by Vashti Hardy
Gilly cleared his throat. “It may not suit humans, but there is plenty of life here, Arthur: fish, crustaceans, migratory birds such as pelicans, even eagles. Then there are the numerous insects and of course the odd crocodile.”
“Crocodiles?” Arthur said, aghast, feeling the hair on his arms rise. They didn’t have anything like that in Lontown, but he’d seen images in the explorer books. They looked utterly fearsome.
“They’ve got to eat just like any other creature, and a little healthy fear is a good thing. It keeps us on our toes and is a reminder that we’re not actually at the top of the food chain,” said Gilly.
“I just prefer creatures that don’t think of me as food.”
They swooshed ahead.
“Did you know, their bite exerts a twenty-thousand-pound force? Quite incredible, isn’t it? It would be like a sky-ship landing on your chest.”
Arthur looked at Gilly and gulped.
Harriet led them onwards. “Any crocodiles we meet are likely more scared of us. Stay together, keep your eyes wide, and we’ll be fine.”
“I once caught a catfish in the Insulae,” said Felicity. “Near took my fingers off! Luckily, I had my spoon handy to give it a swift bash.” She whomped her lucky spoon against the water to demonstrate. “Maybe we’ll find one here,” she said hopefully.
“Have you got your sketch of the waterways?” Harriet asked.
Arthur passed her the piece of paper.
“Good work. We’ll follow the channel into the bend here, then take the right fork and cut off through the mangroves, then through this short channel and the hut should be ahead.”
They swished on through the water until they reached the tangled limbs of the mangroves. The tropical heat was intense, and they were glad to get within the cover of the trees. The mangroves had great, dense root systems that rose high above the water, giving the appearance that the trees were on stilts.
“Be careful, it’s easy to get your ankle trapped in the underwater twists of roots. Get high up if you can and make sure you have a firm hold as you move.”
“Will you be all right, Arthur? You’ve not been wearing your iron arm?” said Gilly.
“It got rather damaged on the last expedition, and to be honest, I’m better off without it.”
“Right you are.” Gilly smiled.
They began climbing their way through the mess of roots. A putrid smell hit Arthur. “Urgh, it’s like rotten eggs!”
“It’s the decaying vegetation in saltwater,” said Gilly. “Fun fact: did you know that in just one pint of this water there will be around ten thousand parasites?”
At Gilly’s words Felicity seemed to turn a shade of green. She exchanged a glance with Arthur. “Your facts are not as fun as you think, Gilchrest Nicolby.”
“Keep a cool head and keep battling on,” Harriet called. “Getting through this is as much a mental battle as a physical one.”
It was slow moving, and Arthur’s arm and thigh muscles burned, but thankfully it wasn’t too far to get to the next channel.
Harriet batted sand-flies away as the water became muddier.
“It’s impossible to swat them when I’m holding on with my arm,” Arthur said.
“Here, we’re nearly out.” Harriet took a handful of mud and spread it over his face then did her own. “That’ll keep them away a bit.”
They swished through the water, which was up to their knees in the channel, glancing around for crocodiles. After several forks and bends, the hut came into view.
“Imagine if he’s in there!” Arthur said, suddenly realizing there was absolutely the possibility that their mission would be over.
“Hello?” Harriet called as they approached the structure.
They waited a moment, and Arthur half expected to hear someone call back, but no one did.
“There’s not a person in the Wide who would be able to stand the stink of this island for long,” Felicity said, nudging Arthur.
They hurried towards the hut and let themselves inside. It was plain, with some tins on the shelves, a few books, a simple hammock, a rickety table with a drawer, and a chair.
“Well, it looks like he was here at some point. Search the books and drawer for anything that might be relevant or has a date written on it,” Harriet instructed. “Remember: he has a tendency to hide information, as Arthur discovered on the last expedition.”
Arthur had revealed secret writing in one of Wrigglesworth’s books by using lemon juice. He went straight to the desk and opened the drawer. It was empty.
