The Nixie’s Song (7 page)

“It’sfollowingit’sfollowingit’sfollowing,”
Laurie said, her voice high and urgent.

Branches snapped, something thudded, and the ground shook.
The bike wobbled and turned on its side.
They both fell.
Nick’s knees burned and his head was ringing as he pulled himself back on his feet.
Laurie was already up, her skirt torn and her cheek smeared with dirt.
Blood stained her lip, and the chain around her neck had snapped.

The giant loomed above them, bellowing.
Sand and dirt rained from its maw.

Nick lifted the bike as one of the giant’s feet slammed down beside him.
Something wasn’t quite right with the front tire, but he didn’t have time to do anything but hope as he hopped onto it.
Laurie got on behind him.
He pedaled hard, wishing that he’d ridden his
bike more, that he was more athletic, that his legs would move faster.
If Julian had been there, he would have biked so fast the giant would never have caught them, but Nick was slow and they were going to be crushed because of it.

Nick ignored his ragged breathing, ignored the pain in his muscles, ignored the sounds of smashing and crashing behind them and the dust pluming around them.
Sweat rolled down his forehead and stung his eyes.
He concentrated on pumping his legs.

“Right behind us,” Laurie squeaked.

Nick jerked the handlebars hard to the left, like he’d seen people in car chases on TV do, but instead of veering onto another path, he hit an embankment.
The bike jumped into the air.
He gritted his teeth and tried to hold it steady.
This time they didn’t tip when they hit dirt.
Nick just
kept pedaling, faster and faster, as they sped through the woods.

“How about now?” he asked, grinning.
He couldn’t believe how good that had felt.
He wanted to cheer.

“He’s looking for us,” Laurie whispered.
“Stop the bike!
We have to hide.”

Nick hit the brakes.
Laurie’s head banged into the back of his.

“Ow!” she said.

“Shhhh.” They stumbled off the bike, dropping it onto the grass.
One wheel still spun.
Nick got down on his hands and knees, crawling toward a large palmetto bush.

They were close enough to the development that they could probably make it on foot from this point.
He looked back, trying to see the giant through the dense foliage.
It seemed like the giant was rooting around in the dirt.
Then,
lifting a miniscule wriggling thing in between two massive fingers, it dropped the thing into its mouth.

“What’s it doing?” Nick whispered.
“Eating a lizard?”

Laurie had taken off her glasses.
It was only then that he noticed the bridge had cracked and her glasses were now in two separate pieces.
“It’s not supposed to be like this,” she said numbly.

“Like what?”

The massive creature opened its mouth and breathed hard, like it expected something to happen.
It breathed again.

“Laurie!
Concentrate.
What’s it doing?”

She squinted.
“In the Guide, giants—that’s got to be a giant—um, I think they eat lizards.” She stopped.
“Oh.”

“What?”

“They eat
salamanders
to breath fire.” Laurie lifted one dirty finger to push back her glasses automatically, but there were no more glasses, so she just smeared the ridge of her nose with grime.

It dropped the thing into its mouth.

Nick felt suddenly light-headed, as though all the insanity hit him at once and it was too much for his brain to comprehend.
“Why would salamanders make it breathe fire?
And if they do, why isn’t it working?”

“Not all salamanders are faeries.
The Guide thinks the magic ones might be baby dragons or something.
I guess the giant can’t tell the difference.”

“We better get out of here before he finds the right one.
Just stay low to the ground.
We’ll have to crawl.”

Laurie put her hand on his arm.
“Wait.
Look.”

The giant had stopped.
With a sigh, he turned
and started to pick his way back through the trees.
Nick let out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding.
Laurie sagged to the ground.

In the distance, Nick heard the faint sound of music.
In a man-made lake in Mangrove Hollow, the nixie was singing her creepy, melodic song.

The giant swung around, cocking his head.
Then, lurching forward and knocking aside trees, he crashed toward the development.

Listening as if transfixed

Nicholas and Laurie didn’t speak as they ran home, saving every bit of energy for going faster.
In all that time, Nick had pictured so many horrible possibilities that he was stunned to find the giant sitting beside the lake, picking at the dirt and listening to the nixie’s song as if transfixed.
Its features were relaxed, its black eyes fixed on Taloa with calm adoration.

“He’s not doing anything,” Nick whispered.
Laurie smoothed back her ragged hair.
Her
skirt was so torn that part of it followed her on the ground like the train on a wedding dress.
“Maybe if you don’t step on him again he won’t go crazy.”

“He looked like a hill!” Nick said.
“If it wasn’t for me—” He broke off as Taloa scrambled onto the bank.
The giant’s large eyes followed her every move.

“La-lo-le,”
she sang, between notes of the other tune.
She bared her teeth.
“You led him here, lo-le.”

“He heard you singing!” said Nick.
“This is your fault, not mine!”

She brought her face close enough that he could smell the pond mud on her skin.
The long, drooping weeds of her hair stuck to her neck.
“Lo-le, where are my sisters, Nicholas?”

