Goblin Secrets (Alexander, William)

by William Alexander

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

  It was a young-sounding voice. Rownie looked around the side of the wagon to see who it belonged to.

  A dark-haired girl stood in one of the alehouse doorways. She carried a basket in front of her.

  Thomas climbed down from the wagon roof and stood before the girl. The rain picked up, and water poured down all sides of his hat.

  “Cob,” he repeated. “That is an easy syllable for a gearworked raven to remember and croak at him. What brings you out in the rain, Cob’s daughter?”

  “I’m just sorry he tossed you out,” the girl said. “You should have some payment for the show, so I brought you some bread.” She lifted the basket she held. “It’s fresh. It doesn’t have maggots in it, not unless your curses work very fast.” She gave him the basket.

  “I withdraw my curses on your household,” the old goblin said. He hummed a tune, making his words into a song and a charm, stronger than just a saying. “I may yet carve a grotesque mask in your father’s likeness, but I withdraw each curse. May the flood pass your doorstep and leave dry your boots.”

  “Thank you,” the girl said. “The dancers were all perfect. Please tell them.”

  “I will,” he said. “But to whom should I attribute this critique? I have not yet caught your name, young lady.”

  “I’m Kaile,” she said.

  Thomas took off his hat and bowed. “Thank you, Kaile, for the tribute of your compliments and the bounty of your family’s bakery.” Then he rummaged around in his hat and produced a small, gray flute. “This token is yours, I think.”

  Kaile took the flute. Then someone bellowed at her from the alehouse door, and the girl hurried back inside. The door slammed behind her.

  Thomas seemed to diminish where he stood. He returned to the wagon with his head down, and almost bumped hat-first into Rownie.

  Rownie meant to say something like, Excuse me, sir, but one of the other players dropped this. I saved it from getting very muddy and probably stepped on. Instead he just said, “Here,” and handed over the bird mask.

  The goblin took it from him and dropped it in the basket with the bread. “Much obliged,” he said gruffly. He did not sound obliged, not even a little. He sounded disgruntled and tired. Then he looked more closely at Rownie. “I know you,” he said. “You played a giant for us, and not badly—but you vanished afterward.”

  “Sorry,” Rownie said. “My grandmother was angry.”

  “I see,” said Thomas. “Well, would you consider . . .” The goblin paused. Then he shoved Rownie underneath the wagon.

  Rownie slipped in the mud and slid to a stop. He was not happy about being shoved. He almost shouted something about that unhappiness. Then he heard Guard-boots marching, and saw the boots stand between the wagon and the road. Rownie decided it would be better to be quiet.

  One pair of boots stepped forward.

  “I have heard noise complaints,” the Captain announced. Rownie knew his voice. He remembered his voice from the alehouse, from the proclamation he gave while standing on a table. “Have you heard anything about a raving goblin throwing curses?”

  “I have not,” Thomas said, “though I am impressed that the Captain of the Guard himself investigates such a minor concern. Your attention to even the most trivial duties is commendable, and I am very glad to see you. The proprietors of this alehouse have stiffed us payment for performing here, and I wish to register my own complaint.”

  “Noted,” said the Captain, though he did not sound like he had actually taken note. “I am also given to understand that goblins put a mask on an unChanged child yesterday, in front of a crowd of witnesses. Goblins have masked an unChanged citizen of Zombay.”

  “That would be a terrible thing,” Thomas said, gravely and seriously. “I am deeply stricken that anyone would think simple Tamlin performers, such as ourselves, could be capable of such an irresponsible deed.”

  The Captain took a step forward. Rownie shuffled back a bit, underneath the wagon.

  “The Lord Mayor would be very interested in the whereabouts of any unChanged actor,” the Captain said. “Even a child, even someone who has only worn a mask once. In exchange for such information, the Lord Mayor could provide you with a special license to perform within the proper limits of the city.”

  “That is very generous,” said Thomas. “Very generous. We would, of course, be delighted to help the Lord Mayor with his interests.”

