by Amy C. Blake
As darkness fell, Miss Althea and eleven grubby campers dragged into camp. Levi sent up a silent prayer of thanks, but Miss Althea’s irritability almost made him wish she hadn’t joined them. Albert, Mr. Sylvester, and Mr. and Mrs. Drake had sent her to babysit the campers. She clearly didn’t appreciate it.
Once the newcomers were fed and settled, the kids huddled in their tents to stay out of the cold rain. Levi shared a tent with Luke and a new kid named Xavier, who wanted to know why they’d been sent down the mountain with only one chaperone.
“Good question.” Scrawny Luke frowned at Levi. “Do you know what’s going on? Is there something dangerous out there?” He pointed toward the mountain, visible beyond the open tent flap.
Levi tried to look clueless. “Why? What happened to you guys?”
“Well, we were hiking along just fine until Albert ran up and got Mr. Drake, then the two of them took us to Mr. Sylvester’s group. After that, we all hiked around to Miss Althea’s group.” He eyed Levi. “Why did Albert come to us? I thought he was in charge of you guys.”
Heat burned under Levi’s collar. What should he say? We thought a dragon was attacking you. Um, no, probably not. “We heard somebody screaming, so he went to see what was wrong.”
Luke nodded. “Yeah, that idiot Braden jumped out from behind a bush and scared everybody. Got all the girls screaming. I thought Lizzie was gonna rip his head off she was so mad.” He grinned.
Levi grinned back. He could well imagine Lizzie’s reaction.
“Anyway,” Luke went on, “we waited with Miss Althea for an eon before Mrs. Drake showed up. Then she ran off, and finally, Albert came back and told Miss Althea to bring us down here.” He tossed his hands. “Crazy.”
“Sounds like it, but I wouldn’t worry about it. They’ll get it all worked out soon.” He hoped.
His tent mates didn’t look satisfied, but tramping around on the mountain all day must’ve worn them out because they fell asleep early.
When the sickly moon was high overhead, Levi poked his head from the tent. The soggy damp soaking into his bones wouldn’t let him sleep. Plus, Luke and Xavier didn’t snore. Who’d have guessed he’d actually miss Steve and Trevor’s nightly snore-a-thon?
Then there was his worry over the staff dealing with cranky dragons on a rainy night high in the mountain. And Mrs. Drake had acted like the dragons’ wounds were intentional. What kind of creature would cut a dragon? Strike that. What kind of creature could cut a dragon?
Deceptor, of course. Who else?
With thoughts of the shape shifter heavy in his mind, Levi stared around the dark, quiet campsite. He saw the dull orange glow of the smoldering campfire. Beside it lay Miss Althea, snoring lightly in a sleeping bag. So much for guard duty.
Levi grabbed his rain slicker and slipped from the tent. The pixie woman couldn’t be expected to stay awake all night after such an exhausting day. He’d sit up and watch awhile. He couldn’t sleep anyway, and Mrs. Drake had made him responsible for the camp. Sort of.
Huddled beneath his raingear by the dying campfire, he stared into the black trees, squinting for any sign of danger. He stared so long his eyelids began to sag.
When Miss Althea’s mutterings woke him later, he sat up straight and shot panicky glances around the campsite. The pixie woman mumbled something about dragons and huddled deeper into her sleeping bag.
He shook himself. Stay alert, Levi. Next time, it could be more than Miss Althea talking in her sleep. He stretched his achy shoulders. Then paused mid-stretch. What was that? Through the faint smoke beyond the fire pit, was that a shadow? He blinked repeatedly. Was he still half-asleep and imagining things?
No. This wasn’t another one of his nightmares. Something was creeping toward the camp.
“Miss Althea?” He stole a glance at her. She didn’t move.
But the shadow definitely did.
21
A Ship in a Field of Flowers
“Miss Althea,” he hissed, this time shaking her sleeping bag until she sat up with a start.
She squinted at him through sluggish eyes. “What are you doing out here?”
“Look.” He breathed the word while pointing at the place he’d last seen motion.
