by Becket
He wondered about this. “Which mystery is that?”
“I was unhappy before I met you all. Being who I was did not make me happy, yet being who I am now does. To change from being unhappy to happy, I had to change into the person I was meant to be.”
“You were meant to be the Goblin Queen,” the tall goblin said, his face beaming with pride.
“Yes,” Good said, smiling back at him, “I think you’re right.”
That first Good Day in the Goblin Kingdom was the strangest day they ever had, but it was also the best day they ever had too, because they got a new queen—Good the Goblin Queen. Good Day was always a great day in the Goblin Kingdom. And Good the Goblin Queen was the greatest queen who ever ruled on the throne.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Come Back Anytime
Now we have come to the end of this journey. But the goblins are still living on. The Goblin Kingdom is one of the greatest in the Society of Mystical Creatures.
The tall goblin became the next mayor of the Goblin City and he made many wise decisions because he was so thoughtful.
The hobgoblin became the president of a company that made hobs. And it was very successful, yet not because anyone knew what a hob was. It sold so many hobs because the hobgoblin threatened to poke customers who did not buy them.
The cobble goblin started a company that made eatable clothes. And he was often put into jail for walking around naked.
The bed goblin and the bug goblin got married and they had many wonderful children. And soon after that, people all over the world knew about them and called them the Bedbugs.
The clock goblin became a professor of engineering at Cobweb Academy. He had a class that taught the geometry of spiders, the arithmetic of clock-making, and the magic of repairing a Crinomatic.
And the bobgoblin stayed with Queen Good as her right hand goblin. He helped her write decrees, enact laws, and make important decisions about governing goblins. He did not say much, but he didn’t have to. His kind actions spoke louder than his words.
The Goblin Kingdom was rebuilt. Everybody helped. The Hall of Mirrors was put back together and all the books in the City Library were put back on their shelves. And the library became the most popular building in the whole kingdom, not simply because it had some of the most amazing books you could have ever seen, but because it was also turned into a castle.
Good the Goblin Queen could have lived in the old Goblin Castle, which was tall and magnificent. But instead she decided to live in the Library. There was a bed and a fireplace and a nightstand beside her bed where she could place her books and read all night long.
The books were a good reason to visit. But a great reason was to see Good. She would greet you and make you a delicious cup of chai tea with maple syrup, and she would serve it with cookies covered in pink frosting. You would always see the bobgoblin with her, but if you were really lucky you could also meet the clock goblin when he had finished teaching his classes, or perhaps the tall goblin when he wasn’t making important decisions for the city, or maybe the Bedbug Family with the bed goblin and the bug goblin—although if you met them you might also leave the library a little itchier. But every visit with Good the Goblin Queen was always a wonderful visit with a delightful young lady.
She was so good in fact that she decided to write down her story for you, dear reader, so you might visit her anytime you like. And this is just the first story of hers that you will finish in a moment—right after you read the final words she wrote in her book.
Come back anytime.
Preview of
Key the Steampunk Vampire Girl and the Floating Mansion
PROLOGUE
A Recent History of the Society of Mystical Creatures
Key was turned into a steampunk vampire girl when she was nine years old by the evilest of all vampires, Margrave Snick.
His friend, Old Queen Crinkle, locked Key in the Dungeon of Despair, far below the Vampire Castle, in heart of the City of the Dead.
Key had few friends. There was Pega the ghost maid who was always invisible. There was Tudwal the immortal puppy wolf who turned from a small puppy to a giant wolf monster every half-moon. There was Miss Broomble the witch who wore lots of fancy gadgets from hat to boot. And there was Mr. Fuddlebee the elderly ghost who worked for SPOOK—the Subcommittee Preventing Oddly Odious Kerfuffles. The four friends helped break Key out of the Dungeon of Despair.
Mr. Fuddlebee turned Margrave Snick into a mortal and locked him in a time prison. Unfortunately, Key’s mom and dad were locked inside too.
Mr. Fuddlebee tried to do the same with Old Queen Crinkle, but she escaped to the Goblin Kingdom. With the help of Good the Goblin Queen, the elderly ghost finally turned the old queen into a mortal.
To seek revenge, Crinkle broke Snick out of prison. Together they hatched a plot that would make Key suffer greatly. Their plan was to break her parents out of prison, then hold them hostage. Snick and Crinkle would make Key do everything they said, or else they would force her parents inside a horrible punishment, something called the Twister.
CHAPTER ONE
Key the Captain of the Floating Mansion
Key the Steampunk Vampire Girl was hundreds of years old, yet she looked no older than nine. Her red hair was long and beautiful and curly. And her green eyes were like emeralds.
