RAVEN STEPS OUT FROM BENEATH THE CRUMBLING roof of the library. She feels Maddie and Draculaura follow. They stare into the fog. Something is out there.
“What is that?” says Draculaura. “A mountain?”
The mountain—or whatever—is slowly advancing, sailing like a ship through the foggy Margins and directly toward them.
“Spooooky mountain,” says Maddie.
“I like spooky mountains,” says Draculaura, “but I do not like that.”
“I get you,” Raven says. “I mean, why am I scared?”
“Because you’re a smart girl,” Draculaura says, “and smart girls know to be scared of dark, mysterious mountains sailing like boats through foggy, mysterious places.”
“Oh, right,” says Raven.
“That is not a mountain,” says the Evil Queen. “That’s an island. And on that island is Shadow High. Forgive me, girls, but I must… I must… MWAHAHAHA!” She laughs a loud, mother-goosebump-y evil laugh. “Sorry, I know it’s a cliché, but it had to be done.”
The color of the air is changing. Raven looks up. Is a sun showing its face through the fog? No, the orangey glow is coming from below. As the Shadow High island nears, the trench between the two islands is narrowing, and the lava that bubbled down deep is slowly rising up.
The new island is so close now that a black structure is visible through the haze—a flat-topped mountain.70
70 Oh, I see—it’s a volcano.
The Evil Queen isn’t saying MWAHAHA anymore, but she can’t seem to stop herself from performing a very un-evil-like hoppity dance. Maddie nods approvingly. Of the hoppity dance, that is.
The Evil Queen is on the very edge of the island, looking over. She picks up the spray bottle she threw onto a pile of bricks and drops it off the island.
But whatever the Evil Queen sees happen to the spray bottle down below takes the smile right off her face and the hoppity out of her feet.
“Mother?” asks Raven. “What’s going on?”
“Oh bubble parties,” the Evil Queen says. “Bunny eyelashes and rainbow sprinkles. Hot chocolate and fish kites. Oh, skipping to Grandmother’s house!”71
71 Um… no idea what she’s saying here, TBH.
“Is she casting a spell?” Draculaura whispers.
“No, she’s… uh, she’s swearing,” says Raven. “The things most people consider nice are bad words to her.”72
72 Oh, okay. Weird, but okay.
A small wave of lava rises up and washes over the edge of the island, splashing on one of the fallen books. Raven expects the book to catch fire and scorch, but apparently this isn’t your normal superhot, melty-rock, run-of-the-mill volcano lava. Instead, when the lava touches it, the substance of the book itself is wiped away, leaving behind just a book skeleton made of words: S P I N E, C O V E R, P A G E, P A G E, P A G E, P A G E, P A G E…
When the small wave of lava recedes back over the edge of the island, all that remains is a jumble of words in the shape of what was once a book.
The Evil Queen bends over, and at the touch of her finger, the stacked letters crumble into a heap and blow away.
“No…” the Evil Queen whispers. “The Unmaking. That’s what that old book was talking about. Unmaking lava. I didn’t understand.…”
“What are you saying?” asks Raven.
There’s something in her mother’s eyes Raven has never seen before. Fear. The Evil Queen is actually afraid. Raven’s gut seems to turn to ice and fall into her shoes. And from down in her shoes, her gut assures her that if the Evil Queen is afraid, then everyone should be.
The Evil Queen is squinting at the island mountain moving slowly through the Margins. She takes a deep breath and pushes her hands out in front of her. Two beams of purple magic shoot from her hands, pierce the fog, and strike the oncoming island.
“I… I was wrong,” says the Evil Queen. “The power of Shadow High. This situation. It’s not… not what I… what I thought.”
“Push the land back, Mother!” Raven shouts.
“I’m trying!”
Raven joins her, hands out, both of them shooting streams of magic. The island slows only slightly.
The Evil Queen shouts and then falls back, her face damp with sweat. When her magic beams cease, the island jolts forward.
“Nothing!” she says. “That did nothing! No force of magic can stop it.”
“Is she going to start ‘swearing’ again?” whispers Maddie. “’Cause that was funny.”
“Um, it did something,” says Draculaura. “Look.”
When the island jolted forward, a second shape rose up in the fog, even closer to them than the volcano on the island.
“Another mountain?” guesses Draculaura.
“That’s no mountain,” the Evil Queen says. “That’s a wave.”
“Of lava?” asks Raven. “A wave of lava? Of that same lava that just took apart a book?”
“I have always wanted to try surfing,” Maddie says. “But that does not look like a beginner wave. I think we need to dash like rabbits who are running late.”
“Yes,” the Evil Queen agrees. “Run.”
Raven grabs Maddie’s hand and turns back toward the library. “C’mon, Drac!” she yells. Ahead of them, Raven’s mother has picked up her skirts and is vaulting over fallen stones and threading through the labyrinth of bookcases. Raven can’t help looking back as she runs. The wave is closer.
