The Nixie’s Song

by Tony DiTerlizzi

  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.

  Chapter Eight

  IN WHICH a Plan Is Hatched

  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.�
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  “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.”

  Swamp Road was framed on both sides with scrubby wetlands and dotted with a few dilapidated houses. The fourth had the correct number nailed to its sagging aluminum cladding, although it looked long abandoned.

  It looked long abandoned.

  They walked across a lawn of sugar sand and patches of crabgrass to a tiny house with a rusted metal door. The roof was sunken in the middle, and the siding hung off in sheets. They heard a steady creaking, like an old door swinging in the wind. Rusted rakes, buckets, and old tarps littered a ramshackle porch.

  “I don’t think anyone’s here,” said Laurie. She walked up to the door and gave it a push. “It’s open.”

  “Don’t do that!” Nick grabbed her arm. “Some nice giant expert might have lived here a bazillion years ago, but any creep could live here now.”

  “Hello!” Laurie called, ignoring him.

  There was no answer. Laurie banged her fist against the worn wood.

  A light shone where the yard sloped into dense bushes. Then the light jerked to one side.

  “Jared,” Nick yelled, walking toward it. “Is that you?”

  Rain started to fall, hard, muffling the sound of his voice.

  “Looked like a flashlight,” Laurie said, pulling up her jacket to cover her head.

  They followed the glow down to where the mud started sucking at the bottoms of their shoes.

  “Hello,” Laurie shouted. “Please. We just need some answers.”

  Then the light started moving fast, like the person holding it had started running.

  “Follow it,” Nick said. They took off across the wetlands. Laurie sprinted ahead, but even as fast as she was going, the light seemed to be moving faster.

  Nick stopped, breathing hard. The rain obscured his sight. “Laurie!”

  Something darted toward him and he shouted. It seemed like a jellyfish swimming through the air, its center incandescent. Two small stalks on its head might have been eyes, but the tiny wings at its back were far too small to keep it aloft.

  The second light zoomed away from him.

  “Laurie!” he shouted. “They’re faeries! Jared’s not out here! Come back!”

  When he turned around, nothing was familiar. His tracks had already been absorbed by the soft, wet soil or turned to widening puddles by the rain, and he had no idea how to retrace his steps.

  “Laurie?” he shouted. He couldn’t see her in all the rain and dark. “Laurie!”

  Several more lights zoomed close, whirling around him. Suddenly it seemed like the field was full of glowing jellyfish. They zipped past, turning him this way and that. He tried to grab one and fell in the mud.

  “They’re faeries ! “

  Rain fell on his face like tears. There, as he looked up at the lights, a strange sense of serenity washed over him. They seemed like a shifting kaleidoscope of stars.

  “Nick?” Laurie called. She sounded frightened. He shook himself.

  “Laurie,” he said. “I’m here! Come toward my voice.”

  “Will-o’-the-wisps,” she called, collapsing beside him. “I remember them from the book. They could have led us off a cliff or into quicksand.”

  “Good thing there’s practically no cliffs in Florida,” he said, but the goose bumps rose on his skin.

  Laurie’s face was flushed, and mud streaked her chest and arms. One of her flip-flops was gone.

  “I fell,” she said, by way of explanation.

  “We’ve got to get out of here. I think the house is back that way,” he said, but he couldn’t see it.

  She shook her head and pointed through the rain. “No, I think it’s over there.”

  The lights darted in the distance, and Nick suddenly thought of how much worse it would have been to be lost like this at night, how they might have wandered for hours, deeper and deeper into the brush.

  “It’s this way!” Nick insisted, starting to walk. “It’s got to be.”

  “Okay,” she said, following. But she didn’t look convinced; she looked scared. “Does this look familiar?”

  He wasn’t sure. They’d been running. “Yes,” he said. “This has to be the way.”

  “I don’t think it looks like the way.”

  “It’s the way!” Nick yelled.

  A distant voice called something that sounded like their names from behind them.

  Nick frowned. “More faerie tricks?”

  “Laurie! Nick!” the voice said.

  “It’s Jared.” Laurie waved around her arms. “Jared! We’re over here! Keep yelling.”

  They followed his voice back to the house, their feet sinking in the mud. Nick didn’t admit he’d been wrong about the direction, and Laurie didn’t call him on it.

