The Lost Chronicles

Rippling Waves Cont

 

The next day we got up early and dress for the lake, despite the fact it would probably be chilly. I had shorts and my jacket on over my one piece bathing suit, and Natasha wore leggings and a tank top and fingerless gloves over hers.

 

I slung a beach bag with towels and sunscreen and other beach essentials such as snacks over my shoulder and Natasha had her messenger bag. She was double checking it for pencils and colours and paper. That was when she discovered the third notebook. It was just sitting in Natasha’s bag, the worn leather cover an obvious deviation from her colourful sketchbook.

 

She pulled it out. “Okay, now these things are freaking me out.” She creaked it open. “A-a-and it’s about those nokken things. Lovely.” I hung over her shoulder and we hastily flipped through the pages. Any advice would be good.

 

“Huh,” I said. “Shapeshifting . . . water spirits . . . music . . . merpeople? Well, if they can shapeshift . . . nice horses. Not that I’ll try to ride one and drown. I can’t tell if these are supposed to be friendly or not.”

 

“No clue,” Natasha grumbled. “Stuff is inked out or left blank, like unanswered questions and things people shouldn’t know. There’s nothing about nokkens and the lake. But knowing the worst of their tricks is nice. Providing these are the worst.”

 

“Aren’t you just a little ray of sunshine?” I said, making a face and taking the book from her. “Well let’s get going. Maybe we can prevent a drowning and find out who made the freaky ghost books. If books are gonna pop up every time we encounter something . . .”

 

I pushed that thought away and we left.

 

The lake was only about half an hour away on foot, which was good since we didn’t have a car or anything. Not that we could drive, technically. We had no fully licensed driver to sit in the passenger seat. On the road, a few other people joined us. Mainly families with little kids.

 

The stretch of lakeshore that was a mix of sand and smooth stones was open, one lifeguard on duty. The guy was so scrawny, I doubted he could pull me out, much less someone larger.

 

We spread out towels and kicked off our sandals to stake our claim on the sand. I grabbed the old notebook and waited as Natasha took off her cover up clothes. “Ready to go find a water spirit?” I asked her.

 

“No. But you’ll go anyways.”

 

I smiled and then made my way to the shoreline. I turned right and back to pick my way beside the shallows. We walked for a couple minutes, until we were out the immediate line of sight of the townsfolk, but their sounds remained just on the verge of hearing.

 

I looked out of the faded blue of the lake. “Now what?” Natasha asked.

 

“I figure out how to summon a nokken or whatever,” I said. “Maybe I should yell insults until that little things that was in the house comes back.”

 

“That would be a good way to get dragged under,” a male voice off to the side said. I jumped and realized that a teenage boy was sitting on a large rock by the water’s edge. His dark hair and blue clothes were damp. He looked up, blue eyes sorrowful.

 

“Uh . . . who are you?” I asked.

 

“You’re not running away,” he noted, ignoring my question. I had to grab Natasha’s arm to stop her from backing up.

 

“Should I be?” I asked.

 

“Most people don’t want to stick around if they’re talking to a nokken.”

 

“Right – wait, you’re the same thing as that creepy little green dude I grabbed?” I looked at Natasha. “There was mention of shapeshifting.”

 

“This is just weird,” she muttered.

 

“You could apologize for grabbing my uncle,” the nokken boy said. “He was put out about it for the rest of the day. Though I would have loved to see his face.”

 

I stared at him. “Uncle? Are you the guy who’s supposed to drown someone at some point?”

 

He shook his head. “Nah. That’s my little brother. He’s still got a few years before his turn. It’s my little sister’s ceremony in a few days.”

 

I blinked. “Um . . . is there a whole family of nokkens living in this lake?”

 

He thought for a second. “There’s my parents, my older sister, me, my little sister, my little brother, my uncle, my cousin, and then there’s that nix I think I’m related to but I’m not sure.”

 

Natasha and I exchanged a glance. “Well that’s uncomfortable if you all drown people. What’s a nix?”

 

He frowned. “Humans use different terms, don’t they? Nix is our term for any male. A nixie is female.”

 

I looked at Natasha. “Notebook. Now.”

