Isle of the Lost (19 page)

They found Dr. Facilier at his desk, staring into an empty crystal ball.

“Ahh, if it isn’t my least-favorite student,” he said when he saw Mal.

“Relax, Dr. F, I’m not here to fill your top hat with crickets again.”

“What a relief,” he said coldly. “How can I help you?”

“We need to get into the forbidden library,” Mal said. “The Athenaeum of Secrets.”

“Ah, but there’s a reason it’s called the forbidden library—because students are expressly forbidden to enter,” he said sternly.

Evie thought Mal would give up, but instead Mal hopped up on Dr. Facilier’s desk, cool as Lucifer. “Yeah, about that,” she said, plopping down a pack of tarot cards. “Entrance fee?”

Dr. F picked a few up and held them under the dim reading light beside him. “The Major Arcana. Impressive.” He pocketed the tarot set and studied the four students in front of him. “What exactly are you looking for in the library?”

“A map of the island,” said Mal. “And make it quick, will you? I haven’t got all day.”

The giant spider guarding the door moved away as docile as a cat when Dr. Facilier tickled its belly. The door to the Library of Forbidden Secrets opened with a rusty squeak, and Dr. F escorted the four of them through.

Tall, teetering bookshelves housed tattered, waterlogged leather-bound books, covered with twenty years’ worth of dust, as well as beakers and vials filled with strange-looking liquids and potions. As Dr. Facilier scurried down the dingy corridors before them, moving through the rows of bookshelves and muttering under his breath, they were only able to make out the faint outline of his glowing candle, casting shadows against the library walls.

“You know he’s got bat poop for brains, right? This could all be for nothing,” Jay whispered.

Mal shot him a look.

“Just saying,” said Jay.

“It’s worth a try,” Evie said from behind them, stopping briefly to untangle herself from a cobweb. “Otherwise, we’ll just be wandering around in the dark, like we are now.”

“Yeah, it couldn’t hurt,” agreed Carlos. He was holding his machine protectively under his jacket.

“Aha! Here we are,” Dr. Facilier announced, stopping in front of a row of cases. He pulled out a yellowing rolled-up piece of parchment from one of the dusty shelves. He smoothed out the paper and placed it on a lopsided worktable while the four of them gathered around.

“Um, there’s nothing there,” Evie pointed out, her voice small. It was true, the map was blank.

“Well, it was written in invisible ink, of course,” Dr. Facilier said as if
everybody
knew this. “How’s a secret supposed to stay a secret, otherwise?”

Without warning, and to the shock of everyone around, Mal grabbed him by the collar and pushed him up against one of the bookcases, which caused several of the vials to fall and shatter to the floor. “Why, you little rat, have you forgotten who my mother is and how she can have you and everyone on this filthy island…”

“Mal!” Evie said in a shocked tone. “Stop it!” She put a hand on Dr. Facilier’s trembling arm. “Let me handle this.”

Mal turned to her. “Let you
what
?”

“Handle this. Easier to catch flies with honey than vinegar,” she said. “Go on, let go, gently, gently.”

Mal slowly let go of Dr. Facilier, whose knees would have given out if Evie hadn’t caught him. “Now, Dr. F, there has to be a way to make the ink visible, doesn’t there?”

Dr. Facilier mopped his sweaty brow with a raggedy silk handkerchief. “Yes, there is.”

“Good,” said Evie. “Now, tell us how.”

The headmaster pointed shakily to the vials that had shattered on the ground. “The antidote was kept there. But now it’s gone.”

Evie glanced at Mal, who looked stricken. Mal put her head in her hands and groaned.

“Uh, Mal?” Carlos asked softly, tapping her shoulder.

“Go away, Spotty,” she snapped.

“Listen. I know how to make the elixir. To see the ink.”

They all turned to him, including Dr. Facilier. “You can do magic?” Mal asked. “But how?”

“No, no, it’s not magic, it’s just a little chemistry—you know, Weird Science,” Carlos said. “Come on. Evie, bring the map.”

They left Dr. Facilier back in his office giving himself a tarot reading, and followed Carlos to the Chem Lab, where they watched him pull various bottles, beakers, and powders off the shelves.