  Rownie braced himself for more running. He knew how to get away from the Guard. He knew how to zig and zag in Southside streets and escape from those who only ever marched in straight lines. His legs hated the thought of running again, but he braced himself anyway. He would run if he had to. He would make himself run.

  Thomas went on. “If we hear the slightest rumors about unChanged actors, we will of course find you immediately.”

  Rownie took a breath. He had been holding it. He hadn’t noticed. He wouldn’t have to run. The old goblin wasn’t about to turn him in.

  “Do so,” said the Captain. “I have further business here, but my officers will happily escort you to a proscribed area at this time.”

  “Certainly, sir,” said Thomas, with politeness and courtesy. “Certainly.”

  The Guard-boots made precise turns, and surrounded them. Rownie heard Thomas climb up into the driving seat. A gearworked mule unfolded itself at the front of the wagon. Rownie could see coal glowing red in its belly.

  They use coal, he thought, horrified.

  The mule began to trot. Rownie’s hiding place was moving, and now he had nowhere to go. There were Guard-boots in every direction he looked.

  A hatch opened in the wagon floor above him. Several pairs of hands reached down, caught him, and pulled him inside.

  Act II, Scene II

  GEARWORKS CLANKED. Wooden wheels clacked. The wagon lurched forward, and the hatch in the floor fell shut. Rownie rolled away from the hatch and the grasping hands. They let go of him.

  He looked up. The first thing he saw was the dragon.

  The fire-breathing puppet hung down from ropes tied to the ceiling, and it pitched as the wagon moved along uneven streets. The wheels went over a bump, and the dragon lurched down at Rownie, as though trying to bite his face. Lantern light glinted on sharp, brass teeth.

  He knew it was a puppet. He could see that most of it was plaster and paper on a wooden frame. But he couldn’t help flattening himself against the floor and throwing up his arms around his face.

  He lowered his hands when nothing happened. The dragon puppet swayed above him. That was all it did.

  Four goblins also stood above him.

  One was the tall, bald goblin who had juggled fire. He looked at Rownie like he couldn’t quite decide what Rownie was. Another wore rough clothes stained with grease and sawdust. She had long, dark hair pulled behind her head and tied with a string—though most of it had escaped the string. The third was the one who had carried a pile of costumes through the rain a few moments ago, and wore more than one set of costumes herself. She had spiky hair. She gave a little wave with one hand.

  The fourth was Semele, who had offered him tea underneath the stage, and offered him welcome.

  All of them had pointed ears and very large eyes—though Semele squinted with her large eyes through small spectacles. Their faces were freckled with greens and browns.

  “Hello, Rownie,” said Semele. “I am glad that you found us again, yes.”

  Rownie was not entirely glad that he had found them again. He felt nervous and unsettled. He sat up, and looked around, and was not reassured. Props and masks and musical instruments rattled in crates and made strange noises as they knocked against each other. Lantern light cast oddly shaped shadows, and the shadows rocked back and forth as the wagon moved. Everything around him was unsettling. It smelled like old clothes and paper.

  “Hello,” Rownie said, quietly and cautiously.

  The tall, bald gob
lin said nothing. The one with the work-stained clothes also said nothing.

  “They never say anything,” said the goblin with spiky hair. Her voice was high, and her words jumped around like grasshoppers. “Patch never says very much, anyway. He’s Patch. The tall one. She’s Nonny. She really doesn’t ever say anything. I’m Essa. We shared a stage last night, when I played Jack and you were trying to keep a giant mask from slipping off your head.”

  Rownie meant to protest that the giant mask had been in no danger at all of slipping off his head, and that he had worn it very well, thank you—but instead he said something else.

  “You use coal.” He did not mean to say that, but it bothered him enough to make his mouth say it without permission. He knew what made automatons move. He knew where coal came from. “The gearworked mule runs on coal.”

  “Fish-heart coal!” Essa protested. “We only use fish hearts to make Horace go. It takes several dozen to get a decent blaze going, but the fishmongers down by the docks sell them in bulk, and they work almost as well as the stuff made out of . . . larger hearts.”

