The Nixie’s Song (9 page)

“So you admit it!” Laurie said.
“You really are them!”

“Did you hear our question?” Nick asked.

“Sure,” Jared said.
“A giant, right?
That was pretty funny.”

“The giant’s real,” said Laurie said.
“We have the Sight.
I’ve read the whole field guide a dozen times at least.”

“Too bad there’s nothing really useful in it,” Nick said.

“Nick!” Laurie’s eyes went wide with horror.

“You’re serious about the giant?” Simon said.

“Stick-a-needle-in-my-eye serious,” said Nick.

“Faeries can be pretty big on putting out the eyes of people who can see them,” said Jared.

Nick put his hand automatically to his face.

“We really need your help,” Laurie said.

“Prove it,” Jared said.
“Prove that you really saw something.”

Laurie looked at Nick.
He wanted to wipe the smug expression off Jared’s face.
“How?”

Jared shrugged.
“Not my problem.”

Nick thought about all the weird stuff in the field guide—the way that brownies could turn into boggarts if you made them mad enough or how tiny stone mice were evidence of a basilisk in the area.
But remembering any of those bits of trivia only proved that Nick had read parts of their book.

He thought about Taloa and the giant and the weird thing with the sand-colored eyes and the bug with the human face.
“I don’t know,” Nick said.
“I just wish that I could go back to thinking this was all stupid, made-up crap.”

“Not my problem.”

“That’s pretty convincing, actually,” said Simon.

“Okay, let’s say we believe you.
I don’t know much about giants,” Jared said.
“I’ll call home and see what Mallory can find in Uncle Arthur’s notes.
It’s going to take her a while to look through everything.”

“You want to meet us here tomorrow?” asked Simon.

Laurie shook her head.
“We don’t live that close.”

Jared took Laurie’s field guide out of her hands and wrote down his phone number on the back inside flap.
“Call and we’ll tell you what we find out.”

Laurie took back the book with shaking hands.
Nick turned his head so no one could see him rolling his eyes.
He didn’t care if there were a million books about Jared and Simon.
Books didn’t always tell the whole story.
As he walked out the door of the store, punching Cindy’s number into the cell phone, he couldn’t help worrying that they’d wasted time.

He didn’t think they had a lot of time left.

The giant roared, beating its chest.

Nicholas kept waking up that night.
The haunting, desperate nixie song hummed in his ears and woke him out of his dreams.

He thought of the giant, with his dirt-encrusted skin, his thatched hair, and the moss and plants that grew across his shoulders.
He thought of the gaze from those small black eyes catching on lamps inside the house.
Would the giant think the lights were pretty?
Worth investigating?
Worth pulling apart a house to get to?

For a giant, coming across Mangrove Hollow
must be like coming across a sandcastle on a beach.
He might ignore it as long as he’s busy with other fun things, but if he gets bored, he’s going to either play with it or kick it over.

Please keep singing,
Nick thought.
Keep singing.

When he woke again, it was still dark outside.
Dark and quiet.
For a moment, he couldn’t think why he was awake.

Standing, he walked to the window and looked out.
His hands felt clammy.
He rubbed them against the cloth of his pajama pants.

Then he remembered.
He couldn’t hear any singing.
For a moment, he felt sick.
Then he opened the door of the bedroom and took the stairs two at a time.

A horrible cracking noise and a bright flare of light at the windows made him go faster.

Outside, flames made it easy to see.
One of the trees was on fire, leaves blazing.
The giant
roared, beating its chest.
Nick ran across the wet grass, sliding in the mud to where Taloa was crawling to her feet.

She stared upward in horror, clearly dazed.
“I fell asleep la-lo.”
Her voice cracked.

“Sing!” he shouted.
“Get up!
Sing!”

The giant looked down at them, inhaling deeply.

Taloa opened her mouth and the sound that came out was closer to a croak than any melody.

“Sing!” Nick screamed.

Somehow, her voice shaking, she managed a few notes of the tune.
“La-lo-le-le-la-lo-le-le.”

The giant slumped beneath a scrub oak with a loud thud, watching Taloa with greedy eyes.
Somehow he must have found a salamander.
Nick only hoped he hadn’t found a nest of them.

“Lo-le-lee.
Nicholas.
My sisters.
Remember.
Lo-lela-le-la.”

Nick nodded.

Taking a deep breath, Taloa sang more steadily, her voice growing more confident with each note.
Nick sank to his knees as the sky began to lighten in the east.

