by Maggie Marks
CHAPTER 3
Swim! Mason urged again, pushing his brother out of the cave ahead of him.
With each stroke, he imagined those bony fingers grabbing his shirt, yanking him back toward the dark depths of the cave. Who was this witchlike woman? And what did she want with them?
He swam faster, not wanting to find out.
Past the stone arch, past the single wall of the ruined building, toward the castle-like structure with the sea lantern. There, at the top of the stairs, stood Luna, holding a trident in each hand.
She wasn’t staring at Mason. She was staring behind him. With a jolt, Mason realized that the old woman must be right on his heels. He panicked, kicking faster and pulling Asher forward.
Luna waved the brothers toward the steps. Then she pointed down toward the bottom of the staircase. Mason half-swam, half-crawled down the steps, making sure his brother was close behind. When he reached the bottom, he flung open the wood trapdoor and squeezed into the flush entrance. As soon as Asher was inside, they pulled the door shut.
In the darkness, Mason waited for Luna to join them. Where was she?
When the water had soaked into the sponge at Mason’s feet, he shivered in his damp clothes. He pressed his ear toward the outer door, listening for Luna. But when he saw Asher’s teeth chattering, he pushed through the next door, hoping the ruined castle held a furnace so that they could dry off.
The stone corridor that stretched out before them was lit with torches. Mason blinked, wondering how they stayed lit during flooding. Maybe this place doesn’t flood, he thought, reaching out to stroke the sturdy stone walls.
He and Asher followed the tunnel down and to the right, where it opened up into a larger room. An anvil sat in the corner. Mystery solved, he thought, glancing at Asher. This is where Luna does her enchantments!
But where was Luna?
When she finally burst through the door behind them, she didn’t look scared. But she didn’t look happy either.
“What were you doing back there?” she hollered.
Mason raised his hands, feeling guilty but not knowing why. “Did she follow us?” was all he could say.
Luna’s brow furrowed. “No, but she should have! Why were you trespassing in old Ms. Beacon’s cave?”
Ms. Beacon?
Asher didn’t look the slightest bit guilty. “She had a treasure chest,” he announced.
“No she didn’t,” said Mason. “I didn’t see one.”
Asher stuck out his chin. “It was half buried in gravel, but I saw it—on the floor, behind her cauldron.” He sounded kind of proud of his detective work.
Mason shrugged. It was possible that she had a chest, he guessed. He’d been so freaked out by the old woman—er, Ms. Beacon—that he hadn’t had a chance to look around the cave.
“She was brewing potions, too,” said Asher. “Is she a witch?”
Luna laughed out loud. “No, of course not. I brew potions, and I’m not a witch, am I?”
He shook his head.
“But Ms. Beacon brews much more powerful potions than I do,” Luna admitted. “My parents told me once that she knows how to brew lingering potions, made with dragon’s breath. And she even knows how to cure a zombie villager.”
“A what?” asked Mason.
Luna’s face darkened. “A zombie villager—a villager who is killed by a zombie or a drowned, but then . . . turns into a zombie himself.”
Mason’s chest tightened. He’d heard enough. “So you know Ms. Beacon?” he asked.
Luna nodded. “Yes. I mean, no—not really. But she’s lived here as long as I have, probably even longer. She doesn’t speak. She keeps to herself. And she doesn’t like visitors.”
“Sorry,” said Mason. “How were we supposed to know?”
Luna’s face softened. “You weren’t. But now you do. So don’t go back,” she warned, looking mostly at Asher.
“But she has a chest!” Asher protested. “Do you think it has the heart of the sea in it?”
Luna shook her head so hard, her wet hair slapped against her cheek—and stuck there. “She doesn’t. That was probably a loot chest, like mine, not a buried treasure chest. Stay out of it, okay?”
She stared at Asher hard.
Asher shrugged. “Okay. Don’t worry about it. I’m no thief.” He shot Mason an irritated glance. “Not like my brother, who goes around stealing prismarine blocks and stuff.”
