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“Look,” Jay said, yanking back an armful of overgrown vines that covered the stony steps leading up to the main ramp of the bridge. He tossed them to the side.
“What are those horrible, ugly creatures?” Evie made a face. “No, thanks. I’ll stay on this side of those things.”
Because now that the vines were gone, they could see that the entire bridge appeared to be guarded by ancient stony gargoyles. The winged gryphons glared down at them from where they perched, flanking the bridge on either side.
“Lovely,” Jay said.
Carlos stared. It wasn’t only Mal who could see her mother’s hand in every stone around them. The carved creatures sneered in exactly the same way Maleficent did, their teeth pointed, their mouths cruel.
Mal looked at them, frozen.
Then Carlos realized it was because she was paralyzed by fear. “Mal?”
She didn’t answer.
She can’t do this alone, Carlos thought. None of us can.
It’s no different from pulling each other through the mud. It’s just physics, if you think about it. It’s science.
But then Carlos tried not to think about it, because his heart was pounding so loudly, he thought the others would hear it. He began to recite the periodic table of the elements in his head to calm himself down. Atomic numbers and electrons were always somewhat comforting in times of stress, he’d found.
And the more numbers he recited, the easier it was to put one foot in front of the other.
Which is exactly what he did.
Carlos stepped up on to the first stone paver that led to the sloping bridge. Just as he did, the stone gargoyles began to flap their wings in front of them.
“Whoa!” Jay said.
“No,” Evie said. “Just, no.”
“How is this possible?” asked Jay. “There’s no magic on the island.”
“The hole in the dome,” said Carlos. “It must have sparked the castle to life or something, like a chemical reaction.” It made sense—not only had Diablo been unfrozen, but the whole fortress as well.
Carlos moved his way up the next step, and then the next, until he was standing level with the main ramp of the bridge itself. Mal and Evie and Jay now followed behind him.
The creatures growled as they came to life around them, the bridge rumbling beneath their feet. The gryphons’ horrible eyes glowed green, illuminating the fog around them, until they were practically shining a spotlight on the four intruders. The gargoyles uncurled their hunched backs, now almost doubling themselves in height.
Evie was right, Carlos thought. They were really ugly things, with snaggly teeth and forked tongues. He couldn’t look away from the hideous faces hovering over him. “This must be residue, left over from the magical years,” he said. “Whatever did this was probably part of the same power that sparked Diablo to life.”
“The same power?” Mal looked spellbound. “You mean, my mother’s?”
“Or the same electromagnetic wave.” Carlos thought about his last Weird Science class. “I’m not sure how to tell the difference anymore.”
Jay swallowed as a gargoyle leaned down, looking as if it could spring at Carlos at any moment. “Right now, I’m pretty sure the difference doesn’t matter.”
“Who goes there?” boomed the gargoyle to the right of Carlos.
“You cannot pass,” said the one on his left.
“Yeah? Says who?” Carlos took a step back, as did the rest of the group following behind him. They looked at each other nervously, unsure of what to do next. They hadn’t known about the gargoyles, hadn’t expected a fight. This was going to be more difficult than they expected, maybe even impossible.
But it didn’t matter. Even Carlos knew there was no turning back now.
“You ugly things need to move!” said Mal, shouting from behind him. She glared at the gryphons. “Or I’m going to make you!”
The gargoyles growled and grimaced, flapping their stone wings as a threat.
