Ben commandeered the royal racer, the fastest car in all of Auradon, and they all crowded into it, which was kind of a problem since it was built for two and the backseat was designed for carting either dogs or picnic baskets, and certainly not three friend-size bodies.
“You guys all right back there?” he asked, taking the wheel with Mal in the passenger seat.
“Sort of,” said Evie, who had the advantage of being small and flexible, while the boys contorted themselves to fit in the space.
“Not really!” said Carlos. “Please hurry!”
“That’s my neck!” said Jay, who had pretzelled himself behind the driver’s seat.
Ben drove them back to the marina, and Mal filled him in as promised on the loss of the trident and the Uma situation. “Everyone on the Isle is really looking for this?”
“That’s what Evie’s mirror showed,” said Mal. “And if anyone could find it, it’s Uma. Knowing her, she won’t give up until she’s got it.”
“Why does she want it so badly?” Ben wondered aloud.
“I don’t know, probably because she thinks she can finish the job I was supposed to do, with Fairy Godmother’s wand I mean. You know, get rid of the dome and free all the villains,” said Mal. “She’s probably even taken over my old territory by now.”
“Your old territory?” asked Ben, amused. “What were you, some kind of boss lady?”
“Not some kind,” interrupted Jay. “THE boss lady of the Isle.”
“Shush,” said Mal, a bit embarrassed about her past as one of the most feared villains on the island. “That was before.”
But Ben looked at her admiringly. “Of course you were the best lady boss. I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
She had to admit it had been fun, terrorizing the citizens of the Isle of the Lost, Jay and the rest of the thugs by her side. “Let’s just say everyone avoided getting on my bad side,” Mal said proudly, feeling just a tiny bit nostalgic about the old days.
“Or else!” said Jay, raising his fist and hitting the roof with his head. “Oof!”
When they arrived at the harbor, the royal speedboat was just as they’d left it, as if waiting for their return. Ben jumped off the deck and onto the speedboat’s helm, helping Mal and Evie aboard. The boys followed right behind.
Jay bowed and motioned toward the wheel. “Your Highness,” he said jokingly, but with a hint of seriousness as well.
“You can drive this thing, right?” Mal asked Ben.
Ben nodded. “I should, I’ve been taking lessons all my life.”
“Princes,” Jay said, rolling his eyes. “So many lessons.”
“Archery, horseback-riding, sailing, boating, swords-and-shields, dancing, manners, etiquette, statesmanship,” said Ben, counting them off in his head.
“Is there anything you can’t do?” asked Carlos, curious.
“I’m sure there’s a ton of things I can’t do,” said Ben.
“I sort of doubt it,” said Carlos.
“Where are we headed?” asked Ben, as Carlos and Jay saw to pulling off the ropes that secured the boat to the dock.
“Evie?” asked Mal.
Evie pulled out her magic mirror. “Yup, it looks like the trident is still under the waters by the Isle of the Doomed, over on the far side of Goblin Beach. I can see the dome shimmering.”
Ben nodded and the boat pulled out of the harbor. The waters were calm by Auradon Bay, but became rockier and harder to navigate once they reached the Strait of Ursula.
A fine mist coated the Isle of the Lost, and everyone had to hold on to the handles on the side on the boat, lest they be thrown into the water by the increasingly large waves. “Over there?” asked Ben, as they came closer and closer to the foggy mist.
“Yes! To the left!” said Carlos, yelling to be heard above the crashing waves and the distant roar of thunder.
“How are we going to slip through the barrier?” asked Evie.
“We’re not going to,” said Mal. “Ben, just get us as close as you can.”
Ben steered toward the edge of the mist.
“I see Goblin Beach!” called Jay. “Right through there.”
“Evie, how are we doing?”
Evie checked the mirror. “We’re getting closer. But I’m worried someone else could get to it first.”
“Hurry,” urged Mal, as Ben gassed the engine and zoomed forward. The speedboat jumped through the waves.
