They drifted off to sleep, and when they woke they were flying over the ocean. Ralf’s parents had brought her to swim in the great rolling waves and she’d always loved the way it smelled. She sat up now, breathing deeply, and felt Audun’s gaze on her. He was still lying down and she turned her head to look at him. The warmth of his gaze made her blush, but she smiled at him, happy to have him along.
They both turned their heads at the sound of wings. A gull landed on the edge of the carpet. It tilted its head to eye them, then took off, leaving a single feather behind. “There must be land around somewhere,” Millie said, although she looked in every direction and couldn’t see anything but water.
“There are lots of islands,” said Audun, covering his mouth as he yawned. “The trick is finding the right one.”
They saw the occasional islands after that, but the magic carpet passed each one, heading farther and farther south. There were no clouds in the sky, and the sun seemed to burn brighter with each passing minute. Millie began to look at the water with longing, imagining what the cool depths would feel like on her hot skin.
She was considering tearing off a strip of fabric to protect her face from the sun when suddenly the magic carpet shuddered to a halt, flipped over, and dumped them off. “Help!” Millie screamed, tumbling head over heels. The skirt of her gown flapped in her face each time she turned right side up so that she had to fight to see where she was headed.
She turned over so that she was upside down for a moment. Her skirt gathered around her legs, allowing her to see Audun falling only a few yards away. “Change!” he shouted as the air began to shimmer around him.
When Millie flipped again, the fabric slapped her in the face; she shoved it out of the way and glanced down. The sight of the water rushing up at her with incredible speed was nearly paralyzing. The crack of Audun’s wing beat made her whip her head around so that she was looking away from the water … and then she changed, too.
Millie’s feet were aimed toward the water when her first wing beat cupped the air, pushing her higher. The next few beats carried her past Audun, who was flying so close that the scales on his wings brushed hers. “I was going to catch you if you didn’t change in time,” he said, his brow wrinkled with worry.
“Do you know what happened? Why did we fall?”
“I have no idea,” said Audun. “One minute we were flying along just fine, and the next the magic carpet was flipping upside down. I see an island ahead. Do you suppose it’s the one we wanted?”
“Do you think the carpet flipped on purpose? My mother told me that she and Father turned into frogs and fell off the carpet. I guess it brought us to the same spot where my parents got off. I just wish we’d had some warning. You don’t see the carpet anywhere, do you? I’d hate to lose it.”
“I think I saw it headed back the way we came,” said Audun.
“Maybe it’s going home. Mother might have put a homing spell on it in case it got lost or stolen.”
“About that island …”
“That might be it,” Millie said, squinting into the bright sunlight. “It certainly won’t hurt to go look.”
They flew to the island, startling a flock of seagulls headed in the same direction. Millie peered down at the ground, looking for the witches, but there wasn’t anyone on the beach or among the trees or anywhere on the island as far as she could tell. She circled around again and saw some debris just inside the tree line, but no sign of any people. Green crabs scuttled out of her way as she glided to a landing on the white sands of a pristine beach and raised her head to look around. Audun landed beside her, raising a cloud of sand with the last beat of his wings.
Millie closed her second eyelids until the sand settled. “I didn’t see any people from the air, did you?” she asked.
“Not one,” Audun replied. “And there’s no sign of humans near the water. Maybe this isn’t the right island after all.”
“But this was the closest island to where we fell off the carpet. This should be it.”
“Are you saying that because you have a feeling or because you want it to be true?”
“Both, I think,” said Millie. “Because if this isn’t the right island, I don’t know what we’re going to do!”
“I think we should look around some more,” said Audun.
“Fine, but we don’t have much time. If this isn’t the right island, we have a whole lot of ocean to search.”
Eight
It’s not a very big island,” said Millie as she followed Audun up the beach. “I would have thought we’d see someone right away. If there are any people here, they should have noticed us by now.”
“I’m sure your parents would have come running if they’d seen us.”
“Grassina and Haywood would have, too. I don’t understand. Where is everybody?”
“It must be the wrong island,” said Audun.
Millie watched a crab scurry under a fallen log. “Then how are we going to find the right one?”
“I can fly very high and look for islands from up there,” said Audun. “If there are any more nearby, I should be able to see them.”
“If there aren’t any clouds,” Millie said. “You know, we could go talk to those seagulls we just saw. They live around here and would know where to find the islands.” She noticed a little crab sitting on top of another fallen log, waving its eyestalks as it watched the two dragons. Millie took a step toward the log. “Do you think these crabs might know something?”
“Maybe,” said Audun. “Catch one and we’ll see.”
The crab began to scuttle off the log as Millie reached for it, but she was quicker than the crab and caught it between her talons. She was careful not to hurt the little creature, but the crab squirmed and tried to pinch her scaly arm as she carried it back to Audun. Millie looked up at a sudden rustling sound. A small sea of green was washing across the sand, from under logs and rocks and out of trees. Crabs seemed to be coming from everywhere, clacking their claws threateningly. A bird with a black-tipped orange beak that was nearly as big as its all-black body flew out of the trees with a raucous squawk.
