Read Leena and the Giant Page 3

which was lost has come back again. The bell will toll the hour of returning. The key shall be revealed and the way that was closed shall be open once more.

  Kira said she had thought it was all a lot of nonsense and until the large brass bell in the library’s tower, which had been so badly cracked that it hadn’t been used since the early 1900s, had miraculously begun to toll at noon that same day. Leena herself had been in the library at the time and remembered the thundering, painful sound of the bell ringing for the first time in over a century. It had been accompanied by the first earthquake she had ever experienced as well, which had done some superficial damage to the library, causing an immediate evacuation.

  And when they had all rushed out of the library, it was to find that the bell had somehow been repaired. The crack was gone.

  Leena hadn’t been present in the courtyard an hour later when Kira, prompted by Aislin, had somehow reached into the mosaic mural that covered the center of the courtyard and pulled from it an actual door. She had been to the courtyard since, however, and had seen the door itself, standing there as if it had always been.

  The longer she listened to the girl talk, the angrier Leena felt. She was furious. She could not remember a time when she had been so filled with rage. She wanted to stand up and cry, “Stupid girl! Why did you open the door?”

  Again distressed by her own emotions, Leena stood up and said, “I have to get out of here.”

  Caitlin and her friends stared at her in surprise.

  “I have to go,” she repeated and then walked away from the table.

  She half ran to the door, needing for some reason she couldn’t understand to get as far away from Kira Nichols as possible, only to find that it was locked. She pulled on the handle, but it was no use. It was locked from the inside with a key. She wondered if there was another door. Perhaps through the kitchen?

  “Here,” a voice said from behind her. She looked around to see Mr. Shanachie limping quickly toward her. “I’ll open it for you.”

  His voice was strangely soft. She had always thought of him as a gruff and unfriendly kind of person, but as he took a set of keys from his pocket and opened the door for her, she felt a strange kinship toward him. As he turned his blue eyes, which had always seemed strangely youthful in his weathered face, toward her, she could have sworn she saw compassion in them. For a moment she had a feeling that he might understand the strange wave of emotion that had overwhelmed her much better than she did herself.

  “Thank you,” she said as she slipped gratefully out of the door.

  Outside she drew in a deep, calming breath and held it as the door opened again and her sister and her friends spilled out of the pub. They quickly surrounded her, faces full of concern.

  “Are you okay?” Caitlin asked.

  The rage had left her as quickly as it had come and she felt a little silly as she nodded. “Yeah, sorry...I’m not sure what happened. I just felt like I couldn’t breathe.”

  “No surprise there,” Doug said with a laugh. “I don’t think Shanachie pays his cleaning staff very well. It smells like something died in here.”

  The others laughed as their concern for her began to lessen. Leena wanted to defend Mr. Shanachie, who had shown such an unexpected understanding for her untimely exit. “I don’t think it smelled bad,” she said. “Just stuffy, I guess. I don’t want to go back inside, though.”

  “I know what we should do,” Jeremy said, grinning as he draped an arm around Caitlin’s shoulder. “Let’s go up to the school and have a look at the door.”

  “What for?” Jasmine asked. “There’s always a teacher guarding it. They won’t let us anywhere near it.”

  “Not tonight,” Jeremy said. “I heard some of them talking. Everyone who signed up for guard duty is in there.” He nodded back at the pub. “No one wanted to miss the meeting.”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t,” Nessa said nervously. “A lot of weird stuff has been going on...I don’t want to get into trouble.”

  “I think she’s right,” Caitlin agreed. “We should just leave it alone. Let’s go back to someone’s house and watch a movie or something.”

  “No,” Leena said, surprising everyone again. “No, let’s do it. I want to see the door.”

  They were headed across the street when a voice called out, “Hey, Leena, wait up!” Barry was walking down the street. It had been a strange night for Leena so far, full of emotions and thoughts that she could neither explain nor understand. But as Barry started toward their group, she felt all of the confusion melting away.