She leapt to her feet in a single, silent move. A swish followed by a silver flash told him she’d drawn her hunting knife. She crept into the shadow of a tent. He lost sight of her until a sharp gasp drew his eyes to the creeping figure, now joined by another shadow. Miss Althea’s hiss filtered to his ears, “Move and you die.”
“It’s me, Althea.” The words were garbled, like the speaker was being strangled.
A rustling sound followed, and the two figures moved toward the nearly dead fire. Levi held his breath. A sliver of moonlight pierced the clouds, revealing Albert’s wild-eyed face.
Miss Althea sheathed her knife and squatted beside Levi, looking exactly like her great-aunt Mrs. Forest, cranky as a wet cat. He was just glad her anger wasn’t directed at him.
“Albert, you fool,” she said sourly, “what do you mean sneaking into camp like that? I just about slit your sorry throat.”
Albert sank to the ground as if his legs wouldn’t hold him a moment longer. “I was trying not to wake everybody. Sheesh.” He shook his shaggy head, and a twig plopped onto Levi’s lap.
Levi picked it up and began breaking it into little pieces. “Where are the others?”
“Still up there.” Albert jerked his chin toward the mountain. “It’s gonna take some work gettin’ them wings healed up.”
“So we’re on our own here?” Scowling, Miss Althea drew her sleeping bag around her shoulders.
“Yup.”
“They should’ve let me stay.” Miss Althea shot Levi a dirty look, like it was his fault she’d gotten stuck with camper duty. “I’m the only one with medical training.”
“Now, don’t be like that, Althea. You know the elves are better at carin’ for the dragons.” Albert winced when she turned her glare on him. “I’m just sayin’ . . .” He raised both hands in surrender. “I thought Aubrey was gonna have to leave off taking care of Nithir at first, but then the ol’ boy settled down some.”
“Why? He’s cared for Nithir all his life.”
Levi hunkered low, trying to stay unnoticed so they’d keep talking.
“I know it, but Nithir almost blasted him when we got there.” Albert shrugged. “Probably just skittish, what with his injury an’ all.”
Miss Althea didn’t look satisfied. “I suppose.”
“Anyways, we gotta get these kids back to the castle safe and sound come first light.” Albert blew out a breath. “Just pray we don’t meet no more injured critters on the way.”
Levi had to know. “Who did it? Who hurt them?”
Neither answered.
“Was it Deceptor?” He couldn’t help the shrillness in his voice.
Still no response.
“Why’s he doing it?”
Albert and Miss Althea exchanged looks, then she said quietly, “Back to bed, Levi.”
“But—”
“Now. And stay there.”
Levi woke in the gray half-light before dawn. Cold and stiff, he peeked from his tent to find the silent camp smothered in what his mom would’ve called a pea-soup fog. He stuffed his feet into his boots and eased from the tent. He slipped between the eerie masses and blobs of the other tents, not stopping until he reached the edge of the campsite. To the south stood Mount Midland, a shrouded giant.
Since everyone was asleep, he decided to walk north a ways. His footfalls on the wet ground made dull squelching sounds in the gray silence. After a few minutes, the sun rose to his right and sent red rays ricocheting through the low clouds. Still he kept going, warming his clammy skin through exercise.
Shafts of sunlight pierced the fog, gradually burning it down to mere wisps in places but leaving heavy patches in others. When a solid mass blocked the path in front of him, he halted with his heart racing. What wa
s it? The giant from the Rules and Regulations play? Another dragon?
Silently, he inched backward.
A sunbeam burst through the fog, and he blinked at the thing illumined before him. It was the hull of a boat, upside-down in the middle of the grass. He touched the soggy, weathered wood. What was a boat doing here? Was he near water? He stood still and strained his ears. Now that the fog was thinning, he could hear birds twittering nearby and the vague sounds of people walking and talking, probably from camp. But no water noises.
“Hmm.” He walked around the hull, studying it, until he came to a string of faded letters upside-down near the ground. He bent and studied the peeling paint. “Canadian Queen? What’s a Canadian ship doing in Terracaelum?” At his feet, red, purple, and yellow wildflowers sprouted from the plush green grass. “In a field of flowers?”