“We’ll get there just in time!” said Carlos, navigating with Jay.
Mal felt the usual excitement and adrenaline of a well-matched competition. This was just like when she used to race her toad against Uma’s for all the dirty candy in Ursula’s shop. Except this time, the winner didn’t get toad pee all over their hands.
The skeletons came out of the darkness, descending from the sky like ghosts, their calcium-white bones glistening in the light of Uma’s torch. They danced in the black, their limbs making herky-jerky motions up and down, bobbing as they walked.
Gil screamed and fell backward, splashing water everywhere. Uma thought one of the skeletons might have struck him with its sword. Harry bent to check for wounds, while the skeletons drifted closer, dipping up and down, their feet hardly touching the ground.
What magic was this? Uma was confused. How was this all happening? And now there were more skeletons, descending from the dark reaches of the cavern’s ceiling, a place so distant that not even her torchlight could reach it.
The crew formed ranks, drawing their swords and readying one another for the fight, but their faces were as white as the skeletons’. This was a hardened crew, but none of them had ever seen anything like this, not even Uma.
“Gil’s okay,” said Harry.
“Just a bit of wounded pride,” said Gil as he shook the water from his hair, stumbling backward to avoid the approaching skeletons. They were all retreating, but the lagoon was at their backs, so with each step they took they were forced to walk deeper into the water. This could only go on for so long before they’d need to stop and fight.
But the skeletons didn’t pass the water’s edge. They hung there, waiting, their twirling swords and nodding heads tempting the pirates into battle. Uma had never been one to turn down a fight, so she rallied her crew and stormed the beach. “At my back, you cowards.”
Shamed by her courage, the pirates called out battle cries and emerged from the water, splashing onto the beach.
Uma swung at the nearest skeleton with all her fury, hoping to nick a bone or perhaps to break a rib or two but instead its entire rib cage shattered, sending bones flying in all directions, landing in the water with a hundred different splashes.
Encouraged by her success, she struck the next skeleton, this one at the neck. The spinal cord popped in two, the body falling limply to the sand, but the head stayed where it was, bobbing in the air. It had to be some kind of magic, but she could barely make out anything besides the skull floating in the air. She struck it with her sword and it just rolled to one side, swinging back and forth like a pendulum, rocking like a child on a swing.
“It’s on a rope,” she said. Uma slashed at the darkness above the skull, severing the cord, sending the head tumbling onto the beach. A quick inspection revealed a whole series of thin black ropes that were tethered all over the skeletons. Some mechanism must have been jerking them up and down, back and forth, like marionettes on a string.
“They’re not alive!” Uma said. “It’s not magic! It’s just a trick! Keep moving!”
“There must be some machine up there, embedded in the cavern’s ceiling,” she said. The black strings were nearly invisible in the dark cave.
Harry nodded. He was going over the fallen skeleton, inspecting the ropes, some of which were still connected to the machine. A severed hand leaped upward from the beach, dangling in his face, sword still in its grasp. Harry slashed at the cord and the arm fell limply to the sand, but the whole thing was unnerving.
By now, the rest of the pi
rates were all slashing at the ropes. But they could only cut so many, so the dead continued their dance. Pieces of broken arms and legs kept jerking about in the air.
“I never thought they were alive,” said Harry, as he pushed against a skeleton, sending it swinging away. But it swung right back, hitting him so hard it knocked him to the ground.
“Maybe they don’t need to be alive to take you down,” Uma joked.
Even if these were mechanical skeletons, their blades were real enough that they could still do damage.
“Be careful,” she cautioned her crew. “Cut the ropes, watch out for the swords, and someone fetch me that torch. We need light!”
One of the crewmen retrieved the still-flaming torch that Uma had dropped near the water’s edge. He held it high above them all, revealing at last an elaborate web of strings and cables, all of them disappearing upward toward the cavern’s ceiling.
