by Alex Bell
Ethan shuddered and said, ‘I’d rather return to the Poison Tentacle Sea and swim with the squid again than venture onto that bridge. Don’t they say that it’s cursed?’
Beanie nodded. ‘Dad wrote in his journal that the men said they could sense an evil presence that got stronger and stronger the further they crossed. You can’t see the water because of the fog, but Dad wrote that they could hear strange splashing noises from below, like there were terrible monsters down there, trying to leap up at them.’
‘The sea is full of terrible monsters,’ Ethan agreed.
Shay wandered back to join them and flopped down by the fire next to Ethan. Two of the wolves came too, and curled up beside him with their heads in his lap.
‘There’s an awful lot of ghost stories and rumours concerning the Black Ice Bridge,’ Shay said. ‘Talk like that doesn’t come out of nowhere. It’s not a good place. Dad says there are some lands so forgotten and forsaken and forbidden that even explorers shouldn’t venture there.’
‘I’m going some day,’ Beanie said. ‘I’m going to be the first explorer to reach the other side of the Black Ice Bridge.’
Stella already knew that Beanie hoped to do this, of course, but his ambition was news to the others, and for a moment there was a stunned silence.
Finally, Ethan said, ‘I’m honestly not trying to be mean, but that’s like a mouse saying it’s going to eat a walrus. No one comes back alive from the Black Ice Bridge. No one.’
‘I will,’ Beanie said. ‘I’m going to complete my father’s unfinished expedition.’
‘It can’t be done, Beanie,’ Shay said gently. ‘And if you were to perish on the Black Ice Bridge yourself, then that’s no way to honour your father, is it?’
‘I don’t care what anyone says or who tries to stop me,’ Beanie said, perfectly calmly. ‘I am going to find out what’s on the other side of that bridge.’
Shay glanced at Stella, who shrugged. If she was completely honest, she wasn’t sure whether Beanie should, or could, try to cross the bridge either, but she wasn’t about to risk knocking his confidence by telling him that.
But before anyone could say anything else about it, a low wailing sound started up beyond the cave, making them all jump.
‘What’s that?’ Beanie asked.
The four junior explorers turned and squinted into the darkness. Stella thought it was the most mournful sound she had ever heard. Although it didn’t sound quite human, it reminded her somehow of crying children. All the hairs on her arms stood up and she felt a cold, prickly feeling at the back of her neck.
‘Cold spirits,’ Shay said.
‘How do you know that?’ Ethan demanded.
‘The wolves told me. They’ve been sensing them for a while now. It’s all right, the wolves say they can’t hurt us.’ Stella wasn’t sure whether he was speaking to them or the wolves at his side who had started to cower. ‘It just means we’re getting closer to the coldest part of the Icelands. The wolves say that’s where they come from.’
‘But what are they?’ Beanie asked, frowning.
‘Who knows?’ Shay said. ‘The wolves seem to think they’re the lost souls of all the men and women who’ve died feeling cold.’
The explorers looked back at the mouth of the cave once more. Koa had appeared there and stood staring out, completely motionless from the end of her snout to the tip of her tail. It was impossible to see anything beyond the cave except for the snow and ice. But, suddenly, what had seemed like unintelligible moaning began to sound to Stella like whispered voices.
Pity the cold ones, your highness, they said. Pity the cold ones.
‘Who are they talking to?’ Stella asked Shay.
He gave her a strange look. ‘I don’t hear any talking.’
‘Me neither,’ Beanie said.
‘Ethan?’ Stella asked. Surely if anyone else was going to hear magical voices, it was the magician. But he shook his head and said, ‘It’s just noise, Stella.’
‘The wolves say the cold spirits won’t come into the cave as long as we keep the fire burning,’ Shay told them. He glanced over at the other wolves, who’d all become agitated since the voices started up.
The moaning voices disappeared after only a few minutes, but they kept the fire going all night, just in case they came back.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The explorers spent a restless night in the cave and were glad to be on their way bright and early the next morning. Stella had taken some time to examine the map and consult the compass, and had calculated that they should be no more than two days away from the coldest part of the Icelands.
