William Alexander - Goblin Secrets

“We are child-thieves,” said Thomas from underneath his hat.

“Only for very excellent reasons,” said Semele. “And we are the children that we steal.”

“Also, I don’t really mind,” said Rownie.

“While we are sharing recriminations,” Thomas went on, “it was not, perhaps, the brightest notion to further antagonize that hotheaded coalmaker with a personal history about making coal and how very despicable the practice is.”

“Hush yourself,” said Semele. “The most useful thing for the both of you to be doing would be to make supper. It has been several hours since we ate. Rownie can stay here and keep watch for any more fallen trees in our way.”

“I lost my hat,” Rownie admitted. “I should probably get inside.”

“Do not be worrying,” Semele told him. “There is no one else on the road. Also, it is dark, and I think there will be a rising fog tonight. It would take very good eyes to see through all of this, and spot you for someone unChanged who keeps Tamlin company.”

Essa and Thomas went below, grumbling. Rownie could hear further grumbling inside the wagon, though he couldn’t hear what either one of them said.

He watched the road, a long and winding stretch of packed dirt surrounded by trees with twisting branches and roots. A fog did rise up, slowly covering the ground until the world itself seemed made out of fog, with only the wagon real and solid in it. Rownie couldn’t see well enough to spot fallen trees, or any other roadblocks, so he just crossed his toes and hoped there were none. Semele still managed to keep the wheels on the road.

“That was quick thinking and quick doing,” Semele told him. “I could see you in the audience, from spy-holes in the puppet stage.”

“I just kicked him,” Rownie said. “That’s all.”

“That is not all,” Semele said. “You put yourself where you needed to be, and you had the foresight to do so. This was very well done.”

Rownie savored the praise. He didn’t get praise very often, so he was not entirely sure what to do with it. It made his face feel warmer in the foggy air. He didn’t savor that warmth for very long, though. In his memory he saw Patch fall again, and again he felt as though he were also falling. He opened his eyes, and stared at the fog.

Something itched at the back of his mind.

“Graba has a lot of birds,” he said. “All over the city, and even outside the city. We were a good ways upriver when her birds attacked us.”

“Yes,” said Semele. “Not all pigeons are hers, even in Zombay, but she does use very many of them.”

“She’s looking for Rowan too,” said Rownie. “She was always asking about him, before.”

“She would be, yes,” said Semele.

“So why hasn’t Graba found him? She keeps finding us. She keeps sending birds after us. She must be looking for Rowan, and her pigeons are pretty much everywhere, but Rowan’s been gone for months. Why hasn’t she found him?”

“I do not know,” said Semele. She said it gently.

“Maybe he isn’t here to be found,” Rownie said. He didn’t like saying that. He felt like he might make it true by saying it out loud. Maybe if he kept quiet, he could keep it from being true—but he couldn’t keep quiet. “Maybe Rowan left the city already, without me. Or maybe he’s dead.”

“I am thinking that he is not dead,” said Semele. “I wish that I knew where he was, and that I could tell you where. I do not know, but I am thinking he is alive.”

“How can you tell?” Rownie asked, not yet allowing himself to be comforted.

Semele thought for a time before answering. “Your adoptive grandmother, she is very good at finding things. She is also very good at knowing when she should not bother looking. If she is still looking, then he is still somewhere to be found.”

She steered them around another curve. Rownie stared at the fog ahead with less anxiety, beginning to trust Semele to know the road.

He thought about Rowan, hiding somewhere in the fog, somewhere even Graba’s many pigeons couldn’t spot.

Rowan used to disappear for days. Sometimes he would put a new troupe together, and try to rehearse, but this rarely went well. They’re too afraid of masks to put one on , he complained once, while tossing several hellos over the side of the Fiddleway. They’re just willing to do a little play-reading, late at night, with the windows down and the shutters drawn, and someone playing a fiddle in the next room to cover the noise. What are they so afraid of?

The Guard , Rownie said.

But what are the Guard so afraid of?

Rownie wasn’t sure. Pirates? he suggested.

Rowan laughed. No, I mean, why would a little pretending in front of a crowd . . . Never mind. I just wish the rest of my troupe had more courage.

I’m not scared , Rownie said. Can I be in the next show?

Not this one , Rowan told him. There’s no role good enough for you in this one. And I’ll need you to be the one friendly face in the audience—if we ever get to stand in front of an audience.

Rownie was disappointed, and Rowan noticed.

Let me hear the speech I gave you , the older brother said. You’ve been practicing?

I’ve been practicing , said Rownie.

He tried to remember that speech now, while he sat on the wagon bench with Semele. The first line came back to him— I know my way, and I can guess at yours —but he couldn’t think of the next one.

Another thought itched at the back of his mind, on the shelf of things not yet understood.

“Thomas called the puppet show a personal history,” he said. “Whose history?”

“Only mine,” said Semele. “Our selves are rough and unrehearsed tales we tell the world. Hold on to something, yes, because there is an old tree root in the road ahead. There used to be, at least, and I am thinking it is probably still there.”

The wagon wheels hit the root. Rownie’s teeth clacked together. Thomas and Essa gave squawks of protest from inside.

“So what happened to the girls, later?” Rownie asked, trying to ignore the pain in his teeth. “The ones in the story? The ones who survived?”

“They never did agree on which one was first and which was a reflection of a reflection,” Semele said. “One of them Changed and became Tamlin. The other learned witchwork, and she never, ever forgave the first for her Changing.”

“Oh,” said Rownie. “Oh.” He had several thousand questions now. He asked the one he had asked Patch. “How did you Change? What happened?”

Semele hummed to herself. She seemed to be examining her own words before letting them loose.

“A Change is one big step sideways,” she said, “in exchange for all of the small steps you might otherwise have taken. Yes. In most ways you stop changing, after a Change.”

This was not much of a clarification. “But how does it happen?” Rownie persisted. “Is it happening to me?”

“No, Rownie,” Semele told him. “We will not ever work a Change unwilling, on you or anyone. It is not happening to you, and will not happen unless you choose it. And we do need the assistance of someone both masked and unChanged.”

Rownie didn’t know if he was relieved or disappointed. He was not sure that he wanted his eyes to grow huge, his ears to grow long, and his skin to grow mottled with a thousand green freckles. But he did want to be something else, something other than he had been, and he thought that maybe monsters were safe from each other.

Essa opened the hatch behind them to offer up plates of vegetable pastries. The pastries smelled heavily spiced, and good. Suddenly supper became very much more important to Rownie than anything left on the shelf in the back of his mind. They all ate together, driving through the fog down Riverside Road.