by Alex Bell
Zachary put down his fork with a clatter. “I’ll have none of your cheek, Ethan!” he said in a sharp voice.
The light in the room flickered into shadow suddenly, and Stella frowned and glanced toward the window.
“There is no expedition being planned,” Felix said. “For the simple reason that we have been denied permission to mount one.”
“Witch Mountain is not a suitable place for exploration,” President Fogg said, scowling at Felix. “Besides which, it has already been discovered and put on the map.”
“But no one has ever explored it properly, have they?” Stella asked.
“That’s because it’s terribly dangerous, girl!” President Fogg replied. “Only witch hunters dare venture there, and they bring back the most terrible reports. Full of murderous witches and bone-eating vultures and argumentative mushrooms. No person in their right mind would want to explore such a place. When Captain Archibald Primrose Perkins first discovered the mountain, every single one of his team met with a sticky end before they could reach the summit. It was only a lone jungle fairy who returned to tell the tale, as I understand.”
“Well, the last expedition to the Icelands was pretty dangerous too,” Ethan pointed out. “What with the rampaging yetis and carnivorous cabbages and frostbiting—”
“I’m sorry, but it’s out of the question,” the president snapped.
The room briefly flickered into shadow once again, too quickly for it to be a cloud passing the window. Stella couldn’t help fearing that it was the vulture swooping overhead, hoping that she would be unwise enough to stick her head out of the window to be bitten off.
“My daughter can hardly stay a prisoner in this house for the rest of her life, sir,” Felix said, interrupting her thoughts. “Something must be done.”
“But be reasonable, man,” the president insisted. “No one comes back from Witch Mountain alive. No one except witch hunters!”
“Since its discovery, no explorers have been to Witch Mountain,” Felix pointed out. “And if they do not venture there, then they cannot come back alive, dead, or anything in between.”
The door opened just then, and Mrs. Sap arrived, tottering under the weight of a massive pudding presented on a grand silver plate. Felix hurried to help her, and together they set it down in the middle of the table. Stella was delighted to see that Mrs. Sap had constructed a woolly mammoth entirely from chocolate, complete with a fudge tail and magnificent white chocolate tusks. Her mouth watered at the sight of it.
Buster also seemed quite interested and dragged himself up the tablecloth and onto the table before Stella could stop him. He didn’t seem to quite realize that the mammoth was not a real creature, because he ran right up to it and started roaring ferociously.
“It will be frowned on, Pearl, frowned on most severely by the club if you organize an independent expedition,” the president said, raising his voice to be heard above the roaring pygmy T. rex. “Besides, I’m sure you’re overreacting. This brain-eating vulture will soon lose interest and fly off, and then everything can go back to normal.”
“It’s a bone-eating vulture,” Stella felt obliged to say, because she couldn’t bear it when people got animal facts wrong. “Perhaps you’re thinking of the zombie vulture of Dry Gulch Valley,” she added, so as not to seem rude. “They eat brains.”
The president gave her another one of those odd looks, as if he wasn’t quite sure what to say to her.
“The vulture will not simply fly away,” Felix said. “It won’t leave until it has what it came for.”
Stella shuddered because she knew that Felix meant her.
“Are we going to eat this woolly mammoth cake, or is the dinosaur going to demolish it all by itself?” Ethan complained.
Buster was, indeed, busily taking a big bite out of the mammoth’s leg, but no one else seemed particularly interested in dessert just then.
“Look here, Pearl, just because you once dabbled in a spot of wild-eagle taming in the Pebble Mountains, or wherever it was, doesn’t mean that you’re suddenly an expert on every large bird of prey in existence,” President Fogg said. “The bird will lose interest and fly home, you mark my words. Birds don’t have the brains to be determined; chances are you’ll never see it again as long as you live.”
Once again, the room suddenly went into shadow, only this time it was not there and gone in an instant. The gloom stretched on and on. Everyone else noticed it too and looked toward the window.
