Explorers on Witch Mountain

by Alex Bell

  Stella felt a growing sense of excitement. ‘I think I’ve already done a bit of frost magic,’ she said, and then proceeded to tell him about the snow unicorn back home, the yeti guard on the dirigible, and the snow trolls in the magic fort.

  Felix grinned at her, sharing her excitement. ‘How smashing,’ he said. He gestured at the charm bracelet in her hand. ‘This is magical too, apparently. You touch the different charms for different spells.’

  Stella glanced at the silver bracelet. There was a yeti charm there, and a unicorn, a sleigh, a fairy, an ice goblin, and more.

  ‘You have a lot to learn,’ Felix said. ‘The study of magic is quite involved, from what I hear. I’ve asked Jezzybella if she’d like to come and stay with us for a while. She will be able to help you master your frost magic.’

  Stella could think of nothing she’d like more, but a dark fear niggled away at her. ‘Do you think I should?’ she asked.

  ‘Don’t you want to learn magic?’ Felix asked, looking surprised.

  ‘I would love to,’ Stella replied. ‘But people won’t like it, will they? Those people who wrote those horrible letters, and the president of the Jungle Cat Explorers’ Club. President Fogg put all these papers on your desk at home before he left – a whole load of reports about evil snow queens. If I start learning how to do magic it’s probably going to upset people even more, isn’t it?’

  Felix gave an easy shrug. ‘My darling thing, if we spent too much time worrying about what narrow-minded people think then we’d really never get anywhere at all.’ He crouched down in front of her and took her hand. ‘You mustn’t ever let anyone stop you from feeling like you can be yourself, you know. So if you would like Jezzybella to come home with us and help teach you your ice magic then that’s certainly what we shall do.’

  ‘But the President of the Jungle Cat Explorers’ Club—’

  ‘The President of the Jungle Cat Explorers’ Club can go and jump in the Tikki Zikki River for all I care,’ Felix said cheerfully. ‘This has got nothing whatsoever to do with him, so he can keep his over-large nose out of it.’

  Stella grinned at Felix. ‘I love you so much, Felix,’ she said.

  Felix wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug. ‘I love you too, sweetling,’ he said. ‘More than anything.’

  They were interrupted then by Jezzybella wandering over to them with a huge basket full of icecream cabbages.

  ‘Cabbage?’ she said, thrusting one out to them. ‘You must each take a cabbage with you. Cabbages for everyone!’

  ‘They’re not biting cabbages, are they?’ Ethan demanded, as the others joined them. ‘Because I was attacked by one of those on the last expedition and I don’t care to repeat the experience.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ The witch stared down anxiously at the bundle of cabbages in her arms. ‘They’ve never bitten me, at least.’

  ‘Of course they’re not biting cabbages, Ethan – they’re made of ice cream,’ Stella said. She took the cabbage the witch held out to her and said, ‘Thank you very much. That’s very kind.’

  Jezzybella squeezed Stella’s arm tightly, emptied the rest of the cabbages onto the ground, and then proceeded to climb into the basket. She whistled through her teeth and, instantly, a broomstick flew out of the house, hooked under the basket handle, and lifted it right up off the ground.

  ‘Jezzybella is ready to go,’ the witch announced, beaming at Stella

  Felix scratched the back of his neck. ‘Ah, yes,’ he said. ‘Well, the problem now is how are we going to get home? Oswald can’t carry all of us.’ He glanced at Stella. ‘Can we use the dirigible?’

  Stella shook her head. ‘We traded it back at Weenus’s Trading Post,’ she said. ‘But Cadi is a hunter and her father has a ship that she says we can travel on.’ She quickly introduced Felix to her new friend.

  ‘We should press on,’ Shay said. ‘It’s a long trip down the mountain.’

  ‘Not long,’ Jezzybella said cheerfully. ‘There’s a witch hole in the tunnel that’ll take us to the bottom. I’ll show you.’

