Return to the Isle of the Lost (22 page)

“No, Mom only cared about whether I knew how to line my eyelids properly,” said Evie, catching her breath as the small creature scampered off into the crevices.

“Oh, I forgot, I brought something from the Junk Shop,” said Jay as he removed a flashlight from his pocket and jiggled the batteries until they came to life. The sudden flood of light illuminated the cavern’s interior—a collection of giant cool-looking spiderwebs, slimy wet puddles, and an unexpected item—a gold poison-heart bracelet glittering on the ground.

Evie picked it up. “It’s my mom’s!” she said excitedly. “They must have been down here! We’re going the right way!”

Walking farther on, they discovered other clues. A long cigarette holder that could only be Cruella’s, and a few coins that could only have fallen from Jafar’s pouch. They kept going, energized by their discoveries, until the flashlight showed a succession of large animal footprints.

“These tracks look too big for crocodiles, right?” Jay asked, inspecting them. “Plus, I think these are paw prints.”

“Way too big,” agreed Mal.

“Great,” said Carlos. “Huge scary monster ahead.”

They went deeper into the cave, moving forward cautiously.

Then, from somewhere in the darkness, a faint sound drifted through the cave, almost like the snuffling of an animal of some kind.

“Stop it, Jay!” said Mal, whirling to face him just as he was about to make that snuffling noise again.

“Couldn’t resist,” said Jay.

He offered Carlos a high five, but Carlos just shook his head. “Not cool, man. Not cool. We need to find the Poisoned Lake,” he said, studying one of the maps from Yen Sid. As far as he could tell, the body of water that surrounded the Toxic Tree with the Fruit of Venom should be the first of the underground lands they would pass. “I wonder how the tree can grow. I mean with all this darkness, how can anything live down here?”

“Maybe it feeds on poison from the lake,” said Evie.

“For that matter, how can there be a lake underneath the ocean?”

“We’re underneath the ocean floor, obviously. Plus, everything is made by magic down here,” Mal said. “Don’t you remember?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” said Carlos as he stared at the tree. “All the books said that the magic creates the ideal location for each talisman. Okay, let’s go this way.”

They followed the path as it led them farther down into the earth, so steep at times that they were almost sliding. The tunnel narrowed and then widened again. Some passages were flooded, and they had to roll up their pants to cross. Eventually, the cavern grew so enormous that they could no longer see the top of the cave. They kept walking until the path split in two directions.

Just then, they heard that strange snuffling sound again. Carlos looked petrified, but Mal slapped a hand on Jay’s mouth in annoyance. “Stop!”

“Okay, okay, it’s hard to resist. It’s boring down here,” Jay said, his voice muffled behind her hand.

“Where to?” Mal asked Carlos.

Carlos looked down at the map. “It doesn’t say.” He studied the two tunnels in front of them. One of the paths was covered with the same large tracks they’d noticed earlier, but the other was clear. “I don’t know.”

“Hmm,” said Mal. “The lake is poisonous, right? Whatever lives down here would know that, so instead of following its tracks, maybe we should choose the opposite direction. We need to find the one place the big guy doesn’t go.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Carlos, who wasn’t looking forward to meeting a large animal—or whatever it was—underground.

They set off down the undisturbed path. After walking a few feet, the flashlight went out, but Jay knocked it against the stone and it flickered back to life. The cave was smaller here, just big enough for them to pass through.

“I think we’re close to water now,” said Mal. “The air is damp.”

“And that smell,” said Evie. “Talk about toxic!” Carlos was already pinching his nose and Mal and Evie did the same. Jay pulled off his beanie and held it over his face. They kept moving, until they heard the sound of water as it washed against sand. It had to be the Poisoned Lake.

They broke into a run, Jay shining the light and pointing it at the end of the cavern.