“Merciful heavens!” Felix gasped. “Everybody, duck!”
He spoke mere seconds before the beautiful stained-glass window shattered in an explosion of flying pieces as the bone-eating vulture burst through it in a shrieking tangle of feathers, talons, and claws.
CHAPTER FIVE
ENORMOUS DARK WINGS SPREAD in the now-open space where the window had once been. The bone-eating vulture was an appalling sight; it had cut itself when it smashed into the window, but it didn’t seem bothered by the injuries. It opened its beak and gave another ear-splitting shriek before swooping into the room.
Zachary Vincent Rook and Ethan both began hurling magic spells at the vulture, Felix leapt to his feet, Buster charged down the length of the table roaring his tiny head off, Stella lunged after Buster, and the president of the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club hid under the table.
The vulture must have had an anti-magic enchantment on it—just like the carnivorous cabbage plant Stella and her friends had faced in the last expedition—because the spells just bounced off it, seeming to have no effect at all.
The vulture headed straight for Stella, its tiny eyes fixed on her with a terrible focus. Buster now charged directly in front of her in an attempt to protect her from the huge monster. His roaring would, no doubt, have been extremely effective had he been a full-size T. rex but given that he was actually no larger than a kitten, it really wasn’t achieving anything. And the fact that he had dark chocolate smeared all around his mouth ruined his attempts to be ferocious anyway.
Stella snatched up the tiny dinosaur in her hands just seconds before the vulture lunged, snapping its beak where the T. rex had been standing. She shielded Buster with her own body as she ran, but turned around in time to witness an astonishing sight.
While Ethan and Zachary continued to mess about with spells that were clearly doing no good, Felix leapt onto the table and ran down the length of it, china plates smashing under his boots as he headed straight toward the vulture. Stella watched in astonishment as he took a flying leap and landed squarely on the giant bird’s back. The vulture screamed in protest, but Felix ignored it as he reached into his waistcoat pocket and drew out a shining silver cuff. In one quick movement, he reached down and fastened it firmly around the vulture’s bony leg with a snap.
Stella knew at once that this must be the magical cuff Ethan had mentioned earlier—the one that would allow you to control the vulture. She realized Zachary Vincent Rook must have brought it—that this was the reason for his visit. Relief washed over Stella, as she was sure that Felix was going to hop off the vulture’s back at any moment and send the giant bird away.
But then Zachary Vincent Rook spoke from across the room. “Don’t do it, Felix. I urge you.”
Stella looked at Felix in alarm and saw that he was gazing straight at her, and she knew—she knew without him even saying anything. She remembered how Ethan had said that getting rid of the vulture wouldn’t solve the problem of the witch, and then she thought of Felix arguing with the president about organizing an expedition to Witch Mountain, and she knew he was going to leave.
“Take me with you,” she said, already starting forward.
But Felix was shaking his head. “Not this time, Stella,” he said. “Be good and do as Mrs. Sap tells you. I’ll be back before you know it.”
And with that he wrapped his arms around the vulture’s scrawny neck and leaned forward to whisper something in its ear. The giant bird turned awkwardly in the room, flapped up onto the wind
owsill, spread its wings, and took off into the sky.
“No!” Stella cried, dismayed.
Still clutching Buster, she ran to the window and scrambled over the sill, pieces of broken glass tearing at her dress. The snow compacted beneath her slippers when she leapt outside; the cold air soothed her skin and filled her lungs, and it was glorious to be out of the house for the first time in weeks. But Stella couldn’t enjoy it because she was too busy searching for Felix in the sky. Suddenly, a tile fell from above and landed with a soft flump in the snow. Stella looked up and realized that the giant vulture was perched on the roof, waiting patiently as Felix retrieved a bag from one of the chimney pots. He must have hidden it there earlier. It probably had witch-hunting supplies in it. A great wave of anger surged through Stella, and she balled her hands up into fists.
“Felix!” she shouted. “Do not leave me here!”
