses to fly off course and hit him by accident.

>   “Excuse me,” said someone behind him.

  He moved out of the way. A small, slight goblin passed him with two arms full of costumes. She wore the sort of dress a lady might wear, but with the skirts hitched up over her shoulder and a soldier costume visible underneath. Her short hair was rain-wet and spiky.

  A mask fell from the top of the costume pile as she went by. Rownie caught it before it hit the ground. The mask was feathered, and it sported a long, curved beak. It looked unsettling. Rownie held it so that the empty eyes weren’t looking up at him, and he followed the walking pile of costumes.

  “You dropped this,” he started to say, but the goblin didn’t hear him. She was already shouting up at Thomas.

  “Haven’t we put enough of our enemies into immortal verse already?” she asked. “Do we really need to humiliate a stupid alewife and her very stupid husband for the next thousand years? Really? We’ve already named villains after the players who stole Semele’s script book, and that farmer who set his dogs after us, and the alderman with the funny nose. I can’t remember what he did to deserve it. What did that alderman do to deserve an eternity of scorn?”

  Thomas ignored her. He may not have heard her. “I will curse this place!” he shouted. “Your ale will turn! Your bread will be maggot-ridden! I will visit humiliations upon you in verse!”

  The small goblin climbed the stairs at the back of the wagon, pushed open a door with her foot, and went inside. The door shut behind her.

  Rownie knocked on the door. “You dropped this,” he said to the door, but it didn’t open.

  “May the River take you!” Thomas raged above. “May the floods take your household and drown your bones! I will have our artificer build a pair of gearworked ravens, and they will croak your vile name outside your bedroom window, every night, at irregular intervals! You will never sleep again!” He lowered his voice then, but only a little. “Does anyone remember his name?”

  “Cob,” said someone else. “My father’s name is Cob.”