He picked up one of the two books on top, keenly flicking through, while Gilly looked through the other. There were sketches of the mangroves, a detailed drawing of the channel way, some rough sketches of other islands. Most of the book still had blank pages to be filled.
Arthur sighed, disappointed. Harriet was right. Ermitage guarded information. If he had been looking for something out here, if it was to do with the fire-bird and Votary of Four, he wouldn’t have made it easy to find.
Arthur noticed an E scratched into the desk. He pushed the book aside; it read Erythea. “Harriet, it’s that word again.”
She looked across. “Perhaps it’s just a word from one of the island languages, perhaps a greeting? They say that there are over one hundred languages spoken in the Stella Oceanus, especially this far in.”
But he ran his fingers over it, certain it meant something important.
“Has anyone else found anything?” she asked.
Nobody had.
Arthur looked at the desk. He opened the drawer again and felt inside. Then it struck him that the depth of the front was more than the inside space by a couple of inches. He felt the side of the drawer and sure enough, there was a catch. He flipped it up and pulled the handle again, and a secret compartment was revealed underneath.
“Look! Another book!” He took it out as the others gathered around.
Inside were curious sketches of some creatures. They were hideous-looking: black, long-tailed, flying creatures with bat-like wings and what appeared to be tentacled faces.
“What in all the Wide are they?” Harriet said.
Underneath the drawings was a single word – Darkwhispers.
“These strange birds are unlike anything I’ve seen in all my travels,” said Gilly.
“You don’t think they’re on this island, do you?” Arthur said, looking warily over his shoulder.
Felicity shuffled her feet uncomfortably. “Deary me! They give me an instant tingling in my toes, and no mistaking. I doubt Wrigglesworth was seeking them out!” Felicity laughed.
“Darkwhispers.” Arthur breathed the word almost silently.
“Perhaps they do look a bit like a rare breed of bat,” said Gilly, studying the drawing. He thought for a moment. “Many of these islands have cave systems, and it’s likely these creatures are no bigger than a hand, so not scary at all in real life.”
“Perhaps Wrigglesworth just has an overactive imagination or isn’t very good at drawing bats.” Harriet shrugged. “Well, this other book has several weather pattern and pitch calculations for navigating to Nova. I’d bet that’s where we’ll find him, so it’s perhaps good luck that Eudora is trying to banish us there.”
“He’s probably swinging in some hammock, drinking local brew, having completely lost track of the chime!” Felicity laughed.
“Come on. It’s getting late. Bring all the books, and we’ll examine them further on the Aurora.”
They began heading back towards the channel. Dense green foliage bore down on either side of them, and the thrum of unseen insects pulsed in the air all around. Somewhere nearby, a bird screeched, and they all froze for a moment, thinking of the strange creatures drawn in the book.
“It’s just an eagle,” Gilly called.
Arthur directed them around the bend with his map. It seemed muddier than on their way in; perhaps the tidal channels were changing. He almost lost his boot several times.
Har
riet called from behind. “Turn your foot out as you move rather than pull it straight; it’ll stop the mud sucking you back in.”
After a while Arthur looked at his compass and stopped suddenly. He realized with a terrible twist in his guts that he’d been holding the map upside down!
“Harriet, I’m really sorry, but I had the map turned the wrong way and we need to go back.”
“It’s all right, Arthur, we’ve not gone too far,” said Harriet.
“Every direction looks very similar, so it’s an easy mistake to make. We’ll be back on track in no time,” declared Felicity. “This way, it’s less muddy over here.”
A flash of green caught Arthur’s eye. “Look out!” he yelled as a snake reared up. Before anyone could react, it went for Felicity’s outstretched arm like a dart. She dropped her lucky spoon and cried out, her face contorted in instant pain.
In their moment of frozen disbelief, the snake slithered away as swiftly as it had attacked. Felicity dropped to her knees.
“What was it?” Harriet said, hurrying over.
Felicity was now lying among the roots groaning in pain.
“I … I … don’t know. It was green.”
“I got a flash of it, a pit viper, I think,” said Gilly with a panicked expression. “We don’t have much time; her arm’s swelling already.”
