Kristen shrugged. “How are we ever going to find out what the truth really is? I mean, I don’t understand. Why would Marks want to us think there’s a fake witch?”
“Because there’s a real witch on island with us, and Marks is helping her. The kids who are disappearing aren’t going home. I’m sure of it,” April said. “Marks is trying to throw us off. He’s part of the evil.”
Pam spun around to face them. “What are you two whispering about?” she demanded. “Are you talking about me?”
“No. Really,” April replied. “Just talking.”
As they came near the Academy Village, Anthony came running across the sand to greet them. “Have you seen Kendra?” he asked breathlessly.
April shook her head. “No. She wasn’t with us.”
“She’s missing,” Anthony said. “No one can find her anywhere.”
“Tonight we light a second torch,” Marks announced in his booming, deep voice. “Beside the torch for Clark, we light a new torch for Kendra.”
Mira and Blake raised burning sticks to the torches, and they both burst into flame.
“Now we are eight,” Marks said solemnly. His eyes moved around the circle of kids. “May their lights—side by side—remind us of the dangers of this island. And the dangers we will all face tomorrow.”
April watched the camera crew capturing Marks’s words on tape. Marks is enjoying this so much, she thought. He really loves being a TV star.
She shuddered as she stared at the torch flames dancing against the night sky.
What is really happening to those kids? she wondered. And where are the three missing kids from our first trip here?
The next day, she found out the answers.
21
“Whoa!”
April let out a groan as she leaped onto the next rock. Arms outstretched as if reaching for something, she stretched her legs and struggled to climb faster.
Anthony and Phil were climbing quickly, so close together, they kept bumping. Glancing back, April saw Pam on a flat rock below her, moving lightly and fast.
Two camera crewmen stood near the top of the rock hill, capturing the race on tape.
The bright afternoon sunlight made the rocks glow like blue glass. In the sky above the ocean, gulls glided low, as if watching the race.
I’ve climbed these blue rocks so many times, I should know the way by heart, April thought. I should win this race easily.
She darted between Anthony and Phil. They both called out to her. April didn’t turn around. The top of the steeply sloping rock hill came into view.
“Hey!” April heard Phil let out a cry. Then she heard a hard thud.
She glanced back to see that Phil had stumbled. He lay facedown on a flat rock. After a second or two, he scrambled to his feet.
Both of his knees were cut. Blood trickled down his bare legs.
Anthony stopped to help him. Pam swept past both of them. She didn’t even glance at Phil. Her eyes were locked on April.
No way you are catching me. I’m going to win this race, April thought.
You’re not going to win every contest, Pam.
Leaning forward, April grabbed the side of the flat boulder above her and hoisted herself up. She was panting hard now. She could feel the heat of the sun on the back of her neck.
Almost there. Almost to the top.
She turned—and saw Pam at her side.
Pam’s arms swung back and forth as she ran. Her teeth were clamped tight. Her eyes straight ahead, intent on the finish line.
No way, April told herself. No way. No way.
I’m not giving up the lead.
They had one more rock to climb. They climbed it side by side.
Then, side by side, they were running across the sloping flat rocks to the top.
Side by side.
No way. No way. No way.
The chant repeated in April’s mind. She forced her aching legs to move faster. Faster.
And then Pam let out a shout. “April—look out!”
Pam pointed frantically to the ground at April’s feet.
April turned to where Pam pointed.
And Pam rocketed past her—to the finish line.
“Pam wins!” Blake shouted.
April raced across the finish line and flung herself against the cave wall. Gasping for breath, she spun around angrily to face Pam.
Pam was bent over, hands on her knees, struggling to catch her breath. Her face was bright red. Drenched with sweat, her hair fell wild around her face.
“Not fair,” April choked out. She staggered beside Pam. “Hey—what you did just now—that was so not fair.”
Pam raised herself up. She pushed her hair back with both hands, and a grin spread over her face. “What did I do?”
“Shouting like that,” April replied angrily.
Pam’s grin grew wider. “That wasn’t illegal, was it?”
April balled her hands into fists. “It was supposed to be a fair race, Pam.”
“It was a fair race,” Pam insisted. “You just have to learn how to compete, April.”
“Swim time, everyone!” Blake shouted. “I think we all need a swim now, right?”
Kids started back down the hill toward the beach.
Kristen stepped up beside April. “Ready?”
April turned to the cave opening. Empty. No camera guy in there today. “Ready,” she said.
Mopping his face with the front of his Academy T-shirt, Blake walked over to them. “Here are the flashlights you asked for,” he said, handing them to April and Kristen. “You sure you want to explore that cave today?”
April nodded. “We’ve been dying to. We think it will be very cool.”
Blake frowned. “Well, just don’t go too far in, promise? And don’t tell Marks I said you could do it.”
“Promise,” April and Kristen said.
“Good luck!” Blake called, and he turned and hurried after the other kids.
“I guess this is the big moment,” April sighed, gazing at the cave opening.
