The Nixie’s Song
BOOK ONE OF THREE
Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black
SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020 www.SimonandSchuster.com
Copyright © 2007 by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black • All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. • SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc. • Book design by Tony DiTerlizzi and Lizzy Bromley • Manufactured in the United States of America
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CIP data for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN-13: 978-0-689-87131-3 • ISBN-10: 0-689-87131-7
eISBN-13: 978-1-442-40357-4
To my grandfather, Harry,
who liked to make up stories.
—H. B.
To all my friends and family back in Florida.
These images of my old home are for you.
—T. D.
toried old New England is where this vast tale was born. Three kids, an antique house, a book, a dad from daughter torn,
an unexpected escapade into a tricksy land— with dangers unpredictable so very close at hand.
The kids were tested fearless. The book was lost then found. The dad was reunited then passed on without a sound.
Evil was soundly thwarted like in fairy tales of old, but there’s no happy ending. No! Because the tale was told . . .
. . . to Tony DiTerlizzi and his partner, Holly Black. They took the story coast to coast, around the globe, and back.
Then that pair took the secrets and put them into a book, a guide to the fantastical for all who cared to look.
Now each and every single day the story grows and roves. It wanders beneath maples, birches, pines, and old mangroves.
So when you walk among the trees, look close and do not blink, because the world you’re entering
is
BIGGER
THAN YOU THINK.
LIST OF FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
MAP OF MANGROVE HOLLOW
CHAPTER ONE: IN WHICH
THERE ARE MANY DIFFERENT SORTS OF DEVELOPMENTS
CHAPTER TWO: IN WHICH
NICHOLAS GOES FOR AN ILL-FATED WALK
CHAPTER THREE: IN WHICH
NICHOLAS LIFTS MORE THAN AN EYEBROW
CHAPTER FOUR: IN WHICH
NICHOLAS SEES FOR THE SECOND TIME
CHAPTER FIVE: IN WHICH
NICK STEPS ONTO MORE TROUBLE
CHAPTER SIX: IN WHICH
LAURIE RECONSIDERS THINGS
CHAPTER SEVEN: IN WHICH
WE NEARLY BREAK THE FOURTH WALL
CHAPTER EIGHT: IN WHICH
A PLAN IS HATCHED
CHAPTER NINE: IN WHICH
THEY GO ACCORDING TO THE PLANS, BUT THE PLANS GO AWRY
ABOUT TONY DITERLIZZI AND HOLLY BLACK
“THEY’RE FAERIES!”
MAP OF MANGROVE HOLLOW
“WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT?”
“A FIELD GUIDE.”
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
NICHOLAS SAW A PALE BODY.
HE TOOK A DEEP BREATH AND PUSHED.
“GET A WHEELBARROW.”
THE CREATURE LIFTED EASILY.
SHE SANG THE WORDS.
IT GAZED AT HIM WITH SAND-COLORED EYES.
THEY SET OUT EARLY THE NEXT MORNING.
ONE DARTED OUT IN FRONT OF HIM.
HE PEDALED HARD.
IT DROPPED THE THING INTO ITS MOUTH.
LISTENING AS IF TRANSFIXED
JULES WAS ON HIS PHONE.
JULES DROPPED THEM OFF.
THEY WERE MIRROR IMAGES OF EACH OTHER.
“NOT MY PROBLEM.”
THE GIANT ROARED, BEATING ITS CHEST.
IT LOOKED LONG ABANDONED.
“THEY’RE FAERIES!”
JARED STOOD ON THE SLOPE.
“YOU BETTER SHUT UP, LARD ASS.”
ITS ENORMOUS EYES FIXED ON TALOA.
NICK’S PALMS WENT DAMP WITH SWEAT
“What are you thinking about?”
