by L. L. Mintie
“Uhhh …” Lizzy waffled, not sure how much she should say about it. Perhaps it would be least painful to blurt it out—
“Remember what I said about not going near Moonfin? It seems this birthmark on my thumb is a map that leads right to her.” She paused to let that soak in.
The apple in Kai’s mouth dropped to the sand.
“What? And how did that get there?” Kai spouted, alarmed by this piece of news. She had seen the marks before when Lizzy’s hand was wet, but never thought for a moment they were a map!
Lizzy told them all about Tevu and Xili, and the dolphins, and everything they said about finding Moonfin in Frog Mountain—but left the part out about her being a Glimmruyn. That’s enough shock for one day, she thought, sucking her lips into her head.
Jeff and Kai eyed her suspiciously and knew she was leaving something out, but were too tired to ask more questions.
Jeff burrowed himself in the sand.
“It’ll be daylight soon—let’s catch some Zs.” The part about finding Moonfin no longer bothered him—if they could stop Krell, so much the better. Besides, they were beyond grounded for leaving the mainland without permission. What was one more day?
Squishing their packs under their heads, they drifted off into a proper Dreamland, except Lizzy, who couldn’t get the words “not as it seems” out of her weary mind. The smoke pleasantly wafted around them as they each quietly pondered the jello pit they had been trapped in for one whole day. They all liked the dreams very nicely, but now felt a little uncomfortable about the idea of getting all they wanted in life so easily, and, in the deepest part of their hearts, knew that they would give up those dreams, if only to gain the one thing they each really wanted. But no one said this out loud to the others.
The bear stayed hidden in the forest and watched all that had happened, waiting until the children fell asleep before climbing to his sleeping spot in the branches of a tree. He decided to stay near Lizzy … although he still didn’t know why.
Chapter 16
THE TICKLING BLADE
Jeff didn’t relish the idea of crawling down the gullet of a toad. “I eat them, they don’t eat me,” he said firmly. “Let’s get the food chain in the right order.”
“Not a real frog. It’s a lava stack formed by the violent forces of magma, pushing out of the cracked earth,” said Lizzy dramatically, adding sound effects to embellish her geologic rendition of volcanoes, “and oozing into the cooling waters, layer upon layer and—”
Kai yawned extra loudly.
“I thought it was an ordinary pile of rocks.”
“That’s what I said, weren’t you listening?”
“Never heard of it,” said Jeff. “That’s a funny name for a mountain, anyway.” He popped open a small silver can of sardines and began slurping down two at a time. Kai and Lizzy wrinkled their noses at him.
“Yuck, Jeff, your dead little fish stink!” gagged Lizzy. She rifled through her pack for a granola bar.
Jeff placed two more sardines in his mouth, letting the fins hang off his lips like vampire teeth just to annoy her. “I heard about it once from one of the fishermen at Bubba’s … it was old Bill Walden,” he said, fin-fangs flapping.
“No wonder. He doesn’t exactly get his facts straight,” said Kai, working at combing back her purple-goo coated hair. “Ugh, I have jello bed-head,” she said, wincing.
“Me too. That stuff is better than the hair wax I use,” said Jeff, the jello goo having formed even sharper spikes along his already pointy scalp.
“Yeah, you could bottle it up and sell it for ten buckaroos at the Curl & Dye,” Kai joked.
Jeff went still as neon dollar signs flashed before his eyes.
“That’s ridiculous, Kane,” he said. And brilliant! Why didn’t he think of that? There was a mint to be made from the vain teenagers of Blowing Prawn. He began to run the numbers through his entrepreneurial head.
Kai gave up on her grooming and joined Lizzy in a breakfast of granola and sour gummy worms. “You know what people say about crazy Bill. He went out to sea one night with three of his friends, and he was the only one who came back alive.”
“I heard something capsized their small boat. His friends drowned, but he was found clinging to a buoy mumbling gibberish,” recounted Lizzy grimly.
“But that wasn’t anywhere close to Otter Island. They found him off the mainland somewhere near the lighthouse,” said Jeff. Hmm, he thought, if I run a hose from the mainland, I could suck the purple goop out of the pits … no, too messy.
