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“Don’t be afraid!” a voice boomed. “Just stay still.”
“Ben?” Lonnie called fearfully. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” he replied, as the whirlwind around him twirled faster and faster. “But I think it’s okay.” He recognized that voice, so he remained still and wondered where this next journey would take him.
“Foggy,” said Harry, as he steered the ship away from the Isle of the Lost and toward the Isle of the Doomed, where the treasure chest containing Ursula’s necklace was supposed to be buried. “I don’t recall ever seeing this much fog in the bay.”
“Do you think it’s a bad sign?” asked Uma, who was still perched against the rail, gazing out at the bowsprit. A gorgeously carved mermaid adorned the long wooden pole. Sculpted with almost lifelike detail, it was painted in shades of teal and coral, the colors of the sea.
“I don’t think it’s any sign at all. Sometimes a fog is just a fog.” Harry shrugged.
“I’m sure you’re right, but it still gives me the chills. I know there’s no magic here, but it’s not much of a start. How we will navigate through all this fog?” Uma asked. They had sailed into a dense patch of gray. It was all around them, on their arms and in their noses. It left a cool, damp feeling on her face, like cold perspiration.
“I don’t mind, and there are many ways to sail in the fog. Leave the navigation to me,” Harry continued. “There are far worse things in the sea than a gray sky. Try sailing through ten-foot waves or one-hundred-mile-an-hour winds.”
“I see your point.”
Harry was trying to sound optimistic. He was the one with the sea legs. He wasn’t supposed to be afraid, not out here. But it wasn’t the sea that bothered him. Their destination was another matter. The Isle of the Doomed wasn’t exactly a paradise. That was probably why Yen Sid had hidden the broken necklace in a treasure chest on the smaller island in the first place. No one from the Isle of the Lost ever visited the Isle of the Doomed—not if they could help it. It was rumored to be haunted, and Maleficent’s fortress loomed, tall and forbidding, over its desolate landscape. The island’s only inhabitants were the descendants of goblins loyal to the evil fairy. There must be some reason they call it the Isle of the Doomed, Harry thought. But he wasn’t sure he wanted to find out what it was—or if the rumors he heard about it were true.
Even with the fog, they sailed smoothly. The winds were light, but the ship moved at a respectable clip, cutting through the waves, edging ever closer to the shore.
“I wish the fog weren’t so dense. I’d like to get a better sense of the beach before we set anchor. There could be rocks or…” said Harry. Then he stopped.
“What?” asked Uma.
“I don’t know. This is a forbidden place. There could be anything hiding in those waters, and this fog isn’t helping. There could be spikes—iron ones, submerged below the waterline—obstacles to keep boats from landing on the island. This might not be as easy as we expect, Uma.”
Harry thought about what else could be out there. Goblins swarming over that beach, or traps, or who knows what. Anything could be hiding in a fog this thick.
“Let’s stop here,” Harry announced. “We’ll drop anchor and row out in small boats. We’ll make a smaller target, harder to spy on, and if there’s anything in the water we’ll be able to see it more easily.”
Uma protested at first. She didn’t like his suggestion. It would only slow things down. She was ready to be bold and take chances, and she told him so. But she went along with Harry, for now. “Fine,” she said at last. “We’ll do it your way.”
So
they rowed out with the crew in small wooden boats, hugging the sea, creeping toward the dark beach, their hulls grinding against the sand as they made shore. Uma was the first out of the boat, her feet falling into the cold water. It drenched her up to the knees. The sand here was gray, like the sky and the fog that still choked the air. Goblin Beach was dark and deserted, ghostly under the moonlight.
“At least it’s empty. No goblins,” said Uma.
“Not yet,” Harry said.
“All right, Sophie said Yen Sid left some sort of clue, a trail,” said Uma.
“Like a path?” asked Harry.
“Maybe, but I don’t think it’s anything that obvious,” said Uma. “I’m certain it’s as hidden as the chest itself.” She eyed the distant fortress, tall and dark, its black stones wreathed in angry thorns. And she swore it glowed a strange color—something like purple, but at times it shifted, turning to shades of green, like the photos Uma had seen of the aurora borealis. But the colors were gone as soon as she glanced at it, vanishing as if they had never been there at all. “Let’s head toward the castle.”
“Are you sure?” said Harry. “That place is filled with goblins. We don’t want those little guys to find out we’re looking for something valuable, or they’re bound to try and steal it.”
“We’re only heading toward it, dummy. I didn’t say anything about crossing the moat.”
“Good, as I’m more of a seafaring adventurer, less of an evil-castle explorer.”
“We all are,” mumbled Gil.
The pale sand of the fog-shrouded beach gave way to a forest of gray thorn-infested trees. Their trunks wound every which way, growing in seemingly unnatural patterns, curling in upon themselves or twisting into odd spirals, as if some mad gardener had tortured them, forcing their limbs to twist into tangled bunches. It made for slow going, and more than once Harry was forced to draw his cutlass and hack through the thorns and the trees. Even the ferns were dense, and he hacked at those as well.
“At least there’s no goblins,” he said as he slashed at a thorn tree, slicing clear through its base, sending it tumbling to the side. The dense forest at the shoreline thinned as they drove deeper into it. It soon cleared, and they were walking around in low grass. Harry sheathed his blade.