Chapter One
IN WHICH There Are Many Different Sorts of Developments
After his mother died, Nicholas Vargas stopped bothering. His Aunt Armena had told him to be good and not to bother his father, but he decided that her advice could extend to everyone and everything. It seemed that Nick’s brother had the same idea—Jules never hung around long enough to bother anyone anymore. So the whole family kept on not bothering each other right up until Nick and Jules’s dad suddenly decided to get married again.
Leading his new stepsister up the carpeted stairs, Nick had to keep his jaw clenched to stop himself from shouting. He hated that he had to give up his room and move in with Jules, who snored all night and woke up at the crack of dawn to go surfing. If his father hadn’t married his stepmother after only six months of dating, Nick would still have his own room. And he wouldn’t be stuck with a bedroom-stealing stepsister. Laurie was almost exactly his age and the biggest, weirdest loser he’d ever met. She bothered everyone.
Nick thought he was being fair about it, too, because he’d been called a loser and a nerd and a spaz himself. He was eleven, kind of fat, and bad at sports, while Julian shredded waves and made it to state in track. The only thing Nick thought he was really good at was school, and that was mostly about being quiet and following directions. So, okay, he knew he wasn’t cool. At least he knew better than to advertise everything lame about himself. Laurie seemed to be proud to be the lamest person alive.
“What are you thinking about?” Laurie asked him, hugging a box to her chest. Her skirt brushed the floor, making the little bells along the hem jingle.
Nick cringed and set down another box of her crap on the canopy bed. All the boxes seemed to be labeled UNICORNS, FAIRIES, or BOOKS ABOUT UNICORNS AND FAIRIES. A few of them had even bled glitter onto the hall rug.
“Things I hate,” said Nick.
“Like what?” Laurie tucked a tangle of blond hair behind her ear. Bracelets clattered at her wrists.
He was tempted to tell her. “Clowns,” he said instead. “They creep me out.”
“I hate my name,” she told him, like he’d just given her the green light to overshare. “I wish I was called Lauranathana.”
“That’s stupid,” said Nick. “Everyone would make fun of you.”
“I don’t care what people think,” Laurie said simply, like she meant it.
He wanted to snap at her, to tell her that everyone cared what people thought about them, but his dad had told him to be “civil” on moving day. He sighed. “Okay, so what stuff do you like?”
He looked out of her window at the empty concrete shells of houses going up all around theirs. When it had been his window, he’d liked to watch as workers poured and smoothed foundations and cut planks and nailed them in place. He liked to smell the sawdust and see that his dad’s development was finally, really happening. Even though there was still some swampy forest left, soon it would all be cut back and turned into golf courses, swimming pools, and lots of other cool things. Stuff he liked.
He’d imagined playing out there with other kids, but the construction was behind schedule. Nothing was done. His dad kept complaining about the weather—it was the hottest summer he could remember. And that, along with the brushfires and water rationing, had everyone on edge. The sun had turned the grass on the front lawn crunchy and brown, and Nicholas’s dad hadn’t filled the pool in the backyard, even though he usually filled the pools as soon as they were built. Now, with the rainy season about to start, Nick’s whole summ
er was turning out to be as lame as his stepsister.
“A field guide.”
“I like all this stuff, I guess.” Laurie stacked books onto her white beadboard shelves. They were mostly fantasy and fairy tales, but she’d set aside a big tome that had gold letters and what looked like a hawk on the cover.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“A field guide. So you can tell which kind of faeries are which. I bet there are a lot around here, since there’s so much nature.”
“You don’t really believe in that stuff, do you?” He took the book from her and flipped through it. It was filled with paintings and sketches of things that made the hair along his arms stand up. They didn’t look like faeries. He flipped to the back. “This isn’t some kind of ancient magical text. It’s fake. It was published in 2005 in New York.”
“It’s a reprint,” Laurie told him.
“Look,” he said, turning the book toward her. “It says ‘fiction’ inside. Explain that.”
