by Alex Bell
He stepped into his shop and was about to close the door when Stella said, “And how do we get to Jezzybella’s house after that?”
The man glanced at her, his eyes like saucers in the dim light. “From there you just follow the blood,” he said.
“Blood?” Stella repeated, startled.
“Saw Jezzybella’s vulture going up there yesterday with some chap in tow,” he said. “You’ll see the blood trail all right. Can’t miss it.”
And with that he firmly closed the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY
STELLA PRACTICALLY FLED FROM the village, and the others had to hurry to keep up with her. She could feel her hands shaking as she raced around the corners of the little cobbled streets.
A trail of blood …
That must mean Felix was hurt. Perhaps the magic cuff on the vulture had worn off. Or perhaps he had been attacked by something else on his way up Witch Mountain. And now he had an entire day’s head start on them and was going to face Jezzybella alone—in fact, he might already have done so, and perhaps they were too late. …
They found a side exit in the form of an arched gate, and as soon as they stepped out, they saw the blood on the snowy path leading away from them. There was no time to lose, and the explorers followed the path quickly and in silence. They were too tense to talk—no one wanted to speculate about what they might find when they reached the witch. The path led steeply up to the very top of the mountain, where the air felt cold and thin and sharp, burning their ears and making their chests ache with the effort of breathing.
Finally, the path cut straight through a mountain tunnel. The explorers went through it with the icy wind whistling past their ears, sounding strangely like voices. Stella was reminded of the cold, frozen spirits she’d heard on their last expedition to the Icelands—the tormented souls of all the people who’d died feeling cold. As an ice princess, she didn’t normally feel the cold too badly—and seemed to be feeling it less and less all the time—but she shivered now and drew her cloak closer about her.
When they reached the other end of the tunnel, it looked like a dead end at first—just a solid wall of rock rising above them.
“Perhaps we took a wrong turn somewhere,” Shay said.
“But this has got to be it,” Stella replied. “The … The blood trail continues through here.”
There was, indeed, a trail of smeared blood along the stone floor.
“Perhaps Felix realized it was a dead end and turned around and walked back the way he’d come,” Shay suggested.
“But there was only one trail going into the tunnel,” Stella said. “There must be another way out of here somewhere.”
She lifted the pixie lantern higher, and the explorers examined every inch of the wall. Finally, Beanie spotted the narrow gap in the rock.
Cadi shook her head. “No way Gus is going to fit through that. He’ll have to wait here for us.”
“So will Nigel,” Ethan said.
Gus didn’t like not being able to follow Cadi, and there was a great deal of fuss and bellowing as they left. They distinctly heard the thump of his pith helmet hitting the rock multiple times as he tried to follow them, with zero success.
“Gus, you can’t come through here. You’re not going to fit,” Cadi said. “You’re ginormous, and this gap is tiny. Look.” She reached an arm through to pat him on his whiskery face. “We’ll be back to get you before you know it. Promise.”
After squeezing through the gap, the expedition found themselves in a larger tunnel, and they followed this to the open air on the other side. They stepped out not knowing quite what they would find, but fully expecting it to be bad.
In fact, it was worse than they’d thought.
They were surrounded on all sides by spiderwebs. Only these were no ordinary webs. For one thing, they were absolutely huge—far bigger than the explorers themselves—and for another, they were made of ice. The frozen webs glittered dangerously at them, blocking their view of whatever lay ahead.
“Gosh,” Stella finally said. “I wonder what could have made these.”
“Ice spiders,” Beanie said in a low voice at her side. She glanced at him and saw that he looked a little sick. “They’re extremely dangerous.”
Stella recalled what the goblin man had said about Jezzybella’s taste in pets.
“Of course they are.” Ethan sighed.
“No wonder that man back at the village said no one ever comes here,” Stella said.
