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Chapters (39)
  1. Dedication
  2. Act I
  3. Act I, Scene I
  4. Act I, Scene II
  5. Act I, Scene III
  6. Act I, Scene IV
  7. Act I, Scene V
  8. Act I, Scene VI
  9. Act I, Scene VII
  10. Act I, Scene VIII
  11. Act II
  12. Act II, Scene I
  13. Act II, Scene II
  14. Act II, Scene III
  15. Act II, Scene IV
  16. Act II, Scene V
  17. Act II, Scene VI
  18. Act II, Scene VII
  19. Act II, Scene VIII
  20. Act II, Scene IX
  21. Act III
  22. Act III, Scene I
  23. Act III, Scene II
  24. Act III, Scene III
  25. Act III, Scene IV
  26. Act III, Scene V
  27. Act III, Scene VI
  28. Act III, Scene VII
  29. Act III, Scene VIII
  30. Act III, Scene IX
  31. Act III, Scene X
  32. Acknowledgments
  33. ‘Ghoulish Song‘ Excerpt
  34. First Verse
  35. Second Verse
  36. ‘Ambassador‘ Excerpt
  37. Chapter 1
  38. Chapter 2
  39. Copyright

Rownie hurried. He hid behind crates, slipped his mask on, and then snuck underneath the stage. Hopefully, if anyone saw him sneaking, they would mistake him for a goblin. Maybe this was how goblins Changed. Maybe, if enough people already believed that a child was goblinish, then the goblinishness became real and true. Rownie reached under his mask see if his ears had become pointy. They had not. Only the fox ears were pointy.

He knocked three times on the wagon floor. A hatch opened. He climbed up and through.

Act II, Scene VI

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BACKSTAGE WAS CHAOS DISTILLED into a very small space. Nonny did several things at once with ropes, levers, and various contraptions. Essa jumped up and down and hummed to herself for no particular reason that Rownie could see. Semele sat quietly in a corner with her eyes closed, but she still looked tensed and filled with potential force, like a coiled spring or a stone perched on top of a hill and preparing to start an avalanche.

Essa noticed Rownie. “You’re here!” she said. “Good, because we’re about to start. Patch just stopped juggling, and Thomas is out there giving the prologue for The Iron Emperor. I don’t know why we call it that—the Emperor doesn’t even show up until the last act, so it really isn’t a good name for the play. We should call it something else. Try to think of something, okay? But meanwhile you should stay out of sight and pull whatever ropes Nonny tells you to pull. Not that she’ll actually tell you anything. Pull whatever ropes Nonny points to. Okay, good. Break your face.”

“Why do you keep saying that?” Rownie tried to ask her, but she had already slipped through the curtain and begun lamenting the woes of an ancient kingdom.

Rownie took off the hat and gloves, and set the fox mask aside. He approached Semele. He tried not to let the floorboards creak underneath him, but they creaked anyway.

“Some of Graba’s grandchildren are here,” he told her in a whisper. “On the docks. A few of them. Might not be in the audience yet, but they’ll probably find it.”

Semele’s pale mask turned to look at him. “Thank you, Rownie,” she said. “I will make the fourth wall stronger, then. This is certainly a tricky thing to be doing over water, but I will do it, yes.”

She began to chant to herself. Then Nonny tapped Rownie’s shoulder with her foot (her hands were both busy with a complicated crank and a set of bellows) and pointed her toes at a rope. Rownie pulled the rope.

The dragon puppet gnashed its teeth behind him.

Rownie dropped the rope, waved his hands in the air, and then stared down the dragon puppet to prove that he wasn’t afraid of it. The painted dragon eyes looked back at him.