  He was one of the biggest guys at Seelie High, tall and solidly built. The football coach had taken one look at him their freshman year and handed him a uniform. But Leena didn’t care that he was a star football player. She liked his size because next to him, she felt almost petit. Both she and Caitlin were tall enough that they tended to tower over not only the other girls, but most of the boys their own age as well. That had only ever added to Leena’s feelings of awkwardness. But around Barry she felt just the right size.

  And then there was his smile. As he came up to her, his broad, friendly face relaxed into that special smile that he always wore around her. It seemed to say that now that she was here, his day was perfect. She smiled back at him happily.

  “Hi, Barry,” she said.

  “Hey Baby B,” said Doug, who was also on the football team and got along well with Barry. Everyone liked Barry. Except her mother and, for some reason, Jeremy. “We were just headed up to the school to take a look at the door. Want to come?”

  Barry was still looking at Leena. “What about the meeting? Isn’t it still going on?” He nodded back toward the pub.

  “I don’t want to go back in there,” Leena said again.

  “What was it all about, anyway?” he asked, his smile slipping a little. She knew that it bothered him that he and his parents hadn’t been invited.

  “They’re just in there arguing about the door,” Jeremy said with a snort. “They made that new girl get up and talk about it.”

  “Really?” Barry sounded interested. “What did she say?”

  Jeremy shrugged. “Nothing that we didn’t all know before. You were there, weren’t you?”

  Barry nodded. He had been in the courtyard when Kira opened the door. He had told Leena it was the strangest thing he had ever seen.

  “She just said she did it because Aislin Donaghue told her to,” Jasmine said. “She didn’t look very happy about being there. Poor girl. I get the feeling she’s more confused about all of this than anyone.”

  “She should have just left the door alone then,” Leena snapped. When everyone looked at her, she blushed and added, “I mean...then we wouldn’t have all this strange stuff happening.”

  Everyone nodded and Doug asked, “So, you want to come with us, Barry?”

  Barry’s shrugged and said, “Sure.”

  As the group continued across the street, Barry took Leena’s hand and said softly, “You look nice, by the way.”

  Leena’s stomach did a summersault.

  It was strange to be on the school campus when no one was around. As they made their way between buildings toward the courtyard, Leena kept expecting a teacher to materialize and tell them off. But none did and soon they were standing in front of the door.

  Up until that week, all that had been at the center of the courtyard was a tile mosaic, depicting an illustration of an old door. Now the tiles were a blank, dull gray and the door itself stood above them. It was large and wooden, covered in some kind of flowering vine. It looked ancient and had some kind of symbol carved into it. A Celtic knot, Leena remembered from somewhere. She wondered if it meant anything.

  The seven of them circled the door as they attempted to examine it from every angle.

  “Whoa...This is so weird,” Doug muttered as he peered through the open doorway. Kira had opened it after somehow lifting it right out of the tiles and no one had dared to touch it since.

  Leena felt ano
ther wave of anger wash over her at the thought of Kira. Pushing the anger away, she dropped Barry’s hand and stepped closer to the door.

  “Careful,” Barry warned. “Don’t touch it.”

  She looked back over her shoulder for a moment and flashed him a small smile. “I won’t.”

  Leena was amazed by the scene visible through the open door. Not that it was all that strange. All she could see were a few trees. What was strange was that the trees weren’t in the courtyard. The door actually opened up into...somewhere else. She stood so close that she could feel the breeze, warm and pine scented, wafting out from the other place. The air in the courtyard was perfectly still and growing slightly chilly as the sun sank toward the horizon. The warm breeze from the door felt strange, but also nice...Almost familiar.

  She had heard that Kira had almost stepped through the door after opening it. Leena could understand why. Part of her wanted nothing more than to slip in between those trees and go home.

  Startled by the thought, she quickly stepped away from the door. Home? Wherever the door led, it certainly wasn’t her home. Why had she thought that?

  “So, that’s fairy land, huh?” Doug said as he peered over Leena’s shoulder. “Doesn’t look very magical.”

  “It must be some kind of trick, right?” said Nessa. She was biting her bottom lip and looking unhappily at the door. “I mean...How could it be real?”

  “I say we find out,” Jeremy said. “Someone should go through.”

