“You’re talking a lot,” Ryan interrupted. “It hurts my head.”
“Am I?” Dad dropped two boxes of nails into his basket. “I guess I’m nervous, Ryan.”
“Have you ever run into fairies?” Alison asked. “Before today, I mean.”
“Only once,” Dad said, “after I married Ryan’s mother. I tried to follow her to the fairy realm on Moving Day, and lots of Red Caps showed up to stop me.”
“What’s a Red Cap?” Ryan asked.
“A type of gnome. Earth fairy.” Dad’s jaw went tight. “Their caps are red because they’re dipped in blood.”
Alison made a face. “Yuck.”
A new voice said, “Alison! I thought I saw you outside with that dog.”
Ryan looked up. Barreling down the tool aisle toward them came a bony woman in her early twenties. She wore her hair in a helmet of fake scarlet that made Ryan think of Dad’s Red Caps. Her equally red lips spread across yellow teeth. A purse banged against the woman’s side, and her heels clonked against the gray tile floor.
Alison went all stiff, and in his head Ryan matched her expression to a magazine picture with the caption anxious.
“What do you want, Theresa?” Alison asked.
“You’re in trouble. You vanished like a ninja this morning so you could hang around the hardware store with the town freakazoids.” Theresa put a hand on her hip. “And now you’ve pulled some dog out of a dumpster? Mom’s gonna be mad when I tell her. She’s ready to barbecue you as it is.”
“Hello.” Dad put out a hand. “Theresa, is it? I’m Harrison November, resident freakazoid. Alison’s been with us all day. It’s Ryan’s birthday, you see, and—”
Theresa ignored his hand, which Ryan knew was really, really rude. You had to shake hands if someone offered it. Those were the rules. Theresa was ignoring the rules. Her purse swung back and forth in unpredictable ways, ready to whack anything that came close, and her elbow stuck out like a sword. Ryan’s breath came in short gasps. The iron all around him was still making him sick, and Theresa’s presence was making it worse.
“You’re not supposed to be here, Alison,” Theresa said, and the way she interrupted Dad disturbed Ryan even more. Chaos swirled about her like an angry cloud. “You need to come home with me right now.”
“You’re my sister, not Mom,” Alison replied stubbornly. “You can’t make me do anything.”
“Yeah?” Theresa snapped her gum. “You’re all of ten, and scrawny as a chicken wing. If I yank your chain, you’ll come.”
“Sisters are supposed to be nice to each other,” Ryan said. “You’re being mean.”
Theresa made a noise and kept on talking to Alison. “Makes me ashamed. You think it looks good for our family when you hang out with the town weirdos and their screamy-meemy emo kid?”
Dad’s face grew red. “Now, look. I was willing to overlook your freakazoid comment, but you’ve crossed—”
“Shut up,” Theresa said. “My mom says your weirdo house is tainting my little sister, and your bizarro-boy son is—”
Ryan summoned his courage and tapped her on the arm. “I’m not a freakazoid.”
Theresa’s hand snaked out and grabbed his wrist. “Don’t touch me, you retarded piece of trash.”
And Ryan bit her. He sank his teeth into the stringy meat of her forearm and bore down hard. Theresa howled like a wounded police siren. Ryan was vaguely aware that Dad was shouting something, but his entire world had narrowed to his anger and the flesh between his teeth. When he was very small, he used to bite Mom and his aunts any time he became angry or upset, and none of them had been able to cure him of the habit until finally Mom bit him back. The act had caught him by surprise, and he had stopped. Theresa, however, showed no signs of doing the same thing. She shook her arm. Ryan held on like bulldog. He bit down harder and tasted blood. Theresa howled the louder.
Iron touched Ryan’s own arm. It was a tiny touch, barely a feather’s brush, but the sickening feel was enough to break through the haze of anger and clenching teeth. He let go and pulled back. Gasping, Theresa held up her arm. A circle of bite marks oozed blood, twelve teeth in all. Mr. Cravenfeld, the store owner, was running down the aisle toward them. Dad dropped the nail he was holding. It clinked on the floor tiles.
