Island of Legends (The Unwanteds) (10 page)

But all hope would be lost if he failed to fix the tail, he argued with himself. Unless he could stall them. “I . . . um . . . ,” he began.

The dog barked and started sniffing around in the under-growth. He barked a few more times, then backed out from under a bush, pulling something in his mouth.

“Did you find the tail?” the giant rock rumbled, rolling closer to the dog and nudging Aaron away from the tube.

Aaron stumbled forward. The dog kept tugging as Aaron’s hopes sank. Eventually the dog pulled hard enough to reveal the source of his endeavors. It was a vine.

“There,” said the rock.

The panther looked on with disdain that slowly turned to interest. After a moment she leaped over to the dog’s side, snapping at it until the dog retreated. Then the panther bit hard on the vine, severing it in two places to form the right length. She turned and screamed at Aaron, startling him.

His nerves frayed, Aaron jumped to pick up the vine as the panther circled him, edging him even farther away from the tube. Aaron knew now that there was no way out of this. The panther was sure to attack him if he tried to run. Aaron had no
choice. He was about to get eaten, or at least ripped to shreds. It was only a matter of time. Once they figured out he was a phony, it would be all over.

The thought of confessing briefly came to mind, but Aaron dismissed it. He wouldn’t want to live after showing such cowardice.

Bravely, he examined the stretch of vine. He bent down and picked up a sharp stone to try to streamline the tip of it. “For better balance,” he said, but he was only buying time. Death was inevitable.

The panther paced between Aaron and the tube, swishing the stub of her tail in awkward, jerky movements that chronicled her growing impatience. It was becoming extremely clear to Aaron why these creatures were kept away from everyone else. They were living, breathing, percolating claw-and-tooth fests just waiting to explode.

Finally, with shaking hands, Aaron beckoned to the panther. “Come here, then,” he said, his voice squeaking. He felt the blood drain from his head and hoped that, once the creature attacked, he’d simply pass out before the pain took hold.

The panther darted to Aaron’s side, hissing wide-mouthed
in some bizarre, backward show of appreciation . . . or maybe just to show Aaron her dripping fangs. Aaron wobbled as he squatted next to the creature, and he put his hand on the panther’s back to steady himself. “Breathe,” he whispered, angry about his fear. “Calm down.” He took in a few breaths. “Okay,” he said, louder. “Hold still, Panther.”

The creature obeyed.

Aaron gripped the panther’s shortened tail in one hand and the vine in the other, knowing all he could do now was wish for the impossible. He pressed the thick end of the vine to the broken end of the panther’s tail, wishing and imagining with all his might that a miracle would take place. “Please,” he begged under his breath as drops of sweat fell from the dark ringlets framing his face.

He closed his eyes, knowing it was only a matter of seconds before they’d all realize it was a scam, and only a minute or so after that he’d be dead. He swallowed hard and gripped the two parts in his sweat-damp hand. “Come on,” he said. “Heal up. Just please magically heal.”

Aaron wanted it so badly he could almost feel the two pieces meld into one inside his grip. But he knew it was impossible,
and he couldn’t bear to look at his failure. Soon the strain of the silent anticipation and tension grew so unbearable that slowly he let go. Crippled and faint with fear, Aaron dropped backward onto the jungle floor and bared his neck, giving up. He hoped only for a merciful kill.

The panther’s scream chilled Aaron’s blood, and he knew his wait was over. Everything went black.

» » « «

When Aaron opened his eyes, the panther’s face was right in front of him, her ivory teeth just inches from his neck. Slimy drool dripped from the panther’s jaws. Aaron emitted a bloodcurdling cry, choking from the dryness in his throat.

The panther jumped back.

Aaron screamed again, and then, when he realized he wasn’t dead, lurched wildly to his feet and lunged, disoriented, in the wrong direction, running smack into the corner of the giant rock and falling flat on his face. Stunned, he got to his feet and tried again, the rock moving out of his way just in time. Aaron tripped over a vine and fell, and then, after finally locating the tube, he resorted to scrambling on hands and knees toward it.

The rock, panther, and dog all began to shout and howl.
The panther charged after Aaron. As Aaron dove into the tube, he turned and looked at his pursuer, and as he reached for the button, he noticed one very interesting thing.

The panther’s tail.

Long and supple, the tail swished back and forth as the panther bounded past Aaron, around the tube, and up the nearby tree to test out her balance.

Aaron stared from his sprawled-out position at the bottom of the tube, his chest heaving, sweat pouring off him. He wiped his eyes to see better, and it was true. Somehow he’d done it.

Without any components, without uttering any magical chants or spells, Aaron had turned a vine into a tail. As the howling and yelling around him subsided, as the realization of what he’d just done took hold, and as a new surge of power coursed through his veins, Aaron Stowe closed his eyes and leaned his head against the glass, thinking,
I’m going to take over the world.

A
lex stared at Spike. He couldn’t get the thought out of his mind.

Later, when he was walking along the shore with Sky, looking at the beautiful orange moonlight on that matched her eyes, his mind kept returning to it. What if Spike really could come to life? He thought back to the day in Mr. Today’s office when he’d told the old mage he didn’t want to take over Artimé.

“If only I had told him I wanted the job . . . ,” he muttered. “If only I hadn’t been so selfish, I could have found out how
to do it. But no, I refused the job, and he refused to teach me. And now it’s too late.”

Sky looked at him. “You’re doing that thing again. Mage problems?”

Alex startled, then laughed under his breath. “Yeah.”

“What is it this time?” Her voice rang curious and not at all annoyed, which reminded Alex just how much he liked Sky. She no longer seemed to resent the time he spent preoccupied with his other thoughts. She had plenty of her own thoughts to be busy with, so they made a good pair.