As the crabs reached Millie and Audun, they swarmed up the dragons’ legs and onto their bodies, jabbing with their claws and trying to pinch the scale-covered skin. The bird flew straight at Millie and landed on her head, where it pecked her with so much force it gave her a headache.
Millie cried out and shook her head, trying to dislodge the bird. It squawked and flapped its wings, but she couldn’t get rid of it. She was trying to whack her body with her tail when she glimpsed Audun, who was also under attack. A crab that appeared to be bigger than the rest was tossing coconuts at him; he would have been able to dodge them better if he hadn’t been covered with green crabs. Another crab picked up a coconut and hurled it at Millie, hitting her on the tip of her nose. She blinked and took a step back toward a patch of fallen palm fronds. Another coconut hit her right between the eyes. Jerking her head away, she took another step onto the palm fronds and felt her feet slip out from under her.
Audun roared as Millie slid down a steep incline and fell over onto her back in a space barely wider than her body. Water partially filled the hole, and she had to hold her head as high as she could to keep her nose in the air. The crabs scrambled off her, scuttling up the incline to peer down at her from the edge of the hole. Water seeped from the walls and she began to worry that it might soon cover her. She was struggling to turn over in the narrow space when a flurry of sand showered down on her; the crabs were trying to bury her in the hole. Millie dug her talons into the wall, stopping when she saw that her efforts were bringing down more sand and water.
She pressed her lips together until they were thin lines. No crabs were going to get the best of them! Taking a deep breath, she blew a stream of flame at the wall, melting it so that it turned into a layer of glass, made rough from the still-falling sand. The glass steamed as she tried to right herself, making the rising water slosh. The sloshi
ng water touched the glass, cooling it so that it hardened.
Pushing against the glass, Millie turned over and clambered out of the hole. She no longer cared if she hurt the crabs or not, so she swatted them aside when they tried to swarm over her again as she reached level ground. “Audun!” she called and heard an angry snarl in reply. She turned in the direction of the noise and saw him curled up on the ground, nose to tail, with ropes made of vines wrapped around him.
“Are you all right?” she asked as she hurried to his side, but the vines were wrapped around his muzzle, too, so he couldn’t answer.
She noticed movement out of the corner of her eye and turned to see more crabs scuttling her way. Once again she took a deep breath and exhaled a tongue of flame, this time drawing a line of fire right in front of the advancing crabs. The little creatures immediately turned and ran toward the waves creeping up the shoreline.
“Hold still,” she said, turning back to Audun. Grasping the vines with her talons, Millie pulled them as far from his body as she could and exhaled a trickle of flame. One tug and they broke in two. She had to do it to three more vines before Audun was able to shrug all of them off and get to his feet.
Millie glanced up. The crabs had gathered around a pile of fallen logs while the birds watched from the trees. “Have you ever heard of crabs acting this way before?”
“I don’t think so,” Audun replied. “But then, I don’t know much about crabs.”
“My mother used to have a crab friend named Shelton, and I always thought he was nice. He even looked like these crabs, but they don’t act anything like him. Look at the way they’re watching us.”
“That’s odd,” said Audun. “Do you see those logs? They look like they’ve all been cut to the same length.”
“Maybe they didn’t fall down,” she replied and started toward the pile of logs. When the crabs clacked their claws at her, one small puff of flame made them retreat to the edge of the water. Audun reached the logs before she did and began to rummage through them. Each log bore a smooth cut at either end. Some were notched and a few had vines tied around them. They found logs that had been bound together with vines as well as sheets of tied-together palm fronds.
“These were huts,” said Millie, holding up a piece of a crudely made door.
Audun nodded. “Someone definitely lived here,” he said and placed a cracked cooking pot by her feet.
“Then it may well have been where the witches lived. What do you suppose happened to them?”
“I don’t know,” said Audun. “Someone either chased them off or ate them.”
Millie shivered. “I doubt they were eaten! They’re witches, after all. I’m sure they could find some way to protect themselves.”
“What do you want to do now?”
“I don’t know. Except—we’ve looked at this from a dragon’s perspective, but maybe we should look at it through human eyes.”
“Why? Do you think it will look different?” asked Audun.
“Not really, or at least not much. But I know when I’m human, I think of things differently. You don’t have to change if you don’t want to.”
Audun shook his head. “We might as well both do it. But what about the crabs?”
“We can always turn back if we need to,” said Millie. “On the count of three. One, two, three …”
The first thing Millie noticed after changing back into her human form was the heat. High temperatures never bothered her when she was a dragon, but now she felt as if she’d been stuck in an oven as the hot sun reflected off the heated sand. The only thing keeping it from being unbearable was the breeze blowing off the ocean, but even that was warmer than she was used to in Greater Greensward. Perspiration beaded her forehead as she turned to face Audun, and she noticed that he seemed to be suffering even more.
“So far, I’m not enjoying this perspective very much,” he told her. “I was hot as a dragon, but at least my entire body didn’t sweat.”
