Ghoulish Song (9781442427310) (17 page)

He waved. Kaile waved back.

“She's got a shadow,” the Snotfish pointed out. “She's got her shadow back.”

People began to steal sideways looks at Kaile, and the floor at her feet.

Luce opened her lute case and tuned up her instrument.

Bombasta cleared her throat with a scornful sound.

“This is Kaile's nameday,” the singer announced, and made it true by saying it aloud.

She sang. Luce played. The music had much the same shape and movement as a funerary song, but used here to say hello rather than good-bye.

Other voices started to pick up the song. Other patrons joined in. The four domini players sang with reedy voices. The Snotfish sang, loud and out of tune. Father stood in the kitchen doorway and sang.

Mother looked up from behind the counter. She looked at Kaile. She looked directly at Kaile with guarded hope. She let her own voice join the music—even though she almost never sang anything.

Everyone in the room gave voice to a song of hello and of welcoming home.

Kaile stood with her shadow and listened.

Thanks to my childhood music teachers, for their patience (I wasn't much of a musician). Thanks to Ivan, Nathan, Melon, and Jon, for their great love of song and karaoke. Thanks to my writing group, Symbolical Head, for their surgical workshopping skills; to Joe and Barry, for all their advice; and to Karen and Emily, for their editorial wisdom. Thanks to Zoe Keating, for the music I used as my writing soundtrack.

Also by William Alexander

Goblin Secrets

MARGARET K. McELDERRY BOOKS

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by William Alexander

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

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ARGARET
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C
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LDERRY
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ooks
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The text for this book is set in Adobe Caslon.

0213 FFG

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Alexander, William (William Joseph), 1976–

Ghoulish song / William Alexander. — 1st ed.

p. cm.

Summary: When the music of a bone flute given to her by a goblin separates Kaile's shadow from herself, her family believes she has died and become a ghoul, and Kaile must set out to prove that she still lives.

ISBN 978-1-4424-2729-7 — ISBN 978-1-4424-2731-0 (eBook)

[1. Fantasy. 2. Shadows—Fiction. 3. Music—Fiction. 4. Magic—Fiction. 5. Goblins—Fiction. 6. Death—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.A3787Gho 2013

[Fic]—dc23

2012009887