Goblin Secrets by William Alexander

Author:William Alexander
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Performing Arts, Theater, Family, Juvenile Fiction, Fantasy & Magic, Siblings
ISBN: 9781442427266
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2012-03-06T00:00:00+00:00

Act II, Scene V

A METAL LATTICE COVERED the whole of the docks. Each dome and arch of latticework held small openings for glass windows. The windows kept the rain out and let the sunlight through—unless the glass had fallen out, in which case it let through both sunlight and rain. The whole place smelled of fish, riverweed, and tar. Bustling noise and blunt, heavy smells rose up from the Floating Market and into the streets and alleyways of the ravine wall. Rownie could hear it, and smell it, before he finally turned one last switchbacking corner and saw it in front of him. Then he broke into a run. Grubs followed.

Narrow piers lashed to floating barrels jutted out from the shore and into the River. Small barges and rafts had been tied along each pier, packed close together, and each one was also a market stall. The Floating Market was a bigger, louder, and messier place than Market Square in Northside. Here mongers shouted, chanted, and sang about what they had to sell.

“Hammocks, comfortable hammocks woven from the finest braided squidskin!”

“Sugarcane and sea salt, good for charms and cooking!”

Rownie pushed into the crowds surrounding the downstream piers. He ran underneath the winch to the Baker’s Cage, which was dunking some poor baker in the River for selling bread loaves that were too small or too large or too stale. Rownie forced his feet to learn how to move across the uneven surface that pitched and rolled with the River. He ducked and dodged between people. No one touched him or blocked his way, even when they failed to notice him otherwise. He hoped to lose the Grubs in the bustle and the noise before circling back and rejoining the goblins.

The fox mask felt heavy on his face, a brightly painted thing that shouted “Here I am! Here! Right here!”—but he couldn’t remove it without showing off his own unChanged face beneath.

Fruit and fishmongers announced their wares to either side of him as he ran. The hard accents of upstream folk mixed and mingled with softer downstream syllables.

“Oceanfish! Riverfish! Dried and salted dustfish!”

“Rare pears and quinces! Figs and citrons from the shore!”

A meager fruit stall and a stack of barrels stood at the very end of the downstream pier, beneath an open stretch of iron lattice that had long ago lost its glass. The lone fruitmonger displayed baskets of sad-looking apples on a countertop, and didn’t bother to announce them with a shout or a chant. He glanced at Rownie and then away again, uninterested.

Rownie turned around. The Grubs still followed him, unhurried. They had no reason to hurry. He had no other direction to run. He could face the Grubs or throw himself into the River—and the currents were very strong. No one ever crossed the whole River by swimming.

Stubble-Grub sneered as they drew closer. It was an ordinary sneer, just the sort of expression he would usually make. It was not Graba’s look. Rownie didn’t see Graba in his face, peering out through his eyes, wearing him like a mask.

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