Stargazer Page 2

  “Try the harpoons!” Roland cried. He had recovered from whatever force had taken his breath away and was standing again. Yipes was already climbing as only Yipes could. He was quickly near the top of the highest mast with the rope to his harpoon between his teeth. When he arrived where he could look down on the flaming beast, he wrapped his legs around the mast and hauled the harpoon up into his hand by the rope. He waited only a moment, then threw with all his might.

  And what a shot it was! The harpoon hit something soft right between the metal scales of the monster and slid through to the other side. The shrieking sound from beneath the Warwick Beacon returned, and this time the snake of flaming steel retreated for its watery home. The Lonely Sea boiled and smoked, and I heard Yipes howling from high above as the rope burned through his fingers and shot out into the open water, trailing behind the wicked arm of Abaddon.

  Roland pointed toward two smoldering fires on the deck of the ship. “We must put those out!” he called.

  This command sent us all swiftly into action. Yipes slid down the mast and pounded the nearest flame with his boots while Roland and I stamped out the larger of the two. There came a moment then when everything was very quiet as we listened for the sound of evil lurking near in the waters. I could already see the very beginning of a new day far off on the horizon. We’d slept a lot longer than I realized, and very soon it would be morning. Abaddon had come in the deepest part of the night for one purpose: to tell me that I’d not only failed to destroy him, but that I’d shown him the way to an innocent place he could ruin. A place he could call home.

  “Do you feel that?” I asked.

  “Feel what?” asked Yipes, troubled by the thought of what I might have noticed. But he needn’t have been afraid, for Roland had been right about what the morning would bring.

  The salty sea wind had returned.

  CHAPTER 2

  DOWN WITH THE SHIP

  In all my experience with my dear friends Yipes and Roland, I never imagined they could move so fast and with such purpose. As the sun began to rise on the distant horizon, they jumped and dashed to every high and low part of the ship, setting the sails free on the wind with alarming speed and accuracy. No rope tangled, no knot was left untied, and each of the giant sails stretched tight with wind as sunlight burst onto the water from the east.

  “We’re moving!” shouted Yipes from where he dangled high at the top of the main mast.

  “Stay up and keep watch on the water!” yelled Roland. “I want to know if we’re being followed.”

  “It will be my pleasure, Captain!”

  Yipes liked to hang from high, unsafe places and look down on the rest of the world. I used to worry about this all the time, but then I grew used to the idea that he was at his best in situations like these.

  “Alexa,” cried Roland from the wheel. “To the bow! Watch for obstacles in our path.”

  Roland wanted me at the front of the boat, but I couldn’t imagine what he’d meant by obstacles. We were hundreds of miles out to sea—what obstacles could there be? When I arrived at the bow, I leaned out, watching the windswept surface of the water for anything unusual. I kept glancing over my shoulder, expecting to see something rise from the water and demolish us from behind, but Yipes remained silent from atop the mast and we maintained our course toward the Five Stone Pillars.

  When we’d cut the distance we needed to travel almost in half, Roland turned the Warwick Beacon sharply to the right and I pitched sideways along a rail made slick from decades of wear on the Lonely Sea.

  “Hold on!” he yelled. There was a crushing thud as the ship lurched at the impact of an unyielding mass beneath the surface. Before I could fully recover my balance, Roland launched the boat in another direction and I slid back toward the middle, staring into the blue sky. High above on the mast, Yipes was perfectly still, holding on as Roland had told us to do. He had turned his gaze to the front of the Warwick Beacon.

  “What’s happening?” I called to Roland.

  “The Five Stone Pillars aren’t the only rock formations in the Lonely Sea,” he replied. “We’ve entered the Crossing of the Narrows and our approach will be complicated from this direction.”

  “Farther to the right!” howled Yipes. “Farther to the right!”

  Roland spun the wheel free and fast, and I stood, working my way along the rail.

  “Isn’t there another way?” I asked.

  “There is, but it’s the long way around. I don’t think we want to be on the water any longer than we have to be.”

  There was no doubt about the need to get free of the Lonely Sea by the fastest way imaginable, even if it meant crossing through a death-defying labyrinth. I wanted to ask what the Crossing of the Narrows was, but I was cut short by another cry from above.

  “Now the left! The left!”

  No one was watching the back of the Warwick Beacon, and I had a terrible feeling about what could be taking us by surprise. As Roland and Yipes navigated a sea strewn with the shadows of rising stone, I struggled to reach the tail of the boat. The hull was slammed hard once more and I lost my grip, tumbling end over end.

  “Straighten up, Roland! Right up the middle now!” Yipes instructed. “There’s only a foot to spare on either side!”

  I grabbed for the railing and looked toward the Five Stone Pillars. We were close, and I realized with dread that there was no obvious way to the top. There was only jagged rock shooting up into the sky, ending in wide plateaus. I made the final dash to the back of the Warwick Beacon and held tight as the ship bounced hard, nearly throwing me into the depths of the sea. And then I saw Abaddon for what he had truly become: A vast black shadow within the Lonely Sea was carefully approaching. Watching it overtake the Warwick Beacon reminded me of a blue sky turning suddenly dark with thick rain clouds. And it made me feel the same way, as if a great storm was about to pound our wooden boat into oblivion. The shadow drifted under the boat and I realized the dreadful truth: The sea monster Abaddon was bigger by far than the boat we sailed on.