Millie wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “I wish we had something cold to drink. There must be drinkable water on the island somewhere if the witches were able to live here, but I don’t know how we’d find it.”
“There’s a small stream that leads into a pond behind those trees,” said a woman’s voice. Millie’s eyes grew wide as she turned to where the crabs had retreated to the edge of the water. Seven witches stood there now, their hair scraggly and unkempt, their tattered clothes hanging on their thin frames. They all looked tired, as if they had gotten little sleep, although their sun-bronzed skin kept them from looking unhealthy.
“Cadmilla?” said Millie, recognizing the witch who had come to Greater Greensward to ask for Grassina’s help.
The old witch gave her a sad half smile. “We didn’t recognize you when you were dragons. We’d heard rumors that there was a princess who could change like that, but we didn’t know it was you. We wouldn’t have trapped you if we’d known.”
“You were the crabs?” asked Audun.
“And the toucan,” said a witch with a long face and a very thin nose. “I think I made a good toucan, don’t you, Septicimia?”
A witch with wild-looking eyes nodded and clasped her hands. “You were the best, Rugene!” she said in a breathless voice.
“But why?” asked Millie. “And where are my parents and great-aunt and great-uncle? Did they already head back to Greater Greensward?”
“Sit down, dear,” said a kindly looking witch. “I’m afraid we have some bad news for you.”
“I’d rather stand,” said Millie.
“Suit yourself,” Cadmilla told her. “Remember that monster I told you about?”
“It came at night when we were asleep and destroyed our cottages,” said Rugene. “We were lucky to get out with our lives.”
Septicimia wrung her hands in front of her chest. “It has these long tentacles, and it uses them like whips. It flung my poor Henrik all the way across the beach and into the ocean. He didn’t stand a chance.”
“He was a fish in a bowl. He just went back where he came from. I doubt he minded all that much,” Cadmilla said.
“I took good care of him,” wailed Septicimia. “I loved him and he loved me!”
“I’m sure he did,” said Rugene.
Cadmilla sighed. “The sea monster comes every night when the moon is highest in the sky. After it destroyed our cottages, it still came back looking for us. We hid at first, but it crossed the island and we had to climb the trees.”
“It was Septicimia’s idea that we turn ourselves into crabs.”
“The monster didn’t bother us when we weren’t human anymore,” Cadmilla told them. “But we didn’t want to spend our entire lives as crabs or birds, and we didn’t want to leave the island. We were very happy here until the sea monster came, so we built our traps and waited for it to come back. We haven’t seen it in a few days, though.”
“When you showed up, we thought that the sea witch had sent you after us, too,” said Rugene. “Our traps worked very well, don’t you think?”
Both Millie and Audun looked puzzled. “What sea witch?” they asked at the same time.
“The one that rode the sea monster,” said Cadmilla. “Did we forget to mention that?”
“We’re not telling this very well,” said the kindly faced witch. “You see, my dears, a sea witch came with the sea monster. She was a mermaid and her scales were the most ghastly shade of green.”
“We told your aunt about the sea witch and her monster. She said that she knew what to do and left,” Cadmilla told them. “Then your mother came and we told her exactly what we’d told your aunt. She took off right away, too.”
“But what happened to my mother and Grassina? Where are they now?”
“That’s the bad part, dear,” said the kindly faced witch. “Your aunt never came back, and neither did your mother.”
Millie swallowed hard and her voice shook when she spoke. “And my father and great-uncle? What happened
to them?”
“Your uncle went with your aunt and your father went with your mother, of course,” said Cadmilla. “They’re all missing. I wouldn’t be surprised if the sea monster ate them.”
Nine
Millie didn’t believe that the sea monster had eaten her family, despite what the witches said. Although she was sure they were in trouble, she was just as sure that they were still alive. “Call it dragoness intuition if you like, but I know we can save them if we hurry,” Millie told Audun.
“What do you want to do? We can start looking for the sea monster. Perhaps some sea creature can tell us where it went when it left here.”
“I guess that’s what we’ll have to do,” said Millie. “Your amulet will work for me, too, won’t it? I’ll be able to breathe underwater like you can?”
“As long as we’re touching,” said Audun. “But we should go as dragons. We’ll be much faster, and there’s no saying what we’ll run into down there.”
“I hope we run into the sea monster,” Millie said. “And I’d much rather be a dragon when we meet.”
“Imagine that,” said Rugene, who was still standing right there. “Being able to turn into dragons. It’s amazing what young people can do these days.”
“When I was a girl,” Septicimia said, “I had a friend who tried to turn herself into a dragon. She changed partway, but it hurt so much that she got frightened and quit trying.”
“Does it hurt when you change?” asked Rugene.
Millie laughed. “Not at all, although my mother said it hurt the first few times she did it.”
“Do you mind if we watch?” asked Rugene. “I know we saw you turn back into humans, but it took us by surprise. Seeing you turn into dragons, well, I won’t pretend I’m not curious.”
“We don’t mind,” said Millie. “Just stand back. We wouldn’t want you to get squashed by accident.”
Septicimia gasped and the witches scurried back to the edge of the trees, then turned around to watch.