by R. L. Stine
“I’ve waited a long time for this, Deborah.”
April jumped at the sound of a familiar, dry voice. She spun around—and saw her.
The woman in the blue cloak. She stood above them, her eyes moving from one girl to the other. Her brown-blond hair flying free. Her green eyes wild with excitement. Her red mouth twisted into a bitter smile.
April trembled, remembering…remembering her first visit on the island. This same woman bending over her, stealing her breath…stealing her life.
“I know you have come for me, daughter,” the witch said. And now her eyes were locked on April.
“I know you have come for revenge!” she cried. “Go ahead, Deborah. Do your worst!”
The witch’s voice was hoarse and dry. Her face tight with fury. “Only one of us will survive this day!” she vowed. Her eyes stared into April’s. “Only one.”
28
April let out a gasp. Why is she staring at me?
She felt a stab of pain on her forehead. She raised her hand to it, and realized the mark of the crescent moon was throbbing.
The witch’s dark eyes were locked on April. “Speak up, daughter,” the woman said, sneering. “You came all this way. Are you suddenly too frightened to face me?”
April’s breath caught in her throat. Does she expect me to say something? How did she get the idea that I’m her daughter?
Before April could reply, she heard a scraping on the rocks. The thud of heavy footsteps.
Everyone turned as Donald Marks appeared. He was breathing hard from the climb, his big belly heaving under his Academy Staff T-shirt. Beads of sweat covered his bald head.
He stormed toward the witch and faced her with an angry scowl.
“Don’t you keep your promises?” he bellowed.
The woman in the blue cloak stared back at him blankly, hands on her waist.
“You promised if I brought your daughter, you would let everyone else go home,” Marks shouted.
“I lied,” the woman replied, offering him a thin-lipped grin. “There will be no survivors.”
“But—but—” Marks spluttered. He balled his hands into fists but held them down at his sides.
He turned to the three girls. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “It wasn’t supposed to work out this way. I really—”
“I—I don’t understand,” April interrupted. “What is happening here?”
Marks shook his head sadly. “A few years ago, I was sailing with my family in these waters. My yacht ran aground on this island.”
He pointed with a trembling hand at the witch. “She captured my family. She planned to keep them here forever. She said she would let them go only if I brought more kids to the island. Kids she could take the breath of life from.”
The breath of life?
April pictured the witch bending over her, sucking away her breath. And she remembered her doing the same to Marlin.
The kids in the cave said they had to help her. They were all giving her the breath of life.
“I made up the whole Academy thing,” Marks confessed. “It was a trick to bring kids to the island—for her. But then she sensed that her daughter was one of you.”
He turned his gaze on April.
April shrank back, unable to hide her terror.
“We all—well, most of us—went home last spring,” Marks continued. “But she made me promise to return her daughter to the island. She promised me everyone else would be safe.”
The woman in the blue cloak let out a cold laugh. “You believe the promise of a witch?”
Marks’s face was red with fury. “You made me keep my promise to you. Marlin and Dolores and the others in your cave are dying for it. But your promises are worth nothing!” He rushed at her, one fist raised.
The witch sidestepped and dodged him easily.
Marks stumbled past her, then turned to face her again. He pointed at the three girls. “You don’t even know which one of them is your daughter, do you? And you don’t care who you destroy in order to find out!”
Katherine’s smile faded. Her eyes narrowed angrily. “You have outlived your usefulness,” she said softly.
The witch waved her hand in a circle. She muttered some words April couldn’t hear. Then she waved her hand again and pointed at Marks.
A weak cry escaped Marks’s throat.
His eyes bulged.
He shrank so quickly, April could barely see it.
In a second, he was on the ground. Ruffling his wing feathers. A fat, white seagull.
“Noooo!” April and the others screamed in horror.
The seagull tilted its head. It gazed up at them, as if confused.
The woman in the blue cloak waved her hand again. “Good-bye, Donald,” she said softly.
The seagull took a running start over the rocks—and sailed into the air.
April watched the bird fly away. When she turned back, the witch was staring once again at her. “Now, Deborah, I will deal with you!”
29
The woman in the blue cloak took a step toward April. “Daughter,” she said, her voice almost gentle.
April sucked in a deep breath. She tried to gather her courage.
“You’re crazy,” she told the witch. “I’m not your daughter!”
Kristen and Pam were staring hard at April now.
“But you do have powers!” Pam cried. “You really are a witch!”
“No—” April protested.
“That’s why all those strange things happened to you back home,” Pam said. She backed away from April, her eyes wide with fright. “It’s why you were able to heal my ankle—”
“No. That’s not true. Not true!” April insisted.
The witch stepped between the girls. She turned her green eyes to April.
Up close, April could see a million tiny lines on the woman’s pale face. The skin stretched so tight, her cheekbones appeared to poke out through it.
The eyes were cold. Ancient eyes. Evil eyes.
She placed a bony hand on April’s trembling shoulder. “Deborah, I know who you are,” she said.
Her hand squeezed harder. “And I know why you have come, daughter. Why do you deny it?”
