Secrets of Stone and Sea, page 6
On the other hand, Peter realized they didn’t know much about this thing. Sure, Dad seemed to think of it as some nature god, but Peter wasn’t sure. Could a god be sealed away like that, and summoned with nothing but a hot dog?
And if it was the godlike embodiment of the ocean, why was it here in Massachusetts? Sure, the Sea’s prison was at the Point next to the lighthouse, but why, if Atlantis used to be in the North Sea? Plus, why did the creature care about another Massachusetts location like Dogtown? Despite absolutely not wanting to get involved, Peter found himself interested. There was something more to this creature, and he might notice another piece of the puzzle at Dogtown—or at the very least, he could keep Kai out of trouble.
“Okay, never mind,” he said, standing. “I’m coming.”
Dad rolled his eyes. “You know, when I said this vacation would be an adventure, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind.”
CHAPTER 8
DOGTOWN
KAI
The drive to Dogtown wasn’t too long, just an hour or so. That gave Kai plenty of time to steal his dad’s phone and find out more about the place. It had been a town, but the last building was destroyed in 1845, and now it was simply a densely wooded Massachusetts historical site, where you could go and hike a trail past all the Babson Boulders with their inspiring messages.
“I did it once when I first moved here,” Grandma said when Kai asked about it. “But you walk it once, you see it all, and boulders aren’t much compared to a good blade.”
With that, Grandma began checking her dagger’s sharpness. The silver swirls gleamed in the sunlight.
Peter held Sophie’s borrowed drone on his lap. He was mainly silent during the ride, but once, while Dad and Grandma discussed which route to take, he whispered to Kai, “Hey, do you think something weird is going on with Sophie?”
Kai thought back. Yeah, she had been weird at dinner. If there was one member of the family Kai thought would be right behind them on this adventure … well, it was Grandma. But Sophie was a close second.
He thought about the way she’d acted, what she said at breakfast. You don’t know that you’ll find anything.
“Maybe she doesn’t really believe us,” Kai said.
“After everything we’ve seen?” Peter asked.
Kai shrugged, closed his eyes, and tried to remember the Atlantean symbols he’d read.
They came back. It was so strange—he remembered some of them, and as he thought of them, their meanings became clear. Some symbols meant full words as well as sounds, and others had multiple meanings. English didn’t always have a perfect match.
There was one meaning of the “ocean” symbol that Kai couldn’t figure out. It was related to the meaning for twin, but it wasn’t clear. Maybe if he thought harder, it would come to him. Or maybe if he read a little more Atlantean and got a better feel for the language.
“All right,” Dad said. “We’re here.”
He pulled into a small parking area in the middle of a forest. It was just off the road, next to a wooden sign, the kind that you see at the beginning of trails. Kai was surprised Dad had found it. And when he looked around, he was surprised that Dad had been able to drive here at all.
Kai had seen pictures of the forests around Mount Saint Helens after it erupted in 1980. All the trees on the ground, bowled over by massive, heavy clouds of volcanic ash. Well, these trees were wet, not ashy, but the overall effect was the same. Only some trees remained standing. Many others had splintered and fallen, or had been ripped out at the roots. They lay as even as floorboards, like the blow had come from the same direction.
It was a far cry from the lush forest they’d expected.
“Who flattened this place?” Kai said, climbing out of the car.
Peter looked at him. “Who do you think?”
“Right. Poseidon.” Feeling silly, he stomped his foot, enjoying how the dust puffed up before falling into a circle around it.
“The good news is we’ll have the place to ourselves,” Dad said. “No tourists. As long as we’re gone before cleanup crews come in, we can do whatever we want.” He shivered. “Let’s be quick.”
Grandma emerged, with her knife strapped to her side in a sheath and her sword cane in hand. She wore a backpack. “I have sandwiches, bottled lemonade, and obsidian knives in case of emergency.” When Dad glared at her, she said, “They were made this century, Alex. I promise.”
“That’s not—never mind. We should get going.”