“You freak!” Theresa screeched. “All of you—freaks! I’ll sue you. Freaks!”
“I’m sorry,” Dad said. “But you did grab Ryan’s—”
“Freaks!” Theresa rushed past the startled Mr. Cravenfeld and stormed out of the store, clutching her arm.
“Is everything all right here?” The overhead lights gleamed on Mr. Cravenfeld’s bald head.
“We’re fine,” Dad told him. Other customers were staring, but pretending they weren’t. Alison still looked anxious, and her eyes were shiny. Ryan decided she was trying not to cry, and that made Ryan upset, too. He wanted to bite something again. Blood moved pleasantly over his tongue. It was a taste of power.
“Maybe you should … head on out,” Mr. Cravenfeld said.
Dad held up the basket, which had two boxes of nails in it. “We still have to pay for these.”
“I’ll put them down and you can get it next time.” Mr. Cravenfeld looked pointedly at the door.
“Sure.” Dad sighed. “Thanks. Sorry.”
Alison kept her head down as they walked out the front door in a way Ryan associated with unhappiness. He took out his cell phone.
Why are you unhappy? he texted. Your sister is mean and a bad person. That means her opinion is stupid and she is not worth thinking about.
“Stop it.” Alison wiped at her eyes. “She’s my sister, and she’s supposed to like me. She didn’t even remember it was my birthday today.”
Ryan didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing. It felt fine to clear the store and the oppressive, greasy feel of iron everywhere, though he could still feel the drag of it from the two boxes of nails in Dad’s hand.
“That was as fun as swallowing a hedgehog backward,” Dad growled as the door shut behind them.
“Are you mad at me?” Ryan asked uneasily.
Dad sighed again. “No, buddy. Though I wish you hadn’t done that. It might cause us problems later.”
“Where’s Nox?” Alison broke in.
The tree was deserted. No sign of Nox. Before Ryan or anyone else could react, tires squealed and a red hatchback sped out of the parking lot. Theresa was in the driver’s seat. Peering out the back window with frightened watery eyes was the dog-shaped form of Nox.
CHAPTER NINE
“Nox!” Alison shouted. “She took Nox!”
“Let’s go!” Dad was already running toward the van. Ryan and Alison tumbled into it and Dad floored the accelerator before the doors were entirely shut. Theresa’s car was already a good distance up the street, heading out of town.
“She’s going to do something awful to him,” Alison cried. “Last month she got mad because I didn’t give her a message from her boyfriend, and she tore up my Flashcard Battle Brawl cards. This is way worse.”
“Why did Nox go with her?” Ryan clung to the seat back in front of him with angry white fingers. “Why didn’t he just change shape and fly away?”
Alison’s lips were tight. “I told him not to change shape until I got back, and he has to do what I say. This is my fault!”
“Don’t be stupid,” Ryan said.
“You’re stupid!”
“Don’t call me stupid! I’m not stupid!”
“Watch for police, you two.” Dad drove grimly, swerving around other cars and rushing through intersections. Ryan should have been scared about getting into an accident, but all he could think about was poor Nox.
Pendleton receded behind them, and the road wound into the woods, forcing Dad to slow down. Trees loomed over the gravel. The van swerved left and right around the curves. They rounded a bend and Theresa’s car came into view at the side of the road in a clearing amid the woods. All the car’s windows we
re broken and the rear hatchback, the section where Nox had been, looked like something had stomped it flat. Ryan could barely make out Theresa slumped over the steering wheel.
“What the—” Dad said.
“Theresa?” Alison burst out. “Nox!”
Ryan’s left palm burned and before he could stop it, the future rushed at him like a video on fast-forward. Fear clutched him and his breath tightened.
“Grab the nails!” he shouted at Alison. “Grab them!”
Before Alison could respond, Ryan scrambled over the seats and leaped into the driving well next to Dad. He wrenched the steering wheel, sending the van veering left with a screech of rubber.
“What are you doing?” Dad yelled.
