Ghoulish Song (9781442427310) by Alexander William

Author:Alexander, William
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Tenth Verse

KAILE SPUN AROUND, SLIPPED on pebbles, and nearly stumbled into the bonfire. Adult-sized hands caught her before she fell.

“Easy there,” said the strange voice. It was a woman’s voice, though also deep and rough around the edges. “Be easy.”

Kaile pulled free and pushed away. She had just faced down a ghoulish mess of many drowned remains, her heartbeat raged and pounded in her chest, and she was not in any way inclined to trust strangers who appeared suddenly behind her in the dark.

The stranger stepped back and put both hands in the air, a gesture of harmlessness and surrender. She looked like a sailor, dressed in oiled leather and squidskin. She had her hair tied up in several braids to keep the River winds from tying knots in it, and she carried a worn wooden lute case strapped to her back. Sunbaked wrinkles creased the skin around her eyes.

“Hello there,” said the stranger. “I go by Luce Strumgut, and that’s what you may call me. My barge is beached just a little ways upstream. I’m here to see if someone stranded and alive lit this here fire. Am I right in thinking that you’re both of those things?”

“I’m stranded,” said Kaile, “and I’d rather not be. But there’s some disagreement about whether or not I’m alive.”

Don’t tell her that! Shade whispered nearby, her voice small and fierce. She won’t take us away from here if you tell her that.

The stranger cocked her head sideways, clearly surprised. “You look living to me. Certainly compared to some. And I do mean to take you away from here, if you’re willing to go.”

Shade shrank away, putting distance between herself and the eavesdropping sailor. Kaile stared, astonished. “You heard her. I thought no one could hear her but me.”

The sailor nodded. “I heard something, certainly—but it might not be my business to know what it was I heard. It’s probably not my business to know what I might have just seen slink off into the fog and the trees. Whether or not you’re entirely alive is certainly no business of mine. But regardless, you’re welcome to follow me and climb aboard.”

She turned around and walked along the shore, boots crunching against pebbles.

Kaile shared a look with her shadow.

Pick up a burning stick, if you can. I need light to follow, and the lantern is still empty. I need at least a little bit of light.

“I don’t think she’ll let me bring open flame onto a barge,” said Kaile, but she took hold of a half-burned piece of driftwood anyway and used it as a torch. Then she gathered up her other few belongings in the satchel and hoisted it over one shoulder.

Maybe you should leave the flute here, Shade whispered. It’s from here. It washed up here. Maybe it’ll make more unquiet mischief if you bring it with us. Maybe it wants to be a part of that other thing, that horrible thing.

“It doesn’t,” said Kaile. “I’m sure that’s the very last thing that it wants.

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