Emily Windsnap and the Land of the Midnight Sun

  She had a point. It didn’t really sound like much to go on.

  So why was I so sure we were right?

  Aaron was chewing his lip. “There’s something else,” he said. A line of blotchy red had spread up both of his cheeks. “I don’t know what you’ll think when I tell you. You might turn against me as much as Emily did when I told her. But I’ve been thinking about it the whole time we’ve been here, and there’s something about it that’s not right.”

  He glanced at me, raising his eyebrows as if to ask my permission. I nodded.

  “He told me to kiss Emily,” Aaron said in a quiet voice, looking down at the table.

  “What has that got to do with —”

  “It was when we kissed that we got our powers back,” I added, only now realizing the full extent of what had happened. Maybe it hadn’t just been about a bet.

  “I don’t know why he wanted it to happen,” Aaron went on. “But he was really insistent that I should do it. I can’t help thinking that as Neptune’s closest adviser, he must surely have known that this would give us some power over Neptune. I can’t figure out why he would have wanted that — but something about it doesn’t feel right.”

  “Millie,” I said softly. “I really don’t think we can trust him.”

  Millie was quiet for a long time. Finally, she nodded slowly, as if making a deal with herself. “I’m sorry, but I think you’re mistaken,” she said. “I know Archie. He is the most decent, loving, kind, generous soul I know. I mean, look what he did for me — he managed to get me a place on this cruise!”

  “But maybe even that is part of it,” I said. “He gave you a shell phone so you could keep in touch with him. Maybe the reason you’re here is to spy on us!”

  “Nonsense!” Millie snapped. “No, I’ve had enough of this. You’re wrong. I’m sure of it, and I won’t listen to any more of your silliness. Archie is totally trustworthy, and I’m going to call him now.”

  With that, she flung her scarf over her shoulder and flounced out of the lounge. No one spoke for a few minutes.

  Finally, Mr. Beeston tried a smile. “Well, that could have gone a lot worse,” he said feebly.

  “Could it?” I asked. “Really?”

  In reply, he turned away and stared blankly out of the window. Aaron and I stared with him. Right then, it felt about the most useful thing we could do.

  The next morning, it wasn’t only the scenery that was frosty.

  “Could you pass the salt, if you don’t mind?” Millie asked with the coolness of an ice queen.

  “Millie, please don’t be like —”

  “And the pepper, please.” She sliced into her bacon with such ferocity I wondered if she was imagining it to be one of us.

  Mr. Beeston put down his knife and fork. “I suggest we all put yesterday behind us and try to be civil,” he said.

  “Sounds good to me,” I agreed.

  “Me too,” Aaron added.

  We waited for Millie to finish chewing. Finally, she wiped her mouth with her napkin, pursed her lips — and then, eventually, threw her hands in the air. “Oh, all right, then,” she said, with exasperation. “You know I’ve never been one to cause drama.”

  Mr. Beeston smiled. “Good. That’s that sorted out.”

  We ate in silence for a few minutes. I tried to think of something to say, but, to be honest, what with everything that was swimming around in my brain, I didn’t have it in me to think up small talk.

  “Anyone have any good dreams last night?” Aaron asked brightly.

  I smiled gratefully at him.

  Millie took a sip of her tea. “Well, it’s funny you should ask,” she said. “Even by my own standards, my dreams have been rather interesting since we left on vacation. I mean, on . . . whatever this is.”

  Ignoring her dig about the trip, I tried to show interest, for the sake of keeping her happy. “Tell us,” I said, bracing myself for a lengthy, in-depth report of some crazy dream.

  She shrugged. “Nothing much to tell,” she said sniffily.

  “Please, Millie. Tell us about your dream,” Mr. Beeston said gently.

  She let out a loud, dramatic sigh. “Oh, very well, then. If you insist.” Her eyes went all glassy and dreamy. “It was a place, more than anything. Not a lot happened — but I had such a strong sense of the place.”

  “What kind of place?” Aaron asked.

