Grizelda

by Margaret Taylor

  “Lenk!” she cried.

  The crowd had been pushing at her, but now she pushed back, determined to fight her way over to him. After a minute of clawing her way through the mass of elbows, she was afraid she’d lost him again. Then all at once she saw him, standing on the back of a seat.

  “Mechanic Lenk! What’s happening?”

  “Grizelda!” His look turned to one of horror as he recognized her.

  “What are they doing?”

  Then he was in among the crowd, pushing, shoving his way over to her. “Grizelda, this is a bad place for a human to be right now. This is going to be ugly.”

  She knew that much. Something very bad was about to happen.

  “What–” she began.

  “You need to go home, now. Get to the door, run!”

  There was such a tone of urgency in his voice that she didn’t argue. She was tall enough she could see over the goblins’ heads and finally she got sight of the exit. She ran.

  Chapter 13

  By the next morning the uproar at the Union Hall was barely suppressed. Grizelda found out a while later that it had finally ended when the Chairman called out the police and sent everybody home. Though there was the outward appearance of peace this morning, to the goblins the issue was clearly not over yet. It wasn’t that Grizelda heard them grumbling. On the contrary, they were dangerously silent that morning when she took her breakfast, especially Nelin. But there was an odd charge in the atmosphere that made her look over her shoulder every few minutes as if expecting a knife.

  The tension carried over into her work. Workers’ hands were clumsy, and there were more accidents and breakdowns than usual. Crome prowled about the floor like a leopard on the hunt, searching for an excuse to lash out at somebody. Grizelda stayed in her corner and kept her head low.

  “Why don’t you all just shut up?”

  Crome glared around at the room, daring somebody to be his victim. There were several bangs and crashes as workers jumped. Nobody had been talking. He seemed to realize he’d made a miscalculation, but there was no imaginable way he could back out of it. His attention settled on Grizelda.

  “Ogre, what’s that?” he said, pointing down at her workbench.

  Why did he always pick on her? Grizelda looked down. To her dismay, she found she’d sewn the body and sleeve of a shirt together when his outburst had made her jump.

  “I’m sorry,” she muttered, starting to pull it loose from the machine. “I’ll pick it out right away.”

  “You’re incompetent, you know that? You’re not good for anything.”

  Chicken-winged old coot. She bit that back, however. She knew it was better to keep silent. Around her, the other goblins on the work floor looked away, grateful Crome had singled her out and not them.

  “I didn’t even want to take you,” Crome continued. “I knew you were going to be stupid and insolent, just like all ogres.”

  “Then why did you take me?” Grizelda snapped.

  Instantly she regretted what she’d said. Crome looked more furious than she’d ever seen him before. He clenched his one good fist over his shriveled arm and stood there, unable to speak. He breathed in sharply as if about to say something, then turned and walked out of the work floor.

  Grizelda felt like kicking her sewing machine. This was it for sure. She’d really blown it with Crome, and now he was going to go report her. So much for her promise to Lenk not to step out of line. In a few minutes they would have her up before one of the foremen and heaven knew what would happen to her then.

  Sure enough, a runner came up to the door a short while later.

  “I’m here for Seamstress Grizelda,” he said.

  The workers all drew back to allow her a clear path to the door. She shut down her sewing machine and stood. They looked on in silence as she passed. Was it a gesture of respect? Hardly. They were afraid she was contagious.

  “You’re to come with me to the Ministry.”

  She was doomed. As she had no alternative, she nodded.

  Gravely, the runner led her outside. They went through the Union streets at a moderate pace, not exactly hurrying or dawdling. She tried to get a look at his expression, but he was ahead of her and facing away, yielding nothing.

  Just one week, that was how long she had managed to last with the goblins. One week and she was beginning to think that maybe, possibly, she had a new home. Now it was gone all over again.

  The messenger led her downtown and into the government building. Just like last time, the room was full of clerks clacking at their typewriters and shoving papers to and fro pointlessly. The messenger went and spoke briefly to one of them, who nodded. He came back and led Grizelda into the back. He rapped on one of the doors lightly.

  “Come in,” a voice inside said.

  The office inside was just like any other, tidy and nondescript. There was a picture of a cavern hanging on the wall that must have been the goblin’s equivalent of a landscape. But sitting at the desk was Chairman Grendel himself. The Chairman! Then Grizelda knew she was done for.

  “Ah.” The Chairman set down the report he was reading and took off his wire-rimmed glasses.

  “You may go, Comrade,” he said to the messenger.

  The messenger left, and the door closed with a stomach-lurching thud.

  “You already know what I’ve brought you in here for.”

  “Yes, Chairman,” she whispered. She waited for him to get on with it, to tell her that she’d lost her job at the laundry. That the goblins were throwing her out. Or worse, that they’d changed their minds about the execution bit.

  The Chairman twirled a quill in his fingers. “Yesterday the Foreman of Ogre Relations notified me of a mysterious order put in for ‘pretty paper.’ It was from you.”

  What? For a moment Grizelda couldn’t comprehend him at all. Then she remembered – yesterday, at the commissary. This was what she was in trouble for?

