The Wand & the Sea (32 page)

“Holly!” Ben cried.

“She's all right,” Everett said, though he didn't check to make sure. “We've got to get this wand working—Avery—”

The prince snapped out of his daze and seized the wand. His face was hard; his blue eyes blazed in his face. He lashed the wand like a whip at the creature, and a laserlike spark struck its neck. It howled, but the scales were like armor; Everett couldn't even see a wound.

“That's got it distracted, at least. Keep going!”

The sea serpent gave a furious cry and lunged at the bow, biting off the new bowsprit. Innes screamed as she tumbled into the sea, but the monster ignored her, focusing on the
Sea Witch
.

Avery aimed the wand at its huge, olive-green eye.

Morgan hollered orders as the crew moved the ship.

Avery's shot bounced off, but the monster opened its maw, displaying double rows of sharklike teeth.

“Now you've made it mad,” Ben said.

“Let me help,” Everett said, grabbing at the wand.

“This castle is my home. I shall defend it!” Avery pulled hard the other way.

The sea monster threw its tail across the deck amidships only inches from their feet. A deep crack splintered the ship nearly in two, and seawater poured over the bow, flooding the deck.

“Give it to
me
,” Everett said. “I've done it before!”

“I must defend the castle!”

“But I'm the better shot!”

“Cut it out, you guys!” Ben shouted. Something hard came down on Everett's arm, which was locked with Avery's, and he pulled away. Ben had butted them with his sword hilt. He wrenched the wand out of Avery's hand and pointed it at the beast. “Abra—blastifor—cowabunga!” he shouted, and another laser beam burst across the sea monster's tail, slicing off a large chunk of it.

Everett and Avery stood open-mouthed. How had
Ben
, of all people, managed to work the wand? And why, Everett couldn't help wondering, was Avery able to do what he couldn't? The red scarf—the lady's favor—should work for any of them.

Ben shoved the wand back at Avery and grabbed Everett's sleeve. “Come on, we gotta get out of here!”

Holly crawled out of the wreckage of the captain's cabin. She had blacked out for a minute, though she could have sworn she saw Ben fighting the sea serpent with a wand. And now Avery was throwing sparks at it—or was she having a dizzy spell?

“Here, Lady Holly.” Ranulf was suddenly at her side, and he hoisted her onto his back. Jade leaped up behind her. The captain pushed past them and took up Innes's station.

“Over to the starboard side, Ranulf,” Holly said. “I have to help Morgan get us to the portal.”

Holly and the others swirled up eddies of water, propelling the ship away from the castle's towers, which poked a few inches above the water like toy boats. Morgan stood on the port side, trying to steer the brigantine with the water, now that its rudder was in splinters. But as soon as they started to move, the schooner did too. They simply weren't making good enough time toward the portal. The ship was too badly damaged, and the sea monster was still coming for them.

“Everything's ruined,” said Holly, gazing out at the endless sea. “The whole kingdom . . . the Elm . . . How will we even find the beech tree?”

Almaric, who had been pushing his way forward for some time, finally joined them on the poop deck. “Don't despair, Lady Holly. This flood is nothing but a spell, but it works in our favor. Now that she has water to work with, Morgan can open a sea portal at her last entry point.”

“Aye,” said the captain. “ 'Tis the only way.”

“The last entry point. You mean your cottage?” Everett asked, and Almaric nodded.

“But what good's a
sea
portal?” said Ben. “It's not like we can just jump in there and get home.”

“One portal will seek out another.” Holly recalled Kailani's words with a sick feeling in her stomach.

“Indeed,” said Almaric. “When Morgan opens the sea portal, you will dive into it. Your wand will find the beech tree like a homing pigeon and guide you the rest of the way.”

“I can't just leave Raethius to kill you all,” Holly said, her voice breaking.

“And we can't jump into a
sea portal
,” Ben said again, but Everett shushed him.

“If I know the Sorcerer, he will follow you, not the
Sea Witch
,” said Almaric.

Holly almost laughed. The floodwaters were pouring over the gunwale; the
Sea Witch
was sinking fast.

Morgan followed Holly's gaze and clenched her teeth. “Things be not as dire as they seem. This is a ship like none other. I can make our escape if the Sorcerer deserts his vessel. He will not find us without the compass.”

“Jade.” Holly twisted around to see him on Ranulf's back. “Do you think it will work?”

“Have you not learnt to wield this wand?” asked the cat. “To control the water? This portal is naught but that, Lady Holly. Elemental water. It is what you have trained for.”

“But . . . the rest of you . . .”

“Will make do until you return.”

Holly turned back to the boys. Everett held Ben firmly by one arm, as if afraid he would bolt. Ben raised his wide, dark eyes to Holly's, and swallowed hard. “I guess you've brought us this far,” he said.

Down on the fractured deck, the prince stood alone, throwing bolt after bolt at the monster with his wand. His shots were connecting, but the creature's armor was strong. Holly wondered how long Avery could hold out.

The
Black Dragon
loomed closer. None of the smoke demons were firing now; they were all concentrating on pushing the schooner faster and faster to catch up with the
Sea Witch
.

“We're closin' in now, milady,” said Morgan. Her black curls were dampened with sea and sweat. “I'm ready to open the portal. Once ye're overboard, use the wand. It will seek out the place where the veil between worlds is thinnest. But mind, I can't say how long it will take ye to find it. Ye'll be far beneath the sea, and ye're no Elemental. Yer lungs may not last.”

Holly's heart fluttered. She gave Ranulf a quick hug and slid off his back. Everett caught her arm to steady her on her one good leg. There was nothing else to do. They would just have to make it work.

Jade laid a black paw against her cheek. “The wand will not fail.”

