Crossing the Black Ice Bridge

by Alex Bell

  “Perhaps if we unfurl the sails it’ll help the boat move even faster?” Beanie suggested.

  None of them really knew much about boats apart from Ethan. As a member of the Ocean Squid Explorers’ Club, he had spent a lot of his time on ships, boats, and submarines, and he soon had the sails unfurled. As predicted, the wind quickly caught the billowing fabric and helped propel the snow-boat along the ice even more swiftly.

  Stella noticed that there were several silver yeti statues perched along the rails, all holding lanterns with ice candles in them. Normal matches didn’t seem to work on them, but remembering that this was a snow queen’s boat, Stella reached her hand out toward the nearest one and concentrated on lighting it. Sure enough, a bright white flame burst into life and set off a chain reaction with the other lanterns lighting up too.

  “I wonder how you get to the cabin below,” Shay said.

  They poked around and quickly found a ring handle set into the deck. When they pulled the hatch open, they found a ladder leading down. The explorers descended cautiously, a little nervous that Queen Portia might have left something dangerous down there, but all they found was a small galley kitchen, long since empty, as well as a couple of hammocks strung up in a cramped little bedroom. Everyone was keen to keep their eyes on the road ahead, so they soon piled back on deck. The bridge really was massive. Not only was it immensely long, but it was also extremely wide. You could have had at least ten sleighs running side by side and there still would have been plenty of room.

  Then the sea fog came down thick and fast and they couldn’t see more than a little way in front of them, even with the flickering light from the yeti lanterns.

  “Perhaps we shouldn’t have put those sails up,” Ethan said. “I think the gargoyles should slow down. We know there are things on the bridge up ahead. Abandoned camps and whatnot. We might crash into one.”

  Stella squinted at the gargoyles and wondered whether they could see any better than them. Deciding it was probably a good idea to be cautious, she leaned a little way over the rails and said, “Would you mind slowing down a bit?”

  The gargoyles immediately obeyed her command and continued at a more sedate pace as Ethan showed the others how to take the sails back down.

  Stella glanced at Beanie and said, “I don’t suppose you brought your father’s journal with you? It would be useful to know what to expect.”

  Adrian Albert Smith’s last travel journal contained a log of all that his team had seen and done on the Black Ice Bridge—until the entire expedition mysteriously vanished without a trace.

  “I didn’t bring it,” Beanie said. He took Aubrey from his pocket and began to fiddle with the narwhal. “But I don’t need it. I’ve known every word by heart for years. First we will see a twisted black tree with strange dark fruit you absolutely must not eat because it will set your stomach on fire. Then we will pass a ship graveyard, but we may not see it on account of the fog.”

  “How will we know it’s there, then?” Ethan asked.

  “You can hear the ship’s bells,” Beanie said, sounding glum. “A short while after that we should come across whatever’s left of my father’s camp. And then… we have absolutely no idea.”

  They continued on across the snow, everyone keeping their eyes strained straight ahead. Stella longed for her telescope. Her compass seemed to be no good on the Black Ice Bridge. When she took it from her pocket and opened the lid, the needle beneath the glass spun wildly, jerking from Shelter, to Yetis, to Angry Gnomes, without ever settling on one particular thing.

  “It’s probably the evil magic affecting it,” Beanie said.

  Stella sighed and replaced the compass in her pocket. It had started to snow again. Big fat flakes swirled around the top of the mast, and sea mist rose up so thickly from the ocean that they couldn’t even see the water. In fact, it was difficult to see anything much.

  The sun was starting to set by the time they reached the black tree mentioned in Beanie’s father’s journal. Shay spotted its crooked branches poking through the mist like fingers.

  “There’s the tree,” he called, drawing the others’ attention. “We should stop and take a look at it.”

  “It’s dangerous to stop,” Stella replied.

  “It’s more dangerous not to,” Shay said. “It’ll be nightfall soon. We all need to sleep. I don’t think we should just carry on hurtling farther over the bridge while we do that. We need to have our wits about us for whatever we encounter. I think we should make camp.”

