Goblins

The Goblins are the child-stealing figures in the Ida storybook that becomes a warning to Apollo Kagwa: they take a human baby unseen and leave behind an imitation so convincing that Ida first embraces it as her sister. Their intrusion turns a familiar domestic scene into a story of substitution, lost children, and the danger of mistaking a replica for a living person.

Appearance and Entry

The story first places the Goblins at a window, their small figures dressed in purple robes and their faces hidden in shadow. While Ida remains inside playing her horn, they sneak into the house and carry away her baby sister. The scene makes their concealment part of the theft: Ida cannot hear the child’s cries over the music, and the Goblins act while her attention is elsewhere.

The Stolen Child and Its Replacement

After taking the human baby, the Goblins leave a replacement in the crib. It looks identical to Ida’s sister and wears the same bedclothes, but it is carved from ice. Ida lifts the imitation, holds it close, and tells it she loves it; the creature cannot return her embrace because it is not alive. The resemblance sustains the deception long enough for Ida to treat the substitute as her sister, while its lifeless material reveals the difference that appearance conceals.

When Apollo later scans the story again, the sequence continues beyond the abduction and embrace: the ice child half melts and falls to the floor, and Ida finally recognizes the fraud. The Goblins’ theft therefore leaves not only an absence but a false presence—one that collapses as the ice melts and the truth becomes visible.

The Story as Warning

Cal shows Apollo the book and argues that it tells the truth about the peril he and Emma face. The Goblins’ story gives their situation a fairy-tale pattern: a child is taken, a counterfeit is left behind, and the danger cannot be addressed by looking away. Cal connects that warning to the man held in a cage, whom she says consorts with monsters. The tale’s concrete image of the ice child makes the threat of substitution legible before Apollo recognizes the changeling in the illustration.