Free Goblin Secrets by William Alexander

rode over an even rougher surface than the Southside streets, and everyone inside braced themselves against the walls and floor. They went over an especially violent bump, and Rownie bit the tip of his tongue when the impact knocked his teeth together. It hurt, but he didn’t cry out. He tensed up his face with the effort of not crying out.
    The wagon finally rolled to a stop. A small hatch in the front wall opened.
    “We’re here,” Thomas said through the hatch.
    “Where’s here?” Essa asked, but he had already shut it again.
    The whole wagon jittered while the gearworked mule folded back in on itself. Semele opened the door in the back wall and went outside. The others followed her. Rowniecame last, but Essa stopped him in the doorway. She was still holding the sword.
    “The Guard might be out there,” she said in her loud whisper, “and they’ll be unhappy with us if they see you, because Thomas said, ‘Nope, officer, we don’t have any idea where that mask-wearing boy might be, and he certainly isn’t hiding underneath our very own wagon.’ So keep hiding for just a second.”
    She peered outside and looked unhappy. She whispered curses under her breath. They were decent curses, spoken with a decent rhythm. “May the Guard Captain grow hideous ear hairs, and may his glass eyes both turn the wrong way around.”
    “Are they out there?” Rownie asked. “The Guard?”
    “No,” Essa told him, “but the graves are. We’re in the litchfield.” She left the wagon.
    Rownie took a good-sized breath. He knew that Graba sometimes sent Grubs to run errands in the litchfield and collect the sorts of things that grow in grave-dirt. Blotches always came back with stories about fighting off ghouls. Rownie was sure that Blotches had made up the fights, but Blotches might not have made up the ghouls.
    Rownie tried to feel like a giant. He adjusted his brother’s coat on his shoulders and went outside.

Act II, Scene III

    THE WAGON STOOD IN AN OPEN stretch of grass, surrounded by graves. The gravestones were all worn and crooked, like teeth badly cared for. A single tree twisted its branches through the air nearby. Rownie could see crypts, mausoleums, and monuments packed close together near the gate, at the other end of the field where important people were buried. It looked like a small and separate city unto itself.
    The rain had stopped. The clouds had broken up, and now they moved quickly. The sun was low in the sky. The air smelled like fresh mud.
    “We’re spending the night here?” Rownie asked the others. Old ropes dangled from the gnarled and unfriendly looking tree. It was a hangman’s tree.
    “We are, yes,” said Semele. “Tamlin cannot stay anywhere overnight within the proper city limits. Most of us, along with other sorts of Changed, camp far outside thecity entirely—but we can also sleep in places that are not actually considered to be places. This is a place where living people come to visit dead people, so it will work very well as somewhere in-between and not exactly one thing or another thing.”
    “Oh,” said Rownie. “What’s a Tamlin?”
    “It is a more polite word than ‘goblin,’” said Semele.
    “Oh,” said Rownie. “I heard that the sun will burn you up if you stay too long in one place.”
    “Not so,” said Semele, “though we would become sunburned.”
    The goblins began to bustle. They set up clotheslines and hung wet costumes up to dry. They built a fire and used it to boil a kettle of water. Rownie kept out of their way. He watched, and he wondered whether this was in any way a safe place to be. Not that he was accustomed to safety, but at least he knew the ways that Grubs and Graba were dangerous—or he used to believe that he knew. He thought about Grubs squinting at him with Graba’s look and calling to him with Graba’s voice. He remembered how little he actually knew about them, or their dangers.
    After their bustling, the goblins all gathered