Jim Morgan and the Pirates of the Black Skull (29 page)

SEVEN

fter many miles the fog at last broke free from the crags. The billowing mist spilled into a vast field, thick with long brown grass that grew taller than a full-grown man.

“We made it!” Paul shouted. But Lacey and George immediately slapped their hands over his mouth and put their fingers to their lips. The harpies could still be near, they warned. As hard as it had been to avoid them in the ravines, it would be even worse in an open field.

Jim and his friends waded into the thick growth, keeping their heads low and creeping as quietly as possible. After a while, the enchanted fog thinned enough for Jim to take a look around.

“Well, the good news is that the harpies haven’t guessed we would be this far away.” He pointed to three small specks circling the sky a good distance away over the crags. “But I’d wager they could cover
that space in pretty short order if they wanted to. So we better keep moving.”

“What’s the bad news, Jim?” George asked, peering at him through the grass. Jim looked toward the horizon. The sun hung low in the east, glowing orange as dying coals.

“It’s already evening,” Jim said. A throb grabbed at his hand and a wince crossed his face. “There’ll only be a couple more hours of light. We were in the ravines for the entire afternoon.”

“It’ll still be alright won’t it, Jim?” Peter asked hopefully, appearing in the grass beside his brother.

“Right,” said Paul. “The cave can’t be that far away now, can it?”

“I don’t know,” was all Jim said, gripping his aching wrist tight. “I don’t know at all.”

Jim and his friends pushed through the Sea of Tall Grass beneath the cool, purple sky. The fiery orange of the setting sun was just visible over the long blades. Dragonflies buzzed over the clan’s heads and fireflies floated above the field. In some stretches the grass grew so thick that Jim all but swam through the brown stalks. He, Lacey, and the Ratts had to call out to each other, for they could see no further than their hands could reach. Other times, small paths weaved through the growth. Yet even in those clearings there was no seeing above the grass.

George, of course, took advantage of the situation and braided several strands of the tall grass into a sword, with which he attacked his brothers over and over. Peter eventually swore that if they all turned to stone he would jump on George’s back at the last moment and pummel him, so that anyone who found them could see Peter punching his brother in the face for all eternity. But all the while, Jim feared that once the sun set and darkness fell, they would lose their way again - this time in a maze of grass instead of a maze of stone.

As the day’s warmth died, the evening breeze bit deeper into Jim’s skin. He was growing colder by the hour. Even beneath the makeshift bandage about his wrist, Jim could feel the source of that cold
creeping farther and farther up his arm – toward the heart beating within his chest.

Jim sighed heavily and was adjusting his wrappings when the fading sunlight glimmered off something bright at his side. It was a spider’s web. Within the shimmering strands, a firefly had become ensnared and was thrashing against its bonds – all to no avail. In spite of the dark cloud that had settled over Jim’s heart, a brief tug of pity for the little bug pulled inside him. Jim was trapped in a web of sorts himself. One strand of the web was the Cromiers’ wicked schemes and plots. But another part of the web holding Jim was crawling inside his veins. No matter how hard he kicked, it seemed there was no escape.

Jim reached out and, with a flick of his finger, set the firefly free. The little insect zipped into the air at once. It flew in an exuberant circle about Jim’s head and came at it stop an inch in front of his nose. There it bobbed up and down, as though to say thank you, before flying off to the east, toward the Field of Lights. Jim managed a small smile before another pang gnawed at his hand and cut short even that small moment of levity.

“Does it hurt, Jim?” Lacey asked, pushing through the grass and appearing at Jim’s shoulder.

“It’s really not so bad.” Jim said. But that was hardly the truth. He tried to sound strong even as a shiver shook his voice.

“Maybe if I tighten the bandage,” Lacey offered, but Jim cut her off before she could finish.

“Just leave it alone, Lacey!” he snapped. “I don’t want to talk about it, alright? I just want to get out of this fiendish grass so we can find our way to the cave.” Jim was immediately sorry, but like the cold chills crawling up his arms, there was no escaping the angry thoughts crawling through his head. “They took everything from me, do you understand? It’s not fair! I just want it back, Lacey! I want my life back!”

“You mean your old life?” Lacey said, glaring hotly at Jim. “You mean your old life before you met any of us, don’t you?” Jim was about
to yell something back when George interrupted their argument with a shout of his own.

“Oy, you two!” He called from what must have been only twenty or so paces away. “Quit makin’ all that racket and get up here! I think you’ll want to see this.”

Jim and Lacey stomped through the grass into a small clearing. Before they could shout or argue with each other any further, their angry scowls fell from their faces. Standing in the clearing were two more statues that had once been pirates, imprisoned in stone forever on the Veiled Isle. Unlike the poor men on the beach, these two stood stock still, facing one another through the grass. They each gripped a pistol, and held their weapons at each other’s chests, vile contempt chiseled upon their faces for all time.

