Читать книгу Blackfire: The Girl with the Diamond Key - James Daniel Eckblad - Страница 6

“Right here, Beatríz!” Elli screamed again. “Reach for me—grab my hands! Something’s got my feet—it’s pulling me away from you! Agh! Beatríz!”

Just as she was beginning to freeze in panic, Beatríz flailed her arms all about until she found the lantern. She stood and held it out in front of her, swinging it wildly, first in one direction and then abruptly in another.

“Beatríz! Help me! Grab my arms!”

“Elli! I’m coming! I’m coming!” Beatríz yelled back as she pointed the lantern toward the sound of Elli’s voice, discovering at the same time that the dark spot behind her lids had re-appeared and was, in that direction, at its blackest, and the ring around it the most fiery she had yet seen it. “Hold on, Elli! I’m coming—I’m close!” shouted Beatríz, scuttling on her knees and hands in the direction of Elli’s voice, although she had no idea at that point how she was going to save her friend.

“Beatríz!” screeched Elli, in a voice becoming hoarse. Beatríz lunged toward the ground where she thought Elli’s voice was coming from and found one of Elli’s hands. With one hand on the lantern, Beatríz began to pull on Elli with the other; but Elli was continuing to be pulled away. And then, just as Beatríz was about to set down the lantern again and pull on Elli’s hand with both of her own, whatever was dragging Elli released its grip and shrieked, as if complaining of a piercing pain. Elli scooted back while staring toward her feet, and in the light of the Darknessfinder glimpsed the multi-globular “thing” that had clamped down on her feet and was now just slipping back into a wide seam of black liquid barely visible at the edge of the lantern’s beam.

In the lantern’s glare, however, Elli saw the large head of a Blackmouth looming toward her, its black mouth stretched wide and its long ebony teeth virtually all that she could see of its head; black saliva dripped in gleaming profusion from the creature’s black tongue and upper tusks. The Blackmouth was swirling and jabbing its head in anger, as if trying to shake its head from its neck, and was crying out threateningly as it slapped at the sodden peat in front of it; a moment later it began to back away, seemingly blinded by the light.

Elli scooted back some more into Beatríz’s arms, where she fumbled for her knife and pulled it, thrusting the blade into the illuminated area in front of her—but at nothing she could now see. The two girls then scrambled quickly back to the tree, collapsing in exhaustion.

“Elli! What happened?”

“Just now a Blackmouth, Beatríz! One of those creatures Aneht warned us about! But before, what had my foot, I couldn’t say! A blob thing! It came from the water! I just got a glimpse of it! It had to have come up to us while we were both asleep and grabbed hold of my foot, and then started to drag me! I opened my eyes, but the fog was so thick I couldn’t see anything beyond what was right in front of me. And then, when you found my hand, Beatríz, the lantern shined on whatever it was, and it let me go!”

“Oh God, Elli!” Beatríz sighed. “Are you hurt?”

“Just a little—a scrape, I think, and my ankle’s sore—but the sandal probably saved my foot; thank God it was wrapped tightly around my leg; if it had come off, who knows . . . ”

As soon as their breathing had quieted, Elli said, “We should keep going, Beatríz; which way does the lantern want us to go?” Beatríz stood up and held out the Darknessfinder, turning until the spot was at its blackest and the ring of fiery light around it at its brightest.

“This way!” announced Beatríz.

“But Beatríz, that’s pointing in the direction of the Blackmouth!” protested Elli.

“Maybe so, Elli, but it’s the direction the lantern wants us to go!”

“Okay,” said Elli, diffidently, “but be ready to pull back again; you listen for the Blackmouth—I’ll watch for it!”

Having grabbed a drink and returned the water bladders to their satchels, the girls stepped forward hand in hand behind what in the lantern was a small bright light leading the way for Elli, eyes wide open, and a vibrant, black circle for Beatríz, her eyes squeezed closed—as if without concerted effort they would spring open on their own. Like novice gymnasts on a high beam, Elli and Beatríz planted their feet, gingerly, one after the other, Elli continuing to follow Beatríz’s lead, but constantly peering into the broad circle of light cast all about them—and cast all along the edge of the absolute darkness beyond.

