The Hollow Kingdom (12 page)

Hugh Roberts didn't seem to have heard the question. He had wandered a few steps into the room and was staring around in shock. Kate felt a smug amusement. If her pompous guardian found a little thing like this so upsetting, she could just imagine the look on his face if he saw the goblin King himself.

"I don't think we know," said the doctor briskly. "Mr. Roberts, why don't we check the other rooms for damage?" Her guardian glanced around distractedly and followed the doctor out. As soon as they left, Kate bent and untied the knot from her ankle. She was just standing up and surveying the ripped sash when Mrs. Bigelow appeared in the doorway.

"What happened?" she gasped. Kate retied the damaged sash over her dress.

"I don't know, Mrs. Bigelow," she said calmly. "Some kind of explosion. The men were just checking on things."

The housekeeper's face sagged. She turned frightened eyes on Kate.

"It's
them
, isn't it, that did it?" she whispered darkly.

Kate patted the torn sash into place and strolled past the housekeeper into the lighted hall.

"I really don't know what you're talking about," she replied.

 

Later, sitting in the study, she sipped her tea and surveyed her new combatants with serene assurance. She had just defeated a goblin with her own bare hands. The head doctor of a lunatic asylum couldn't possibly frighten her now.

Actually, Dr. Thatcher didn't look very frightening. He didn't look as if he would want to be. A fit, white-bearded man of fifty, he had an agreeable, fatherly face and seemed interested in everything. Kate would have loved to tell him about her fight with Marak. Dr. Thatcher would have found him fascinating. But she had no desire to be locked up in an insane asylum, so the truth would have to wait until she was alone with Emily.

"The other rooms weren't damaged in the slightest," Dr. Thatcher was saying. "Have you any idea what might have caused it, Miss Winslow?"

"None at all," Kate answered readily. "I went to the door to respond to your knock. Then there was a devastating crash, and I hid my face and tumbled to the floor. Could it have been a prank, do you think? One of the stable boys playing with gunpowder or coal dust? Goodness, I hope no one blew a hand off!"

Kate's guardian polished his spectacles. "I don't know," he said unsteadily. "I'd rather not discuss it now. Miss Winslow, I've been to see Dr. Thatcher about you, and he very much wanted to meet you. He's interested in your goblin visitor."

"Oh, do you study goblins?" Kate asked.

"I'm afraid I don't know much about them," admitted the doctor with a smile.

"Then we'd better call Mrs. Bigelow," Kate suggested. "She can tell all sorts of wonderful tales about them. Did you know that her grandparents actually believed goblins existed? Elves, too. Isn't that charming?" She smiled at the men. They stared back, a little nonplussed.

"Now, wait a minute, Miss Winslow," said Hugh Roberts with a frown. "I just heard a story from your sister this afternoon stuffed chock-f of goblins. The goblin King was coming to drag you away."

Kate fixed her guardian with a surprised stare. "And you believed her?" she asked in astonishment. The doctor turned his interested eyes from her to Hugh Roberts, whose pale cheeks flushed a bright pink.

"Miss Winslow," Hugh said firmly, "you yourself said you were in terrible danger, and you begged me to send you away. You said the goblins were coming to drag you off, just like Adele Roberts in the story."

Kate shrugged. She wished that Marak were there to see her. If lying was for humans, then by all means, let her lie.

"But I never thought you'd believe it," she said artlessly. "I thought grown men knew that goblins couldn't exist."

Her guardian rose from his chair and began pacing the floor. "What about that strange creature you saw the night of the storm? What about your hysterical dash through the door? Prim and Celia practically had to revive you."

"I certainly didn't invent that," Kate assured him. She turned to Dr. Thatcher. "My sister Emily and I got lost in a stormy night, and we stumbled onto a camp of Gypsies. An old woman told my fortune for me, and a Gypsy guided us home. He told us all kinds of
terrible stories as we walked through the night, and he was entirely muffled in a black cloak and hood. When we arrived at the house, he pulled back the hood so I could see his face. Now, Aunt Prim says that if I saw him during the day, I would have thought he looked strange, but after that frightening walk and all those stories, I was terrified. It seems funny now. In fact," she added bitterly, "I know he enjoyed scaring me into fits." She smiled at Dr. Thatcher, who chuckled. Her guardian looked thunderstruck.