  After a brief discussion, they all agreed that perhaps this would be a wise move. So as they reached the tree, Stella gave the command to the gargoyles to stop. They climbed down from the deck and stepped out onto the snow, right into the shadow that the twisted black tree had cast.

  It was indeed a strange thing, looming out of the mist, all crooked angles and sticky leaves. Its warped branches drooped in a sickly looking manner, and no wonder, Stella thought. There was nothing for it to live off out here, no nutritious soil or fresh rain. It was rooted in packed ice filled with evil magic.

  As she stepped closer, she was immediately waylaid by one of the gargoyles, who landed in the snow before her and began to point insistently at the dragon charm on her bracelet once again.

  “Yes, you were right about the dragon.” She sighed. “And I’m sorry we didn’t understand your warning back at the castle—”

  The gargoyle shook his head with an irritated huff and marched past her to join the other gargoyles, who had taken off their harnesses and were happily rolling around in the snow. Stella led the other explorers over to the tree.

  Now that she was close, she could see it seemed to be made entirely from pieces of driftwood all stuck together with a sticky black substance. A salty, seaweedy smell filled the air, perhaps carried in from the ocean by the sea mist. Some odd-looking fruit hung from the bent branches, swollen and shiny.

  “That’s strange,” Beanie said with a frown. “I’m sure Father’s journal said the fruit looked like grapes, but these are much bigger. More like melons.”

  Ethan shuddered and said, “The tree looks like bones that have been broken and then set back at the wrong angle. What kind of idiot would eat its fruit in the first place?”

  Beanie looked rather offended, but Shay hurriedly pointed out, “If no one had ever tried the pineapples on Pineapple Island, then they never would have known how delicious they were. And they looked far more dangerous on the face of it. Covered in spikes and things.”

  The black melons weren’t covered in spikes, but Stella didn’t think they looked appetizing even so. The moisture glistening on their dark skins had a sweaty sort of sheen.

  “It’s a good thing the jungle fairies stayed behind,” Shay said, and the others immediately agreed. Jungle fairies would eat anything that wasn’t nailed down, and even some things that were.

  “What’s that black stuff?” Ethan asked, peering at the tree.

  “Perhaps it’s tar?” Beanie suggested.

  “I don’t think so. It reminds me of something.” Ethan frowned. “I just can’t remember what.…”

  “Do you think we should take some of the fruit?” Shay suggested. “As a curiosity for the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club?”

  Stella found it hard to summon up much enthusiasm for the idea. Not only had she and Felix been expelled, but they didn’t know whether they would find a way to cure Shay or make it back alive.

  “Come on,” Shay chided. “We’re still explorers, aren’t we? We’re aware we can’t eat the melons, or whatever they are, but we still don’t know what they’re made of. And I for one have never seen a tree like this before. If we take some of its fruit back, then perhaps one of the researchers at the club can learn a bit more about it. It might even encourage them to let Stella and Felix back in.”

  And, with that, he stepped forward, reached up to the nearest branch, and pulled down one of the melons.

  “Gosh, it feels awfully strange,” he said
. “Rather like a water balloon—as if it’s full of liquid—”

  “That’s it!” Ethan exclaimed. The color drained from his face. He groaned and said, “It’s not tar—it’s ink!” He gestured at the dark melon in Shay’s hands and said, “For goodness’ sake, put that back, quick! It’s not a tree at all. It’s a nest!”

  Shay looked down at the object in his hands. “What—”

  And that was as far as he got before the tree began to scream.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  IT WAS AN APPALLING sound that seemed to slice straight through the air itself.

  “It’s a screeching red devil squid nest!” Ethan screamed.

  “But… but I thought they only lived in the Poison Tentacle Sea!” Shay protested, casting a desperate look back at the others.

  “They migrate to have their young,” Ethan said. “No one ever knew where. For goodness’ sake, put that egg back!”