“Don’t worry, my dear one,” he called back. “I traveled with a witch hunter in Cauldron Gorge for a time. She taught me all the tricks of the trade. I know what I’m doing.”
And with that he hopped onto the vulture’s back, and they took off into the sky, growing smaller and smaller, until Stella could no longer see them at all.
It took everyone some while to persuade the president of the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club that the vulture had gone and it was safe to come out from beneath the table. When he finally emerged, he’d gone white to the lips, and his mustache was rather all over the place—the previously pointy tips bushing out quite alarmingly.
“It’s an outrage!” he exclaimed. “I’ve never experienced such a dinner in all my life, never!”
“Felix didn’t exactly invite the vulture,” Stella pointed out.
“I will never dine here again,” the president said, and Stella was pleased because that meant Gruff wouldn’t have to be banished to the kitchens with Mrs. Sap. Indeed, if the president hadn’t objected to the polar bear’s presence in the first place, Gruff would have been in the dining room with them and probably would have seen the vulture off like last time. Stella couldn’t help blaming the president, at least a little bit, for the fact that Felix had gone.
“Sir,” she said, trying to make her voice grown-up and reasonable. “I would like to formally request that the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club mount a rescue expedition for Felix.”
“Request denied,” the president snapped, brushing crumbs and bits of dust bunnies from his clothes. “If Pearl wants to tear off to Witch Mountain, that’s his own affair. Anyone who goes after him will only perish as well. The Polar Bear Explorers’ Club will have nothing to do with this madness.”
“Well, can I have my tiara back, at least?” Stella asked.
She didn’t know quite how she was going to do it yet, but she knew that one way or another she had to get herself to Witch Mountain to help Felix, and if she was going to face a dangerous witch, then she would rather have her magical tiara with her, even if it was risky for her to use it too much.
“The tiara is on display at the club,” the president replied.
“The tiara is on loan to the club,” Stella said. “It belongs to me, and I have every right to have it returned.”
President Fogg heaved a great sigh. “Very well,” he said. “You must contact the secretary, who will provide you with the necessary forms. Once they have been completed, stamped, and verified, the tiara will be released to you.”
“And how long will that take?” Stella asked.
“About six weeks.”
“That’s too long,” Stella said coldly. “You know that. I need it now.”
“There are procedures to be followed, girl,” the president said, not meeting her eye. “The Polar Bear Explorers’ Club has rules and regulations for a reason.”
Stella shook her head impatiently. She was getting nowhere, and they were wasting time. If nobody would help her, then she would just have to work it out by herself.
The president said he wasn’t prepared to linger in a place where giant birds of prey were wont to come bursting through windows at any moment, and Stella was glad to see him go. Before he went, though, he slipped an envelope with a note attached to it onto the letter rack on Felix’s desk. As his sleigh pulled away with a jingling of harness, Stella hurried into the study and picked up the note. It read: For the attention of Mr. Felix Evelyn Pearl. Be warned and take heed, for the sake of your own safety.
Stella wrinkled her nose. Be warned and take heed? That didn’t sound very good. Perhaps it was some kind of warning about the witch? Thinking there might be some useful information in there, Stella picked up the envelope—which was fat with papers—and tipped its contents out onto the desk, only to gasp with dismay. The papers were not about witches; they were about snow queens.
There were profiles of snow queens going back more than a hundred years. Some had lived in the Icelands, while others dwelt in the snow deserts of the east or the snow canyons in the west. The profiles were pieced together from firsthand accounts, photographs snapped from afar, arrest warrants, and newspaper reports. But wherever and whenever they’d lived, there was one thing that the snow queens all seemed to have in common. They were cold, murderous, and wicked.
A letter from Wendell Winterton Smythe, the president of the Jungle Cat Explorers’ Club, accompanied them. The paper was headed with elephants and parrots and smelled faintly of expedition-strength mosquito spray. Stella’s heart seemed to turn to stone as she read it. It was an official complaint from the Jungle Cat Explorers’ Club, in which the president went on at great length about what a travesty it was to have allowed an ice princess to become a junior member of an explorers’ club, that it was an affront to all the other clubs, and dangerous to other explorers besides.