“Anyway,” continued Lizzy, “one time he was spouting his crazy mumbo-jumbo and Frog Mountain came out. He said, ‘Lava black, lava cold—’”
“‘—a frog’s mouth in mountain old.’ I remember that too,” said Kai, finishing the riddle.
Maybe I can use the old cannery plant and haul it in by boat … no, too expensive …
“Jeff! What are you thinking about?”
“Eureka! I’ll use buckets and helicopters!” he blurted out loud. Oh, oops. He smiled sheepishly.
They stared at him blankly.
“Give it a rest, boy wonder,” said Kai warningly.
“I wasn’t—”
“Oh yes, you were. The purple goo is full of acid and dangerous. Don’t even think about it. I was kidding before.” But she could see he wouldn’t let it go and would have an entire business proposal drawn up for his grandfather the minute he got back to the mainland. “Honestly, Jeff, you’d burn the hair off people’s heads if it turned a profit!” Kai shook her head disapprovingly.
“No, I wouldn’t!”
They started arguing about it.
Lizzy pulled back her mass of brown curls into a ponytail and scanned the dense forest landscape. She wasn’t looking forward to another day of potential traps on the island of snares since they barely made it out of the pits alive. At least there was plenty of daylight to see by.
“Guys—enough about the purple hair goop already!—I think we should head west toward the center of the island and search from there,” she suggested. “That’s where the map on my hand seems to point.”
So they packed up their gear and left the white shores behind. The morning was bright and cheerful. A few billowy clouds dotted the sky. The water was calm and glistened like diamonds bathed in sunlight.
“Too bad this island is off limits to the public. I wouldn’t mind camping here on occasion,” said Jeff.
Both Kai and Lizzy disagreed and thought it too weird for their tastes.
“Don’t worry, though,” said Kai, “if you fall into a glowing jello pit, we’ll let the Pinkertons know where to find you.”
The map circling Lizzy’s thumb led them to the volcano by mid-morning. Finding a grove of eucalyptus trees, they stopped for a water break in the shade beneath some feathery boughs, the aroma of tree oil fervent around them. The little brown bear had been following them the entire way, staying a safe distance away, but as they came closer to the volcano, he became fidgety and upset.
“What are we going to do when we find this frog place?” said Kai. “I mean, if the Waterpeople think Dr. Krell is hiding something—”
“Only that we need to set Moonfin free, that’s all I know.”
Not that Jeff wanted to know all the details—the less he knew, the less he’d have to worry about. But then again, this whole Frog Mountain plan was new.
“Just so we’re clear on the plan: we have to get into this secret place hidden in a lava rock, steal the key, and let a prehistoric dragon creature, which has the strength of a hundred whales, out of its jail.”
“Yep.”
“And she is where exactly?” he grilled.
Lizzy tipped her water bottle over her hand.
“See where that star is? She’s there, hidden beneath the island in a sea cave.”
“Ahh, a walk in the park,” said Jeff sarcastically. “Even if we do manage to get in there and find a way to set her free, how will we get anywhere near a
dragon without getting killed?”
Lizzy shrugged. She wasn’t sure about anything these days.
“Let’s just go with it.”
Jeff eyed her suspiciously.
“Right. Since when do you just go with things? You color code your socks to match the days of the week,” he gibed.
“Oh, puh-leeze, that was in third grade and—”
“I think I see Frog Mountain,” Kai cut in. She snapped a finger down the slope of the volcano toward a broad pitch of lava. It was round-looking, with chunky piles of molten glass, tangled vines, and scattered leaves cascading down its sides.
“That doesn’t look like a frog to me. More like a meadow muffin,” grumbled Jeff.
They hiked down the side of the volcano. The black rock bulged and flowed in and out of the landscape, making it impossible to locate a doorway of any kind; plants flowed over it like an overgrown hairdo in need of a cut, of which they spent a good half an hour doing. They chopped and trimmed the spindly strands of plant-like hair, barely thinning its mangled layers.