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes on the floor. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I’ll take it back right away.”

  When the chairman did not reply right away, she looked back up at him. He appeared to be hesitating. Finally he took out a package and dumped it on the desk.

  “The order came in.” He studied his pen.

  This was so absolutely not what she expected that she only stared at him, then at the package, flabbergasted. She wasn’t sure if she was allowed to touch it.

  “Well go on, open it!” He waved his hand in irritation.

  Hesitantly, she lifted the package off the desk, tore off the brown paper wrapping. It was paper. Nearly a whole ream of it. When she pulled out a sheet, she saw that one side was white, the other a dazzling cobalt blue, the color of the sky at dusk.

  “The Department of Culture had some scraps they were going to throw away. It isn’t like I went out of my way for it.”

  “Chairman, I…” She struggled to find the words. “Thank you.”

  For the first time he made eye contact, fixing her with a sharp look. “No, I don’t think you understand. I didn’t go out of my way.”

  She looked at him, uncomprehending.

  “I’m the Chairman of the People’s Goblin Union of Lonnes. I’m not the sort of person who would go out of his way to help an ogre, especially not publicly.”

  Oh. Suddenly all the pieces fitted together in her mind.

  “I … won’t tell anyone about this paper, if that’s what you mean, Chairman.”

  He nodded slowly. “Now I think you understand. One more thing, Seamstress Grizelda.”

  She stood there, waiting for him to speak.

  “Laundryman Crome was just in here complaining about something you’d said. I’m afraid I couldn’t hear him clearly and was unable to take a course of disciplinary action. Should it happen again, my hearing might improve.”

  Oh. Right.

  He waved her a dismissal. “You may go and get back to work now, if you will.”

  Chapter 14

&n
bsp; Toby took one look at the ground and reeled. It looked so far away from out here, much farther than it had looked through the attic window. He stood with his heels braced on the too-narrow window ledge, clutching the frame behind him. A couple of tiles slid loose when he moved, tipping off the roof edge and shattering on the cobblestones three stories below.

  He could hear the gendarmes moving around inside the house. They’d come so much sooner than they’d expected, before they were ready. Mum and Dad at least were all right, but–

  Something crashed downstairs. It sounded like a vase. They were working their way upwards, and though it would take them a while to get past the cabinet he’d dragged on top of the attic door, it was only a matter of time.

  The blood pounded in his ears. Trapped. He’d run out of house to hide in and there was no way left to go now but one. Taking a deep breath, he lowered one foot down to the level of the drainpipe. It held his weight. Praying it would keep doing so, he let down his other foot. He leaned against the roof for balance and started inching his way along toward the side of the house where the old oak tree was.

  That tree looked miles away.

  Grizelda tucked the package under her arm and left the Chairman’s office, feeling slightly dizzy. On her way back out of the government building, she tried to avoid the questioning eyes of the clerks. Typewriters slackened and whispers started up – she’s not fired, and what is that under her arm? She tried to brazen her way through it by striding through the room as quickly as she could without giving anybody a glance, but it didn’t really work. Still they stared at her, and she was quite relieved to reach the outside door.

  But as soon as she closed it behind her, she realized that something in the square was very wrong.

  There were too many goblins out for this time of day. Instead of the usual scattering she would find in the middle of a workday, the place was crowded. It was almost as full as the night before when the goblins were assembling for Proletarian Theater, but instead of all the motion of the crowd going towards the Union Hall, it was directed towards the statue in the center. She heard distant shouting.

  The goblins didn’t even bother to turn up their noses at her as she picked her way through them, so intent were they on pushing each other and craning over each other’s shoulders to see … something. Grizelda still couldn’t tell what it was yet.

  And then she saw it. Somebody was standing up on the statue’s pedestal, somehow making the stone worker, warrior and scholar seem as if they’d been pushed aside.

  “Three-quarters of the Whithall price? Three-quarters of the Whithall price is disgusting!” said Miner Nelin. “That’s barely more than the cost of production. But they just keep doing this. And they’re going to keep on doing it unless we fight back!” He slammed a bony fist into his palm.

  Nobody even noticed Grizelda standing there, elbow-to-elbow with the goblins.

  Somebody from the crowd shouted, “What are we going to do, huh? Tell them no? Then we don’t get any money.”

  Another goblin elbowed him. “Shut up, Loyalist.”

  “I’m just saying–”

  “Hey, don’t you touch Fetzin!” A third goblin gave a hard shove to the one who had criticized the Loyalist.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  She had to get out of here. Now.

  She should have left a long time ago. As the fight in front of her escalated, Grizelda started backing away. This was getting badly out of hand. Now the fight was drawing in more goblins by the minute and sooner or later one of them was going to notice her.

  “Hey, look! It’s the oppressor!”

  She tried to turn away and run, but from somewhere a sharp limb punched into her side and threw her to the ground. The package flew out of her hands, skittering across the stone. She scrambled after it, half on her knees, and snatched it up to her chest.

