Jim Morgan and the Pirates of the Black Skull (31 page)

he sun had disappeared in the east and a pale moon risen in its place by the time the clan waded through the last wall of grass. The sounds of battle between the flying sisters and the Count’s men had lasted for quite a while as they had fled. Celia and Ocy made off with at least two pirates for dinner (which Lacey said was awful, just awful, even for such rotten men as those pirates).

“At least the harpies will be busy for a while,” Jim said. “But if the Cromiers and Splitbeard are still out there, they’re most likely headed in the same direction as we are, so let’s get on with it.”

On they went, up a sloping hill beneath the rising blue moon. Try as Jim did to fight it, his teeth chattered when he spoke and he shivered in every breath of wind. With the wrappings gone, the chill had strengthened its grip on Jim’s body – all except for his arm. The poison flowing there crackled like fire beneath his skin.

“How long do you think we got til mornin’?” George asked, nervously glancing at the moon.

“Long enough if we quit yapping and keep walking!” Jim snapped. The hard edge of his own voice stunned him. He had not meant to sound so heartless. But the flute song played louder in his thoughts and the black tendrils wound their way like ivy all the way past the crook of his elbow. The poison was on the move.

“We still have plenty of time, George,” Lacey said. She put a comforting hand on George’s back and pulled Peter and Paul along beside her. “Let’s just keep moving. I think we’ll go much faster back to the beach than we came to this point, don’t you think, Jim?” Lacey looked with some hope at him, but Jim said nothing in return. He fought to keep his teeth from chattering, as though he were walking in winter’s grasp.

The little band crested the hill where they paused to survey the way before them. A vast forest spilled out beneath the moonlight. Countless trees stretched for miles, all the way to the rocky mountain at the isle’s center. The forest seemed black from where Jim and his friends stood - shadowed and thick. It was a maze of trees even longer and more winding than the crags or the Sea of Grass.

“Seems like a long way to the mountain,” said Peter, whistling low and shaking his head. “And hard to keep headin’ the right direction without Mister Cornelius bein’ able to fly, ain’t it?”

“We still got the compass, Peter,” offered Paul, who had been carrying it for Lacey ever since they’d left the crags. “And it really is sort of like London, isn’t it? If you look at the trees like buildin’s, from here to that mountain can’t be any farther from the cellar to the town square where we used to lift breakfast, could it?”

“Too right, Paul!” added George, sounding a bit brighter. “We used to run that whole way back, too, thanks to Butterstreet and his lot chasin’ us. You know, if we make it out of this, I may just have to thank that old bloke for puttin’ us in such tremendous shape, eh?”

“Before we even start worrying about the forest,” Jim said, his chin quivering as he pointed to the bottom of the hill with his poisoned hand. “We have to find a way over that.” By ‘that’, Jim meant the rushing river winding its way around the curve of the hill and along the edge of the dark forest. It was the Tears of the Mountain, the river of which Twisttail had told them.

When the clan came down the hill to the river’s banks, their shoulders slumped and they all fell into silent dismay. Any hope that Peter or Paul had inspired at the top of the hill vanished. Lacey kept her eyes fixed on the river, risking not even a glance in Jim’s direction.

“We should look for some rocks or something to cross upon at least, don’t you think?” she said. This was a perfectly sensible plan, but Jim hardly heard her. When he looked at the river, all he saw was another obstacle thrown in his way by cruel fate. What little hope or goodwill stood in his heart against the rose thorn’s magic crumbled. The black poison in his veins was quick to seize the moment.

“There’s no time for that,” Jim snapped. He seized Lacey by the elbow, for Cornelius was in one arm and her handbag still in the other. “Grab ahold, everyone, and come on. The only way across this river is straight through! I won’t let a little trickle of water slow me down!”

“Jim, wait!” Lacey tried to say, but it was too late. Jim yanked her into the river. The Ratts barely had time to grab onto Lacey’s other elbow and complete the chain.

The river struck Jim like an icy fist and shocked the breath from him. Ripples and waves smacked him first in the chest and then in the shoulders. Soon the water was cresting his face. Behind him, Jim heard Lacey and the Ratts coughing and sputtering as the water covered their heads. Lacey was fighting desperately to hold poor Cornelius above the surface and keep the raven from drowning.

Before they crossed the river’s middle, poor Paul, who was the shortest of all the clan, could no longer touch the bottom with his feet. He must have swallowed a lungful of water, for he suddenly shouted with choking gasps that vaguely sounded like “Help! Help!”

Jim heard the desperate splashing and flailing in the water behind him. The last bits of his thoughts that were still free of the poison wanted so badly to turn back around and help, or give up crossing this river altogether. But the dark magic in his veins was far too strong by then. Jim squeezed harder on Lacey’s arm and pulled with all his strength.

Whether by blind luck or fate, Paul managed to hang onto Peter’s hand, and the entire group made it to the far side of the river. They dragged themselves onto the bank, drenched to the bone and exhausted from fighting the strength of the waters. George, Lacey, and the Ratts shivered in the cool night air. Lacey frantically rubbed Cornelius’s wings with her hands to try and keep him warm, while George and Peter slapped Paul’s back over and over again to beat the water from his lungs.