Stella wanted to deny it all, to insist that she would never do anything to hurt anyone, but then she remembered how she had almost let Ethan fall to his death during the last expedition after using the tiara had chilled her heart, and a creeping doubt settled around her.
She shuddered as she read about Queen Veronica, who’d frozen all the members of her household staff to make a statue garden; Queen Abigaila, who’d murdered her own husband with a poisoned apple; Queen Portia, who’d frozen an entire village in a vicious, unprovoked attack; and Queen Jessamine—Stella’s own mother—who had tortured countless people with the red-hot iron slippers that forced the wearer to dance for her amusement.
The papers fell from Stella’s trembling fingers. Hadn’t there been any good snow queens? Surely they couldn’t all have been villains—surely one of them, at some point, must have been nice, or at least not completely wicked? But then she thought of the enchanted castle that had been her parents’ home, with its poisoned apples, deadly spinning wheels, and ghastly iron slippers; she remembered what the magic mirror had told her about how snow queens were supposed to have frozen hearts and that it would happen to her one day too. …
Stella shook her head and thrust all the papers into a drawer. She couldn’t worry about this right now. She needed to work out how on earth she was going to go after Felix.
The door to the study opened just then and Ethan walked in, adjusting his collar with one hand and smoothing back his white-blond hair with the other.
“Father has left,” the magician announced. “He has an engagement with another explorer, and it will take him at least a week to get to his home. He says to give you his regards, as well as his regrets that he allowed Felix to talk him into selling him the magic cuff.” He sighed. “He says he never would have let him have it if he had known about the poisonous rabbits.”
“What poisonous rabbits?” Stella demanded, rather afraid that the situation was about to get even worse.
Ethan rubbed the back of his neck. “There’s been reports from some local trader that Jezzybella has been paying a pirate to bring them to the mountain for her. And apparently, if you so much as touch a poisonous rabbit, that’s it.” He snapped his fingers. “You’ve had it. I heard President Fogg tell
Father before he left, but he says he never got the chance to tell Felix.”
Stella stared at him, appalled. “But this is terrible!” she exclaimed. “Felix adores rabbits. He simply adores them. If any of these poisonous ones come hopping up to him, the first thing he’ll do is get down on his knees and try to stroke it!”
Felix would be well aware that Jezzybella herself was dangerous, of course, but no one expected a little fluffy bunny to be able to kill them, even on Witch Mountain.
“It’s a rotten business,” Ethan said. “Now, look, I convinced Father to let me stay to keep you company while Felix is away—”
Stella scowled. “I don’t need you to keep me company because I’m not staying here! I’m going after Felix.”
Ethan opened his mouth to reply, but Stella held up her hand. “It’s no use trying to talk me out of it,” she said. “That witch killed my parents. I won’t sit back and do nothing while she kills Felix, too. I just won’t. Besides, Felix doesn’t know anything about the poisonous rabbits. And I’m sick of cowering indoors.” She lifted her chin a little higher and said, “Ice princesses don’t cower indoors, and explorers definitely don’t cower indoors. I’m going to Witch Mountain to rescue Felix, and there’s nothing you, or anyone else, can say or do to stop me.”
Ethan raised an eyebrow. “Have you quite finished?” he asked with a sniff. “That was a completely unnecessary speech.” He lifted his own chin and said, “Nobody lectures a magician about cowering indoors—not even an ice princess. Of course we’re going after Felix, you ninny. But I could hardly say that to Father, could I? He wouldn’t have let me stay then; I’d have been dragged off to this other explorer’s house.”
“Oh.” Stella blinked, momentarily taken aback. Then she beamed at the magician. “Oh good. It’ll be much easier with help.”
“Of course it will,” Ethan said. “You should send word to the others, too. They came in useful last time, even if the small one is a bit of an oddball.”
