“We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?”

—The Goblin Market
Christina Rossetti, 1862

---

Prologue

Perpetua prepared for battle.

She marched through the squadron of desk jockeys pulling on their headphones and took her seat. Around her, her fellow soldiers started their calls.

Click! “Welcome to the Department Store Channel. How may I help you?”

Click! “Welcome to the Department Store Channel. How may I help you?”

Click! “Welcome to the Department Store Channel. How may I help you?”

Perpetua stared at the blinking lights on the phone display. Looking up, she saw her drill sergeant look meaningfully at his watch. She adjusted her headphones and prepared to face the enemy.

Her boss hadn’t actually used the phrase ‘enemy’ to describe their customers. He had, however, used every other military reference in the book so, Perpetua thought, why waste the metaphor? She opened the line.

Click! “Welcome to the Department Store Channel,” she said. Then she accidentally inhaled some saliva. “How may I — hack! cough! — help you?”

The man’s voice at the other end of the line was brusque as a broom. “You still selling those Noah’s Ark fridge magnets?”

Perpetua’s gaze tracked up to the television sets hanging from the ceiling. The ghosts of the channel logo and the ticker were burned into the screens, having been tuned to the same channel 24/7 for years. Right now, the screen showed a beaming salesman and his perky assistant applying magnetic giraffes and lions to a fridge door, a metal banister, and a man with a plate in his head. Across the base of the screen, streaming text blared: “BUY NOW! STILL AVAILABLE! ONLY 400 SETS REMAINING! $29.95!”

She rolled her eyes. “I think we still have a few hanging around somewhere.”

“Good! But listen: I want you just to send me one of every animal, not two. Can you do that for me?”

Perpetua blinked. “Um, sir? It wouldn’t be the Noah’s Ark Animal Magnetism set if it didn’t have two of every animal inside.”

“Well, I’m not into waste,” the caller snapped. “One of each is enough!”

“Not for Noah it wasn’t.”

“Look!” the man yelled. Perpetua winced and pulled the speaker away from her ear. “I know what I want and the customer is always right. I’ll pay you jerks extra if that’s what it takes to get one of you lazy bums to go through my kit and pick out one of every animal!”

Perpetua’s mouth quirked up. “All right, sir… With the additional cost for labour, I can send you a half-set for…” She crossed her fingers. “…$29.95?”

“Great! Ship it!”

“And how about I throw in those second animals at no extra cost?”

“Good deal!”

Perpetua pumped the air. “Wonderful!” She cleared her throat and put on her most professional voice. “Now, if I could get your name, address and payment information, I can finish processing your order.”

“I live at—”

Perpetua’s fingers danced over the keyboard. When she was done, she clasped her mike. “Thank you, sir. Now, is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Yes. Could you send my package to me airmail?”

Perpetua’s knuckles whitened. “Sir? You live in Malton.”

“So?”

“Sir, we ship from Toronto.”

“And?”

Perpetua pinched the bridge of her long nose. “Sir, airmail isn’t available for shipments from Toronto to Malton.”

“Why not?” Perpetua pulled the speaker away from her ear again. “I know we’ve got an airport! Planes are flying over my head all the time!”

Along with clues, she thought. “But, sir,” she cut in. “Malton is right next door to Toronto. Malton is where Toronto’s Airport actually is!”

“That should get my package delivered to me all the sooner, then!”

“Sir—”

“I want my package delivered to my home by airmail, and I don’t care what it costs!”

Perpetua thumped her desk. “Fine! You want airmail? You got it!” Her keyboard clattered. “There! Now your package is on its way to our receiving department in Vancouver!” The keyboard clattered again. “And from there, we’ll send it to our suppliers in Taiwan!” Her fingers danced. “And then we’ll send your magnets, two-by-two, to the American office in Miami!” She slapped the Enter key. “And from there to your home. Call it our circumnavigation special. I’ve charged your credit card $250 in shipping and your package should get to you in about a month. Satisfied?”

“No—”

“Thank you for shopping the Department Store Channel! Have a nice day!” She flung off her headset, covered her face and held back a primal scream.

Someone tapped her shoulder. She looked up through parted fingers.

Her drill sergeant was standing behind her, arms crossed. “Miss Collins? When we say ‘your call may be monitored to ensure quality service,’ we’re not lying.”

The room had gone quiet. Between her fingers, she saw her co-workers staring at her, mouths agape, calls forgotten. She blinked twice, took a deep breath, then lowered her hands. “What? I gave the man exactly what he wanted.”