  Millie looked out of the window. “Icy cold, with snowcapped mountains, and in the middle of the mountains was a lake.”

  I felt a sheet of ice go through me. A lake in the middle of mountains? Was Millie describing the place we’d been to? The lake of lost memories?

  “You could see the reflections of all the mountains in the lake,” she went on. “It was very beautiful.”

  “Sounds like a lovely dream,” Mr. Beeston said.

  “It was. And the strange thing is, I’ve seen it before,” Millie said. “It’s a recurring dream that I’ve had about three or four times recently. But there was another thing this time — one of the mountains, the tallest of them all, which towered over the others . . .” Her voice trailed away.

  “What about it?” Aaron asked.

  “It . . .” Millie’s eyes had gone all misty and glassy. “It was crying,” she said.

  Aaron burst out laughing. I think it might have been nerves, but either way, it didn’t help matters. “A crying mountain?” he said. “Oh, that’s great!”

  He kept laughing for a few more moments, till he saw Millie’s face. I knew it was nervous laughter — and it did sound a bit hysterical — but either way, Millie wasn’t amused.

  “I’m so glad you have decided to make fun of me,” she said. “That makes me feel much better about everything.”

  “Millie, he’s not making fun of you,” I said. “He thought it was supposed to be funny, didn’t you, Aaron?”

  Aaron gulped down some orange juice and nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Any more dreams?” Mr. Beeston asked brightly, trying hard to stop an all-out war.

  “Well, yes, as it happens, I had another,” Millie said. “I wonder if you’ll find this one equally funny.”

  “Go on,” Mr. Beeston said.

  “I saw a threat from the sky,” she told us. She turned to me, and for the first time since she’d flounced off yesterday, she looked at me with the love and care I was used to getting from Millie. “It was coming for you,” she said.

  I was glad I was sitting down, as my legs started shaking. The truth of it was, most of what Millie said turned out to be silly nonsense, but every now and then, she hit the nail on the head — as she had just done with her dream about the lake. I only hoped that she wasn’t right about this one.

  “Well, anyway. As I say, I’m sure it’s just silly dreams,” Millie said quickly. Then she wiped her mouth and got up. “I’m off to the buffet. Anyone else for seconds?”

  “No, thanks,” I said, getting up from the table. “I need some air.” I pushed my chair in and excused myself.

  “I’ll come with you,” Aaron said.

  We went up to the roof deck.

  “What did you make of that, then?” Aaron asked as we leaned on the railings, looking out at the sea still crashing in massive white explosions against the pier at the far end of the harbor.

  “The description of the mountains and lake was very close to the truth,” I said.

  “I know. Coincidence?”

  I shrugged. “I have no idea, but I think we really need to contact Neptune from Mr. Beeston’s shell phone — even if it means admitting what we’ve done with ours. There’s too much at stake.”

  “I agree,” Aaron said. “Let’s call him now.” He turned to go.

  “In a minute,” I said. I wanted another moment alone with Aaron before facing Neptune’s wrath.

  We watched the spray of the swells and listened to the rumble from the sea farther out. I had my hands in my coat pockets, keeping them out of the cold. My fingers closed
around my last remaining crystal. I pulled it out of my pocket and looked at it.

  “What am I going to do with this?” I asked. “Do you think I should get rid of it, make sure it can’t come to any harm?”

  “I don’t know, maybe we —”

  He didn’t get to finish his sentence. Out of nowhere, an enormous bird came swooping toward us. It looked familiar. The eagle again!

  “What the —” Aaron jumped backward, his hands over his head as the eagle brushed against his hair with the ends of its long wings.

  It was heading straight for me. A threat from the sky.

  Stumbling backward, I tripped over a chair and lost my balance. As I landed awkwardly on my side, the crystal fell from my hand and rolled away from me.

  Swooping so fast it was over in seconds, the eagle brushed down to the deck, picked up the crystal in its talons, and flew off.

  A moment later, Aaron was by my side. “Are you OK?” he asked, reaching down to help me up.