“Looks like these two were about to have a duel, or somethin’,’” said George, staring at the two statues curiously. “Bad timin’, eh? If the sun hadn’t come up, I wonder who would have won.”

“Can’t you see what happened here?” Lacey said, looking back and forth between the two statues that had once been men. “They weren’t having a duel. I think these two men came here together, almost like we’ve come looking for this shell. But when they finally found what they were looking for, they couldn’t agree on how to share it. They both lost everything in the end.”

“Treasure has torn more than a few friendships asunder,” said a weak voice. “If I know my history right. And I usually do.”

“Mister Cornelius, you’re alive!” Lacey cried. The injured raven stirred in her arms, letting out one miserable croak.

“It will take more than harpies to finish off Cornelius Darkfeather,” the raven managed, sounding very tired and very worn. “But I don’t think I’ll be flying anytime soon.” Cornelius held out his wing, wrapped in the bandage made from Lacey’s dress and spotted with crimson drops.

“Glad you’re back, Cornelius,” said Jim.

“You were so brave, Mister Cornelius,” Lacey said to him, tears forming in her eyes. “I’ll carry you the rest of the way until we get off this awful island. Don’t you worry.”

“Well, duel or argument or whatever it was,” said Jim, stepping over to the taller of the two statues. “If Cornelius can’t fly, then I think these gentlemen can at least give us a hand with our current predicament.” With that, he used the statue as a ladder and climbed up to take a look around.

“Oh, Jim, how terrible,” said Lacey. But Jim was already standing on the statue’s shoulders, trying not to think about whether or not the stone man could feel or think anything at this point. George was quick to join him atop the other stone pirate.

“What do you see?” asked Lacey.

“Almost the whole island,” said Jim, using the last of the setting sun’s glow to survey the landscape. “This grass sea reaches out perhaps another mile or two north from the crags. Beyond that is the forest that Twisttail told us about, I think. It looks like the trees grow right up to the foot of the mountain.”

“What about the cave?” asked Lacey, a fair bit of desperation chiming in her voice. “Can you see the cave?”

“No,” Jim admitted. “But Twisttail said it was at the base of the mountain after the forest, so that’s the way we’ll go.”

“But we could spend hours walking around a whole mountain looking for a cave, Jim!” Lacey all but shouted. Jim suddenly found himself wishing he had something close at hand to throw at her.

“I know that, Lacey!”

“Oy, you two,” said George excitedly, holding his hat on his head as a sharp breeze blew south across the island. He pointed his other hand east toward the sunset, where the sky was bright pink and the wisps of clouds painted blue and gold. “Lookie there!”

“What is it, Georgie?” George’s brothers asked from below.

“It’s them lights. Them lights that that Twisttail the lizard was tellin’ us about.”

True to George’s words, beyond where the grass sea faded out to the east, on a great field of rolling hills, lights, more lights than Jim could count, danced over the grass. They zipped and darted about, sometimes on their own, other times swirling into great clouds and sparkling across the landscape. They dazzled Jim’s eyes in colors of blue and pink and green and gold.

“There’s hundreds of them,” Jim said quietly. “Thousands of them, aren’t there?”

“It’s funny,” added George. “They don’t look all that bad from up here, do they Jim? Actually…if I were a girl, I’d say they was actually the prettiest things I ever saw. If I were a girl.”

“Because only girls think things are pretty?” Lacey said. Peter and Paul giggled at their brother from the foot of his statue.

“Looks can be deceiving, George,” Jim cautioned, though he too was having a hard time pulling his eyes away from the shimmering sight.

“On that count you would be correct, young Morgan,” growled a voice, breaking into the clearing, accompanied by the rustle of tall grass. “Not all that glitters is gold, and those cursed lights upon yonder hill indeed hide murderous intent.”

Jim turned atop his statue’s shoulders, just in time to see Count Cromier burst into the clearing. Bartholomew pushed through to his right and Splitbeard the Pirate to his left. Two members of Splitbeard’s crew appeared behind them as well. All five gripped drawn swords in hand.

EIGHT

acey screamed at the sight of Count Cromier. She stumbled back with Peter and Paul to crouch between the statues, where George had jumped down beside them. Yet when Jim laid eyes on the Count and Bartholomew, a fire hot as a blacksmith’s bellows raged up his arm. Lacey’s bandages or no, the black rose’s poison was sill winding its way through Jim’s blood, and the dark magic through his thoughts. Jim never considered running. He thought only of launching himself from the statue straight into the pack of buccaneers, scratching, clawing, and biting, for lack of a sword. But the pain bit his arm so deeply that Jim’s strength failed him. He managed to pitch forward, but landed hard on his back in the dirt, rolling to a stop at the Red Count’s feet.