William Alexander - Ghoulish Song

“You can set up your stage on the long table at the end of the room,” she said. She was in charge of the public room, at that moment at least, so it was her decision to make. “But not until the afternoon.” The Guard Captain usually came to conduct his Inspection in the morning, and Father always took his shift during the midday crowd. Both should be over and done with by the afternoon. “Make sure it’s me standing here at the counter when you come back, before you get started.”

The old goblin winked. He seemed a trustworthy conspirator. “We will.”

“And promise me you won’t cause a ruckus and break the oven.”

“The oven will suffer no damage from us,” the goblin said—and more than said. He almost sang the words to make them more than just a promise, to change the shape of the world around them. Then he left.

Kaile heard domini tiles clack against each other. The day seemed ordinary again. She went back into the kitchen.

“Is the Captain here?” Mother asked. “The very best bread is in that basket, there by the door. That’s the stuff to give him, if he’s here.”

“He isn’t,” Kaile told her, “but I’m running out of pastries. And I think it’s Father’s turn at the counter.”

Mother grunted, handed over a tray of pastries, and disappeared behind the curve of the oven.

KAILE TOOK HER MIDDAY break outside, by the road, sitting on a broken piece of wall. She munched a pastry and watched people go by. She knew most of them, and most of them knew her. There was Old Jibb, who lost a leg to a dropped stone and had it replaced with one long, coiled spring. There was Brunip, who always walked with weights strapped to his left arm to balance out the mighty weight of his right arm, which was iron and bulky. Brunip took care of his arm, and scrubbed each individual piece every morning to keep the rust out. It glinted, shiny, when he lifted it to wave. Kaile waved back.

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.