“May Lunetia protect you,” said Almaric. Holly nodded. She took Áedán from her shoulder.

“No, Lady Holly. Keep him with you this time. You may need him.”

“But—”

“Now!” cried Morgan.

Below them, the sea opened to a narrow whirlpool, just like the one that had swallowed the schooner. Ben clutched her hand, and she saw him go green, then white, then green again, like a ridiculous blinking Christmas decoration. Everett had her other hand; Holly placed Áedán back on her shoulder. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the hulking schooner. At the other end of the deck, the monster's jaws gnashed at Avery, whose sword flashed in the dawning sun. Would he be all right? And what did she care? But he turned from the beast for a split second and grinned at her. “Go, Lady Holly!” he called, then faced the sea serpent and plunged his sword in between the damaged scales on the creature's neck. It roared as the wound spurted yellow blood. The monster was nearly finished, but she couldn't stay and watch. “Hold tight, everyone,” she said.

They jumped.

The worst part was the dark. They plunged into a hole that sucked them down into depths the sun couldn't penetrate. Holly wanted to call out to the boys, but she didn't dare open her mouth. She stuck out her right arm, willing the wand to find their tree portal somewhere in the murky sea.

The whirlpool closed over them.

She held Ben with her left hand; Everett grasped the belt on her right side, freeing up her hand to thrust forward with the wand. Áedán clung to her neck.

But just as they shot through the water, something grasped her left calf. It wasn't one of the boys. It was something with claws. The wand pulled them along through the dark hole of the whirlpool and under the sea.

It couldn't be him, no matter what Almaric had said. Holly told herself it was just Everett's other hand, holding extra tight to her leg, but the grip burned like tongs pulled from a fireplace. She could see nothing but the few things briefly lit by the wand's weak light in front of her as they flew by—a stand of trees here, a path there. She craned her neck backward. Behind her, all was a billowing blackness, and the glint of two narrow eyes.

A bird fluttered through the water, and a rabbit hopped to its burrow inside a fallen log, as if the world weren't underwater at all. The claws tightened around Holly's leg.

She kicked feebly, jolts of pain shooting through her broken ankle with every tug. Her lungs ached, burning through her stores of oxygen. Despite what she saw the woodland animals doing, she didn't dare draw breath. Ben's grip weakened. She tightened her fist around his shirt; she thrashed and kicked, but the clawed grip only hardened.

There, just beyond the next rise: The wand's light brightened, and the beech tree appeared on the bank of the swollen stream, which still tumbled along the seabed just as it had on land. But the wand wasn't slowing down. She had to shake Raethius now, or they would shoot straight through the portal with him alongside. Holly tried to turn her wand to direct it at him, but its forward pull was too strong. Beside her, Everett kicked at the cloaked form, but it floated in all directions like smoke, dissipating and then coming back together. The black pocket of silence made everything more awful, like a singer who had lost her voice and yet kept moving her mouth.

Holly was running out of air now. She had used too much strength struggling to dislodge Raethius.

She touched her shoulder.

It was ridiculous to ask Áedán to do anything, a fire creature submerged in the sea; it would be like striking a match underwater. She pulled Ben closer. Her chest burned; she couldn't hold out much longer. They slowed. As she weakened, the warm, strong connection between the wand and her own heart wavered.

They began to sink.

The wand's light flickered.

Her body fell gently to the seabed, which was really the forest floor. Bubbles floated up from her mouth. Finally she let the air burst from her chest, and her heart eased. The grass was warm beneath her cheek, as if the sun shone on it, and she thought she heard the tree's leaves rustle above her head. She was in the Northern Wood. Her right hand opened, and the wand tumbled out of her fingers.

It didn't matter anymore what happened. Raethius could not get through the portal without her, and she could stay here, beneath the beech tree, in the forest she loved. Water filled her mouth. She would not fight it. She and the boys, and Áedán, would stay here in the sun. She was tired; she had earned it. They would rest here together for a very long time.

A hand seized hers.

Not a clawed hand; a regular, ordinary, pudgy boy hand. The hand snatched up hers and wrapped it around the wand; and then, from somewhere else, another hand appeared holding something long and shiny. It glinted in the wand's dim light. And in languorous slow motion, Holly's wand hand and the sword pointed together behind her. The Sorcerer's narrow, beaklike maw opened in a silent scream. His talon raked at her calf; his other hand grasped toward Holly's face.

The wand's beam broadened. Holly could feel a power moving through it, a magic that had nothing to do with her; her own heart had nearly stopped beating. The wand shot an orange light that grazed the grasping claw. The talons pulled back from her face, though the other claw still clung to her leg. Then the sword came down, slowly, so slowly, as a screech burbled through the underwater wood. The claw edged away, but not before the sword found it. Two of the talons fell away from the desiccated hand.

It released her.

Suddenly the wand leaped back in front of them, propelling them forward through the trees. The portal stood ready for them. Just a few more feet, just inches to go now. The wand's renewed power burst through Holly's chest and pumped air into her lungs. The pudgy boy hand was still wrapped around her own; together they touched the tree trunk with the wand, and three tangled bodies fell into it like water through a sieve onto the cold, damp, muddy ground of England. Holly lay in the muck, gasping at the air, aware of the sun that had finally come out of the clouds, shining full upon them. The forest, though dripping with recent rain, was starting to dry out. But the beech tree wasn't. Even as Holly clutched at it, a geyser of water sprang up from its roots, engulfed it, and pulled it into the earth.

Beside Holly, Everett lay coughing. Áedán clung to her shoulder. And bunched up on her other side, his plump little hand clutching hers, wrapped around the wand, the sword still in his fist, was Ben.