A Mischief of Mermaids (6 page)

But somehow, even through the water drumming in her ears, she thought she heard something. . . .

Before she could figure out what it was, she reached the surface. Her head popped above the water, and she took in a deep breath.

A few feet away, Henry and Will were treading water next to their overturned kayak.

“What happened?” Henry asked.

Will blinked water out of his eyes. “It was that speedboat,” he said, glaring after a sleek white blur that was already disappearing into the distance. “It went by so fast, the wake flipped us over.”

Poppy grabbed her kayak before it could float away, then swam closer to them. “The wake wasn't that strong,” she said. “And the speedboat wasn't that close.”

Henry looked puzzled. “But what else could have tipped us over?”

She hesitated, wondering whether to say anything. Will and Henry would probably laugh at her. They would probably turn whatever she said into a joke. They would probably tease her for days. And yet . . .

A good scientist, she reminded herself, always tries to confirm her observations.

“Did you, well, hear anything?” she asked. “When you were underwater?”

“I wasn't listening; I was trying not to drown,” Will said, rather grumpily. Once again, he and Henry were clambering back into their kayak. Will did not seem to find this exercise as appealing the second time around.

“Come on,” he said to Henry. “Let's see how fast we can get to that fallen oak tree over there.”

They shot off for the distant shore, the spray from their paddles glittering in the sun.

Poppy watched them go, trying not to feel as if she'd been left behind on purpose. Trying not to feel left behind, left alone, left out.

The only sounds were the lapping of the water against her kayak and the distant sound of laughter from the Camerons' houseboat.

But Poppy knew what she had heard—a faint chiming sound, as if bells were ringing under the lake.

If she didn't know better, she would have said the bells sounded eerily like laughter. . . .

T
hat's okay, Poppy was telling herself a couple of hours later. I'm
glad
I have a kayak to myself. I'm
glad
Will and Henry went off without me. I'm
glad
I'm on my own. Now I can go off to collect lake water without having anyone making fun of me.

None of this was exactly the truth, but she repeated it over and over to herself as she began paddling. By the time she got to the small cove, she almost believed it.

It was farther away than it had looked on the map. By the time she got there, she was hot and sweaty. She paddled along a small creek that led to the cove. There were trees overhanging the creek, providing welcome shade. Poppy took a drink from her water bottle and paddled along more slowly, watching the fish and turtles in the water, listening to the birds in the trees, and, without noticing it, getting farther and farther from any of the boats on the lake.

The creek widened and the cove, a small inlet of water, lay before her. Poppy gently paddled into the middle of the inlet, then pulled her paddle from the water and laid it across the kayak.

For a few moments, she enjoyed just sitting still as her kayak rocked gently on the water. She tilted her head back to look at the cloudless blue sky and realized with surprise that the sun was beginning to set. She had been out longer than she thought. The sky directly above her was still pale blue and filled with light. But the shadows had begun to creep from under the trees, and near the horizon the sky was turning a deep blue.

She glanced back at the houseboat, then looked at her watch. It had taken her almost two hours to get here, but then she had stopped often to fill a tiny bottle with water or to watch a turtle sunning itself on a rock. She could probably make it back to the houseboat in time for dinner, although she would be scolded for being out too long.

If anyone even misses me, she thought, a trifle bitterly.

Franny would be too busy with her new friend Ashley to spare anyone else a thought. Rolly would be focused on his pursuit of the lake monster. Mr. and Mrs. Malone would be deeply involved in their latest investigation. And Will and Henry . . .

Poppy scowled ferociously.

How long, she wondered, would it take for them to realize she wasn't with them? How long would it take for them to get worried?

She glared at the houseboat, then turned her back on it, picking up her paddle.

If no one cares about where I am, she thought, straightening her shoulders, then I might as well see what's around that next bend.

As she began navigating her way through the narrow channel, she took a deep breath. The air smelled like cedar, wildflowers, and . . . wood smoke?

