Ghoulish Song z-2

by William Alexander

  Rock-moving was dangerous. Many movers had replaced lost parts of themselves with gearworked fingers and toes. Their new bits were always makeshift and strangely shaped, pieced together out of salvage from old clocks or the rail station yard. Only the Guard Captain’s hands looked like the hands he used to have. Only the Guard used gearworked legs that would actually fit into boots.

  Snotfish was several sorts of idiot for wanting to join the Guard, and get his feet replaced when they didn’t need to be.

  The Guard Captain—whose gearwork eyes always ticked in a cold, constant circle—was not here yet. The Inspection hadn’t happened yet. It should have, by now. Goblins were coming to put on a show in the public room, and how had that ever seemed like a good idea?

  Kaile frowned as she finished her pastry. It had too much redseed spice in it, which overwhelmed all the other tastes that should have been there.

  She looked up and down the street for the Guard, or the goblin. She saw neither. The street was empty now, almost empty, which was a strange thing for this time of day.

  Father opened the door and called for Kaile. Inside she went, nervous about goblins, nervous about Mother, and very nervous about the Captain of the Guard.

  * * *

  Hungry patrons stood thick around the counter when the goblins returned, so Kaile didn’t notice them at first. Five goblins came carrying boxes and crates filled with instruments, costumes, and masks. They made a makeshift stage at the far end of the room without checking in with Kaile, without giving her a chance to say, Wait just a moment, the Inspection hasn’t happened yet, so this whole business is no longer a good idea, if it ever was a good idea. Then the juggling began, and it was too late to put a stop to it all.

  The Snotfish crept out from underneath the counter. He had clearly been crying. His face looked like it was full of the stuff of his nickname.

  “Those are goblins,” he said, amazed. “The bald one’s juggling.”

  “That’s right,” said Kaile. “Now please go away.”

  “Goblins steal you,” said the Snotfish, with reverence and awe. “They steal you and turn you into a ghoul, with icky gray skin and no hair and no shadow, so then they’ll have a whole army of ghouls and one day the Guard and the goblin ghoul army will fight and the Guard will have slings and crossbows built into one arm and swords built into the other arm that stick out like this when they move their hand like this”—he took an experimental swing; Kaile moved quickly, and rescued a pitcher of ale from her brother’s sword-arm—“and they’ll cut off seven ghoul-heads all at once, like this, and you’ll get your head cut off because you’ll be a ghoul, because they’ll get you, because you let them in here!”

  “Go away now, Snotfish.”

  He swung his imagined sword at her. “Ha!” he said, and ran under a table. That was fine. It was an empty table.

  The juggler tossed green scarves in the air. He juggled the scarves in a swirling pattern that made him look like a tree in a windstorm. Then he started swapping out the green leaves for yellow and red ones to make autumn leaves. Then all of the scarves vanished, and he started to juggle metal bugs. The bugs flew buzzing in different directions, and they seemed reluctant to be juggled—one in particular kept trying to fly away from his grasp.

  Patrons cheered—some for the juggler, and some for the bug—but Kaile couldn’t pay too much attention. Too many people around her wanted ale and bread and meat pastries and sweet pastries. She brought them what they asked for. She glanced at the juggler every now and then to make sure he didn’t knock over a lamp. She glanced at the front door, looking for the Guard Captain. She glanced at the kitchen door, looking for Mother. The afternoon was quickly passing by, and the Inspection had not happened yet.

  A new sound startled her. The old goblin with the big black hat had begun to play a bandore. Kaile paused. She listened. She couldn’t help it.

  At first the notes sounded like laughter, like a quick series of rippling jokes. But under and around all that joke and tease was a slower, stronger current of music so overwhelmingly sad that Kaile almost left the room to get away from that bottomless feeling. It reminded her of Grandfather.

  Kaile remembered how Grandfather would always play a tune in the morning before taking his bandore to his customary spot on the Fiddleway Bridge—a great big thing that spanned the ravine between the northern and southern halves of Zombay. Many houses and shops stood on that bridge, and the Clock Tower of Zombay stood over all the rest.