If anything was as amazing as her, then it was her Floating Mansion. From the outside, it appeared to be a lovely three-story home with a very quaint front door, a pointed roof, a picturesque attic, and many beautiful windows wrapping all around each floor like ribbons.
But the inside was very different. It seemed endless. If you took the stairs up from the first floor, you would probably not wind up on the second, but perhaps on the twenty-second or maybe the secondy-seventh. If you took the stairs down from the second, you might not end up on the first, but perhaps on the thirty-first or maybe the thirsty ninth. It all depended on what kind of mood the house was in that day.
The highest floor Key had ever been on was the one hundred and seventieth floor, which was taller than the tallest building in the world. And the lowest basement level she had ever been in was the seventy-seventh, which was very deep and very cold.
But she was not all alone in the mansion. Countless Mystical Creatures lived on almost every floor. A coven of witches had homes on the sixty-second floor where cauldrons were made in a large factory. A family of giant spiders had great webs on the twenty-sixth floor where gossamer pajamas were woven. A pack of werewolves was packed together on the fifty-ninth floor where there was always a full moon. A party of ghosts was partying on the forty-fourth floor where there was a neighborhood of haunted houses. Skeletons were on the eighth, mummies were on the ninety-third, owls were on the eighty-first, zombies were on the seventy-second, and there were countless more on each floor.
Key spent much of her time meeting many of these strange and wonderful creatures. They all looked to her as their captain. Wherever she steered the Floating Mansion, they would go with her. She piloted it into storms and out, over raging seas, and across vast deserts. They all trusted her because no one could pilot a floating mansion quite like her. She was truly amazing and they all knew it.
CHAPTER TWO
Key the Marvelous Inventor
Miss Broomble the witch had given the Floating Mansion to Key, just as another witch had given it to her, and another witch had given it to her, and another had given it to her, and so on for as long as anyone could remember.
Miss Broomble had already taught Key much about magic. But the steampunk vampire girl wanted to learn new things too.
Key practically lived in her library. She studied all kinds of books about machines and devices and gizmos and gadgets. She wanted to become an inventor!
One of her favorite books was titled The History of Steam Powered Doodads. She read it often. She also read Bartleby’s Basics on Black Magic & Mechanics, Gus Gizzle’s Great Guide to Gizmos & Gadgetry, and Harry Invin
tical’s Handbook for Inventing & Keeping Your Fingers.
In no time, Key was inventing all sorts of machines, gadgets, gizmos, and doodads. They went all over the mansion, some in the walls, some in the floors, some hovering, some slinking, some wheeling, some crawling. Key could build anything. There were talking clocks, walking blocks, squawking locks; flying cars, crying stars, sighing jars; machines that mowed the lawn, machines that did your homework, machines that baked nothing but pies, cakes, and cookies. Any kind of machine you could think of, she could invent it.
She also invented a new device for the hallway called the perambubelt. It was like a conveyor belt that took you from one end of the hall to the other so fast that you could go from the movie room to the kitchen for a snack and back again before your favorite actor could say, “Whosamawatchadinkle.”
Another device she invented was called the Libraknowit. This amazing machine knew exactly which book you would like to read as soon as you walked into the library. If you were sorrowful, it brought you a book to fill you with happiness. If you were thoughtful, it brought you a book to make you be even more filled with thought. If you were craving chocolate, it brought you Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which was one of Key’s favorite books.
And yet another device she invented was called the Chocotransicon. This is perhaps the most amazing device that has ever been invented. It worked on steam, electricity, and magic. If you finished reading Charlie’s adventures in the chocolate factory, and if you were starving, it could turn anything into chocolate. It went over your finger like a thimble, and you simply had to touch something to turn it into chocolate bars, chocolate cakes, chocolate ice cream, chocolate anything. The only problem was the temptation to use it too much. Key learned that lesson the hard way when she accidently turned the thirty-first floor into a chocolate paradise. After that, she could not eat chocolate for a month. She had a terrible stomachache from eating most of the floor, a lamp, and two bookcases.
CHAPTER THREE
The Revenge of Margrave Snick & Old Queen Crinkle
Key’s life turned upside down when Margrave Snick and Old Queen Crinkle broke into her Floating Mansion. It had happened during the daytime when she was asleep in her coffin. She had not heard them until it was too late, right when Snick and Crinkle were stealing from around her neck her mansion’s amazingly mystical key, the Gnostike Timepiece—that little device that was like a copper pocket watch, yet kept a treasure of mystery and magic in its machine-work. Snick and Crinkle had been cruel vampires, but they were much crueler mortals. You might suffer a thousand deaths if they disliked you. And they hated Key, so they really wanted her to suffer horribly. They had captured her parents and were now holding them hostage. They made Key do everything they said, or else it would be her parents who suffered a hundred thousand deaths, instead of her.