“Can we suck the venom out?” Arthur said, his voice high.
Harriet shook her head. “Venom enters the bloodstream extremely quickly; trying to suck it out is ineffective. Arthur, hurry back and fetch Dr Quirke,” she said forcefully. “Tell her we need the anti-venom to a pit viper. I’ll keep the wound below the heart and keep Felicity calm.”
“Wild yam may slow the poison. I’ll look around,” said Gilly.
But Arthur was already hurtling as fast as he could back to the sky-ship.
In a rapid, hyper-alert state, Arthur flew back down the channel and through the tangle of mangroves, moving instinctively and swiftly, pulling strength that he didn’t know existed from somewhere deep inside.
“Dr Quirke!” he yelled as soon as the Aurora was in sight.
Welby peered over the edge.
“Get Dr Quirke … Felicity … snake … pit viper … anti-venom,” he spat out between gulps of air, sweat running down his face.
Dr Quirke soon came running down the gangplank carrying her small bag of medicine. “Which way?”
Arthur had no breath left to get back, but he had to, for Felicity. He pointed. “This way!”
Then Welby was there, hooking his arm and helping him onwards.
When they reached Felicity, she was completely unconscious and gasping for air in small, wheezy breaths. Dr Quirke quickly injected her with a substance from her bag.
Arthur dropped to his knees, every cell in his body aching to turn back time. “It was my fault! If I hadn’t turned the map the wrong way!”
“It’s not your fault, Arthur. There are snakes in jungles; it’s just a fact. It’s no one’s fault,” Gilly said gently, but Arthur caught Welby’s judging eyebrows.
Welby shook his head. “Concentration, Arthur. It’s what I’ve been trying to teach you.”
His scorn cut into Arthur’s already raging guilt.
“It’s an easy mistake to make, Welby,” Harriet said. “None of us realized either, we were too focused on journals we’d found.”
Welby returned to the ship to fetch more of the crew, and they made a makeshift stretcher to bring Felicity back to the Aurora. It took longer, as they had to find a way through the criss-cross of channels, but eventually they made it.
At the top of the gangplank, Dr Quirke pulled Arthur to the side. “She’s going to be fine. In fact, your swift journey through the mangroves to fetch me almost certainly saved her life,” she said.
Despite her reassuring words, Arthur still felt dreadful.
CHAPTER 10
SKY-AK
That night Arthur dreamt he was climbing through the mangroves, but he was surrounded by a thick, hot sea mist closing in on him. He was lost, and Felicity lay alone, depending on him…
“Wake up.”
He was in his bunk. Maudie stared at him. “You were muttering in your sleep.”
“Oh, was I?” he said dreamily, yet sweat was beading his brow.
“You were saying a weird word, something like ‘Erith. Erith-aya’. You kept saying it.”
“Is Felicity all right?” he asked.
Maudie nodded. “I looked in on her before bed. Dr Quirke is still with her but says that Felicity will be back to her old self within a few days. Harriet said if she is well enough, we set sail at sunrise for Mysa. We need to search the island for Wrigglesworth, but it’s also meant to have a large freshwater lake in the middle, where we can replenish our drinking supplies. Go back to sleep.”
In the morning, Arthur awoke first in another panic and went straight to Felicity’s room. He gently tapped on the door.
“Come in,” said Felicity in an unusually soft and croaky voice. She still looked pale, her black hair was loose and dishevelled, and she had a great bruise on her arm where the snake had bitten her.
“I’m so sorry,” he said.
She frowned. “What in all the Wide for? These things happen when you’re an explorer. I’m only sorry we didn’t catch and cook the blighter!”
“Where’s your lucky spoon?”
“I dropped it in the mangroves, and I guess they forgot to bring it back in the rush.”
“Oh no!” Arthur felt dreadful. It was as though a part of her had been left there.
She shrugged. “I think it’s clear that its luck has run out anyway.”
“But it’s your lucky spoon! I’ll go back for it this morning.”