Within moments they arrived at the seam of troubled water, black as India ink and nearly eight feet across. Beatríz knew to stop before Elli said anything, hearing the nearness of the water and feeling the ground descending and becoming increasingly saturated. The two girls stood still, listening and watching. Lifting and directing the lantern toward the other side of the water, Beatríz and Elli knew that the Darknessfinder wanted them to cross at that precise point.

“How wide is it, Elli?” said Beatríz, Elli feeling the trembling of her friend’s hand.

“Beatríz, point the lantern along the bank on this side of the water—and then let’s go just a little ways, first in one direction and then maybe in the other—and let’s see what’s there.” Beatríz pulled gently on Elli’s hand as she turned to the right and took several tentative steps.

“Beatríz! Just ahead! The water is much narrower there—and we can just step across! C’mon—just a little further!” Beatríz took another step and halted.

“No, Elli! We can’t!” she pleaded. “The spot has been going away since we started this way, and it’s almost gone now!”

“But Beatríz, where we can easily cross is only about another dozen feet away—I can see it! Clearly! And then we can point the lantern once again in the direction it wants us to go—but at that point on the other side of the water!”

“Elli!” squealed Beatríz.

“Look! We get across quickly and then right away go to the spot on that side of the water where the lantern wanted us to go in the first place—maybe fifteen seconds from here to there! Okay?” Elli said in a persistent tone reflecting that she did not intend to take “no” for an answer. Elli heard no reply, but her friend was squeezing her hand, and painfully so. “Beatríz?”

“Okay,” Beatríz said quietly, in a muffled voice, as if the words had never actually left her mouth. Still she didn’t move; whereupon Elli abruptly stepped around her and began to pull Beatríz along behind her in the direction of the narrow crossing.

Arriving almost immediately (as Elli said they would) at the place where they could simply step across the thick, disturbed liquid, Elli paused, pulling Beatríz alongside her and announcing to her triumphantly, “See, Beatríz? Come on—one big step—two feet wide at most!” Elli then tried once again to step around and in front of Beatríz, nudging her gently back from the edge of the liquid while urging her, “Here, follow me! Just this once more—to get us quickly across, okay? I’ll jump first and then hold your hand while you jump—okay?”

In that same moment, however, that Elli was trying to insinuate herself between Beatríz and the seam, the black spot in the lantern had utterly disappeared for Beatríz, and the light had gone out for Elli, leaving Elli in an iridescent duskiness now so dense that she couldn’t even see her own hand holding on to Beatríz’s.

“Elli! Things are coming! I can hear them! From everywhere!” screamed Beatríz, as she twisted and turned frantically all about to try to locate the black spot. Elli also twisted and turned, no longer holding on to Beatríz, to try to see what it was that her friend was hearing, and that she was not. However, just as Beatríz was pointing the lantern back in the direction from which they had come only seconds earlier, Elli also heard the rapid padding and slapping of dozens of wet feet. Beatríz re-grasped Elli’s hand, yelling, “This way, Elli!”

“No!” screeched Elli, “Blackmouths!” Indeed, in the very instant Elli heard the creatures she also saw them, in the beam of light that had abruptly returned: the heads and partial bodies of at least ten of the black-mouthed cats, protruding from the edge of the ring of darkness, panting loudly and blocking their path of return.

“Come on, Elli!” ordered Beatríz as she yanked on Elli’s hand that was trying to pull her in the opposite direction—and across the seam of water that was beginning to splash in a markedly-heightened state of turbulence.

“No, Beatríz! They’re right in front of you—they’re going to get us! Quickly! Across the water! This way!”