Her boss held out his hand. “Your headset, Miss Collins.”

She squashed it into his palm. Then she stood up and walked between the desks, her head held high. Behind her, a gaping co-worker began to clap. Others joined him. As she reached for the exit, people stood up. They were giving her a standing ovation.

Perpetua turned and bowed. Then she pulled open the door and swept away, her black skirts swishing.

At least, that’s how she told people it happened.

---

---

Chapter One: In the Office of the Mountain King

Perpetua Viktoria Collins.

“My mother named me,” Perpetua told the library computer, while she retyped her resume for the fifth time. “It’s not my fault.”

But then people weren’t turning her down for jobs on the basis of having a weird name. Or if they were, she was screwed. Make that more screwed. She had missed one paycheque, turned off her cable and Internet service, and was contemplating taking a break from job hunting to research the effect on the human body of a steady diet of Kraft Dinner.

On the other hand, perhaps there were some things man was not meant to know.

Perpetua tapped her most recent position and wondered if she should include the company’s contact information. There was no way she was going to get a good reference, so after some consideration she typed, “Reason for departure: company bankruptcy (moral).”

Honesty was the best policy, after all.

She saved her resume and pressed print. The library printer hummed to life. She grabbed her copies and swept out into the street.

---

At two missed paychecks, Perpetua was discovering the joy of lentils. In fact, based on the way the interviewer was staring at her chest, she might have spilled some on herself. Perpetua was opening her mouth to tell him off when he abruptly asked the next question. “So, Miss Collins, you have a fine resume for office experience, but what about experience in the food industry?”

She blinked at him. “Food industry?”

He nodded. “You know, waitressing, serving drinks, and the like.”

“But I’m applying for a clerical job.” She paused, then looked over her shoulder at the logo showing in reverse on the street-facing window, wondering if she’d missed something. “At a bank!”

“I know,” said the manager. “However, our company has recently invested in a restaurant chain. A kind of a sports bar. Perhaps you have heard of it—”

Yeah, thought Perpetua. In the news! “You don’t mean—”

“That’s the one,” said the manager. “To advertise our connection with the restaurant, we’d like all female employees wear this t-shirt as part of their uniform.”

He held it up. Perpetua’s mouth dropped open. It was small, and she could see the building across the street through it.

“So,” said the manager, giving the shirt a shake, “Could you see yourself wearing this in the near future?”

“Depends,” said Perpetua, her voice low. “Will you be wearing one too?”

The tone of her voice made the manager look up and into her eyes and, after a moment, he coughed, and stood up, offering his hand. “Thank you, Miss Collins. We’ll… er… be in touch.”

---

Three missed paychecks. Perpetua sat bolt upright in her chair and raised her hand. “Whoa, stop right there.”

Her interviewer looked up from his notes. “What?”

“What do you mean by ‘actualize my potential’?” spluttered Perpetua. “You’re interviewing me for a job at a burger stand!”

The pimply-faced manager looked sullen. Behind him was the clatter of business, with fries on the side. “You can actualize your potential at a burger stand,” he muttered.

Perpetua folded her arms across her chest and sat back in her moulded plastic cafeteria seat. “I refuse to believe that my potential can be actualized at minimum wage.”

The manager said nothing for a long moment. “Oh,” he said. He stood up and offered her his hand. “We’ll be in touch.”

Perpetua left without shaking it.

---

Four missed paychecks. Perpetua watched the man behind the desk peer at her resume. He was wearing, for no reason she could discern, a white tuxedo and surgical gloves. Really, she thought, it was amazing what you could sit through for a shot at a decent salary. She fixed her smile to her face as though it were made of plaster.

“So, Miss Collins, do you have any objections to working with radioactive materials?”

Perpetua opened her mouth to object, then halted. After a moment, she leaned back in her chair. “No,” she said. “Ummm. May I assume there’s safety equipment involved?”

“Oh, yes, absolutely. Assume that.” Dr. Wiseman set down her resume, then peeled off his surgical gloves, casting them into his waste bin. Then he pulled two more gloves from a dispenser on his desk and pulled them on with a snap.

“Well,” he said. “Your credentials seem to be in order. And you are satisfied with our proffered salaries and benefits?”

Perpetua kept up her smile. “Absolutely, Dr. Wiseman. I could start work tomorrow, if you want.”

He stood up. “Well then. That’s all I need to hear, Miss Collins.”

Perpetua stood up with him. “Thank you, Dr. Wiseman—” She held out her hand to shake his before realizing her mistake.