  I’m off to hold the bridge together, he would say when he left. It’ll tumble down into the River without me.

  Kaile had believed him when he said that. She still believed him, a little, even though he had died several months ago. Even though his bandore had been buried with him. Even though the bridge was still standing without him. She supposed that there were other musicians and singers still on the Fiddleway, binding it together in Grandfather’s absence. But she couldn’t imagine that they managed it near so well as he had.

  The music shifted, and a dancer stepped onstage. Kaile tried to watch the dance, but she was at the back of the crowd and behind the bakery counter, so she only caught glimpses of it. Each time her view cleared, another dancer seemed to have taken the stage, with a new gown, a new festival mask, and a new style of moving.

  Some other goblin began to chant the story of The Seven Dancers, but Kaile didn’t listen to the chant, only to the song, and she caught every note. The laughing and somber strains of music continued to weave around each other, but now the wildly skipping notes faded into the background. They must be getting to the sad part of the story. The Seven Dancers was one of the sad ones.

  Whenever Grandfather came home from the bridge, he would sing songs that told stories about the bridge, and sometimes they would be sad stories—but even if they were, he would still sing them in a way that made Kaile and the Snotfish laugh. He sang about ghouls who haunted the Clock Tower, and about pirates who lived on the piers, and about the heartbroken girl who fell down from the Fiddleway and turned into a swan.

  Sometimes Kaile accompanied Grandfather’s playing with her own tin whistle, the one he had given her as a nameday present and taught her how to play. It was the one she had given to the Snotfish after Grandfather died, because she didn’t want to play it anymore—the one that now sat at the bottom of a bucket as a ruined lump of slag.

  Music ties knots, and unties them, he had told Kaile. Think about a lullaby, one that ties up the world to make it a safe place for sleeping. It doesn’t just convince the child—it convinces the world. Think about a funeral song. It can untie the string we use to hold our grief and let it all spill out. The same song, the very same song, can tie us back together again after we’ve spilled out.

  Kaile had listened. Later, at Grandfather’s own funeral, she learned that this was perfectly true. But at the time she had laughed when Snotfish went on about the Guard fighting off armies of ghouls, and how ghoul-guts would spill everywhere. Grandfather had responded by strumming up a lively, ghoul-gut-spilling sort of song.

  * * *

  Kaile shook her head to shake all those memories out of her thoughts and out of her ears. She glanced around the public room to see who needed their cups filled or their plates taken away. No one did. Everyone was listening. Everyone watched the dancing on the makeshift stage. Everyone clapped when it was over, and some threw coins. The juggler came out again, and he managed to catch the coins while still juggling other things.

  Kaile clapped longer than anyone else, but she stopped when Mother came in through the kitchen door.

  Mother stared at the stage for one long moment without blinking. Her mouth pressed together until it almost disappeared.

  “Kaile,” she said, “please join me in the kitchen.”

  Kaile joined Mother in the kitchen. It still smelled a little like tin. Father was there, holding water buckets.

  “There are goblins on my table,” Mother said.

  “Yes,” said Kail
e. “I was—”

  “There are singing, dancing goblins on top of my table.”

  Kaile tried again. “They asked if—”

  “On Inspection Day,” Mother went on. “There are goblins singing and dancing on my table, on Inspection Day.”

  “Yes,” Kaile said again, trying to sound reasonable. “We don’t have to pay them anything. Except for some supper. They just take tips from the crowd.”

  Mother turned to Father. “Throw them out, please,” she said.

  “No!” Kaile felt the skin of her face burning. This wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair.

  Mother looked at her. Father looked at her and shook his head, warning Kaile not to face the floodwaters of her mother’s will. Kaile knew this already. She knew better than to argue head-on with Mother. But she didn’t have time, and she had made a promise, and the goblin with the big hat played bandore like Grandfather used to play.

