The Wrath of Mulgarath Read online

  LIST OF FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS

  LETTER FROM HOLLY BLACK

  LETTER FROM THE GRACE KIDS

  MAP OF THE SPIDERWICK ESTATE

  CHAPTER ONE: IN WHICH

  THE WORLD IS TURNED UPSIDE DOWN

  CHAPTER TWO: IN WHICH

  AN OLD FRIEND RETURNS

  CHAPTER THREE: IN WHICH

  JARED FINDS OUT THINGS HE DOESN’T WANT TO KNOW

  CHAPTER FOUR: IN WHICH

  EVERYTHING GOES INTO THE FIRE

  CHAPTER FIVE: IN WHICH

  THEY FIND THE MEANING OF “HERE THERE BE DRAGONS”

  CHAPTER SIX: IN WHICH

  ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE

  EPILOGUE: IN WHICH

  THE STORY OF THE GRACE CHILDREN COMES TO ITS CONCLUSION

  ABOUT TONY DITERLIZZI AND HOLLY BLACK

  MAP OF THE SPIDERWICK ESTATE AND SURROUNDING AREAS

  AT THE GATE OF THE SPIDERWICK ESTATE

  “ALL MY FAULT, ALL MY FAULT.”

  “EVERYTHING’S DESTROYED.”

  “STOP GAWPING, SNAIL-HEADS!”

  “I’M SORRY, GOBSTOPPERS.”

  “HE’S GETTING AWAY!”

  “IT IS TRUE I TOOK THE BOOK.”

  A MAN IN A TWEED COAT

  “A VERY BAD SIGN.”

  “IT’S YOUR TURN TO TRUST US.”

  “I CAUGHT THE HUMANS.”

  “YOU SAY YOU CAPTURED BOTH?”

  “GET AWAY FROM HIM!”

  IT WAS A MASSIVE STRUCTURE.

  THE DRAGON COILED AROUND BYRON.

  THE DRAWBRIDGE WAS DOWN.

  THE STAIRS LOOKED IMPOSSIBLE TO CLIMB.

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?”

  “YOU’RE NOT HIM.”

  “WHY ARE YOU DOING ALL OF THIS?”

  “ALL THIS TIME AND I NEVER KNEW.”

  “THIS IS FINE WORK.”

  For my grandmother, Melvina, who said I should write a book just like this one and to whom I replied that I never would

  —H. B.

  For Arthur Rackham, may you continue to inspire others as you have me

  —T. D.

  Dear Reader,

  Over the years that Tony and I have been friends, we’ve shared the same childhood fascination with faeries. We did not realize the importance of that bond or how it might be tested.

  One day Tony and I—along with several other authors—were doing a signing at a large bookstore. When the signing was over, we lingered, helping to stack books and chatting, until a clerk approached us. He said that there had been a letter left for us. When I inquired which one of us, we were surprised by his answer.

  “Both of you,” he said.

  The letter was exactly as reproduced on the following page. Tony spent a long time just staring at the photocopy that came with it. Then, in a hushed voice, he wondered aloud about the remainder of the manuscript. We hurriedly wrote a note, tucked it back into the envelope, and asked the clerk to deliver it to the Grace children.

  Not long after, a package arrived on my doorstep, bound in red ribbon. A few days after that, three children rang the bell and told me this story.

  What has happened since is hard to describe. Tony and I have been plunged into a world we never quite believed in. We now see that faeries are far more than childhood stories. There is an invisible world around us and we hope that you, dear reader, will open your eyes to it.

  Holly Black

  Dear Mrs. Black and Mr. DiTerlizzi:

  I know that a lot of people don’t believe in faeries, but I do and I think that you do too. After I read your books, I told my brothers about you and we decided to write. We know about real faeries. In fact, we know a lot about them.

  The page attached* to this one is a photocopy from an old book we found in our attic. It isn’t a great copy because we had some trouble with the copier. The book tells people how to identify faeries and how to protect themselves. Can you please give this book to your publisher? If you can, please put a letter in this envelope and give it back to the store. We will find a way to send the book. The normal mail is too dangerous.

