Emily Windsnap and the Pirate Prince

by Liz Kessler

  “Sam!” I grabbed his arm.

  “What is it?”

  I jabbed a finger above me. He looked up and saw it too.

  “A trapdoor!” he breathed. “A way in! Em, we’ve found it! We’ve really found it!”

  Sam grabbed me and started jumping up and down — as much as he was able to in the tight space. I couldn’t help laughing.

  The rest of the crew was just catching up to us. “What’s going on?” Kat asked.

  “Emily’s found the way in!” Sam burst out. “It’s up there!”

  Kat looked up. Luke was behind her, then Hal, and the others were just behind them.

  “Hal, you’re the tallest,” Sam said. “Can you reach it?”

  Hal shuffled forward and stretched up. “Not quite,” he said, straining to reach the ceiling but just missing it.

  “Give me a piggyback,” I suggested.

  Hal looked to Sam. “Do it,” Sam said.

  Hal leaned down and I pulled myself onto his back. As he stood up, I reached up to the ceiling and pushed at the door.

  Creaking and squeaking like something out of an old horror movie, the trapdoor wobbled, moved, and finally swung wide open. We were in!

  I climbed from Hal’s back onto his shoulders. From there, I pulled myself through the hatch. I’d done it. I was inside! Inside what, exactly, I didn’t know yet — and didn’t want to think about too much. For all I knew, it could be a room full of massive spiders or rats or —

  No. Don’t think about it.

  I felt around on the damp floor for something that might help the others get up there without breaking Hal’s back in the process.

  There! Nailed to the floor next to the trapdoor. A rope ladder. It was old, covered in cobwebs, and stiff from lack of use. But it would do.

  I gathered it up and held it above the opening. “Watch out,” I called down to them. “Ladder coming down!”

  I dropped the ladder down to the floor and moved out of the way as, one by one, the crew members climbed up and joined me in the dark, dusty, slightly creepy space.

  We peered into the darkness. “All right,” Sam said. “Let’s split up. All go a different way. First person to find a way out, yell. OK?”

  We spread out and felt our way around the pitch-black room. It reminded me of years ago playing “Murder in the Dark” at my old friend Mandy Rushton’s house when the power was out. Creeping around in the darkness, hands out in front of me like an extra out of Scooby-Doo; it was unnerving.

  “Guys!” Ana called. “I’ve found something.”

  Following her voice, we made our way over to Ana. She’d found a door. Big wooden thing with a tiny crack in the wood that let sharp slivers of light come through. The door had a bolt across it that was fastened with a combination padlock.

  Ana tried the padlock. She turned and shook her head. “Locked. Now what?”

  Something was ringing a bell in my mind. Just out of reach, but almost in scratching distance. What was it?

  Wait. The poem. That was it! The last two lines — what were they again?

  “Ana, how many numbers are on the padlock?” I asked.

  “Five. Why?”

  I swallowed. “Try five, four, three, two, one,” I said.

  Sam frowned at me. “Why?”

  “The poem,” I said simply.

  Work as a team, be brave and strong, and when you think your way is near,

  Take three deep breaths, prepare yourself, then five, four, three, two, one — you’re here.

  Even in the darkness, I saw Sam’s eyes open so wide the whites were round balls. “Of course! Take three deep breaths, prepare yourself, then five, four, three, two, one — you’re here.” He indicated for everyone to come closer. “Are you ready?” he asked. “Together, three deep breaths. Then, Ana, do what Emily said.”

  In the dark silence, we slowly breathed in, then out. In, then out. In, then out.

  Without waiting for further instruction, Ana turned each dial.

  5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

  The lock sprung open. She turned to smile at us all. “We did it,” she breathed. “We’re in.”

  Walking through the corridors of Halfmoon Castle, I had a sense of déjà vu. As though I’d been here before — but, at the same time, I knew I hadn’t.

  I knew what it was. It was almost identical to Halflight Castle. Similar enough to feel familiar; different enough to make me question everything.

