by Alex Bell
“You’re her, aren’t you?” Cadi asked, confirming Stella’s fears. “You’re the ice princess.”
Stella stiffened, and she felt her explorer friends all suddenly go still beside her.
“What gave me away?” she asked, trying to smile, while snatching the tiara from her hair and stuffing it back in her pocket.
She’d braced herself for Cadi to snarl some insult at her, or recoil, or at least take a step back. So she was astonished when the other girl hopped straight over the broken pumpkins and threw her arms around her in a tight hug.
“Oh, thank you!” she said. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“For what?” Stella asked.
Cadi drew back, beaming. She was quite a bit taller than Stella, who had to tilt her head back to meet her eyes. “For showing all those stuffy old clubs that girls can be just as good at exploring as boys, of course!” she said. “Witch hunting’s okay—you get to travel a bit and meet interesting people and the like—but all I’ve ever really wanted to be is an explorer.” She clapped Stella on the back. “And you’re the reason I finally can! I’ve applied to all the clubs. Well, all the clubs that will now accept applications from girls.” She glanced at Ethan’s black Ocean Squid explorer robe and said, “Your group is a strange bunch, aren’t they? I visited the Ocean Squid Explorers’ Club in person last month to see if I could apply to be an explorer there, and some awful chap at the door brandished a tentacle at me and told me to get lost. He wasn’t at all civil.”
“The Ocean Squid Explorers’ Club is the best explorers’ club in the world!” Ethan said, pushing away Nigel, who’d startled nibbling at his hair again. He sighed, then added, “But they’re wrong about the girl members thing.”
“This doorman told me that the day the Ocean Squid Explorers’ Club started admitting girls was the day that starfish would all float away into space—ooh, space exploration. Now, wouldn’t that be something? Isn’t it a shame that there’s no Space Alien Explorers’ Club? One day, I suppose.”
“You talk rather a lot, don’t you?” Beanie said. He tended to point out such things to people, which could sometimes cause offense, but Cadi didn’t seem fazed.
“Witch hunters work alone,” she said. “So you have to make the best of company when you find it.”
“But surely you’re not here on Witch Mountain alone?” Shay said. “Isn’t it a little dangerous?”
“Oh, yes, witch hunting is terribly dangerous,” Cadi replied. “But I’ve been through years and years of training, and this is my chance to qualify as a fully fledged witch hunter—by capturing a witch by myself.”
“You can help us capture a witch if you like,” Stella said. “That’s what we’re here for.”
“You’re after the witch who murdered your parents, I suppose?” Cadi said. She took a penknife from her pocket and began cleaning her fingernails with it. “The newspaper stories were full of it.”
“Yes, that’s right. My father, Felix, has gone after her by himself.”
Cadi shook her head. “Silly thing to do. Only a trained witch hunter should ever go hunting alone. There are lots of dangerous things on the mountain.” She nodded back toward the flying-shark cave. “As you’ve just discovered.”
“Can you help us?” Shay asked.
She gave him another of her big grins. “Sure can, my friend. Say, I like your wolf bracelets!” She gestured at the cords of leather wrapped around Shay’s wrist, studded with wolf beads.
“I’m a wolf whisperer,” Shay said. “Shay Silverton Kipling, at your service. Thanks a lot for your help back there, by the way. We’d have been sitting ducks without you.”
Beanie scratched his head. “We wouldn’t have been sitting ducks,” he said. “We’d have been dead. Gobbled up by sharks. Thirty-three explorers have been gobbled up by sharks in the last twenty years, but they were all snow sharks or sea sharks. I’ve never heard of flying sharks before.”
“That’s Benjamin Sampson Smith,” Shay said, pointing at him. “He prefers to be called Beanie. He’s a junior medic, so he’ll patch you up if you get any scrapes and bumps.” He turned to Ethan and said, “That’s Ethan Edward Rook, magician. Nigel, the camel, and those four acrobats chanting on his back are Mustafah, Humphrey, Hermina, and Harriet, the jungle fairies, and a great early-warning signal of doom.”