For a moment, the family surveyed the wreckage. “Go where?” Peter asked.
“I guess we should hike the trail?” Kai said. “Or where the trail used to be.”
Peter stared at the woods. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s hard to tell, but I think the damage gets worse that way.”
Dad shrugged. “It’s a start. And if all this began at the Spire, maybe the inspire-ing boulders are the way to go.”
Kai snorted, and Peter held out the drone.
Dad pulled out his phone. “I’ll let you know if the camera sees anything strange,” he said. A moment later, the drone was airborne.
And the family was on its way. The going was not easy since the trail was covered with fallen trees and bracken. The air smelled like wet dirt and seaweed, with a fishy odor under it all that made Kai shudder. That creature had been here. But why?
The morning air was hot and humid, and Grandma had already opened her bottle of lemonade. She was limping worse, but never responded if anyone commented or asked if she wanted to slow down. Dad panted, climbing over another fallen tree. The trees, though still aligned with one another, had fallen in a new direction compared to how they’d fallen closer to the parking lot. So maybe whatever flattened them had come from multiple directions?
Interesting. Why would it do that, when the ocean was east?
Kai fell into step next to Peter. “What do you think we’ll find?”
Peter shrugged. “Hopefully nothing. But I don’t know. Why do you think the sea creature cared about this place? This isn’t the ocean. It’s a forest.”
Good point. “I guess we’ll find out,” Kai said. They reached the first engraved boulder, and Kai pointed at it. “‘Get a job,’” he read.
“I tried,” Peter said. “No one would take me. They all thought I was you.”
The boys laughed and raced ahead to be the first to find the next boulders.
HELP MOTHER
SAVE
TRUTH
WORK
COURAGE
Shortly after the COURAGE boulder, Kai felt something like bony fingers grab his ankle. Yelping, he looked down, but saw nothing but twigs. His foot must have caught on another fallen branch.
But it had felt like fingers, gripping him tight.
A moment later, Sophie’s drone plummeted from the sky.
It crashed into a pile of seaweed hanging off a fallen pine, sending a crab scuttling to safety. Sophie would kill them all if her precious drone was broken.
Dad gathered it up, searching for damage. “It seems all right. Maybe it’s just the battery,” he said. “Though Sophie said it should be good for hours.”
Peter stiffened. “I don’t think it’s the battery. Listen.”
Rustling, all around. Trees creaking and moving as if in high wind. But there was only a gentle breeze that couldn’t account for the goose bumps forming on Kai’s neck.
Dad grabbed Kai’s and Peter’s shoulders. “Get back to the car. Now.”
They turned around and headed back toward the car. The sparse, bleak forest was starting to give Kai the creeps. So many of the trees lay across the path, the leaves still clinging to their stripped branches beginning to wither and die. The ones that remained standing seemed to judge the family as they picked their way through the woods.
After what felt like hours, Kai was still looking at that ruined landscape and not the parking lot.
“I think we missed it,” Kai said.
“We couldn’t have,” Dad said. “We’re still on the path. I’ve minded the way.”
Peter pointed. “Please tell me your mind wandered.”
They were standing in front of a boulder. GET A JOB. The first one they’d passed.
“There’s no way,” Dad said, circling the boulder. “We couldn’t have walked that long.”
“We didn’t,” Peter said.
Beside them, Grandma unsheathed her knife, a gleam in her eye.
Dad turned red. “Put that away, Mom. We’re close to the car. It was this way. I remember.”
Dad started walking as Grandma ignored him and kept the knife out. Silently, she took out a ball of yarn and tied one end to a branch.
They pressed on. The forest seemed to watch them, and after only a moment, Kai jumped.
“Something just touched my leg,” he said.
“Just a stick,” Dad said, but he bit his lip and pushed on faster.
They hadn’t gone far when a branch tangled around Peter’s legs, making him fall. Grandma hacked it off him with her knife, but before they could take another step, Kai’s shirt caught on a tree. Or had the tree caught him?
