Island of Legends (The Unwanteds) (15 page)

“Sounds like she’s not hard to miss,” Sean said. “Right, Crow?” He’d taken quite a liking to the quiet Warbler boy.

Crow nodded. “She’s beautiful,” he said.

Carina’s hand flitted to her mouth and her eyes glistened. “It’s settled, then,” she declared, patting the boy on the knee. “We shall save her.” Carina had a young son of her own and was no doubt thinking of him. She gave Sky’s shoulders a squeeze.

“Once we’ve spotted her and alerted her to our presence, we’ll communicate a time for her to sneak out the fishing hatch, and we’ll take her from there. And if she’s unable to access that hatch or too afraid because she can’t swim, we’ll have her return to the spot by the skylight. Florence can smash in the window, and we’ll lower a rope and pull her out that way.”

Samheed yawned. “Sounds easy enough. You probably won’t even need us.”

“Well, that’s where phase two comes in.”

Carina perked up her ears. “Phase two? I’m listening.”

“Remember the animals? The sea creatures caged underwater on the other side of the reverse aquarium? Some of us saw them the first time we were there.”

Sky, Crow, Simber, and Carina nodded.

“Are we going to set them free?” Crow asked, excited.

Alex grinned. “Yes. At least we’ll try. They shouldn’t be trapped like that. I can’t stop thinking about them.” He also couldn’t stop thinking about Spike, but that was another matter.

“Cool, so we’ll figure out how to release them,” Samheed said. He narrowed his eyes. “Wait. What kind of creatures are we talking about?”

“I’m not sure,” Alex admitted. “We didn’t get a good look.”

“So they could attack us.”

“I suppose they could.”

Henry frowned. “I’m not sure I have any medicine to treat injuries from sea creatures,” he muttered.

Simber glanced at Ms. Octavia. “Can you communicate with waterrr crrreaturrres, Octavia?”

“I’ve never done it before, but I can try,” the art instructor answered. “I won’t know until we get there.”

The team began to buzz with excitement. Alex let them talk it out. He was glad to see their enthusiasm. But Sky’s face wore a look of dismay. Alex studied her, and then walked over and knelt on the deck by her side. “What’s wrong?”

She looked at him. “You all seem more excited about saving the creatures than saving my mother.”

Alex touched her arm. “Only because they didn’t know about the creatures. It’s a new development—one I’d only been thinking about recently. They’ve known all along we were going to save your mother. And, I should add, they all volunteered their time to train for this rescue because of you and your mother, not because of sea creatures. They committed to weeks and weeks of intense training—you know more than anyone how hard we’ve worked.” He smiled, remembering the time she’d tried to leave on a raft to rescue her mother on her own before she even knew how to swim. Impulsively he took her hand. “The entire team will be on backup in case something goes wrong with your mother. Believe me, it’s our first priority.”

Sky squeezed his hand. “You’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m just anxious about it. I really am grateful.”

Alex smiled. Reluctantly he pulled his hand away and stood up. “I’m glad you believe me. And now I’m going to make sure everybody else feels the same as we do about the mission.”

“Thanks, Alex,” Sky said sheepishly. Then she leaned in
and whispered, “Was it your whale that got you so interested in the sea creatures?”

Alex froze. “Um . . . no,” he said. “I . . . um . . . I’ve got to . . .” He whirled around and pointed his thumbs at the group, indicating he had things to do. He flashed an apologetic smile and stepped away to address the others, leaving Sky looking confused.

“It was just a question,” she muttered. But he was already out of range.

“Okay, okay,” Alex said, waving his hands to get the team’s attention. “Quiet down. And let’s not forget that our goal here is saving Copper. We’ll help the creatures if we can, but only after we’ve got Copper safe and sound. Clear?”

“Absolutely clearrr,” Simber said.

The others nodded. “Of course!” “That’s what we’re here for.” Their voices rang out full of enthusiasm, which eased Alex’s mind. He looked at Sky, eyebrows raised.

She put her thumbs up and smiled. “Thank you.”

Alex breathed a sigh of relief that the crisis was averted. But he had some jumbled feelings churning inside him that he couldn’t seem to straighten out. In addition to his frustration
over his inability to concentrate, and his embarrassment over his failures with Spike, Alex couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty—because he, too, was more than a little excited to rescue the sea creatures. Perhaps one of them would be so grateful to be free that it would become Alex’s special water creature. Fully devoted . . . one who would replace the spot in his heart left cold and empty by his terrible mistake with Spike Furious.

S
peckled by cries of “Thar she blows!” from Captain Ahab, mews in triplicate from Kitten, and the occasional rumblings from Florence or Simber, the conversations on board the pirate ship were mostly earnest and thoughtful as the day progressed into night. And conversations between Alex and Sky were virtually nonexistent as Alex strove to avoid all mention of Spike. Though the longer he kept the secret, the more he began wanting to confess everything to her so he could get it off his chest.

Sky wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. After the kiss on the beach, the last thing she expected was for Alex to grow
more distant. She had thought the opposite would happen. But she had plenty else on her mind to focus on right now, like rescuing her mother. Everyone on board was trying to focus on the mission, Sky most of all. So she didn’t give Alex’s behavior much thought.

As they sailed past Warbler Island, the captain kept the ship far from shore at Alex’s command—they didn’t want Warbler to mistake them as coming to attack, and they kept the ship dark until they were well past the island. It was better not to let them know they had left Artimé vulnerable.