A large, deep purple lake bubbled with toxic gas. In the middle of the water was a small rocky island where one lone apple tree stood, its fruit ripe and red and luscious. The four of them stared at it, not quite believing what they were looking at. It was impossible to think that anything grew underground, and that, after all that walking, they had actually found one of the most dangerous objects in the world.

“Okay, let’s figure out how to get me over there,” said Evie, rolling up her sleeves. The fruit was her mother’s talisman.

“We need to find a way to make a raft,” said Carlos. “Maybe with some of the branches we saw back there, and anything else we can find.”

They walked back into the dark tunnel, searching for anything they could use to build a boat, when a strange sound echoed all around, distant but growing louder by the second.

Snuffle, grunt.

Mal ignored Jay. She hated it when he goofed off like that.

Grunt, snuffle.

Much louder now.

Snuffle, grunt.

The snuffling and grunting noise was so loud it was hard to concentrate. Mal had had enough. “JAY! I SAID STOP DOING THAT!”

“Yeah, man,” said Carlos as he rolled the map back up and shoved it in his pocket. “Lay off on the sound effects.”

“Seriously,” said Evie, with a toss of her hair. “You’re getting on my nerves.”

As they turned around to confront their friend, they realized he wasn’t standing behind them anymore. His flashlight was on the floor. “Jay?” Mal called uncertainly.

Jay appeared from the darkness, carrying a bunch of dead branches in his arms. “What?” he asked as the sound grew louder and louder. “I left the light here for you guys.”

“Jay’s not making that sound!” Evie screamed. “RUN!”

Carlos grabbed the flashlight, and they sprinted back toward the lake. But something was blocking the passage. Something large and hairy with huge fanged teeth.

Snuffle, grunt.

Grunt, snuffle.

T
he four of them ran from the creature and hid, huddling together in a nearby recess, trying not to make any noise as whatever that thing was that was snuffling and grunting moved away. It sounded awful, like some kind of hideous monster. Evie shivered, hoping it would move away without discovering them. She knew she was first up against her talisman, and wanted to get it over with as soon as she could.

“What is it?” Carlos whispered, shaking.

Mal stuck her head out of the hollow to see if she could see it. “It’s big and…pink. Like a huge cat, or a tiger, I can’t tell.”

“A huge pink tiger, great; we’re scared we’re going to get eaten by a creature that looks like a puff of cotton candy,” said Jay.

The snuffling and grunting sound faded.

Evie exhaled. “Okay, let’s figure out a way to get across the lake.”

Carlos and Jay tried to tie the branches together to make some kind of raft, but it was clear that wasn’t going to work as they didn’t have anything they could use for twine. Jay kicked at the sad pile of branches dejectedly.

“Let’s see how far it is, maybe there’s some other way,” said Evie.

They entered the larger cavern, which was as big as a professional tourney stadium. Stalactites arched on the ceiling above them, like stars in a black sky. They stared once more at the toxic tree that stood in the middle of a tiny island surrounded by water.

“An island within the island and under water too. Yen Sid is right, the magic down here is wild,” said Jay.

Evie stood at the edge of the water, and a smooth rock just large and flat enough to step on appeared. She looked at her friends, who shrugged. She held her breath and jumped on it. Another rock appeared in front of her.

Stepping-stones
.

Evie looked over her shoulder and smiled. “Come on, it’s like it knows I’m here.”

The talismans desire to be found,
Yen Sid had told them.

Evie led the way, and the rest followed, careful to make sure they didn’t fall into the poisoned water.

“Almost there,” said Evie as they stepped closer to the tiny islet holding a single toxic tree. From afar, the tree’s knotted bark resembled a pattern of scowling faces.

“Creepy,” said Carlos.

“I know,” said Mal. “We get to hang out in the coolest places.”

“Make sure your feet don’t touch the water,” warned Evie, who knew a lot about poison, at least when it came to apples. She knew what they looked like, how they smelled, which ones would put you to sleep, and which ones would kill you on the spot. “We’d melt like sugar cubes in a hot cup of tea if you tried to swim in here.”