Kai tugged, tearing the fabric. He wrapped his fingers around his arms and tried to avoid thinking about the trees. But it was hard, as that rustling grew.
They turned a corner and found another boulder.
NEVER TRY NEVER WIN
“We never passed that one before,” Peter said.
“That’s because it’s the last one on the trail,” Grandma said. “I always thought it should be earlier, more as an inspiration for people about to make the hike.”
“The end of the trail? Then what’s that?” Peter pointed at a boulder just yards away.
GET A JOB
“We’re going in circles,” Peter said.
Kai’s skin crawled. “No,” he said. “The forest is circling us.”
Grandma pulled on the yarn. Its end came back quickly, severed.
The rustling turned to creaking and shrieking as all chaos broke loose.
Though the sun was shining, the few standing trees whipped around like in a storm. The fallen trees rumbled and creaked, quaking and rolling. Kai, Peter, and Dad stumbled, and Grandma would have fallen if Dad hadn’t grabbed her. The fishy smell in the air was chased away by the sawdust scent of freshly cut wood, as the trees twisted, damaging themselves just to reach the family.
Twigs clawed at Peter and Kai, and Dad yelled, “Get down!” as a thick branch swung at them. He dropped to the ground, and yelled as the branches of the trees he’d landed on stretched up, binding his arms and legs.
“I’ve got you!” Grandma sliced at the branches and pulled Dad free. Her eyebrow was bleeding, but she looked excited. “I knew this knife was the right choice.”
“Peter, Kai,” Dad said, fighting off another branch that had come up, groaning, from one of the fallen trees. “Run. Find the car. Now. We’ll hold them off.”
“We’re staying,” Kai said.
“No, you’re not! Go!”
Peter screamed as a branch the size of a python wrapped around his ankles and pulled him down, dragging him away from the group.
“Peter!” Kai leaped on the branch. It was like wrestling a mad fire hose, only one that could simultaneously blind you with wads of drying leaves. When he finally beat them off and looked up, expecting Dad to come help, he saw his father busy fighting branches that were snatching at his hair and clothes, pulling him down to the ground. Grandma was cutting them back as fast as she could, but how long could she hold out?
So Kai did the only thing he could think of: He bit the branch on Peter.
It writhed and released Peter, who scrambled away. Kai checked to make sure he hadn’t chipped another tooth. All good.
“Boys!” Dad again. “Get out of here!”
“This way!” Peter called, waving Kai away from the fight.
But Kai didn’t move. All around him, the forest was a maelstrom of wood and leaves, creaking and rustling as they fought. Why? Because of them.
They’d arrived. He and Peter, the ones who woke the sea creature. He’d arrived, the one who could read Atlantean. Leaving the forest wouldn’t help Dad and Grandma.
“No,” Kai said. “This way!”
He charged deeper into the forest, away from Dad, Grandma, and the safety of the car.
“Kai, stop!” Dad called. Kai didn’t stop.
Peter complained, but Kai heard his brother running after him.
“We need to get to safety,” Peter said.
“There’s no safety here. Not for us.”
Peter groaned. “Is the sea creature doing this?”
“I don’t think so. Ow!” Another branch hit Kai’s shoulder. “It already attacked this place. This is different.”
Another boulder marked the path: USE YOUR HEAD.
Good advice.
Why would the forest attack them now instead of when they first entered the woods?
We must be nearing it. Whatever it was that the sea creature had come here for.
But how to find it?
Look for the pattern. Kai looked at the ground. Pattern.
The fallen trees.
Of course! There was a pattern here. The trees were neatly lying side by side. But not in a straight line. They changed direction.
They looked like a boardwalk. Or a path, curving through the trees. Curving to the left.
Always left.
A circle.
The blast hadn’t come from the ocean! Like water rippling away from a stone dropped in a pond, the trees had fallen away from where he and Peter needed to go.
As Kai dodged another blow, he pointed at the trees. “Peter, we have to go that way! To the center of the circle!”