“They had to put that there,” Laurie said, taking it out of his hands. “So they don’t get in trouble or sued. And if you don’t believe me, you can ask the authors yourself, since they’re signing—”
“Hey, kids,” Nick’s father called from downstairs in that new, cheerful voice he used around Laurie and Charlene. “Lunch!”.
After Nick and Julian’s mom died and before their dad decided he needed to impress Charlene and her wacko daughter, lunch had been cold slices of leftover pizza from the night before or, on at least one occasion, a piece of apple pie with cheese melted on it. Now, apparently, it was alphabet soup and bologna sandwiches. With the crusts cut off. Nick wanted to hurl.
Downstairs in the kitchen, Julian was already sitting at the granite island. Earbud cords hung from his head, and his thumbs jabbed at the game console cradled in his hands. His hair was stiff with salt. He didn’t even look up when Nick sat down next to him.
Laurie still had the stupid book tucked under one arm. “After lunch, I’m going to go look for faeries,” she told her mother.
Charlene smiled mildly. “Maybe Nick can go with you. Show you around the neighborhood.”
Nick scowled at his soup. Charlene was okay, but he wished she wasn’t around all the time. And he wished she would stop trying to make him be friends with her daughter. Although Charlene hadn’t seemed to figure it out yet, he was willing to ignore them if they’d just ignore him back.
Laurie took a bowl and crumbled a handful of Goldfish crackers into it, making a mess. It never seemed to matter what Laurie did or how bothersome she was. No one was going to tell her to stop.
“Faeries,” Nick’s dad said with a grin, tucking a paper napkin into his collar. “I thought they were only in England. Down here, the palmetto bugs’ll get them if the lizards don’t.”
Nick snickered.
“They’re not all small, you know,” said Laurie. She clearly didn’t think his dad’s joke was funny, which, in Nick’s opinion, only made it funnier.
“It’s too hot to look for anything,” Nick said, smiling down at his reflection in the granite. “Especially things that don’t exist.”
Nick’s dad frowned and then rubbed the bridge of his nose. Maybe he was upset his joke hadn’t gone over all that well. “Go help her look. Keep her from getting lost.”
Nick pushed the noodle letters in his soup so they spelled L-A-M-E. Lame. Like his summer. Like his stepsister. Like how he felt as he slurped his soup down and, without saying a thing, followed Laurie out into the yard.
“What are you doing?”
Chapter Two
IN WHICH Nicholas Goes for an Ill-Fated Walk
With that weird book tucked under one arm, Laurie walked around the hot, fresh-poured asphalt streets like she was on some kind of exciting safari. She tried to peer into the partially finished houses. She looked behind buildings as Nick grudgingly trailed along. Laurie stopped at the newly made lake, with grates under each of the bridges to keep alligators out and a fountain in the middle that kept it from going stagnant, and then kicked off her flip-flops.
“What are you doing?” Nick asked her. He wondered how long he had to follow her around. He wondered if you could die from boredom.
She tied her long skirt up high on her legs. “Wading.”
“I thought we were looking for faeries,” he said, glancing back at his house. The kitchen window had a pretty good view of the lake, so pushing her in was out of the question.
“I am,” she said. “I’m checking for hoofprints on the bank. That would be evidence that a kelpie lives here. Or maybe I’ll find reed pipes made by nixies.”
“What’s a kelpie?”
“A water horse.” She dragged one bare foot through the silt and made her voice ominous. “It tricks people into getting onto its back and then drowns them. Spooky, right?”
“Whatever. Why would you want to find that?”
“I know better than to ride it,” she said. “I’m not stupid. The Guide tells you how to handle faeries.”
Nick sighed and scrunched his toes against the fronts of his sneakers. He wouldn’t have minded going in the brackish water, but his dad would freak. He didn’t want Nick swimming in anything that wasn’t full of chlorine and was always giving dire warnings about jellyfish and riptides to Jules. “You’re not going to find anything, you know. Nothing lives here, except maybe turtles. They just dredged this lake. They’re going to dump in some fish eventually, but no one’s got around to it yet.”