"But what about the nightmares?" he demanded angrily, pacing before the fireplace. "What about staying out all night? What about running away from home?"

"I can't deny the nightmares," Kate answered. She turned to the doctor. "I know they worried my poor great-aunts. They're quite unused to the trials of parenthood. All three of my guardians are new to children, you know. And it's true that we were away from home late last night. My aunts and Mr. Roberts decided it would be good for my nerves to walk from one house to the other in the dark. Of course, we protested quite tearfully. You have to remember the shocking Gypsy we'd met just a couple of nights before. He could have been roaming the woods. And as a matter of fact, we were chased."

"By the goblin King," suggested Hugh Roberts, looking over his spectacles meaningfully.

"No!" insisted Kate, frowning at him as if he were a slow pupil. "We were chased by a couple of clodhopping hu--I mean, farm boys, out for a moonlight ride. They must have been playing a joke on us. Maybe they knew you and the aunts were going to send us out on a ghost walk." She looked at her guardian, and Dr. Thatcher did as well. Suddenly and inexplicably, Hugh Roberts's blush deepened to a dull, unhealthy red.

"We lost them at the tree circle," continued Kate, "and we rested
there to catch our breath. It was so beautiful and peaceful there under the moon and stars." She paused, remembering the unholy purple lightning and whipping winds. "I'm afraid we just fell asleep. When we woke up, it was so late that we went back to the Lodge because it was closer, and the aunts were already in bed. But I don't know why you thought we tried to run away. We were just heading out on a ramble with a picnic basket."

Dr. Thatcher turned to her guardian. "They had only a picnic basket?" he asked. "No clothes, no belongings?"

Hugh Roberts looked as if Kate had personally insulted him. "Miss Winslow, I warn you," he said, gasping with rage. "I know you're lying, and you know it, too. You know you believe in goblins, and you know you aren't rational about them!" He glared at Dr. Thatcher. "She isn't! She isn't rational! She's insane!"

Kate stared at the big man in complete amazement. She had never seen him so angry before. He'd been worried that she was making a break with reality, but he didn't seem at all pleased that she'd rejoined it. She fell silent, unwilling to embarrass him with any more lies. Dr. Thatcher looked from the enraged man to the astonished girl, and his gaze turned thoughtful.

"Mr. Roberts," he said soothingly, "I'm very glad you've asked me to come tonight, and I'm enjoying the conversation immensely, but I think it would help my examination of your ward if we had a few moments alone."

Hugh Roberts subsided and left the room. Dr. Thatcher turned his kind eyes on Kate.

"Miss Winslow," he said thoughtfully, "your story does make a certain sense, but Mr. Roberts mentioned other factors that are hard to explain as high spirits and pretend games: poor sleep, loss of appetite, and a feeling of being watched. In spite of your cheerfulness, you do appear rather thin and pale. I can see that your guardian
would be a little difficult to confide in." He chose his words with care. "Is there anything that you would like to tell me about? Anything that's been troubling you?"

Kate squirmed a little. It was one thing to lie to Hugh Roberts, whom she disliked. It was quite another thing to lie to this friendly, likable man. But he was a doctor who worked with insane patients. If she told him about Marak, he would decide that his asylum was the best place for her to be. Kate looked into his sympathetic eyes and wished with all her heart that he were her father.

"You know I lost my father a few months ago," she began.

"Of course," Dr. Thatcher said gently. "It must have been a terrible shock, and yet they tell me that when you first came here, you were doing very well. Your problems didn't start until later."

"Did my guardian tell you that he's not really related to me?" she asked sadly. "My sister and I are the result of an adoption several generations back. We supplanted Mr. Roberts's side of the family, and he's quite bitter about it." She sighed. "He probably didn't think it was important when he told me that story, but my nightmares and poor appetite started then. It hurt to find out that my sister and I have no real family left."

Dr. Thatcher leaned back and nodded gravely. "I was afraid of something like this," he said. "It explains a great deal. Miss Winslow, I don't think you need to worry about insanity. You seem to be facing your problems very well. I can't help feeling disappointed, though," he added, smiling ruefully. "When I saw the wreckage in that bedroom tonight, I really thought I was on to something."