  I brushed myself down as I got to my feet. “I’m fine,” I gasped, “but the crystal is gone.”

  Aaron scanned the deck.

  “It’s not there,” I said. “The eagle took it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. I saw it pick it up in its talons and fly off. Look!” I pointed into the distance where I could still see the eagle circling around the tops of the mountains. It flew around and around, drawing great, sweeping circles in the sky.

  My stomach turned in a circle of its own as I realized where the eagle was heading. “Aaron! I’ve seen that eagle before — when we were at the lake, and then when Shona and I left the mountain. It was there both times, circling.”

  “You’re sure it’s the same one?”

  “I can’t be positive, but what if it is? What if it belongs to Njord?”

  Aaron’s face turned white. “And it’s heading straight back to him.”

  “With the crystal.”

  The eagle disappeared out of sight. It wouldn’t take long for it to get back to the mountain. And as soon as it did, surely this would all be over. Njord would thaw, and then what? Would he come after us? What did he want, anyway? We had no idea — all we knew was that the idea of him returning to power was something so terrifying that it even scared Neptune. Beyond that, I didn’t really want to think about it.

  Which was just as well, because I didn’t get the chance.

  The water all around the ship suddenly began to bubble and seethe, even within the supposed safety of the harbor. The ship rocked and swayed, heaving up and down on sea that moments earlier had been relatively calm, but was now leaping around like water coming to a boil in a pan.

  Surely this was too fast. Had the eagle already gotten back inside the mountain? Had Njord already thawed out?

  The ship suddenly lurched to the side, and I fell against Aaron.

  “What’s going on?”

  And then, from the erupting sea, came something familiar, something I hadn’t expected at all, rising out of the ocean like a bright summer sunrise coming over the horizon.

  Neptune.

  Aaron and I stared as the top of the trident and then the top of Neptune’s head emerged from the sea.

  Neptune shook water from his hair and looked directly up at us on the roof deck. Luckily, we were the only people around; everyone else was still in the dining room.

  Neptune raised his hand and pointed to us, then to himself. “Ten minutes,” he mouthed. And then he was gone.

  I looked at Aaron. “Did I just imagine that?”

  Aaron shook his head. “If you did, I imagined exactly the same thing.”

  I really didn’t relish the thought of having to face Neptune now, after we had so spectacularly failed at pretty much everything he’d asked us to do. But Neptune was generally used to getting his way about what he wanted. If he was telling us to be there in ten minutes, that was an order, not a polite request.

  On the way down, we bumped into Mr. Beeston and Millie leaving the dining room.

  “Where are you two heading in such a hurry?” Mr. Beeston asked as they approached us.

  “Neptune is here,” I said. I didn’t feel like keeping secrets anymore. “We’re going to meet him.”

  “Neptune? Here? Seriously?” Millie glanced all around and then bustled over to the window and looked out. “Is he alone? Is Archie with him? I tried to call him last night but couldn’t get through. Perhaps he was already on his way.”

  “I’ve no idea,” I told her.

  “All we know is that we have to go and meet him,” Aaron said.

  Mr. Beeston tightened his jacket and flattened down his hair. “I’m coming with you.”

  “What about me?” Millie asked. “What can I do?”

  “Cover for us,” Aaron said. “Make sure no one sees us disappearing into the sea, and think of a really good story in case anyone notices we’ve gone.”

  Millie pursed her lips. “Well, off you go,” she said briskly. “You don’t want to keep Neptune waiting.”

  I gave Millie a hug. “Thank you.”

  She patted my back. “Oh, go on with you,” she said gently. Then she managed a brief smile. “Good luck.”

  “We’d better get going,” said Mr. Beeston. “I don’t need to tell any of you that Neptune is not known for his patience.”

  The three of us hurried off the boat and around to the bay where we could sneak into the water without being seen.

  Neptune wasn’t difficult to find. All around him, the sea burned in bright colors with flecks of gold among them — his chariot glowing in the center of it all.