  “Really?” Rownie asked. He didn’t know fish hearts were flammable.

  “Really,” said Essa.

  “Who’s Horace?” Rownie asked.

  “Horace is the mule,” Essa told him.

  “It is?” Patch asked. Nonny also looked confused. This was clearly news to them as well.

  “Yes,” Essa said. “I named it today. It needs a name, and I think it looks like a Horace.”

  Semele shushed everyone. “I am thinking that we should speak softly now. The Guard are marching alongside us, and the walls are not thick. Please sit down, yes.”

  Everyone sat down, except for Rownie, who was already sitting on the floor.

  Patch stared at the wall in a dour and gloomy sort of way, as though he expected the Guard to arrest them regardless of what they said or did.

  Nonny sat on a crate and patiently began to fold a piece of paper into different shapes. She made it crane-shaped, and then lizard-shaped, and then gear-shaped. Rownie recognized the writing on the paper. It was a copy of the notice advertising Tamlin Theatre, the one he had seen on the bridge.

  Essa sat down, started fidgeting, stood up again, and climbed one of the cabinets nailed to the wagon wall. There she hung upside down by her knees and hummed a tune to herself.

  Semele took off her spectacles, wiped them with a rag, and put them on again.

  The wagon stopped. Essa stopped humming. Everyone listened.

  Outside, Thomas shouted something brief.

  “Is he calling for help?” Essa whispered. It was a very loud whisper. “I think maybe he just called for help.” She reached into an open crate and carefully unsheathed a stage sword. “I couldn’t really hear him, though. He might have said ‘Bang, fallen dromedary.’ It kind of sounded like that. What sort of signal do you think that is?”

  “I do not think he spoke of dromedaries,” said Semele. “I am thinking that he said ‘The Changed call for sanctuary,’ which signifies that we are at the litchfield gates.”

  Essa groaned. Patch sighed. Nonny folded the piece of paper into a mask shape.

  “Do we really need to sleep in the litchfield?” Essa asked. “The best thing about coming home to Zombay is having a better place to stay than litchfields or crossroads or crossroads inside litchfields.”

  Semele shook her head. “The Guard marched us here,” she said. “It is not safe to go home and show them where home is.”

  Rownie understood very little of the conversation, though he listened carefully. He sifted words through his head like fine dust through his hands, and he caught what he could. As the youngest he was used to piecing together his understanding from snatches of overheard conversations, and the rest he set carefully aside on the shelf in the back of his mind.

  Metal shrieked against metal somewhere outside. Rownie didn’t know what the noise was. He didn’t think it was Graba’s leg. He didn’t think so. It sounded like a gate fighting against its own hinges.

  The wagon started up again, and this time there was no sound of accompanying Guard-boots. It rode over an even rougher surface than the Southside streets, and everyone inside braced themselves against the walls and floor. They went over an especially violent bump, and Rownie bit the tip of his tongue when the impact knocked his teeth together. It hurt, but he didn’t cry out. He tensed up his face with the effort of not crying out.

  The wagon finally rolled to a stop. A small hatch in the front wall opened.

  “We’re here,” Thomas said through the hatch.

  “Where’s here?” Essa asked, but he had already shut it again.

  The whole wagon jittered while the gearworked mule folded back in on itself. Semele opened the door in the back wall and went outside. The others followed her. Rownie came last, but Essa stopped him in the doorway. She was still holding the sword.

  “The Guard might be out there,” she said in her loud whisper, “and they’ll be unhappy with us if they see you, because Thomas said, ‘Nope, officer, we don’t have any idea where that mask-wearing boy might be, and he certainly isn’t hiding underneath our very own wagon.’ So keep hiding for just a second.”

  She peered outside and looked unhappy. She whispered curses under her breath. They were decent curses, spoken with a decent rhythm. “May the Guard Captain grow hideous ear hairs, and may his glass eyes both turn the wrong way around.”

  “Are they out there?” Rownie asked. “The Guard?”

