Joe Golem and the Drowning City: An Illustrated Novel Read Online Free

sneering up at her, wondering what she was up to.
    The first book broke his nose. He sagged on the ladder, shouted in pain, and started dragging himself up faster, but he was still not smart enough to try to press himself closer to the iron rungs. The second book missed entirely, and a frantic tremor went through Molly. As the Rat reached for Felix’s leg, she dropped another pair of heavy books. They crashed into the side of the Rat’s face and he lost his footing, barely managing to hang on by one hand as his boots sought purchase.
    Molly groaned as she lugged the rest of the box over the railing and let it fall. It scraped Felix’s back, knocked him hard against the ladder, and then hit the Rat with terrible force, tearing his fingers off the rung and snapping his head back at a dreadful angle.
    He had gone into the water and never come back up.
    By the time the other Rats had come back, there were missionaries all over the fire escape, shining lights down at the black water. Molly did not trust them, not even when they insisted she and Felix spend the night at their mission with the lost children of the Drowning City. As much as Felix intrigued her, she had slipped out before dawn and returned to the scorched ruin of Ray’s Smokefish.
    It had taken Felix two days to track her down so that he could thank her. He needed an assistant, he said. Someone he could depend upon, who could help look after his home and play host to his clients.
    No one had ever needed her before.
    *   *   *
    “You’re not all right,” she told him.
    The bells rang again and once more Felix tried to get away with a wan smile, trying to slip past her and through the door that led to the stairs.
    “Felix!” Molly said sharply.
    He took a deep breath and all pretense fell away. From the moment she had first seen him, Molly had thought of Felix as an old man, but she had been twelve then. To her, anyone with white hair was old. Now, as he let out a long sigh, Felix appeared positively ancient.
    “I feel as if I’m fading away,” he said.
    Molly took his hand. Felix was the closest thing to family she had in the world, and she hated to see him ill. “You should cancel. I’ll make excuses for you, send them away.”
    Felix clucked his tongue. “You’ll do no such thing. I don’t have many clients left. If we want to continue to be able to afford groceries, I can hardly turn away the ones who still come to me.”
    Molly squeezed his fingers in hers. Her red hair had fallen across her eyes, but she didn’t let it distract her, focused entirely on him.
    “I’m supposed to be your assistant, remember? That means I’m responsible for you,” she said, a nervous pang in her chest. “You need rest.”
    “Tomorrow,” Felix said, his eyes soft and his smile, at last, genuine. “I’ll go out to Brooklyn, and then I’ll feel better. I always do.”
    “You promise?”
    “Do I have a choice?”
    Molly released his fingers and crossed her arms sternly. “No. You don’t.”
    “Voilà. There you have it. Brooklyn tomorrow. And today, we make a little magic. See what the spirits have to say.”
    Molly let out a breath, her mind somewhat eased. She nodded, satisfied for the moment, but still concerned for the old man.
    “Well, then, young lady,” Felix said, gesturing through the door to the stairs. “Lead on.”
    *   *   *
    Something had gone wrong.
    Molly stood watching the séance from a shadowed corner of the room, and she did not like the contortions of Felix’s face. He looked as though he had found himself stuck in a dream of sorrow and fear from which he could not wake. The Mendehlsons sat on either side of him, the three of them holding hands across the table, the points of an occult pyramid. Mrs. Mendehlson—Sarah—kept her eyes closed as Felix had instructed, features etched with hope and expectation. Felix had managed to make contact many times with the spirit of her son, David, who had been killed in the collapse