I lay curled up on the floor like a battered seashell, gripping the spyglass with one hand.
“They’re going to need that back,” a dry voice said.
I opened my eyes to see an old man in a dapper suit and straw fedora, reaching down toward me. Golden eyes shone brightly in his lined, ebony face. I pulled back, but all he did was take the spyglass from my hand.
“Hello Zo,” he said gently, peering out from the shadows under his hat.
It was Mr. Yancy, the man who’d first tried to warn me about the Council back in Samaan Bay. I looked for his magic, shape-changing, multicoloured coat, but it was nowhere to be found. The last time 13I’d seen it, it was being captured by the Council. It seemed that, despite his best efforts, Old Man Yancy had been caught too.
“Get her up please,” a melodious voice cut in.
I jumped. It couldn’t be, but I could never forget that voice.
Mr. Yancy reached out a hand to help me, but I scrambled to my feet myself.
“Yara!” I shouted.
He shook his head at me quickly.
“Ahh, so you remember me,” Yara purred. “Well then,” she smiled meanly, “Ms. Kofi will have to be reported, won’t she?”
Oh no. I’d instantly forgotten that Ms. K was supposed to have wiped my memory of the forest and everyone I’d met there, including Yara.
It was too late now. Here she was, standing right in front of me. Yara … the woman who had captured Adri and I back in Samaan Bay, then shockingly, helped us to escape the Council.
What was she doing here?
My heart sank as I took in her tall elegance, her hawk-like face that seemed young and old at the same time, and the micro-braids that hung all the 14way down her back.
Somehow, despite Yara’s fierceness, she looked like a trapped bird of prey. She wore a dress with a harness over it that seemed as uncomfortable as a corset, with floor-length, layered cotton skirts that swished each time she moved. Around her neck was a tight golden choker. She kept scratching at it with long, purple nails.
My stomach turned. I thought she’d escaped. But if Yara were here, it meant that she was back in the power of the Council … and so was I.
“Not to worry,” she trilled in her birdsong voice, with that cross between a Spanish and French accent.
I wondered again where she was from.
“You are just in time Zo. Class is in session,” she smiled, revealing sharp white teeth.
Class? I looked around me. We were in a round, luxurious, panelled room. The walls were covered with floor-to-ceiling shelves, lined with books and antiques that looked like they had come from colonial times. There was a massive, carved mahogany desk and high-backed chair lined with plush red velvet like a throne.
To my right, Mr. Yancy leaned against a wall, 15hands in his pockets, hat pulled low, chewing a piece of grass. His face was unreadable.
“Where am I?” I demanded, making my voice sound way bolder than I felt.
Yara’s sweet laugh didn’t meet her eyes. “Why, you silly girl, Dragon Mouth Island of course.”
What? Clearly the spyglass had dragged me here. At least now, I could ask the question that burned a hole in my mind.
“Where’s Adri?” I trembled.
She waved one hand around the room, “Not here, as you can see.”
Rage boiled in my chest, “So that’s it? You’re just back working for them? The Council! After everything they took from you!”
In a second, Yara was in my face, even though I hadn’t seen her move. The fingers of her right hand pinched my cheeks, pointed nails just inches from my eyes. She smelled of cinnamon, cloves, and something else that I couldn’t pin down.
“Have you heard of a place called Ouanaminthe?” she whispered. She pronounced it like “Wanna mint”, eyes piercing mine.
“On the border,” she pinched my face tighter, 16“between Ayiti, what you call Haiti … and the Dominican Republic?”
“No,” I choked.
Were those tears in her eyes or mine?
“Then please do not pretend to know who I am,” Yara hissed softly.
I felt a hand lightly brush the side of my jeans. Did Yara just slip something into my pocket? If so, she gave no sign.
“Hm,” Mr. Yancy chimed in, with his scratchy, half-laughing voice. “So, how much time is this going to take?”
Yara snapped at him, “Insolence will not be tolerated old man!”
“Eh? My two-cents? Not at all your Eminenceness,” he detached from the wall with an innocent face. “I was only saying that I, for one, have all day, as required … At your disposal, Mad-dahm,” he added with a bow and an irreverent grin.
Mr. Yancy leaned his frame back slowly against the wall like an ancient staff, unfazed by Yara’s angry glare.
She released me suddenly: “What are you waiting for? Take her away. Hurry. The test has already begun.” 17
I staggered backward.
“W-what test?” I stammered as Mr. Yancy, with strange swiftness for such an old man, grabbed my sleeve.
“You’ll see soon enough,” Yara said in a low voice, turning away with a shake of her skirts, “If you survive …”
“No. Wait!” I yelled.
Despite my kicking and struggling, Mr. Yancy began to pull me out of the room, a pained but resigned look on his gnarled face.
Yara’s back was to us, shielded by her braided hair. One hand gripped the top of her throne-like seat. The room, luxurious as it was, looked like a cage.
She murmured over one shoulder. “They do say knowledge is power.”
“And time waits for no man,” Mr. Yancy hurried me toward the door.
