Goblin Secrets

by William Alexander

  Someone—probably Nonny—had put a wood stove outside the pantry and propped up a long metal pipe for a chimney. Cooking smoke climbed the pipe and rose through the tower’s workings.

  Thomas stood by the stove in an apron. He spooned several dollops of dough onto a flat metal skillet. Semele sat nearby with a book in her hands and her feet on a stool, toes pointed at the stove to soak up its warmth. Nonny, Patch, and Essa all sprawled on the floor, playing cards. Thomas looked up at the boy, grunted, and scooped a finished flatbread onto a plate.

  “Don’t burn your fingers,” the old goblin said.

  Rownie took the plate and sat down with the rest of his troupe. His fingers twitched and his mouth watered, but he waited for his supper to cool.

  Acknowledgments

  AN ENSEMBLE CAST AND CREW created this book, and I am profoundly grateful for the professional, aesthetic, and emotional support I’ve received along the way.

  Thanks to Karen Wojtyla and Emily Fabre for extraordinary and exacting editorial guidance. Thanks to Beth Fleischer, Joe Monti, and Barry Goldblatt for their wise and skillful agenting. Thanks to Holly Black, Kelly Link, and Catherynne M. Valente for nurturing the earliest scribblings set in Zombay. Thanks to Barth Anderson, Haddayr Copley-Woods, David Schwartz, and Stacy Thieszen for encouragement and uncompromising critique. Thanks to professors Phyllis Gorfain, Paul Moser, Roger Copeland, Michael Faletra, Andrew Barnaby, and Richard Parent for their knowledge and willingness to share it. Thanks to the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and Rain Taxi for all that they do to support local arts and letters.

  Thanks to the master mask makers Bidou Yamaguchi and Jeff Semmerling; both shared essential information about their art, and both have masks named after them inside this book. Thanks to the many astonishing artists who created new masks inspired by my masquerade. Please wander over to goblinsecrets.com to wonder at their work, and to wear it yourself.

  Thanks to mis sobrinos Isaac, Navarro, Kyla, and Suzannah for reminding me of so many things I’d forgotten about childhood. Thanks to Melon Wedick, Jon Stockdale, Ivan and Rachel Bialostosky, Nathan Clough, Ahna Brulag, Felicia Batzloff, Will Adams, Matthew Aronoff, Bradford Darling, and to Bethany, Kel, Kay, and Guillermo Alexander. All of them wandered around Zombay and told me things about the place that I didn’t know before.

  Many thousands of thanks to Alice Dodge for nurturing this book at every stage—and also for marrying me.