  Shay hastily tried to balance the melon—or egg, as he now realized it was—back on the branch, but it was too late. The tree continued to screech so loudly that the ground beneath them trembled—the egg rolled from the branch and landed on the ground, where it burst apart, spraying black splashes of ink onto the snow, as well as Shay’s boots.

  Writhing in the broken skin of the egg was indeed a baby red devil squid. It had bright red tentacles, a cone-shaped head, fearsome horns, and a single staring eye that blinked furiously up at them. It also had a mouth in the center of its tentacles, which it immediately proceeded to open wide and scream as loudly as the tree.

  To make matters even worse, the yelling of the baby squid seemed to affect the other eggs because, one by one, they fell from the branches, splattering their ink over the snow as their own sacs burst, exposing more of the baby monsters. Stella recalled how Captain Ajax had told them that a fully grown red devil squid was one of the most dangerous creatures to roam the Poison Tentacle Sea, and it was also the same monster that had killed Ethan’s older brother, Julian.

  Beanie tugged at his pom-pom hat. “What do we do now?” he cried.

  “We get out of here!” Ethan replied, already turning toward the snow-boat. “Before the mother arrives!”

  The others were right on his heels. Beyond him, Stella was relieved to see that the gargoyles were already frantically buckling themselves into their harnesses, ready to tow the boat onward. One of the gargoyles beckoned them on impatiently, and they very nearly made it.

  They were just a few feet away from the boat when the sea beneath the bridge burst open and a gigantic monster exploded from underneath the surface. A cascade of freezing foam swept up onto the bridge and knocked the explorers off their feet. Tumbling over into the snow, Stella gasped at the shock as the salt water stung her eyes. She wiped them dry with the back of her hand and looked up just in time to see a gigantic red devil squid clinging to the side of the bridge, its tentacles entwining one of the black towers that supported the bridge’s cables as it hauled itself up out of the sea.

  “Watch out!” Ethan shouted. “If it gets hold of you, it’ll drag you straight down into the water!”

  Stella really didn’t want to be taken to her doom by a screeching red devil squid. She rolled to one side and leapt to her feet a second before one of the monster’s tentacles came crashing down into the snow right where she’d just been lying. To her dismay, she saw that not only was the tentacle covered in suckers, but it had glistening teeth at the tips as well.

  Stella noticed that the others had scrambled up and were scattering in different directions in an attempt to avoid the thrashing tentacles of the great monster. It had to be twenty feet long at least, and in the freezing mist it was hard to tell where it started and ended.

  Stella edged away from the tentacle only to crash up against a beak almost as big as she was. To her horror, she realized she had run toward the monster rather than away from it. She had no way of freezing it without her tiara, and the small snow yeti she conjured up out of instinct crumbled itself into snowflakes as soon as it battered its fists against the red devil squid.

  The squid’s beak opened wide and let out a dreadful scream that was so forceful it blew Stella’s hair straight back from her face. The stench of rotten fish and old seaweed had her gagging even as she tried to run from it.

  Stella had visions of being bitten completely in half as the huge pointed beak snapped toward her, but then Ethan’s hand clamped down on her arm and he yanked her back so forcefully that her shoulder throbbed in its socket.

  With a whirr, Shay’s boomerang spun out of the mist, flying straight and strong, and hit the squid right in the center of its enormous eye. It let out a bellow of pain as the tentacles thrashed blindly.

  Stella saw that Ethan’s usually immaculate hair hung over his face and his eyes were wild and desperate. “Run for the boat!” he gasped.

  With Shay and Beanie just ahead of them, they turned from the squid and fled, ducking beneath tentacles and leaping over baby squid to get there. Stella felt her breath coming in great gasps that made her chest ache as they raced across the snow, finally climbing up onto the boat.

  There was a lurch as the gargoyles pulled them forward, but it was too soon for relief. They’d barely gone more than a few paces before the boat jerked with a horrible juddering sound, and they all fell forward onto the deck.