  Jared stood on the slope of the backyard in jeans and a T-shirt, waving to them. A messenger bag was slung over his shoulder. Nick and Laurie scrambled up the hill.

  “What were you guys doing?” Jared asked with a knowing smirk.

  “We thought we saw something,” Nick said. Laurie looked like she was ready to open her mouth and tell him about the whole, embarrassing adventure, so he spoke as firmly as possible. “But we didn’t.”

  Jared stood on the slope.

  Laurie pointed toward the house. “I don’t think anyone’s home.”

  “The door’s open,” said Jared. “Maybe we could take a quick look inside in case whoever used to live here isn’t coming back.”

  “Okay,” Nick said.

  As they walked back to the front door, Nick thought about the odd, floating wisps and shivered. Maybe Arthur Spiderwick’s correspondent had followed their lights, too. Maybe he had never found his way back.

  Laurie stepped onto faded linoleum, trying to keep her bare feet off the dirty floor as much as possible. The first room was a kitchen. A teakettle sat beside a huge crab pot on the stove, and a refrigerator hummed in the opposite corner. The electricity was still on, Nick thought. Someone had to live here.

  He followed Laurie down a narrow hallway, where only a calendar from 1971 hung. To his right, something moved, and he turned, heart thudding, to find himself looking into a cloudy mirror. Jared grinned at him in the reflection.

  “Hey, come here,” Laurie called.

  Nick forced himself to follow, although his instincts screamed for him to get out. This wasn’t the kind of house a sane person lived in.

  Laurie stood in the middle of a rickety living room. An old chair with stuffing and springs popping out of it stood in front of a rabbit-eared television. Laurie pointed to a door that stood partially ajar.

  Nick crossed the living room to where she was indicating. It was an oddly shaped room, too small to be a comfortable bedroom, and it was covered in paper. Drawings, documents, and pages of notes covered a small metal desk, carpeted the floor, and had been tacked up or glued all over the walls. He stepped closer. Illustrations of giants. Dozens and dozens of them. Some giants were bound with ropes. Another had had its head cut clean off. Articles about fires. Newspaper clippings.

  PARCHED BY DROUGHT, FLORIDA’S FIRES SPREAD, read one. LARGE SMOKE PLUME OVER ATLANTIC. LANDSLIDE CAUSE STILL UNEXPLAINED. FIRE SUPPRESSION INEFFECTIVE.

  “Um, this is kind of weird.” Nick held up an illustration of a giant with a rope connecting its ankle to its neck. “Pretty smart, though. It can’t stand up.”

  Jared walked into the room. “Whoa.”

  Nick cocked his head to one side. The illustration reminded him of the diagrams that he used to put his models to
gether. Tab A into slot B. Finally, something that made sense. “We could maybe climb a tree. Use some rope like a lasso. The ankle part would be easy.”

  “This has a really creepy, crazy-person vibe to it,” Laurie said. “Who was this guy?”

  Rifling through the papers, Jared pulled out a few illustrations.

  “What’s that?” asked Nick.

  “My uncle Arthur did these, based on the notes he’d gotten. According to the letter Mallory found, he’d sent a bunch of art down for confirmation.” Jared started to roll them up. “I would have never even seen them if we didn’t come here. I have to show these to Simon!”

  “Wait a minute,” Nick said. “You can’t just take those papers.”

  “Why not?” asked Jared, pointing to the diagram in Nick’s hand. “Aren’t you going to take that?”

  “That’s different! I need this. We have to stop that giant and we have to follow the instructions precisely. You’re just stealing!”

  “I’m not stealing,” Jared said. “These were supposed to be sent back. Anyway, my great-great-uncle wrote to this guy more than eighty years ago. Didn’t you see that ancient calendar? He’s probably long gone.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Laurie softly. She ran her fingers over one of the newspaper articles on the wall. “This is from last year. And the electricity works.”

  Jared shrugged. “Whatever. You got what you wanted and I got what I wanted, so let’s get out of here.”

  “You’re not going to help us?” Laurie asked.

  Jared shook his head. “What? First you call me a thief and then you want my help?”

  “You’re the faerie guy. You’re supposed to be good at this stuff.” Nick pointed a finger at him and narrowed his eyes. “Unless it was all hype.”

  “You better shut up, lard ass,” Jared said.

  “I bet none of that stuff in the books ever even happened to you. You probably made it up.”