Below them, the sea opened to a narrow whirlpool, just like the one that had swallowed the schooner. Ben clutched her hand, and she saw him go green, then white, then green again, like a ridiculous blinking Christmas decoration. Everett had her other hand; Holly placed Áedán back on her shoulder. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the hulking schooner. At the other end of the deck, the monster’s jaws gnashed at Avery, whose sword flashed in the dawning sun. Would he be all right? And what did she care? But he turned from the beast for a split second and grinned at her. “Go, Lady Holly!” he called, then faced the sea serpent and plunged his sword in between the damaged scales on the creature’s neck. It roared as the wound spurted yellow blood. The monster was nearly finished, but she couldn’t stay and watch. “Hold tight, everyone,” she said.
They jumped.
Chapter 52
* * *
Through the Sea
The worst part was the dark. They plunged into a hole that sucked them down into depths the sun couldn’t penetrate. Holly wanted to call out to the boys, but she didn’t dare open her mouth. She stuck out her right arm, willing the wand to find their tree portal somewhere in the murky sea.
The whirlpool closed over them.
She held Ben with her left hand; Everett grasped the belt on her right side, freeing up her hand to thrust forward with the wand. Áedán clung to her neck.
But just as they shot through the water, something grasped her left calf. It wasn’t one of the boys. It was something with claws. The wand pulled them along through the dark hole of the whirlpool and under the sea.
It couldn’t be him, no matter what Almaric had said. Holly told herself it was just Everett’s other hand, holding extra tight to her leg, but the grip burned like tongs pulled from a fireplace. She could see nothing but the few things briefly lit by the wand’s weak light in front of her as they flew by—a stand of trees here, a path there. She craned her neck backward. Behind her, all was a billowing blackness, and the glint of two narrow eyes.
A bird fluttered through the water, and a rabbit hopped to its burrow inside a fallen log, as if the world weren’t underwater at all. The claws tightened around Holly’s leg.
She kicked feebly, jolts of pain shooting through her broken ankle with every tug. Her lungs ached, burning through her stores of oxygen. Despite what she saw the woodland animals doing, she didn’t dare draw breath. Ben’s grip weakened. She tightened her fist around his shirt; she thrashed and kicked, but the clawed grip only hardened.
There, just beyond the next rise: The wand’s light brightened, and the beech tree appeared on the bank of the swollen stream, which still tumbled along the seabed just as it had on land. But the wand wasn’t slowing down. She had to shake Raethius now, or they would shoot straight through the portal with him alongside. Holly tried to turn her wand to direct it at him, but its forward pull was too strong. Beside her, Everett kicked at the cloaked form, but it floated in all directions like smoke, dissipating and then coming back together. The black pocket of silence made everything more awful, like a singer who had lost her voice and yet kept moving her mouth.
Holly was running out of air now. She had used too much strength struggling to dislodge Raethius.
She touched her shoulder.
It was ridiculous to ask Áedán to do anything, a fire creature submerged in the sea; it would be like striking a match underwater. She pulled Ben closer. Her chest burned; she couldn’t hold out much longer. They slowed. As she weakened, the warm, strong connection between the wand and her own heart wavered.
They began to sink.
The wand’s light flickered.
Her body fell gently to the seabed, which was really the forest floor. Bubbles floated up from her mouth. Finally she let the air burst from her chest, and her heart eased. The grass was warm beneath her cheek, as if the sun shone on it, and she thought she heard the tree’s leaves rustle above her head. She was in the Northern Wood. Her right hand opened, and the wand tumbled out of her fingers.
It didn’t matter anymore what happened. Raethius could not get through the portal without her, and she could stay here, beneath the beech tree, in the forest she loved. Water filled her mouth. She would not fight it. She and the boys, and Áedán, would stay here in the sun. She was tired; she had earned it. They would rest here together for a very long time.
A hand seized hers.