  “No,” Essa told him, “but the graves are. We’re in the litchfield.” She left the wagon.

  Rownie took a good-sized breath. He knew that Graba sometimes sent Grubs to run errands in the litchfield and collect the sorts of things that grow in grave-dirt. Blotches always came back with stories about fighting off ghouls. Rownie was sure that Blotches had made up the fights, but Blotches might not have made up the ghouls.

  Rownie tried to feel like a giant. He adjusted his brother’s coat on his shoulders and went outside.

  Act II, Scene III

  THE WAGON STOOD IN AN OPEN stretch of grass, surrounded by graves. The gravestones were all worn and crooked, like teeth badly cared for. A single tree twisted its branches through the air nearby. Rownie could see crypts, mausoleums, and monuments packed close together near the gate, at the other end of the field where important people were buried. It looked like a small and separate city unto itself.

  The rain had stopped. The clouds had broken up, and now they moved quickly. The sun was low in the sky. The air smelled like fresh mud.

  “We’re spending the night here?” Rownie asked the others. Old ropes dangled from the gnarled and unfriendly looking tree. It was a hangman’s tree.

  “We are, yes,” said Semele. “Tamlin cannot stay anywhere overnight within the proper city limits. Most of us, along with other sorts of Changed, camp far outside the city entirely—but we can also sleep in places that are not actually considered to be places. This is a place where living people come to visit dead people, so it will work very well as somewhere in-between and not exactly one thing or another thing.”

  “Oh,” said Rownie. “What’s a Tamlin?”

  “It is a more polite word than ‘goblin,’” said Semele.

  “Oh,” said Rownie. “I heard that the sun will burn you up if you stay too long in one place.”

  “Not so,” said Semele, “though we would become sunburned.”

  The goblins began to bustle. They set up clotheslines and hung wet costumes up to dry. They built a fire and used it to boil a kettle of water. Rownie kept out of their way. He watched, and he wondered whether this was in any way a safe place to be. Not that he was accustomed to safety, but at least he knew the ways that Grubs and Graba were dangerous—or he used to believe that he knew. He thought about Grubs squinting at him with Graba’s look and calling to him with Graba’s voice. He remembered how little he actually knew about them, or their dangers.

  After their bustling,
the goblins all gathered together. Semele poured tea. Thomas brought out the bread basket.

  “Let us see what sort of supper we can make from the materials at hand,” he said. “We have dried things and pickled things—preserved for emergencies against our starvation—and we have bread that young Kaile offered us at the Broken Wall, which was very kind of her. However, the whole of our provisions will make an unbecoming meal for artists of our stature and accomplishment.”

  “Ate wild rat last winter,” said Patch.

  “That was unbecoming also,” said Thomas.

  “I kind of liked rat,” said Essa.

  Thomas made a harrumphing noise. He took the basket around to each member of the troupe. The gentleman’s cane he carried stuck into the muddy ground a little as he walked, and he had to pull it free with every step.

  “The bread also comes with a complimentary review of our performance,” Thomas said. “The girl especially enjoyed The Seven Dancers.”

  “Oh good,” Essa said, “though we really should change that name. There’s only one of me.”

  “You imply the others well enough,” Thomas said.

  The basket came to Rownie, and Rownie cautiously reached in. He took a bread roll. His hand brushed against the bird mask that was still there.

  He was, of course, hungry. The unpoisoned apple from the morning seemed like days and weeks ago. But he wondered what the dried and pickled things were. Maybe goblins ate moths and flowers. Maybe they ate children’s toes.

  Did you eat what they gave you? Graba had asked him. Did you drink what they offered? He wondered what would happen to him if he did.

  They passed around pieces of salted riverfish instead of children’s toes, and a few dried fruits instead of dried insects, and they sipped Semele’s tea from wooden mugs while Thomas strummed a song on a battered bandore. The bread was still warm from the Broken Wall bakery, and it was tasty enough to make him want to crawl inside a bed-sized loaf and fall asleep. The riverfish was salty and chewy and excellent. The tea was lemony and sweet.