“Whew!” Jeff wiped the sweat from his brow on his shirtsleeve (it wasn’t a substance the Pinkertons were used to) and framed the mountain through boxed fingers. “I think I see the frog. If you stand here and look from this angle, it does look like a squatting amphibian.”
Kai squinted.
“I see something.”
“What?” Jeff and Lizzy chimed together.
“I believe … yes, it’s definitely a small muscle developing on Jeff’s arm.”
“Whatever.” He was buying a weight set when they got back to the mainland.
“Let’s forget about the frog-thing and focus on finding a door. I think I see some stairs cut into the side of this rock—it looks like they lead up to the top,” said Lizzy tensely. A bad feeling crept over her. Why is this side of the mountain so wild and untouched? “This doesn’t look like the main entrance to me. Maybe it’s a back way in …”
They slowly trudged up the stairs and found a tall arched doorway, partially concealed by thick, draping vines. They cut their way into the inky, cold nothingness of the lava caves.
“Looks kinda dark,” said Jeff. He rifled through his pack and pulled out a headlamp, strapping it on.
“You could stay here and keep lookout,” said Kai.
“Think I’ll take my chances in the tunnels of black molten lava.”
Kai glanced down at the lame little pen light attached to her backpack then back up at Jeff’s fancy headlamp. “So, you got anything else in that pack? A unicycle or a flying monkey, maybe?”
“No … and yes,” he said evenly, and they set off winding through the labyrinth of Frog Mountain.
A disturbing silence swallowed them, thicker and heavier than the very walls that held the lava within itself. And after walking for over an hour in the padded darkness, Lizzy noticed something very upsetting. They had been walking in circles.
“We’ve passed that funny rock several times … the one that looks like a crooked carrot hanging from the ceiling.”
“We should start marking the walls to make sure we aren’t doing double-backs,” suggested Kai. She cast around for loose gravel to scratch the walls with, but Jeff had already pulled out a piece of chalk from his pack to more surprised looks from Lizzy and Kai.
“Good idea,” he said, “I’ll mark an ‘X’ every fifty feet or so.”
Kai ogled his pack.
“What? ‘Always be prepared.’ That’s the scout’s motto.”
“Yeah, but you’re not a boy scout.”
“I always wanted to be.”
They wound through the tunnels. Jeff carefully marked the obsidian walls, and not fifteen minutes later, they were back at the first ‘X’ he had drawn.
“Oh, no,” groaned Lizzy. “How did that happen?”
Ggggrrrrrrrrrrrr
Kai perked up. “Did you hear that?”
“What?” said Lizzy sharply. “It’s like walking through black cotton in here.” All she could hear was the muffled shuffling of their feet on the cold floor.
“It sounded like a low growl.”
“I thought it was Jeff’s stomach again.”
“Do you think there are spiders in these caves? I hate spiders,” said Kai, shivering.
“No, most likely not—”
Lizzy never finished her thought because a humongous black thing crashed to the floor in front of Jeff and Kai, freezing them in their tracks. “Ouch!” cried Kai as Lizzy slammed into her back, sending them all forward into a clumsy tumble to the floor.
“Why did you stop!” snapped Lizzy. But she saw clearly why. Crouching low before Jeff were two luminous, amber eyes, staring hungrily at them. Through the eerie darkness they looked like floating, bodiless orbs at once numbering two … then four … then back to two again.
The atmosphere in the cave changed in seconds. A very real Cold Fear surrounded them and instantly jumbled their senses. Jerking back to their feet in a panic, they bolted blindly down the nearest tunnel, hearts pounding out of their chests!
But the black cat didn’t move.
She sat lazily upon her haunches, waiting, preferring to let her prey marinate in their fear for a time. Her whiskered lips stretched into a broad and sinister smile as she watched the three humans scurry off.
“Like little mice to their holes,” she sneered aloud, yawning in feline fashion, glad to be awake from her frozen slumber. She had been following them from behind the lava walls for a while, enjoying the aroma of their confusion.
Then, in an instant, the form of a woman split off from the panther and stood tall beside her beast. What was one, now became two, with the spirit of the woman residing in the cat, ready to do her bidding.