But no one's allowed to build fires on the shore, she thought, just as she reached the bend in the creek. With two swift paddle strokes, she had turned the kayak and found herself gliding onto a large pool of water.

On the right side of the pool, there was a clearing ringed with oak trees. In the middle of the clearing, a small bonfire was burning merrily.

And around the bonfire were three girls, dancing.

Poppy performed a backward power stroke to stop her kayak from moving closer to the shore. She waited in the shadows, just outside of the ring of light cast by the bonfire, and watched.

The figures were moving around the fire in a circle. Two of the girls looked like teenagers and one girl looked close to Poppy's age. An older woman with silver hair that fell to her waist sat nearby, on a log, playing what looked like a small harp and singing.

The dance didn't look formal. It almost seemed that they were drifting around the fire aimlessly. But the more she watched, the more Poppy noticed that there seemed to be a pattern to the dance, although she couldn't quite figure out what it was. The figures would weave in and out, first blocking the fire so that they were dark shapes against the blaze, then moving on so that the flames blazed brightly against the dark woods.

Poppy blinked, frustrated that when she thought she had grasped what the pattern was, the figures would move again and the meaning of it would escape her.

The music was just as maddening. There didn't seem to be a tune, just a wavering melody that went up and down. And yet, every once in a while, a few notes would seem to resolve themselves into something that sounded like a song . . . and then the next instant it would be lost again.

Poppy let her gaze slip past the dancers to see if she could spot some clue to who they were and what they were doing there.

Not that it was really any of her business, of course. It was just that the scene seemed so odd, so out of place.

She remembered some of the bedtime stories Mrs. Malone used to tell them when they were small, in the fond belief that they would find them soothing and would fall asleep more quickly. Stories about fairy rings and the Other Folk who would steal babies from the cradle or lure grown-ups under a hill, where they would vanish, never to be seen again . . .

Inevitably, Franny would start humming with her fingers in her ears, and Will would shove his head under his pillow, and Poppy would begin arguing with her mother, saying that these horrifying tales could not actually be true, even as her heart beat a little faster.

“How could fairies dance by the moonlight without anyone seeing them?” she would demand. “How could people not notice that a ring of stones suddenly appeared in the landscape, then disappeared five days later?”

Finally Mrs. Malone had decided, with a sigh of regret, not to use folktales as bedtime stories anymore. “They're too young to understand the deep truth hidden inside the old folklore,” she said to Mr. Malone. “We just need to wait until they're a little more grown-up, that's all.”

Poppy had overheard this conversation and had, even at six years old, scoffed at the idea that she would ever believe such silly stories.

But now, watching the dancers in the flickering firelight, she could understand how people in the past—people who didn't know as much about science as she did—might have thought they were strange, otherworldly beings.

Poppy's attention focused on the youngest person in the group, the girl who seemed (from a distance, anyway) to be about her own age. She had a small face with a pointed chin and long red hair that hung almost to her waist in a mass of curls that glowed copper in the firelight. She seemed to be wearing a piece of fabric that wrapped around her body and was tied with a knot at the shoulder.

Poppy thought that it was a sarong, a piece of material that women in tropical parts of the world wrap around their body to fashion a dress. (She was surprised that she knew this. Poppy knew a great deal about many topics, but dresses was not one of them. She had, however, recently been the unwilling victim of a fashion makeover, conducted by Franny. Most of that horrible afternoon was just a blur now, but she had retained a few completely useless bits of information.)

The two older girls had secret smiles on their faces, as if they knew something no one else did and were quite smug about it, but the girl who was Poppy's age just looked annoyed. It was an expression that Poppy recognized. She was pretty sure she had worn it on her own face from time to time. It was the expression of someone who was being forced to take part in something she had no interest in (a paranormal investigation in Poppy's case, a weird dance in the woods for this girl).

“Don't stop dancing, Nerissa!” the silver-haired woman with the harp said encouragingly. “Remember, the circle must not be broken, my dear. And you're doing wonderfully well, truly you are!”