Laurie kicked over an empty turtle shell. “I guess a turtle used to live here. Looks like something got it.” She padded over to where the tangles of fresh-planted sea grapes met the old woods. There, pinwheel-like palms grew beside the puffy tufts of pine trees. “You must come out here all the time with Jules. You’re so lucky to have a brother to do stuff with.”
“Yeah,” Nick said. He didn’t feel like explaining that Jules was busy a lot with his friends and his girlfriend. It was none of her business.
“I always wished I had a brother.”
The air was hot and thick and sticky. Nick thought longingly of the air-conditioning and the games in his bedroom. Then he remembered his bedroom wasn’t his bedroom anymore. No longer his territory. “We’re not allowed to walk in the woods.”
“We won’t go far,” she said, opening the book and holding it out as she picked her way through the scrub, leaving the water and Nick behind. “Be on the lookout for strange footprints or boulders that look like they have eyes. Or trees with eyes. Or anything with eyes. And especially look to see if you find a four-leaf clover or a stone that has a hole worn through it.”
“Don’t be so dumb,” said Nick, looking at the empty turtle shell. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”
Laurie didn’t answer. She just kept going. As he followed, he caught glimpses of her between palm trees and scrub. The distant sounds of construction served only to remind him of how far they were from anyone. A storm was coming. In the dim light, the leaves had turned silvery and strange.
“This is boring,” Nick said halfheartedly.
Laurie shrugged, her flip-flop straps threaded through her fingers, her bare feet crushing reindeer moss as she got deeper into the woods. He didn’t want to continue following her, but he didn’t want to be standing all by himself like an idiot, either.
“Have you ever found one?” Nick called, walking through shrubs that caught on the fabric of his shorts. He pulled himself free.
“One what?” She was only a few feet away, looking closely at the side of a palm tree. It was grooved with shallow woodpecker holes.
Nick jogged over and then wheezed, already out of breath. “Something out of the book.”
Laurie frowned. “I don’t know,” she said finally. Sandspurs had scratched thin lines on her calves, but she didn’t even seem to notice. “I guess I’ve seen some weird stuff—like, look at the way the hill slopes over there.”
Nick squinted. He’d never been even this
far in the woods, and he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be noticing about the hill that was even farther on, but it was true that on the hill, long banyan-tree roots grew like a beard beside a strange-shaped boulder that resembled a sleeping eye. He shuddered. Either Laurie’s crazy was contagious or he was getting heatstroke.
Looking down at his feet, Nick realized he was standing in a patch of clover. He glanced over at his stepsister, but she hadn’t noticed, so he squatted down and ran his fingers through the green plants.
Just as Nick was going to straighten up, he saw a single four-leaf clover. He reached out and carefully pinched it off at the stem. If he gave it to Laurie, he bet that she’d agree to go back to the house, but he’d never found one before and he wasn’t sure he wanted to give it up. He twirled it once in his fingers. Somehow it suddenly seemed greener, more vivid, as though his vision had sharpened. Maybe the clover would make him lucky, and some other kid would move in to one of the houses and save him from a summer with Laurie.
Searching through his pockets, he came up with a receipt that looked like it had been through the laundry once. He folded the clover inside it and tucked it back in his shorts.
Laurie squeaked, and he looked over at her guiltily. She was looking up. Rain splashed on Nick in fat, warm drops.
“Summer storm,” he said. “Let’s go back!”
But Laurie, freak that she was, just lifted her hands and spun around as her hair plastered her neck and her skirt got soaked. “Come on, Nick,” she said. “Let’s pretend that we’re tree spirits!”
That was the final straw for Nicholas. He didn’t care if his dad yelled at him for leaving Laurie by herself. He didn’t care if she couldn’t find her way back and got lost in the woods and an alligator ate her. He was going home and playing his video games, and that was that. Turning his back to her, he started walking.
The Nixie’s Song Page 1