“Uh,” he said, looking at her fingers with distaste. “We’ll just get the contract ready to sign, shall we?”

Just then, the intercom on Dr. Wiseman’ desk piped up, and the secretary’s voice came through. “Dr. Wiseman? There’s a Mr. Connery to see you?” She lowered her voice. “He doesn’t have an appointment.”

As Perpetua stared, the colour drained from Dr. Wiseman cheeks. “Curses!” he said. “We were so close! So close!” He looked at her apologetically. “I’m sorry, Ms. Collins, but I’m afraid I’m going to run.”

Perpetua blinked at him. “But—”

There was a thumping on the office door. “Silas Wiseman! I know you’re in there!”

“Literally!” Wiseman pressed a button on his desk and a bookcase slid aside to reveal a metal door. He ran for it, then paused as he grabbed the handle.

“If we should set up in your area again, I’ll be sure to look you up,” he said. “We’ll be in touch!” Then he was gone, leaving the door swinging on its hinges.

Suddenly the door to the reception area burst open, and she found herself face to face with a man in a fine black suit. “Which way did he go, miss?” he said.

“Uh,” said Perpetua. She pointed at the metal door.

The man thumped the wall in frustration. “Blast! He’s always one step ahead!” He shouted behind him. “C’mon men!”

With that, he charged around the desk and through the swinging metal door. More people charged from the reception area after him, mostly tall men, but some women, wearing black suits, sunglasses, some of them talking on walkie-talkies. Perpetua watched them go. Then she leaned across the desk, snatched up her resume, and turned to leave. She had to duck back several times as more people ran past her, following Mr. Connery.

---

Five paychecks. She couldn’t afford to run her window AC, and in consequence her apartment above Yee’s Good Food was like an oven in which someone had left Kung Pao chicken. Perpetua took a down escalator into Toronto’s PATH Network — a complex of underground shopping centres running through the downtown core that everybody she’d met referred to as the Underground City.

She could tell by scent who had just come in off the street and who had been indoors all day. She brushed past bare arms with goosebumps and skin that steamed, and burst from the stream into a food court. She stumbled over to a small coffee stand called Wired Fergus, lonely beside a flashy Starbucks joint, and found that she only had enough change for tea. Perpetua was a coffee lover who felt about tea the way dairy lovers feel about I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter, but tea was better than nothing.

She spent the next few hours, circling and crossing out ads in newspapers. When she ran out of advertisements, she stared at the crowds streaming through the corridor, like a kid by a river, tempted to try skipping stones. On the public address speakers, the Beatles told everyone to look at all the lonely people.

Once an hour, she pestered the barista for more hot water for her I Can’t Believe It’s Not Coffee. By the third trip, he was starting to give her speculative looks, of, she thought, the their-eyes-meet-across-a-crowded-food-court variety. The mall cop, on the other hand, was clearly starting to regard her as a blight on the capitalist system.

The flow of commuters ebbed, reversed direction, peaked, then began to ebb again. By this time her tea had turned to I Can’t Believe It’s Not Damp Hay and she was taking mental bets on whether the barista or the mall cop would say something to her first.

The barista won.

Perpetua watched him coming over: not terrible looking, but really “unusual” was about the most flattering adjective she could think of. He had a beaky nose and a face so narrow it looked as if he’d shut it in a book. His mop of dark curls would have looked good on, say, Tina Turner. In 1985. There was a steaming cup of whipped something in one hand, a newspaper in the other.

“Hey,” he said, with a voice like a casual shrug. “Compliments of the house.”

She blinked and looked up at him. Her eyes narrowed. “Free coffee?”

“No,” he said. “Free newspaper. The coffee’s four-fifty.”

“Not interested.”

“It’s mocha caramel.”

Her favourite. “How’d you know?”

“I’m a master of perception,” he said. She narrowed her eyes at him, but his face was so perfectly deadpan that it was hard to be offended.

“Well, I don’t have it,” she said, surprised to find herself a little reluctant to shut him down. Maybe it was just the smell of sweet, sweet caffeine: her reluctance to turn that down was heartfelt. “All I’ve got is bus fare, and I need that.”

“Well,” he said. “Take it. It’s all made up. And you could use a break.”

“Hmph.” She took the coffee and brought it to her lips. The young man hovered like a bird, but, you know, awkward. Perpetua sighed inwardly and set her cup down. “What makes you think I need break?”

“You’ve been sitting there half the day, circling ads in a newspaper.”

“You are a master of perception,” said Perpetua, returning to her coffee.