Yara turned toward us slowly, her eyes like sparks of flame. “Wait, Miss A Thousand and One questions. You want to know what the Council is doing?”
Mr. Yancy froze, clearing his throat uneasily. I wasn’t sure if he was warning Yara or me.
With one long, perfectly painted fingernail, Yara 18pressed the knob of an old-fashioned microphone on top of her desk.
“Alice-Ann!” she announced smoothly, “Alice-Ann to my office … Now. Merci!”
Her skirts rustled like dried leaves as she swung back to face me. Mr. Yancy stood next to the door, tense as a bow.
“My dear Zo,” Yara dropped her voice. “The Council is in the business of power. Gifted children, such as yourself, are the source of that power. As such, you are in high demand by wealthy and influential people around the world. The Council exists to find gifted children like yourself. They train them, test them, and once they’ve passed these tests, ship them off to certain families and organisations in need of their unique powers. In return, of course, the Council is paid generously for these services.”
“So, you steal kids, then sell us.” I stated as matter-of-factly as I could.
A sharp pain flashed across Yara’s eyes.
“Me?” she snapped, then softened her voice. “This is a school,” she gestured around her with one graceful hand, “a training facility if you will. A way-station before children who pass the tests are 19shipped off. I try to make sure that the children who leave here have all the skills they need to survive their new masters.”
Mr. Yancy broke through in his mocking voice, “Eh heh? I thought they say, ‘Jack of all trades, master of none’?”
“Of course. Not masters. Families.” Yara smiled at him dryly.
“Everyone needs a family – right Zo?” Yara looked at me with a mixture of grief and rage.
I thought about the sister she had lost forever, back in Samaan Bay. Did she still blame Adri and I, or the Council? It was their fault, not ours!
How could she work for them after everything they’d taken from her?
It hit me that maybe she didn’t have a choice. Maybe I didn’t either.
“You always ‘ave a choice,” I heard my Da say.
But where was he now? He didn’t even know where I was.
“Cat got your tongue?” Yara purred, her eyes flashing like warning signs.
“Okay, great talk! Time to go …” Mr. Yancy broke in, reaching for my sleeve. 20
“Not yet, old man,” Yara ordered, looking at a weathered brass clock on the wall that I could swear chimed in agreement.
My mind whirled. So, this was the Council’s big scheme: finding, training, and testing gifted children, to sell them off to the highest bidder. Was this what they had done with Adri – what they were about to do to me? In a daze, I turned to run, but Mr. Yancy was there, blocking my path, with an unusually sad look on his face.
“What happens if we fail the tests?” I asked numbly.
Yara’s long nails tapped the surface of her desk.
The door behind us inched open.
“Ah!” she sighed, as Mr. Yancy twitched uneasily. “Let us see, shall we?”
A pale girl with reddish-blond hair in two pigtails, an apple-green t-shirt and ragged shorts, crept in through the door. She looked from one of us to the other, then at Yara, like a mouse watching a cat.
“Hello Alice-Ann. So glad you could join us,” Yara’s red lips parted in a smile.
“Headmistress?” Alice squeaked, then cleared her throat.
“Would you be so kind,” Yara continued, “as to 21show our new friend here your gift?”
Despite her trembling, Alice stubbornly shook her head.
I was impressed. She was braver than she looked.
Yara curled out from behind the desk like a mountain lion, her voice rising to a growl.
“No? Shall we invite your entire class then – put them to the test? Some of them might not be ready.”
Alice’s chin dropped. “No,” she shook her head. “I’ll do it.”
I jumped. Suddenly, she was gone. Well … most of her. I could still see her pigtails and her mismatched socks, ending in once-white sneakers. They went dashing for the door of the room.
I got ready to push Mr. Yancy out of the way to help her escape. But before I could move, a net dropped onto the pigtails with a “Whoosh!” and froze them into place.
This was more than an ordinary net, it seemed to be some kind of immobilizer. Yara had moved so fast that I hadn’t seen her throw it.
“Hey! Let her go!” My t-shirt struggled uselessly against Mr. Yancy’s iron grip.
“Not now, Little One,” he warned me hoarsely. 22
Yara’s voice dropped to a whisper that was somehow more terrifying than a roar.
“Alice-Ann Poucault. Since you have consistently failed your tests here at school and despite every advantage, have not learned to master …” here she gave Mr. Yancy a scathing look, “the art of making yourself invisible, I’m afraid you will have to exit the programme. Forthwith.”
“You crusty-face old biddy, I ain’t fraid you!” Alice burst out, to my surprise.
She re-appeared fully under the net – her defiant face red enough to match her pigtails. Her limbs and head might be locked in place, but she could still talk!
“Oh, my sweet dear.” Yara’s face was ablaze. “I am not the one to be feared.”
She reached out and released one drop from a vial held gingerly in her gloved hand, onto the girl’s stuck head.
My heart pounded. What was in the vial? When had Yara put on gloves?
“This is one of the Council’s most treasured inventions,” she explained softly.