“Alright,” Jim said, shaking so violently he had to clench his teeth to keep them from chattering. “No time to rest. Let’s get through that forest and onto that blasted cave.”

“Give us a moment!” George snapped. For the first time he sounded cross and irritated with Jim. “We’re half drowned here, and Paul is mostly drowned! He almost drifted off down the river in case you didn’t notice, you prat!”

“Well, he didn’t drown, though, did he? You saved him! So unless you all want to turn to stone looking like wet, miserable sods, then I suggest we pull ourselves together and get moving again. Now, who has the compass?”

Silence followed for a moment. Paul coughed up the last of the water he had swallowed and looked up meekly at Jim and his brothers. “I had it,” he said miserably, as though he were about to burst into tears.

“What do you mean,
had
it?” Jim demanded, the pain in his arm redoubling again.

“When the water rushed over my head in the river, I panicked.” Paul’s chin quivered and his voice grew thick. “I reached out for Peter and George. I…I didn’t mean to, but I must have let go of the compass. I lost it.”

“Lost it?” Jim asked. The black tendrils crossed from Jim’s shoulder into his chest. His words were no longer his own. “You lost the compass? How could you do that, Paul?”

“He did it because he nearly drowned, Jim!” said George, standing up for his brother, who began to cry on the riverbank. “Because we couldn’t take even one blasted moment to look around for some rocks to cross! Because you dragged us into that river without even thinking if we could make it across, mate! We could have all drowned!”

“Maybe it would have been better if we
had
drowned, George,” Jim raged, taking off his soaking hat and throwing it on the ground. “Because now we have no way to navigate through the forest, do we? We might as well just sit here and wait to turn to stone!”

“Now, young Morgan, that is quite enough, I think,” Cornelius cawed weakly, trying to restore some order. But Jim was far too furious to listen to the raven’s words.

“Quite enough?” Jim snarled. “Will it be quite enough for everyone when we all turn into statues because we can’t find our way through this bloody forest?”

“There might still be a way,” said Lacey, trying desperately to calm the group down. She pointed up to the sky and opened her book in one hand. “The stars!” she cried. “Jim, George, the stars in the sky here match the ones from my book. They make constellations just like the ones that were in your father’s map, remember? I’m sure they can help us find the way.” Lacey pulled the wet book from her handbag and held out the open pages to show them. “There’s still a chance that we can find the cave!”

“You and your stupid stars and your stupid book, Lacey!” Jim thundered. “The lizard, who is from this island, I might add, told us the right way to go. So that’s the way we’re going! The mountain,
where the cave is, where the cave has to be – is right on the other side of these trees. We’re not turning back now, not when we’re so close!”

“Oh, Jim,” cried Lacey, shutting her book with a thump. She stormed up beside George and glared at Jim with enough fire in her eyes to dry his soaked clothes and set the forest behind him ablaze. “This isn’t you talking, can’t you tell that? It’s that poison in your arm. That poison from that horrible rose is making you do things you know you shouldn’t, and say things I know you wouldn’t. Come back to us, Jim! Help us, because if you don’t, we’re not going to make it. All of us are going to turn to stone on this island or worse. Listen to yourself. This isn’t you…this isn’t our friend talking. Please let us try to follow the stars, please!”

“There’s no time, Lacey! We’re not following the stars in your stupid book. If you want to follow them then here,” Jim ripped the book from Lacey’s hands. Without so much as a second thought, he hurled it into the river. It splashed into the deepest part of the waters and quickly drifted away. “Follow the book wherever it takes you! But I’m going through the forest, even if I have to go myself.”

Lacey gasped - a shocked and sudden gasp like a blast of cold air that snatches the breath from one’s lungs. Two teardrops trickled down her cheeks, so bright and glistening that they stood out from the river water still clinging to her face. But Jim was already turning on his heel and marching toward the forest edge, shaking from head to toe as though he was freezing. When he reached the tree line, he turned back over his shoulder and said:

“Are you lot coming or not?”

Peter and Paul looked at each other, then to George. George looked to Lacey, whose head was bowed so low her chin was on her chest. With a great sniffle, Lacey trudged forward. Peter helped Paul to his feet, and along with George, the three Ratts followed.

Jim said not a word of thanks or appreciation. He but turned to the forest and strode into the pitch-black darkness between the trees.

TEN

im, the Ratts, and Lacey trudged through the darkness beneath the black trees. The branches grabbed at them like clawing fingers, scratching their faces and tangling their hair. Mist clung to their legs like cold, damp spiderwebs. The crawling fog denied their shivering bones even the slightest hint of warmth. The ground itself seemed to fight against them. Roots, holes, and fallen branches bit at their ankles from beneath the milky fog. On occasion, a lone beam of blue moonlight found its way through the dense forest canopy. Blackness hid most of the sky and the stars, though it would have made little difference, for Lacey’s book was lost to the river along with the compass.