The Hollow Kingdom

by Clare B. Dunkle

  Her guardian led her down the hall to one of the bedrooms. “I’m leaving you in here,” he told her. “Ring if you need anything.” Kate stared aghast at the elegant bedroom. It was on the ground floor, facing the dense forest of the Hill, and it opened out onto the shaded terrace via a pair of pretty double doors. Almost the whole wall by the terrace was window, covered with lacy curtains.

  “How long will I be staying here?” she demanded anxiously. Her guardian paused in the doorway.

  “I don’t exactly know,” he said ponderously. “I feel you are now a danger to yourself and to your sister. You’ll have to stay in here until we can decide what to do about you. Prim and Celia cannot deal with you at the Lodge.”

  Kate could just imagine a whole coterie of monsters assembling in the woods outside those double doors. At twilight they would come bursting in and haul her away, their weird goblin chieftain in the lead.

  “Mr. Roberts,” she begged, “please don’t leave me in this room! At least put me on the second floor or in a room that doesn’t face the forest. There must be bedrooms that are safer than this.”

  “Safer from goblins?” Hugh Roberts asked sardonically, and Kate knew that the argument was over. She heard him lock the door as he left.

  Exhausted and frustrated, Kate flung herself down on the bed to think. Ever since she had asked for her guardian’s help, things had gotten worse and worse. He had practically accused her of insanity in front of her aunts, he had instructed them to throw her out of the house after dark, and now he had locked her up in a room perfect for goblin attack. Short of delivering her tied up to the goblins’ front door, Kate couldn’t think of anything worse he could do. Of course, she concluded miserably, he would say that he just wanted her to face her fears. She was pretty sure that was exactly what she would be doing once twilight came again.

  Kate devoted some time to escaping, but the large, opulent room thwarted her attempts. She could find no way to pry open either windows or doors. The windows were nailed shut, and they held many small diamonds of glass cemented together by lead strips. She wasn’t sure she could batter her way out with a chair even if she could risk the noise. The doors onto the terrace fastened together with a heavy bolt that slid between them, and the key was gone from the lock. Yet she knew that her solid prison posed not the least problem for the goblin King. Even his magical cat knew how to open locked doors.

  The day passed very slowly. Kate tried hard not to think about what twilight would bring. Restless and lonely, she wandered about and studied the various diversions the room had to offer. Outside was a beautiful day. She stood for a long time at the window, watching the sun dapple the terrace. It’s my last chance to see sunlight, she thought miserably. My very last chance.

  When her guardian brought lunch, Kate refused to speak to him. She was finished giving him ideas on how to make her face her fears. If he was too well educated to believe in goblins, she wasn’t going to change his mind. Tired out from worry and all the late nights, she lay down on the bed and fell into a doze. When she awoke, the room was filled with the shadows of twilight. Kate jumped up in a panic. What was it she had said to Agatha? Handed over like a sack of potatoes. She couldn’t bear it. She had to do something, she just had to!

  How would the goblins attack her? They wouldn’t hesitate to invade the house if they could do so undetected. They would doubtless make sure that she was unable to raise an alarm, and the easiest way to do that was to make sure that she was asleep. The goblin King controlled sleep with a magical ease. Kate doubted she would even wake up until she was underground.

  How could she raise an alarm if she were asleep? Kate looked about for inspiration. A large crystal lamp stood on a table by the hall door. If she could pull the lamp down as she was being taken out, it would make a substantial crash.

  Kate quickly went to work. Her light was going fast, and the shadows beneath the trees were getting thicker and blacker. She hastily ripped from her dress the sash that had so offended Emily’s taste. It made a cloth rope about six feet long. She tied one end tightly around the base of the crystal lamp, then dropped the sash over the side of the table and pulled it underneath. She brought a pillow from the bed and lay down next to the hall door. Then she tied the other end of her makeshift rope to her ankle. Now if she moved away from her spot by her end of the table, the lamp would be tugged off its resting place and crash to the floor a few feet away.

  Kate pushed her dress hem down to hide the knot and huddled in a furious pitch of suspense for the attack. She was as far as she could be from those ominous double doors, and she felt well rested and alert. Maybe she could raise the alarm before the doors were even open. When they came, she thought excitedly, they would find her ready to meet them.

