A Prince among Frogs (11 page)

“These were huts,” said Millie, holding up a piece of a crudely made door.

Audun nodded. “Someone definitely lived here,” he said and placed a cracked cooking pot by her feet.

“Then it may well have been where the witches lived. What do you suppose happened to them?”

“I don’t know,” said Audun. “Someone either chased them off or ate them.”

Millie shivered. “I doubt they were eaten! They’re witches, after all. I’m sure they could find some way to protect themselves.”

“What do you want to do now?”

“I don’t know. Except—we’ve looked at this from a dragon’s perspective, but maybe we should look at it through human eyes.”

“Why? Do you think it will look different?” asked Audun.

“Not really, or at least not much. But I know when I’m human, I think of things differently. You don’t have to change if you don’t want to.”

Audun shook his head. “We might as well both do it. But what about the crabs?”

“We can always turn back if we need to,” said Millie. “On the count of three. One, two, three …”

The first thing Millie noticed after changing back into her human form was the heat. High temperatures never bothered her when she was a dragon, but now she felt as if she’d been stuck in an oven as the hot sun reflected off the heated sand. The only thing keeping it from being unbearable was the breeze blowing off the ocean, but even that was warmer than she was used to in Greater Greensward. Perspiration beaded her forehead as she turned to face Audun, and she noticed that he seemed to be suffering even more.

“So far, I’m not enjoying this perspective very much,” he told her. “I was hot as a dragon, but at least my entire body didn’t sweat.”

Millie wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “I wish we had something cold to drink. There must be drinkable water on the island somewhere if the witches were able to live here, but I don’t know how we’d find it.”

“There’s a small stream that leads into a pond behind those trees,” said a woman’s voice. Millie’s eyes grew wide as she turned to where the crabs had retreated to the edge of the water. Seven witches stood there now, their hair scraggly and unkempt, their tattered clothes hanging on their thin frames. They all looked tired, as if they had gotten little sleep, although their sun-bronzed skin kept them from looking unhealthy.

“Cadmilla?” said Millie, recognizing the witch who had come to Greater Greensward to ask for Grassina’s help.

The old witch gave her a sad half smile. “We didn’t recognize you when you were dragons. We’d heard rumors that there was a princess who could change like that, but we didn’t know it was you. We wouldn’t have trapped you if we’d known.”

“You were the crabs?” asked Audun.

“And the toucan,” said a witch with a long face and a very thin nose. “I think I made a good toucan, don’t you, Septicimia?”

A witch with wild-looking eyes nodded and clasped her hands. “You were the best, Rugene!” she said in a breathless voice.

“But why?” asked Millie. “And where are my parents and great-aunt and great-uncle? Did they already head back to Greater Greensward?”

“Sit down, dear,” said a kindly looking witch. “I’m afraid we have some bad news for you.”

“I’d rather stand,” said Millie.

“Suit yourself,” Cadmilla told her. “Remember that monster I told you about?”

“It came at night when we were asleep and destroyed our cottages,” said Rugene. “We were lucky to get out with our lives.”

Septicimia wrung her hands in front of her chest. “It has these long tentacles, and it uses them like whips. It flung my poor Henrik all the way across the beach and into the ocean. He didn’t stand a chance.”

“He was a fish in a bowl. He just went back where he came from. I doubt he minded all that much,” Cadmilla said.

“I took good care of him,” wailed Septicimia. “I loved him and he loved me!”

“I’m sure he did,” said Rugene.

Cadmilla sighed. “The sea monster comes every night when the moon is highest in the sky. After it destroyed our cottages, it still came back looking for us. We hid at first, but it crossed the island and we had to climb the trees.”

“It was Septicimia’s idea that we turn ourselves into crabs.”

“The monster didn’t bother us when we weren’t human anymore,” Cadmilla told them. “But we didn’t want to spend our entire lives as crabs or birds, and we didn’t want to leave the island. We were very happy here until the sea monster came, so we built our traps and waited for it to come back. We haven’t seen it in a few days, though.”

“When you showed up, we thought that the sea witch had sent you after us, too,” said Rugene. “Our traps worked very well, don’t you think?”

Both Millie and Audun looked puzzled. “What sea witch?” they asked at the same time.

“The one that rode the sea monster,” said Cadmilla. “Did we forget to mention that?”

“We’re not telling this very well,” said the kindly faced witch. “You see, my dears, a sea witch came with the sea monster. She was a mermaid and her scales were the most ghastly shade of green.”

“We told your aunt about the sea witch and her monster. She said that she knew what to do and left,” Cadmilla told them. “Then your mother came and we told her exactly what we’d told your aunt. She took off right away, too.”

“But what happened to my mother and Grassina? Where are they now?”

“That’s the bad part, dear,” said the kindly faced witch. “Your aunt never came back, and neither did your mother.”

Millie swallowed hard and her voice shook when she spoke. “And my father and great-uncle? What happened to them?”

“Your uncle went with your aunt and your father went with your mother, of course,” said Cadmilla. “They’re all missing. I wouldn’t be surprised if the sea monster ate them.”

Nine

M
illie didn’t believe that the sea monster had eaten her family, despite what the witches said. Although she was sure they were in trouble, she was just as sure that they were still alive. “Call it dragoness intuition if you like, but I know we can save them if we hurry,” Millie told Audun.