  Even though Leena had just been thinking how much she wanted to do that very thing, hearing the suggestion from someone else shocked her. Her heart froze and something buried deep inside her screamed, “No!”

  She didn’t realize she had spoken the word aloud until Caitlin turned to her in surprise and asked, “Why not? I think it’s a good idea. All that talking they’re doing down in the pub...That’s all it ever is. Talk, talk, and more talk. I agree with Jeremy. Since we’re here, let’s find out for ourselves where the door goes.”

  “No,” Leena said again, shaking her head. She didn’t know why, but she felt quite certain that it would be a very bad idea for anyone to go through the door. “I don’t think we should. What about all the weird stuff that has been happening lately? What if we make everything worse?”

  “I think you should go, Caitlin,” Doug said with his characteristic grin. “You are the fairy queen, after all.”

  Caitlin rolled her eyes at him. “That’s my mom. I don’t buy all that fairy stuff.”

  “What fairy stuff?” Barry asked.

  Jeremy and Doug filled him in by repeating the earlier conversation about Mrs. Wallace’s list.

  Leena felt herself blushing again as Barry turned to look at her. “Is that really why your mom doesn’t like me?”

  “I...I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe. I don’t think she really believes in fairies or anything, but she’s really into genealogy and family lines and...” she trailed off slowly as Barry’s face darkened.

  “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!” he burst out. “Your mother is crazy.”

  She was surprised. He had never criticized her mother before. No matter how rude Mrs. Wallace was to him, he had never been anything but respectful. Leena guessed that not liking him because he wasn’t descended from a fairy was the last straw. She couldn’t really blame him. It did sound pretty crazy. She laid a soothing hand on his arm and said, “It doesn’t matter what she thinks, Barry.”

  But he shook her hand off. “I’m going through the door.”

  “What?” they all said in unison.

  “I’m going through. Whatever that door is, it doesn’t have anything to do with fairies and magic. There’s got to be a reasonable explanation. It’s just a trick or something, like Nessa said, and I’m going to find out how it works.”

  He took a step toward the door. Leena wrapped both of her hands around his arm and tried to pull him back. “Please don’t, Barry. Let’s just go.”

  But once again he shook her off. Before anyone could say another word, Barry stepped through the door.

  Ten minutes later, Leena rushed into the Giant’s Head. The meeting was still going on. Kira and her mother were sitting down again, but otherwise nothing had changed. Leena’s mother had the microphone and was saying something, but Leena didn’t pay any attention. She needed a doctor.

  A few people had looked around when she burst in, but turned back around after seeing who it was. Heart pounding, Leena tried to find Dr. Berne, her pediatrician, in the crowd. She was pretty sure she had seen him earlier, but now he was nowhere to be found.

  As she stood there, frantically combing the room, someone said her name.

  “Leena.”

  It was a man’s voice, deep and rasping. It wasn’t loud. No one else even seemed to hear it, but it struck Leena like a bolt of lightning. It echoed in her brain and sent sparks of electricity racing down her spine.

  “Leena Wallace.”

  The voice came again, pounding into her head.

  “It’s time to wake up, Your Highness.”

  The voice reached into her brain and found a door. Like the door in the school courtyard, it had always been there and yet she hadn’t seen it for what it was. Now, with the voice thundering in her ears, she reached out and opened the door inside her mind.

  Leena’s world exploded.

  She was flooded with images—so many, so quickly. She was standing in a room she had never seen before and yet which felt so familiar she knew every detail of the heavy tapestries on the wall. Faces flashed across her thoughts, one after another. She was looking up at a woman who was like her mother and yet wasn’t. She was watching a group of children play in the shade of a tree. They must have been playing dress up or something because they all seemed to have wings. She was standing over a man as he lay bleeding on the ground at her feet. Her heart ached as it never had before as she watched his eyelids flutter briefly and then close.

  Leena gasped. She felt like she was drowning in memories, none of which could possibly be hers. Some part of her was aware that she had fallen to her knees and that people were beginning to gather around her. She looked up at them, but all she saw was the continuing flood of images.