  Go to sleep, Kate. And that was that. One minute she was wide awake, waiting for the first hint of trouble. The next minute she was locked in a profound slumber. The doors swung open to let in the quiet sounds of the deepening twilight, but Kate slept on, trapped in a dreamless darkness beyond any possibility of action.

  A loud knocking sounded on the door right above her head.

  “Miss Winslow,” said Hugh Roberts through the door, “a visitor has just arrived and is anxious to meet you. I’ll give you a few minutes, and then I’d like you to join us.”

  Kate opened her eyes and stared straight into the unmatched eyes of the goblin King. Marak crouched over her in the dusky gloom. He already had his arms around her, about to lift her from the floor, and his pale hair brushed her face. He froze, glancing toward the door as her guardian delivered his message. Kate tensed to scream, but Marak absently laid a finger across her lips, and she found herself unable to make a sound. As she twisted her head from side to side, trying to find her voice, she saw the goblin grin in amusement. Kate glared up at him frantically and jerked her foot as hard as she could, yanking the lamp to the floor just beyond them. It hit the stone with a terrific smash, spraying his back with crystal shards. He turned, startled, to locate the source of the sound.

  “Miss Winslow, what are you doing?” Hugh Roberts called through the door. “What’s happening in there?” But Kate was still unable to yell for help. Marak tightened his grip on her. This is when he drags me away, Kate thought feverishly. In another second, he’ll have me unconscious, and I’ll wake up underground. She struck at him as hard as she could, clawing and fighting to break free.

  “Miss Winslow, answer me. What’s going on?”

  The goblin had a number of solutions at his disposal, but it is hard to think or work magic while under attack. Kate yanked his hair. When he peeled her hand loose, she twisted and got an elbow into his chest. She threw out an arm and banged the door. As he raised his six-fingered hand to touch her forehead, she sank her teeth as hard as she could into his thumb.

  “That’s it, Miss Winslow. I’m coming in there.”

  Marak pushed Kate away and sprang to his feet. She scrambled to sit up and banged into the door, throwing her head back to look at him. The goblin’s face was twisted in a snarl of fury, his sharp teeth were bared, and his eyes blazed in the twilit room with an unnatural brightness. He raised his arms in front of him, the eleven fingers pointing out rigidly, dark drops clinging to his bleeding thumb. Kate ducked her head instinctively, bracing for the lightning, or worse, that would follow. She felt the hall door push against her, but she couldn’t move for terror. The enraged goblin flicked out his hands, the fingers pointing away from her, and moved them apart in a slow, deliberate circle of the room. Pictures sprang from the walls. Knickknacks and vases leapt from the furniture. Bookshelves overturned. The washstand upended. The room was filled with the sound of smashing, splintering, and crashing, and the air was filled with flying debris. The goblin King glared down at Kate, his pallid face haughty, as she cringed and shielded her eyes from the exploding fragments. Then he spun on his heel and walked rapidly from the room. As he passed through the open doors, he made a casual gesture. The doors slammed shut behind him w
ith an unearthly force, and the glass from the whole expanse of window fractured and fell in.

  Kate staggered to her feet and watched him disappear into the shadow of the trees as the hall door swung open behind her. Dazed, she looked around at the wreckage. Twisted picture frames and powdered ceramic covered the floor. Books cascaded out of broken shelves, and bits of window glass spangled the Oriental rug.

  “Extraordinary!” she heard a voice murmur behind her. Kate turned to find two men standing in the doorway, staring at the scene before them with open mouths. Her guardian, his plump face bloodless, clutched the door frame with both hands. As her gaze fell on them, he made an attempt to push himself upright.

  “Miss Winslow,” he said, his voice unsteady, “meet Dr. Stanley Thatcher, head of the Westcross Asylum.”

  Kate turned around again and looked out at the black forest, delighted and amazed. She had faced the goblin King alone and had beaten him! She had been set out like bait in a trap with no friends, no weapon, and no magic, and she was still standing free in the moonlight while he headed back to his horrible caves. She wanted to whoop and shriek, to yell insults into the darkening night. Instead, she demurely turned around and faced the two men.

