Island of Legends (The Unwanteds) (38 page)

Alex and Samheed looked at each other as they both realized what the thunderous noise was.

“Waterfall!” they yelled together.

Alex turned to face the ship full of scared faces. “Everybody tie down and hang on,” he urged. “Major bumpy ride ahead!”

Finally Simber caught up to the ship. He swooped in at top speed, with the whale not far behind. “Tie down a rrrope and thrrrow me the otherrr end!” he shouted. “One to Spike, too!”

Carina and Sky sprang into action.

Florence, who needed to remain planted on the deck or risk capsizing the ship, called out, “Give me the ropes when you’ve got them!”

Carina and Sky scrambled to untangle ropes and toss them to Florence.

Florence wound the first one around a tether on the deck, tying it tight. “Here, Kitty,” she said, tossing it high. Simber swooped in and caught it with his teeth. Florence tied down the second rope, located Spike in the water, and tossed that one to her. Spike grabbed on.

Alex ran to Sean’s side and began strapping him to his chair, and his chair to the ship. “Sorry, buddy. I’ve got to do this,” he said. “I figure you can’t swim real well right now.”

Sean nodded. “Yeah. I wish I could do something.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Alex gave him a wry smile and punched him in the shoulder. “Just hold on.”

Alex watched as Simber’s and Spike’s ropes began to pull
taut. “Hang on, everybody!” he shouted. The ship jerked and shuddered, but it soon recovered and barely slowed at all as it continued speeding toward the precipice.

Alex looked up at Simber, desperate. “We’re not stopping,” he said. “What do we do? Squirrelicorns, assist!”

Rufus and the other five ’corns flew to take hold of the ropes and tried with all their might to pull the ship in the other direction.

Simber’s face showed little expression, but his eyes were worried. Gripping the rope in his mouth, he strained and pulled, unable to speak as he tried to turn and fly in the opposite direction. The ship only dragged him backward through the air like a kite.

In the water, Spike held on with her razor-sharp teeth, but it made no difference. She was being dragged through the water as if she weighed as much as Kitten. They were doomed.

“Everyone—abandon the goods and tie
yourselves
to the ship!” Alex yelled. “Stay abovedecks!” His worst nightmare was to have someone get trapped belowdecks with water pouring in. At least out here, Simber and the squirrelicorns could rescue them. Down there . . . Alex shuddered. He whipped his
head around as the ship began to tremble. The thunderous pounding felt like the mad rush of his beating heart in his ears. Through the mist he could barely make out the edge of the sea a hundred feet in front of them.

He had to say something to his people, but his magely words caught in his throat. They were going over the edge of something, and no one knew how far they’d fall. The ship full of people, the statues and creatures all battening down and taking cover, Simber and Spike hanging on without a hope of saving the ship—Alex had never had so much time to face the possibility of death before.

But he couldn’t die. Not now. Not ever! Finally, he found his voice. “Pull!” he screamed to Simber and Spike. “Hang on!” he screamed at everyone else. All his words were lost in the thunder.

“Alex!” Simber shouted, the rope loose in his teeth as he flew closer to the boy, a question in his eyes.

Alex knew what Simber wanted him to do. As the point of the ship’s bow neared the edge of the world, Alex stared Simber down. “No,” he said, hoping the cat could read his lips. “I stay with the ship.”

“Then so do I.”

Alex brought his hand to his chest and held the cat’s gaze as Simber slowed and let the rope grow taut once more, pulling with all his might, his efforts fruitless, but not giving up. Alex sought Sky, and found her at the top of the sails, just where he knew she’d be. Her mother and Crow clung to the ropes beside her.

For the briefest of moments their eyes met, and her look tore Alex’s heart in half. And then, as the bow crossed over the edge and the ship neared the tipping point, something bright and fiery flew toward Alex, stopped in front of his face, and exploded into a picture of a spider painted on a stone.

It didn’t register.

And then it did. It was a seek spell from Claire. Artimé was in trouble.

“Siiimber!” Alex cried, his voice lost in the thunder.

The ship tilted sharply. Alex’s eyes met Simber’s. And they all went sailing over the edge.

T
hey plunged toward the thunder and into the mist, falling at a dizzying speed, dragging Simber and Spike and the squirrelicorns with them. Sheets of water slapped the Artiméans, batting them about and knocking them off their feet as they clung to or hung from the ship. “Hold on!” Alex shouted, but his mouth filled with seawater, which choked off the words.

The ship shook and bounced as it fell, pummeled by rapids. Florence’s body slammed against the stern, squashing Ms. Octavia and pinning Fox. Sky, Crow, and their mother swung wildly from the sails, trying desperately to grab on to the mast
with their feet. Lani, Henry, and Carina hung on to Sean’s chair for dear life. Ahab clung to the ship’s wheel, while Alex and Samheed remained secured to the bow, certain to be the first to hit whatever was at the bottom of the drop.

Second after agonizing second passed as they dropped, their stomachs in their throats. Alex felt faint and sick. He couldn’t see anything, couldn’t do anything to help anyone except ride out the journey and hope to live through it, though the chances of that seemed tinier the longer they fell.