Mustafah stood up and began pointing at himself energetically, so Stella said, “Mustafah is the leader—on account of having the most impressive hair.”
Mustafah gave her a pleased look and then joined the others.
“And this is Gideon Galahad Smythe,” Beanie said with a sneeze, producing a frog from his pocket. “He’s a Jungle Cat explorer and a picnic master.”
“Is that frog actually Gideon?” Shay asked with a sigh. “There seemed to be a bit of frog confusion for a while in there.”
Beanie held the frog up, dangling him by one of his back legs, and peered at it. The frog blinked back at him with bulging eyes.
“You know, it’s really quite difficult to tell,” Beanie finally said. He produced the other two frogs from his pocket and said, “One of them’s got to be Gideon.”
“Here, give them to me,” Ethan said, holding out his hands. “I’ll take care of them until I remember that spell.”
Beanie sneezed again and passed over the frogs.
“We’ve no time to lose,” said Stella. “We need to press on after Felix.” She glanced at Cadi. “I don’t suppose you know where Jezzybella lives?”
“I don’t, but if she’s one of the criminal witches, then she’ll probably be at the top of the mountain somewhere. The wanted witches have higher bounties, you see, so they put themselves right at the top. Witch Mountain is littered with traps and pitfalls and monsters and hazards, and the more you have to travel through, the greater your chances of coming to a sticky end.”
“What a cheerful thought,” Ethan said darkly.
“Where’s your shadow wolf?” Cadi asked Shay. “All whisperers have them, don’t they?”
As if hearing herself mentioned, Koa suddenly materialized at Shay’s feet. Even sitting back on her haunches, she was so large that her head was level with Shay’s waist.
“Here she is,” Shay said.
“Gracious,” Cadi said softly. “How absolutely marvelous. Well, while we’re making introductions, I have someone I need to introduce you to as well.” She put two fingers to her mouth and gave a loud, piercing whistle. Stella was very impressed and made a mental note to get Cadi to teach her if they traveled together for a while. “Gus!” Cadi called cheerfully. “Here, boy!”
There wasn’t much to see from where they stood except for the ruins of the pumpkin patch, but the mountain path curved around the corner and Cadi was gazing in that direction. Stella wasn’t too sure what exactly she expected to come in response to the hunter’s call and was ready for practically anything—from an elephant to a magic carpet. She rather hoped it might be an arctic fox, or a penguin, or even a unicorn. Unicorns were Stella’s absolute favorite, along with polar bears, of course. But, in fact, Gus turned out to be none of these things.
Instead, a gigantic, eleven-foot-long walrus came lolloping around the corner, propelling itself forward with two flat flippers, sliding along the ice on its belly. Its huge, blubbery body was covered in short, bristly cinnamon-brown fur, and it looked somewhat like an enormous seal, only with a much more whiskery face that had something of a mustache look about it and reminded Stella quite forcibly of the president of the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club. It also had two great white tusks protruding from its mouth. There were several bags tied to its back, along with an odd-looking saddle, and strangely, a long stick that stretched out over the walrus’s head and dangled a sorry-looking fish just out of its reach.
Stella had seen drawings of walruses in Felix’s books back home, but she’d never seen one in real life before and hadn’t expected it to be so big. It was even larger than Gruff. There was something a littl
e different about this walrus, though, and that was that his eyes both pointed in slightly different directions rather than looking straight ahead.
“This is Gus,” Cadi said proudly.
“He’s wonderful!” Stella exclaimed, delighted.
“Why is there a fish dangling from a string over his head like that?” Shay asked.
“Oh, I tied that there before I came down the mountain to see you,” Cadi said. “I was a little farther up when I saw your airship arrive. I wanted to come and have a look at you without Gus following me.” She glanced at the walrus. “It’s a little mean, really, as he can’t actually reach the fish, but he’ll bat around at it with his flippers for hours and it keeps him entertained enough that he won’t go wandering off and get himself into mischief.”
