William Alexander - Goblin Secrets

The gearworker muttered to himself. He took back the oil, rummaged in his shirt pocket, and put one copper coin on the table. Then he put another on top of it.

Rownie took the coins. “Thank you, Mr. Scrud,” he said. He left the workshop without running. He left the alleyway without running. Behind him the alley filled up with clanking, metallic noises, and shouts. The metal sounded like Graba’s bird’s legs somewhere behind him. Rownie started running.

Rownie ran halfway to Market Square, passing familiar fountains and monuments. He stumbled once, caught himself, and paused for breath under the bronze statue of the Mayor. The statue wore a suit with a watch chain tucked into the waistcoat pocket and held out both hands in a way that looked either welcoming or surprised. The metal was old and green-stained, except for the head. The statue got a new head every time the city got a new mayor. Graba had hinted that she would be very pleased if someone stole the Mayor’s statue-head and brought it back to her, but so far no one had worked up the courage to try it.

Someone nearby shouted at someone else, and not at Rownie. His insides jumped anyway. He slipped the two coins into the only pocket of his coat, and then he walked and remembered how to breathe as he walked. He wanted to run, but one of the Guard might decide that he was running for Bad Reasons and try to catch him.

Most of Graba’s household hated Northside, and got lost in Northside. The streets here followed different rules. They ran in perfectly straight lines, and met each other at right angles. Rownie knew the landmarks of it, though, and could navigate Northside easily enough.

He passed the Reliquary, and the Northside Rail Station. A member of the Guard stood watch over the station’s iron latticework doors. The Guard wore a bright, showy uniform. He held a spear with tassels on it and stared at the opposite side of the street.

Rownie walked by slowly. He wondered why the man was there, guarding a rusted gate. There was only one of him, and if anything crawled up out of the old rail station to break the gate, then one Guard wouldn’t do very much good. The Southside Rail Station did not have a Guard posted at the entrance. It did not need one. If anything nasty crawled up from the depths and came to Southside, then Graba would deal with it. Probably. If she wanted to.

Rownie passed the station and came to the square, a huge open space of flagstones with a fountain in the middle and market stalls all around. It was already afternoon, and some of the stalls were closing. A farmer with dozens of long braids pulled down a tent pole, letting the canvas roof of his stall billow and dissolve into a puddle of cloth.

Rownie smelled foods, all kinds. The smells blended together. They ganged up on him and made it very difficult to think about anything else. He lingered by a baker’s stall and smiled. It was his best smile.

The baker passed him some bread. “Yesterday’s,” she said. “Spoil soon anyway, and there’s no one buying.”

“Good luck selling tomorrow,” Rownie said, or tried to say around the mouthful of dry bread he was crunching on. She passed him another piece for saying so, and waved him away. Then she pulled at a chain behind her. The stall collapsed, folding back into the wall of the square.

Gearwork in the stall squeaked like Graba’s right leg. Rownie flinched at the sound.

He dodged around tent poles and covered wagons, moving away from all the bustle to the fountain in the center of the square. A stone bear, a stone lion, and a stone naga all roared streams of water into a cracked stone basin. He cupped water in one hand, slurping up as much as he could. He dipped his other piece of bread in the basin to soften it, but the water only made it soggy.

A pigeon flapped onto the rim of the fountain and looked sideways at Rownie. Sideways is the only way pigeons know how to look. Rownie ignored it. He knew it just wanted some of the bread. He didn’t think it was one of Graba’s birds. He didn’t think so.

Someone grabbed Rownie’s arm.

“Give me the bread, Rownie-Runt,” said Vass. She had a sack of grain slung over one shoulder. “I’m hungry.”

“Let me go,” Rownie said. She wouldn’t let him go. He gave her the second piece of bread, and she set down the sack to take it, but she still wouldn’t let him go.

“Help me carry the chicken feed home,” she told him. “The Grubs brought the eggs, but they left me to carry the feed myself. It’s heavy.” Vass called the rest of the children in Graba’s household—the ones without names, the ones who had to make up their own names—“Grubs.” She usually said it in a singsong sort of way. Graba’s Grubs, Graba’s Grubs.

“Can’t,” Rownie said. “I have to do something for Graba.”

“Do what?”

“Deliver a message.”

“What’s the message?”

“I can’t tell.”

“Then I think you’re lying. I think there isn’t really any message, so you should help me carry the chicken feed.” She put the rest of the bread in her mouth and swung the sack at Rownie. He caught one end to keep it from knocking him over. Vass pushed him, and they started walking south. They walked very slowly south, away from the fairgrounds and away from the goblins.

Vass was twice as tall as he was. She could run much faster than he could. She would catch him if he ran.

They reached the south end of the square. The Guard had already left his post at the rusted station doors, market-time duties done for the day.

Rownie jerked one way, pulling Vass with him, and dropped the sack as he bolted the other way, toward the rusted gate. He pushed against the metal latticework and squeezed through, stumbling in. He felt Vass’s hand reach in after him and catch at the edge of his coat. He pulled back.

“Stupid runt!” Vass shouted.

“I have a message from Graba!” Rownie was angry that she wouldn’t let him deliver it, even though there wasn’t really any message to deliver.

“Stupid,” she said. “So stupid. Now the diggers will get you. Can you hear them? Can you hear them behind you?”

Rownie took a step backward, farther in. He didn’t look behind him. “It’s all flooded,” he said. “They dug the tunnel into the River, and now it’s all flooded.” Everyone knew that. The Mayor wanted to build a railcar track between Northside and Southside. He kept trying, but the tunnel kept flooding.

The Mayor also wanted to tear down the ramshackle buildings of Southside and replace them with roads that moved in straight lines. That’s what Graba always said.

“Folks still hear them digging,” Vass told Rownie. “So the diggers are still down there, in the rail tunnel.” She let that thought sink in for a while. It sank. Rownie thought about diggers with skin all gray from soaking in River water. He thought about how they would only remember digging, how they would always move forward and break things in front of them with shovels or pickaxes or just their hands. Diggers were people without hearts, without any will of their own, and they just kept doing whatever task they were set to. Rownie wondered if any of them had struck off downward, disoriented by the flood, and if they might pop out the other side of the world someday. He thought about the tunnels behind him, haunted by digging.

“I’ll protect you,” Vass told him, as sweetly as Vass could say anything. “Come out and carry the sack.”

Rownie stepped backward again. “No,” he said. Now he haunted the tunnels. Now he was something to be afraid of.

Vass spit on the ground. Then she smiled, and it looked like Graba’s smile in miniature. “Where’s my gear oil, runt?” she asked.

Rownie’s heart beat like it wanted to run off without him. “What oil?” Vass had left the house already when Graba gave him the errand. Vass couldn’t have known about it.