Free Ghoulish Song (9781442427310) by William Alexander Page A

driftwood very quickly. She hoped it would last the night, but she knew it might not. Night had only just begun.
    Something nearby made a knocking sound.
    Kaile and Shade looked at each other.
    â€œWhat was that?” Kaile asked.
    It came from the trees, Shade answered. It came from the base of the cliff. Night birds? Molekeys, maybe?
    The sound grew loud and pounding, like fists against a metal door.
    That’s the strongbox, Shade whispered. That’s Fidlam’s strongbox, with all his carved bones in it. He said they might make unquiet mischief in flood time. He said the River dead get restless when the River’s distracted by its own flooding. That’s what he said.
    â€œThis isn’t a flood,” Kaile insisted. “The whole Kneecap would be underwater if it was. We aren’t in the midst of a flooding.”
    Words tumbled quickly through Shade’s whispering voice. A flood might still be coming. It might be soon. And the bones that wash up here are all people who drowned—people who jumped off the bridge, or were pushed off the bridge, or even just fell off the bridge by accident. Those who die before their time are the most likely sorts of dead to be unquiet afterward. This whole strip of shore might be haunted by them.
    Kaile glared at the foggy dark around them. “This place is haunted by us .”
    She said it to Shade, and to any other thing that might be listening. She tried to make it true as she said it. She tried to make this place hers, this circle of firelight her own, haunted by herself and her shadow and by no one and nothing else. She tried very hard to make that true.
    All around them, from every direction, came a faint scraping sound. She saw movement by firelight, down among the pebbles.
    The bones moved. They rolled and jumbled over the Kneecap, toward the trees, toward the base of the cliff where something pounded loud against the inside of Fidlam’s strongbox.
    Kaile noticed that she was standing, though she didn’t actually remember getting to her feet. She noticed that Shade stood directly beside her rather than across the bonfire. She noticed the speed of her breath and her heartbeat, both of which insisted that she was not dead, that shewas not haunting anything, and that no part of this place belonged to her.
    Metal shrieked against metal as the strongbox burst open. The lid flew through the fog, over Kaile’s head, and skipped across the surface of the River like a flat stone.
    Shade screamed, a shadow scream unlike any sound Kaile had ever heard before.
    The scattered bones moved faster now. They gathered together into larger shapes that rushed and scuttled like crabs across the shore.
    Kaile stood with her eyes very wide open and her mouth pressed entirely shut.
    What should we do? Shade whispered, over and over again. What should we do?
    â€œKeep still,” said Kaile. “Keep close to the fire, and keep very still. Whatever this is, it might not have anything to do with us. They might not notice us. They aren’t moving in our direction, see?”
    They’re building on themselves, Shade whispered. They’re making larger things out of themselves. What should we do?
    Kaile tried to reach for her shadow’s hand, but she found nothing solid to hold on to. She held the flute with both hands instead, and felt it tremble. It did not tug. It did not struggle to free itself from her grip and join the other bones. If anything, it tried to press itself more firmly intoher grip. Kaile rubbed the flute with her thumb in what she hoped was a soothing sort of way.
    A figure came walking toward them through the fog.
    Kaile and Shade both moved around to the far side of the bonfire.
    The figure was man shaped. It clattered and clacked as it stepped into the firelight. Its body was made entirely out of bones, and clothed in a tattered mess of riverweed and sailcloth scraps. It stood larger and wider than any living person. Many