"What do you mean?" asked Kate.

"I help people who are insane," he declared, "but I do look for special cases. You see, there's so much about the mind that we don't understand. Sometimes, in great stress, people do things that are well beyond their physical powers, and sometimes insane people do
them, too. It's as if, not knowing what reality is supposed to be, they can go beyond those limits that we accept for ourselves."

"Do you mean they can work magic?" Kate wanted to know.

"Well," chuckled Dr. Thatcher, "I suppose you could call it that. I would say that they can do the extraordinary and inexplicable because they accept it as part of their world. For instance, we have a woman in the asylum who thinks she's a rabbit. I have had specialists study how far she can jump. It's amazing to watch. Another patient thinks she's two completely different people. She crushed her foot one day, and we found her walking around on this badly damaged foot normally and without the least sign of pain. Why? Because she claimed that the other of her two selves had broken her foot. The person she was at the moment was perfectly well."

Kate smiled, her fancy tickled by the stories. "So when you saw all the broken glass and torn-up furniture, you thought that I had done it," she said. Dr. Thatcher nodded. "I'm sorry to disappoint you. I didn't do it, and I don't think I could do it, either."

 

Several hours later, Kate snuggled down comfortably in bed. Yes, she was still at the Hall, and yes, her indignant guardian had locked her in again. She was once more in a ground-floor bedroom with double doors leading onto the terrace. The designers of the Hall's fashionable newer wing hadn't exhibited much creativity from one room to the next. But she and Dr. Thatcher had talked until early in the morning, and a new day was not far off. She had vanquished two different enemies on two very different fields of battle. Neither one was gone for good, but that was a problem for tomorrow. Today had been simply glorious, and she would take care of tomorrow when it came.

A knock at the door roused her in the late morning, and Hugh Roberts entered the room. But this was not the pompous man she had infuriated the night before. His eyes were large and grave, and his manner was uncertain.

"Miss Winslow, I'm terribly sorry," he said hesitantly. "I realize now that I should have believed you. You said you were in danger, but I never dreamed it might be real." Kate sat up, alarmed.

"I'm afraid it's your sister," he explained awkwardly. "Emily has completely vanished."

 

Part II
Lamplight

 

Chapter 7

 

Hugh Roberts had expected Kate to cry at the news, and cry she did. She lay on her bed, face in the pillow, and refused to look up. But he had also expected her to talk. That Kate refused to do.

"You have to help us find her," he insisted. "You must know something about the creatures who took her. Dr. Thatcher and I will go out with the men and see if we can't bring her back." Kate just shook her head, mute. Hugh Roberts awkwardly stood by, not sure what to do.

"Don't you want out of this dangerous room?" he asked. "I'll let you out if you'll talk to us. For heaven's sake, I'm her guardian! I can't just let her disappear like this!" Silence from the bed.

"I'll send you away from here right now," he promised. "I'll send you someplace where you'll be safe. Miss Winslow, please. Don't you want to be safe from those creatures?"

Face in the pillow, Kate considered. Did she want to be safe? What difference did being safe make now? How could the heartless beast have done it, how
could
he? She knew the goblin had been furious when he left last night, and he had said once that he was a poor loser. But how could anyone--even someone inhuman--have threatened her little sister? Poor, dear Em, all alone in those hideous caves, surrounded by howling monsters. But surely they wouldn't hurt her. Surely they wouldn't turn her into a goblin bride. She was just a child! The goblin King had said so himself. It must be his way
of getting even with Kate. She remembered him laughing, saying, "Do you know that she wants to be stolen by goblins?" It was all very well for Mr. Roberts to talk about bringing Em back to the daylight, but Kate knew that he would never succeed.

Kate paced her room that day like a tormented soul. When Hugh Roberts came several more times to plead with her, she remained absolutely firm. She knew exactly what she had to do. She watched the terrace outside her window closely. As twilight fell, she saw the familiar face of the big black cat peering out from the shadows and called him over to her with a gesture. Looking first left and then right, the cat cautiously approached her. She waved him down to the terrace doors, which didn't shut properly. There was a small gap between them.