Or maybe it went even further back than that. To the day Goblin itself was discovered, growing ever since, until one rainy evening Tom forgot his sweater and passed the office on his way to retrieving it.

“Too late,” Tom said, too afraid to turn back, too afraid to defy whatever was back there. “You’ve already delivered it.”

He felt shameful. Like he’d delivered something illegal after all. Something dark enough to eclipse the legends of the city and to cast shadows over the stories of the people who lived there.

He’d made $86.40 so far but was no longer sure of his chances to spend it.

A Man in Slices

1

Richard stood outside Charles’s house with a heavy rain crashing against his face. A rain so thick that, earlier tonight, Charles appeared to vanish, after exiting Richard’s car, like he’d stepped through a wet curtain. The pair had had a decidedly weird night, or rather Richard was the one who suffered the strange; Charles’s night must have been something more…liberating.

They’d spent many hours parked downtown, at the corner of Lily and Neptune, as all that Goblin rain came furious against the windshield. The wipers of Richard’s Dodge Dart remained asleep, and the water poured down the glass like at the car wash on Samhattan Street. Charles unloaded some things he didn’t feel like keeping secret anymore. Richard, the good friend, had listened. And now, long after Charles stepped through that curtain (and Richard was left with the story), Richard stood under that very rain, staring into the eyes of the life-sized topiary of Charles himself. It was one of Wayne Sherman’s finest, most Gobliners agreed. But Richard wasn’t thinking of the fabled proprietor of The Hedges. Rather, he weighed whether or not he had to turn his old friend in to the Goblin Police. He could phone Mayor Blackwater directly. That felt right, somehow. The mayor’s tie to this city went further back than any bond between its citizens ever could.

Charles, he thought. Oh boy, Charles.

Richard could defend Charles all he wanted (and how he had!). He could argue that everybody, even a monster, needed a friend (and how he was!). He could preach that Charles had never meant anybody any harm. That his friend lived without a governor, outside the social constructs that crippled so many. And yet being free was not necessarily being happy. And Richard would never be able to hide the fact that he knew his friend was troubled.

He’d always known it.