Hang on, a ship in a field of wildflowers. His mind’s-eye flashed to the painting across from his room back at the castle. Could it be a picture of this ship?
He ran a hand over the ghostly prow, hearing Albert’s words from earlier that summer replay in his mind: “. . . the world’s mash into each other, and boats and them flying machines and such from your world end up in ours.”
This must be what Albert meant.
Another memory rose into his mind, this time of Hunter’s words from early last summer: “Haven’t you ever heard of the Great Lakes Triangle?” Had Hunter known stuff like this happened in Terracaelum? That, like in the Bermuda Triangle, ships and planes disappeared? And that they ended up here?
How could Hunter have known such a thing?
With his brain as muddled as the fog again thickening the air, Levi turned and started back along the track his footsteps had forged through the grass. This whole place was just too fantastic for him to comprehend.
After fifteen minutes of walking among the gray ribbons of fog, Levi paused his steps. The air glistened as the low clouds slowly evaporated. Shimmering mists crisscrossed deep shadows. The trampled grass he’d been following continued ahead beyond his vision. Shouldn’t he have reached the camp by now?
A shiver coursed through him. What if those weren’t his footprints after all? And if they weren’t, whose path was he following? He strained to catch any sounds from camp, but only an echoing emptiness filled his ears, unbroken even by the chirping of birds. The silence felt cold and sinister, making his chest tighten.
Before he could figure out what to do, a huge blast of wind nearly knocked him backward. He bent his knees and braced his body to keep from being flung to the ground. His lashes blew flat against his eyelids. He threw up his arms to shield his face and squeezed his eyes shut tight, sucking in quick gasping breaths against the pressure.
As suddenly as it came, the wind ceased. Levi cautiously opened his eyes and had to squint against the sudden, brilliant light. A short distance ahead was a stand of leafy trees. Above it, the sun glared in the bluest of skies. The ghost of a half-moon hovered not far from the sun, and to his left, a riot of colors stretched across the grass as far west as his eyes could see.
“The flowers,” he whispered to himself.
Miles and miles of wildflowers—bluebells, Indian paintbrushes, poppies, cornflowers—covered the meadows like one of his grandma’s crazy quilts. His eyes traced the path he’d followed to a dip in the distance. He could barely make out a dark shape that must be the wrecked ship. Twisting around, he saw the mountains far behind. How had he wandered so far from camp?
The trail.
He turned slowly as the eerie feeling crept back up his spine. The path he’d followed to this place continued toward the copse of trees. Almost against his will, his feet carried him farther along the trail. The wind kicked up again, shoving him back, but he pressed ahead despite the spurts of alarm spiking his adrenaline.
He had to keep going because something inside the shadowy edge of the grove drew him, something that looked vaguely familiar. Tiptoeing now despite the fact that the wind noise must cover the sound of his footfalls, Levi inched closer.
Beneath the canopy of trees, a girl sat huddled by a trunk, her face on her knees, her arms hugging her shins. Long golden-blond hair streamed to the ground.
Sara?
Levi ran forward, no longer trying to be quiet, totally ignoring the warning in his mind, and dropped to his knees in front of her. He reached out to touch her, but somehow couldn’t, almost as if the wind had frozen his hand in mid-air.
“Sara?” The word came out a raspy whisper he knew she couldn’t possibly hear over the noisy gusts.
But her head twitched slightly. Her hands dropped to the ground beside her bare feet, and he noticed for the first time how long her fingernails were. Why didn’t she have on her hiking boots? Had she been sleepwalking?
In slow motion, she lifted her head, golden strands of hair trickling back from her bare legs and arms. Levi registered the lacy white fabric she wore, like a nightgown, and then her hands slid up and pushed the hair from her face.
It wasn’t Sara.
A girl more beautiful than he thought a girl could possibly be peered at him through purple-blue eyes. Her skin was purest white but tinged pink on her high cheekbones. Her lips were a deep full red.