  Finally Toby made it to the place where the oak tree’s branches brushed up against the side of the house. He swung himself over the edge and fished around with his feet for a foothold. The leaves were almost totally gone by this time of the year, leaving the tree looking as fragile as a mass of spun sugar. But he knew better. He’d been climbing this tree ever since he was a little kid. He clambered down it with a great deal more confidence than he had felt on the roof.

  He dropped to the grass and turned around to find himself standing face to face with a gendarme.

  The world was all feet and legs, pushing, shoving, clawing at her. Clutching the package, she tried to crawl away but the press squeezed her, pushed her back. She stood up and got thrown down out into the clear space in front of Nelin.

  All she could see was a weird, ant’s-eye view of the statue, straight up at it from below. Instinctively she pulled in her sprawling limbs and sat up. There was the miner, standing right in front of her. For a moment, their eyes met.

  He looked more stunned to see her than anything else. Hatred hadn’t really registered yet. She wasn’t going to give him time.

  She got to her feet and ran with one hand still tight around the package, the other thrown up to protect her face. Goblin hands plucked at her clothing, but they couldn’t stop her. She ran until she was out of the square and then she kept on running.

  Toby stumbled back a few steps, staring. The gendarme’s expression mirrored his own. The man gaped at him, then finally got it together enough to reach for the butt of his gun.

  Toby didn’t wait for him to finish. He turned around and ran for it. From somewhere behind him a whistle blew and men started shouting. He hopped a hedge and dashed down the street, his jacket flapping behind him. A startled couple leapt out of his way.

  Feet pounded the cobblestones behind him.

  “Thief! Stop him!”

  Grizelda ran to the first place that occurred to her, the abandoned part of town where she’d been the day before. In an old alleyway she stopped, leaned against a wall, panting. Then she sat down and started to shudder.

  Where was she going to go now? Every time she closed her eyes, she imagined hundreds of phantom hands plucking at her clothes again. She shook her head, trying to get rid of the memory like shaking off water. The ratrider lair was a decidedly attractive prospect. It was safe there. They liked her. She could hide out for a couple of hours until it was over.

  She waited until she was feeling a little better. When she tried getting up, she discovered her knees had gone all watery. She took hesitating steps at first, slowly getting her strength back. She thought she recognized a nearby tunnel as the one her ratrider guide had taken her through on the way to the grotto. When she got to it, though, she realized that it was completely different. A bunch of old mineshafts lay beyond that didn’t look at all familiar. She wandered around a little, trying to find a landmark, but the search was fruitless.

  She was about to give up and just wait where she was on the edge of town for a few hours when something drew her attention. It was a pipe. It ran along the wall, then stopped halfway down, its open end exposed. There was a little runnel in the floor below it that would have caught the water when it was actually running. Currently there was not much more than a damp patch.

  Goblins didn’t build pipes above their street level like this.

  With rising excitement, she followed the pipe down the tunnel, hoping to find where it came from. No more goblin buildings here. And yes, the ground was definitely sloping upward beneath her feet. Then she heard a sound she thought she would never hear again. Road noise. It was extremely faint, but she could make out every part of it, knew from long experience what sounds to expect even before they came to her. The grinding of carriage wheels above her head. Feet treading, people’s voices.

  She was in a sewer – a human sewer. Water-seeps on the pipes gleamed faintly in the chilly early winter light. Must be an overcast day up there. The walls were stone, and the floor, too, and in the middle there was a trench for the city’s water to flow.

  She shouldn’t be here. The terms of her ex
ile had been that she would never go above the surface again, and especially never speak to another human being. If Nelin’s gang found out that she had even come this close, she would be in a world of hurt.

  Then the sun came out from behind a cloud and all at once a dazzlingly bright trapezoid formed on the wall opposite her, streaming in through the drain. Sunlight. It brought back the memories with a force like a punch in the stomach. It was time to leave, but she couldn’t help it, the homesickness was too strong. She moved forward and angled herself so it hit her full in the face. The light gave little warmth, but it turned her closed eyelids bright red. Just for a moment.

  He was no thief! But the gendarmes knew what they were doing, damn them. In a trendy neighborhood like this one, that was what got people’s attention.

  Already heads were turning. Citizens were backing away from Toby as if he was diseased. At least they weren’t trying to stop him, but it was only a matter of time. Then he saw Mr. Brontborg, the man who lived two houses down from them. Bad news. He’d had it in for Toby’s family ever since his mum had written those political pamphlets.

  There was nowhere to hide around here. Just lawns and the big gabled houses of rich people. He tried ducking into an alley, which turned out to be a big mistake. It dead-ended in a brick wall right in front of him. About a story up he could see the stems of frost-deadened plants sticking over the top of the wall – too high to climb. And there was nothing but the back doors of houses to his left and right, nowhere to go there. Meanwhile, the gendarmes were getting closer every second, if Mr. Brontborg didn’t catch him first.

  Out of desperation, he threw himself to the ground and slid through the storm drain.

  Grizelda was jolted back to reality by running footsteps and the crash of an overturned trash can. Instinctively she slid backwards, reached out to the shadows to let them envelop her.