Not a clawed hand; a regular, ordinary, pudgy boy hand. The hand snatched up hers and wrapped it around the wand; and then, from somewhere else, another hand appeared holding something long and shiny. It glinted in the wand’s dim light. And in languorous slow motion, Holly’s wand hand and the sword pointed together behind her. The Sorcerer’s narrow, beaklike maw opened in a silent scream. His talon raked at her calf; his other hand grasped toward Holly’s face.
The wand’s beam broadened. Holly could feel a power moving through it, a magic that had nothing to do with her; her own heart had nearly stopped beating. The wand shot an orange light that grazed the grasping claw. The talons pulled back from her face, though the other claw still clung to her leg. Then the sword came down, slowly, so slowly, as a screech burbled through the underwater wood. The claw edged away, but not before the sword found it. Two of the talons fell away from the desiccated hand.
It released her.
Suddenly the wand leaped back in front of them, propelling them forward through the trees. The portal stood ready for them. Just a few more feet, just inches to go now. The wand’s renewed power burst through Holly’s chest and pumped air into her lungs. The pudgy boy hand was still wrapped around her own; together they touched the tree trunk with the wand, and three tangled bodies fell into it like water through a sieve onto the cold, damp, muddy ground of England. Holly lay in the muck, gasping at the air, aware of the sun that had finally come out of the clouds, shining full upon them. The forest, though dripping with recent rain, was starting to dry out. But the beech tree wasn’t. Even as Holly clutched at it, a geyser of water sprang up from its roots, engulfed it, and pulled it into the earth.
Beside Holly, Everett lay coughing. Áedán clung to her shoulder. And bunched up on her other side, his plump little hand clutching hers, wrapped around the wand, the sword still in his fist, was Ben.
Chapter 53
* * *
Tea and Ice
First, Everett said—and everyone agreed that he was quite right—they needed a bath, a nap, and a cup of tea.
Holly did have a hot shower and she donned fresh clothes, but the nap, she decided, could wait. She knew where to go for the cup of tea.
Indeed, it was ready for her before she even knocked on the door of Number Seven.
Mr. Gallaway smiled and beckoned her inside. He set the tea in front of her, and wrapped and iced her ankle. He set it gently on the chintz-covered ottoman in his front room while Holly nestled into the comfortable chair. The day was so damp, he had lit a fire in the grate.
“You just happened to have all this stuff ready?” Holly asked, sipping her tea.
“I find it best to be prepared for any contingency.” The old man settled back into the cushions of his settee. “Are you going to show him to me?”
She reached up to her shoulder, and Áedán crawled into her palm. He turned his golden eyes to hers questioningly, but when he saw Mr. Gallaway’s lined hands, he crawled into them willingly. Mr. Gallaway turned him this way and that, the glittery scales reflected in his deep-set blue eyes. “He is quite wonderful,” said Mr. Gallaway at last. “Would he like a warm-up in my fire, do you think?”
Áedán crawled happily into the burning hearth and turned around three times before settling down with his tail curled around his feet. He snoozed while Holly told Mr. Gallaway everything that had happened, though she had the oddest feeling that he didn’t need telling at all.
“You learnt quite a lot this time,” said her host, when she had finished.
Holly nodded. Her heart trembled as if it had slipped its mooring
in her chest, and her palm ached. “I’ve just left them in a really bad way. Again. Worse, even. The kingdom’s underwater. . . .”
“But you heard your magician friend. That was temporary magic. Even the animals in the forest weren’t affected.”
“I guess that’s true. But what about the sea monster? And Morgan and the others on the Sea Witch?”
“Well . . .” Mr. Gallaway fetched a shortbread from a tin decorated with a tartan print. “It sounds as if the prince—what was his name?”
“Avery.”
“It sounds as if Prince Avery had the monster finished off, in any case. Perhaps he’s changed his ways. Or his loyalties.”