Alex picked up a stick, sat down, and began to sketch the whale in the sand as he talked. “I made this whale out of the old bones in the Museum of Large. It started out as a project to clean up the museum after the Ol’ Tater incident, but once I had all the bones in place, I covered the skeleton with layers of woven seaweed to give it a body. Then I preserved it and painted it, and earlier I realized she would really come in handy if she could swim along with us to Pirate Island.”

“Cool. Wish I could see her.” She sat down in the sand next to Alex.

“Me too.”

“Can’t you just bring her to life like Mr. Today did with Jim and Florence and Simber and all the statues?”

“I wish I knew how.”

Sky wrinkled up her nose, thinking. “What about the book Mr. Today left you? The one with the restore spell—I remember how disgusted you were that he’d left it out for you just a little too late to be useful when we lost Artimé.”

Alex frowned. “I don’t think that spell will bring the whale sculpture to life if it wasn’t living before.”

“Yeah, probably not, or else the mansion and the fountains would all be alive now, I suppose.” She grinned and leaned against Alex.

He loved it when she did that. “Wouldn’t that be creepy?” He slipped his arm around her shoulders, and they sat in silence for a few minutes, lost in thought again. Then Alex scrambled to his feet. “Wait a second,” he said. “That book!” He started running for the mansion, then stopped abruptly to turn around and run back to Sky. “I’ve got to go,” he said, grabbing her hand and pulling her to her feet. “I think there’s a living type of spell in that book! It was called
The Triad
something or other. I think ‘Live’ was one of the sections.”

Sky laughed. “See? I knew you’d figure it out. Go on, then!” she said, shooing him away. “Don’t come back until you have a real, live whale.”

“I won’t,” Alex said, but he didn’t move. He just looked at her, his stomach flipping all over the place. “You’re kind of brilliant, you know that?”

Sky tilted her head, a smile playing on her lips. “I know,” she said.

It reminded Alex of the time they were on the roof of the shack together, figuring out Mr. Today’s riddle. His skin tingled, a rush of good feelings surged through him. And she didn’t look away. Without thinking, Alex reached his hand out to touch her cheek, and then he leaned in and kissed her.

“Thanks,” he said, grinning when he pulled back and saw the startled look on her face. He turned away and ran toward the mansion, leaving Sky blushing alone in the moonlight.

» » « «

Alex found the book on the dresser in his room.
The Triad: Live, Hide, Restore.
He’d been meaning to read it ever since Simber showed it to him, but it wasn’t like Alex had a lot of spare
time lately. Now it felt like he didn’t have time
not
to read it. He climbed into bed and paged to the first section.

LIVE

HISTORY: It is with a heavy heart that I begin this book. When one thinks about life, one hopes for a good one. Simber, Florence, and Octavia, among others, are the epitome of successful creations. Creatures with good lives. Unfortunately, I have also given a less-than-perfect life to a number of creatures, and I wish to chronicle their evolutions here, so that my successor is able to learn from my mistakes and, hopefully, not repeat them.

All my longings, my needs, my desires, went into Simber. I was lonely, in need of a companion, and as I created him I thought about all that was missing in my life. It was with love that I first breathed life into Simber, and he took on the very essence of my thoughts and dreams.

As Simber was my first creature, I thought I was quite perfect at bringing creatures to life. Excited and
enthused, I began a series of creatures in quick succession, thinking that if Simber was this wonderful, wouldn’t a dozen more creatures be a dozen times more wonderful?

But it was not to be.

I made a little dog, but he attacked without provocation. I have the teeth mark scars to prove it. Then a panther—yes, a wonderful, beautiful creature. I designed her as a friend for Simber, but while she could understand me, she refused to speak. She was violent and grew to resent Simber for his closeness with me, and she became a threat.

I created a scorpion that for reasons unknown grew to an enormous size, and a few other creatures, just trying to re-create what I had with Simber. But I had used all of my heart at that time for the cheetah, I’m afraid. It took me too long to realize it, and to admit that my creatures were failures. When I finally realized what had to come from inside me in order to make a successful life, I had a dozen monsters on my hands, including Ol’ Tater, who terrorized the other terrorists, making everyone
miserable, even himself, and eventually he asked to be put to sleep.

But truly none of them were safe to be around. So for their protection and my own, I had to isolate them, which I did with a heavy heart. They now live in the deepest part of the jungle—so deep that only their caretaker and one other know the way out.

That jungle is one of the places where the tube in the kitchenette will take you. Because of the danger, I didn’t wish for anyone to accidentally find himself in the jungle, so to visit there, you must push all the buttons at once.

Be warned—the creatures are dangerous. If they know you are visiting with my blessing, there is a chance they will not attack, for I have been kind and they’ve grown to love me . . . at least a little bit, I think. And if you use your magic to hold them back, you will fare well.

As dangerous as it is, I’d like you to visit now and then to see if anyone needs anything. There’s a good chance
Panther will have lost her tail—a vine will do the trick. MAGIC: The live and restore spells have one thing in common: both can be found in the dot art that hangs in my office. The art is intuitive. What I mean is that if the world needs to be restored, the dots in the pictures in the mansion model (found in a kitchen cupboard in the gray shack) contain the magical words “breathe,” “commence,” etc. (see Restore section). But if Artimé exists, the art on my office walls hides the magical words for the live spell. So all you need to do is study the art from right to left (or as the setting sun, opposite from the restore spell), and you’ll see the words you need to bring a creature to life: initiate, invigorate, instill, improve.

Here, there was some writing in the margins. Alex turned the book sideways to read the words.

Part Two: For best success regarding the “improve” portion, add: comfort, happiness, peace, success.

And a final line in a shakier hand, which looked like it had been written late in Mr. Today’s life.