“What do you want to do? We can start looking for the sea monster. Perhaps some sea creature can tell us where it went when it left here.”

“I guess that’s what we’ll have to do,” said Millie. “Your amulet will work for me, too, won’t it? I’ll be able to breathe underwater like you can?”

“As long as we’re touching,” said Audun. “But we should go as dragons. We’ll be much faster, and there’s no saying what we’ll run into down there.”

“I hope we run into the sea monster,” Millie said. “And I’d much rather be a dragon when we meet.”

“Imagine that,” said Rugene, who was still standing right there. “Being able to turn into dragons. It’s amazing what young people can do these days.”

“When I was a girl,” Septicimia said, “I had a friend who tried to turn herself into a dragon. She changed partway, but it hurt so much that she got frightened and quit trying.”

“Does it hurt when
you
change?” asked Rugene.

Millie laughed. “Not at all, although my mother said it hurt the first few times she did it.”

“Do you mind if we watch?” asked Rugene. “I know we saw you turn back into humans, but it took us by surprise. Seeing you turn into dragons, well, I won’t pretend I’m not curious.”

“We don’t mind,” said Millie. “Just stand back. We wouldn’t want you to get squashed by accident.”

Septicimia gasped and the witches scurried back to the edge of the trees, then turned around to watch.

“They didn’t need to go that far,” Audun whispered to Millie. “What do they think we’re going to do, turn into whales?”

“They’d probably enjoy that, too,” said Millie. “We need to hurry and start looking, so let’s do this together. One, two, three …”

They had gotten good at timing their turns at the same moment. The air began to shimmer around them, then their bodies began to elongate, their heads stretched, their limbs grew. Scaly skin replaced human flesh, and their teeth grew long and sharp. Their blinking eyes became larger, their pupils narrower. It all happened quicker than three heartbeats, and then they stood on the beach, water swirling around their scaled legs as their tails lashed the sand.

The dragons took to the air with the sound of the witches’ applause. Millie could still hear them as she and Audun flew out over the curling waves to the deeper water that moved in small, barely discernible swells.

“Hold on tight,” Audun said, taking her front talons in his.

They dove into the water and began to make a circle around the island. Millie held her breath until she remembered that it wasn’t necessary. She felt a flutter of panic as she took her first breath, and relaxed when it felt natural.

Millie had gone swimming in the ocean as a dragon before, but she never grew tired of seeing what lay below the surface. Brightly colored fish darted around fantastic formations of coral, scattering as the dragons approached. Snaggle-toothed eels peered out from their hiding places, backing away when the dragons came too close. Large fish watched warily, keeping their distance. A curious shark came close enough to study the swimming dragons, then swam lazily away as if it had nothing to fear.

After swimming around the island once and seeing no hint of a sea monster, Millie and Audun expanded their search, swimming in ever-widening circles. As they moved away from the island, they no longer saw coral or the brightly colored fish, yet there was still life in the ocean around them. A strange flat fish nearly buried in the silt of the ocean floor watched them with one eye as they passed overhead. Fish as long as Millie’s leg swam past in a school, their silver sides flashing as they changed direction. A huge crab scuttled across the ocean floor, leaving a trail of disturbed silt in its wake. And still they saw no sign of a sea monster.

They widened their circle, spiraling out from the island, which had now disappeared from sight. With nothing to use as a visual reference, Millie was glad that dragons had such a good sense of direction. No matter which way she turned, she knew where the island lay and even which way she’d have to fly to go home. Once she’d visited a place as a dragon, she could always find it again.

Lost in their own thoughts, Millie and Audun swam side by side in silence. That was one of the things that Millie liked most about Audun: he was great company even when neither of them had anything to say. She glanced at him and thought again how handsome he was and how good to help her with her family’s problems. Most of the human princes she’d met would have helped her only if they themselves would have benefited in some way. Audun had told her that he did it simply because he loved her. She couldn’t think of a better reason.

The ocean floor had begun to look monotonous, so Millie couldn’t help but notice the seaweed. It started out as a few stray clumps but soon became a vast bed of long green plants swaying with the movement of the water, like saplings in a strong wind. Knowing that anything could lurk in the seaweed made her more cautious, but Audun plowed ahead, pulling her with him as they entered the forest that reached from the ocean floor to the water’s surface.

The seaweed surrounded them immediately, muffling sound and blocking much of the light that filtered down through the water. Millie didn’t like the way the seaweed hissed like a nest of baby snakes as it brushed against her scales, plucking at her limbs like long, green fingers. Even worse was the knowledge that some terrible beast could be only yards away and she wouldn’t know it. She pulled her legs tighter to her body and discovered that she could swim faster with her legs tucked close and her tail moving from side to side to propel her. Powerful beats of her tail shoved the seaweed aside, tearing out the more persistent strands.

When they entered a thicker patch of seaweed, Millie felt increasingly anxious. She hurried Audun along, although they couldn’t see where they were going. The only thing that kept her from panicking was having Audun close and hoping that nothing would want to take on two dragons at once.

They were racing through the seaweed when it ended suddenly and they emerged from the forest in a flurry of torn plants, nearly swimming into a mermaid. She looked terrified when she saw two dragons; turning tail in a swirl of long silver and dark blue hair, she sped away with only one quick backward glance.