For the first time in a while, Peter didn’t argue. He followed.
Kai leaped from fallen tree to fallen tree, forcing his way through the still-leafy branches. It wasn’t easy going. The forest closed in tighter, and Kai still had to dodge attacks. But the fallen trees didn’t fail. Every one of them lay in pattern, a circle around some central blast site.
The forest’s attacks grew. Kai heard grunts as Peter took hits. He hoped that, now that he and Peter had left, Dad and Grandma were okay.
A huge branch, like a swinging fist, rose and struck Kai in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. He slipped on mildewed wood. Gasping, he crawled forward.
The roar stopped.
Still wheezing, Kai let Peter lift him up. “It stopped,” Peter said.
“W-why?” Kai asked.
Peter shrugged. Kai looked around. The circle of fallen trees had led them to a clearing.
“What do we do now?” Peter said, looking around. “Is this what we’re looking for?”
Kai squinted at the clearing. There was another boulder here that read IDEAS. Perfect.
Kai climbed on the boulder and looked over the clearing. It wasn’t as clear as he’d first thought; at the center of the clearing lay a small pile of fallen trees. They looked like they’d been young trees, little more than shrubs. But their size wasn’t what made them interesting.
Somehow, their trunks and branches had fallen to form an Atlantean hieroglyph. Kai wasn’t up that high, but if he squinted and concentrated, he could see it. Like one of those optical illusions where you have to hold the paper at eye level to read it, or a stretched-out warning painted on a road.
A single hieroglyph that represented a word.
Peter was looking around. “There’s no seaweed here.”
He was right. This was the only part of the forest that hadn’t been marked by the sea. So what did that mean?
Maybe the Atlantean hieroglyph would explain it. Kai peered at it, and a moment later, a smile began to stretch over his face. “‘Binding’ or ‘seal.’”
As Kai climbed down from the boulder, Peter rubbed his arm. “What do you mean, binding?”
“See those trees at the middle? They form the Atlantean symbol for ‘binding’ or ‘seal.’ That must be why our friend attacked this place,” Kai said. “He didn’t want anyone binding him again.”
“I don’t blame him,” Peter said. He looked back into the trees. “Think Dad and Grandma are all right?”
But Kai wasn’t thinking about the adults. They could end this right now! He loped toward the clearing and the huge symbol he’d read. “Let’s activate it.”
“Activate it?”
“It’s like a giant button, right? It says ‘seal,’ so it must be a seal. If we activate it, we can send Poseidon back to his lair. We can win, right now!”
“Yeah, and how are we supposed to activate a pile of trees? And am I the only one wondering why there would be a seal to bind a powerful Atlantean entity in Massachusetts?”
But Kai wasn’t listening. The seal was his. He found it, read it, and now it waited for him to activate it. So Kai, grinning, raced over to finish this once and for all.
Kai hit a wall.
Not a real wall, but right on the edge of the small cluster of trees that created the symbol, he couldn’t take another step. He reached out, trying to touch it, but he couldn’t.
“I can’t touch it,” he called back.
Then Peter wandered over, frowning like he had thought of something he still couldn’t quite wrap his mind around. Once he reached Kai, he put out his hand and took one more step. The invisible wall holding Kai didn’t stop him.
Peter kneeled beside the cluster of trees and looked back at Kai. Then, turning back to the symbol, he extended his hand over the binding word. He hovered, as if waiting for permission. Then he placed his palm on the closest tree.
At first, nothing happened. But then Peter jumped back as smoke wafted up from the symbol.
“Kai! Rocky!” It was Dad, arm around Grandma, as they both hobbled toward the clearing. Dad’s jeans were stained with seaweed, and Grandma had lost her bag, though still carried both knife and cane.
“Are you boys all right?” Dad asked, approaching them at the center of the clearing. “Don’t run off like that. I had no idea—” He stopped, looking past Kai to the small trees and Peter. “What did you do?”
