Being careful not to tear the paper, Oona unwrapped the gift: the only gift she would receive on this, her eleventh birthday. Inside lay a thick piece of parchment folded five times over. She unfolded the parchment and laid it on the deck. It was a map.
“I drew it myself,” the navigator said. “I’ve marked all the places you have been, and you can fill in all the places you will go.”
Unlike Haroyld’s map that showed the Northern Sea, Oona’s map had spaces that branched far beyond.
“It’s so big,” she said.
“That, Oona Britt, is because I have a feeling you are going to go very far.”
Oona knelt to study the map more closely. She was admiring the detail when a loud thud sounded from the front of the ship. The world seemed to spin beneath her feet, like the ship was caught in the midst of a swirling current. But when Oona suggested this to Haroyld, the navigator shook his head.
“This isn’t the feeling of being tossed about by the sea,” Haroyld said. “This is what it feels like to stand on land after being at sea.” Haroyld’s face creased with confusion and then jumped with delight. “We’ve run aground, Oona,” he said. “We’ve run aground in the middle of the sea. I think we’ve discovered a new island.” And then, the navigator raced below deck so he could draw the island on his map.
HAROYLD’S ISLAND
By the time Haroyld returned with his map, half of the crew had come up on deck to see what had stopped the ship. They all, very quickly, came to the same conclusion.
“We’ve run aground on Fisherman’s Hell!” they screeched into the night. “They’re never going to let us off. No man ever leaves – remember Hans Pilfer?”
“Calm down,” Haroyld said as he laid his map out on the deck. “We’re fifty nautical miles north of Fisherman’s Hell. This, men, is something else. Something new. A place that has never been mapped before.”
Haroyld pulled a jar of ink and a quill from his pocket. With the ship still, it was easy to mark the spot where they currently were. But he had a problem. He did not know what to call the island.
“How about you call it Haroyld’s Island?” Oona suggested.
The navigator blushed. “Oh, I don’t think I could do that. Islands have only been named after captains, not navigators.”
“Well, that’s what I’m going to call it on mine,” Oona said. And then, before Haroyld could protest, she borrowed his quill, dipped it in the ink and wrote “Haroyld’s Island” just north of where Fisherman’s Hell was marked on her own map.
By the time the ink dried all the crew, including the captain and Barnacles, had reached the deck and were looking out at the island in wonder.
“Never heard of an island this far north,” one of them said.
“Surely it’s been found before,” said another. “Islands don’t just pop up out of nowhere.”
Curious to know more about this island, several of the men fetched lanterns from below deck. They attached them to fishing poles and hung them over the edge of the ship. In the flickering pools of orange light, a rocky shore appeared below.
“Well, there’s only one thing for it,” Oona’s father said. “Let’s explore.”
Barnacles watched the crew leave the ship. He had sailed these waters for two hundred years and couldn’t remember seeing an island here. It wasn’t natural. It wasn’t right. Yes, this island was very wrong, and he didn’t want anything further to do with it. So, while all the men and the girl walked further away, Barnacles the cat turned around and darted below deck.
Haroyld’s Island was not as big as Oona had hoped. Within one hour of walking they had reached the other side. It wasn’t very exciting either. The same rocky shore they had sighted from the ship covered the entire surface. There were no trees, plants or grass. No living creatures, big or small. There were just rocks everywhere and you couldn’t even pick them up. Oona had tried, but they appeared to be glued to the island itself.
“I might have to make the mark on my map a bit smaller,” Haroyld said as they walked back towards the ship. Even though they now stood on land, he still led the way. “The island probably isn’t even here in summer, not when the icebergs melt.”
The crew crossed the island quickly. But when they reached the other side, there was a problem.
“The Plucky Leopard,” Oona said. “It’s gone.”
When his ship first began to move, Barnacles thought nothing of it; the men had returned and they were sailing north once more. But as the hours passed, and he drifted in and out of sleep, he noticed something strange. The ship – his ship – was very, very quiet.
Barnacles left the navigator’s cabin and walked into the men’s quarters. All the bunks were empty. The mess hall was empty as well, so too the galley. He even checked in the storeroom, but no one was there.
Barnacles was about to search the deck when his eyes caught sight of something strange on the other side of the storeroom porthole. Instead of seeing the ocean and the bright Northern Lights, all he saw was a thick, green slimy tentacle. The men weren’t moving the ship. A monster was.
“Face it,” one of the men said as they circled the island for a third time. “You’ve lost your touch, old man.”
“It’s not that I can’t navigate us back to the ship,” Haroyld said. “It’s that the ship, I’m afraid, is no longer here.”
“What do you mean ‘no longer here’?” This time the captain spoke. “We ran aground. We put down anchor. It can’t exactly go anywhere without us.”
“But it must have,” Haroyld said. “We’ve walked around the edge of this island three times and the Plucky Leopard isn’t here.”
“It has to be here,” said another of the men. “You just can’t find it.”