“I can help,” he said.

Huh. That was a new approach. “Help? How?”

“A lead. I’ve got another stand downstairs, by an office. They’re looking. The ad’s in that paper. I circled it.”

And before she could say anything, he turned and walked back to his coffee stand, paying her no more attention.

Perpetua swigged her coffee — it was a liquid chocolate bar — and flipped through the paper. It wasn’t the Globe and Mail, but some alternative rag, full of concert listings and adult services. If that barista had circled one of the latter she would shut him down so hard he’d still be rebooting in the next century - but then she saw what he’d circled.

NIGHT GIRL

Keyboarding and computer skills required. Must be able to tolerate deep underground environment. Steady nerves an asset; non-screamer preferred.

Hours: 10 p.m. - 6 a.m. $19/hr plus benefits. Bring resume 8:30 p.m. Today. Hire on spot.

TP Earthenhouse Rare Coins, Bouncers, Diggers and Art Installations

Sunlife Tower, Subbasement 3

King and University, Toronto Financial District.

“Night Girl”. Working through the night. Well, she’d always been a night owl. But - non screamer? Deep underground? $19/hr plus benefits?

“You know this place?” she asked the barista. “Is it legit?”

“Impeccably.”

“What’s the work like?”

“Well,” he said, “it’s not mindless.”

Perpetua looked at the ad, and then at her watch. 8:15. If she was going to go, she needed to go. She swept up her stuff and stuffed it into her rucksack. She was half-way out of the foodcourt before she turned back to the barista, who was picking up her cup and swiping at her table with a tea towel. “Hey,” she called to him. “Thanks!”

He lifted one hand in mellow farewell.

Mocha caramel. Not mindless. Maybe he really was a master of perception, because he’d said the one thing that mattered to her most.

Perpetua set off in search of subbasement 3.

---

Somewhere around numerous corners and half-opened doorways in the empty underground, somebody practised an aria from La Traviata. Perpetua’s shoes clicked off the marble floors and the closed shop windows. She passed a herd of whirring floor polishers before she found signs pointing out the tunnels to the Sunlife Tower and, from there, the stairs.

There were no down escalators and no signs telling her what floor she was on. When she pushed back the crash bar of a metal utility door, she found a set of metal steps, the smell of exhaust, and the words “Level 1B” painted in blue over the white walls. A thin sheen of dust coated everything. She nodded to herself and left the halogen lamps of the shopping concourse for the fluorescents of the stairwell. The metal steps clattered beneath her feet.

Two flights down, she found subbasement 2 and no more stairs. She looked around the landing, then pushed open the door, ignoring the “AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY” sign. Outside, she stumbled to a stop.

She stood at the base of a cavern. Mercury-vapour lights on the high ceiling bathed the concrete in an orange glow. The floor was wide and smooth, ramping up in the distance. Two eighteen-wheelers stood parked to one side, their backs open, carts laden with boxes. The air smelt of concrete dust and exhaust fumes.

She looked around for the door to subbasement 3 but couldn’t find it. Cinderblock walls stretched around her on three sides. She stepped back, taking in more and more of the dusty corner from which she’d emerged. She saw a battered garbage can full of cigarette butts and a bulletin board inviting all to last year’s Christmas party. Her heels echoed through the cavern. Behind her, she heard the distant shout of receiving workers, arguing about cargo.

There was no door to subbasement 3.

“Hey you!”

She jumped.

A man in overalls hopped down from the receiving dock. Perpetua swung off her rucksack, slipped her hand inside and clasped her can of mace. The man approached. His skin was pale, as if he didn’t see the sun, much.

“Restricted area,” he said. “What you doing here?”

“I have an interview,” said Perpetua. “Subbasement 3B.”

The man stopped. He looked her up and down. “At the cappuccino place?”

“Sure,” said Perpetua. “Know where it is?”

“Right behind you,” he said. “Next level down.”

Perpetua narrowed her eyes. “I just came that way.”

“The door on your left.” The workman pointed.

Still clasping her can of mace, Perpetua looked behind her. All she saw was a long cinderblock wall, punctuated by the door through which she’d come.

Then Perpetua heard the sound of a distant scream, coming closer. She looked around, but couldn’t see anyone else around. And the rising scream seemed to be coming from the blank wall.

Then the wall erupted.

A woman burst out from the cinderblocks, screaming, arms waving, blonde hair flying. She ran blindly past Perpetua. The receiving worker reached out, caught the woman’s arm, and swung her around. Still screaming, the woman shot through the stairwell door and vanished up the stairs.