“At least, I don’t see any fake witches around today,” Kristen said. She tested the flashlight, clicking it on and off.
April heard footsteps. Both girls turned to see that Anthony and Pam had stayed behind.
“What are you doing? You’re going into that cave?” Anthony asked.
April nodded. “We think Marlin may be in there. And the other kids. We don’t think the witch is a fake, Anthony. We think there is real danger on this island.”
Anthony laughed. Pam rolled her eyes.
“Give it up,” Anthony said. “There aren’t any cameras rolling up here. They all went back to the Academy Village.”
“We don’t care about cameras,” April told him. “We really think everyone is in danger,” Kristen added.
Anthony shook his head. “I don’t believe you two! You’re both totally nuts! Grow up. It’s all a TV show. That’s all.”
He turned and started to jog down the hill.
“Aren’t you going with him?” April asked Pam.
Pam shook her head. “No. I’m going with you.”
“Why?” Kristen demanded. “You don’t believe our story.”
“You don’t know what went on here the first time,” April said. “And you don’t really know the frightening things that happened to Kristen and me back home. So why do you want to come?”
Pam didn’t answer. Instead, she started walking to the cave entrance, taking long strides. “It’s a free country, isn’t it?” she said finally.
“She just doesn’t want to be left out of anything,” Kristen whispered to April.
April shrugged. “I guess there’s no way to get rid of her.”
The darkness swallowed them as soon as they entered the cave.
I feel as if I’ve stepped into a whale’s mouth, April thought, remembering an old cartoon. And now it’s closed around me, and I’ll never get out.
The two flashlights sent circles o
f light over the cave floor. April raised her light to the ceiling and let it trail along the cracks and dark crevices.
“It’s like a giant cavern,” April said. Her voice echoed off the stone walls. “It’s so much bigger and deeper than I thought.”
“Should we go back out?” Pam asked. “You promised Blake you wouldn’t go too far, right?”
“You can go back if you want,” April replied sharply.
“Whoa. Check this out,” Kristen called from deeper in the cave. She held her light steady on the cave floor and was bending into the light.
April and Pam hurried over to her. April gazed into the circle of light. “Footprints,” she murmured.
“A lot of them,” Kristen said. “Someone has definitely been in here.”
“Well, duh. Of course someone has been in here,” Pam said. “The camera guy was here yesterday, remember? And the woman in the witch costume came running out of this cave.”
“Why would they walk back this far?” Kristen asked. “Look how many different prints there are. And they lead deeper into the cave.”
“But these prints could be a hundred years old,” Pam argued. “They could be five hundred years old. You can’t tell how fresh they are.”
“They look very fresh,” Kristen muttered. “Besides, this is supposed to be an uninhabited island, right? No one ever lived here before.”
She shone the light deeper into the cave. The three of them followed the light, eyes on the floor.
At the near wall, the light swept over a narrow opening. The opening led into a short, low-ceilinged tunnel.
“Let’s go,” April whispered.
Pam held back. “What if we get lost?”
“We can’t get lost,” April replied. “We’re just taking this one short tunnel. We’re not going very far at all.”
They had taken only a few careful steps into the low, narrow tunnel when April heard a sound. A light, breathing sound.
She grabbed Kristen’s arm. “Listen. What is that?”
“I—I don’t know.”
All three girls froze.
April raised her light along the tunnel wall. The circle of light revealed dozens of small black creatures clinging to the wall.
“Bats!” Kristen whispered.
“Oh, gross,” Pam muttered.
April lowered the light to the floor. “They’re asleep. Don’t wake them up.”
Hanging upside down, the bats stirred quietly in their sleep. Wings fluttered gently. Round bellies moved in and out.
April tiptoed past them, aiming the light at her feet.
She gasped as she felt something warm brush her ankle. A fat gray creature darted into the light, then vanished down the tunnel.
A rat!
“Did you see that?” she whispered to Kristen. “I’m pretending I didn’t,” Kristen replied.
April’s ankle still tingled. She could still feel the rat’s bristly fur rubbing her skin.
Huddled close together, keeping the light close in front of them, the three girls made their way into the next chamber.
“Footprints here too,” Kristen whispered.
“And look—” April cried. She bent and picked up something from the dirt floor. “A sneaker.”
She held it up so they could examine it.
“A girl’s sneaker,” Pam said, her eyes wide. “Nike.”
“So it’s not five hundred years old,” Kristen whispered.
April swept her light along the floor to the back of this chamber. A line of footsteps ran along the floor to another opening at the back wall.
“I—I don’t think we should go any farther,” Pam said. “We really will get lost.”
“We’re not leaving till we find some kind of proof that the missing kids are in here,” April insisted. “Here. Here’s your proof,” Pam said. She handed April the sneaker.
“Not enough,” April replied. “No one will believe our story just because we found a—”
She stopped when she heard a voice.
No. Not just one voice. Several voices. Echoing from deep inside the cave.
“Do you…hear that?” Pam asked.
April and Kristen nodded.
No one spoke.