“You’re sure this isn’t magic?” asked Jay skeptically.

“I’m sure. It’s science. Like what humans have to do.” Carlos mixed a few drops of liquid here, a dash of powder here…but then he frowned. “Wait a minute, I can’t find the binder.”

“The what?”

“Reza—he must have stolen it from the lab last week! He hates me. Ugh.” Carlos’s face crumpled. “I’m sorry, Mal. I don’t think I can do it, after all. Not without the thing that puts it all together and sparks the chemical reaction.”

“Reza stole a vial from the lab?” Jay asked.

“He must have,” said Carlos. “It’s not here.”

“This vial, perhaps?” Jay grinned, holding up a small stoppered test tube filled with sparkly liquid that he had shown Mal earlier.

“Where’d you get that?!”

“From Reza’s backpack. Takes one to know one,” said Jay.

Carlos poured a few droplets into his beaker and mixed it all together. A puff a smoke blew out. “Voilà,” he said. “Antidote to invisible ink.” He poured the mixture over the map.

And just like magic, the Isle of the Lost began to form before their eyes, including the hidden and forbidden zones. The Forbidden Fortress appeared, a menacing-looking castle of spiky walls and twisty towers, located on the edge of the island. Right in the middle of Nowhere.

M
al thought Jay’s having the secret vial on hand was a pretty decent stroke of luck, which made her think that maybe they were on to something here. Maybe it was her destiny to find Maleficent’s Dragon’s Eye. “Do you have the compass?” she asked Carlos.

Carlos nodded. The box beeped, as if to agree.

According to the map they would have to walk way past the village right to the edge of the shore, and from there the path would take them to the fortress.

They set off, Carlos in front with Jay, Evie just behind, and Mal holding up the rear. She watched them walk in front of her. She knew Jay would steal the Dragon’s Eye for himself at the first opportunity, that Evie was trying to get on her good side and curry favor, and that Carlos had only joined them to fulfill his curiosity.

But it didn’t matter. Somehow, they all had a common goal. To find the Dragon’s Eye. Better yet, she wasn’t going into Nowhere alone.

Mal had her gang of thieves.

Her very own minions.

And that was progress indeed.

Her evil scheme—the big nasty one—was working.

The path away from the village and toward the shore was smooth at first, but soon became rocky. Mal began to flag. Her feet hurt in her boots, but she soldiered on grimly, now leading the way and following the directions on the map. Behind her she could hear Evie’s light steps, Jay’s stomping ones, and Carlos’s tentative ones.

“Heigh ho, heigh ho, it’s off to work we go,”
Carlos sang under his breath.

Evie shuddered. “Don’t.”

“What do you have against dwar—Oh, right,” he said. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“So that was your mom, huh?” said Evie.

“Yup, the one and only Cruella De Vil,” Carlos said, bypassing some poison ivy and pointing it out to the rest of the group to avoid. “One-way ticket to crazy town, right?”

“She’s not so bad,” said Evie, who ducked below a low-hanging branch of a creepy oak tree. “At least she doesn’t do this thing that my mom does, where she pretends to be a Magic Mirror telling me I’m far from the fairest of the land.”

Carlos stopped in his tracks, and he and Jay looked at her, shocked. Even Mal turned around to stare at her.

“Really? But you’re gorgeous,” Jay said. “I mean, you’re not my type, sweetheart, but you’ve got to
know
you’re good-looking.”

“Do you really think so?” she asked.

“Nah, you’re mom’s right—you’re ugly,” Jay teased.

“That sucks that she does that,” said Carlos quietly.

“Whatever,” Evie said nonchalantly. “It’s not like I care.”

“You really mean that?” asked Carlos.

“I mean, it’s not like your mom is any different, right?” Evie pointed out. They were the children of the most evil villains in the world. What did they expect: love, joy, sympathy?

“I guess not.”

“And your dad, Jay? Doesn’t he only care about the shop?”

Jay brooded on that. “Yeah, of course. But what else is he supposed to care about?” he asked honestly.