Mason was so deep in thought, he almost missed the jab. Why would Ms. Beacon live alone in such a dark cave? he wondered. Why didn’t she want visitors? Didn’t she ever get lonely?
Clink, clink, clink! The sound of the anvil jolted him out of his thoughts. Luna was already enchanting one of the tridents.
“Is that mine?” he asked, seeing the purple glow radiating off his weapon.
She nodded. “Now it has the riptide enchantment. If you throw it underwater, it’ll propel you forward, too. Cool, right?”
He reached for the weapon, but Asher beat him to it.
“Very cool,” said Asher, holding the heavy trident out in front of him.
Then Luna pulled another enchanted book from her backpack and slid it into the anvil, beside her own trident.
“Which enchantment is that?” asked Asher, pointing toward the book.
Luna smiled. “Loyalty,” she said. “I’ll never lose my trident again. It’ll come right back to me after I throw it.”
That could come in handy, thought Mason, wondering if Luna’s enchantment was even better than his own.
“Let’s try them out!” cried Asher, already rushing toward the door.
“Wait!” called Luna. “I have one more enchantment to do.” She pulled Asher’s small pickaxe from her pack and slid it into the anvil, along with another enchanted book. “Silk touch,” she said. “So you can mine sea lanterns without destroying glass houses.” She grinned.
Asher scowled, but as soon as she handed him the glowing tool, he gave Mason back the trident and admired his new axe.
“So we’re ready?” Mason asked Luna.
She took a deep breath. “Yep. As ready as we’re going to be.”
By the time they’d made the swim back to their underwater base, Asher had mined a sea lantern with his enchanted pickaxe. He’d lugged it home and stacked it onto his conduit power source. Then he held up his pointer finger in the air, as if to say, “Only one more block to go.”
Mason gave him a thumbs-up and then waved him toward their house. They had only half an hour to pack up before Luna would join them for their buried treasure adventure.
Inside, Mason tucked dried kelp and fish into his backpack. But Asher hadn’t followed him back in yet. He strained his ears, hoping to hear Asher coming through the front door.
When he finally did, Mason met him in the living room, which was now covered with puddles. The prismarine block threw a shadow across the wet floor. But when Mason glanced up, he saw that the block wasn’t prismarine anymore. It was sandstone.
“Asher!”
“Huh?” His brother glanced up with a look of innocence.
“Why did you do that?” Mason pointed toward the sandstone.
Asher shrugged. “I needed the prismarine.”
Mason wanted to argue, but there was no time. A knock on the door told them that Luna had just arrived in the entryway.
“That block had better hold up,” said Mason. “If our house floods again, you’re going to help me clean it up.”
Asher nodded. “It’ll hold up,” he said. “Don’t worry about it.”
Easy for you to say, thought Mason as he flung open the door to let a wet Luna inside.
“Ready?” she asked. “Let’s plan a path.” She unfolded her buried treasure map.
“So here’s us.” She pointed to the white dot at the bottom of the map. “And here’s the treasure.” She pointed to the red X at the top. The rest of the map was blank, except for a few outlines of land masses and structures.
Mason reco
gnized an ocean monument in the middle of the map. He winced, seeing how far they’d have to swim. “Do we have enough potions to last?” he asked.
She nodded. “We have a couple of turtle shell helmets and some enchanted armor, too. I think we’ll be fine.”
I think? Mason didn’t feel reassured by her words.
“So we’ll swim around the ocean monument, not through it.” She glanced at Asher, giving him her “don’t mess around today” look.
He stared at the ceiling, whistling, as if to say, “Who, me?”
“As long as we avoid the monument, we won’t run into any guardians,” Mason reminded Asher. He shivered, thinking about the ugly fish mobs that guarded the monument’s treasures.
“Right,” said Luna. “The only mobs we’ll have to worry about are the drowned. And if we swim high enough, toward the surface of the water and the sunlight, we won’t have to worry about them either.”