  They made their way back through the shattered ruins of the ice web, hurrying quickly past the flying sharks, which were feasting on what remained of the ice spider. Remembering what the shopkeeper had said about it being Jezzybella’s pet, Stella was suddenly terribly worried that the witch would be heartbroken. In fact, she didn’t seem to notice, and just called out a cheery goodbye to the spider.

  ‘So long, Marvin,’ she said. ‘I’ve found my Stella, and I’m leaving for good.’

  When they squeezed back through the gap in the rock, Gus gave a great bellow and practically flattened Cadi in welcome. Nigel tried to pretend that he didn’t care whether they’d come back or not, but Stella noticed that he nibbled affectionately at Ethan’s hair when he thought no one was looking.

  It didn’t take long for Jezzybella to locate the entrance to the witch hole. This time, they made Nigel go first, since no one fancied having their heads bashed in by a flailing camel hoof. They gave him a little bit of a head start, and then the others followed, one by one. Stella jumped in last, and immediately discovered that this witch hole was even steeper than the last one. Her skirts and petticoats puffed up around her as she slid downwards and she couldn’t help laughing, for it really was marvellous fun. Besides which, she was so relieved that they had found Felix, unharmed, that the expedition had been a success, and that the witch wasn’t actually evil at all. Everything had gone far better than she could have hoped and, in no time at all, she’d be safely back home with Gruff, learning how to practise frost magic …

  But the thought was too soon. She flew out of the end of the witch hole, her boots landing with a crunch in the snow. Then she looked up and fear turned her blood to ice.

  They were surrounded, on all sides, by witch wolves.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The explorers found themselves on a snowy shoreline, right by the water’s edge. There was even a little pier made of frozen wooden planks, stretching out into the sea. Stella saw that Cadi had already released the flare to call her father’s ship. The glittering red light still fizzed above them like a dying firework, calling the witch-hunting vessel that, even now, was turning in the water and sailing slowly towards them.

  But, between the explorers and the pier was an entire pack of witch wolves, and they were monstrous. Far bigger than any ordinary wolf, they were at least as large as Koa herself, and their coats were entirely white, from snout to tail. There must have been a dozen of them, and they all had ghostly silver eyes, frozen solid and coated in frost, giving them a look of blindness. Their frosted eyes reflected the light back strangely, making it hard to meet their gaze. When Stella tried a throbbing started in her temples, and she had to look away, confused.

  Shay was on his knees, both hands clutching his head, with the others grouped around him. Koa stood in front – a lone dark shadow wolf facing the white witch wolves – her hackles raised, her lips pulled back in a ferocious snarl. But the witch wolves were not in the least bit afraid of her, and padded closer and closer, their strange, silver eyes shining with cold, murderous intent.

  Ethan threw a spell at the nearest one but it bounced off harmlessly, and Stella remembered what Drusilla had said about how it was impossible to change a witch wolf’s form. The wolf briefly bared its teeth at the magician, but Ethan wasn’t the one they were interested in. It only had eyes for Koa and, the next second, the witch wolf took a flying leap towards her.

  Stella whipped the tiara from her pocket and put it on just in time to throw out her hand and freeze the witch wolf mid-jump. It was much, much harder than she was expecting – and she felt the wolf’s magical resistance shudder all the way up her arm at the same time that the ice magic chilled her from the inside, pushing away thoughts of warmth and love and friendship. Stella snatched off her tiara and the frozen witch wolf fell to the ground with a thump, one of its paws snapping off on impact.

  The other witch wolves a
ll attacked at once then, and the expedition fell into position around Shay and Koa to try to ward them off. An awful sound of howling carried through the air, which suddenly seemed full of teeth and silver eyes and iced fur and frost-tipped fangs. Cadi produced more spell bottles from her bag, which she threw to the ground in front of the wolves, but they just created a thick fog that slowed them down only for a few moments. Felix had a crossbow tucked away in his cloak, with which he managed to take down one of the wolves, but this used up every single one of his arrows. Beanie, as usual, was not much use in a crisis, and only tugged at his pom-pom hat, muttering unhelpful facts. And Shay had his boomerang gripped in his hand but didn’t seem able to use it. In fact, he didn’t appear to be able to do anything other than hunch in the snow and gasp for breath as the wolves closed in.