In spite of their increased illumination, Harry got his hook wrapped up in a skeleton hand. He twisted to and fro before finally getting so caught in the cables he fell to the sand. Gil was doing a little better, having wrestled one of the skeletons to the ground and stomped all over its bones. He slashed the ropes when he was finished. The rest of the crew howled their battle cries, as they took down the cables.
Uma growled, annoyed that it was taking them so long to escape. It was a booby trap. Which meant there were others.
“Keep cutting strings!” she ordered. “And try to do it with a bit more organization.”
Taking her advice, the pirates went about cutting the ropes in a more coordinated manner, moving down the line, slashing just above the heads so the skeletons would fall limply to the beach in a single cut. One after another they dropped to the sand, a great pile of bones and cords forming at their feet.
As the last skeleton fell to the ground at last, a low thrum echoed in the darkness.
“What was that?” she cried, as an arrow struck the stone next to her. An inch to the right and it would have split her head in two.
The soft whistle of bowstrings reverberated in the darkness. All the pirates had hit the sand after seeing the first arrow, flattening themselves as best they could as the barrage sailed over their heads.
“When we cut that last skeleton it must have triggered some new part of the mechanism,” said Harry.
“I guessed as much,” said Uma. The real question was, what was coming next? It was clear the sorcerer had no intention of letting anyone take what was in that treasure chest. Some of the pirates had already stood, but Uma heard a distant clicking—and a winding sound.
“Duck!” said Uma, and the pirates slammed once more onto the sand, covering themselves with their hands, or whatever else they could use for shields, from a new assault of arrows.
“The machine rewound itself,” said Uma. “It paused after the first volley, just to trick anyone who was clever enough to avoid the first, before it sent out another attack.”
“So what do we do now?” asked Gil. “I can’t stay here with my face pressed in the muck.” Indeed the boy’s knees were sunk in the water, and his face was dabbed with mud. Most of the pirates weren’t in much better shape. All of them were wet. And only half had made it fully out of the water before they’d had to drop.
“Listen,” said Uma.
“To what?” asked Harry.
“To the silence. The machine stopped.” She motioned for everyone to stand. One by one they lifted themselves from the muck, their feet making terrible slurping sounds. They were wet and dirty but alive.
Uma took a deep breath. The machine had stopped, but she doubted they were out of danger yet. “Come on!” she said, leading them toward a narrow finger of light in the distance, indicating a way out of the cave.
She took a step toward it, and felt something tense and release beneath her foot as the earth shifted. From a distance, she heard an ominous rumbling.
“I think I triggered something,” said Uma. “The machine’s going again.”
Dust sifted downward from the ceiling, followed by a low thunder that nearly shook her to her knees. Rocks fell from the cavern ceiling, and they could hear stones breaking all around them.
“The cavern’s collapsing!” Uma cried, but by then they’d all figured it out. This must be the final trap, the one that would seal them in the cave with the treasure chest forever.
The sorcerer had obviously been serious about the safety of these formerly magical objects. Even without magic at his disposal, he had successfully created obstacles that would deter even the hardiest and greediest goblin.
But Uma was no goblin, and she was determined to leave the Isle of the Doomed with the only inheritance she would ever receive from her mother’s past.
“Run!” she called.
“Already there!” said Harry, at her side, Gil puffing not far behind.
Uma waved her cutlass in the air. “Follow me!” she said, leading the crew toward the light. All around them, stones pelted their heads. The air was already filled with dust, but a light shone faintly in the distance so they ran toward it. The very earth beneath their feet was collapsing as they went, and the walls were falling behind them.
Uma was the first to make it to the cave’s mouth, but she stayed there, waiting for each member of her crew to pass. The captain was always the last to leave, after all, the one who went down with her ship. She would not budge until the last pirate was out. Luckily the pirates were a frightened bunch, so they ran like children, tumbling over one another to get out of the cave as quickly as possible. Uma stepped out of the cavern just as the last stone broke, and the ceiling collapsed entirely, forever trapping whatever was left in there.