Fox, Kitten, Ahab, Simber, and Florence made up the statue brigade. Octavia and a handful of squirrelicorns represented the creatures, and Alex, Lani, Samheed, Carina, Sean, Henry, Sky, and Crow were the human factor. It was almost perfect. It would have been nice to have Meghan with them, but she was one of only a few who knew and could handle performing the dissipate spell, which would remove the thorn necklaces from the Warbler children. Alex knew from experience that it was such a painstaking spell, and so dangerous, that a person could only do a few of them a day without tempting great error. The tiniest shaking of a hand could cause irreparable damage—or make
someone completely disappear, as had happened quite tragically to Gremily the squirrelicorn during the battle on Warbler.

Alex missed having Meg on this trip. While he and Meghan hadn’t spent a lot of time together lately because of all the things they were busy with, he still considered her one of his best friends. Alex walked to the stern of the ship and looked back toward home. The island of Quill was there, he knew, even though it was dark.

Above his head, Simber flapped his wings now and then, but mostly he soared with them outstretched, riding the breeze. The ship moved slowly during the dark hours so that they wouldn’t reach Pirate Island until daylight. Since Pirate Island could erupt or sink under the water without notice, Alex didn’t want to be too close, and he wanted to be able to see.

“When we get close, you’ll make surrre someone looks afterrr the kitten?”

Alex smiled in the dark. “Yes. Henry will take her.” They were silent for a bit, and then Alex asked, “Can the captain swim?”

“I don’t know. It won’t help to ask him, so I’ll keep an eye on him. I would imagine he’d sink like a rrrock.”

“Everybody else can swim,” Alex said. “I was careful about that when I was first choosing this group.”

“It may not matterrr, if we get sucked into the volcano,” Simber said dryly.

“That’s not going to happen,” Alex said. He hoped very much he was right. But there was no telling when the fiery island would suddenly decide to plunge underwater.

“Have you considerrred anchorrring the ship a distance away and taking a smaller crrrew on my back to save the woman?”

“I have,” Alex mused. “But you can’t possibly carry Florence, can you? We may need her.”

The cat growled. “No, you’rrre rrright. I could prrrobably hold herrr a shorrrt amount of time, but not morrre than a few seconds.”

“And I don’t like having the others so far away if something goes wrong.”

Simber nodded. “I agrrree.”

“So I guess we just have to wait off shore for the island to sink and resurface, and risk it.”

“It’s underrrwaterrr now,” Simber said, his eyes trained
on the spot where the island should be. “It’s been down forrr quite a while.”

“Oh. Well, that’s good, then. We’ll try our rescue when it comes up and the volcano fire dies down.”

“I’ll keep you inforrrmed.” Simber looked down at Alex. “You should rrrest while you can.”

Alex nodded. “I’m headed that way now. Thanks, Sim.”

Simber growled in response, which Alex knew was the statue’s way of saying “You’re welcome.”

» » « «

Everyone slept restlessly as they waited for daybreak. When Sky awoke, she sat at the bow of the ship, gazing forward, occupied with her thoughts. Alex left her alone. His mind was filled with preparations and plans for the rescue. And as much as he longed to sit with her and talk through his failures with Spike, he had to let that go and focus on the rescue.

As it turned out, Alex didn’t need Simber to tell him when Pirate Island resurfaced. The captain made it quite clear.

“Thar she blows!” he cried. “Blasted creature. Wretched, elusive sack!” Captain Ahab seemed to think the island was the whale he’d been chasing for years, and no one could convince
him otherwise. “Aye, the whale will be the death of us all!”

“There’s really no need to be so dramatic,” Alex muttered, forgetting the statue was a theater prop and so was inclined to drama. He sat up to watch. He could barely see the volcano outlined against the sky.

Water shot from the mouth of the volcano, followed by fireballs and enormous flames lighting up the sky. The Artiméans could hear the slap of the water hitting the sea, and the roar and hiss of the volcano spewing molten lava.

They were far enough away that the big wave that rolled toward them was manageable, so they stood at the railing to observe. It was a most spectacular, thrilling, and frightening sight to see.

As the entire ship watched in awe, no one, not even Simber, noticed the slithering creature rise up from the murky water behind them, blinking its electric eyes.

W
hile everyone else watched the lavaworks display, Simber sampled the air and snapped to attention, looking all around. “Something’s wrrrong,” he growled.

Alex turned sharply. “What is it?”

Screams and shouts rang out as the head of an enormous electric eel rose out of the water. It bumped against the ship, making the decks shudder.

“Everybody get below!” Florence shouted. “Giant eel!”

The Artiméans fled in all directions. The eel began wrapping itself around the ship, slipping its tail end up and over the
port side railing while its head slithered up the starboard side and onto the deck.

Florence lunged for the head, tipping the ship precariously. Everyone on deck tumbled to the side, unable to go anywhere of their own free will.

Simber torpedoed through the air to assist, grabbing the eel’s tail end in his jaws, but the slippery creature slid free and slapped Simber with a powerful blast to his head, knocking the cat off balance and sending him careening toward the water. He soared back up, shaking the nonsense from his head after the blow.

“No!” Alex cried, coming to his senses and staggering to his feet. “Come on, guys. Attack!” He rummaged for a spell, shooting off blinding highlighters at the eel’s eyes. Its eyes sparked with fire, and Florence cried out. She released her grip on the eel’s head as its tail lashed this way and that, seeking its next victim.