“I doubt it,” said Holly dryly. “He was in as much danger as the rest of us. I don’t think he was trying to save anyone but himself.” She thought of the last sight she’d had of him, grinning as he plunged the sword into the sea monster’s neck. “Still. I hope he’s okay.”
“His kind usually are,” said the old man. “They find a way round most consequences. Not really fair to the rest of us, is it?”
“It’s Ben I can’t get over,” said Holly. “He used to panic in water, and he was the bravest of all of us when we went back to the portal. Somehow I was able to get some power back into the wand, but if he hadn’t helped me . . .” She shuddered.
“People will surprise you. None of us knows what we’re made of till we’re tested.” Mr. Gallaway tottered off to his kitchen and returned with a fresh ice pack for Holly’s swollen ankle.
At some point Holly would sit down with Ben and with Everett, and the three of them would talk about what had happened. She would think of a way to explain Áedán to her parents and devise a plan to get him onto the plane back home. Ben would join the fencing club, which pleased his mother, who attended every tournament. Everett would congratulate Ben for his bravery at the portal, and contemplate whether Raethius’s talons would regenerate like a halved earthworm, and he would force Holly to spend time with him and not wander off by herself into the woods every day.
The village of Hawkesbury withstood what went on record as Britain’s coldest, soggiest summer, but it gradually warmed as August waned. The stream slowed down, and the beech trees and the oaks and the silver birches rewarded a sodden, weary nation with brilliant hues and an uncommonly dry autumn. Holly and Ben returned to America as the fall drew near and thoughts of school supplies and the subtle dance of lunchroom socializing filled their heads. But part of their minds—and part of their hearts—stayed tucked away in the heart of a British wood, warm and safe until their return.
Acknowledgments
The Wand & the Sea is the first book I’ve ever written on a deadline, which creates a unique vortex of madness that can only be tamed with the support of others. And so I thank—
Marjorie Caterer-Clark, my pal at ALA Chicago and my sister everywhere else.
Sally Caterer, who tells all her friends about me, whether they want to know or not.
Ruta Rimas, who edits my work and helps make every scene count and every word better.
Tracey Adams, the kind of agent who makes you feel you won the lottery when she signs you up.
Mary E. Kelly and her tireless extended family of Wrights, Werps, Hazlewoods, and Hertzes. My own family isn’t large, but you’ve always made me feel welcome in yours.
Jennifer Ann Mann, a fine writer who always reminds me that I’m not a freak, just a debut author.
And as always, Chris and Melanie Bohling, who put up with mood swings and piles of laundry and too much takeout food. I love you.
Claire M. Caterer is a copy editor by day and a writer by night. Her first book, The Key & the Flame, was an ABA New Voices Summer pick. She lives in Kansas with her family. Visit her online at clairecaterer.com.
Margaret K. McElderry Books
Simon & Schuster, New York
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The Key & the Flame
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MARGARET K. MCELDERRY BOOKS
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2015 by Claire Caterer
Jacket illustrations and hand-lettering by Karl Kwasny/The Jacky Winter Group
Excerpt from the poem “Sea-Fever” by John Masefield (1878–1967), originally published in Salt-Water Ballads (Macmillan, 1902).
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The text for this book is set in Impressum Std.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Caterer, Claire.
The wand & the sea / Claire M. Caterer.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: A year after their first visit to a parallel universe, Holly and Ben Shepard and friend Everett return to find that much is changed, and the fate of Anglielle is at stake unless Holly can master Water Elemental magic in time to save the Adepts.
ISBN 978-1-4424-5744-7 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4424-5746-1 (eBook)
[1. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 2. Space and time—Fiction.
3. Magic—Fiction. 4. Brothers and sisters—Fiction. 5. England—Fiction.
6. Science fiction.] I. Title. II. Title: Wand and the sea.
PZ7.C2687916Wan 2015
[Fic]—dc23 2014032582
The Wand & the Sea Page 24
