The Nine Pound Hammer (12 page)

It was the girl. Just as he had seen in the nightmare, her pale wiry arms were crisscrossed with scars, as were her cheeks and neck. Her skin had an ashen color and dark circles rimmed her eyes.

She released another jet of bubbles from her nose, and Ray realized that she did not have to hold her breath to remain under the water. Her brow pinched defiantly. Ray was frozen and no part of his brain seemed capable of clutching to modesty or good manners. He simply stood there—eyes locked to the girl.

From inside his ears he felt a reverberation rise, the
slightest tremble of a melody. Her mouth did not seem to move, and he wondered if she was singing or if the song was inside his mind. He wanted to get closer to her, to tell her that he knew her, but his tongue felt heavy, his lips sealed shut. Stronger still was the urge to hear her song better.

Ray took a step toward the glass. The girl drifted backward, pushing herself with the barest bit of her fingertips, at the same time beckoning Ray forward. He found his hand reach for the rim and soon he was pulling himself up and over the top of the tank. When his waist rested on the glass wall, the girl lurched forward and grabbed Ray’s wrist.

The door behind him burst open and strong hands clasped his ankle. The girl’s eyes widened, and she released Ray’s wrist. In a cloud of bubbles, she disappeared into the recesses of the tank.

Ray was pulled sharply down from the tank and dropped onto the floor with a thud. Buck leaned over him, his eyes pale but fiery. Ray felt his senses return to him as the song’s enchantment passed.

“What are you doing here?” Buck shouted.

“I didn’t mean to … I—I just wanted to meet her,” Ray stammered.

Buck turned toward the tank and called, “Jolie, are you okay?” When no reply came, he turned back to Ray and hissed, “Go outside and wait.”

Ray scrambled to his feet and out to the warm flood of
sunlight. What was that girl? No person could have remained underwater as long as she had. No person lived in a tank. Fear—not only of the girl, but of Buck—swelled in Ray’s throat.

Buck came out and locked the door behind him. “You’re lucky you’re still breathing! She might be sick, but she could have—”

“Who is she?” Ray asked.

“That door was locked for a reason,” Buck growled. “Get back with the others.”

“Please, Buck. I’ve … got to understand.”

“Understand what?”

“A dream!” Ray clutched his hands together. “I had a dream, and you and that girl—or whatever she is—and another man were in it. You were in a swamp, running from a hound. A Hoarhound, I think.”

Buck’s mouth parted. “How could you … ?”

“What is she, Buck?”

Buck shook his head, running a hand beneath his hat into his tangled silver and black hair. He hesitated a moment, then bent his head toward Ray. “A siren. She’s what’s called a siren.”

“A what? You mean a mermaid?”

“Did you see a fish tail on her?” Buck scoffed. “No, she’s a siren. A daughter of the ocean. A child of the swamps. Sirens are like us in many ways, but they are not human. They sleep beneath the water. They have powers we do not. Their song—”

“I heard it! A few days ago. And just now …” Ray trembled.

Buck furrowed his brow. “She didn’t know who you were! She thought you were with him … the one who is trying to capture her.”

“Who’s after her?”

Buck shook his head. “I’ve told you more than I should.”

“Let me see her again,” Ray said. “Let me just talk to her.”

Buck turned to leave. Then he paused a moment, his back still to Ray. He turned his head, deep shadows cast over his face from his cowboy hat. “Jolie. The siren’s name is Jolie.” Then he walked away.

The
Ballyhoo
moved on to Spencer the following day. They were two days early, but Mister Everett decided to use the time to make some repairs to the locomotive’s driving rods. Conker and Ray were placing the bottletrees around the
Ballyhoo’s
camp and talking about what had happened with the siren when Buck found them.

“I checked with Nel. He says it will be fine,” Buck said in his gravelly voice. “Come by my room a little later, and I can go with you this first time. Remind me to show you where I keep the key. That way Si won’t have to pick the lock again.”

