Goblin Secrets by William Alexander Read Free Book Online Page A

Graba’s voice, before Vass did so in the Market Square. She can wear us like masks , Rownie thought, and he wondered if it was something Graba might do to him. He started to panic at the thought. The weight of everything he didn’t know about his own home pressed down on him and squeezed like Graba’s talon-toes. He did not feel like a giant. He felt like the furthest thing from a giant. A bug, maybe. A burnbug or a beetle.
    Graba can’t wear me , he decided. She can’t. She won’t. She wouldn’t have to send everyone else to look for me, if she could.
    He moved carefully down the railcar’s center aisle. He felt trapped inside the car, and he knew that he shouldn’t stay. The others were already searching railcars, one by one. They would find him if he stayed. Rownie didn’t know what would happen then. He didn’t want to know.
    He glanced up at the far entrance. Vass stood there, watching him.

Act I, Scene VII

    ROWNIE TOOK IN A LONG BREATH, and let it out. He stood up. He did not run. She would catch him if he ran. He showed her that he would not run by the way that he stood there, and he waited to see what would happen next.
    Vass continued to watch him. She smiled her cruel smile, and otherwise she did not move.
    “Do you see him, now?” asked Stubble from outside the car. “Have you found him?”
    Vass looked directly at Rownie. “No, Graba,” she said. “He isn’t here.”
    “Be sure about it,” said Stubble. “And bring me back a mirror if you can find an unbroken one, and also a new cushion for my chair.”
    “Yes, Graba,” said Vass. “I think the runt might have ducked into the tunnel. It’s not as flooded down there as it should be.”
    “Seven curses on the several chins of the Lord Mayor,”said Stubble. “He’s pumping the water out of it again. I can hear the breathing and the clanking of his siphons, making it dry. I will go looking there.”
    “Yes, Graba,” said Vass.
    She went to sit at one of the copper tables, crossed her legs, and folded her hands in front of her. She wasn’t so much taller than Rownie while sitting.
    Rownie sat in the chair across from her. “Thank you,” he whispered, and he meant it—but he also meant it as a question. He couldn’t remember a single time that Vass had helped him with anything, and this seemed like an unlikely moment for her to start. It was no small thing to lie to Graba.
    Vass waved his thanks away with one hand. “She treated me like a Grub today. She can’t do that. I won’t let her do that, not to me. She wears them. She uses them to go places. She’s always moving, always, even when she’s still at home and upstairs. But I won’t let her wear me. I’m not a Grub.”
    “Me neither,” said Rownie, and he hoped it was true. “I’ve got a name.”
    Vass smiled her cruel smile. “No, you don’t,” she said. “You just have Rowan’s name, made small. But Graba can’t wear you.”
    Rownie very much hoped that she wasn’t lying. “Why not?”
    “Because you’ve got a little talent for wearing masks,” Vass said. “Why do you think she keeps you around?” Shetook a cushion from the chair beside her, looked it over, and knocked some of the dust out by whacking it against the table.
    Rownie tried to blink the dust cloud out of his eyes. “Why would masks matter to Graba?”
    “Forget it,” said Vass. “What matters to Graba shouldn’t much matter to you, not anymore. I’m going to douse the lights. We’ll leave then. We’ll stop looking for you, once it’s dark.”
    “Thanks for helping me hide,” Rownie said.
    Vass shook her head, forcefully, like there was something stuck to her nose and she wanted it off. “Don’t thank me,” she said. “I’m not helping you. I’m not doing this for you.” She stood up, still holding the cushion. “Wherever you go after tonight,” she said, “wherever you end up, just make sure to keep away from the riverbank. The River’s angry. The floods are