‘We’re going to do it, aren’t we?’ Shay said excitedly. ‘We’re actually going to get there.’
‘I so hope we’re the first,’ Ethan said. ‘It would be such a worthy achievement to go back with.’ He glanced at Beanie beside him and said, ‘Might even shut your uncle up for a bit, don’t you think?’
‘I doubt it,’ Beanie replied. ‘Mum says Uncle Benedict could talk the hind legs off a polar bear – which isn’t possible, of course, but I think it just means that he really likes to talk.’
‘No, I meant that it might make him think you can be an explorer.’
‘Oh.’ Beanie frowned. ‘Yes, it might. Why didn’t you say that to begin with?’
‘Come on,’ Stella cut in, because she could tell that Ethan was rapidly losing patience. ‘There’s no time to lose if we want to be the first ones there.’
They spent all of the next day sledging across the ice, making no discoveries other than a rather worrying number of yeti footprints stamped into the snow. They stopped at a couple to photograph them with the camera and take some measurements, and found that even Ethan – who was the tallest member of their group – could lie down in the middle of the yeti footprint with room to spare.
‘Do we have any kind of battle plan should we happen to stumble upon a yeti?’ Ethan enquired, still lying in the footprint whilst Beanie took the photograph. ‘I mean, we still don’t have any weapons other than that axe we got at the Snow Queen, so—’
‘I don’t think one axe will be much good against a yeti,’ Stella said. ‘Felix says the best thing is to remain completely still and hope it doesn’t see you. Yeti eyesight is supposed to be really bad, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but they have a very good sense of smell,’ Ethan pointed out as he stood up and dusted snow from his black cloak. ‘And none of us have washed since leaving the Bold Adventurer.’
Stella had to admit that he had a point. They probably were smelling a bit ripe by now. The lack of washing and toilet facilities were definitely Stella’s least favourite part of the expedition so far.
They found another cave to spend the night in, and although there were no cold spirits this time, Stella was once again troubled by that horrible dream – with the burnt feet wandering around, looking for her, and then the blood-splattered snow.
Shay woke her up when she was only part way through the dream, and she could tell from his face that something strange had happened again. When she asked, he said, ‘It was snowing all around you, right here inside the cave. Look.’ He pointed and Stella saw that flakes of snow still clung to her clothes. ‘Aren’t you cold?’ Shay asked.
Stella shook her head. She wasn’t cold at all. Finally, she decided she would tell Shay about her dream, as she felt obliged to give some kind of explanation now he’d had to wake her up from it three times – but he couldn’t make any sense out of it either.
‘One thing’s for sure,’ he said. ‘It’s no normal dream. It means something.’
He didn’t add: something bad, but Stella felt as if those words were hovering right on the tip of his tongue.
The next day they set off, only hours away from the coldest part of the Icelands, according to the map. Stella found herself wondering once again whether any of the other members of the Polar Bear or Ocean Squid expeditions had already beaten them there, or whether the four of them woul
d be the first.
‘How will we know when we get to the coldest part of the Icelands?’ Beanie asked.
‘The compass arrow should just go round in circles instead of pointing anywhere,’ Stella said. ‘If I had Felix’s sextant I could take a reading as well but that’s with him. I think we’ll just know, though, once we arrive. For one thing it’ll be really, really cold.’
It was a bright, sunny day, but as they travelled through the morning and into the afternoon, the air around them became colder and colder. Frost formed in the furry linings of their hoods, and ice glinted all around the surface of the sled. Even Shay’s wolf fang earring froze solid. It felt more and more like breathing knives, and the four explorers couldn’t help thinking with longing about the warm beds and hot chocolate waiting for them at home.
And then, all of a sudden, the sled rose up over the crest of a hill – and they came face to face with a white, sparkling, magnificent castle. Countless spires and turrets rose up high into the sky, the frozen windows reflected back the sunlight, and the frost icing the turret roofs sparkled at them like hundreds of tiny diamonds.