After Buck walked away, Conker frowned. “You told him Si unlocked the door?”

“No!” Ray said. “I swear, I didn’t. How do you think he knew?”

Conker smiled as he wedged the next bottletree in the ground. “That’s Buck for you.”

Buck knocked as he unlocked the door to Jolie’s car. “Wait here a moment,” he said to Ray before going inside. Ray felt more nervous waiting on the platform than when he had jumped from the back of Mister Grevol’s train, even more than when Hobnob had smashed the poison acorns.

Buck returned a minute or so later. “It’s okay. Go on in.”

Ray looked back at him tentatively before going into the small antechamber. As before, the light was dim and seemed absorbed and refracted strangely by the tank of water filling the back portion of the boxcar.

“Hello?” Ray called, noticing that his voice sounded small in the space. He couldn’t see her. She wasn’t waiting in the antechamber, and the murky green water swirled with shadows.

He slowly approached the glass tank. “Hello?” The room, maybe it was the water, sucked away the sound of his voice.

“Don’t be afraid, I was just coming by to—”

Water splashed over the edge of the tank, and the siren pulled herself up on the rim, poised like some wild beast. Her face was ghostly pale, scars running along her arms, neck, and face. Her eyes were dark and threatening.

“I am not scared of you,” she spat, before lunging over the side of the tank. Her bare feet smacked wet and hard on the floor. Her hair was dripping about her neck, but the dress she wore appeared dry. It was not woven of cloth, but of some sort of leaves or vegetation interlaced as tightly and subtly as silk, which kept it from absorbing water.

Ray drew back as she marched toward him. Had she not attacked him already he would not have guessed that this twig of a girl would be strong, much less a threat. Even if she was sick, she was intimidating.

“You think I am afraid?” She had a strange accent, as if English was not her native language. It was filled with trills and a heavy use of the tongue along the teeth, unlike any way of speaking he had ever heard.

“No, it’s just that I called and … and you didn’t answer. … ”

She bent slightly at the knees, crouching like a wildcat ready to spring. Ray was not sure whether it would be at his throat or back into the tank of water. Jolie circled him, looking him over.

Through clenched teeth, she said, “You think I like being locked in here all day? You think I am hiding because I am afraid?” She jabbed a finger at him. “What do you know about me, you little sneak?”

Ray was so flustered that he didn’t understand that this was a rhetorical question. “I … I know you’re a siren.”

She glared at Ray, crossing her arms and flaring her nose. “You have seen a siren before?”

“No, never.”

“You probably thought I would have scales, gills, something like that?” She bit at her lip but continued to scowl, her eyes lightning-streaked.

“I … had no idea what a siren was like. I didn’t even know there was such a thing before …” As soon as he said it, Ray winced and wished he could retract the word.

“Thing?
” she growled. “You find me to be a
thing?
”

“No, you know I didn’t mean it that way. You’re nothing like that. You’re normal.”

“I am anything but that.” She began circling him again. “What is your name?”

He watched her movements closely. “Ray.”

“Buck explained to me that this,” she gestured to the door and outside, “is part of some sort of performance. People come to see it and to buy healing potions.” Her arms relaxed slightly. “And what do you do here?”

“Just help out. I’m not a performer, if that’s what you’re asking.” In his nervousness, he blurted, “My sister would probably make a good performer. She’s funny and likes to dance. … ”

“You have a sister. Is she here, too?”

“No. We were on this train, and I left her—”

Jolie winced. “You left her? Why would you do that?”

“Our parents, they’re dead. We were sent off to get adopted with the others from the orphanage, but I didn’t think she’d find a good home with me tagging along.”

Jolie blinked several times and fidgeted with her fingers. “What is an orphanage?”

“Oh. That’s a place for children who don’t have parents.”

“I do not think I understand why you left your sister. Did she want you to leave her?”

“I doubt it. I didn’t tell her I was going to leave. It’s just that I knew she wouldn’t understand. She’s young and I don’t think she saw the whole picture of what would happen if we tried to find a home
and
stay together.”