  The floors creaked as we made our way along the corridors. The pictures on the walls seemed to be spying on us. The silence wrapped itself around us like a heavy blanket, hiding us — but smothering us at the same time.

  “Remember, we’re looking for a red door,” Sam said.

  Corridor after corridor, staircase after staircase, it felt as if we’d covered the whole place.

  “Guys, look!” Dean had wandered off down a short corridor that led off the main one. “Down here!”

  We followed him around the corner and saw what he was pointing at. Two doors, one opposite the other. On the left, a blue door, and on the right, a red door.

  We’d found it!

  Dean stood back to let Sam go in first. Taking a deep breath, Sam turned the handle and opened the red door.

  And there it was. Right in front of us. A large room with a faded velvet chaise longue on one side. On the other, two huge windows looking out, with floor-to-ceiling curtains draped on either side. Chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Wooden floorboards, with a rug not quite reaching the edges. And in the middle of the room, a large ornate treasure chest.

  Sam strode across the room and stood beside the chest.

  I felt as though the next part happened almost in slow motion.

  Grinning widely, Sam leaned down, stretched out a hand, and undid the clasp that was holding the chest shut.

  He paused for a second, turned to smile at us all, and then opened the lid to reveal . . .

  Nothing.

  The treasure chest was empty.

  Nobody spoke.

  What was there to say? What could we say? What words might stand a chance of expressing the disappointment we were all feeling in that moment?

  There were none.

  Without another word, Sam slowly closed the lid of the chest. He turned toward us, pulled his shirt straight, flattened down his hair, and cleared his throat.

  And then he smiled.

  “Thank you,” he said. “All of you.”

  Thank you? What was he thanking us for? We’d failed. We’d lost. Everything we’d done had been in vain!

  “Over the last few days, I have gained more than you could ever store inside a treasure chest.” Sam sought out my eyes, and when he found them, he smiled even more warmly. “I have learned the value of true friendship, loyalty, and courage.”

  I couldn’t help smiling back.

  Sam turned to Luke and Hal. “I have learned what it is to have a strong team around me. To have people who understand their jobs and do them better than I ever could.”

  Hal scuffed the floor with his feet. Luke grinned.

  Sam turned to Ana and Kat. “I have learned from others how to see the whole of a person, to know them without judgment. To make up my own mind about who they may be, not take someone else’s prejudice and claim it as my own.”

  Finally, he turned to Dean. He took a step toward him, held his head high as he looked him in the face. “And I have learned that I must earn a person’s respect,” he said quietly. “Not demand it just because it is expected of them.”

  The look between them was electric. We all held our breath as we watched them. Dean was the first to break the moment.

  “Treasure chests are all very well,” Dean said, looking at Sam, “but to be honest with you, the journey to it is what I enjoy most.” He stepped forward and held his hand out to Sam. “And you led us on a fine journey. Well done, Captain.”

  Sam took Dean’s hand and shook it.

  A couple of the others applauded. Kat even che
ered. It was as if we hadn’t just lost everything. It was as if we’d won. Maybe, in a way, we had.

  And then a sound changed the mood in a split second.

  I heard it first. “Hey! Shhh!”

  Hal and Ana were nearest to me. The others were still cheering and whooping. “What is it?” Ana asked.

  “There’s something going on in the corridor.”

  “Guys!” Hal hissed. “Stop what you’re doing — now!”

  The others stopped and listened. There it was again. It was unmistakable. Feet stomping along the corridor.

  “There’s someone out there,” I said. “And they’re heading this way.”

  We all turned to Sam.

  “We haven’t got time to get away,” he said. “We’ll have to hide.” He pointed to the windows. “Quick, everyone, get behind the curtains.”

  I kicked the door closed to give us another few seconds as we ran to the windows. With four heavy curtains, there was plenty of space for us all to cram ourselves behind them.

  We’d just gotten ourselves in place when the door flew open and the footsteps came charging into the room.

