“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 © 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.
Hallow Hill has a strange and tragic
history. For thousands of years, young
women have been vanishing from the
estate, never to be seen again. Now Kate
and Emily have come to live at Hallow
Hill. Brought up in a civilized age, they
have no idea of the land’s dreadful
heritage. Until, that is, Marak decides
to tell them himself.
Intelligent, pleasant, and completely
pitiless, Marak is a powerful magician
who claims to be a King—and he has
very specific plans for the two new girls
who have trespassed into his kingdom.
Rear Flap
Clare Buckalew Dunkle
grew up in north Texas, where her
favorite activity was living inside other
people’s stories. She worked for years as
a librarian and still thinks of the library
as home. She wrote this book as a series
of letters to her two teenage daughters,
Valerie and Elena, who attend a
German boarding school. They remain
her biggest fans and harshest critics.
The author lives in Germany with her
husband Joe, a black cat who plays
fetch, and a very beautiful Dalmatian
with unmatched eyes.
Jacket art © 2003 by Megan Lightell Timmons
Jacket design by Amy Manzo Toth
Version Info
v 1.0 HTML
Scanned and proofed 2010-08-19