“The approach of Shadow High is pushing the lava up toward us,” says Raven. “You have to stop that island, Mother!”
“These lands were once all part of the same continent,” her mother yells back. “When I pulled loose the magic chisel from Shadow High’s island, it freed the island’s power. It’s the center of the world. All the lands, including this one, are being pulled toward Shadow High like metal filings to a magnet.”
“So put the chisel back!” shouts Raven. “Redo the spell that turned off its magnet power or whatever, and keep the lands apart!”
“Oh, okay, I’ll just do that, then. Why didn’t I think of that genius plan first? Oh yes, because it’s impossible!”
They clear the library and run across the island toward the bridge, where Frankie and Apple appear to be battling the remaining Zomboyz and Moanica with an army of flying dolls.
“Apple!” Raven yells. “Frankie!”
Just as the girls turn to look at Raven, some lava bubbles up over the shore, a stream of orange-gold that cuts off the edge of the bridge from the island. Apple yelps and leaps off the bridge and over the stream of lava to the island. The sparkly armor she was wearing disappears. Frankie follows, but she leaps a little farther. When Apple lands, one of her shoes touches the lava. It breaks down into words: H E E L, A R C H, B U C K L E, S O L E…
“Eep!” squeaks Apple, stepping out of the shoe that is now just a stack of letters. “That is not my story,” she says disapprovingly to her lost shoe. “But… how did that happen?”
“Hexplain later!” says Raven. “Now we run.… Um, where do we run?”
The enormous wave of lava is so close they can feel the oncoming breeze of its speed.
“Oh my corpse,” says Moanica, backing away from the pooling lava that now separates the bridge from the gathered group of girls on the land. “Come on, Zomboyz. Let’s get back to Monster High!”
The undead crew runs/shambles up the arching bridge and deeper into the fog of the Margins.
“Frankie, that bridge could take us back to Monster High,” says Draculaura.
Frankie glances at Apple. “You go, Drac. Follow the bridge and fly home. I’m going to stay and try to help fix this. It’s my fault.”
“It’s not your fault, Frankie,” says Draculaura. But she doesn’t change into a bat and fly away.
Another slosh of lava rises up on the shore, forming a wide pool between them and the bridge to Monster High.
“We’re trapped,” Raven says.
“There’s another bridge,” declares the Evil Queen. “Follow me or perish!”
“Sheesh, Mother, do you always have to be so dramatic?” says Raven.
“Uh, Raven?” Apple pipes up, running beside her with a lopsided gait, one foot bare. “When we’re fleeing a wave of lava on an island in the middle of a foggy wilderness where imagination takes form, saying dramatic things isn’t entirely out of place.”
“Okay, good point,” says Raven.
Up ahead, another bridge arches away from the island. The Evil Queen reaches it first. The girls follow; Raven is the last to enter the fog of the Margins.
Or almost last. She looks back to see that Apple has tripped on her remaining shoe. The wave of lava has begun to roll over the island, a hundred feet of bright orange and gold. Before it falls, Raven leaps from the bridge back onto the island.
“Raven, no!” shouts the Evil Queen.
But Raven knows she must be on the island to use her magic. She lifts her hands, creating a shield, a purple wall to stop the tide of lava.
It holds for two seconds before the shield breaks apart into thousands of letters spelling over and over again: R A V E N S U S E L E S S S H I E L D…
“Now, that’s just rude,” says Raven.
Apple is back on her feet and they run for the bridge, the crashing wave nearly upon them.
But it stops again, held by a second shield. The Evil Queen has stepped off the bridge.
“Hurry, fools!” she shouts.
Her shield lasts only seconds longer before bursting into a storm of letters.
But it’s enough. They manage to run up the slope of the bridge as the wave crashes behind them. Raven turns in time to see the lava drench the ruined library, flooding its crumbling chambers. As the lava recedes, it leaves behind a library-shaped structure completely made out of words.
L I B R A R Y, L I B R A R Y, L I B R A R Y, L I B R A R Y, L I B R A R Y…
As Raven peers closer, she realizes the large letters are made up of even smaller letters: S P I R E, W I N D O W, W A L L, B R I C K, B O O K, B O O K, B O O K, B O O K…
The white stone of the island itself is not unmade, remaining solid under the splashing and sploshing lava. But the lava never fully recedes. The low-lying island stays almost entirely underwater—or under-lava, so to speak.
And the Shadow High island is so close that if Raven could stand on the library island, she could probably leap from one island to the next and discover for herself what awaits there.
The fog of the Margins is as thick as an ogre’s breath. Raven hugs her arms around herself and shivers. Through the fog, she can see the outline of the great black building in the middle of that island. The shape reminds her of Ever After High. It’s a school—it’s definitely a school.