  “Leave this to me.” Mr. Beeston swam forward and bowed low in front of the chariot. “Your Majesty,” he began. “I know that we have so far failed to —”

  Neptune waved his trident impatiently before Mr. Beeston got any further. “Save your explanations,” he boomed. “I am not here to punish or to judge.”

  That was a relief, but if he wasn’t here to do either of those things, then what was he here for? Before I had a chance to ask him, someone emerged from behind Neptune: Archie!

  “What’s he doing here?” I spluttered.

  “He insisted on joining me,” Neptune said. “As I would expect, given that he’s my closest aide.”

  Someone else emerged from the shadows: Shona!

  “What’s she doing here?” Neptune boomed.

  “I . . . she . . .” I began. And then stopped. I couldn’t think of a single way to explain Shona’s presence.

  Shona swam straight up to Neptune and looked him in the eye. “I knew Emily was in trouble,” she said firmly. “She is my best friend, so I came.”

  “But how . . .” Neptune’s voice trailed off. Then he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Not anymore. All that matters is the truth. That is why I’m here. I can no longer hide from my own story.”

  “What about your dreams?” I asked. “I thought they warned you it was too dangerous for you to come.”

  “I have continued to dream since you left,” Neptune replied. “And my most recent dreams told me that if I didn’t come, the danger would be even greater.” He looked around at us all. “So I am here — and yet, I am no closer to my history.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I mean that it is still a black hole to me. I had thought perhaps it would come back once I was here, but whenever I try to recall my own story, I’m left with nothing but a void.”

  At this point, Archie swam forward. “Your Majesty, if I may say something . . .” he began. I glanced at Aaron, who rolled his eyes.

  “Of course you may,” Neptune replied. “You are my most trusted adviser. I will listen to anything you have to say.”

  “We are here now,” Archie began. “In the place where you believe you lost your memories. Surely, if there were ever a time for them to return, it would be now. If they haven’t returned, perhaps it is because . . .” He paused.

  “Because what?”
Neptune asked impatiently.

  “Forgive me, Your Majesty,” Archie went on. “I hesitate to say this. I do not want to contradict you. But perhaps it is because the dreams were simply dreams — not memories at all.”

  We fell silent as we waited for Neptune to respond. There was so much I wanted to say, but I didn’t know where to start. Archie was totally wrong, but he had no way of knowing that — or did he?

  It turned out I didn’t have long to think about it. A smooth swishing noise came from behind Shona. Something was approaching.

  The narwhal!

  I’m back.

  It swam straight over to the chariot and dipped its head. A second later, Archie darted in between the narwhal and Neptune. He pulled a long sword from the side of his tail.

  His voice shook as he turned to Neptune and asked, “Shall I kill it?”

  “NO!” I swam forward — leaping in front of Archie and his sword. I turned to the narwhal. “Are you OK?”

  Don’t worry about me.

  Archie stared at me. His face had drained of color. He looked scared! Was he scared of the narwhal?

  “He won’t hurt you,” I said, swimming to the narwhal’s side. “He’s our friend. He’s on our side.” I looked up at Neptune. “Please, don’t let Archie hurt him,” I added.

  Neptune had turned as white as his beard. “The . . . the . . . my . . .”

  With a lightning-swift flick of his head, the narwhal knocked Archie’s sword from his hand and swam to Neptune.

  “My narwhal,” Neptune said. Then he began to laugh. “I remember you, my friend.” Closing his hands over the top of the narwhal’s head, Neptune kissed the top of his tusk. “Bring them back!” he ordered. “Bring my memories back!”

  The narwhal tipped his head forward, lowering his tusk. Neptune bowed his head to allow the narwhal’s tusk to touch his forehead. As he did so, the energy around them began to crackle. Sparks flew all around; lights glinted on the water beside them, dancing and leaping on the crests of the waves and wrapping them both in a spiral of color and light.

  Finally, the lights swirled upward, whooshed into a point above Neptune’s head, and in a final puff! disappeared altogether.