Read Online Ghoulish Song (9781442427310) by William Alexander - Free Book Online

turned away and continued to putter around the deck, tuggingropes and winding cranks. “Certainly one of her leg bones,” he said. “And I’m not sure how she stands without it. Not sure how she’s standing at all. Dead a long time. That’s a long wait before taking up haunting. Must be that the floods are almost here. She drowned. She’s one of the River’s dead, and the River lets go of its dead in flood times. Loses track of them. If the drowned are up from their watery rest and walking around unquiet, then the floods are coming soon. If the floods are coming, then I’d best stash my wares and get myself downstream to safer harbor.”
    â€œPlease make some sense!” Kaile shouted, frustration spilling over and into her voice. “Tell me where you found this bone!”
    â€œEasy enough,” Fidlam answered, still without looking at her. “The Kneecap’s where we’re going. We’ll be there before the clock moves much.”

    The River’s Knee was a downstream bend where the River turned from flowing westward to flowing south. A pebble beach covered the northern shore of that bend. Sailors called it the Kneecap.
    Fidlam drove his barge up onto the Kneecap with a scraping, grinding sound. Then he gathered his wares together: a comb carved to look like a wingfish in flight, several fishhook charms, the knife with a landscape carvedinto the side, a few simple pip-dice, two sets of domini tiles, and all sorts of other trinkets that Kaile didn’t recognize. He shoved them into a large wooden crate, and then carried them down the ramp and onto the pebbly shore.
    Kaile followed at a distance, cautious but curious. Shade followed Kaile.
    The beach was a desolate place. Tree roots and branches, stripped bare and polished smooth, lay on the stones and grasped at the air. Living trees stood watch in a rim around the shore. They looked as gnarled and unforgiving as the driftwood. The steep slope of the ravine wall rose up behind the trees.
    Fidlam heaved his crate of bones uphill, toward the trees and the cliff face. There, at the very base of the cliff, he kicked aside a few large pieces of driftwood to reveal a metal strongbox, chained and bolted to the ground.
    â€œHere’s where my wares will rest,” he said. “No one else comes poking around on the Kneecap. No one but Fidlam. The sailors all say it’s a haunted place.” He laughed at that. “And it is haunted now, certainly, by one little ghoul girl—but the River will rise soon to take back its own. The drowned should stay sleeping in their own River bed.”
    Kaile didn’t like the sound of that. “I didn’t drown,” she said with as much iron in her voice as she knew how to putthere. “I’m not dead. It’s just that my shadow doesn’t like me very much.”
    Fidlam paid her no attention. He opened the strongbox and set the crate inside. “There,” he said, talking to the box as he closed the lid and latch. “This beach is where you drifted with the driftwood, where you came to rest, before I made you into other sorts of pretty things. Now you’ll all stay anchored here until the flood comes and goes. If any more of you start walking around to make unquiet mischief, you just keep that mischief contained to the Kneecap and off of my barge.” He gave the lid an affectionate pat. “I’m off to race the flood downstream, but I’ll be back for you after.”
    Kaile stared at the box. “You carve the bones that wash up on this beach.” Most things that fell from the Fiddleway Bridge washed up on the Kneecap. Kaile knew that. Everyone knew that. “You carve the bones of people who wash up on this beach.”
    â€œAnd birds, and fish, and other things besides,” Fidlam said cheerfully. “Though most birds and fish leave fragile bones. Not nearly so useful.”
    He looked at Kaile then. He