The Hollow Kingdom (28 page)

Marak couldn't have been more thrilled as he held his newborn son and watched him wave the fuzzy, speckled paw in the air. "What a King he'll be!" he declared happily to his sobbing wife. He stroked
the soft baby locks, stirring their golden and pale curls with a finger. "Kate," he added with a puzzled frown, "I thought you hated my hair."

"I do hate your hair," sniffed Kate indignantly. But then she remembered all the times she had seen him looking at her through those pale wisps or jerking out the ribbon and running his hands through the wild mane as he thought. "Oh, well," she said with a tired giggle. "I suppose it made an impression."

"Just look at him," insisted her husband joyfully, setting their son down on the bed beside her. "What a stunning boy he is, every inch a goblin King! What could you possibly be crying about?"

"But, Marak," Kate protested, "he has a paw!" She looked at it dubiously. She was somewhat calmer now that the shock was wearing off, but she still wasn't happy about it.

"And do you remember the last goblin King who had that paw?" demanded Marak. "Lionclaw, the greatest of all the Kings. Marak Lionclaw led the goblins to this kingdom and ended the migration. He was the greatest magician the goblins have ever had. The records say that he was the one who enchanted Hollow Lake to hold up the water. Just imagine," he exclaimed, "what magic he'll work with that right hand!" And as his tired wife wiped her eyes on her blanket, Marak played with the little paw, pressing it gently to make the sharp claws extend.

"Look, Kate!" he hooted. "It's just like a cat's paw!" And Catspaw was the son's name from that moment until the day he became Marak in his father's place.

Publication Info

Special thanks to my editor, Reka Simonsen,
for her keen interest in developing good fantasy for children
and for all her hard work on this book.

Henry Holt and Company, LLC
Publishers since 1866
115 West 18th Street
New York, New York 10011
www.henryholt.com

Henry Holt is a registered trademark of Henry Holt and Company, LLC
Copyright (c) 2003 by Clare B. Dunkle
All rights reserved.
Distributed in Canada by H. B. Fenn and Company Ltd.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dunkle, Clare B.
The hollow kingdom / Clare B. Dunkle.
p. cm.
Summary: In nineteenth-century England, a powerful sorcerer and
King of the Goblins chooses Kate, the elder of two orphan girls recently
arrived at their ancestral home, Hallow Hill, to be his bride and queen.
[1. Goblins--Fiction. 2. Magic--Fiction. 3. Sisters--Fiction.
4. Orphans--Fiction. 5. Coventry (England)--History--
19th century--Fiction. 6. Great Britain--History--19th century--
Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.D92115Hol 2003 [Fic]--dc21 2002038899

ISBN 0-8050-7390-6
First Edition--2003
Book designed by Amy Manzo Toth
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper. [?]

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Front Flap

She had never screamed before,
not even when she overturned the
rowboat and almost drowned.
But now she screamed, long
and loud, with all her breath.

Rear Flap

Version Info

v 1.0 HTML

• Scanned and proofed 2010-08-19