The men started to bicker amongst themselves. They were still arguing when the sun began to rise. The first light of day broke over the horizon. At first the light was thin and dim, and you could see nothing by it. But then, as it grew stronger, a shape appeared further down the shore.
“Look,” Oona said. She pointed towards the shape she had just sighted. “You’re all wrong. It’s still here. There’s the Plucky Leopard.”
No longer run aground, the Plucky Leopard bobbed gaily in the waves. It wasn’t very far from shore. But the sea was so cold and icy that if they tried to swim they would freeze before they reached it.
“Good spotting, Oona,” her father said. He gave her an approving nod before his brow creased. “But how did it get out there?” He paused for a moment and his brow creased even further. “It’s that darn cat,” he said. “I bet he’s behind this. He’s been after my ship for decades.”
“His eyes have always looked shifty to me,” one of the men agreed.
“Aye,” said another. “My gran always told me never to trust cats. Hated cats, she did.”
“It’s not Barnacles,” Oona said. “Look. Look what’s sticking out of the water.”
The crew walked closer to the water. As their vision sharpened, they saw several giant green tentacles reaching out of the sea and wrapping their suckers around the hull. For the first time that morning they could all agree on something.
“It’s a monster!” they shrieked.
“Kill it!” they screamed.
One by one the men threw their flaming lanterns at the creature. As the small, oily flames soared over the sea, Oona noticed something. Eight tentacles grasped at the ship. If they punctured the wood, they would leave eight identical round holes in the hull. With a sinking feeling, Oona realized that this beast, or one very much like it, had destroyed the Gandering Gull.
At the same time Oona realized this, she also realized something else.
Fifty years ago, on their own journey north, the members of the Gandering Gull must have stumbled upon this beast. When its tentacles wrapped around their ship, they had used flames against it. But instead of burning the creature, they had accidentally burned their own ship. Now, the same was about to happen again.
“Stop,”
she yelled. “Stop!” she screamed at the men. “You’re going to hit the ship. You’re going to burn the Plucky Leopard.”
“What else can we do?” Oona’s father asked.
By now, six tentacles wrapped around the hull of his ship and another two twisted themselves up the masts. The creature held on so tightly that the wood beneath its suckers buckled. If they didn’t do something, the Plucky Leopard would be lost even without the help of fire.
Oona was about to say she didn’t know what they could do when she noticed something in the water. Just off the shore, a dark, green and slimy tentacle slithered beneath the waves. Oona followed the path it made. It led from Haroyld’s Island all the way to the Plucky Leopard. A sick feeling washed over her. They weren’t standing on an island. They were standing on the monster.
THE NORTHERN WING
Prince Turnip had not lied when he told the captain’s wife that he was the richest man in the South. Along with possessing one thousand fields of turnips, he also owned the largest castle.
“Mother,” Ina said when she saw the castle for the first time. “It’s bigger than our house.”
“It’s bigger than all the houses on Whalebone Lane,” Berit corrected.
“It’s bigger than Nordlor itself,” Sissel said.
“And soon it will all be yours,” Prince Turnip said to his six future wives. “You can each have your own turret. You can stay there until the wedding.”
There was only one negative that the Britt sisters could find. The whole place smelled of turnips, and within a day of arriving they smelled like turnips too. Still, it was a small price to pay for becoming princesses.
“Now—” the prince said. It was time to give his future wives a tour of his castle. He didn’t want them getting lost or falling in the moat. “The kitchen is in the southern wing, along with the bakehouse and the Great Hall. I have five chefs skilled in making all the great dishes, like turnip mash, turnip soup and turnip pie. They work all through the day and night, so you can eat whenever you want.”
While the Britts loved the idea of being able to eat on demand, they weren’t too thrilled about the options available.
“Don’t you eat anything that doesn’t have turnips in it?” Trine asked hopefully.
The prince thought for a moment and then shook his head. “No. Now, let’s move on to the western wing.”
The prince led them across a large grass courtyard that separated the four stone wings of his castle. “Here you will find the chapel and the priest’s house. He’s the one who will marry us.” He winked at his future wives before turning from the western wing and pointing up at the eastern one. “In there you will find the stables and my quarters. I also have a whole room just for counting my money. I do it every morning at dawn. I have so much that the counting takes me right through until lunch.”
All the Britt sisters looked very impressed by this, but not as impressed as their mother. Since arriving at the castle, she had not stopped smiling and chuckling. Sometimes, if one of her daughters turned their head quick enough, they would catch her rubbing her hands together and whispering, “Money. Money. Money.”
“And what do you do after that?” Sissel asked the prince. “What do you do after you have counted our— I mean, your money?”
“Why, I have lunch in the southern wing, and then I go to the northern one.”
“Ooh,” Onka said. “What’s in the northern wing?”
“Now that, my dear Plonka,” the prince said secretly, “is my favourite wing of all. But, alas, I cannot tell you what is in there. For, it is a surprise. A surprise that I will reveal to you all on our wedding day.”