Her hand tightened on April’s shoulder, sending a jolt of pain down her side.
“Please—” April begged. “You’re wrong. You’re—”
“Good-bye, Deborah,” the witch whispered. “You have returned to me only to vanish for good. Good-bye.”
She let go of April’s shoulder and stepped back. Then she waved her hand in a circle and began to mumble strange-sounding words.
April felt the crescent moon on her temple throbbing. Was it possible that the witch was right?
“No—wait!” Kristen cried. “You are mistaken, Mother. I can’t let you do this. April isn’t your daughter—I am!”
“No!” Pam said, stepping in front of Kristen. “Don’t listen to these lies, Mother. I’m your daughter!”
30
“I’m your daughter!” Kristen insisted.
“I am Deborah!” Pam cried.
The witch stopped her spell. A thin smile crossed her face.
“That is very kind of you girls to try to protect your friend. But I have been watching all of you from the moment you set foot on the island.” She pointed to April. “And I know that my daughter has returned inside her body.”
The smile lingered as she stepped closer to April. April could smell her breath. It was that awful rotting smell.
“Tell me, Deborah. Shall I turn you into a seagull so that you can find Donald Marks? Or would you prefer to be a land animal? A sweet little fruit bat, perhaps?”
Katherine waved her hand in a circle again.
But before she finished the circle, Kristen grabbed her arm. “You’re so powerful. You think you know everything. But you don’t even recognize this, do you, Mother?”
Kristen swept back her hair, and April gasped. Kristen had a crescent moon on her temple. And hers w
as glowing like a bright blue jewel!
Kristen shouted a string of strange words—and the arm she was holding began to change. It shrank quickly, tightening, growing slender and dark.
April stared in horror as the witch’s arm turned into a long black snake. Still stretching from Katherine’s shoulder—still attached—the snake snapped its jaws.
Katherine gave a cry of alarm, and Kristen jumped back, a grin on her face.
“Now do you believe me, Mother?”
“You!” The witch never finished her accusation. She was too busy trying to avoid the snake that grew from her body. The snake whose fangs snapped at her.
April turned to Kristen in shock. “You made me do all those things? It was you all the time?”
Kristen nodded. “Yes, I made everyone suspect you, April. Even her!”
“But—why?” April choked out.
“I had to. To throw her off the track,” Kristen answered. “My only chance to defeat my mother was to take her by surprise.”
Kristen stared at the witch with pure hatred. “I almost had her the first time we came here. But then we had to go home. I was desperate to get back. I’ve waited over three hundred years for this moment!”
“Three hundred years?” Pam echoed.
“You can’t do this to me!” Katherine screamed as the snake snapped at her throat.
Kristen gave her a grim smile. “Can’t I?” She turned back to Pam. “I studied her spell books. And I found a way to return from the dead.”
April stared at the glowing crescent. Her mind was reeling. She didn’t doubt that Kristen was telling the truth. Still, she had really believed Kristen was a kid her own age. Not a witch who was using her to get revenge.
“B-back home,” April stammered. “You made all those things happen to me. The things you did, they terrified me. And I never suspected anything. I trusted you. I thought you were my friend!”
“I needed you to come back with me,” Kristen said. “I needed you to fool her. I wanted to take her by surprise. But…but…I couldn’t let her harm you. I came to think of you as a friend too. I couldn’t let her…” Her voice trailed off.
“You always were a weak thing,” Katherine sneered at Kristen. Her snake arm lashed the air, hissing.
Kristen spun around to face her mother. “I won’t be weak now, Mother,” she said, her voice trembling with bitterness.
“In 1680 I was hanged—because of you. It took me so long to find a new body to come back in…so long. But my hatred brought me back. Back from the dead!”
Kristen shoved April out of the way. And with a cry of fury from deep inside her, she rushed at her mother.
31
“AAAAAAAGGGGGH!”
A scream burst from the witch’s open mouth. She fell back as Kristen tackled her to the rocky ground.
The snake arm wrapped itself around Kristen’s neck. “I should have killed you on the ship!” Katherine shrieked.
Kristen let out a grunt of pain as the snake began to tighten around her throat.
April watched in horror as Kristen’s face reddened. Her eyes bulged as she grabbed at the coiled serpent and tried to pull it off.
April started to step forward to help Kristen, but Pam pulled her back.
“No,” Pam said. “This is between them.”
Kristen gave a strangled cry, managing to choke out a few more of the strange words.
And the snake that was twining around her throat became a piece of frayed rope. It broke into pieces and fell harmlessly to the ground.
The witch now had only one arm. “I will destroy you!” she screamed in rage.
Kristen scrambled to her feet. “Such a loving mother,” she said. Then she uttered another spell.
The witch’s hand flew to her head with a cry of pain.
April watched in amazement. The witch’s eyes were growing closer together. Like tiny green beads. Her nose buckled. Her mouth became little and pinched. Her wrinkles grew deeper. Her whole head was shrinking!
Seconds later her head was gone. In its place another snake curled up from the shoulders of the blue cloak.