 

She looked close to screaming or something, but she pulled the notebook out of her messenger bag and handed it to me. I creaked it open and began to flip through pages. “Yeah . . . not finding anything. Brilliant. Okay. We got shapeshifting lake people. What’s up with the drowning thing?”

 

The . . . nix nokken . . . shrugged. “It’s a tradition. When we come of age, we have this whole ceremony and all, and at the end we’re supposed to drown a human. Nokkens have been doing it for ages.”

 

I swallowed. “I take it that includes yourself.”

 

He was silent for a moment, then very deliberately he took his bare feet out of the shallows and onto dry land. He stood up and walked over. I was fully prepared to run if I had to. He folded his arms. “Are you any good at keeping secrets?”

 

Natasha made a squeaking sound. “You have no idea,” I said dryly, thinking of Avira.

 

He glanced at the lake, his eyes distant. “I messed up my ceremony. I didn’t want to drown a person. I used a rabbit instead. All we need to do is take a life and bring back some bones and blood. I didn’t even want to do that, but like I said, tradition. The rest of my family is old fashioned. And since you,” he gave me a pointed look, “grab my uncle and were kind of rude to him, my sister is pretty eager to make you or your friend her victim. I felt it fair to warn you.”

 

Natasha plucked at my sleeve. “Avalon . . . maybe we should go.”

 

I swallowed. “As tempting as that is, they know where I live, and, er . . .”

 

I opened the notebook again and flipped to the pages about nokken and music. “So according to this, nokkens are into using magical music to drown people. Maybe I should lock myself in the basement with some ear plugs in.”

 

“What is that?”

 

I literally jumped when I realize the nokken was standing next to me to look at the notebook. “Geez, I don’t care if you’re a shapeshifting lake monster, don’t sneak up on a girl!”

 

“Lake monster?”

 

“Uh, maybe dial down the insults,” Natasha said. “And it’s just a notebook. Magically popped up in my bag this morning and has info on you . . . nokken things.”

 

“No way.” He snatched the notebook from me and began to leaf through it quickly.

 

“Hey, give that back! It’s none of your business!”

 

Suddenly he started laughing. “I can’t believe he was telling the truth!”

 

Natasha and I looked at him blankly. “Who was telling the truth?” she asked.

 

“My grandfather,” he replied, still reading the notebook. “Died a few years ago. He told me stories about how for a week or so, someone hung around the lake, writing all the time and drawing. My grandfather said he thought it was about nokkens, but he never saw the notebook. I thought he made it up, since he never said what the writer was. Could’ve been anything or anyone.”

 

I threw up my hands. “Magic journals written by some mysterious, unknown entity! A dead magic lake spirit who saw said entity! I hate my cousin for telling us to come here!”

 

Natasha gave me a look. “Really?”

 

“Oh . . .” Angrily I grabbed the notebook back. “Unless either of you have something useful to say, be quiet! I want to, oh I don’t know, stop myself or Nat or anyone else from drowning!”

 

I started going through the notebook, reading every little bit of the elaborate handwriting.

 

“Your friend is weird,” the nokken said.

 

“No kidding,” Natasha said. “Say, uh, you got a name, right?”

 

“We’re technically not supposed to tell humans, but I am peaceful so it should be fine. It’s –” He said something that sounded German or something.

 

“. . . Can I just call you Nick?” she asked.

 

“. . . Sure.”

 

I looked up from the book. “What was that about not telling humans your name?”

 

Nick the nix nokken looked at me. Those blue eyes seemed to be permanently stuck in sad mode. “Well, supposedly if a human says our name, it’ll either kill us or force us to let them go . . . but that only applies if we’re trying to drown them, I think. Not sure. Nokkens haven’t have contact with humans in a long time.”

 

“You like breaking all the rules, don’t you?” I asked.

 

He shrugged. “I think humans are cool. That’s why I like this form.”

 

“What other forms can you do?” Natasha asked.

 

“The usual – this one, half person half fish, a white horse. Not much more than that. My uncle is good at shapeshifting.”

 

“Great. Well I’m going to do something stupid!” I announced. I strode purposefully along the lakeshore, looking for just the right spot.

 

“She does this sort of thing a lot, doesn’t she?” Nick wondered.

 

Natasha gave a sigh. “Earlier this week she went looking for a ghost’s bones in the creek at night. You have no idea.”