  She held a baby in her arms and her entire being thrilled with joy. She stood in the middle of a grove of trees at night, surrounded by hundreds of tiny dancing lights—fireflies she supposed. She flew. Like a bird, she spread wings of shimmering gossamer and raced the wind across a forget-me-not blue sky.

  And then she hurt. She had never hurt so much. Her body was torn and broken. Blood dripped in her eyes and poured from her hands. A woman, tall and cold, stood above her. Leena couldn’t see her clearly through the blood and sweat running down her face, but nonetheless every fiber in her being recognized the woman as a mortal enemy.

  “Giving up so easily, little one?” the woman purred in an ice cold voice. “I thought it would be harder.”

  Leena was somewhere else, wrapped in a heavy blanket. Someone was carrying her. A man. The pain was less now, but still there, throbbing gently, making it hard to focus. The man was speaking and she realized there were others with them. She forced her eyes open and saw three women and two men besides the one who was carrying her. They were talking quietly as they hurried along—talking about her, deciding where to take her. She recognized one of the voices. She had heard it recently. Oh yes...Mr. Shanachie was there. Why was he there?

  The scene changed again and the pain was gone. She stood on the shore, looking out to sea as the waves danced in the sunlight. Someone spoke to her and she turned. A large group of people were standing behind her, waiting for something. Waiting for her. She turned again and saw a dock and ship. It was a large ship and the mast was a hideous giant’s face. She grimaced and wondered why she had agreed to take the monster with them to the New World. She should never have let him trick her into bringing him to this world at all. It had been a mistake. The giant, sensing her gaze, winked
one large, glaring eye. She turned away.

  She was on her hands and knees on the floor of the Giant’s Head. She was still gasping for air. Tears were pouring down her cheeks. She was so many people in so many times and places. The memories tugged at her, wanting to whisk her away again.

  “Stand back!” a voice growled. Mr. Shanachie stomped his way through the crowd of people surrounding her. “Give her some room. Stand back, I said!”

  He knelt down at Leena’s side and said, in much gentler voice, “Just breathe, Your Highness. Try to focus on where you are right now. Listen to my voice. Feel the floor under your hands and knees. And breathe. In and out. There you go. That’s my girl. In and out.”

  She did what he said and tried to focus on the sound of his voice. The memories were like a river raging all around her. They wanted to drag her back under the surface, but she clung to the sound of his voice. She breathed when he told her too. She made herself feel the hard floor under her hands, to hear the sound of his voice.

  Slowly the river calmed. It was still there, but its pull was less strong. She sat back on her knees and wiped away the tears with the back of her hand. She looked at Mr. Shanachie’s face, the unshaved stubble on his cheeks, the careworn wrinkles around his eyes. His eyes that always seemed too young for his face. She had always known him, of course, but now she felt that she knew him as well as she knew her own father. Better perhaps.

  “Was it you?” she asked. “Did you call my name before?”

  He shook his head. An expression of distaste filled his features as he nodded toward the back of the pub. “No, it wasn’t me. It was him, the old devil.”

  “Help me up please, Shanachie,” she said, surprised at how natural it felt to leave out the “Mr.”

  He got to his feet and grasped her arm and helped her to stand. Everyone in the pub was staring at them. Caitlin and Jeremy were standing nearby, looking at her in a funny kind of way. Her mother was not there and she wondered why.

  But for now, she ignored them all and turned toward the back of the pub where Shanachie had indicated. She saw the Giant’s head grinning nastily at her. And suddenly she was furious again.

  “You!” she spat. Pulling her arm out of Mr. Shanachie’s grasp, she pushed her way through the crowd to stand just in front of the Giant. Words tumbled from her lips without bothering to pass through her brain. “You fiend from the netherworld! Are you awake again? After all these years? I thought I was finally rid of you.”

  Behind her, people were beginning to murmur. She heard someone say, “She’s gone crazy or something.”

  Perhaps they were right. Nothing happened, but she continued at stand there, hands on her hips, staring at the wooden face as the anger pulsed in her veins.

  Then wooden eyes blinked and the mouth, frozen for more than a hundred years in that hateful grin that she so disliked, began to move.

  “Ah, Your Highness. It