The wind practically beat him now, sucking him backward like a tornado. Yet he resisted, mesmerized by the beautiful girl. She blinked at him through long golden-brown lashes. Her hair rested in a smooth curve against her pale shoulders as though she sat alone in the eye of a storm. Slowly, those red lips parted into a smile. She reached toward him with one hand, her nails long half-moons at the tips of her pale fingers.
With a grunt, he tried to force his hand, still frozen in mid-air, to take hers. Slowly, painfully, he made it move by millimeters toward her, never taking his eyes from her perfect face. The closer he moved, the more purple her irises became, until no blue remained. Just before his fingertips touched hers, a hurricane wind blasted him so hard he tumbled backward to the ground, landing in the sunlight outside the trees.
He lay on his back, stunned. What had happened?
The girl. He pushed to a sitting position and peered into the copse.
She stood in the shadows, the nightgown flowing to her ankles, and reached for him. But a fear like nothing he’d ever known clawed at him, like a monster trapped inside his gut. He shook his head.
She opened her mouth wide, revealing inch-long fangs dripping saliva, and released a scream that made him clap his hands to his ears.
22
The Mormo
Blood vessels bulged on her forehead and corded in her neck. She raked the air with her nails, all the while screaming in fury. With his hands pressed so tight against his ears they ached, Levi half-ran, half-fell away from her. He scuttled back up the slick grass, trying to follow the path without letting go of his ears. No matter how tightly he pressed, the shrill sound pierced through.
After what felt like forever, the noise faded. He dared to drop his hands and peer back. The trees were a distant smudge in the bright kaleidoscope of flowers. The chirp of contented birds and the whistle of the gentle breeze were the only sounds.
Thank you, God, for getting me away from that . . . she-devil.
He sprinted flat-out toward the mountain, praying the others hadn’t left without him.
When he reached the camp, Levi found the others preparing to hike back to the castle. He helped take down his tent and grabbed a quick breakfast, then he stood with Sara and Lizzie while the rest finished. He hadn’t said a word about his early morning walk. In fact, he hadn’t spoken a word at all. Shock kept his brain enveloped in as thick a fog as had covered the earth that morning.
“All right, spill.” Lizzie stood in front of him, hands on her hips.
He blinked. Was she talking about the ship he’d found? Or that horrible she-monster?
“Well?” Lizzie cocked her head. “Sara says you talked some dragon into not blastin’ Suzanne to smithereens. True?”
Sara frowned. “You t
hink I lied?”
Lizzie pursed her lips. “Of course not, but I want to know why he didn’t let the little wretch fry after what she did to me last year.”
Levi shook his head. “You know I couldn’t do that. Besides, I think she might be realizing what a creep she’s chosen for a friend.”
Sara hugged her arms to her waist, unfortunately drawing to mind the girl in the copse. “Hunter didn’t act very . . . brave yesterday.”
Levi scowled. “The jerk left us to die.”
“That’s not so surprising, y’all,” Lizzie said. “Momma always says bullies are cowards at heart. And we all know Hunter’s a bully.”
Levi nodded, but he wasn’t sure that was all there was to it. Hunter had never acted particularly scared of anything before, not like yesterday. But he didn’t have time to give it more thought as Luke pushed into their circle, dropped his sleeping bag, and pointed at his swelling left eye. “Hunter is a bully. And he’s in a really bad mood this morning.”
“He punched you?” Levi’s fist clenched. He was sick of Hunter’s attitude.
“Yeah, but then I sort of knocked him into the mud when I was rerolling my sleeping bag.” Luke smiled sheepishly. “By accident, of course.”
Across the way, Hunter tried to clear the muck from his face, hair, and clothes as Braden stood nearby grinning. Levi burst out laughing. “Good going.” He slapped Luke’s shoulder. “Of course, now he’s probably going to try to shove you off the mountain.”
Luke’s face paled, except for the purple ring around his eye.
“Don’t worry about it, honey.” Lizzie glared across at Hunter. “We’ve got your back.”
“Yeah, we’ll keep an eye out for you,” Levi promised.
“And for any other injured dragons wanting to kill us,” Sara whispered to Levi and Lizzie after Luke bent to gather his stuff.