She couldn’t help thinking the webs were rather beautiful, though. They were fantastically delicate and intricate, reminding her of the way each individual snowflake was completely unique and special in its own way. But she shuddered at the thought of a spider large enough to build webs this big—they towered over the explorers, chilling the air and blocking out the sunlight, which filtered through, pale blue and ghostly. The space around them was freezing cold and utterly still and silent, like all the air had been sucked out of it, as if something was crouching close by, holding its breath, and watching them …
“We can climb through the web,” Stella said. “The gaps between the strands are big enough to squeeze through. I don’t think we should touch it, though—”
Unfortunately, the jungle fairies were perhaps a little too intrepid for their own good and had already started forward. Before Stella could finish speaking, Humphrey had brushed up against one of the icy strands. It was so cold that it gave him a frost burn on his hand, and he snatched his arm back with an aggrieved cry. Unlike a normal web, this one wasn’t sticky and didn’t ensnare the jungle fairy. Instead, it rang out at his touch with a chiming sound that echoed from one strand to the other, until the air seemed full of peals, like hundreds of frozen bells all ringing at the same time.
The explorers stared around in dismay as the jungle fairies fled to the safety of Stella’s cloak pockets, poking their heads over the tops and peering around wildly. They all realized instantly that the chiming was an alarm system designed to alert something to their presence, and moments later there was a frantic scrabbling sound as something rapidly clinked and chinked its way toward them, sending off more chimes—echoes upon echoes of them—that were almost deafening.
The next second the creature had arrived, and a shadow fell across the expedition as a huge ice spider, easily the size of a house, loomed over them, its spindly ice legs ending in points as sharp as daggers, its pincers pinching together in frenzied excitement, and its eight burning red eyes staring down at them with an awful look of greed.
There is only one suitable response when faced with such a monster, and that is to scream and shout and run for your lives. The explorers raced through the icy strands of the web, trying not to notice that their boots were crunching on a deep carpet of bones as they went. Every time one of them knocked against part of the web, the chimes and peals set off all over again, ringing out so loudly it hurt their ears. A couple of times one of them bumped into the web so hard that a strand of it shattered, and this made even more of a din, like a trumpet going off beside their heads.
It was impossible to outrun the spider. It was there at every turn, using the web to climb up above them and drop down onto the path before them, cutting off any route of escape. The explorers fled deeper into the web and hunkered down together in one of the clearings as the spider scuttled to and fro above them, trying to work out where they had gone.
“What are we going to do?” Cadi gasped. “Didn’t you bring any weapons with you?”
“Didn’t you?” Ethan replied.
“Nothing big enough to work on an ice spider,” the hunter replied.
“Ice spiders are blind,” Beanie said. “If we tiptoe through without touching the web and don’t make any noise, then it might not find us.”
“That could work,” Shay said. “If we just take it slow and don’t panic, then we can avoid touching the web.”
Stella made sure the jungle fairies and Buster were all securely tucked in her pockets b
efore they continued on, carefully ducking and weaving and stepping over each icy strand. For a while it seemed to be working. The spider ran back and forth above them but had lost their trail and, finally, it came to a halt in the middle of the web, its legs trembling with anticipation as it waited for someone to make a sound and give away their position.
Shay nudged Stella and pointed ahead. Through the last strands they could make out a house. It had to be the witch’s. Stella nodded at Shay. They were almost there. …
And then Beanie stepped on a bone that broke with a loud snap beneath his boot. Everyone immediately froze, but it was too late. The spider had heard them and came racing over, the web ringing and pealing around it as it skittered right up to them, stopping just a few feet from Beanie.
Stella held her hands up to her friend, wordlessly warning him to stay still and silent. The medic stayed absolutely motionless, although Stella could see that the pom-pom on the top of his hat was trembling slightly. The spider clinked ever closer, its pincers clicking briskly together in irritation. Finally it was so close to Beanie that he could see each individual frost hair on its chin and the cloudy milk spots in every one of its red eyes.
