Ghoulish Song

Twelfth Verse

THE THIRD FLOOR OF the Beglicane estate was a single music hall. Curved walls and arches captured sound and held it humming. Instruments rested on stands and shelves, carefully stored at the far end of the room.

In the very center of the music hall stood a dais, and on that platform stood the Master of Music and the Fiddleway Revels.

He was small, very small, and entirely hairless. He wore a fine coat, well tailored. His head seemed large for his body, and his eyes very large for his face. Kaile thought that he looked like an infant—but one with long ears that came to sharp little points.

He’s an imp, she realized—someone Changed as an infant child. He might be many years or centuries older than she was.

Nibbledy the imp looked adorable. He looked like the Snotfish had looked, when the Snotfish was still a sweet little boy (before he became the Snotfish). Kaile tried not to grin. She tried to be respectful and respectable in the way she stood, and stared, and almost grinned.

Three other musicians stood behind Master Nibbledy. Two of them held fiddles—a smiling woman with wild gray hair, and a younger man with wide shoulders, a thick neck, and very large hands. Kaile recognized them both. The two of them had played at Grandfather’s funeral.

The third musician was the youngest of the three—though clearly much older than Kaile. She held no instrument, and looked like a singer. She also looked sour. Her mouth puckered to a small, unpleasant point.

“The fiddlers are Murt and the Lady,” Luce explained in a whisper. “They duel every day for the role of First Fiddler, but so far neither has won it. The Lady is a descendant of House Beglicane, so this house technically belongs to her. And the singer’s name is Bombasta. Those three will stand witness. Cymbat won’t come upstairs at the moment, so we’ll just leave him be.”

The imp seemed to ignore everyone. He focused his absolute attention on the floor in front of him, as though that spot of floor was the only thing that mattered or could ever matter.

He’s listening, Kaile realized. She wasn’t sure what he was listening to, exactly. She strained her own ears, trying to hear what he heard.

Luce cleared her throat. “Master of Music and the Fiddleway Revels, I present Kaile, granddaughter to Korinth, who hopes to audition for Korinth’s place on the Fiddleway Bridge. I will stand as sponsor.”

The Master looked up. He focused his full attention on Kaile with wide and solemn eyes. He nodded.

Kaile no longer felt the urge to grin.

“Instrument?” the Master asked. His voice had a very high register, but it was solemn all the same.

Kaile held up her flute.

The Master held out his own hand. Kaile approached and reluctantly handed over her flute.

Master Nibbledy squinted. He put the instrument to one eye like it was a thin telescope. Then he held it up to one ear and tapped it with a fingernail.

“Made out of bone,” Murt the fiddler pointed out. “You’d get a cleaner sound from metal, and a warmer sound from wood. No reason to use bone when there are better-sounding options.”

“The very oldest instruments in the world are carved from bone,” said the Lady. “They might remember much.”

“Maybe the urchin stole that flute from the Reliquary,” said Bombasta the singer. Her voice affected a Northside accent, and each of her words shot out like a poke in the eye.

“I did not!” Kaile protested, too loudly. Everyone winced. “I didn’t,” she said, much more quietly.

The Master returned her flute. His face held no expression that Kaile knew how to read.

Luce came to stand beside the Master. Kaile noticed that their shadows overlapped as though huddling and whispering together.

The sailor spoke, almost chanting, almost singing. “From this hall and this house a musician can hear the Fiddleway Bridge. She can hear it in those who cross. She can hear it in those who live and move in the houses and shops. She can hear it in the tocks and ticks of the Clock Tower. She can hear it as the bridge sways in wind and water. She can hear it in the hum and whispers of shadows. Heed your shadow.”

Luce paused to glance at Kaile’s feet. Kaile swallowed. She looked over her shoulder to look for Shade, but Shade was not anywhere in the room.

“A musician of the Fiddleway can hear and match the rhythms of the bridge,” Luce went on. “In times of flood, every musician will gather and play for the bridge. In times of smoke and blood, every musician will stand in the midst of battle and play for the bridge. In times of earthquake, every musician will remain here to hold the bridge together. All of this will be asked of you.”

The Master looked at Kaile with his wide eyes, waiting. The fiddlers looked at her with hopeful faces. The singer looked scornful, though she also looked as though that expression might be permanent.

Kaile swallowed against a dry, dusty feeling in her throat. She nodded.