Mason tried to remember the last time he’d been at the water’s surface—or on land. It seemed like ages ago that he and Asher had left their wrecked ship on the beach and taken the rowboat out into the water.
Our rowboat. That’s it! thought Mason.
“So I just thought of another way to avoid the drowned,” he announced.
Luna glanced up from her map. “I’m all ears,” she said.
“We’ll take the rowboat!” said Mason. “The one we anchored just above the village. It’ll be a faster way to cross the ocean toward the treasure.”
Asher nodded enthusiastically. “Let’s do it!”
Luna hesitated. “I’m a faster swimmer than I am a rower,” she said.
“Maybe you are,” said Mason. “But as for Asher and me? I’m not so sure. And what if we find lots of loot we want to bring back?”
She nodded thoughtfully. “Alright. But don’t get your hopes up. The rowboat might not even be there anymore. A lot can happen in the Overworld . . . when you’re not looking.”
She smiled, but Mason could feel the warning in her words. What would they find at the water’s surface, after weeks of being down here?
A trickle of excitement ran down his spine. Time to find out.
CHAPTER 4
Glub, glub, glub . . .
Mason rose skyward in the bubble column, straight toward the morning sun. As he shot out of the water’s surface, he could feel the warmth on his back. The bright sky blinded him. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, smelling land.
Then he remembered.
Mason turned toward the island, toward the shipwreck that he and Asher had once called home. He could see its splintered mast, rising high above the sand. But the rest of the ship looked broken and tired, even from a distance.
Something broke the water’s surface nearby. As Mason spun around, he saw Asher pop out of the bubble column. Then he saw something else—a small rowboat bobbing a few feet away.
Our rowboat, thought Mason. It’s still here!
Asher swam toward the side of the boat and grabbed hold, catching his breath before pulling himself over the edge. Mason climbed in, too, trying not to rock the boat. He had just settled himself on a seat when Luna popped out of the water.
Her eyes widened. “The boat’s still here,” she said, wiping the water from her eyes. But she didn’t sound nearly as excited about that as Mason had been.
He chuckled to himself. Luna was part fish—more comfortable in the water than above it. But when he offered her a hand to help her into the boat, she took it.
“Can I hold the map?” asked Asher. “I’ll be the navigator.”
Luna hesitated. “Alright,” she finally said, “as long as you promise not to lose it.” She slid the folded map out of her pack.
“Awesome!” Asher grabbed the map and waved it like a victory flag.
“Stop!” cried Mason, reaching for his brother’s arm. “It’s windy up here. You’ll lose the map before we even pull up anchor.”
Asher settled down, but Mason couldn’t help thinking that giving Asher the map had been a bad idea. “Which way?” he finally asked his brother.
Asher studied the map. “I don’t know yet,” he said. “Start paddling, and I’ll tell you if we’re going the right way.”
Luna shaded her eyes as she glanced toward the sun. “The sun rises in the east,” she said. “So . . .”—she spun a quarter turn to her left—“that’s north. Go that way.”
Huh, thought Mason. Asher might have been holding the map, but Luna was definitely navigating.
As they rowed the boat north, something sprang up from the water beside them. A dolphin! It bobbed its snout and squeaked at Mason before diving back down.
When it surfaced again, a second dolphin had joined in.
“There are three!” said Luna. “A whole pod—look!”
Sure enough, a family of dolphins had surrounded the rowboat. They dipped and dove playfully through the water, as if to say, “Yes! That’s the way!”
By the time the dolphins had moved on, the map in Asher’s lap had begun to fill in. “I think we’re right over the ocean monument now!” he said. As he leaned to look over the edge, the boat rocked.
Luna gripped the edges of the boat. “Careful,” she warned, “or we’ll end up in the ocean monument.” But she peered down into the water too. “I’ve never seen the monument from up above before.”
Mason took a break from rowing to gaze down at the monument. He’d been in the monument once, exploring its maze of rooms and tunnels. But from up above, it looked so . . . well, perfect. Like a perfect square, with a rectangular entrance cut out of one side. And it looked huge. Minutes later, they were still passing over the top.