  “There’s been some kind of explosion,” she said, studying the doctor with cool curiosity. “Look, the windows blew in. Do the rooms next to this one have broken windows, too?”

  Hugh Roberts didn’t seem to have heard the question. He had wandered a few steps into the room and was staring around in shock. Kate felt a smug amusement. If her pompous guardian found a little thing like this so upsetting, she could just imagine the look on his face if he saw the goblin King himself.

  “I don’t think we know,” said the doctor briskly. “Mr. Roberts, why don’t we check the other rooms for damage?” Her guardian glanced around distractedly and followed the doctor out. As soon as they left, Kate bent and untied the knot from her ankle. She was just standing up and surveying the ripped sash when Mrs. Bigelow appeared in the doorway.

  “What happened?” she gasped. Kate retied the damaged sash over her dress.

  “I don’t know, Mrs. Bigelow,” she said calmly. “Some kind of explosion. The men were just checking on things.”

  The housekeeper’s face sagged. She turned frightened eyes on Kate.

  “It’s them, isn’t it, that did it?” she whispered darkly.

  Kate patted the torn sash into place and strolled past the housekeeper into the lighted hall.

  “I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied.

  Later, sitting in the study, she sipped her tea and surveyed her new combatants with serene assurance. She had just defeated a goblin with her own bare hands. The head doctor of a lunatic asylum couldn’t possibly frighten her now.

  Actually, Dr. Thatcher didn’t look very frightening. He didn’t look as if he would want to be. A fit, white-bearded man of fifty, he had an agreeable, fatherly face and seemed interested in everything. Kate would have loved to tell him about her fight with Marak. Dr. Thatcher would have found him fascinating. But she had no desire to be locked up in an insane asylum, so the truth would have to wait until she was alone with Emily.

  “The other rooms weren’t damaged in the slightest,” Dr. Thatcher was saying. “Have you any idea what might have caused it, Miss Winslow?”

  “None at all,” Kate answered readily. “I went to the door to respond to your knock. Then there was a devastating crash, and I hid my face and tumbled to the floor. Could it have been a prank, do you think? One of the stable boys playing with gunpowder or coal dust? Goodness, I hope no one blew a hand off!”

  Kate’s guardian polished his spectacles. “I don’t know,” he said unsteadily. “I’d rather not discuss it now. Miss Winslow, I’ve been to see Dr. Thatcher about you, and he very much wanted to meet you. He’s interested in your goblin visitor.”

  “Oh, do you study goblins?” Kate asked.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know much about them,” admitted the doctor with a smile.

  “Then we’d better call Mrs. Bigelow,” Kate suggested. “She can tell all sorts of wonderful tales about them. Did you know that her grandparents actually believed goblins existed? Elves, too. Isn’t that charming?” She smiled at the men. They stared back, a little nonplussed.

  “Now, wait a minute, Miss Winslow,” said Hugh Roberts with a frown. “I just heard a story from your sister this afternoon stuffed chock-full of goblins. The goblin King was coming to drag you away.”

  Kate fixed her guardian with a surprised stare. “And you believed her?” she asked in astonishment. The doctor turned his interested eyes from her to Hugh Roberts, whose pale cheeks flushed a bright pink.

  “Miss Winslow,” Hugh said firmly, “you yourself said you were in terrible danger, and you begged me to send you away. You said the goblins were coming to drag you off, just like Adele Roberts in the story.”

  Kate shrugged. She wished that Marak were there to see her. If lying was for humans, then by all means, let her lie.

  “But I never thought you’d believe it,” she said artlessly. “I thought grown men knew that goblins couldn’t exist.”

  Her guardian rose from his chair and began pacing the floor. “What about that strange creature you saw the night of the storm? What about your hysterical dash through the door? Prim and Celia practically had to revive you.”