For a moment, they all just stared at it. Then Shay said, ‘Do you think it belongs to a snow queen?’
‘It looks like the kind of castle a snow queen would have,’ Beanie replied.
‘We should stay away from it,’ Ethan said quickly. ‘Snow queens have frozen hearts. It could be dangerous.’
‘But the compass is pointing straight towards it,’ Stella said. ‘Perhaps the castle marks the coldest part of the Icelands? We should get a bit closer. We need to put our flag in the snow outside at least.’
‘Won’t the snow queen think that’s rude?’ Beanie asked.
‘There might not even be a snow queen,’ Stella said. She glanced around at the others. ‘We’re explorers, aren’t we? We’ve come all this way. We can’t leave without at least taking a look.’
To Stella’s relief, Shay agreed with her that they ought to get closer, and so they continued on across the snow. She suddenly had the strongest feeling that she was supposed to go to that castle. Something about those thin, white spires, pointing up into the air like fingers, was strangely familiar to her, as if she had seen the place before, a very long time ago. Felix had found her in the Icelands, after all. Perhaps she had been here before.
They couldn’t see any other explorer flags in the snow around the castle as they approached.
‘We’re the first!’ Stella said as the sled pulled up to the huge front doors. ‘This is it, look!’ She showed the others her compass. She’d set it to Cold but the arrow wasn’t pointing anywhere – it was just spinning round and round. ‘We’re the first explorers to reach the coldest part of the Icelands!’
There is no greater thrill to an explorer than to be the first to do something incredible, and they were all extremely excited as they piled out of the sled and staked their flag in the snow. It had frozen solid so it didn’t flutter and flap so much as swing stiffly back and forth, but it was still a flag and it was still a first, so everyone felt pretty happy about it.
‘They’ll have to let you stay in the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club now, won’t they?’ Beanie said to Stella. ‘Now that you’re one of the first explorers to reach the coldest part of the Icelands!’
Stella hadn’t thought of it like that, but she sincerely hoped Beanie was right. She hugged her cloak tighter around her, almost bubbling over with happiness at the idea of being able to stay in the explorers’ club on a permanent basis. There were so many other places she wanted to visit. Why, she could spend her whole entire life exploring, and it still wouldn’t be enough time to see the world.
‘We should take a photo,’ Shay said. ‘So that there’s some kind of record to take back to our clubs.’
The tripod was duly unloaded from the back of the sled and they set it up on a timer. The four of them gathered in front of the sled, and were all trying to hold as still as possible, when suddenly sparkly silvery things started to drift down from the sky. At first, Stella thought it had started to snow again, but then she saw that these flakes were not made from snow at all. They were cold to the touch, but smooth and solid. And they gave out a soft, silver light of their own that twinkled all around them. Stella thought it was the prettiest, most lovely thing she had ever seen.
‘What kind of weird snow is this?’ Ethan complained. ‘It’s messing up our photo.’
‘This isn’t snow,’ Shay said. ‘It looks more like—’
‘Stars,’ Stella said. She put out her hand and one of the flakes landed in the middle of her gloved palm, where it sparkled and shone. ‘Perhaps these are starflakes? Maybe you only find them at the coldest part of the Icelands? They’re falling right here and nowhere else.’
The others glanced around and saw she was right. The starflakes only drifted down around the castle, making a faint ringing noise when they knocked into each other, rather like wind chimes.
‘That must be why the fairies gave you your second name,’ Beanie said to Stella. ‘Because you come from the same place as the starflakes.’
In another moment, the starflakes had stopped falling, and lay twinkling in a shining silver carpet. Once the photo had been taken, Beanie produced some bottles of beard oil, which they emptied in order to fill up with starflakes to take back with them. They didn’t melt or break underfoot, but chinked together like tiny diamonds.