“Nice image,” said Jay. “I don’t think we’d be as tasty, though.”

“We’re here!” cried Evie, stepping ashore. She turned around and helped the rest of them onto the island.

“Great, start picking apples!” said Mal.

“Why is it called the Dark Forest,” said Jay, looking at the map that Carlos was holding open, “when it only holds one tree?”

“Well, it
is
dark,” said Mal. “There’s that.” The only light came from Jay’s flashlight.

“Yen Sid said the maps weren’t completely accurate. They were just guesses,” Carlos reminded them. From afar, the tree looked small, but up close, it was taller than a building, its trunk as large as a house. It almost took up the entire island.

“I guess I’ll have to climb it?” said Evie, staring nervously at the forbidding tree. Evie spent her days indoors, learning how to be pretty. She wasn’t really one to climb trees.

The light from the flashlight flickered, growing dimmer by the minute, its batteries fading.

“Hurry, before our light runs out! We’ve still got three more talismans to recover,” said Jay.

“And whatever’s out there is still out there,” said Carlos. In the distance the sound of faint snuffling echoed in the cave. “Hurry before it finds us.”

“All right. I’m going up,” said Evie, shaking slightly as she began to climb the tree trunk. She pulled herself up on the nearest branch and started the long, slow climb to the top, where the fruit was. Twice the thorns pricked her, but she ignored the little nicks on her legs and arms. She had work to do, and she could always get rid of them with concealer later.

Down below, her friends waited anxiously, calling up advice. “Watch that branch—go the other way! Get a toehold on the left and lift yourself up!”

When she finally reached the top of the tree, she was stumped. There were hundreds of apples. All of them poisoned, she knew, but there was only one talisman. Only one Fruit of Venom. Which could it be?

“There are a lot of apples up here!” she called down. “I don’t know which one to pick…they all look alike!”

“You’ll know which one!” called Carlos.

Focus!
Evie told herself. Her friends were doing their best to help out, and they had to get out of here soon before that snuffling monster returned. Concentrate on the apples. There were so many of them and they were all so red and juicy.

“Which one?” she wondered aloud, and then she saw it through the highest branches.

One golden apple among all of the red ones.

She clambered up and plucked it from its branch. It was gorgeous, shiny, and perfect. Evie was mesmerized by its beauty. It looked absolutely delicious, and it was practically asking to be eaten, what could it hurt, what if she just took one tiny…

“What are you doing!” Jay yelled from below.

Too late; Evie had already taken a bite of the apple. It
was
delicious, and for a moment she didn’t regret it. Then her eyelids drooped as she yawned.

“Evie! What’s happening?” asked Mal.

“I feel…sleepy, like the dwarf.” Evie laughed as she sat on the branch she’d been standing on, her head beginning to fog from the poison.

“Don’t! Stay awake!” cried Mal.

“I’ll try!” said Evie. She stood back up, fighting against the urge to sleep. She’d accidentally gobbled a poisoned apple once or twice when she was a kid, so maybe she had some kind of resistance to them. Her mother was always leaving them everywhere.

“I should have known better,” she grumbled, already growing weaker and trying to fight off the sleep that was threatening to overwhelm her. “I’m just going to take a little nap, okay?” she called down.

“No!” Mal cried. “No naps! No resting. Just keep moving!”

“Moving,” said Evie. “Got to keep moving….” She struggled to keep her eyes open, scrunching her face into odd contortions, holding one lid open with a finger, but it fluttered shut. Evie’s knees were wobbling and all she could think of was how nice it would be to lay down her head and take a brief—

“No!” Mal cried, again. Or maybe it was the third time. Evie hadn’t realized that she had sat down once more. I’m in trouble, she thought.
Big trouble.

“Get up!” called Carlos.

Jay was getting ready to climb the tree himself, but when he placed his hands on the bark, a force pushed him away and he flew to the ground.