  She stood directly in front of the flood. “They aren’t doing any harm.”

  Mother’s voice became calmer, and quieter. “The Guard Captain is coming,” she said. “My oven gets broken whenever performers and the Guard are both in my alehouse at the same time.”

  “The goblins promised they wouldn’t hurt the—” Kaile started to say.

  “And these actors are Changed,” her mother said, as though Kaile had not said anything. “They might take you away. They might take your brother away.”

  Kaile, her mother, and her father all paused to think about whether or not losing the Snotfish would be a bad thing—but none of them joked about it.

  “Please don’t throw them out,” Kaile said. Grandfather’s music is here now, even if he isn’t. “Please.”

  “Throw them out,” Mother said. “They must be gone before the Guard Captain comes.” She said it to Father, but she said it while looking down at Kaile.

  Kaile tried desperately to think of something more to say, something that could change Mother’s mind. She couldn’t think of anything at all.

  Fourth Verse

  FATHER BROKE UP THE play. The goblin with the big black hat looked more affronted at the interruption, midsong, than he did at the news that the show was now over.

  Kaile stood seething in the kitchen doorway and silently agreed with the goblin. His unplayed notes seemed to hang in the air, or just on the other side of the air, frustrated and unfinished.

  She listened to the goblin’s sputtering outrage. She watched his companions hastily stuff their musical instruments, masks, and curtains into boxes, and carry those boxes outside. She didn’t say anything. The patrons of the public room looked on as though this were just another part of the show.

  Kaile went back inside the kitchen and let the door shut behind her.

  Mother was there. She looked at Kaile and also said nothing. Kaile did not look at her. She refused to look at her. The show was over. The music was gone. The strum of bandore strings had sounded so much like Grandfather’s own playing, and now it was gone.

  Outside the kitchen window the old goblin began to curse.

  “I will write you into our next play!” he roared. “I will sculpt your face into grotesque caricatures and paste them onto small, ugly puppets!” Kaile went to the window and peeked out. The goblin stood on the roof of their wagon and raged. “I’ll pen your name into immortal verse, and for a thousand years it will be synonymous with ridicule and scorn!”

  Kaile heard the door to the public room open and close again. She was alone in the kitchen when she turned to look. A basket containing the very best bread loaves—the ones meant for the Captain to weigh in his hands—sat on the table near the door.

  “I will curse this place!” the goblin roared outside. “Your ale will turn! Your bread will be maggot-ridden! I will visit humiliations upon you in verse!”

  Those were the sorts of curses that might stick. The goblin had promised Kaile only that he wouldn’t hurt their oven, so there were all sorts of other aspects of the household that he could still curse without breaking his promise. Kaile made a decision. She told herself that it was a very practical decision as she made it.

  She took the basket of bread, the very best bread, and went out into the yard.

  It was raining. She hadn’t realized that it was raining. She closed the basket lid and walked through the rain, which dampened down the usual dust-smells of Southside.

  “May the River take you!” the goblin went on. “May the floods take your household and drown your bones! I will have our artificer build a pair of gearwork ravens, and they will croak your vile name outside your bedroom window, every night, at irregular intervals. You will never sleep again!” He paused. “Does anyone remember his name?”

  Kaile did not want the goblins to curse her father’s name. She did not even want them to curse her mother’s name.

  “Cob,” she said, lying outright. “My father’s name is Cob.” All of this was the Snotfish’s fault anyway. Probably. Sort of. Kaile still felt entirely awful as soon as the name was out of her mouth. Now goblin curses might come raining down on her brother to make him sick, or else lure him away to be eaten, or enslaved, or some other miserable thing.

  The goblin climbed down from his wagon. Rainwater poured from the brim of his hat like a waterfall. “Cob,” he said. “That is an easy syllable for a gearworked raven to remember and croak at him. What brings you out in the rain, Cob’s daughter?”