As if sensing he was being talked about, Gus gave a loud bellow before sliding forward across the ice toward them. He obviously did have poor eyesight, because the walrus almost collided with Ethan. When he realized there was a person there, the walrus became very interested and immediately raised himself up to snuffle all around Ethan’s hair, pressing his soft, whiskery face right up close to the side of the magician’s head.
“Great Scott, this is even worse than the polar bear!” Ethan exclaimed. “He’ll have my eye out with one of those tusks!”
“No, he won’t!” Cadi said indignantly. “His whiskers are just his way of seeing you properly.”
Gus insisted on inspecting every one of the explorers this way. When he got to Stella, she couldn’t resist flinging her arms around him in a big hug, causing him to snort appreciatively. When he tried to greet Nigel, though, the camel spat at him in outrage, although Gus didn’t seem to mind particularly. He just sloped off back to Cadi, who kissed him on the neck.
“Why do you have a walrus, anyway?” asked Ethan.
“Why do you have a camel?” Cadi shot back.
“He was foisted upon us,” Ethan said. “Although, actually, he’s not half bad. I rather like him.”
“Well, Gus wasn’t foisted on me,” Cadi said. “I chose him. Apprentice hunters all get to pick their own walrus when they go off to hunt witches in the Icelands. They’re terribly useful for carrying all your supplies and things. Plus they help keep you warm in a blizzard. Walruses are supposed to be good for hunters because they make hardly any sound as they glide along the ice. Nobody wanted Gus on account of his being a little odd, but I liked him more than the stuck-up, noble walruses.”
“Seems to me that a noble walrus is just what you ought to be picking rather than an odd one like this,” Ethan said.
“Don’t be rude,” Stella said. “And don’t call him odd. You’ll hurt his feelings.”
“Oh, Gus doesn’t mind,” Cadi replied. “He’s been called far worse. Anyway, you’ll certainly be safer with us. I know a bit about what to expect from the mountain. I’ve been here a few times before. For example, I could have told you to travel through the Cave of Hypnotizing White Cats rather than the Cave of Flying Sharks. That would have been much simpler.”
Cadi set her hat back on her head and adjusted it to a jaunty angle. “I would like to offer my services as a guide.”
“And what is it you want in return?” Ethan asked, because he always thought that everyone had an agenda.
“References,” Cadi said promptly. “And testimonials. Dad says the clubs are still a bit twitchy about accepting girls, and they might not think a hunter has the right skills to be an explorer. Well, if I prove myself useful to you here, then you’ll all provide references for me, won’t you?”
“Seems fair,” Shay agreed.
“Then we have a deal.”
“You can take the witch we capture as your bounty too, if you like,” Stella said. “Before we take her to the Court of Magical Justice.”
“Oh, that won’t be necessary. I already have a witch,” Cadi said. “Captured her before you arrived. But then I saw your dirigible, and all that business with the cow and the flying carpet, and I thought you just had to be explorers. No one else would be loopy enough to send a cow flying down on a magic carpet. Don’t worry. We will pass my witch on the way.”
“Won’t two witch prisoners be a bit difficult to handle?” Stella asked.
Cadi waved a hand. “I don’t need to take the witch back,” she said. “Just one of her hairs as proof. You know, like how woodcutters have to bring the princess’s heart back to the evil queen?” She glanced at Stella then and said, “Oh, sorry, no offense.”
“None taken,” Stella replied.
A boom in the sky made everyone jump, and they looked up in time to see what appeared to be an enormous vulture hovering in the air over the mountain. It flapped its wings several times, and then its image started to break up. Stella realized that it was actually made from hundreds of little pieces of paper, which dispersed as they fluttered to the ground in the distance.
“What was that?” Ethan demanded.
“It’s probably the witch looking for her vulture,” Cadi replied. “One crash-landed here yesterday, you know. That’s a location spell that shows the witch where the vulture is. It’ll be making its way up on foot, I expect.”
“That’s where Felix is, then,” Stella said. “So he’s not that far ahead of us, at least.”
Cadi hoisted her bag on her shoulder and pointed to the path winding its way through the pumpkin patches. “We should press on,” she said. “It’s best that we’re out of the pumpkin patches by sunset. They bite, you know. Once they light up, they sort of come alive and gnash at you. They’ll take a chunk out of your leg if you’re not careful.”