“And risk you being bitten too? What if there was a nest of them and it was just a parent protecting its babe? No, sir! In the end, it’s just a spoon. Now what you can do for me is help Meriwether with breakfast before she burns the muffins … and bring me a large cup of tea.”
By eight chimes they were ready to set sail again.
“Crew to your posts!” Harriet called.
“Where’s Parthena?” Arthur asked, realizing he’d not seen her all morning. He turned to Queenie; she and Parthena were becoming quite inseparable, both preferring to sleep on deck.
But Queenie just gave a knowing prwwt.
“Harrie, we can’t go, Parthena’s missing!” said Arthur, but at that moment he caught a flash of silver in the sky above and Felicity’s lucky spoon dropped on the deck.
Parthena flew a circle around the Aurora then landed beside Arthur.
He smiled. “Clever girl. Thank you.”
Parthena dipped her head in response.
“Right! Let’s set sail, crew! It’s about time we found Ermitage Wrigglesworth.”
On the second day, after flying through the night, they reached Mysa, in the early afternoon, and not a moment too soon, as their freshwater supplies were almost spent. Felicity was up and about and feeling “brassy as a cooking pot”, although Arthur caught her pausing and leaning against the balustrade a few times.
From above, Mysa looked like a great eye with the glistening blue lake at the centre. They landed on the northern edge of the lake where there was an open bank of land. When they had secured the ship, Harriet extended the gangplank out over the water, and everybody, without exception, simply took off their boots and jumped in fully clothed, to escape the now-suffocating tropical heat.
It was cool and refreshing, and Arthur floated on his back, kicking his legs like a frog, gazing up at the powder-blue sky.
After drifting happily for several minutes, Arthur looked over and saw Maudie whispering to Harriet back on the shore. He swam over. “What are you two plotting?”
“Patience, Arthur Brightstorm. You’re about to find out.”
Harriet instructed the crew to sit along the edge of the lake and wait, while she and Maudie disappeared back to the ship.
There was th
e clank of chains and a hoist rose up on deck. It swung an oval object the size of a Lontown cart into the air. Arthur squinted in the sun. Was it some kind of sea-ship, like the Acquafreedas’? The shape rotated out from the ship above, then it was slowly lowered. Arthur clapped his hand over his mouth in astonishment.
It was a miniature sky-ship!
By now the crew were all on their feet.
It was beautiful, with a streamlined hull about the size of a canoe boat, what looked to be two extending wings, balloon fabric, some sort of compact engine on the back and a fin. It lowered into the water with a gentle splash.
Maudie appeared behind him. “What do you think?” she said proudly, her face not just glowing from the beating sun but positively shining with pride.
“Maud! I can’t believe you managed to keep this secret!” Arthur said. The rest of the crew began chattering and walking about admiring the invention.
“I wanted it to be a big surprise and I was a bit worried I might not be able to get it working. I had the idea back in South Polaris, that sky-ships should have a back-up – something that could help you out of sticky situations or be useful for short missions. I mean, there’s still some perfecting to do. At the moment it can’t reach too high and it could do with more speed and…”
“High? You mean … it flies?”
“Well, a little. I need to work on how to gain extra lift; there’s still things to work out…”
“I don’t care! It’s brilliant.” He noticed that on the side was painted Violetta II and he had to swallow back the immense emotions he had: a heady cocktail of pride, heartache and excitement.
“Want to know what I’ve called the invention?” Maudie asked.
He nodded keenly.
“It’s called a sky-ak.”
“Clanking cogs, that’s amazing!”
Maudie tucked a rag in her toolbelt. Her grin filled her face. “Harrie thinks I can refine the engine, patent it and roll it out in Lontown. It could make sky travel on a small scale more accessible, that kind of thing. And the engine is water-powered, a very basic, reduced model of the Aurora’s engine, but the principle is the same. It just needs to make contact with the surface for more frequent uptake of water, and that gives the propeller a bit of a boost for lift, but that’s something I can work on over time. It even has salt filters, just like the Aurora, so you can use it over sea too.”