The ship slammed from one side to the other. The thundering grew so loud that Alex thought his eardrums would burst. His whole body shook and swung about, and it was all he could do to hang on.

Then everything shifted. The ship took a second right-angle turn forward, slamming everyone with water once more and yanking them wildly against their ropes. It took Alex several seconds to realize that they were now sailing completely upside down: The ship and the sea were above them, the sky below, and they dangled precipitously as a reverse sort of gravity seemed to want to pull them down into the never-ending sky. Their speed increased but the thundering noise decreased,
and soon Alex could hear the cries of his friends once more. He opened his eyes, and through splashes of water saw Florence holding on to the side of the ship with one arm while Simber attempted to wrap his rope around her leg.

“Stay strong and hold tight, everyone!” Alex yelled, relieved to know that at least some of them remained attached to the ship. “We are still here. Hold on! Take a fresh grip and wrap yourself in the ropes if you can!”

They continued upside down for an almost unbearable amount of time, and then, just as swiftly as it had fallen, the ship took an upward turn and the thundering noise increased once more. Alex and Samheed, hanging on to ropes, slammed into the deck and bounced, which gave them momentary relief until a few of their shipmates dropped on top of them, unable to hang on after the most recent shift in direction. Something furry scrabbled straight up the deck and sank its claws into Alex. Instinctively Alex held on to it, deducing that it had to be Fox, and then another body slid into his—human this time. “Sky!” he cried, but she didn’t answer; or if she did, he couldn’t hear her. Alex wrapped his arms around both of them, weaving the rope as best he could to secure them against him. Water poured over them now.

Alex held his breath, hoping against hope that Simber had secured Florence enough that she wouldn’t come crashing into anyone, for she would surely crush any human to death.

The ship thudded and shook, smashing against Alex’s spine. He wasn’t sure how long he, much less any of the others, could hang on. The thunder pummeled his ears and rattled his head, and soon he couldn’t tell which way was up. He grew disoriented and flustered. Waves of black washed over his eyes, and as the ship pounded over the water, Alex’s shaking arms could hold on no longer.

Samheed shouted something near Alex’s ear, but Alex couldn’t make it out.

“What?” he cried.

Sam shouted again. It sounded like “Crow!”

Alex looked around but he couldn’t see anything. “Crow?” he shouted back.

Samheed shook his head. “Scroll!” he cried out. He drew a circle in the air and put his mouth next to Alex’s ear. “We’re scrolling! Like Mr. Today’s scroll feature! In Artimé!”

Alex didn’t understand. The term sounded familiar, but he couldn’t concentrate long enough to remember what it meant.
He felt ill. “I can’t . . . ,” he said. Another wave of black crossed his vision. He fought to keep from passing out, thinking of Sky and how he couldn’t let go of her. They had to get through this. Ms. Morning needed help. But how would they find home now? Where were they?

As they rounded a fourth sharp turn forward, bringing them upright at last with the sky above and the sea and ship below, Alex could stave off the blackness no more. The echoing thunder in his ears became silent. His arms fell slack; his head bobbled and sank to his chest. Fox slipped from his grasp and slid to the deck, and Sky crumpled to the floor at Alex’s side.

Alex slumped to the deck, unconscious, arms and legs tangled in the rope around him.

Only a few ears heard the thunder slowly dissipate in the distance behind them; few eyes saw the sea slowly grow calm again around the tattered ship. Behind them, the horizon was close enough to touch. In front of them, the sea and sky stretched on and on.

When the second flash of light streaked through the air and exploded into a painted spider in front of Alex’s lifeless face, it would only have taken one clever pair of eyes to notice
it and follow the path from whence it came, which would point the way home. But the question remained: Had anyone seen it? Anyone at all?

Henry lay stiller than a statue near the stairwell to the lower deck, one foot twisted around the anchor rope. From his pocket, a white porcelain kitten emerged. She stretched and yawned. She licked a paw and brushed the sleep from her eyes. And then she hopped off Henry and onto the deck, looking over the destruction that had taken place during her nap.

She stepped around Sean, who moaned. She moved past the mast and sails, where Crow and his mother still clung for dear life. She climbed over Florence’s leg and the captain’s chest and a squirrelicorn’s horn, sniffing her way across the deck until she saw him.

She bounded over to Fox, sodden from lying in a puddle, and looking like a rat, but smelling like Fox was supposed to smell. She licked his face until he woke up, and then she hopped on top of his head. When he stood up, Kitten could see over the railing. Fox blinked and shook the water from his fur. He walked over to Alex and began licking the mage’s face earnestly, trying to get him to wake up.

Kitten narrowed her eyes, tilting her head this way and that, finally noticing a fading streak of light going from Alex off toward the sunset. She sniffed it and sat up. She had seen one of those before and knew what it meant. She hopped once, as if it would help her see farther, and then hopped two more times.

When at last Fox had successfully licked Alex’s eyes open and the mage lifted his head, the streak of light had vanished. Kitten could wait no longer, for she did not want to forget.

“Mewmewmew! Mewmewmew!” she cried. She lifted her paw out over the endless sea, pointing the way home—or at least the way to Ms. Morning . . . wherever she happened to be.