  “Ah, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! My brother is such a fool!”

  Noah!

  “First he leads us here without even realizing it. Then he fails to find the room with the treasure chest in it!”

  “His loss; your gain,” one of his crew members said.

  “As usual,” Noah replied. “Now, then, stand back, men. Give me plenty of space as I take my prize.”

  From where I was standing, I could just see Noah as he stepped toward the chest. I pulled myself back to stay hidden. Not that he was watching us. He only had eyes for the chest.

  Noah leaned down toward the chest. “Trident’s Treasure, you are MINE!” he boomed as he opened the chest.

  There was a split second of silence.

  And then —

  “WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?” Noah roared.

  “What is it?” one of his crewmen asked. “What hap —”

  “Don’t you dare speak to me, you worthless waste of space!” Noah yelled at him.

  He turned to his crew. “How has this happened?” he asked. “Who let this happen? Which one of you messed up? You’re all useless, you pathetic, stupid fools! You failed! All of you. You’re all sacked! And as for my spineless, cowardly idiot of a brother . . .”

  Sam stepped out of his hiding place.

  “What about him?” he asked.

  One by one, we all stepped out from behind the curtains and stood next to Sam. I noticed Aaron on the other side of the room. I wanted to run to him, give him a hug, see if he was all right. I had to make do with the tiniest hint of a nod. He gave me an almost imperceptible hint of a smile in reply.

  Noah stared at his brother. “You, you . . .” he began. His hair was wild, his eyes even wilder. He had spit at the edges of his mouth; his face was bright red. “You worthless, weak loser.” In a flash, he’d crossed the room and started looking behind the curtains. “Where is it?” he asked. “I’ll find it. No one will believe you got here first. No one in their right mind would make you pirate king.”

  Noah grabbed at the curtains, almost pulling them off their rails. “Where is it?” he demanded more fiercely.

  Sam shrugged. “I don’t have it,” he said calmly.

  “Don’t have it? Don’t have it?” Noah blustered. “Don’t lie! Where is it? I’ll find it. I’ll get it. Dad will never believe you over me!”

  Noah ransacked the room, pulling out drawers from a dresser on the far side, yanking up the edges of the rug, muttering to himself as he went, and yelling at anyone who came near him.

  Noah, the perfect, smart, neat, smooth-talking son, had completely and utterly lost it.

  If we weren’t so mesmerized by his strange and outrageous behavior, we might have seen what was happening sooner than we did. As it was, it took a few minutes.

  It was one of his crew members who saw it first, a boy standing next to Aaron.

  “Um, Noah,” he said, so quietly that there was no way Noah would have heard him over his own ranting. Maybe that was the idea. No one in his right mind would have interrupted Noah at that point.

  The boy coughed loudly. Noah took no notice. The boy tugged on Aaron’s sleeve and whispered something to him.

  Aaron glanced behind him and then stepped into the center of the room. “Noah,” he said firmly. “Everyone!”

  Noah finally stopped what he was doing. Panting and disheveled, he spun around to face Aaron. “What is it?” he barked.

  “Look.” Aaron pointed to the door.

  We all looked where he was pointing. We saw the corridor. The room on the other side of the corridor. The room with the blue door.

  The door that the pirate king and his wife had just opened and walked through, as they made their way across the room toward an enormous treasure chest.

  “We’ve been had,” Noah hissed.

  Sam took a couple of steps toward Noah. “By our own father,” he murmured.

  For once — maybe for the first time in their lives — the brothers were united as they stood together and stared at the spectacle in the opposite room.

  The pirate king had reached the chest. As if he could feel our eyes on him, he turned to face us. He saw us all staring across the corridor at them and promptly burst out laughing.

  “Come on in,” he called, waving us across the corridor to join them. “Come. Share the moment with me. It’s going to be a good one.”

  Numb with shock, we shuffled into the room.

  “Dad,” Noah began. “Has there been a mistake?”