The door clicked shut. Silence fell.

Perpetua stared at the receiving worker. He stared back. Then he touched his hat. “Well, obviously somebody’s still hiring. Good luck!” He turned away.

She stood in the middle of the concrete floor, her eyes following the workman as he hauled himself onto the receiving dock and disappeared behind a door. She turned back to the wall and found it as featureless as when she’d arrived.

She stepped over and ran her hands over the dusty bricks. Then a breeze blew across her palm. She pressed forward, and felt fabric moving under her hand. The concrete wall rippled and shimmered like a curtain. She grabbed it and pulled it aside. It was fabric. The image of the concrete wall was painted across it. Behind it was another white stairway, heading down.

What were they hiding? Why would they take such care to keep this stairwell out of sight?

This was weird. She should leave. But nineteen dollars an hour at forty hours a week was plenty of incentive to go where some blond woman had fled, especially since it was almost the first of the month.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped through and stood at the top of the steps. The curtain drifted down behind her. She peered down the stairwell, looking for something that might make a grown woman scream, but they were like any other set of utilitarian stairs.

She clattered down the metal steps. At the bottom, she found another utility door, this one marked ‘Subbasement 3’. She paused, fingering the dust on the painted letters. Then she pushed open the door and stepped from concrete onto tile.

She stood at the end of a shopping corridor, just like the ones she’d wandered through two storeys up, stretching forward about fifty feet before ending abruptly at an alcove advertising restrooms. Glass and metal gleamed under halogen potlights and the air smelt of freshener. The speakers were playing a muzak version of In the Hall of the Mountain King.

The corridor contained just three stores: a office with its lights dark, a shop with its windows papered over, and a free-standing cappuccino stand called “Wired Fergus”, such an exact copy of the stand she’d seen upstairs that she wondered if it had been wheeled down here via some hidden elevator.

Perpetua strode to the office and looked through the window, but the room beyond was dark and she couldn’t see anything past the closed white Venetian blinds. The door bore the name “TP Earthenhouse, Rare Coins, Bouncers, Diggers and Art Installations” on its frosted glass. She checked the ad and looked at her watch, then stepped to the door. She pulled at it, and it opened smoothly. The lights flickered on inside.

She brushed back a strand of her hair, then took a deep breath. “Here goes nothing,” she said, and entered.

The reception area was empty, save for the furniture. The centrepiece was a circular desk of black plastic and inlaid wood, with the company’s name embossed on the front in gold lettering. A table with a two-pot coffee maker, a fridge and a microwave oven stood tucked in a corner, while plush chairs lined the walls. There were two wood-veneer doors: one, off to the side, bearing the sign “Training Room” and the other, behind the reception desk, marked “T.P. Earthenhouse.” The carpet was a rich brown, and smelt freshly shampooed.

Perpetua stepped to the reception desk and found it empty. A green ergonomic chair was parked in front of an iMac computer and an empty in-and-out tray. The appointment book was closed. All in all, it didn’t look like visitors were expected.

“Hello?” she called. Her reedy alto voice rang across the office. “Anybody here?”

There was movement in the next office, behind the door labelled “T.P. Earthenhouse”. A deep voice slipped out from beneath it, smooth as a hundred dollar bill. “Is somebody there?”

“Yeah, me,” said Perpetua. “I’m here about the Night Girl job?”

“Ah, yes! And right on time, I see. Is anybody else with you?”

Perpetua took another look around the reception area. The office windows showed nobody wandering or waiting in the corridor outside. “Just me,” she said.

“Hmm…” the voice rumbled. “Most disappointing. Well, grab a seat and come into my office. I’ll be with you presently.”

Perpetua stepped around the reception desk, pushed open the door and peered into Earthenhouse’s office. She saw a rich mahogany desk, a rich leather chair behind it… and nothing else beyond but more carpet. Rich carpet, probably. Pictures of railroad tunnels and bridges lined the walls, highlighted by floodlights. There was a fruit basket on the desk. But other than the desk, the room was empty of furniture.

She leaned back into the reception area. “Huh.” Grab a seat and come into my office, he’d said. So, let’s take him at his word, she thought. She took hold of the reception desk chair and pulled it over. It squeaked loudly but this was the only chair in the reception area on wheels, so she pushed open Earthenhouse’s door and strode in, the chair squeaking behind her.