“There’s a big mound of dirt over by the lake,” Nick’s father said, waving his coffee cup in that direction.
“Over by the lightning strike.
What idiot dumped it there?”

Outside, the sky was dark and heavy with rain.
Nick’s stomach was sour with tension and lack of sleep.

Laurie jumped up.
“The mound looks nice,” she said.
“Like landscaping.
You shouldn’t try and move it.”

Charlene squinted at her daughter.
The
cup in her hand had been one of Nick’s mom’s favorites.
Nick wished she would put it down.
“Honey, I think it looks like a big pile of dirt.”

“No!” Laurie’s voice came out high.
“Don’t go near it.”

“Maybe you should listen to her,” Nick said.
He had the portable phone clutched in one hand.
As soon as his dad and Charlene walked out the door, he was going to call Jared.
Bowls of cereal long gone soggy sat on the table.
Neither he nor Laurie could bring themselves to eat.

“I’ll get someone to remove it first thing tomorrow,” his father said.

Nick opened his mouth to say something.
He wanted to tell his father about the giant.
He wanted, more than anything, for his dad to listen to
him
and not to Laurie and Charlene.

Charlene grabbed her purse off the counter.
“Bye, kids.”

“Keep out of trouble,” said Nick’s father.
Then he was gone.

Laurie grabbed for the phone and dialed.
Reaching over, Nick hit the speaker button.
The ringing crackled loudly in the room.

“Mallory found something,” said Jared, without any greeting.
“You are so lucky.
Next
week she’s leaving for fencing camp, and my aunt Lucy can’t see too well.”

“Yeah,” Nick said irritably.
“We’re real lucky.
What did she find?”

“Turns out that my uncle Arthur corresponded with someone who lived not too far from you guys.
A specialist on giants.
There were a bunch of notes on different types and behaviors.
I guess there were a lot back then or something.
Anyway, I have an address.”

Nick groaned.
“How old is this address?”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line.
“Pretty old.”

“It’s all we’ve got,” Nick said.
“Give it to me.”

“Okay, it’s on Swamp Road.
Number eleven.
I looked at a map—that’s probably fifteen minutes from you.
I’m leaving now.
I’ll meet you there.”

“You’re coming?” Laurie asked happily.

“There might be some letters and drawings of our uncle’s.
Dad left Simon and me some money for food and whatever, so I can use that to get a cab.
We used to cab everywhere in New York.”

“Is Simon coming with you?” she asked.

“He’s got to stay here and answer the phone when Dad calls,” said Jared.
“He can do my voice pretty well if Dad asks to talk to me.”

“See you soon,” Laurie said sweetly, and Nick made a gagging sound.
She fumbled to click the phone off so fast that she knocked it to the floor.

“I wish we had the bike,” said Nick.
Sweat soaked the back of his shirt, and he regretted
all the equipment he’d decided to lug with them.
His school backpack thumped heavily against his back with each step.
Cicadas droned ceaselessly in the trees.

They’d followed the streets on another printout of Laurie’s until the sidewalks ran out and the asphalt went pitted and cracked as the road turned to dirt.

They passed a house with a dog that started barking, pawing at a chain-link fence.
Nick almost expected the owners to come out, but the windows of the house were dark and empty.
There was a car parked in the driveway, but judging from the state of its rusty body and blown-out tires, no one had driven it in a while.
Thunderclouds roiled overhead.

Nick shivered, despite the heat.
“It’s weird that there’s nobody around.
It’s like no one lives here.”

“Stop trying to freak me out,” said Laurie.

“What?” Nick demanded.
“I wasn’t.”

“I had no idea that having a brother would be so
irritating
.”

“Look,” he said.
“I didn’t ask for our parents to get married.
There’s no point in being mad at me.
Maybe they’ll split up.”

She narrowed her eyes.
“It’s just that, before, Mom and I lived in our own house, by ourselves.
We talked about stuff.
I could say what I was thinking and do what I wanted.
It was my space and I could be me.
I had room.”

“Now you have
my
room.”

She frowned at him.
“You can have it back.
The giant’s going to burn it down anyway.” She looked away and sighed.
“Everything was better when I was imagining it.
Real things are complicated.”

“You’re right,” Nick said with a groan.
“This is pointless.
We’re not heroes.
Taloa’s going to stop singing, and we’re just trying to make ourselves feel better chasing down dumb leads.”

Laurie pointed to a sign.
“Swamp Road.
Our dumb lead.”