After storing the starflakes away on the sled, the junior explorers finally turned their attention to the double doors of the castle looming above them. They were made of white marble, shot through with sparkling veins of silver and gold, and they had intricate pictures carved into them: icicles and crowns and snowflakes ran all the way around the edge and, in the centre, there stood a tall, beautiful woman in a fur-lined dress, with a glittering crown upon her head.
‘This is definitely a snow queen’s castle,’ Ethan said nervously. ‘We should leave. It’s not safe here.’
Stella walked over to the nearest window, her boots crunching on the twinkling starflakes beneath her feet. She lifted her hand and squinted through dirty glass at a deserted room. It looked like it had once been some kind of dining room, with a hugely long table taking up most of the space, and ornate candelabra placed along its length all covered in cobwebs. The tapestries hanging on the walls were frozen stiff, and there was a puddle of what looked like spilled wine on the flagstones by the fireplace, frozen solid.
‘The castle is deserted,’ Stella said, looking back at the others. ‘There’s no one here.’
Shay walked over to the doors and tried the handle, but it wouldn’t budge.
‘Locked,’ he said.
‘Perhaps there’s another way in round the back,’ Stella said.
‘I really think we should leave,’ Ethan said. ‘I have a bad feeling about this place.’
Stella reached her hand out toward the door, wanting to see for herself that it really was locked. But, before her fingers could make contact with the wood, there was a soft click, the handle moved down a fraction, and the door swung open just slightly, exposing a sliver of darkness that led into the hallway beyond.
Stella looked back at the others, almost beside herself with excitement. She therefore couldn’t help feeling a bit annoyed with Ethan when he decided to put a dampener on things by grabbing her sleeve and saying, ‘Stella, please, let’s turn back. I can sense magic in there and it’s … I don’t know … it’s dark, somehow – it feels bitter.’
‘The frosties and the carnivorous cabbage tree were pretty dark and bitter too but we still faced them,’ Stella said.
‘Yes, and I was the one who got bitten both times—’ Ethan began, gesturing pointedly at the plaster on his hand.
‘Oh, I’m sure nothing’s going to bite you in here,’ Stella interrupted impatiently. ‘Besides, that plaster is from Dora pecking you. What’s got into everyone? What kind of an explorer just walks away from an abandoned castle without at least having a look i
nside first? I’m going in. You can all stay outside if you want to.’
And with that, she reached her gloved hands forward and pushed both doors open wide. The sunlight behind them spilled into the corridor, illuminating the dusty flagstones nearest their feet and allowing them to pick out the massive chandelier suspended above them, and the vast curved staircase leading up to the next floor. Much of it was still in shadows, however, so Stella took a step inside to take a closer look at everything.
The moment her snow boot crossed the threshold, something happened. The half burned candles in the chandelier above her burst into life, as did the sconces on the walls, casting out a golden, flickering light that illuminated the entire room. Stella saw that there were tapestries frozen onto the walls here, too, and a couple of stone trolls guarded the staircase.
But, most astonishingly of all, the air around Stella began to sparkle and glitter. The hood of her cloak fell back, as if pushed by an invisible hand – and then a tiara formed on her hair right before their eyes, curling tendrils of white gold twisting around ice gems and pale crystals and cold chips of cut diamond.
Stella reached up to snatch the tiara from her head and stared at it in astonishment.
‘This … I, I remember this. I’ve seen it before, in my dreams,’ she said.
The others stared back at her, all equally gobsmacked, and then a whispery female voice spoke, seeming to come from all around them: ‘Welcome home, princess. We’ve been waiting for you for a very long time.’
CHAPTER TWENTY
‘Who said that?’ Stella asked, looking all around.
‘To your right,’ the voice said.
Stella turned and found herself staring straight into her own reflection in a huge, ornate mirror. The tiara, she noticed, was no longer in her hand but somehow back on her head again. She snatched it off hurriedly. The white gold felt cold, even through her glove. ‘I can’t see you,’ she said.
‘Look closer,’ the voice came again.