*
At the same moment her sisters were touring their future castle, Oona and the men of the Plucky Leopard remained trapped on Haroyld’s Island. What had appeared to be her best birthday in eleven years had quickly turned into Oona’s worst. As soon as she realized the truth about the island and the monster – the truth that they were one and the same – the creature had begun to move. Now the entire island was twisting and shaking in the water.
“What’s happening?” the men cried. By now the trembling island had risen out of the ocean, and it felt like they were floating in the sky instead of in the sea.
“It’s the creature,” Oona said. “The creature is the island, and I think it’s trying to throw us into the water.”
As soon as Oona finished her sentence the creature got its wish. One of the men standing closest to the water’s edge lost his footing and fell into the sea.
“Help!” the man screamed when his head emerged above the surface. “Help me. Quick!”
Two men standing close to the water gingerly reached out for their friend. But before their hands closed around his, something pulled him under. A few bubbles appeared on the surface, and then the water grew still.
Seconds passed. The island stopped moving. Oona looked towards their ship. Only seven tentacles remained wrapped around the Plucky Leopard. One was missing. A whole minute went by and then another. The fallen man did not resurface.
The crew’s terror grew. They edged towards the centre of the island and huddled together. The eighth tentacle reappeared near the stern of their ship, and, once again, the island began to move. Only this time, instead of moving up, the island started to sink down.
The ocean grew nearer. The island grew smaller. Soon there would be no island left to stand on and they would all, like the first man, fall into the sea. With eight tentacles it wouldn’t take long for the creature to grab and devour the entire crew.
Oona thought her life was over – she was going to die one day after turning eleven – but then she had an idea. While it may have been hard to hit the tentacles with their lanterns, it would not be so hard to hit the island itself.
“Put your lanterns on its back,” Oona said. When none of the men listened, she grabbed her father’s arm and shook it. “Father,” she said, “they have to put the lanterns on the island. They have to push them into its back.”
Oona’s father was about to tell her to be quiet – a very common response he had voiced while they lived in Nordlor – but then he realized his daughter was right.
“Men?” he yelled. “Stop!” he screamed. “Press your lanterns into the monster’s back.”
When the words came from their captain, the men did as they were told. Instead of hurling the flames across the water they pressed them into the ground beneath their feet.
The flames leached out of the lanterns and licked at the rocks below. At first, nothing happened. But then, as the flames grew larger, the rocks melted and green, slimy skin appeared beneath. The island started to wriggle and then roll beneath their feet. A few of the men fell over and almost tumbled into the approaching sea.
Oona feared she had made a mistake; she had just angered the creature, not hurt it. But then a cry sounded from beneath the waves. The creature released the Plucky Leopard from its clutches and its tentacles raced back to the island, where the crew huddled on its back. Oona and the men had to duck and weave as the creature slammed its tentacles down on to its own body. But instead of extinguishing the flames, the tentacles fuelled them, and soon they were on fire too.
“We’re going to die!” the men screamed as eight ribbons of giant fire danced around them. “We’re going to burn!”
Oona feared they were right – this was the end – but then the sails on the Plucky Leopard rose into the air and billowed in the wind. The ship turned and began to move closer. Oona wondered which man was coming to save them. She looked around and counted all the crew. She realized the only person who could be on board wasn’t a person at all. It was a cat.
Barnacles had not wanted to save the crew; he had wanted to turn around and sail far, far away. He may have loved adventures on the sea, but he did not love things like this: things that could get him killed. But just as he was about to turn the wheel away from the captain and his crew, Barnacles remembered something.
The me
mory was from two lifetimes ago. He rarely remembered moments that old. As soon as it came to him, he wished he could forget it.
Barnacles had been playing the fiddle for hours. Yet still the men of the Gandering Gull kept cheering and calling out, “Encore! Encore!” The dining hall was ablaze with flames – lanterns burned in every corner to keep away the winter cold. Barnacles had just begun to play “The Northern Jig” when the ship ran aground.
Unlike Captain Britt, Captain Holm had not wanted to leave his ship.
“It’s unnatural, men,” he warned them when they ran up on to the deck. “I’d rather step on to Fisherman’s Hell than this unknown place.”
The older crew members listened – they had sailed these seas for two decades and trusted the captain with their lives – but some of the younger men did not. They started to whisper amongst themselves, whisper about finding hidden treasure, and against the captain’s command they jumped off the ship and went to explore.
The men were gone for several hours. Captain Holm could have left, but instead he stayed and waited for them to return.
It was nearing dawn when the ship started to move. The captain yelled, “Put down anchor.” But the anchor was already down.
Panic began to spread amongst the men. None knew what was happening. Their panic only grew when sunlight broke and they saw the tentacles that held them.
Captain Holm ordered the masts to be raised and turned the wheel away from the island. But it was no use. The tentacles that held them refused to let go.
It was one of the fishermen – a man named Dag – who had the idea.
“We’ll burn the creature. Then it’ll let us go.” He grabbed one of the lanterns from the dining hall and pressed the flame against a green tentacle. The monster hissed in pain and pulled back.
The Girl, the Cat and the Navigator Page 10