“Listen,” said the Master. Kaile listened. She tried to hear the rhythm of the bridge.

“It’s late,” she quietly complained. “No one’s crossing the bridge. There isn’t much to hear.”

“There is,” Luce whispered. “There always is. Match your tune to the bridge, and the city around it, and the River below. Keep them together. Keep them in the same song.”

The Master held up one hand for silence. Then he turned and pointed to the Lady. She took up her fiddle and she played. Notes flew from her like weapons, like knives and darts, like the bared teeth of hunting jites—even though the Lady seemed to Kaile like a kind and squishy sort of person.

Master Nibbledy pointed to Murt. The other fiddler began to play. His fingers were thick. They looked as precise as heavy wooden clubs. But those thick fingers played like raindrops, or like dance steps at a wedding. The dancing notes were also weapons, and the two fiddlers dueled each other. Their duel filled the music hall. Kaile’s ears almost caught how they also matched the echoing rhythm of the Fiddleway Bridge.

The Master waved his hand as though wiping a windowpane clean. The duel ended in a draw. All of their duels ended in a draw, apparently.

The Master of Music and the Fiddleway Revels pointed at Kaile.

She took a breath, and then another one. She felt entirely alone, and as anxiously eager as Mother always seemed to feel on Inspection Day. She tried not to think about Inspection Day, or Mother.

Kaile took up her flute. At first she tried to play one of Grandfather’s favorite tunes, because she was auditioning for the right to play in Grandfather’s place. But the flute resisted. It pushed each note sideways and into the only music it was ever willing to play—the same song she had played while stranded on the Kneecap, the same song that had severed her shadow from herself. She played it a third time, but this time she felt clumsy. This time the notes stumbled one after the other, unable to line up or coalesce. Kaile thought she could hear the low creak and thrumming of the bridge, but she couldn’t quite play alongside it.

The song came to an end. Kaile lowered her flute.

There was silence. In that silence the Master shook his head. His wide and solemn eyes narrowed. The Snotfish used to put on a similar look right before he pitched a raging fit. Kaile wondered how old the Master really was, and how many years of impish experience he had had to sharpen his own raging fits. Kaile winced and braced herself.

Master Nibbledy turned and left the room. Each footstep struck the floor as though trying to drive holes into it. Then he was gone.

Kaile stood in a small puddle of silence and disappointment.

Bombasta sighed. “In the old days we threw failed musicians into the River, to keep their discord from spreading and shaking the whole bridge down.”

“Hush up,” said the Lady. “I don’t think that is really true.” She gave Kaile a look that was probably meant to be kind and consoling, but it looked more like pity to Kaile.

“Her shadow isn’t with her,” said Murt. “I can hear some potential, and we do need more musicians, but she won’t be any help to the bridge if she can’t hear it properly.”

Luce took Kaile’s hand and led her away. “Come with me,” she said. “Let’s find you a room for the night. This place has plenty of them.”

“Only musicians are welcome here,” Bombasta pointed out with prickly words. “She failed her audition. She shouldn’t be welcome.”

Luce glared at the singer. “It’s late,” she said. “The girl gets a bed. She’s welcome here tonight, and so is her shadow—wherever the thing wandered off to.”

She led Kaile to a small room with a stuffed mattress, a lamp on the wall, a washbasin, and a chamber pot tucked under the basin.

“Here you go,” said the sailor, her voice uncharacteristically soft. “I’ll bring you a bite to eat in the morning.”

“Thank you,” said Kaile. She felt dazed, disappointed, and tired deep down in the marrow of every bone. She couldn’t hear the bridge, or hold it together. She would not play in Grandfather’s place.

Luce stood still and thoughtful, without leaving. “That song you played. Did Korinth teach it to you?”

“No,” said Kaile. Her voice sounded dull and flat in her own ears. “No one taught it to me. But the flute refuses to play any other song.”

“Oh?” the sailor asked, interested. “And where did this stubborn flute come from?”

“The Kneecap,” said Kaile. “I got it from a goblin, and he got it from a bone carver, but the carver first picked it up from the Kneecap.”

“A drowned bone, then,” Luce observed. “A drowned bone, unquiet in flood time. And it will only play the one song—a very important song. Every Fiddleway musician knows that song. It’s the one we play to hold the bridge against a flood. That’s why it was so important to find you, with floodwaters currently thundering down from the mountains. Not just because every bridge musician and their shadow heard you play, but because you played that song. It binds together the stones of this bridge. And it can shake things apart just as well, just as it shook your shadow from you. That’s why we’re so careful about auditioning.”