They all held their breath, and Stella prayed that no one would choose this moment to suddenly sneeze. Even the jungle fairies seemed to understand that this was no time to start doing the chant of doom.
Finally, the ice spider pulled back from Beanie, turned around, and began to move away from them, back to its lookout perch. They all let out a sigh of relief, but the next second Cadi gave a yell. The others turned to stare at her in appalled horror, only to see a razor-sharp fin had burst through the bag on her back. This was closely followed by another fin, and another, and another.
The witch hunter tore it off and threw it to the floor. The bag ripped apart as the frogs started turning back into glow-piranhas, all gnashing teeth and flailing fins. They seemed particularly furious—perhaps as a result of being turned into frogs and then stuffed into a bag filled with even more frogs—and the explorers had to jump back quickly in order to avoid their biting, snapping, teeth-filled jaws.
Unfortunately, all this commotion created a huge amount of noise, which immediately brought the spider racing straight back over to them. It was just about to sink its pincers straight into Shay’s back when Ethan plucked one of the piranhas from the ground by its tail and hurled it at the spider. The furious fish immediately clamped its jaws on the spider’s leg, causing great hairline cracks to spread all the way down the limb.
The others quickly followed suit, grabbing the piranhas by their tails and throwing them at the ice spider. Cadi started throwing frogs at it too, which mostly just bounced off and hopped away, although a couple of them clung to the spider, eyes bulging, as the great monster thrashed around, trying to dislodge the piranhas that had clamped their teeth into it.
“Stop throwing the frogs!” Stella gasped. “One of them is an explorer!”
“That one wasn’t,” Cadi pointed out. The frog that had been clinging to the spider’s back was now a bemused-looking vampire troll, blinking and squinting in the sunlight.
“It’s not working anyway!” Shay cried. “The piranhas are just making it even more angry.”
“There are some sharks in there somewhere too,” Ethan cried. He threw a magic spell at the nearest frog, and there was a soft pop as it abruptly turned into a boy—a boy with glossy chestnut hair, wearing a nightcap and a green dressing gown stamped with the Jungle Cat Explorers’ Club crest.
“Gideon!” Stella exclaimed, beyond relieved that one of the frogs really was the explorer and that they hadn’t left him back in the flying-shark cave or in the murky swamps of the Forest of Enchanted Broomsticks.
“Oh, blast,” Ethan said. “This one’s no use to anybody.”
Gideon Galahad Smythe’s hair stuck out wildly in all directions, and his dressing gown was crumpled and creased, but other than that he looked no worse for wear. He did, however, give an awful groan as soon as he turned back into a human, blinking around at them with an outraged expression.
“I can’t believe you turned me into a frog! I just can’t believe it! I can’t—”
Before he could go on, Ethan threw magic at another frog, and there was an explosion of ice as it abruptly transformed not into a piranha, or an explorer, or a vampire troll, but a flying shark, which seemed to be every bit as angry about the frog fiasco as the piranhas had been. It bared its impressive teeth, thrashed its muscly body as it readjusted to its new form, blinked its cold, killer’s eyes, and then looked around, determined to attack the first thing it saw—which happened to be the spider.
The shark flew at it with a vengeance, closely followed by another shark that Ethan transformed back into its natural shape. They were both equally desperate to bite and attack and reassert their mighty sharkness after the terrible indignity of being a frog. They tore great chunks out of the spider, which thrashed back into its web, legs flailing and pincers snapping, as it fought against the attacking sharks.
Shards of ice showered down around them, and it was hard to tell what was web and what was spider, but the explorers didn’t stay to find out. They turned and fled as fast as they could, leaving the monsters to their ferocious battle and running, full pelt, toward the witch’s house.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THEY EMERGED FROM THE web—which sounded like it was being smashed to pieces by the monster battle taking place inside it—and entered a snow-covered clearing, in the middle of which sat a house. They knew at once that it was a witch’s house, although it was nothing like the gloomy castle Stella had anticipated. Instead, what lay before them was a magnificent ice-cream house.