From the right side of the road rose a monster made of gravel and grass. A blocky head sat atop a bulbous boulder body, and earthen arms ended in stony fists. Moss and leaves dripped from every part of it. Scarlet rubies glittered in its eye sockets. The creature was easily eighteen or twenty feet tall, and one grassy fist clutched Nox. A misshapen, blood-red cap topped its head. Strangely, the creature also wore enormous boots, complete with laces and each one the size of a donkey. One boot smashed down on the road right where the van would have been if Ryan hadn’t grabbed the wheel. Earth rumbled. Alison screamed. The van bumped off the road into the clearing, jarring Ryan’s teeth. He let go of the wheel. Dad hit the brakes. The creature raised its foot again. Its joints made a grinding sound.
“Run!” Dad wrenched the driver’s side door open. Ryan bolted from the van with him, and Alison came right behind. The creature’s booted foot crushed the van. Glass shattered and metal crunched. The creature marched over the van, squashing it in a pattern from front to back, steady as a steamroller. Dad, Ryan, and Alison stumbled into a low ditch and dropped out of sight. Ryan’s heart pounded and his hands clenched into fearful fists.
“What is that thing?” he demanded, peering above the line of the ditch. The creature was still crushing the van and hadn’t seemed to notice they had gotten out of it.
“Red Cap,” Dad panted. “Did I mention they change shape? We have to—”
“Theresa still in the car!” Alison said. “And that thing has Nox.” She started to scramble to her feet, but Dad grabbed the back of her shirt.
“Don’t be an idiot,” he snapped, and Ryan was startled at his harsh tone. “That thing will crush you.”
Alison squirmed in his grip. “Let me go! We have to save them!”
“And how will you do that?” Dad hauled her further down. “Can you kill a rock?”
“We have to help her! Unless she’s already—”
“Shush!” Dad interrupted. “I never said we wouldn’t help. But we need a plan.”
They peered out of the ditch again. The huge Red Cap was standing on the nearly flattened van twenty or thirty feet away with the yelping puppy Nox still in its grip. It was lifting up its feet to check the soles of its boots. Ryan understood two things in that moment: first, that the Red Cap was checking for Ryan’s blood on its feet, and second, that the boots protected the Red Cap from touching the iron in the van.
“Red Caps aren’t very smart,” Dad said. “Literal rocks in the head. The problem is, I can’t tell if Theresa is … how badly she’s hurt.”
“We have to fight it,” Ryan put in suddenly. “We need to fight.”
“How can we fight that?” Dad said. “I wish your mother were here. She’d know what to do.”
The Red Cap checked under its other boot, then set to flattening the last part of the van. It was like watching a mobile car-crusher. Nox squirmed and panted in the Red Cap’s fist.
“But I know what to do,” Ryan said. “We fight.”
“You saw it,” Alison breathed. “Down at the lake. You said I fight a rock.”
“I saw it,” Ryan echoed.
“Then how?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see that part.”
“We need details,” Alison said. “You have to look again. Like you did in your room.”
“You can look ahead on purpose?” Dad said. “When did that start?”
Ryan shook his head. “Too scary.”
“You have to,” Alison begged. “How else will we know what to do?”
Ryan’s left palm burned and this time he let the future come, even though it scared him. Helping Nox was more important than the fear, and although he frankly didn’t care what happened to Theresa, he would help her if he could, because you helped people. Those were the rules. If he was careful, maybe he could look ahead just a little.
The world flickered. Ryan caught a short glimpse of the immediate future, then pulled himself back from it. It worked! A small pattern spread out before him. He turned to Alison.
“You have nails,” he accused.
She opened her clenched hand to show three of them. Ryan could taste the greasy bits of iron even from a distance. “The box spilled. These were all I could grab.”
“I’ll distract the Red Cap,” Ryan said. “He’ll try to kill me, but you attack it with those.”
“What?” Dad gasped. “You’ll do no such thing! We need to—”
“I’ve seen the pattern. Left, right, left, right. You’re going to save Theresa,” Ryan interrupted. “She’s alive, and she’ll get out of the car in eight seconds, and the Red Cap will stomp her.”
“She is? It will?” Dad said, but Ryan was up and running toward the road. He waved his arms.
“Hey, dirtbag!” he shouted. “I’m the time boy! You want me!”