The snake opened its jaws in a long, loud hiss.
And then it was Kristen’s turn to cry out as her body began to change. Her arms and legs grew long and thin and hairy. Her torso became fat and stubby.
Kristen’s clothes fell away, revealing a fat black spider’s body. She stood on eight spidery legs now.
April gasped, staring at her friend. Kristen’s screaming head on a giant, hairy spider body.
With another cry, Katherine leaped onto the spider. The snake opened its jaws and sank its fangs into the spider.
Kristen spat a thick, black liquid onto Katherine.
Katherine screamed in pain. But she clung to the spider’s back.
The heavy blue cloak fell over them both.
Hands pressed to the sides of her face, April watched mother and daughter wrestle over the rocks.
She still couldn’t believe it had been Kristen all along. Kristen had fooled everyone. She betrayed April for her own revenge. And yet April didn’t want to see her lose this fight. Kristen was trying to stop someone who was truly evil.
And now the two of them began rolling, over and over. Screaming. Spitting. The snake darting and snapping. Katherine clinging to the fat spider body.
Howling, clawing at each other, they rolled down the steep slope of rocks.
Thunder rumbled and a bright streak of lightning cracked across the sky. A sudden wind rose, and the waves began to swell and toss.
Lightning turned everything stark white. The air suddenly went cold. April wrapped her arms around herself, shivering.
Still, mother and daughter fought. The cloak was tangled between them as they rolled down…down…
And splashed into the ocean below.
Thunder crashed, and the waves rose. Became even wilder. Became covered with white foam.
April and Pam hugged each other as they gazed down at the waters.
Who will win the battle? April wondered.
Who will come floating back up to the surface?
The waves slammed against the rocky shore.
A curtain of steam rose up from the blue-green waters. The steam hissed as it floated over the island, over April and Pam at the top of the hill.
And then the hissing faded to silence.
April didn’t move. She gazed down at the water. The waves were gentle now.
No Katherine. No Kristen.
They did not return.
“They’re both gone,” she murmured.
Happy cries behind them made both girls spin around.
Marlin and the other four kids came running out of the cave. They were laughing and shouting joyfully. And they looked healthy and alive again.
“Hey!” Marlin called. “Hey! What’s happening? Where have you been?” He gave Pam a puzzled look. “Who are you?” he asked.
“Who won the competition?” Dolores chimed in.
They don’t remember anything, April realized. They don’t remember that they’ve been the witch’s prisoners all this time.
And then April saw Donald Marks climbing the rocks. He was grinning, taking the rocks two at a time.
“The witch must be dead!” Marks shouted happily. “You kids are back, and I’m me again! Her spell is broken!”
He stepped up to April and the others. His smile suddenly faded. He frowned. Reached into his mouth. Pulled out a seagull feather.
Tossing it to the ground, he turned to them. “I am so sorry for all that has happened,” Marks said. “I hope you can forgive me for what I did.”
The kids stared back at him in silence.
No one knows what to say, April thought. We’re all too stunned.
“I apologize if you were frightened,” Marks continued. “But what a finish to our TV show! What an amazing finish!” He turned to the cave. “That’s a wrap, guys! We are outta here!”
April heard applause.
>
Startled, she turned and saw a camera crew stepping out of the cave.
“Good job, everyone,” Marks called. He ran over to slap the camera guys on the back. He shook hands with them. “I think we’ve got a winner!” he declared.
He hurried back to the kids. “The boats are waiting. Let’s get a move on.”
April followed as everyone started down the rock hill.
“People will be talking about this show,” Marks said, a beaming smile on his sweating face. “You kids were wonderful. I think you’re all going to be big celebs!”
April hurried to catch up to him. “Are you telling us this was all just a TV show?” she asked. “Everything that happened?”
Marks nodded, still beaming. “I had the best special-effects team money can buy. I hope you all weren’t too frightened. I had to let you be a little frightened—or else the show wouldn’t be real enough.”
That’s impossible! April thought. It couldn’t have all been faked for the cameras.
They reached the bottom of the hill. Now they were walking across the sand, making their way to the cabins.
The late afternoon sun had begun to lower itself into the water. The ocean sparkled like gold.
No way, April told herself. Marks is lying. Those weren’t special effects. Kristen and her mother—and their magic—were all real.
Marks was laughing about something with two guys from the camera crew. April broke between them to ask another question.
“If none of that was real, then where are Kristen and Katherine?” she asked Marks.
His tiny eyes caught the light of the sun. His smile grew wider. “You mean the actresses who played Kristen and Katherine?”
Actresses? April thought. Could that be possible?
“They were fighting,” she said to Marks. “We watched them fall into the water and not come out again. Where are they?”
Marks pulled a seagull feather from under the collar of his T-shirt. “A launch picked them up. We’ve arranged a private plane to take them home.”
The dock came into view. Two large white boats bobbed in the water, waiting to take them off the island.
Marks jogged away from April. “Pack up quickly, everyone,” he called. “We have to leave before sundown.”
