I shivered despite the hot water, floundering with one arm, the other supporting Eddie’s journal and Gum Baby. “I can’t swim and hold you,” I said.
“Hand over the stories and put Gum Baby on your back. Now!”
“On my back? I’m not—”
“Put Gum Baby on your back, Bumbletongue! Stop chitchattin’ and move it!”
I swallowed several choice angry words and slipped Gum Baby onto my shoulders. I didn’t trust her with Eddie’s journal, but the ship was barreling toward us and I needed both hands free.
“You lose that book,” I said, “or run away with it again, and I’ll turn you into an incense holder.”
Gum Baby patted the top of my head. “Shh, fishy. Just swim toward the cloud of steam when Gum Baby says go. These things don’t turn around easy, so even your dusty tail should be able to escape.”
I hated that doll. I hated it with a burning passion.
“Ready…”
The ship moaned at us. It was a white and sharp predator trailing fountains of fire behind it.
“Steady…”
I licked my lips. “Gum Baby, it’s nearly—”
She smacked the back of my head. “Hush, fool! We’ve got one shot at this. Bone ships look scary, but you can avoid them easy enough if you know how.”
Oh great, they were even called bone ships. That didn’t make things better.
Just when it seemed like we were moments away from being crushed, just when the front of the bone ship—no way!—groaned open, the fingertips lowering to SCOOP US UP…Gum Baby shouted in my ear, “Go, go, go!”
My body responded to the command before I could protest. Dad used to shout the same thing at me from the side of the pool when I did my laps. I gave a mighty kick, my legs scissoring through the water, and I darted forward. I didn’t look behind me, but I knew the ship was close. The surge it was creating nearly pulled me under. I fought it, my arms flashing in and out of the water like Dad had taught me, and then the ship passed us by. We were safe.
“Go there!” Gum Baby screamed, pointing.
A thick gray-white cloud of steam hovered ahead. It drifted over a calm spot just beyond the waves, and, thankfully, no fires were burning nearby. I dug deep for a bit more energy and kicked forward. Another moan echoed over the water, taking my mind off how heavy my arms felt. Exhausted and free beats resting in the bowels of a skeleton ship, you get me?
Gum Baby patted my head as we approached.
“Good fishy. Scoot on in there and wait until—”
A bellowing moan—even louder, deeper, and scarier than the first—sounded right in front of us. I could feel it through the water, in my chest, and I threw my arms out and floated to a stop.
Gum Baby squeaked, and something rolled down my back.
“Please tell me that was sap,” I whispered, treading water.
“Um…okay.”
I couldn’t even get angry. I was too tired. Too drained. Too afraid that…
Another bone ship lunged out of the thick cloud of steam in front of us. Cloudy wisps clung to it like spiderwebs. Even though it was about the same size as the first, its horrific shape made it seem larger.
It was the jawbone of some enormous reptile. Long and thin and pale, it cut through the sea like a powerboat. Strands of something I didn’t want to look at too closely trailed from between its enormous teeth. Burning seawater streamed down its sides, and it let loose a soul-crushing bellow as it began to pick up speed.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw yet another streak of white in the water. A third ship surfaced from beneath, like a submarine from a horror show. This bone ship looked like a rib cage, curved bones curling up as it erupted out of the sea.
The first ship, Bone Hands, circled around behind us.
We were trapped.
“Gum Baby, where do I go? What do I do?”
Silence.
I could feel Gum Baby lying between my shoulder blades, shivering.
“Gum Baby, get up! What do I do? Where am I going?”
The three ships closed in. Rib Cage rattled as it drew near. Jawbone continued to blast us with that deep groaning bellow. I turned to see the Hands open again, the hungry maw between the fingertips dark and foul. A chorus of moans tortured my ears while a gust of hot, rotten air clawed up my nostrils.
“Gum Baby, what do—?”
A high-pitched whistle split the night.
Gum Baby leaped to her feet and scrambled to the top of my head. “Gum Baby don’t believe it!” she said, her voice excited.
“What?”
“We’re saved!”
“Saved? How?”
But she didn’t answer. Instead, she jumped up and down on my head and started shouting at the top of her tiny little lungs. I didn’t know doll babies had lungs.
“HERE!” Her shrill voice—and her tiny feet beating on my skull—made me wince. “WE’RE DOWN HERE!”
Nothing happened.
The bone ships surged closer, hemming us in, and I looked around wildly for some way to escape. I could dive beneath them, but Eddie’s journal (and yes, I guess, the annoying, sticky little creature holding it) would be hard to hold on to while I swam. Besides, my legs felt like anchors by then, and those ships had come from beneath the sea—there was no telling how many more of them lurked below. I couldn’t avoid them for much longer.
The Hands swept forward, seconds away from funneling me inside….
Something splashed down into the water next to me.
“Grab the rope!”
The voice—a girl’s—came out of the air above us. A giant wooden raft the size of a boxing ring floated in the night sky, a rope dangling over its edge. A hysterical chuckle bubbled in my chest. Of course. A flying raft. Why didn’t I think of that?
“Grab it, grab it!” Gum Baby shouted, and I lunged for the thick line. I felt the doll crawl into my soaking-wet hood, and not a moment too soon. The rope grew taut, and whoever was on the raft pulled us up. The razor-sharp mast of the Hands barely missed slicing the sole of my foot open, and then we were clear, soaring into the night.
THE FIRST THING I SAW when I rolled onto the raft was a carved staff. Its golden tip, a face twisted into a snarl, stared down at me.
“Who are you?” the staff’s owner demanded.
I stared at the tip, which moved from side to side hypnotically, like a cobra getting ready to strike. “Uhh…”
“I won’t ask again. Who are you?”
“My name is Tristan,” I said. “Tristan Strong.”
“Tristan Strong. Hmph. Well, Tristan Strong, what are you doing flopping about in the Burning Sea? You could’ve dragged us all down into a right nasty time trying to rescue you.”
“Sorry.”
“Sorry don’t feed the hungry.” The staff lowered, though, and I finally snapped out of my trance and glimpsed who was wielding it.
A short round girl with honey-brown skin and gold snake bangles curling up her arm glared at me. She looked my age, maybe a year older. Her hair was pulled back in two thick braids that disappeared behind her head, and she wore a sleeveless gold tank top, black pants with gold trim that stopped mid-calf, and brown sandals with beaded straps that tied around her ankles.