The Red Cap’s head turned. It saw Ryan and its ruby eyes glittered. Its entire body turned like an avalanche changing course.
“Time’s child,” it growled in a voice like boulders grinding together, “I will pop your skull. Your teeth will burst from your mouth like kernels of wheat. Your threat will end, and your blood will stain my cap.”
Nox yipped from the Red Cap’s hand as it lumbered toward Ryan, left, right, left, right. Behind it, the door on Theresa’s wrecked little car opened. She stumbled out, looking dazed. Blood ran from a cut on her face. It was the same color as the Red Cap’s hat.
In four steps, the Red Cap reached Ryan. Its booted foot came down to crush him. In the future Ryan had seen, the foot squashed him into pulpy pancake. But since Ryan now knew the pattern of where the creature’s foot was going to be (left, right, left, right), he leaped aside in plenty of time. The booted foot thundered against empty ground, making it shake. Ryan rolled to his feet, unharmed. Left, right, left, right. This was going to be easy. He could—
The future wrenched. Ryan staggered. He had forgotten—making a change in what he saw made him dizzy.
It also meant he no longer had a clue what would happen next.
“The stones revel in their victory!” The Red Cap raised a ponderous foot again. It was supposed to be the left, but it was raising the right. Ryan froze, uncertain what to do. Theresa saw the Red Cap and screamed. The sound pierced Ryan’s ears and shocked him into motion. He jumped aside again, and air rushed against his cheek as the Red Cap’s right boot slammed the ground only inches away. The road shook and he smelled moss. Dad was running toward Theresa. Ryan didn’t see Alison anywhere. The Red Cap leaned down and punched at Ryan with its free fist. That was brand new. He jumped backward, but lost his balance.
The fist missed. The road shook again. Ryan was on his back now, looking up at the Red Cap’s ruby eyes. His mouth was dry and fear tightened his nerves into piano wires. The Red Cap made a rumbling noise that made Ryan think of mean laughter. It drew back its leafy fist again. Ryan threw up his arm, even though he knew that it wouldn’t make the slightest difference.
And then Alison jumped forward and stabbed the Red Cap’s shin with one of the iron nails.
There was a pause. Then the Red Cap laughed again. It plucked Alison from the ground by the collar of her shirt and swooped her high off the ground to look at her. “I can smell the undine’s blood on you, girl. It makes the lava in my sto
mach flow.”
“What happened?” Alison shrieked. “That was iron!”
“Thirsty!” The Red Cap opened a yawning cave of a mouth filled with cracked stones for teeth. It held Alison over its head, intending to drop her in. Nox barked frantically from the Red Cap’s other fist, but he couldn’t get free or change shape. The dreadful future Ryan had seen back at the lake swept over him in a black wave. The world was still going to end. Mom, Dad, and the aunts were still going to die. In that future, he saw the Cottage go up in flames at exactly 7:20, his family trapped and dying while time tore the world to pieces. He wanted to wrap his arms around his head and scream, even started to move his hands upward.
But that would mean he and Alison would both die here and now. He didn’t want to die, and he didn’t want Alison to die, either. He pushed the black future away, shoved it hard. It retreated, growling, into a corner of his mind like an angry lion, cowed but not defeated. He ignored it and cast about for something to do before the Red Cap could swallow Alison.
“The boots!” he shouted. “The boots protect it down here, but not up there!”
His words reached Alison. She twisted around and stabbed the Red Cap’s arm with the iron nail. Ryan heard the tiny clink.
The Red Cap reacted instantly. It roared thunder at the empty sky, then puffed into a choking cloud of dead leaves and dry dust. Ryan crab-walked backward, shouting Alison’s name. Gravel bit his palms. He waited with sickening dread for the thud as she hit the ground. But the dust cleared, revealing Alison clutched in the talons of a blue-eyed condor with a wingspan of more than ten feet. The condor lowered her unsteadily to the side of the road, then changed into a kitten on her shoulder.
“Nox!” Ryan breathed with relief. Sand scoured his left palm, and another quarter of the design filled in, this one green and leafy.
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