  “Faster!” I screamed. “The monster is moving underneath us!”

  Glancing up quickly, I saw that Yipes had seen it, too, and he was terrified of what was happening. The Crossing of the Narrows had grown impossible to navigate without the hull meeting stone barriers at every turn, and the shadow of the sea monster had come fully around us.

  “Charge for the pillars!” cried Yipes. “There’s no other way!”

  Roland kept the ship straight, crashing the hull over and over as we came directly up to the first of the Five Stone Pillars. The Warwick Beacon was taking on water. We were sinking into the Lonely Sea, and what was worse, Abaddon had begun to show himself once more. Looking over the back of the ship, I saw the horrible head of the monster rise out of the water. It was round and covered in rusted metal and it rolled open with the sound of chains to reveal a row of sparking metallic teeth.

  Time to go down with the ship, Alexa. You’ve served your purpose!

  The head rolled shut and disappeared into the depths of the sea. It was replaced by not one but dozens of gruesome metal arms moving up out of the water on every side of our ship. Like ancient prison bars surfaced with iron scales and barnacles, they surrounded us, dangling in the air with electricity sparking blue and yellow between them.

  “Hold on!” yelled Roland. “Hold on!”

  I held the handrail with an iron grip and we sailed headlong into the base of the pillar before us. The Warwick Beacon splintered apart at the bow and began filling with water from the shattered hull. Roland let go of the wheel and took a harpoon in hand, and I watched in horror as the metal arms of Abaddon turned orange and red, then exploded into flames.

  “Come get them!” screamed Roland. “Come and take them now!”

  What was he saying? It was as if he were screaming for Abaddon to devour both Yipes and me, and for an instant I doubted my old friend and protector. The arms of Abaddon batted the Warwick Beacon from every side wit
h flaming whips, and the ship tipped hard and fast up at the tail, its shattered head submerging into the Lonely Sea.

  “Come and get them NOWWWW!” howled Roland. He threw his harpoon and it cut through scales of fire, the barbs holding firm to a writhing arm of the beast. I was spellbound by the sheer madness of the chaos at sea, unable to do anything but rise on the tail end of a sinking ship and watch as the captain took hold of the wheel once more. He looked back at me, my beloved uncle Roland, and said his last words.

  “Look to the sky, Alexa Daley! It is there your future lies!”

  The flaming metal arms of Abaddon took hold of the Warwick Beacon from every side and pulled downward. I held the rail where I stood at the back of the ship, my legs dangling free as the ship’s tail tipped high into the air. Roland tumbled over the wheel and into the water, where an arm of metal scales and flames pulled him under.

  “No!” I cried. “Give him back! Give him back!”

  The captain was gone, Yipes was nowhere to be seen, and it appeared certain that I would be the next to go. The water was rising in a violent caldron, and I remembered the command that Roland had left with me. Look to the sky, Alexa Daley! It is there your future lies! And so I did.

  The pillars were set in a wide circle, and I saw the figure of a person diving from the top of the one farthest away. The figure was nothing more than a dot with limbs in the distance, but whoever it was had hold of a rope attached to the closest stone pillar, the one we’d rammed the Warwick Beacon into. The very middle was open water— with the pillars all around—and the figure at the end of the rope gained speed and swooped lower toward the water as it came near.

  The final mast of the Warwick Beacon disappeared and my fingers slipped along the wet rail. Then I felt my legs turning wet, the sea boiling all around me as it took the last of the ship, and I let go, covered by the chill of raging water.

  Roland’s words rang through my memory: Come get them! Come and take them now!

  What came next was more a nightmare than reality, and I couldn’t tell whether I was awake or dreaming. I only knew that I was rising on the wind with whipping flames grasping at my feet, and looking down I realized the awful truth: The Warwick Beacon had vanished, the captain had gone down with the ship, and there was no sign of Yipes.

  Tragedy had struck far away from home, and my last thought was the scariest one of all:

  I was alone.

  CHAPTER 3

  THE HIDDEN DOOR

  There are very few events that can wake me from sleep experiencing all five senses at once. Having a wet dog lick my face is one of them. There is the smell, sound, and feel of a wide, slobbering tongue licking my face, the sharp smell of a wet coat of fur mingled with warm dog breath, and then the opening of my eyes to find the yellow face of an animal looking back at me, nudging a stick across my chest as if it expects me to play fetch.

  “Where did you come from?” I asked. The dog nudged the stick once more and waited. I sat up, took the stick in hand, and waved it back and forth in the air. Nothing about the dog moved except its head as it watched the stick move.

  I was in a room that had but one door and one window. The window was high on the wall, too high to see anything but blue sky. The door was only barely open; I could see a shaft of light pouring in, but nothing else of the world outside. The dog, it appeared, had pushed the door open and found me where I lay on the bed. Seeing how wet the dog was made me wonder what sort of place I would find outside. Was I still near the water, or was I atop one of the stone pillars? The only way I was going to find out was by getting up and walking to the door, but I was afraid to go.