As she fumbled through her rucksack for her resume, she heard the sound of running water and splashing in an adjoining room. Light shone behind another oak door, and a shadow moved in the crack. It sounded like Earthenhouse was using either an electric toothbrush or an electric razor, or both. She shrugged, pulled her resume out of its manilla folder, and placed it on the desk. She sat down on the squeaky chair, and waited.

She realized she was still chewing gum just as the sounds of water stopped and a towel-ly flapping began. Her heart leaped as she looked for a garbage can and found none. She spat the gum into her hand and palmed it as the bathroom door opened and footsteps whispered on the carpet.

“Ah, yes,” came Earthenhouse’s deep voice. “I see you’ve brought in the chair from reception. Very good. Shows initiative. Most promising.”

Perpetua stood up to greet Earthenhouse, and stopped dead, staring.

T.P. Earthenhouse was dressed in a white shirt, red tie, cuff-links, and long pinstripe trousers, and he was three-quarters legs. He stood, about Perpetua’s height (five-foot-four), like a box on stilts. He was bald, with skin the colour of mossy stone. His nose jutted halfway to his chin and his smile showed several jagged and uneven teeth. His eyes were as black as a shark’s; the eyelids blinked with a click like stone on glass.

The freak’s grin widened. “T.P. Earthenhouse, at your service, madam.” A voice that deep had no business coming from a body that small. He shook Perpetua’s dangling hand, and stared at the wad of moist chewing gum on his palm. “Why, thank you!” He popped it in his mouth. “Most tasty. Please, sit down.”

Perpetua felt behind her for her chair and sat with a squeak. The chair squeaked too. Earthenhouse loped around the desk and climbed into his leather chair, sitting on his haunches in the seat, his long-boned hands draped over his protruding knees. He spotted her resume, plucked it off his desk, and pored over it, muttering appreciatively.

Okay, thought Perpetua, get a hold of yourself. You promised yourself when you came to the big city that you’d embrace diversity, try new things and, most of all, not stare.

She took a deep breath, and squared herself in her seat and clasped her knees. Then she had to take in Earthenhouse’s misshapen form, without staring obviously at it. She plastered a smile across her mouth, and waited.

“Most intriguing,” said Earthenhouse. “Miss Perpetua Collins, is it?” He looked up at her. “An unusual name.”

“It’s not my fault,” said Perpetua automatically. Then, seeing Earthenhouse look up, she added. “My mother named me.”

“Well, how unfortunate. I assume you can type?”

She nodded curtly. “That’s what it says!” Then she bit her tongue. The shock of his appearance had her clipping her answers short.

“Yes, I see that it does.” Earthenhouse peered at the resume. “And you are familiar with the Microsoft Office suite of products?”

“If it’s on the computer, I know it,” she replied.

“I see,” said Earthenhouse. Then he set her resume aside and peered at her, his hands propping up his chin. “Tell me, Miss Collins: have you or anyone in your family experienced amnesia or other forms of memory loss in your lifetimes?”

“What kind of question is that?!”

He looked nonplussed. “Shall I take that as a ‘no’ then?”

“Yes! I mean, no! I mean— Does this disqualify me as a candidate in any way?”

He moved his mouth as though chewing over her response. “It doesn’t have to,” he said at last. “I can handle that part of the job.”

She goggled. “You have lots of amnesia cases among your employees?”

“No, no!” He raised a hand. “I said I can handle it, and I will. Otherwise, your other qualifications appear most suitable, Miss Collins.”

Perpetua closed her mouth on her next words when she realized that she was still in contention for this job. She decided to set the weirdness of the question aside. After all, she thought, my last interviewer asked me if I objected to working with radioactive materials, and was then chased out of his office by the Men in Black. Be thankful for small mercies. She settled back into her chair, ignoring its protesting squeak.

“Well, Miss Collins, tell me: do you know what it is we do here?”

She cocked her head at him. A strand of dark hair fell across her face and she brushed it aside. “Something about rare coins, bouncers, diggers and art installations, right?”

Earthenhouse chuckled. “That is what the sign says, but there is more to it than that.”

Perpetua frowned. There was a shade across Earthenhouse’s gaze, a wariness. He’s testing me. About what? She gripped her rucksack, but said nonchalantly, “Really?”

Earthenhouse leaned back. “My company is about providing employment.”

“For rare coin dealers?”

Earthenhouse chuckled louder. “Actually, the rare coin division helps finance the rest of our business. You see, Miss Collins, a lot of people depend on me. My company puts my people in contact with the right people, to ensure a decent standard of living for those who would be otherwise destitute.”