Even from a distance, Poppy could see the girl Nerissa scowl.

“I hate this, Coralie,” she said to the older woman. “I can't dance, I never
could
dance, I never will be
able
to dance—”

“Nonsense,” the older woman said briskly. “You just need to try a little harder.”

Nerissa sighed but raised her arms in an unenthusiastic manner and began shuffling around the fire again.

The two other dancers exchanged amused glances. They were around Franny's age. In fact, one looked a bit like Franny, with her curly blond hair and upturned nose.

The second girl had short, spiky black hair, a pointed chin, and a superior expression that made her look remarkably like a cat.

“Maybe you're trying a little too hard, Nerissa,” the blond girl said sweetly. “You should focus on relaxing your shoulders. See? Like this.” As she swayed gracefully around the fire, she turned her head to gaze in admiration at the movements of her arms, just as Franny would have done.

Nerissa rolled her eyes. “Thanks for the suggestion, Ariadne,” she said. “But if I start thinking about waving my arms in the air, I'll trip over my own feet, you know I will.”

The dark-haired girl snickered.

Nerissa turned to glare at her. “Stop laughing, Kali!” she snapped. “You're always making fun of me and I'm sick of it.”

Kali's expression shifted to one that was so serious that, even from a distance, Poppy could tell she was mocking Nerissa. “I wasn't laughing at you,” Kali protested in an injured voice. “I want to help you. Why don't you try moving your hips a little bit,” she said. “Like this . . .”

Kali joined Ariadne and they began dancing around the fire again. They dipped and swayed and whirled like leaves blowing in a breeze. Watching them, Poppy felt as if she were falling under a spell.

Then Nerissa, frowning in concentration, tried to copy their moves. It only took three stumbling steps, accompanied by a few hopelessly awkward waves of her arms, to break the spell.

Nerissa stopped and let her arms drop to her side. “I can't do that,” she said to the woman named Coralie, nodding toward Ariadne and Kali, who were still circling the fire. “No matter how hard I try, I'll never be able to do that.”

Coralie frowned. A cloud crossed in front of the moon, making the night even darker.

“You would not have a problem if you would just apply yourself,” she said in exactly the same exasperated tone Mrs. Malone had used last fall when Will had gotten a D in math (he claimed that long division was so stupefying that he fell asleep every time he tried to do his homework). “You simply need to embrace your true nature. Do that, and all will fall into place.”

But the girl Nerissa shook her head gloomily. “I've tried,” she said. “Nothing works.”

“Maybe that's because your great-great-grandmother fell in love with that sailor in Scotland, then ran off and married him,” Ariadne said in a teasing voice. She glanced at Kali, and they shared an amused look.

“That's right,” said Kali. “Maybe you've got a bit too much of his blood running through your veins—”

“I don't! Stop saying that!” snapped Nerissa. “Just because I'm not very good at dancing, that doesn't mean—”

“Of course it doesn't.” Coralie's tone was soothing now, although she shot a warning look at the other two girls over Nerissa's head. “Kali, Ariadne, how many times have I told you—Nerissa is your little sister. You should help her and encourage her.”

Ariadne's perfect little rosebud mouth pouted, and Kali raised one dark eyebrow rebelliously, but they both said in unison, “Sorry, Coralie. Sorry, Nerissa.”

Coralie waited a moment, then nodded, her hair flashing silver in the firelight. “Well, then,” she said. “We begin again—”

As the dancers wound their way in a circle once more, Poppy's gaze slid past the circle of firelight to the trees surrounding the clearing. There was one huge old oak tree, gnarled and twisted, that seemed to sparkle. Poppy looked closer. As the firelight danced and flickered in the dark, she saw that there were sequined cloaks draped on the branches. At that moment, a breeze sprung up and the cloaks swayed, flashing silver and blue and moving almost as if they were living things. . . .