  We just want people to know about this. The stuff that has happened to us could happen to anyone.

  Sincerely,

  Mallory, Jared, and Simon Grace

  * Not included.

  At the gate of the Spiderwick estate

  Chapter One

  IN WHICH the World Is Turned Upside Down

  The pale light of the newly risen sun made the dew shimmer on the nearby grass as Jared, Mallory, and Simon trudged along the early morning roads. They were tired, but the need to get home kept them going. Mallory shivered in her thin white dress, clutching her sword so hard that her knuckles went white. Beside her, Simon shuffled along, kicking stray bits of asphalt. Jared was quiet too. Each time his eyes closed, even for a moment, all he saw were goblins—hundreds of goblins, with Mulgarath at their head.

  Jared tried to distract himself by planning what he would say to his mother when they finally got home. She was going to be furious with them for being gone all night and even madder at Jared because of that thing with the knife. But he could explain everything now. He imagined telling her about the shape-shifting ogre, the rescue of Mallory from the dwarves, and the way they had tricked the elves. His mother would look at the sword and she would have to believe them. And then she would forgive Jared for everything.

  A sharp sound, like a tea kettle whistling at full volume, snapped him back to the present. They were at the gate of the Spiderwick estate. To Jared’s horror, trash, papers, feathers, and broken furniture littered the lawn.

  “What is all that?” Mallory gasped.

  A screech drew Jared’s eyes upward, where Simon’s griffin was chasing a small creature around the roof and knocking pieces of slate loose. Stray feathers drifted over the roof tiles.

  “Byron!” Simon called, but the griffin either didn’t hear or chose to ignore him. Simon turned to Jared in exasperation. “He shouldn’t be up there. His wing is still hurt.”

  “What’s he after?” Mallory asked, squinting.

  “A goblin, I think,” said Jared slowly. The memory of teeth and claws red with blood awakened a horrible dread within him.

  “Mom!” Mallory gasped, and began to run toward the house.

  Jared and Simon raced after her. Up close they could see that the windows of the old estate were smashed and the front door hung by a single hinge.

  They darted inside, through the mudroom, stepping over scattered keys and torn coats. In the kitchen, water poured from the faucet, filling a sink piled with broken plates and spilling onto the floor, where food from the overturned freezer was defrosting in wet piles. The wallboard had been punched open in places, and plaster dust, mingling with spilled flour and cereal, covered the stove.

  The dining room table was still upright, but several of the chairs were knocked over, their caning ripped. One of their great-uncle’s paintings was slashed and the frame was cracked, although it still hung on the wall.

  The living room was worse: The television was shattered and their game console had been shoved through it. The sofas were ripped open, and stuffing was scattered across the floorboards like drifts of snow. And there, sitting on the remains of a brocade footstool, was Thimbletack.

  “All my fault, all my fault.”

  As Jared moved closer to the little brownie, he could see that Thimbletack had a long, raw scratch on his shoulder and that his hat was missing. He blinked up at Jared with wet, black eyes.

  “All my fault, all my fault,” Thimbletack said. “I tried to fight; my magic’s too slight.” A tear rolled down his thin cheek, and he wiped it away angrily. “Goblins alone I might have driven off. The ogre just looked at me and scof
fed.”

  “Where’s Mom?” Jared demanded. He could feel himself trembling.

  “Just before the break of day, they bound her and carried her away,” Thimbletack said.

  “They can’t have!” Simon’s voice was close to a squeak. “Mom!” he called, rushing to the stairs and shouting up to the next landing. “Mom!”

  “We have to do something,” said Mallory.

  “We saw her,” Jared said softly, sitting down on the ruined couch. He felt light-headed, and hot and cold at the same time. “At the quarry. She was the adult the goblins had with them. Mulgarath had her, and we didn’t even notice. We should have listened—I should have listened. I never should have opened Uncle Arthur’s stupid book.”

  The brownie shook his head vigorously. “To protect the house and those inside is my duty, Guide or no Guide.”

  “But if I had destroyed it like you said, none of this would have happened!” Jared punched himself in the leg.

  Thimbletack scrubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. “No one knows if that is true or not. I hid it away—see what we got?”