  “I certainly didn’t invent that,” Kate assured him. She turned to Dr. Thatcher. “My sister Emily and I got lost in a stormy night, and we stumbled onto a camp of Gypsies. An old woman told my fortune for me, and a Gypsy guided us home. He told us all kinds of terrible stories as we walked through the night, and he was entirely muffled in a black cloak and hood. When we arrived at the house, he pulled back the hood so I could see his face. Now, Aunt Prim says that if I saw him during the day, I would have thought he looked strange, but after that frightening walk and all those stories, I was terrified. It seems funny now. In fact,” she added bitterly, “I know he enjoyed scaring me into fits.” She smiled at Dr. Thatcher, who chuckled. Her guardian looked thunderstruck.

  “But what about the nightmares?” he demanded angrily, pacing before the fireplace. “What about staying out all night? What about running away from home?”

  “I can’t deny the nightmares,” Kate answered. She turned to the doctor. “I know they worried my poor great-aunts. They’re quite unused to the trials of parenthood. All three of my guardians are new to children, you know. And it’s true that we were away from home late last night. My aunts and Mr. Roberts decided it would be good for my nerves to walk from one house to the other in the dark. Of course, we protested quite tearfully. You have to remember the shocking Gypsy we’d met just a couple of nights before. He could have been roaming the woods. And as a matter of fact, we were chased.”

  “By the goblin King,” suggested Hugh Roberts, looking over his spectacles meaningfully.

  “No!” insisted Kate, frowning at him as if he were a slow pupil. “We were chased by a couple of clodhopping hu—I mean, farm boys, out for a moonlight ride. They must have been playing a joke on us. Maybe they knew you and the aunts were going to send us out on a ghost walk.” She looked at her guardian, and Dr. Thatcher did as well. Suddenly and inexplicably, Hugh Roberts’s blush deepened to a dull, unhealthy red.

  “We lost them at the tree circle,” continued Kate, “and we rested there to catch our breath. It was so beautiful and peaceful there under the moon and stars.” She paused, remembering the unholy purple lightning and whipping winds. “I’m afraid we just fell asleep. When we woke up, it was so late that we went back to the Lodge because it was closer, and the aunts were already in bed. But I don’t know why you thought we tried to run away. We were just heading out on a ramble with a picnic basket.”

  Dr. Thatcher turned to her guardian. “They had only a picnic basket?” he asked. “No clothes, no belongings?”

  Hugh Roberts looked as if Kate had personally insulted him. “Miss W
inslow, I warn you,” he said, gasping with rage. “I know you’re lying, and you know it, too. You know you believe in goblins, and you know you aren’t rational about them!” He glared at Dr. Thatcher. “She isn’t! She isn’t rational! She’s insane!”

  Kate stared at the big man in complete amazement. She had never seen him so angry before. He’d been worried that she was making a break with reality, but he didn’t seem at all pleased that she’d rejoined it. She fell silent, unwilling to embarrass him with any more lies. Dr. Thatcher looked from the enraged man to the astonished girl, and his gaze turned thoughtful.

  “Mr. Roberts,” he said soothingly, “I’m very glad you’ve asked me to come tonight, and I’m enjoying the conversation immensely, but I think it would help my examination of your ward if we had a few moments alone.”

  Hugh Roberts subsided and left the room. Dr. Thatcher turned his kind eyes on Kate.

  “Miss Winslow,” he said thoughtfully, “your story does make a certain sense, but Mr. Roberts mentioned other factors that are hard to explain as high spirits and pretend games: poor sleep, loss of appetite, and a feeling of being watched. In spite of your cheerfulness, you do appear rather thin and pale. I can see that your guardian would be a little difficult to confide in.” He chose his words with care. “Is there anything that you would like to tell me about? Anything that’s been troubling you?”

  Kate squirmed a little. It was one thing to lie to Hugh Roberts, whom she disliked. It was quite another thing to lie to this friendly, likable man. But he was a doctor who worked with insane patients. If she told him about Marak, he would decide that his asylum was the best place for her to be. Kate looked into his sympathetic eyes and wished with all her heart that he were her father.

  “You know I lost my father a few months ago,” she began.

  “Of course,” Dr. Thatcher said gently. “It must have been a terrible shock, and yet they tell me that when you first came here, you were doing very well. Your problems didn’t start until later.”