Since nobody wanted to have a chunk taken out of their leg by a gnashing pumpkin, the explorers quickly gathered up their things and set off on their way, Gus bellowing happily and Nigel giving the occasional bleat of protest as he trudged along behind them, looking pretty disgusted by the whole affair.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE MOUNTAIN PATH WASN’T the easiest to climb, and they found themselves slipping and sliding on the snow every time it got too steep. At one point they passed a little cloud of magical vulture confetti, each tiny vulture flapping its wings as it flew along.
“They’re following in the path of the real vulture,” Cadi said, pointing them out. “The spell will start to wear off eventually, and they’ll hop along on the ground for a bit before finally turning back into ordinary paper. You might see some on the floor as we go.”
They all automatically glanced down at the path around them, and then Beanie said, “Oh, look, that screaming pumpkin doesn’t have any teeth!” He turned to Stella and said, “Do you think I should take it back as a present for Moira? Perhaps then she’ll come to my party.”
Moira was Beanie’s cousin, and at Beanie’s last birthday she had announced that she was never coming to one of his parties again because he was weird and she didn’t like him.
“Forget Moira,” Stella said with a sigh. “She’s always so horrible to you. I don’t know why you try so hard to be friends with her.” She noticed, however, that Beanie picked the pumpkin up anyway and strapped it to the back of Nigel’s saddle with a great deal of care.
Eventually, they were out of the pumpkin patches and the path leveled out, turning away from the mountain edge and leading them into the crags of the mountain itself.
“Can’t you shut him up?” Ethan asked, jerking his thumb toward Gus. The walrus had kept up an almost constant stream of bellowing since they set out.
“He talks to himself when he’s happy,” Cadi replied.
“Well, he’s giving our position away to any witch who might happen to pass by,” Ethan grumbled. “Between that and the jungle fairies’ chant of doom, we’re making quite a racket. We might as well all start blowing trumpets to announce our location.”
“We didn’t bring any trumpets,” Beanie said, giving him a puzzled look. “And I don’t think that would be a very good idea, at any rate.”
They continued on in this manner fo
r most of the day, climbing farther and farther up the mountain, as the air became increasingly colder and sharper around them.
They were some way into the afternoon when Shay suddenly lifted his head and said, “What was that?”
“I didn’t hear anything,” Stella replied, but the words were barely out of her mouth when a faint howling filled the air.
“Oh no,” Cadi said, stopping on the path. “It’s the witch wolves. They don’t normally come out until nightfall.”
“What are witch wolves?” Ethan demanded. “They sound bad.”
Cadi turned to look at them, her face suddenly pale. “They are,” she said. The fact that the hunter was worried was a little unnerving to the others, especially given that she’d jumped onto a flying shark’s back with no sign of fear at all. “They’re soul eaters,” she said. “But we’ve got another problem to deal with right now. Look over there.”
The others followed her pointing finger and immediately saw the witches. There were six of them lined up on a distant crag far above. Their dark silhouettes were motionless, all long skirts and pointed hats, but Stella felt sure they were staring directly at them. A large sign on the mountain beside them read: TRESPASSERS WILL BE EATEN BY SCARECROWS.
“Those witches are always there,” Cadi said. “Day and night. Hail or thunder. I think they must be guardians of some kind. The legend goes that once they’ve laid eyes on you, you’re doomed.”
Beanie gave a little squeak of alarm, but Ethan snorted. “Rot,” he said. “They’ve seen you before, haven’t they? And you’ve lived to tell the tale.”
Cadi grinned and adjusted her hat. “Yes, but I’m a hunter,” she said, leaping onto a nearby rock just as the snow beneath the explorers started to shift and warp into long-fingered hands that wrapped themselves tight around the children’s ankles.
They were, unmistakably, witch’s hands. Even though they were made of snow, the explorers could see that the fingers were crooked, the nails were dirty, and the knuckles had warts on them. The cold seemed to seep right into their bones as the frozen hands tightened their grip.