  Stella saw immediately that their only hope lay with the ice magic of her tiara. All that mattered in that moment was saving Shay, and Koa, and Felix, and the rest of the expedition. Even if she froze her own heart solid in the process and became the evil snow queen everyone said she was destined to become, it would be worth it if she could save her friends.

  She summoned every ounce of her energy, strength and determination, replaced the tiara, and threw both hands up in front of her. The ice magic fizzed and crackled around her fingertips for a moment before she drew in a deep breath and then blasted it away from her, directly into the path of the approaching witch wolves. Immediately, she felt as if her whole body had been plunged into icy water, and her hands fell to her sides.

  The ice magic coated them one by one, and they fell heavily into the snow, some of them losing tails or legs as their frozen limbs snapped on impact. The spell raced all the way along the pack but wasn’t quite strong enough to reach the very last wolf, which remained snarling and unfrozen as it advanced towards Koa.

  Stella lifted her hand to freeze the wolf, but then hesitated. The final burst of ice magic had chilled her heart and, in that moment, she didn’t care what happened to Koa, or to Shay, or to anyone.

  Shay saw the expression on her face and gave her a desperate look. ‘Stella, please!’

  Stella was about to walk away, but some inner part of her was screaming and, with a gigantic effort, she fought off the effect of the tiara and threw one last burst of ice magic at the final wolf.

  But that moment of hesitation meant she was just a fraction too late. The witch wolf dodged her spell as it fell on Koa, and they became one ball of tooth and claw, black and white fur merging together, terrible howls filling the air around them. Shay groaned, doubling up on the snow.

  Stella strode forwards and grabbed the witch wolf with both hands. It froze instantly at her touch and its rigid body fell down harmlessly, but the damage had been done. Koa limped, bleeding, back to Shay’s side. Where her fur had once been completely coal-black, now there was a streak of white down one side of her back. A matching streak had appeared in Shay’s own dark hair.

  Jezzybella came to stand at Stella’s side. They both watched as the others crowded around Shay and Koa in concern, trying to work out whether they were okay and what the white streaks meant.

  ‘I can tell you what it means,’ the witch piped up. ‘That shadow wolf will turn into a witch wolf.’

  ‘Koa? Into a witch wolf? When?’ Beanie cried.

  ‘Hard to say,’ the witch replied. ‘Could be one month, could be a year.’

  ‘And what about Shay?’ Ethan asked. ‘What’ll happen to him?’

  The witch shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But one thing’s for sure – it’ll be nothing good.’

  Stella knew she should feel upset about this but, in fact, she felt nothing at all. The witch hunter’s ship was almost at the pier, but Stella didn’t care about that either.

  ‘How do you feel?’ Ethan asked, leaning down towards Shay, who was shaking from head to foot.

  ‘Cold,’ the wolf whisperer replied as Koa lay down at his side.

  ‘If she’s going to turn into a witch wolf then that’s almost the same as dying, isn’t it?’ Beanie said. ‘Isn’t there anything we can do?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Jezzybella said. ‘A witch wolf’s bite can’t be undone.’

  Felix appeared beside Stella suddenly and plucked the tiara from her hair.

  ‘You did well, Stella,’ he said quietly. ‘The witch wolf might have killed Koa if it hadn’t been for you.’

  ‘I’m not sure I care,’ Stella said. She gazed at her friends and felt nothing. ‘In fact, I don’t care about any of you.’

  ‘Not right now,’ Felix said with a sigh as the witch hunter’s ship docked at the pier. ‘But you will.’

  *

  When Stella’s heart thawed on board the ship an hour or so later, the remorse she felt was so bad that she almost couldn’t breathe with it. She knew that she’d had the power to stop the wolves, but – for those few seconds – had chosen not to use it.

  She buried herself away in a cabin and refused to come out. She was too ashamed to face anyone – even Felix. When he told her through the door that Shay wanted to see her, she shuddered at the thought. How he must hate her! She remembered what she had said to everyone, back at the witch gate:

  ‘If I can ever repay you, then I will.’