Oh, don’t tell me I’m working in social services, she thought. She’d taken part of a social work degree, complete with job placements, before realizing that it was like signing up to be a tour guide to the ninth circle of hell. “Are there a lot of destitute art installers?” she asked. And swore it had sounded less stupid in her head.

Again, there was a shift in Earthenhouse’s eyes. “It’s not the career that is the problem, Miss Collins,” he said after a moment. “It’s the class of people I deal with — that I am a part of, actually.”

“Oh?”

“You see, Miss Collins…” Earthenhouse leaned forward, his hands steepled. “…I am a goblin.”

Silence descended. With a bit of a clunk.

Then again, thought Perpetua, the eighth circle of hell was working for an employer who was actually crazy. Like those six months at the Taco Bell with the night manager who was sure he’d been abducted by aliens. After his umpteenth time of freaking out at the sight of lights pulling up to the drive-thru window, she’d had enough and stormed out of the restaurant. She’d never collected her final paycheque either.

She kept her face in a tight, non-committal frown. Why do only the crazies want to hire me?

They stared at each other. Perpetua started to count the number of times she blinked. She was up to five when Earthenhouse spoke at last. “You seem to be taking this news rather well, Miss Collins.”

Right, he’s crazy, thought Perpetua. “Better humour him.”

“Pardon me?”

“I mean, you’re a what?”

“A goblin, Miss Collins.”

“Oh,” said Perpetua. “Well, congratulations.”

“Thank you,” said Earthenhouse, and though his feet did not touch the floor, he tilted his chair forward just enough to lean close without falling over. “Your reaction pleases me, Miss Collins. Doubtless you have heard stories about my race, but you shouldn’t judge me by what you’ve heard.”

“Oh, that particular judgement is very far from my mind right now, Mr. Earthenhouse.”

“Good. But you can understand how this might not be the case for other humans. And yet, we live amongst you. We need to play by human rules to make a decent living. This is what my company provides.” Earthenhouse leaned his chair back. “My business connects my people with various economic opportunities in the city, especially in the realm of security and art. We pride ourselves in maintaining humanity’s ignorance of our presence, but that raises challenges in establishing links with the human economy. This is where you come in.”

Perpetua blinked the sound of Patsy Cline’s Crazy out of her head. “Really? How?”

“Well, Miss Collins, we would like you to become our human face. Not literally, of course; that would be messy and hardly an effective disguise. No, you would be responsible for managing our clients in the art installations and bouncer departments. I’ll keep track of things in the digging department; that’s a passion of mine.” He nodded proudly at the pictures hanging on the walls showing railway tunnels under construction. “So, are you interested?”

All right, fine, thought Perpetua. I’m down the rabbit hole. I might as well swallow the bottle marked ‘drink me’. Besides, this is an expensive looking office in the most expensive part of town, the money has to come from somewhere. “Does this job come with vacation pay?”

Earthenhouse smiled. “Two weeks in the first year, three with the next.”

“And the benefits package?”

“Comprehensive life and extended health. You’re salaried, so no overtime pay, though we rarely ask you to work extra hours. You’re entitled to a half-hour lunch break and two fifteen-minute breaks throughout the day.”

Sounds good, thought Perpetua. “So, the pay: twenty-five bucks an hour?”

Earthenhouse frowned. “I was sure I advertised nineteen.”

“People lining up at the door, are there?”

“Hmm,” Earthenhouse rumbled. “You have a point. How does twenty-two sound?”

He really is crazy. “Done!”

“Excellent! Let me draw up the contract. Here,” he nodded to the fruit basket. “Have a fruit while you wait.”

She waved him off, but Earthenhouse kept motioning to the basket, and Perpetua wondered if it was one more strange interview test. And, she decided, she was a little hungry. “Sure,” she said at last, standing up to sort through the fruit. She paused at a bright red apple, but decided to pick up a banana instead.

As she peeled it and ate it, Earthenhouse pulled a long, thickly-written paper from a drawer, followed by a quill pen and an ink bottle. He muttered as he pored over the paper, making corrections: “Twenty-two dollars per hour… paid breaks, check. Paid vacations, check. Spawning leave, check. All in order.” Perpetua finished her banana and looked around for a waste basket to discard the peel. Not finding any, she sighed, and tossed the peel in her rucksack.

Earthenhouse turned the contract to her, but pulled back the pen as she reached for it. “I’m sure you’ll have no objection to sealing the goblin contract the traditional way: with spit?”

She stared at him. “Isn’t it usually blood?”

“That’s a myth.”