“What’s next?” Mason asked his brother. “Anything interesting coming up ahead?”
Asher smoothed out the map. “Maybe an underwater village. I can’t tell.”
Sure enough, they were soon passing over the crumbly remains of another village. “Do you think anyone lives there?” Mason wondered aloud. The thought of other people living underwater, not far away, gave him a rush of excitement. Then he remembered Ms. Beacon—and that excitement turned to dread. She’d been so unwelcoming. So if no one lives in this village, he thought, that’s fine by me.
He rowed in silence for a while, until Asher began shifting in his seat. “We’re getting close now,” he said. “The red X is straight ahead!”
Mason studied the horizon, as if the buried treasure would suddenly rise out of the sand and present itself.
“Do you think the treasure will be on land, or buried underwater?” asked Asher.
Luna shrugged. “Probably on land,” she said. “Most buried treasure is on land, I think. But you never know.”
“Wait, what’s that? Is that a fire?” Asher pointed at the low bank of clouds drifting across the water. A dark plume rose up from the horizon to greet them.
“It’s smoke, alright,” said Luna. “And where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”
And where there’s fire, there are probably undead mobs, burning in the morning light, Mason realized. And more ready to spawn . . .
He swallowed hard. “Maybe we should go back.”
“No!” cried Asher. “What about the treasure? What about the heart of the sea?”
The brothers turned toward Luna, who had the deciding vote. She chewed her lip. “Someone could be in trouble,” she said. “Let’s go a little farther and see.”
So Mason kept paddling. But with each stroke, the pit of dread in his stomach grew bigger.
He glanced down at the trident resting on the floor of the boat. He had the unsettling feeling that he was going to need that weapon soon. Very soon.
By the time they’d rowed ashore the small island, Mason could see that the plume of smoke was coming from several small fires. The island was dotted with them. But Asher was already leaping out of the boat, clutching the map in his hand.
“Careful!” Mason warned him. “There could still be mobs roaming around.”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Asher. “There could also be a buried treasure right under our nose.” He reached into the boat for his enchanted pickaxe.
“Let’s stick together,” said Luna. She hopped out of the boat, too, and then reached back in for her trident.
As Mason took his first steps ashore, his legs felt wobbly, as if he were still in the boat. And his body felt so heavy. At the ocean’s floor, he’d been fighting to keep his legs on the ground while the water pulled him upward. Here, on land, the earth was pulling him down.
Asher seemed to feel it, too. Normally, he’d be scampering around the island like a wolf pup. But now, each step seemed labored—until he checked the map. “We’re really close!” he declared. “C’mon!”
When Asher took off like a shot, Mason struggled to follow. He darted around a burn pile and then stepped into something wet. And squishy. The smell wafted up to greet him.
Rotten flesh.
“Yuck,” he said, dragging his foot in the sand to wipe it clean.
“Watch your step!” called Luna with a grin. But a second later, she was standing in her own pile of steaming flesh. “Ew!” she cried. “It’s everywhere!”
Mason studied the sand between him and Luna. Sure enough, the beach was littered with zombie drops: rotten flesh, carrots, and potatoes. “What’s going on here?” he asked, afraid to take another step.
Luna’s face fell. “Zombie siege,” she said. “I’ve seen this before, and . . . it’s not good.”
“But they’re gone now,” said Mason, “right?” He swung his head side to side, just to be sure.
Luna nodded, but the cloud on her face hovered, as if a storm were brewing.
Luna knows something I don’t know, Mason realized. He was about to press her for information when he heard a yelp from up ahead.
“Asher!” Mason cried. He took off at a sprint, dodging burn piles and zombie drops. He raised the trident at his side, ready for battle. Let me get there in time, he pleaded, willing his heavy legs to move faster.
He caught sight of Asher just over a sand dune. He was kneeling beside something, but what? A dead mob? A critter? A zombie drop?