  “Enough with the pity party—neither of you is helping!” Mallory squatted beside the footstool, handing the brownie his hat. “Where would they have taken Mom?”

  Thimbletack shook his head sadly. “Goblins are filthy things, the master worse than his hirelings. They would dwell somewhere as foul as they, but where that is, I cannot say.”

  From above them there was a whistle and a clatter.

  “One goblin is still on the roof,” said Simon, looking up. “It must know!”

  Jared stood up. “We’d better stop Byron before he eats it.”

  “Right,” said Simon, heading up the stairs.

  The three kids ran up the steps and down the hall toward the attic. The bedroom doors on the second floor were open. Torn clothing, pillow feathers, and ripped bedding spilled out into the hall. Outside Jared and Simon’s shared room, cracked, empty tanks lay on the floor. Simon froze, a stricken expression on his face.

  “Lemondrop?” Simon called. “Jeffrey? Kitty?”

  “Come on,” Jared said. As he steered Simon away from the wreckage of their room, he caught sight of the hall closet. The shelves were dripping with lotions and shampoos, which had also soaked the scattered towels. And at the bottom, near deep scratches in the wallboard, the secret door to Arthur’s library had been ripped off its hinges.

  “How did they find it?” Mallory asked.

  Simon shook his head. “I guess they ransacked the place looking for it.”

  Jared crouched down and wriggled into Arthur Spiderwick’s library. Bright sunlight streaming through the single window showed the damage clearly. Tears burned his eyes as he stepped across a carpet of shredded pages. Arthur’s books had been ripped free of their bindings and scattered. Torn sketches and toppled bookshelves littered the floor. Jared looked around the room helplessly.

  “Well?” Mallory called.

  “Destroyed,” Jared said. “Everything’s destroyed.”

  “Come on,” Simon called. “We have to get that goblin.”

  Jared nodded his head, despite the fact that neither his brother nor his sister could see him, and moved numbly toward the door. There was something about the desecration of this one room—a room that had remained secret all these years—that made Jared feel as though nothing would ever be right again.

  “Everything’s destroyed.”

  Together he, Simon, and Mallory trudged up the stairs to the attic, crossing over glittering pieces of smashed holiday ornaments and stepping past a broken dress form. In the dim light Jared could see dust erupting in time with the clattering of griffin claws, and he could hear more screeching above them.

  “One more level and we can step right onto the roof,” Jared said, pointing to the final staircase. It led to the single highest room in the house, a small tower with half-boarded windows on all four sides.

  “I think I heard some barking,” Simon said as they climbed. “That goblin must still be okay.”

  When they reached the top of the tower, Mallory swung her sword at the window boards, splintering them. Jared tried to pry off what was left loose.

  “I’ll go first,” Simon said, hopping onto the ledge and gingerly climbing past the jagged slats and onto the roof.

  “Wait!” Jared shouted. “What makes you think you can control that griffin?” But Simon didn’t seem to be paying attention.

  Mallory strapped on a belt, wrapping it around the sword so it hung from her hip. “Come on!”

  Jared swung his legs over the sill and stepped out onto the slate. The sudden sunlight almost blinded him, and for a moment his blurry eyes scanned the forest beyond their lawn.

  Then he saw Simon approaching the griffin, who had cornered the goblin against one of the brick chimneys. The goblin was Hogsqueal.

  “Stop gawping, snail-heads!”

  Chapter Two

  IN WHICH an Old Friend Returns

  Stop gawping, snail-heads!” Hogsqueal yelled. “Help me!” He was backed against a chimney, one hand holding his coat closed over a largish object, the other brandishing an empty slingshot menacingly.

  “Hogsqueal?” Jared grinned at the sight of the hobgoblin, then stopped with a scowl. “What are you doing here?”

  Simon was holding the griffin back, mostly by standing between him and Hogsqueal and yelling loudly. Byron turned his hawk head to the side and blinked, then pawed the ground with his talons as though he were more feline than bird. Jared suspected that Byron thought they were playing a new game.

  Hogsqueal hesitated, seeing Jared’s face. “I didn’t know this was your house until the griffin showed up.”