In an unprecedented display of strength, Elli spun Beatríz all the way around, nearly pulling Beatríz off her feet that were planted firmly in opposition to the direction Elli wanted to lead them, and was about to jump over the disturbed liquid—Beatríz in resistant tow, and the light rapidly dimming—when the shoreline Elli was aiming for lurched away and withdrew completely into the ring of dusky darkness encircling the girls.

“Elli! Stop!” screamed Beatríz. Elli resisted no more.

“It’s too late now anyway,” said Elli, breathlessly, loosening her tension on Beatríz’s out-stretched arm. “It’s too wide now—I can’t even see it—and it was probably a Moormog, anyway. But, come on, Beatríz,” Elli urged, with renewed tension in her grip on Beatríz, “we have to at least back up! The Blackmouths! They’re coming toward us!”

More than that, so much did the yellow coats of the creatures blend into the light cast by the lantern that it appeared to Elli that ten or so Blackmouth mouths and pairs of eyes were floating—disembodied—toward them, the only thing otherwise visible in the light being about forty black paws dancing along the ground and approaching them—not perceptibly connected to any legs!

Again Elli began to pull hard on Beatríz, grabbing her more securely about the wrist. But this time Beatríz was unmovable.

“Elli!” Beatríz shouted in a voice that sounded like a friend who, in that moment, was much older. “Elli!” she yelled, snapping Elli’s body back next to her. “Look, Elli” she said, as if she had planted her words along with her feet she had dug deeply into the soppy turf, the Blackmouths beginning to growl and seethe. “Elli,” Beatríz said more calmly, feeling her friend yielding control, “I have never been so frightened before, not even in Bairnmoor, but we have to follow the lamp, Elli—we have to!”

Elli stepped alongside of Beatríz, her knife extended, and then stopped. “Okay . . . okay, I’ll take your lead, but I’ll go first.”

The friends stood dead still, facing the Blackmouths that were only a dozen feet away, where they, too, had halted their brief advance. “Beatríz,” Elli said, almost inaudibly so, and not believing for a second that what she so desperately wished for would happen. Elli felt her perspiring hand losing its grip on Beatríz’s wrist, and let go, but instantly re-grabbed Beatríz once more by the hand. The sounds of menace, fearless and relishing, erupted more noisily from the black faces of the great, yellow cats; the black mouths and eyes and paws—on invisible bodies bunched together and crouched low to the ground—began to slink toward Elli and Beatríz.

“No! Get away!” Elli screamed, waving her knife as if shaking out a dusty rag. The Blackmouths abruptly stopped, their growling now becoming mixed with howls out of obvious pain from an attack by an invisible source. Beatríz took a step forward, drawing next to Elli; at that point the cats backed away, appearing to retreat from the advancing beam of light.

“Beatríz! They clearly don’t like the light; it seems the closer they get to it the more blinded they become, and the more it hurts them!” said Elli, who gripped Beatríz more tightly and took, along with a quietly compliant Beatríz, another step toward the Blackmouths; once again, the cats retreated an equivalent distance.

“Yes, Beatríz, let’s keep going,” said Elli calmly, with no evidence of uncertainty in her voice. She guided Beatríz and her lantern forward, one small step at a time. The cats roared and yowled to a deafening loudness, began to jump and turn in place as if avoiding hot coals, and then separated violently into two packs, one pack of Blackmouths gathering in their agitation close to the left side of the path being taken by the girls, the other pack, swirling and snarling, along the right side, with neither group looking toward the light. The bodies of the Blackmouths had become fully visible, and Elli was initially dismayed to see the lethal mouths stretched wide no longer retreating as Beatríz and she got ever closer to them; but she noticed as well, with the barest of a burgeoning hope, that the Blackmouths seemed unable now to see them at all, their eyes collectively cast toward the ground—and so, it seemed, unwilling to attack.

