The Demon Curse Read Online Free

broken windows, along with the sound of someone playing the piano, slightly out of tune but incredibly fast. Billie led them out of the alley, across another street, and up to a low, broken-down wall. Harry looked over it and saw the huge brown river, stretching away into the distance.
    â€œThe Mississippi River.” Billie swung over the wall and trod down some steps onto a rickety wooden wharf. “C’mon. They’re always around here this time of day.”
    Harry followed her down the steps. He looked around at the vast, murky river, glittering in the sun. Its farside was thick with haze, but he saw buildings, docks, and factory towers there. Steam ferries, rowboats, and schooners plowed the waters, along with a vessel he didn’t recognize, a huge white one built out of clapperboards, with a circular paddle rotating behind. Harry heard voices—high-pitched, excited ones—and saw that Billie, who had stopped halfway along the wharf, was surrounded by small, ragged children, tugging her clothes and laughing.
    â€œBillie! It is you, isn’t it?”
    â€œYou came back!”
    â€œWhere have you been?”
    â€œWe always knew you’d come back one day!”
    The wharf creaked as the children leaped about. More ran in, some about five years old, some younger. Harry listened to their voices and realized that the children had almost exactly the same accent as Billie, the same bouncing drawl. He watched them as they left Billie and ran back along the jetty toward a cluster of moored fishing boats at its end. A group of men and women were lugging baskets of fish, and the children crowded around them, laughing and pointing back at Billie.
    â€œWho are these people?” Harry asked. “How come you’ve never told us about them?”
    â€œYou’ve told us pretty much everything else that’s happened to you,” Arthur added. “You and your stories of life on the road. Chefs in Chattanooga, blind tramps in Tennessee, sabotaged laundries in Atlantic City—”
    â€œSome stories aren’t so easy to tell.” Billie looked out across the river. “Doesn’t mean they don’t matter though. The Islanders, that’s who these folk are. Come and sell their fish in the markets every day. But that’s the bit of New Orleans they live in, always have done. Fisherman’s Point. Right out there.”
    She pointed across the river toward the haze on the other side. Harry made out an outcrop of land, surrounded by jetties and fishing skiffs, with a collection of huts on it. Smoke rose from the huts’ chimneys, darkening the haze, and Harry saw tiny shapes moving on the jetties. He heard something and glanced back at Billie. Her eyes, he noticed, seemed strangely bright.
    â€œThey took me in,” she said. “We’d just arrived in New Orleans, me and my ma…”
    â€œYour ma?” Harry frowned. “But I thought you were an orphan.”
    â€œI am.” Billie looked at him. “Things don’t always stay the way they’re meant to be, do they?”
    Harry felt a blush climbing up his neck and spreading over his face. He looked down at the rickety timbers tilting under his boots. Harry felt Billie take hold of his hand, and he looked up.
    â€œIt’s not your fault, Harry. I’ve never told you this stuff—can’t expect you to guess it, can I? And it happened a while ago—two years, more or less. I should be getting used to it by now.” She looked back across the river. “We were on the road, me and Ma. We’d been doing fine, like we always did. But then Ma got sick. Real sick. The Islanders, they took us in, and they did what they could to help her. Used some of their medicines and special prayers. It wasn’t enough but…” She managed a smile. “At least I wasn’t on my own. And I wasn’t on my own afterward either. They told me I could stay as long as I