  As I sat worrying about Roland, Yipes, the sea monster, and the wreckage of the Warwick Beacon, the dog barked. He stood up, eyeing the stick, and my heart raced at the thought of who or what else might come through the door.

  “Quiet down,” I whispered. But even as I said it, I realized that he’d worn me down with those big brown eyes and wagging tail. I stood up and hurled the stick through the high window, watching as the dog darted out the door. Then I heard the dog hit hard and fast into what sounded like deep water.

  I crept toward the door and reached my hand out for the polished handle. But the dog was much faster in water than I had supposed, and he bound into the room, dropped the stick at my feet, and shook the water from his body, spraying me from my head to my toes.

  “Very nice,” I said, picking up the stick. “I wonder if you can find this one.”

  I pretended to throw the stick out the window again and the dog went scampering from the room on wet paws. Then I went back across the room, crouched low, and tossed the stick under the bed. When I stood back up and looked, there was someone standing in the doorway.

  “That’s not going to work.”

  It was the voice of a woman. She was silhouetted with light from behind so that I couldn’t make out her face, though I could see that she had very long hair. She was tiny, no bigger than me. If not for her voice I might have mistaken her for a child.

  “It’ll just make him want it more,” she told me.

  “Where are my friends?” I asked immediately.

  The woman stepped to the side of the door and the dog bounded into the room, soaking wet and sniffing. It sniffed the floor, then my leg, then my hand, and finally the bed. A moment later, it had managed to force its sizable head under the frame and emerge with the stick.

  “Told you,” said the woman. “There’s not much you can do now but throw it again. Ranger is what you might call a focused animal.”

  “So I see,” I said, and threw the stick out the window. The woman waved me toward the door, but I didn’t want to leave the safety of the room.

  “Will you tell me where my friends are?”

  Ranger returned and this time the woman scolded him gently.

  “Leave the poor girl alone.”

  Ranger sat beside her, dropped the stick, and stared at it sadly. The woman waved me out once more.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” she said. “I’m not even sure I could hurt you.”

  It was true that by the looks of her shape in the door I could probably force my way past. I was small but she was smaller.

  “Come on,” she said, walking away from the door to where I couldn’t see her. Ranger picked up the stick and followed enthusiastically. “It’s a beautiful day outside. You could use the sun.”

  “Wait!” I said. I didn’t like the idea of being left alone now that I was awake, and I was already growing attached to the dog. There’s something comforting about the companionship of animals in a new place.

  I walked cautiously to the door and peered out into the light of day, worried by the fact that the woman hadn’t answered my question. The house sat unexpectedly on the very edge of a wide body of water. The one-room cottage I’d come out of—if it could be called that—was cobbled together with thin strips of weathered stone and mortar. It had a thatched roof.

  “I know it’s not much,” said the woman. She was standing by the shore with the yellow dog. “But it’s home for me and Ranger.”

  She was about the same age as Yipes, and nearly as little. Her long golden hair ran all the way past her knees. It had a sea-swept way about it, not straight but not curly. Tangled was a better word to describe it, as if it hadn’t been combed through in years and years. And she was very soft and pretty to look at. I had the feeling that if I pushed on her nose or her cheeks with my finger, I’d find nothing firm beneath them.

  She tossed the stick once more for Ranger and the dog jumped into the water and swam off.

  “That dog will go all day,” she said. “He loves to swim.”

  A tall, unmanaged hedge thick with green and gold leaves lined the outer edge of the lake where I stood, so that I couldn’t see the Lonely Sea below. There were cottages here and there around the lake, poking through the trees in little clusters. Looking up, I saw three stone pillars rising into the air and realized where I was: atop the second p
illar, not quite the lowest of the five. I had come into the realm of lost children.

  The lake took up a great deal of the space in the middle, and the flat top of the pillar was not as big around as I’d supposed when I’d looked up from below. I moved closer to the woman and saw that she was watching me with bright green eyes like my own.

  “I’m Matilda,” she said. “I helped save you from the monster that ate your ship.”

  “But you’re so …” I’d almost said it. Almost, but not quite.

  “What? Small?”

  “I’m sorry, it’s just … well it’s hard to imagine you could lift me out of the water. How did you do it?”

  She didn’t answer me as Ranger came back with the stick and dropped it at her feet.

  “Where is Yipes?” I asked, “And Roland—the captain of the ship—is he …?”

  Matilda pointed toward a weather-beaten rowboat sitting on the lake. Ranger, taking this as a sign, bound along the water’s edge and jumped in.

  “The dinner bell will be going off soon,” she said. “Can’t be late or I’ll never hear the end of it from Jonezy.”

  I looked to my left and my right once more, then out over the lake. I didn’t see another person, which surprised me. Did anyone besides Matilda and Ranger even live on the second pillar? Where were all the people who occupied the cottages?

  Matilda went to the rowboat and sat waiting. Ranger barked at me, and I knew without the slightest hesitation that if I could understand the dog I would have heard, What are you waiting for? Get in the boat!