“Fine.” Cleaning her teeth with her tongue, she picked up the contract and looked it over. Twenty-two dollars an hour for eight hours a day, including breaks. No references to blood sacrifice, job to start tomorrow. Perfect. “Here goes nothing,” she muttered, and she gathered herself and spat on the line over her name.

---

Perpetua burst onto King Street and stared up at the financial heart of Toronto. The glass towers gleamed in the reflected city lights and the sky behind them was pitch. Cars passed, and a distant streetcar rumbled, but she was alone. She glanced up and down the sidewalk, shouldered her rucksack, and struck out for her streetcar stop, skirts swishing.

Well, that was the weirdest interview I’ve ever attended, she thought. Crazy man. Total goner. But if he could afford that office, he could afford to be a little crazy.

“And at $176 per day,” she muttered, “I can afford to put up with a little craziness.”

The gargoyles on the cornices winked at her as the street lights changed. Perpetua wrinkled her nose as she passed the steam issuing from a sewer grate, and brushed on.

She passed a public square on the corner of King and Bay, left behind by metal and glass towers too stingy or too artsy to build all the way to the sidewalk. In the middle of the square, someone had placed a fountain with a lumpy statue that looked like a double-sized second-rate version of The Thinker. Perpetua stood and stared at it. The Thinker had a heavy forehead and glowering eyebrows, and sat on a three-legged stool in the middle of the reflecting pool. Two fish on either side of the pool were frozen in mid-leap, shooting jets of water from their mouths and bathing the statue’s shoulder-blades.

Perpetua cocked her head one way, then the other, taking it all in. She decided that the artist had at least succeeded in one thing: the art had made Perpetua think. And now Perpetua was thinking: had the artist lost his or her mind?

Shaking her head, she turned away, and almost stumbled into a scruffy, bearded man, shambling forward with his shopping cart. The stench of him pushed her away as effectively as a force field. She quickened her pace, avoiding eye contact. She reached her streetcar stop and stood on tiptoe to see if any were en route. The homeless man’s guttural voice, muttering in madness, echoed after her along the street, tickling her spine and making her shudder.

“Lord,” she muttered. “If they ever catch me talking to myself, get me medical help.”

The homeless man rolled across the public square, chuckling. As traffic ebbed and flowed, she caught snatches of his words.

“Jesus saves, you know.” Guttural chuckle. “The world is his oyster.” Another guttural chuckle. “Moses spoke to the Samarians in the great white desert. His first commandment: thou shalt eat salad.” Then he cleared his throat. “Right: feeding time, Gunther!”

The change in the homeless man’s voice pulled Perpetua around, and she saw him standing before the lumpy Thinker, looking focused and intelligent, holding out a head of wilted lettuce.

“C’mon Gunthur,” the homeless man continued. “Don’t keep me waiting; I’ve got my rounds.”

The Thinker shook himself awake before Perpetua’s eyes, peered at the lettuce, gurgled, and opened his mouth. The homeless man grunted with approval and tossed the lettuce into its maw. “There you go! Here’s another!”

The Thinker bobbed with pleasure, slavering. He opened its mouth and gestured for more food.

“Yeah, it’s a good selection today,” said the homeless man. “Loblaws just threw out its stock. To think the food banks don’t want this stuff.”

Perpetua rubbed her eyes and looked again, but it was still feeding time. She must be losing her mind.

The homeless man tossed in the fourth head of lettuce. Gunthur gnashed it, then held out his gigantic hand, palm out.

“No more?” The homeless man gave the fifth head of lettuce a shake, then set it back in the cart. “Oh, right, your diet. How’s that going?”

Then the Thinker tensed, and half-turned towards her. His warning rumble resonated in Perpetua’s chest. She staggered back, then flinched as a passing taxi sounded its horn. A streetcar pulled up and opened its doors, but she didn’t turn towards it.

The homeless man turned slowly around and looked at her across the square. Perpetua saw his face in silhouette and caught sight of his baggy cheeks, his protruding chin, and his long, hooked nose. She saw a flash of scraggly, grey teeth.

Behind her, the streetcar driver called out. “Hey? You getting on, or what?”

The homeless… whatever it was, reached up a gnarled, long-boned hand and tipped his hat to her. His wig of matted blond hair came off with it. She saw pointed ears, and tufts of wiry hair beneath.

She turned, then, and dashed for the safety of the streetcar. She swept to her seat. When she got there, she looked back through the window. The Thinker had resumed his thoughtful position in the middle of the fountain, and the homeless man shambled away slowly towards Front Street, pushing his cart ahead of him.