William Alexander - Goblin Secrets

Rownie looked at the nail. It was high up, higher than he could reach. Essa handed him a long pole with a hook on the end. He carefully hooked the giant mask to the pole, lifted it up to the level of the nail, and got it to stay there.

“Good,” Essa said. “The fox goes over there, near the books.” Somehow she managed to point with one hand without dropping everything she carried. “You should be able to find it. The bunks are near the pantry. Feel free to snack before bed, if you’re hungry, but don’t eat too much of the dried fish or Thomas will have an extremely eloquent fit about how we are likely to starve if we ever need to hide out here for months and months—which does happen sometimes.”

She went the opposite way, moving along the upstream wall and hanging up her own masks one by one. Rownie set off toward the bookshelves on the downstream side. He ducked underneath a ratcheting piece of tree-size machinery.

I’m inside the Clock Tower , he said to himself, still astonished. The troupe lives inside the clock. A place he had always known had turned itself inside out and become something mysterious and strange.

Something about this also bothered him and itched at his memory. He couldn’t think of what it might be.

The masks all stared at him with empty eyeholes or painted eyes. Rownie tried to stare back. He was good at staring contests. You had to have a good stare in a household of Grubs. But there were too many masks for him to meet all of their gazes, and he had to look where he was going to avoid being battered about by the tower’s workings. This staring contest could not be won.

He found a place for the fox. It was low to the ground, so he didn’t need a pole to put it back. He looped the mask’s string over the nail and set it against the wall.

The fox mask moved. It lifted away from the wall and pulled against the string that held it there. Then it settled back into place.

Rownie took a step back. He stared. The fox stayed where it was and stared back at him. Rownie watched it awhile longer. He started to doubt that he had actually seen it move in the first place.

He looked around for the rest of the troupe and saw Semele and Thomas carry a mask between them. Rownie didn’t recognize this one. It was carved out of stone, and had braided riverweed for hair. Swirling, painted lines of blue and brown covered the face. Rownie followed the two goblins to the center of the upstream wall, where they set the stone mask.

“This is the River,” said Semele. “This is what we lost and left Zombay to find.”

Rownie watched to see if it would move. It did not, but it looked as though it might move at any time. “A mask of the River?” he asked.

“No,” said Semele. “It is the River, and also a mask. We needed to speak to the River, to give it a face and a name, so that we could ask it not to drown us with floodwaters. That was how it started, yes. This is the very first mask that I made.”

Essa came to join them. They all watched the oldest mask while it did not move.

“Our craft and calling still has certain obligations,” Thomas said. He spoke more quietly than he usually did. “It has from the very beginning, when those obligations were the whole of the craft. To ignore that part and purpose would be to lose the rest.”

“What obligations?” Rownie asked without looking away from the mask that was also the River.

“To speak for the city,” said Essa. “All of it. Northside, Southside, and the whole long length of the Fiddleway between them.” She held up a wooden box and opened it. Inside was the city, carved from a solid block of wood and into the shape of a face. Half of the mask followed the winding sense of Southside and the other half obeyed the straight lines of the north. The bridge of the nose was the Clock Tower, where they all stood, and the small clock tocked and ticked in unison with the tower around them.

“Nonny made it,” Essa said, “so Nonny really should be the one to open the box and say ‘Ta-da!’ or at least have a ta-da sort of look on her face, but she isn’t here. Ta-da.”

“We have always carved a new mask of the city, to speak for the city when the floods come,” said Semele. “Zombay is a new place each time, you see.”

“That’s what you want Rowan to do?” Rownie asked. “Speak for the city?”

“Yes,” said Semele. “This is why we taught him and why we are trying to find him. This is why everyone is trying to find him.”

“Who wears the River, then?” Rownie asked.

“No one,” said Thomas. “Absolutely no one. The River isn’t a mask you can wear. Not any longer. It would wear you instead, if you tried. Much too old and much too strong. It would fill up an actor until they drowned in it.”

“But it listens,” said Semele. “Sometimes it will listen. And it might be that it will listen to you, Rownie, if you put on the mask of Zombay. Try it now.”

“Me?” Rownie asked.

“You,” Thomas answered. “We have been teaching your older brother how to do this, but you do have a bit of talent yourself.”

Rownie lifted the city mask and set it carefully over his own face. He pulled the string above his ears and behind his head. Through the eyeholes, he saw the others watching him, expectant. It made the back of his neck itch. He tried to swallow, but his throat was dry.

“Repeat after me,” Thomas whispered. “Zombay River, oldest roadway, canyon carving, hear me.”

Rownie looked up at the great River mask. Its eyeholes were dark, and he could see nothing through them. He wondered what would happen if he tossed a pebble through and how far it would fall and whether or not there would be a splash when it hit. He understood how someone could drown in that mask—and that the mask would not notice them as they drowned.

He repeated the line. “Zombay River, oldest roadway, canyon carving, hear me.”

Nothing happened, and nothing continued to happen after that.

“Oh well,” said Thomas. “Not to worry. Your brother should be able to manage, and we should be able to find him. Or else we might possibly track down another unChanged actor whom the Mayor has not yet arrested.” He probably meant to sound comforting and optimistic, but he did not. Rownie took off the city mask and set it back inside its wooden box.

“Why can’t you do it?” he asked. He felt small and emptied out. He felt as though he should be better at this than he actually was. “Why does it have to be somebody unChanged?”

“We have done this,” Thomas said. “Many times. But the city of Zombay currently excludes us, and we cannot speak for a place if we are not ourselves welcome there. This makes it very tempting to just sit back and let the floods do as they please, let me tell you. We, who have polished our craft to its very finest gleam, are now unable to perform the task that gave birth to that craft. But I am still fond of this unwelcoming place, and we still have our old obligations. So we teach our craft to someone who is welcome here and who knows their way around both sides of the city and the bridge in between.”

Rownie thought he was that sort of person, but apparently he was not—or maybe he did not know enough. Thomas took off his hat, took out the Iron Emperor mask, and went down the length of the wall to find an empty space for it. He found one and put it there. Then the mask moved. A shudder of movement rippled through the other masks as well, and each one began to strain forward against strings, straps, and nails.

THE IRON EMPEROR PULLED HARD enough to break its string. It fell. Then it stood up again. The air beneath the mask hardened into a body dressed in royal robes. It held a metal scepter in its hands.