It had a mint roof, liberally scattered with chocolate chips; a fudge chimney stack that scented the entire clearing; chocolate-flake windowsills; swirled-vanilla walls; and window boxes full of strawberry ice-cream roses and banana ice-cream sunflowers. An ice-cream-cone path led all the way to the front door, surrounded on all sides by different-colored ice-cream flowers—along with some rather odd-looking ice-cream cabbages—and there was also a scarecrow wearing a bowler hat, made entirely from pink sugar.
It was, in fact, one of the prettiest houses Stella had ever seen, and it was almost hard to believe that an evil witch lived there. She even wondered whether perhaps they had the wrong house after all. But then she noticed the blood trail leading around to the back of the house, proving they were in the right place.
“Good Lord, that’s a witch’s house, isn’t it?” Gideon cried. “A witch’s house, probably filled to bursting with all kinds of terrible—”
He didn’t get any further, however, because Ethan threw out his hand and turned him, once again, into a wonky squish-squish frog.
“Ethan!” Stella groaned. “You really can’t keep turning him into a frog!”
“I can’t stand his whining,” the magician replied, scooping up the frog and stuffing him back in his pocket.
“You didn’t say you’d managed to capture a Prince Charming,” Cadi said, clearly getting the wrong end of the stick due to Gideon’s good looks. “There’ll be a princess somewhere looking high and low for him, you know.”
“He’s not a Prince Charming,” Stella said with a sigh. “He’s an explorer.”
“You said you couldn’t remember the spell to turn him back,” Shay said, giving Ethan an accusing look.
“Well, I couldn’t at the time.”
“Amazing how being faced with a giant killing ice spider focuses the mind,” the wolf whisperer remarked, rolling his eyes.
“Quite.”
The front door opened just then, with such force that it smacked against the ice-cream wall with a thud. The monster battle in the ice web behind them was continuing to set off all kinds of chimes and rings, so it had not exactly been the stealthiest approach, but they were all still quite dismayed to see a witch emerge from the house. Stella knew at once that this was the one they were looking for, because
she had several puppets clutched in her hands—all made in the same style as the witch puppet Stella had taken from her room back at the snow queen’s palace. The witch also wore an enormous pair of bright yellow rain boots, and Stella realized this must be to protect her feet, which she knew to be horribly burned.
She was ancient—far older than Stella had expected her to be—all knobby knees and elbows, wrinkled skin, and frizzy gray hair that flew out behind her as she ran, rather awkwardly in her huge rain boots, down the path toward them. Stella was even more horrified to see that she was almost incoherent with fury—crying and muttering unintelligible words under her breath. It was impossible to know whether she was angry about the destruction of her ice spider and web, or just furious at the mere sight of Stella.
Automatically, everyone reached for whatever weapons they had to hand. Shay grabbed his boomerang, Cadi pulled a potion bottle from her bag, and Stella reached up to check that the ice tiara was still on her head.
The witch was only a few feet away from them when she tripped over her big rain boots and toppled over, face-first, into the snow. Stella saw her chance and lifted her hand, intending to freeze the witch solid before she could murder them all.
But then a familiar voice rang out from the doorstep. “Stella, don’t!”
She looked up to see Felix emerge from the house and hurry down the path toward them. After all that blood on the snow, she had feared that he might be awfully wounded, and relief rushed through her at the sight of him now, apparently completely unharmed. He stopped just in front of the sprawled witch, both hands raised in front of him.
“It’s all right, Felix,” Stella said. She assumed he was panicking in case she froze her heart with the ice magic. “I can do this.”
“The witch isn’t dangerous, Stella,” Felix said. “It’s not what we thought. Trust me.”
Stella was extremely confused by this, but she trusted Felix unquestioningly, so she lowered her hands and watched in surprise as he turned back to the witch, crouching down in the snow before her and gently helping her upright.