A sense of dread filled me as she carefully corked the vial and put it away in the massive desk. 23
Meanwhile, Alice was having her say: calling Yara all kinds of creative names. I grinned. At least she still had her voice.
Then with a squeak, in front of my eyes, Alice began to shrink.
I pulled back in horror. Pale hair grew on her arms and legs. White hair. No … Fur. Her ears grew narrower and longer, covered in the same white fur. Her face, already round, became shockingly so, highlighted by two sets of long silvery whiskers on either side of her shrinking nose.
She grew smaller, until there was nothing but a pile of clothes under the net.
“Where is she?” I whispered, too shocked to move. “What did you do to her?”
“Darling,” Yara said in a smooth voice. “She is right there!”
She pressed something and the net disappeared. The pile of clothes started wriggling. I shrieked and nearly jumped into Mr. Yancy’s arms. Now, he was staring at the clothes on the floor with his fists clenched and a steely look on his face.
Something crawled out slowly from the pile of clothing: a snuffling little … white rabbit. 24
I stared at its round pink eyes. They looked as though they were trying to tell me something.
“W-what?” I stammered.
“My dear Zo, meet Alice.” Yara said in cautionary tones. “The newest addition to our school’s working farm.”
“You’re going to eat her?” I groaned, about to be sick.
Mr. Yancy choked back a laugh.
“Of course not, you foolish girl!” Yara snapped. “This rabbit will help keep the grass low and remove the weeds from our grounds.”
She pinned me with her blazing stare. “This is the fate that awaits anyone who doesn’t pass the Council’s tests. Now, you understand the importance of doing your best. Don’t you, Zo?”
I couldn’t stop staring at Alice the Rabbit, snuffling around her own clothes. My eyes were as round as teacups.
“Good,” Yara nodded, coming in close.
Her skirts rustled like the wings of a bird.
“Remember,” she said pointedly, grabbing me with her eyes, “the key is to use all the gifts you’ve been given.” 25
It felt like I was floating outside of my body – hearing Yara from some faraway place. She scratched at the choker around her neck, then signalled Mr. Yancy to take me away.
He led me gently out of the room and down a windowless corridor lined with shining marble floors. At first, I went along blindly, stunned by everything I’d just seen and heard.
Then something inside of me clicked back into place. I couldn’t just go along with this madness. I dragged my feet and let my body go limp, hoping it would slow us down.
“Hey!” Old Man Yancy warned me in his quick voice, “You better keep moving. Resist the training and they have no more use for you. At least in there, you still have a chance. And remember …”
He looked at me closely, thick grey eyebrows sticking like bushes from the cliff of his brow, “The strongest rope is made of many strands.”
I snorted in anger. “Thanks.”
After giving me up to Yara and watching a girl be turned into a rabbit, now he was dropping proverbs? This man had some nerve.
But he was right about one thing. I was in the 26Council’s power. If I fought them now, I might never see my family again. I stopped struggling, stood up and pulled myself loose from his grip.
“Where are you taking me?” I demanded.
“Here.” He turned a sharp corner on the left.
I went with him and stopped in my tracks.
We were in a seemingly endless corridor, lined on either side with golden doors.
“Come,” Mr. Yancy said.
I forced myself to move. As I followed him down the long, narrow hallway, I could see that each door was different in shape and design – some looked ancient, some modern, some ornate, others sleek. We passed what looked like the door of an Aztec temple, then another like a submarine hatch. There was even one shaped like the airlock on a spaceship. But they all seemed made of solid gold.
When I looked closely, I could see another thing that they had in common. They were all covered with dragons. Each door had a different style of dragon in its design: as door knockers, frames, handles, hieroglyphs, and decorative carvings. Each door’s dragons seemed to come from a different era and civilization in the world. 27
As Mr. Yancy walked ahead of me, I quietly dipped my hand into the pocket Yara had touched. There was something in there. I pulled it out slowly and saw that it was a key, small and exquisite, made of gold, with one end shaped like a dragon’s head and wings.
Yara had mentioned something about a key. Yes, she’d said that the key was to use all the gifts I’d been given. Clearly, she’d been trying to send me a message. Had Yara given me a key to one of these doors? If so, which one? There were so many of them.
I remembered her freeing me and Adri from the Council’s clutches, back at their lab in the Samaan Bay forest. Maybe Yara was trying to help me again without them knowing. Either way, I’d better hold on to this key if I ever hoped to make it out of here alive.
I slipped the key back into my pocket just as Mr. Yancy stopped suddenly in front of me.
“What is this place?” I whispered, looking at the rows of what looked like hundreds of doors stretching past us on either side; each one different from the other.
Mr. Yancy gave me a look that bordered on pity.
“They call this Dragon Hall.” 28
Well, that was an obvious name.
“What’s inside the doors?” I asked quietly.
Somehow, this didn’t feel like a place where you raised your voice.
“Be careful Zo,” Mr. Yancy cautioned, looking at me with piercing eyes. “Remember your gift.”
Before I could move, he held my shirt as tight as the pincer of a crab, opened the nearest door, and shoved me in.