  “Good heavens!” Stella gasped. “It’s attacking the boat!”

  Indeed, the red devil squid had wrapped its great tentacles around the snow-boat and was dragging it toward the edge of the bridge. Tangled up in its tentacles, the gargoyles were doing their best to unbuckle their harnesses and scramble free into the snow.

  “We’re done for!” Beanie groaned.

  “Quick!” Stella cried. “We’ll have to abandon the boat!”

  No one wanted to still be on the boat once it got dragged down into the ocean. One by one, they scrambled over the side.

  Stella landed in the snow first, followed by Shay and then Beanie. Ethan was the last one on the boat, and when the squid jerked it again, he somehow got tangled in the ropes of the mast. It all happened so quickly there was nothing anyone could do. The squid snapped the mast in half with its tentacles and then pulled it over the edge of the bridge, dragging Ethan with it but leaving the rest of the snow-boat behind.

  “Jump!” screamed Stella, but Ethan couldn’t free his arm from the rope.

  She caught a glimpse of his pale face as the red devil squid slithered over the side, pulling the mast and Ethan down into the sea in a great crash of freezing foam.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  STELLA’S EARS RANG WITH the screeches of the baby squid as she stared at the space where Ethan had been moments before. She remembered what he had told them about a screeching red devil squid dragging his brother beneath the surface of the water to drown. She couldn’t bear the thought of that happening to Ethan, too, and sprinted toward the railings of the bridge—the others close behind her—ready to leap straight into the water after him.

  But when they got there, they saw the rope had gotten tangled around the rails and broken free of the squid. And to their joy they saw Ethan dangling from the end of the rope, several feet above the rippling surface of the sea. There was no sign whatsoever of the mast or the squid—although one of the teeth-tipped tentacles must have struck Ethan because a line of blood ran down the side of his face.

  “Oh, thank goodness!” Stella cried. “Help me pull him up.”

  They all grabbed hold of the rope and heaved.

  “Never mind that!” Ethan yelled. “Get the babies! Chuck them over the side! Quick, or else she’ll come back!”

  They did as he said, rushing around and grabbing the baby squid by their tentacles. Taking care to avoid the teeth on the tips and the frantically snapping beaks, they hurled the squid into the water, where they swiftly sank beneath the surface. Meanwhile, Ethan had struggled up the rope and hauled himself back onto the bridge, panting for breath.

  The other explorers
hurried over to make sure he was okay and then watched the sea anxiously from the bridge. There was a worryingly large ripple at one point, but no further sign of the monstrous squid and the tree had finally stopped its screaming. Silence seemed to ring around their heads like a bell.

  The scene on the bridge was one of carnage. There was black ink everywhere and shards of broken wood. The gargoyles had pulled the snow-boat a short distance away, and Stella saw they were all accounted for and appeared unharmed. Apart from the broken mast, the boat itself seemed to be okay too and the explorers lost no time in climbing back on board.

  The gargoyles set off immediately, racing across the snow, and they were all glad to leave the tree behind them.

  “I wonder why no squid attacked your father’s expedition,” Stella said to Beanie.

  “Probably because the eggs were smaller,” the medic said. “They would have weighed less, so perhaps removing them didn’t alert the tree.” He looked at Ethan and said, “Let me do something for that scratch.”

  He walked over to the magician and used his magic to heal the cut.

  Ethan thanked him, and Stella noticed that the magician’s hands were shaking.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “Fine,” Ethan said. “It was just… hard seeing a red devil squid. After what happened to Julian.”

  “That was truly a ferocious beast,” Shay said. He looked at Ethan and said, “Your brother must have been very brave.”

  “He was.” Ethan shuddered. “I’d hoped never to see one of those horrible creatures again.”

  “Well, it’s behind us now,” Stella said. “We got away. We were lucky.”

  She could only hope they would continue to be lucky for whatever might lie ahead.

  * * *