  “A mistake?” the pirate king replied. He looked at his wife. “I don’t think there’s been a mistake. Do you, darling?”

  Michele giggled. “Jakob, don’t tease the boys,” she said as if she were scolding him for refusing to buy them an ice cream, not for completely betraying his own flesh and blood. She pointed at the chest. “Come on. Let’s get this thing open.”

  “All in good time, my dear. All in good time,” Jakob replied. Then he turned to his sons. “But first, I suppose you’d like me to explain?”

  Noah looked ready to explode.

  The pirate king folded his arms across his belly. “I have known of the Trident’s Treasure for many, many years. It has long been thought of in our world as little more than a myth. But then, a year or so ago, I came across a collection of poems while visiting the area around Halflight Castle and — shall we say — relieving several ships of their cumbersome cargo.”

  “You stole the poems, in other words?” Sam said.

  His father shrugged. “Stole, acquired, obtained — call it what you will.”

  “Go on,” Noah urged, his voice tight and controlled.

  “Well, I couldn’t make heads or tails of them, but I knew that they had something to do with the Trident’s Treasure,” Jakob continued. “And one of them directly said that your children had to lead you to it. So I came up with a brilliant idea.”

  “Trick your sons into finding it for you,” Noah said, his words so sharp they seemed to bite at the air.

  The pirate king tilted his head in mock concentration. Then: “Yes, that’s about right, son,” he said.

  “And what you said about retiring . . . ?” Sam asked.

  The pirate king burst out laughing. “Do I look like someone who’s about to retire?”

  “So it was all lies?” Sam asked.

  His dad frowned. “Lies? Oh, I wouldn’t call it lies. I prefer to think of it more as motivation.” He laughed again. “And it worked. Look at us!” He grinned at his wife.

  Michele was laughing almost as much as her husband. But she at least made a show of feeling bad about it. “Come on, now, Jakob. Don’t taunt the boys so much. They’ve done a good job.”

  “Oh, yes. They’ve done a grand job. And I owe you my thanks as well, my beautiful, genius wife.”

  “What did Mom do?” Sam asked.

  “She cam
e up with the idea of leaving out the last two lines of the poem,” his dad replied.

  “Last two lines?” Noah asked. “What last two lines?”

  Jakob shuffled in his pockets. “Wait a minute. I’ve got the original here somewhere,” he mumbled. Shoving aside an expensive watch chain hanging down his chest, he added, “I just need to find it among all my gold! And I’ll be adding to that soon.” He wiped his eyes, now watering from all his laughter.

  How could he be so cruel? How could he act like this toward his own sons? I’d seen some pretty incredible things over the last year or so — but nothing had shocked me like the spectacle I was witnessing right now.

  “Ah, found it.” The pirate king pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. Mumbling the first part of the poem under his breath, he traced the paper with his finger as he read the last two lines aloud.

  “You’ll see two doors in front of you: one painted red, one painted blue.

  Ignore the red and choose the blue. Your treasure is in front of you!”

  The pirate king folded up the piece of paper and put it back in his pocket as everyone in the room stared at him in silence.

  He had tricked his sons into taking a wrong turn at the last minute, so he could take all the treasure for himself. It was disgusting. He was disgusting.

  Even Noah was so stunned he could barely speak.

  “Father,” he said in a voice that sounded like a little boy’s. “I — I can’t believe you’ve done this to us.”

  The pirate king batted his son’s words away. “Oh, don’t worry yourself, Noah. It will all be yours one day. Everyone knows you will inherit the family business. But not until I’m good and ready.”

  “So Noah still gets to inherit everything?” Sam burst out. “Even though I got here first? Even though I won the contest fair and square?”

  “The contest didn’t mean anything, son!” his dad exploded. “It was just a way of getting the treasure for myself — and I knew I had to be led here by my sons! Haven’t you gotten that into your stupid head yet?”

  His wife put a hand on his arm. “Jakob,” she said tenderly. “Don’t be so hard on the boy. It’s a disappointment to him.”