“Mrrrrrrrow! Delightful, Spook! You know what you must do! Go!” she commanded the panther. “They will be weaker if they are apart!”
And off the woman-cat bounded from rock to rock, digging human and cat claws into the cold dirt after their new found spoil …
The three children ran deep into the tunnels until their lungs burned and their legs gave out. Kai and Jeff found themselves together in a small cavern somewhere deep within the lava maze.
“Where’s Lizzy?” said Kai, gasping for air.
“Don’t know—she was just behind me … but we have bigger problems!” cried Jeff, backing up against the wall.
The panther pounced into the room and arched low to the ground, its massive, black body blocking the door and any hopes of escape. It let out an unearthly growl and bared gleaming, sharp fangs at Jeff and Kai, who crouched feebly in a corner of the cave in utter terror.
In the turmoil and darkness, Lizzy had taken a right turn down a narrow tunnel just as Jeff and Kai went left. An ominous shadow had suddenly appeared in her path and she veered to avoid its owner. Catching her shaky breath, she stopped and groped slowly along the wall. With her shoulder blades scraping against the rock, she moved into an open archway and froze—an icy breath gushed past her cheek. Trembling, she turned to find a woman squatting on a ledge, staring eagerly, her long black hair falling forward into her face.
Those eyes … I can’t move.
“Hello, Lizzy. I haven’t seen you in quite a long time,” the lady mewed. “You’re all grown up, I see.”
Lizzy gulped, but no words came out. She backed away from the wall, watching the woman. Lizzy could tell she was pretty, although something was off about her—it was her eyes—they were too big for her face and grossly inhuman.
“Ha-have we met?” Lizzy croaked.
“Oh, here and there,” the woman said airily, twirling a hand upward. “When you would cry alone at night, I would come for a superb feast! The fear was … delicious.”
She slid off her ledge, and moving in a cat-like sashay, sniffed the air around Lizzy, like an animal breathing in the scent of its food. She was very close to Lizzy’s face now, staring unblinkingly—her wide golden eyes piercing—a blue streak pulsating, wave-like, across her ri
ght eye.
Lizzy began to convulse uncontrollably.
“Yes,” she dripped with vile sweetness, “we used to keep each other company.”
Lizzy watched as the blue streak in the woman’s eye grew larger and washed over the gold pigment, flashing it completely white. A true terror, like nothing Lizzy had ever known, rabidly gripped her. It felt like several death-ropes of fear had bound her, cutting into her skin, bleeding the very life-force out of her.
“Wh-who are you?” Lizzy panted.
“I am your nightmares. I am your tragedies,” she said playfully, stroking Lizzy’s curls. “My name is Samirrrrrra,” she purred, hunger rising.
The ravenous woman inhaled deeply, feeding, pulling the fright out of Lizzy’s heart like a fulgid drink, sending searing pain throughout her arms and legs. She fell with a thud to the dirt floor and gave way to silent sobs.
“Please stop,” she whimpered.
“I will drain you until you are no more, Miss Grape.”
A dubious squeak escaped Lizzy’s lips.
“Haaa—funny—you know—because my name is ‘Grape’ and all,” she wheezed, somehow finding humor in which were very possibly the last moments of her life. Then, on the brink of blacking out, she heard the gentlest of utterances—
“Lizzy …”
Her heart leapt.
“Lizard,” she heard again.
Could it be? Brandon was the only one who called her by that name.
The words floated in a whisper on the air …
“Fight.”
“But I can’t move,” she sobbed, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Like the time you were little … you called, and it came.”
Lizzy wasn’t sure if it was real or an echo from her memories.
“What do you mean, call what? I don’t understand.” As fast as lightning claws ripped the air behind Samira, and for a split second, Lizzy saw the backside of a bear falling to the ground.
Samira arched in agony and screeched out “How dare you!” to her attacker. Grim shadows flickered off the cave walls as two beasts in battle fell to the dirt floor. Echoes and howls filled the tunnels. Fangs and claws slashed forth, bringing yelps of pain from both animals.