“We made it,” he muttered, stating the obvious, as she stumbled out onto the sand, her hair caked with dust and tiny stones. Harry brushed a rock off her shoulder.
In a panic, she looked around. All she saw were pirates, shaking the mud from their hair and brushing it from their clothes. “Where is it? The treasure chest?” she demanded. In all the confusion—in their sheer desire to get out of there—had they left the one thing they had come to find?
Harry tapped her on the shoulder.
What did he want? He didn’t have it either!
But he reached underneath his arm and revealed what he had been carrying the entire time. The treasure chest.
Without hesitating Uma flipped open its wooden lid. There was an old yellowed envelope inside. Uma pulled it out.
“‘Ursula,’” she read, examining the spiky handwriting on the envelope.
Then she shook out the contents onto her palm. There it was, her mother’s seashell necklace, except it was in a hundred tiny little pieces. “I forgot it was broken.”
“Nothing a little island sludge can’t put back together,” said Harry. “Come on. We’ve got a bucket of the stuff back on the ship. It’s stronger than glue; it’ll work.”
Fitting each of the pieces of the broken seashell together was like trying to put together a puzzle without any reference as to what it should look like. They knew it was a shell, but they had no idea where this ridge or that one should fit. It took patience and attention to detail, and they’d just fought a band of skeletons, dodged arrows, and escaped a disintegrating cave. No one was in the mood for a bit of jewelry repair. But there was no time to waste, so they set themselves about the task—clearing a great table and making certain it was clean before Uma placed the envelope’s contents upon it.
“How do we know we even have all the pieces to this thing?” said Uma, frustrated.
“We don’t,” agreed Harry. “But if we give up now, we’ll never find out.”
“Shush,” said Gil, who was placing each piece back together with a delicacy the others hadn’t known he was capable of. They had to trace the edges of each piece, looking for ridges and bumps that matched another piece or a streak of color that ran from one fragment to the next. It was subtle work, almost impossible. Harry threw up his hands more than once, and Uma t
wice had to take a walk out on the deck to let loose a bit of frustration. They all took turns at the task, but it was Gil, oddly enough, who stuck with it, supervising the whole thing. The work was painstaking, until Gil finally made an announcement. “Okay,” he said, “we’re missing one piece.”
“Honestly?” muttered Uma.
“It might have fallen under the table,” said Harry. “Everyone look!” He stood and knelt on the floor to see if he could find a tiny gold piece. Gil, Uma, and the rest of the crew did the same. They looked everywhere and even sent some of the crew back to the beach to see if one of the pieces had fallen out when Uma first opened the envelope. They found nothing.
Perhaps it was lost in the sea, thought Uma.
She recalled her mother telling her about that final battle. How Ursula had called the great waves, urging them to skyscraper-like heights, and how she had blown up to a thousand times her size—a large, laughing octopus, larger than the ship, loud as thunder. How she had cursed them all, wreaking havoc on Prince Eric’s ship, and aiming to drown all aboard.
Except Prince Eric had taken the wheel and rammed his ship right into her heart, right into her necklace, scattering its pieces all over the ocean. Uma always held her breath at that part of the story, wondering how it was that her mother had survived such a battle. Because even though she’d lost, she’d survived. Prince Eric hadn’t destroyed her completely.
And here was the necklace.
Here was hope.
A way out of this island prison.
A way out of stagnation and broken dreams, endless routine, and a future that went nowhere.
Harry was shaking his head. He slammed his fist against the nearest table, sending the plates and cups jumping. “It’s not here.”
He’d given up, and Uma felt the same pain run through her. It just wasn’t fair, to come this close only to be missing one miniscule little piece.
Uma took the seashell in hand and looked at it carefully. “Maybe we don’t need the missing piece,” she said. It was a chip barely larger than a hairline crack. That was all.
“I don’t know,” said Harry. “It looks incomplete.”