“Your pathetic parents are our prisoners in a secret place,” Margrave Snick said.
“You’ll never find them,” Old Queen Crinkle said.
“So you should do everything we say,” Snick snapped.
“Or else we will beat them until they look as purply red as beets,” Crinkle cackled.
So they took over Key’s mansion and made it their home, and poor Key, unable to do anything else, became their slave.
Yet they did not trust her Floating Mansion very much. They thought the inside was too moody. “It’s always changing on us,” they bitterly complained.
Once they tried to go up the stairs from the first floor to the second, but they ended up getting lost on the fifty-seventh, which was also known as the Happy Land of the Hairy Fairies.
“The stairs are too dangerous,” Snick griped.
“The lift is too confusing,” Crinkle grumbled.
So they decided to live on the first floor and never go up to any other. They made Key turn the living room into their bedroom. The sofa became a bed, a set of comfy chairs became another, a coffee table became two night tables, and a bookcase became a wardrobe because neither Snick nor Crinkle read books.
Key was very sorrowful. Her heart hurt every day. She was always worrying about her mom and dad. She hoped she could figure out how to rescue them soon.
All this seemed far worse than the time she had lived in the Dungeon of Despair. At least then she had been left alone. Now Snick and Crinkle were summoning Key night and day to do the worst chores you could think of. Sometimes Snick needed his long nose hair trimmed. Sometimes Crinkle needed her wrinkly feet rubbed. Sometimes he needed his dirty fingernails trimmed. Sometimes she needed her pimples popped. It was horrible.
Key only went to the first floor when they threatened her mom and dad with punishments and pain. She spent her free time on the fifth floor where she had a workshop for inventing.
A group of minotaurs were living on the fifth floor too. They wore fancy business suits over their large bodies and tall top hats over their bullish heads. They were always sitting at cafes and sipping foamy cappuccinos. Key often stopped to speak with them. They were very polite, yet they were completely terrified of the world outside the mansion.
They would say things like, “Have you seen the Old Fork Times today? It says here on page one that Enchanted Cows in Iowa are on strike because they want better wages for making more magic milk. What is the magical world coming to?”
And since Key was so kind, she would always try to cheer them up. “I wouldn’t worry too much. If you buy more cappuccinos, you improve the Cursed Economy. And if you improve the Cursed Economy, then you can give the Enchanted Cows higher wages.”
“I do love magic milk,” another minotaur would say.
“A round of cappuccinos for everyone,” another would say and they would drink more cappuccinos and be happy.
She would always have a cup with them before she went a few blocks down to her inventor’s workshop. It was a small place, but she liked it. Her inventing tools hung from the walls alongside her magic wands. Computers and cauldrons were in every corner. Machines that she was still working on hung from the ceiling. Spells that she was still weaving floated in the air like mist. All the tables were cluttered with parts and potions. Her inventor’s workshop was the one place where she felt most peaceful.
She stayed in there as often as she could. She would rather be there than on the first floor. She could not stand listening to Snick and Crinkle complain about another thing. She could not endure hearing them threaten her parents one more time.
Credits
Cover design by Becket
www.becket.me
Illustrations by Raven Quinn
www.facebook.com/officialravenquinn
ABOUT THE AUTHOR & ILLUSTRATOR
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BECKET
Becket is the assistant to New York Times bestselling author Anne Rice, with whom he co-created The Blood Vivicanti serial. He is also the author of four other books., including a book of poetry, and two other books about Key the Steampunk Vampire Girl.
He also is a music composer and has an instrumental music album.
Becket’s music and books is here
www.becket.me
ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
RAVEN QUINN
Raven Quinn is a Los Angeles based singer/songwriter, recording artist and illustrator. Although Raven is primarily recognized for her work in music, she has also revealed herself to be a passionate visual artist with a unique and whimsical style that is all her own. Her artistic tools of choice are usually simple: a BIC pen, watercolor pencils, and her expansive imagination. Drawing has always been a creative outlet for Raven, but it was only in 2012 that she began making her original artwork available to the public through online auctions. Due to increasing demand, she eventually began taking commission requests as her schedule allowed in 2013. Raven's artistic contribution to Key the Steampunk Vampire Girl marks her debut as an illustrator for a children's book, and is the realization of a life-long dream to help visually bring to life fantastical worlds and characters for y
oung readers. When she is not writing or in the studio recording new music, Raven can inevitably be found working on her latest illustration.
You can find Raven Quinn here
www.facebook.com/officialravenquinn