Indeed, as Elli and Beatríz passed slowly between the two gangs of creatures, feeling perhaps not unlike Moses passing between the looming walls of water in the Red Sea, not one set of jaws snapping in angry frustration, nor one set of paws hopping crazily in place, claws fully extended, made contact with the girls. Although they passed right between the Blackmouths that lined both sides of the path like animated garden statuary, the girls near enough to the heads to be able to reach out and touch them—and close enough to feel the wet blasts of air ejaculating from their mouths that were yammering beneath shut eyes at the light assailing them—none of the Blackmouths made any effort whatsoever to stretch their necks only the slightest of distances into the path and easily lock their mouths onto the girls.

Beatríz, feeling the dank warmth of the creatures’ rapid panting against her legs, began to press on Elli to go faster; Elli resisted, but said nothing.

“Elli,” whispered Beatríz, who was about to say something further. But Elli squeezed her hand hard, eliciting a tiny yelp from her friend.

The companions had just gotten beyond the reach of the Blackmouths still lining the path, when Beatríz whirled around and began to point the lantern toward the cats while backing up next to Elli. Instantly the black spot disappeared, and Elli was again surrounded by the impenetrable duskiness of the OOeegaltabog, no longer able to see the Blackmouths, which nevertheless could fully see them. One of the unseen cats flew at the lantern, knocking it from Beatríz’s grip. “Ah!” screamed Beatríz.

As soon as the lamp struck the ground, another of the Blackmouths grabbed it, while Elli, on hearing the lamp fall, pulled her knife and began waving it wildly all about at the creatures, which were now nearly next to her but not visible in the fog.

“Elli! The lamp!”

“I know, Beatríz—I think they’ve got it!” Not even able to see her knife that she was yet swiping at the thick gases swirling from the agitation of the hidden beasts creeping ever nearer and about to attack, Elli yelled, “In the will of the Good!” Elli couldn’t, in that moment, recall if she had ever used the one opportunity she had, according to Hannah, to invoke the special dispensation and powers of the Good’s will while brandishing her knife in battle, but she had nothing to lose—and hoped the Good would look favorably on her appeal, regardless.

The Blackmouths continued to growl and yelp stridently, but made no further advances toward the girls.

“Elli!” screeched Beatríz, “the lamp! We’ve got to get the lamp!”

“I know, Beatríz! I know! I’m trying to get it!” Elli heard the lamp being dragged along the ground, moving away from them off to her left. “Quiet, Beatríz!” Elli ordered, but barely audibly so. She clamped down on the hilt of the knife with the pressure of a vice grips and dove to the ground where she thought the noise of the lantern scuffing against the peat was coming from, striking hard at a place just beyond the lantern, and piercing what she assumed was the skull of a Blackmouth; the creature wailed and let go of the lamp—which Elli then frantically felt for and grabbed with her free hand before scrambling back next to Beatríz.

While still slicing through the fog with her knife, Elli pressed the lantern back into Beatríz’s hand. “Here, Beatríz! Turn around—and quickly! Find the black spot again!” But Beatríz had already started to turn as soon as she felt the lantern in her hand, and had found the dark circle behind her eyelids by the time Elli had finished giving her orders.

The wide globe of light cast by the lantern returned at once, encircling the girls and fully illuminating the Blackmouths—that yelled and yowled more ferociously, while nevertheless skulking backwards beyond the reach of the lamp’s beam. Within several seconds that felt to the girls like several minutes, Elli and Beatríz had returned to the place by the black water where the lantern had wanted, and still wanted, them to cross—to a large moor that was far too far away to get to by jumping. The Blackmouths continued to follow them, but remained at the edge of darkness.

“The Blackmouths are still close, aren’t they, Elli?” Beatríz asked with a nervous weariness in her voice.

“They’re still around, Beatríz, but I can’t see them—they seem to be staying with us, but taking great care to stay out of the light.”

“How far across did you say it was, Elli?”

“Eight—maybe ten—feet now; but like the other one back there, this one also seems to have moved a bit further away—and,” she added, glancing across the black seam, and sounding the alarm, “it’s still moving away, I think!”