“Oh,” said Kaile. She sat down on the edge of the mattress. “I’m sorry I didn’t pass. You spent all that effort finding me, but nothing much came of it.”

The sailor shook her head. “I’m certainly not sorry about spending the effort. Worth it just to get you off the Kneecap. But all of this still needs figuring out. A drowned bone strives to teach you the flood song just before the River pitches its own raging fit. That’s important. That’s not the sort of thing we should ignore. The bone must have belonged to a Fiddleway musician—it wouldn’t know that tune otherwise.”

Kaile held the flute and felt the stops with her fingers.

You might also try to discover whose bone that once was, the goblin had said.

“How can I find out more about its history?” she asked Luce.

“We should go to the Reliquary and pester a Reliquarian for answers,” Luce told her. “They know all there is to know about bones, and they might help you puzzle with this one. I can show you the way to the Reliquary in the morning. I’ll do that, unless I’m very badly needed here.”

“Thanks,” said Kaile, her voice soft and tired. It seemed like the thing to say, but she didn’t feel especially hopeful. She wasn’t welcome on the bridge after all. They only let her sleep here because Luce insisted, and they would only let her sleep here tonight.

“Good night,” said the sailor. She closed the door behind her, but it didn’t latch properly. The door slowly creaked open again after the sailor had gone.

Kaile remained where she was on the edge of the mattress. She didn’t stand up. She didn’t close the door. Shouldn’t ever close the door on a haunting, she thought.

She would not become a bridge musician. She would not inherit Grandfather’s place. She would have no musical conversations with him, playing where he used to play.

She felt as though her very last tie to family and home had been cut. She felt as though she did not touch the world, and was not a part of the world. She felt as empty as her lantern. She felt like she was hiding inside her own bare skeleton. She felt like a dead thing.

Shade crept in through the open door, and came to sit beside her.

You didn’t pass, did you? Shade whispered. I’m sorry. I should have been there. I shouldn’t have left you alone.

“I told you to go away,” Kaile pointed out.

I shouldn’t have listened.

“You can’t help listening,” Kaile reminded her shadow. “You’re always listening.”

I’m sorry, Shade whispered. I’m still sorry.

Kaile took in a breath, just to prove that she could, and then stood up. “Stay near the hallway light.” She extinguished the wall lamp, removed the oil reservoir, and poured it into her own lantern. Then she lit the wick, wound up the lantern base, and set it on the floor. Shadow puppets in animal shapes moved on the walls all around them.

“There,” Kaile said, and closed the door. “That should burn until morning.”

Thank you, said Shade.

Kaile climbed into bed, kicked off her boots, and curled up under blankets. Shade darkened the other side of the mattress.

Kaile wanted to sleep. She tried to sleep. She couldn’t sleep.

“What would happen to you if the lantern went out?” she asked.

I don’t know, Shade whispered. Before, the dark always felt like drowning and sinking and losing the whole shape of myself. I hear that other shadows can swim through it, and visit each other, but I don’t know if that’s true. I never got the knack of swimming. I only sank, and waited for the light to come back so I could have shape again. Now that we aren’t tethered to each other anymore, I might just keep sinking forever. And there are other things that move through the dark, like flickerbloods and brighteaters. There are huge, slow-moving things that swallowed their own names a very long time ago.

A joke and a tease hid in the shadow’s voice.

“What’s a brighteater?” Kaile asked.

They eat reflected light, said Shade. With sharp little teeth. Be careful wearing gemstone rings after nightfall, or you might lose a finger.

“Right,” said Kaile. “I’ll try to remember that the next time I wear jewels. Are you making all of this up?”

Maybe, said Shade.

“Are you trying to cheer me up, or scare me?”

Maybe both, said Shade. Or else maybe these are deep, dark secrets that we shadows almost never let the bodied people know.

Kaile laughed. She couldn’t help it. Then she yawned. “Go to sleep,” she said.

She tried to do the same, but she asked more questions instead of sleeping. “Why do you think the flute will only play that one song? And why did that ghoulish thing on the Kneecap use the same song to hold itself together?”

Shade didn’t answer. She snored a whispering sort of snore.

Kaile rolled over and struggled with her own exhaustion.

You can hold anything together with the proper tune, Luce had said, or you can tear it apart.