Mal listened to their conversation, finding it oddly soothing to have other people around, for once. She’d never really liked companionship before; but then again, Maleficent had always insisted that they lived apart from the pack—superior, alone, and bent on revenge.

Lonely, Mal thought. I was lonely. And so were they.

Evie, with her beauty-obsessed mother; Carlos, with his screeching harpy of a parent; Jay, the happy-go-lucky thief with a quick wit and dashing smile, who could steal anything in the world except his father’s heart.

The gray fog surrounding the edge of the shore loomed closer. Soon they would have to walk through the mist and enter Nowhere. When they did, would they also become
nobody
? Mal wondered. She cracked her knuckles. Her knees began to ache.

They trudged on in silence for a while, when a sharp whistle cut through the air. It was from Jay, who had been scouting ahead. Evie took a step and crunched twigs loudly underfoot, while Carlos looked up fearfully.

Mal whistled back.

Jay jogged to where the three of them were huddled together.

“What is it?” Mal hissed.

“I saw something—in the shadow. Hide!” he whispered fiercely, disappearing behind a rock.

Carlos yelped and tried to climb a tree, the bark scratching his knees. Evie screamed softly and dove behind some blackberry bushes.

But Mal froze in place. She couldn’t move, for some reason. At first it was because she felt annoyed to think that any daughter of Maleficent would have to hide from
anything
. But as the shadow loomed larger and approached, she worried she had made the wrong decision.

The shadow had a pair of large horns and a spiky tail. Was it a dragon? But her mother was the only dragon in these parts, and had lost the ability to transform into one, once the magic-shielding dome had been put in place.

Then there was a moan, a terrible wailing unlike anything they had ever heard.

It was a hellhound, for sure. A creature of myth and legend, a creature of tooth and fang, blood and fur.

Then the creature emitted what could only be called an adorable purr.

“Beelzebub!” Carlos cried from the tree.

The monster emerged from the shadows, and a little black cat with a wicked grin appeared on the path. The shadow had distorted its ears to look like horns and its tail to appear as if it had spikes. But it was just a little kitty.

“You know this foul beast?” asked Mal contemptuously, to hide her embarrassment at having been scared. Her heart was still beating loudly in her chest.

“It’s just my cat,” Carlos said. “I got her when I was little.” He added sheepishly, “She’s one of Lucifer’s litter. She’s my evil sidekick.”

“Oh, cool. I got one too. You know, at my birthday party,” said Evie. “Mine is Othello, a baby parrot—well, not such a baby anymore. Othello’s got quite the mouth on him too. Not sure where he learned all those words.”

“Cool—you got one of Iago’s babies? I got two electric eels—Lagan and Derelict. You know, from Flotsam and Jetsam. They’re
huge
now. Monsters,” said Jay. “They hardly fit in their aquarium anymore.”

Carlos let the cat rub his cheek. “Go on, Bee. Go back home, stop following us. I’ll be back soon—don’t worry.”

“What’s your evil sidekick?” Evie asked, turning to Mal.

Mal colored. She remembered exactly when they had each received their sidekicks—at that fabulous party long ago, to which she had not been invited. “I don’t have one,” she said shortly.

“Oh!” said Evie, and turned away, looking embarrassed.

Don’t worry,
thought Mal.
You’ll pay soon enough.

Finally they stood face-to-face with the gray fog that circled the island and marked the edge of Nowhere. The mist was so thick, it was impossible to see what lay beyond it. It would have entailed a walk of faith to see what was on the other side. And all their lives, the four had been told to keep away from the fog, to stay back from the edge of the gray.

“Who goes first?” asked Jay.

“Not me,” said Evie.

“Nor me,” said Carlos.

“Duh,” sniffed Mal. “As if either of you would.”

“Mal?” asked Jay. “After you?”

Mal bit her lip. It was, after all, her quest. “Yeah. I’ll go, cowards.” She squared her shoulders and tensed. She stepped into the fog. It was like walking through a cold rain, and she shivered. She reminded herself that there was no magic on the island, and that nothing could hurt her; but even so, the gray darkness was impenetrable, and for a moment she felt like screaming.