The voices called again. Muffled voices. So far away.
Are they kids’ voices? April wondered. She held her breath. And listened.
Silence now.
She could hear a high-pitched sound in the tunnel behind them—maybe one of the bats. And the scuttle of another creature along the floor near the wall.
And then she heard a faint, echoing cry.
Trembling, April cupped her hands around her mouth. “Who’s there?” she shouted. “Can you hear me? Who’s there?”
22
“Someone is in this cave,” April said. She suddenly felt cold all over. Her words came out in a breathless whisper. “We have to go find them.”
“It might be some kind of a trap,” Kristen said.
Pam squinted at her. “Trap? What are you talking about?” Then her expression changed. “Maybe this is part of Marks’s games. Maybe we get extra credit or something if we find those kids.”
“I—I don’t think it’s a game,” April replied. She hugged herself to stop the trembling. She turned to Kristen. “Did it suddenly get colder in here?”
Kristen nodded. “A lot colder.” She aimed her flashlight at the opening on the stone wall. “Come on. Maybe if we keep moving, we won’t freeze!”
Keeping close together, they made their way through another tunnel. Both beams of light appeared to dim, as if the darkness around them had grown even heavier.
April cried out as she felt another furry creature brush against her ankle. The scrape of little feet echoed down the tunnel. Lowering her light, she saw dozens of scrawny gray rats.
The rats’ black eyes sparkled in the beams of light. Their long pink tails scraped the cave floor behind them.
“I—I don’t like this,” Pam muttered. “Why are they so close to us?”
“Ignore them,” April said, though the rats made her shudder. Just find Marlin and the other missing kids, she told herself.
The tunnel led them to another chamber. April and Kristen swept their lights over the floor.
The rats were moving with them, April noticed. They were milling around the girls’ ankles, making little chittering sounds.
Half the rats split off from the others to form a line in front of the girls. April’s eyes widened as the line of rodents stood stiffly on their hind legs, scraping claws in the air.
“What are they doing?” Pam asked. For once she sounded nervous.
“Dancing?” April couldn’t help teasing Pam. “Not funny,” Pam said.
Kristen stared at the rodents. “This sounds crazy,” she said, “but I think they’re trying to stop us from going farther. They don’t want us to go into the next chamber. Like, they’re guarding it or something.”
“You’re right, that sounds crazy,” April said. In the next instant she regretted her words. As if on a signal, all of the rats suddenly reared up on their hind legs. And as April stepped deeper into the cave, the rats attacked.
April screeched as she felt furry little bodies trying to climb up her legs.
“Get them off me!” Pam shrieked.
The rats were digging their claws into April’s legs. She could feel their hairless tails wrapping around her calves. She reached down and peeled the rodents off her.
The rats were gross, but April was determined not to be stopped. “Just push them off and follow me,” she told Kristen and Pam.
Stepping over more rats, she edged into the next chamber.
A blast of cold air from deep in the cave made April gasp. “That smell—” she whispered.
A sharp, sour smell floated over them. The odor of dead fish, rotting meat.
The same odor I smelled in my room back home, April realized.
The same disgusting smell.
We’re very close to dis
covering something, she thought.
The rats, the horrible odor—they are here to keep us away. But we are close now. Very close.
Once again she cupped her hands around her mouth and called out. “Can anyone hear me? Is anyone there?”
Something moved against the wall.
A figure staggered out from the tunnel opening in the back.
It staggered into the light—and all three girls screamed.
23
“Marlin! It’s you l” April cried.
The rats scattered as Marlin made his way across the cave floor to them.
He looks so thin, April thought. And lifeless.
“Marlin, what are you doing here? How long have you been here? What is going on? Are you okay?” The stream of questions burst from April.
Before Marlin could answer, two more kids appeared in the tunnel opening. Dolores and Jared.
They squinted in the dim light. They appeared very confused. They look dazed, as if they’d just woken up from a long sleep, April thought.
“Who…who are you?” Marlin asked, squinting at them.
“Marlin—you don’t remember Kristen and me?” April cried. “We were on your team.”
Two more kids appeared behind them. Clark and Kendra. They too, stared out of the darkness as if they didn’t remember April, Kristen, or Pam.
“Are you here to help the witch?” Kendra asked. “Are you here to give her the breath of life?”
“What are you talking about?” Pam asked.
“We live here,” Marlin said. “We help her stay alive. She has to stay alive till her daughter returns.”
“Is one of you her daughter?” Jared asked.
“She’s searching for her daughter,” Kendra added.
April winced as the memory flashed back into her mind. That first visit to the island. Being captured by the woman in the blue cloak. Waking up to find the woman sucking her breath, sucking her strength away.
And she called me daughter, April remembered.
She called me daughter.
April never understood that. She still didn’t.
“Maybe she misses her daughter,” Pam suggested. She sounded as if she felt sorry for the witch.
“Look at what she’s done to Marlin!” April said to Pam. “The witch is evil. If she’s searching for her daughter, it’s because she wants to hurt her.”