“And you did?”

“Yes,” Ray said forcefully. “She’s just a child. Of course she’d want me to stay with her.”

“Then you should have.”

“But if I had, she might not have found a good home. Don’t you see? I … I just thought at the time it was the right thing to do. I would like to find her again! To see if she’s found a good home and all. I hope to one day. And … well, what do you know about it anyway?” Why did he have to justify his decision to this girl? His cheeks felt blistering hot, but Jolie met his emotion with a flat, hard gaze.

“I know that
my
sisters are not coming back for me,” she said. “They are gone. They left for the open sea. But I could not follow them, since I am only part siren.” Her jaw trembled a moment before she continued. “My sisters left me to fend for myself in the Terrebonne, to be hunted down and held prisoner.” Her voice dropped to a cold, low register. “I will never forgive them for it.”

Ray lowered his head from her defiant face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Why did they leave you?”

“To escape from the Gog,” she said.

“What is the Gog?” Ray asked, remembering what Hobnob had mentioned about the Gog killing the Ramblers. “Is he a man?”

Jolie laughed grimly. “I have never seen him. From what they say, you could scarcely call him a man, because he has none of the compassion that the rest of us, siren and human and creatures of the earth, were born with. They say he has a clockwork heart and a mind of pistons and gears.”

Ray blinked hard, trying to comprehend this. Jolie narrowed her eyes at him. “Why did you come here, anyway? Why did you sneak in like that the other day?”

Ray hesitated half a moment before producing the lodestone from his pocket. He held it up to show it to Jolie. “Have you ever seen one of these before?”

“It is just a piece of string tied to a stone.” She frowned and looked up at Ray with puzzlement.

“No, it’s not, see. It’s a lodestone. Do you know what that is?”

“A rock that pulls to metal.”

“Right. But this one not only does that, it gives me these strange dreams. I think it’s been showing me things for a reason. I dreamed of you and Buck and some man trying to get away from that Hoarhound.”

Jolie’s eyes grew big and she dropped her hands to her sides. “You saw that? How did you get this stone?”

“From my father. He gave it to me eight years ago, before he left—”

“That is when the Gog killed most of the Ramblers,” Jolie said, her eyes darkening. “In the battle after John Henry’s fall. Little Bill. The man you saw in your dream. He was the last of the Ramblers.” She clasped her hands together, her brow wrinkling urgently. “Did this stone show you what happened to him?”

“Yes,” Ray said. “Sort of. I saw him fight that Hound. He was having trouble and then the Hoarhound bit him. … I think it might have killed him.”

Jolie’s mouth opened. Bright tears sprang to her eyes. “Little Bill … is dead?” She began trembling and collapsed to her knees on the floor.

“I’m sorry,” Ray said, kneeling down and reaching until he almost touched her shoulder. “I didn’t mean to … Maybe he’s not. I don’t know. He and the Hound just disappeared … after it bit into …”

Jolie twisted away from him, her hands to her throat and shaking with sobs.

“Should I … ? I’m so sorry. Do you want me to … ?” But Ray didn’t know what to do to console her. Jolie began crying harder, laying her face to the floor.

Ray stood and backed away. He looked down at her once more and then opened the door gently and left.

“S
O DID SHE TALK TO YOU
?” C
ONKER ASKED AS HE WEDGED
himself through Ray’s doorway.

Ray sat up from the bed. “Yes.”

“Didn’t try to … you know, drown you or nothing?” Conker squeezed onto the floor.

“No,” Ray said. “Nothing like that.” He told Conker what little Jolie had said about the Gog and how he was after the sirens. Ray kneeled on the edge of his tick mattress. “But the man. He was a Rambler! His name’s Little Bill and when—”

“Li’l Bill?” Conker jerked up, banging his head back against the wall. “I’ve heard of him. In those stories about my daddy. Li’l Bill helped him win that competition against the steam drill.”