“What do we do, then, Elli?” said Beatríz, disconsolately. “We know we have to cross—the lantern seems to be insisting that we cross—but how are we to do that?” Elli, thinking hard, was glancing back and forth between the crossing and the edge of darkness where the Blackmouths were lurking. “You struck the Blackmouth who had the lantern, didn’t you? I can hardly imagine you thought about doing that, Elli, much less doing it.”

Still focused on the challenge at hand, Elli answered Beatríz, sounding like one just emerging from a dream, “If I had thought about it, Beatríz, I’m sure I would never have done it . . . but somehow I was prepared to do it.”

In the silence that ensued, the girls heard the stewing of the liquid near their feet and the panting of the Blackmouths.

“But Elli!” Beatríz said, breaking the silence. Both girls noted the heightened degree of excitement emanating from the area occupied by the now-restive cats, signaling perhaps a decision on their part to attack, notwithstanding the light. As there was no answer seemingly forthcoming from Elli, Beatríz said again, “Elli?” Beatríz waited just a second or so for her friend to acknowledge her. “Elli?” she now yelled.

“Beatríz, I heard you . . . but, I think we have to wait before we cross.”

“Wait for what?” asked Beatríz, impatiently.

“For something, Beatríz—something, anything, anything at all that will show us how to get to the other side—or something to send the lantern in a different direction—unless, of course, the Blackmouths come after us; then we’ll have no choice but to head into the water.”

The air was warm, but the density of the dampness, together with their soaked clothing and relative inactivity, caused the girls to shiver, Beatríz uncontrollably so. Beatríz then heard a somewhat different set of noises issuing from the darkness, remarking her detection to Elli. Elli looked and saw, as she had earlier, no bodies of the cats; but she did see the disembodied feet of a number of Blackmouths visible just inside the furthest reach of the lantern’s light, stealthily shuffling toward the girls, Elli noting an odd look about them. There were no eyes or black mouths at all visible—only “dismembered” feet!

“Elli, what’s happening?”

“They’re coming toward us again, Beatríz, but, but . . . even though it’s hard to tell for sure . . . it seems . . . yes! It seems that they’re backing in toward us, Beatríz, to avoid looking at the light. I don’t know if they intend to come the whole way, but they’re most definitely coming—slowly, but surely!”

“Elli, what are we going to do?”

Elli watched, transfixed, as the black paws advanced backwards toward them. Seeing nothing that would indicate the Blackmouths were going to stop before reaching the two of them, Elli said, “There’s only one thing we can do, Beatríz,” Elli said, as she glanced at her friend, “and that is to try to cross the water; I don’t know what we’re going to find in that stuff, but it’s hard to imagine it could be any worse than facing the Blackmouths.”

Elli flashed another look at the black paws still approaching with measured stealth and soon upon them, and said, “Okay, Beatríz, let’s go! Into the water! Grab my wrist—I’ll grab yours—and let’s get across as fast as we can! Try to stay upright!”

Before Beatríz could reply, Elli took two steps into the knee-deep liquid and then drew Beatríz in. The puree of turbulent, black mud impeded smooth and steady movements, and the soft, tacky bottom of the seam, thick as clay, sucked at Beatríz’s boots, nearly pulling them off, and causing her to tumble forward, nearly submerged in the putrid muck. She struggled to keep the lantern above the waterline, but wasn’t able with only the other hand to push herself back up out of the oily liquid. Elli leaned back on her heels and yanked with both hands on Beatríz’s free wrist holding the lantern. Beatríz rose from the water, and then her boots popped from the muck, one right after the other, sending her stumbling forward again, but this time—fortunately—into the arms of Elli, who hauled Beatríz to shore. The two collapsed next to each other, and Beatríz began to scream.

“Elli! Elli! What’s on me? Help me get them off!” She pulled frantically, but without success, at her legs and abdomen on things invisible to both girls beneath the mud that had coated Beatríz’s body, the dim light of the lantern lying by itself on the ground providing no assistance.