  “I’m just sorry he tossed you out,” Kaile said, as cautiously polite as she knew how to be. “You should have some payment for the show, so I brought you some bread. It’s fresh. It doesn’t have maggots in it, not unless your curses work very fast.” She gave him the basket, and all of the bread intended for the Captain of the Guard.

  The goblin nodded. “I withdraw my curses on your household.” He sang a tune to make it true. “I may yet carve a grotesque mask in your father’s likeness, but I withdraw each curse. May the flood pass your doorstep and leave dry your boots.”

  “Thank you,” she said, relieved that she hadn’t brought any terrible curses down on the Snotfish. Then she paused, because she wanted to tell him about Grandfather and his music and how much it meant to her to hear echoes of his playing again. But she didn’t know how to say that, exactly, or where to begin, so all she said was this: “The dancers were all perfect. Please tell them.”

  “I will,” said the goblin. “But to whom should I attribute this critique? I have not yet caught your name, young lady.”

  It occurred to her that it might not be the best idea for a child to give her name to a strange goblin—there was no telling what he might do with it. But she decided that she didn’t much care, and gave him the name her mother had given to her. Now he might work her name into a charm or a curse, but she didn’t think that he would.

  “I’m Kaile,” she said.

  The goblin bowed with another flourish of his hat. “Thank you, Kaile, for the tribute of your compliments and the bounty of your family’s bakery.” He reached into the hat and pulled forth the carved flute. “This token is yours, I think.”

  Kaile took the flute. It was a grayish yellow, and very light, and very smooth. She was about to say thank you, but then she heard shouting and hurried back inside.

  Father stood in the kitchen doorway. He looked angry, and frightened, and even more angry because of how much he hated to be frightened.

  “Your room,” he said. “Now. Before your mother sees you. Best stay up there and out of the way.”

  Kaile went slowly up the stairs.

  I’ve just given away the best bread in the house, she thought, and then she went more quickly up the stairs.

  * * *

  Kaile spent a long time thinking and pacing the length of her room. Outside her window the light began to fade. It was suppertime, but no one called her down to supper, and she stayed right where she was. Her stomach growled. She ignored it. She felt angry at her stomach for growling, and angry that she had helped make the day’s food but hadn’t eaten
very much of it. And she was angry at Mother. She tried to think of all the reasons she could have for being angry at Mother, and she came up with so many that she made up a song to remember them all.

  “Never says thanks, never combs her hair,

  Never sings, never listens, and she doesn’t really care

  About anything other than a well-baked loaf,

  And the oaf

  Runs this place like a mean pirate skipper,

  And she didn’t even notice when I sorted all the flour. ...”

  She stopped. “Flour” and “skipper” didn’t rhyme, not unless she twisted the word “flour” while she sang it. Kaile tried to think of other rhymes for “skipper.” Then she gave up and examined her new flute, the goblin’s gift. It had been carved simply and precisely from a single piece of bone. It was about the same size as the tin whistle that used to be hers, and used to be a whistle. The flute had no ornament, no swirly patterns worked into the side, no metal foil stamped on the surface. There was nothing fancy about the thing. It was just a bone with several holes—one for breath to go in, another for music to come out, and several for fingertips to shape the sound in between.

  The Snotfish came into her room without knocking or asking her permission. Kaile hid the flute in a dresser drawer, but she didn’t ask him to leave. She still felt guilty about redirecting the goblin’s curses.

  “What’s that?” the Snotfish asked. He stood in one place, in the middle of the floor, shifting his weight around weirdly as though he didn’t know how to stand in one place. Both his hair and his clothes looked embarrassed to be on him.

  Kaile didn’t answer, and she made it clear that she wasn’t going to.

  Little Cob Snotfish looked at the floor. He picked up one foot, held it with one hand, and put it down again. “Everyone’s mad,” he said.

  Kaile nodded. She tried to smile in a reassuring sort of way. She didn’t quite manage the smile. I gave away the best bread in the house, she thought, and tried not to think.