The giant swung its massive head in their direction, grunting.
The ground shook as it rose.

“Sing, Taloa!” Laurie said.
“I don’t think it likes it when you stop singing!”

“We grew tired,”
said Taloa, and although she sang the words, they didn’t seem to calm the giant.
It wasn’t the right tune.
The massive nostrils flared.
“Our throats were hoarse lo-le-lo.
That’s when he began lo-le to blow fire.”

“Taloa, please,” Nick said.
“Please sing.”

“Where are my sisters, Nicho-le-lo-las?”

“Burned,” he said, not meaning for it to sound so blunt and sad.
He didn’t know how to cushion it better, didn’t have time to think with the giant looming over them.

Taloa shuffled back, crouching, the webbing of her fingers pulled tight between spread fingers.
A low sound came from the back of her throat.

“Only three of them,” Laurie said.
“We don’t know where the others are.
They might be fine!”

“She’s right.
There were only three bodies.
You have to sing!
We saved you, remember?
We even looked for your sisters .
.
.” Nick tried to keep his voice level but couldn’t.
The shadow of the giant fell over them as it stepped one foot into the pond.
Waves splashed along the shore.

“I repaid my lo-le-la debt when I gave la-le-la you
the Sight.
But le-lo, I will sing if you will repay lo-le me by finding all my le-la sisters.”

“Of course we will,” Nick said, looking at the giant.
“We will.
We promise!”

She did sing, then, the haunting music spilling out of her throat, her head thrown back.
The giant settled down again, trailing its fingers in the water.
It blinked sleepily, burrowing down a little in the mud.

Nick let out all his breath in a rush.

“I have an idea,” said Laurie, pulling on Nick’s sleeve.
“Back at the house.”

“Be lo-lee-le swift.
I don’t know how long I can keep singing.
My voice will tire.”

“Just try, Taloa,” Nick said, looking into her golden eyes for any sign that she would.
But all he saw was his own face reflected in the liquid depths.

Laurie led him to the house, through the
garage, inside and up the stairs.
Nick expected Laurie to pick up one of the books off her shelves, but she went to the computer instead.

“The signing I was telling you about.
With the people who made the field guide.” She clicked through the pages until she found what she was looking for.
“See?
Tomorrow night they have a signing at Robot Books.
We can ask them what to do.”

He looked at her incredulously.
“We’re going to just leave that thing out there?
For a whole day?
What if Taloa can’t keep singing?”

“Well, the Spiderwick people are on tour, right?
Maybe there’s another event tonight.” She scrolled up.
“Orlando.
It’s not
that
far.
Do you think your dad would drive us?”

Nick shook his head.
There was no way.
“What about your mom?”

Laurie shook her head.
“She’d tell me that
I have to be patient, since I already told her about the Robot’s signing a million times.
Also, she’ll be mad I broke my glasses.”

“Give them to me,” Nick said.

She handed over the pieces, and Nick took them to Jules’s room.

Laurie followed him.
He grabbed a tube of glue and carefully squeezed a dollop onto the broken plastic.
Then he put the two pieces into jeweler’s clamps and pressed them together.
“It should hold for a while.
It’s probably better than tape.”

“Thanks,” she said, although she didn’t sound
that thankful.
The tone of her voice was odd.
Then he placed it: She sounded defeated.

Nick bit the inside of his lip, considering.
“Maybe you should tell your mom the truth.
If you think she’d believe you.
We still have the clover, right?”

Her neck was bare.

Laurie scrabbled at her chest for the locket, but it was gone.
“I lost it!
I lost the picture
of my father and I don’t have another one.”

Nick didn’t understand the big deal.
Her father wasn’t dead; couldn’t she just get another photo?
But all he knew about Laurie’s father was that he had a motorcycle.

Laurie shook her head.
“You were right before.
Mom would just tell me that I had a good imagination.
She’d think it was cute.”

Nick couldn’t even imagine what his own father would say.

Laurie took an unsteady breath.
“I didn’t think it would be like this.
I mean, I read the field guide.
I knew there were monsters.
I just didn’t think we’d find any.
I thought we’d see sprites or something pretty.” She paused.
“I guess I didn’t think we’d see anything at all.”

“But you said that all that stuff was real.”

“I wanted it to be real,” she said.
“I thought
that if I acted like it was true, then it would be almost like it was.
Just like I thought it would be so cool to have a brother and we’re almost the exact same age, so I thought it was going to be great.
I hate it.
I hate you, and I really hate faeries.” Walking over to her bed, she flopped down on it, hiding her head in her arms.

Nick wanted not to care.
He told himself that he already had a family.
He didn’t need an annoying sister.
He didn’t even want a sister.
He couldn’t remember ever wanting a sister.
He opened his mouth to tell her so, when he remembered what he did have.
An annoying brother.

“Jules, “ he said.
“Maybe Jules would drive us.”