“I can’t see anything, Beatríz!” said Elli, as she began to claw away at the mud on one of Beatríz’s thighs, feeling one—and then another—of something clinging fast to Beatríz. Once she had cleared away much of the mud, Elli felt two distinct creatures attached, as if riveted, to Beatríz’s upper leg; they were about eight inches long and three inches wide, and as thin as cardboard. With dozens of rings of armor coiling each body from end to end, the creatures resembled squashed Slinkies.

“Elli! Elli! They’re biting me!” Beatríz screamed again. “I can’t get them off! Help me! Please!”

Holding their breaths and grimacing, the girls were together trying to dig their nails from all four hands underneath one of the attackers from the black world, but were making no progress when Elli yelled, “Hold up the lantern, Beatríz, and point it so I can see better!”

“Quickly, Elli! Get them off! They’re hurting me so!” Beatríz wailed, as she grabbed hold of the lantern with a flailing hand and swung the lamp wildly to find the dark circle behind her eyelids that would provide Elli light in front of hers.

“There! There! In that direction, Beatríz!”

“Elliiiii!”

“I’m trying, Beatríz! I’m trying! I need more light—keep moving the lantern and try to be steady! I’m going to try my knife—hold still!” Beatríz felt like she was going to go crazy, but managed nevertheless to keep her legs quite still while twisting her torso to get the lantern pointing correctly.

“There! Right there! Stop! Stop, Beatríz!”

In the increasing light Elli was probing desperately to find a spot between one of the creatures and Beatríz’s skin where she could insert the knife and hope either to kill the crustacean-like animal or to at least pry it loose enough to be able to pull it off with her free hand—and, of course, do so without further injuring her friend, or hurting herself. However, as soon as the light fell fully on Beatríz’s legs, and before Elli had inserted her knife, the creatures released their grip and dropped to the sodden peat, where they curled into tight balls and rolled quickly back into the black liquid. Elli stabbed at one or two of them as they rolled away, but her blade bounced harmlessly off their armored backs.

Relieved of the assailants, Beatríz flopped on her stomach to the ground, one hand still holding on to the lantern—that, amazingly, was still holding on to the direction it wanted to take its followers. Elli sat bending over her friend, probing for wounds; carefully scraping away all the mud, she found nine places where the creatures’ mouths had penetrated Beatríz’s skin, in addition to each creature having left behind an injury in the shape of an oval that no doubt hundreds of tiny barbed legs had created. At one end of each oval was a single hole the size of a pea reflecting a deep perforation by something like a sharp tongue or stinger; blood had initially spurted from each of the holes as soon as the creatures had withdrawn themselves, but the wounds—for good or ill—fast sealed themselves against any further loss of blood.

“Beatríz! Are you okay—I mean, sort of? Enough to keep going?” Elli asked, apologetically, but with a tone of urgency, hearing now the padding of numerous feet hidden just beyond the edge of the darkness at light’s end, and on their side of the water!

“I’d really like to rest for a bit—for just a bit—Elli; but,” she added, in a tone of resignation, and without looking toward her friend, her head lying on its side, eyes closed, “I suppose we can’t, can we?”

“I’m sorry, Beatríz, but if you can, we should keep going—you can hear the frenzy, even better than I. I’ll walk next to you and help keep you going.”

“More Blackmouths, aren’t there?” said Beatríz, exhaling, as she allowed Elli to help her to her feet. So dazed were the girls as they shuffled on behind the lantern, that Beatríz required all her focus and energy, and both hands, simply to keep it held aloft, and Elli was too weary to dispute the light’s wisdom.