  Well, this was a pretty poor way of repaying the friend who had risked everything for her.

  When night fell, Stella couldn’t stand being cooped up in the cabin any more, and sleep was quite impossible, so she snatched up her tiara and went up onto the deck. She found a quiet spot right at the back and stood there alone at the railings. Even though they’d been sailing for hours, she could still see the orange glow of Witch Mountain far away on the horizon.

  Stella had come up without her cloak and wore only her pale blue dress and fur-topped boots. Snowflakes swirled around her, patches of ice floated on the surface of the sea and her breath smoked in the freezing air, but she wasn’t cold. She was becoming more and more of an ice princess every single day, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

  She clutched the tiara tightly and stared down at the icy water churning into frothy white foam below. Perhaps she should drop the tiara straight into the sea. She might almost be able to pretend that she wasn’t an ice princess at all then; that there wasn’t this evil lurking inside of her …

  ‘You came up for air, at last, I see,’ a voice remarked behind her.

  Stella turned to see Felix standing there, his hands buried in the pockets of his explorer’s cloak, a striped scarf wound around his neck in the blue and white colours of the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club.

  ‘Please don’t try to comfort me,’ Stella said. ‘I hate myself. I hate everything about myself, and there’s nothing you can say that will make me feel better.’

  ‘Well, it certainly sounds like you’ve made up your mind,’ Felix said. He joined her at the railings and gazed towards the glow of Witch Mountain. ‘So, what next?’ he asked. ‘Now that you’ve decided to hate yourself?’

  Stella shrugged. ‘Just … try to keep away from people as much as I can, I suppose. So that I don’t hurt anyone else.’

  Felix was silent for a moment. ‘You surprise me,’ he said at last. ‘I never would have thought to hear you say something so cowardly.’

  ‘Cowardly!’ Stella exclaimed. ‘How is it cowardly to try to protect the people I love? There’s something wrong with me. What else can I do? I wish I could just be good and kind like you, but I’m not.’

  ‘Stella, my darling, you are good and kind,’ Felix said. ‘We all have dark sides to ourselves that we must learn to fight against.’

  ‘You don’t,’ Stella said. ‘You don’t have any badness in you at all.’

  ‘Dear me, you can’t really believe that, can you?’ Felix asked.

  ‘I bet you’ve never, in your whole life, done something so awful you can never forgive yourself for it.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ Felix replied sadly. ‘You know, I broke somebody’s heart once, and th
at’s about the worst thing one person can do to another. And I don’t even have any ice magic to excuse my behaviour. I am wholly responsible for the pain that I caused.’

  Stella turned to look at her father. He was gazing out to sea as snowflakes settled in his brown hair. ‘I don’t believe it,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I don’t believe that you would ever break someone’s heart.’

  ‘But I’m afraid I did, my dear,’ Felix replied. ‘Falling in love is the greatest adventure there is, but it takes an enormous amount of courage as well, and I was too much of a coward in the end. It’s my greatest regret.’

  ‘What was his name?’ Stella asked, and then immediately wondered whether she should have pried.

  Felix didn’t seem to mind, though, and simply said, ‘His name was Oscar.’

  She saw a flash of pain cross his face before he turned back to her and said, ‘Everyone makes mistakes, my darling. No one is perfect, I can assure you – least of all me.’

  Stella looked down at the tiara, sparkling in the starlight in her hands, and said, ‘On that first expedition to the Icelands, when I almost let Ethan fall down that ravine, Beanie said that it wasn’t me talking, it was the ice magic. But the ice magic is me isn’t it? I can’t choose not to be an ice princess.’

  ‘No,’ Felix acknowledged. ‘You’re an ice princess, and it’s part of who you are, but it’s only a part. It doesn’t have to define you, nor does it have to be the biggest, most important thing about you. That’s for you to decide.’

  ‘Everyone thinks I’m going to turn into an evil snow queen, and maybe they’re right,’ Stella said. ‘The ice magic makes me feel like I’m not really me. That I don’t even know who I am. Like I’m losing myself. It makes me so afraid that I’m just going to … to disappear.’