  “You helped catch our mother?” Jared could feel his face growing warm. “Trash our house? Kill Simon’s pets?” He took two steps toward Hogsqueal, hands fisting. He’d trusted Hogsqueal. He’d liked him. And the hobgoblin had betrayed them. Jared could barely think with the roaring in his ears.

  “I didn’t kill anything.” Hogsqueal opened his coat a little, revealing a marmalade ball of fur.

  “Kitty!” Simon said, distracted by the sight of the kitten.

  In that moment Byron lunged past Simon, catching the hobgoblin’s arm in his beak.

  “Aaaaaaahhhhh!” Hogsqueal screamed. The cat yowled, jumping onto the roof.

  “Byron, no!” Simon yelled. “Drop him!”

  The griffin shook his head, whipping Hogsqueal back and forth. The hobgoblin’s shouts became louder.

  “Do something!” Jared called, panicked.

  Simon stepped up to the griffin and hit him hard on the beak with his hand. “NO!” he shouted.

  “Oh crap, don’t do that!” Mallory said, reaching for the sword at her waist. But instead of attacking, the griffin stopped shaking Hogsqueal and looked at Simon with something like alarm.

  “Drop him!” Simon repeated, pointing to the slate roof.

  “I’’m sorry, gobstoppers.”

  Hogsqueal struggled ineffectually, pushing his fingers into Byron’s nose slits and trying to bite the feathery neck with his baby teeth. The griffin ignored the hobgoblin but didn’t make a move to put him down either.

  “Be careful,” Jared told his brother. “Better he eats Hogsqueal than us.”

  “Noooo! I’m sorry, gobstoppers,” Hogsqueal said, still writhing. “I didn’t mean it! Honest. Get me out of here! Heeeeeelp!”

  “Jared,” Simon said. “Grab Hogsqueal, okay?”

  Jared nodded, edging nearer. This close, he could smell the griffin—it had a feral scent, like a cat’s fur.

  Simon put one hand on the top of Byron’s beak, the other on the bottom, and started to lever them apart, repeating, “Be a gooooood boy. Yes. Drop the goblin.”

  “Hobgoblin!” Hogsqueal yelped.

  “Are you crazy?” Mallory hollered at her brother. The griffin turned his head abruptly in her direction, almost knocking Simon sprawling.

  “Sorry,” Mallor
y said in a much smaller voice.

  Jared gripped Hogsqueal around the legs. “Got him.”

  “Hey, yaffner, we’re not going to be playing tug-of-war with my body, right? Right?”

  Jared just smiled grimly.

  Simon tried again to push Byron’s beak open. “Mallory, come and help me. Grab the bottom of the beak, and I’ll get the top.”

  She stepped carefully across the slanted roof. The griffin eyed her nervously.

  “When I say pull,” Simon said, “pull.”

  Together they tried to pry the griffin’s jaws apart. Mallory’s fingers slid into Byron’s mouth as she strained, nearly hanging from the griffin, trying to use her weight against him. Byron struggled and then suddenly gave in, opening his mouth and dropping Hogsqueal’s full weight into Jared’s arms. Losing his balance, Jared slid backward on the shingles, letting go of Hogsqueal and scrabbling for a handhold. The hobgoblin slid as well, knocking loose the shingle Jared was gripping on to. Jared slipped and grabbed hold of the gutter moments before he would have fallen off the side of the house.

  Simon and Mallory looked at Jared with wide eyes. He swallowed hard. As they moved to haul him back onto the roof, Jared saw Hogsqueal make for the open window.

  “He’s getting away!” Jared said, trying to pull himself higher. His elbow dug into the dried leaves and mud that clotted the gutter.

  “Forget about the stupid goblin,” Mallory said. “Grab hold of me.”

  “He’s getting away!”

  They hauled him back onto the roof. As soon as he was upright, Jared ran after Hogsqueal with Mallory and Simon close behind. They thundered down the stairs.

  Hogsqueal was sprawled in the hall outside their bedrooms, and yellow yarn was wrapping itself around him. Jared gaped as the yarn tied itself in a bow.