On they trudged, their feet dragging along the ground as if chained to stones. They hiked on in this fashion for what would have been the equivalent in Millerton of several hours, or so thought Elli, the trek reminding Beatríz of their climb into The Mountains, so endlessly the same did the challenging terrain feel beneath her boots. The sound of Blackmouth feet remained with the girls the entire time, becoming a noise they scarcely noticed any longer in its hiddenness and constancy. Only occasionally, when there was a random yelp or a rare growl, did the girls remember to their horror that they were being followed; but at no time did one of the cats emerge—even slightly—into the light that encircled Elli and Beatríz and cradled them with the protection promised by Aneht. At times there was a flashing of eyes or black teeth behind the curtain of darkness that caught the lantern’s rays, but even these soon went unnoticed by the girls in their frequency.

At one point, well beyond the incident with what Elli came to think must have been leeches, Elli was startled by the sound of snarling right behind her—where she had forgotten to look for quite some time. “Agh!” she yelped, and stopped.

“What’s the matter, Elli?” said Beatríz, who was startled more by Elli’s cry than by the snarling of something else.

“A Blackmouth, Beatríz! Right behind me! But . . . but the good thing is that, even though it was only a few feet away from us, it was probably following us backwards—and then, when it decided to turn into the light, and I heard it wail, it ran off back into the darkness.” Elli sighed loudly. “I don’t think they can hurt us, Beatríz, as long as we’re in the light—even if they get really close to us; let’s hope so anyway, huh?”

“Yeah, let’s hope so,” said Beatríz, in a voice that, to Elli, seemed languid.

“Are you okay, Beatríz? Just really tired?” said Elli, grabbing Beatríz’s shoulders and staring into her wide open eyes. Beatríz, swaying like a tall, thin tree in a stiff, variable breeze, and gazing into the circle of gloom where the Blackmouths were prowling and pacing, made no answer, as if she hadn’t heard Elli or wasn’t aware of her presence—or even her touch. And having turned around as soon as Elli cried out, and now facing opposite the direction in which the lantern was leading them, the light was already dimming markedly. A foggy darkness was creeping toward them from the now-fuzzy line of separation between the circle of light and the blackness beyond, the Blackmouths stirring impatiently.

“Beatríz?” Again she said, “Beatríz?”

“I . . . I’m sorry, Elli . . . I don’t know what’s happening,” Beatríz said, her words running together and her legs beginning to buckle. She sank to the ground, sitting on her knees, eyes large and round, reminding Elli of her first sight of Hannah.

“Beatríz! Beatríz!”

Suddenly, as if coming from the Blackmouths who were lurking close by, Elli and Beatríz were surrounded by laughter, shrill and sinister. “Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! . . . Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! . . . Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! . . . Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!”

Elli, who had lowered herself to the black turf alongside Beatríz, abruptly stood and started to spin around, pulling her knife and thrusting it threateningly.

“Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! . . . Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! . . . Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! . . . Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!”

“Beatríz! Beatríz! Hold up the lantern! The light’s going away!” she yelled down to her friend. But Beatríz had let go of the lamp—and she was now crawling away. Elli dove at Beatríz’s legs that were nearly out of sight in the murky fog, grabbing and pulling hard on her ankles. “Beatríz!” screamed Elli.

“Elli . . . !” Beatríz cried weakly, “I have to go! The OOnwees are calling—I have to go to them, Elli! I have to go home!”

Beatríz struggled with sudden, remarkable strength to keep crawling away; Elli strained with an aching body to keep her from going any further.

“Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! . . . Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!”

Above the laughter Elli heard the Blackmouths snarling hungrily, closing in, tightening their circle around the girls.

“Beatríz! Stop! Stop! Stop, Beatríz!”

“Let me go, Elli! Let me go to the OOnwees, or I’ll . . .” Beatríz spun around to face Elli, eyes glaring, her mouth quivering. “Let me go, Elli! Let me go—now—or I’ll . . . I’ll kill you! I will! I will! I’ll kill you!”

“Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! . . . Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!”

Beatríz pulled her legs from Elli’s grip and disappeared into the fog, into the laughter, and soon—thought Elli—almost certainly into the yammering jaws of the Blackmouths or the spitting eyes of the Wallymogs.