Ollin looked around nervously. ‘We’re in a volcano? Um, maybe we should get out of here?’
Alex shook her head. ‘From the centre I arrive, striving for havoc then sleeping forever,’ she recited. ‘The volcano doesn’t erupt anymore.’
‘Oh,’ Ollin said. He hesitated. ‘You sure?’
‘Positive,’ Alex said. ‘We just need to get a bit of the volcano for the ritual.’ She looked at the expanse of jagged black rock. ‘A piece of that black stone, I think.’
‘So,’ Leeuie summarised, ticking things off on his fingers as he talked. ‘A piece of black rock from the volcano is the fire element, a white feather is air, and water from the waterfall is water. Which means we should find the earth element by the entrance tunnel. What do you think it is? Dirt from the ground?’
Alex shook her head slowly. That didn’t feel right. And it didn’t match the picture of the bow and arrow, or the last part of the rhyme. An elixir of life that only the hero can bring forth. ‘I’ll get the other elements,’ she said. ‘And I’m sure I’ll figure out the last one along the way.’
Leeuie jumped up. ‘It’ll be quicker if we divide and conquer. I can get the —’
‘I said I’ll get them,’ Alex said, not even trying to keep the frustration out of her voice. Leeuie really needed to learn when to butt out.
‘But if we —’
‘No!’ Alex snapped. She didn’t know for sure if it mattered who actually collected the elements, but she wasn’t going to chance it. What if, by letting Leeuie get even one of them, the binding incantation wouldn’t work and Mum wouldn’t get better? ‘We can all look. But I need to be the one to choose them.’
As a group, they scoured the ground for a loose rock. They checked underneath shrubs and sifted through the loose soil, trying to find a single piece of the black volcanic stone that had come free of the wall. But there wasn’t any.
Alex shaded her eyes and squinted up. The black stone wall jutted unevenly from the ground and rose at a steep angle toward the sky. Unless Leeuie had packed a jackhammer in his bag (he hadn’t — Ollin had asked), the possibility of shearing a piece from the rock face seemed impossible.
‘Hey Alex!’ Leeuie interrupted her thoughts. ‘Look at this.’
He stood right next to where the vines hung down like a green curtain. When Alex got closer, she saw that part of the rock had been carved out.
‘I think it’s a sort of staircase,’ Leeuie said, excited.
Alex nodded. An incredibly steep and dangerous staircase, but a staircase nevertheless. ‘I guess I have to go up there,’ she said, her voice wavering slightly.
Leeuie opened his mouth to say he would go, but Moraika chimed in before he could get the words out. ‘I’ll climb up with you, Alex.’
Alex looked sceptically from the alpaca to the stone staircase. The individual steps were narrow and smoothed with age, and looked about as alpaca-friendly as rollerskates.
‘I know,’ Moraika said. ‘But aren’t alpacas originally from the Andes? I bet climbing rocky mountains is in my DNA.’
As it turned out, Moraika did have an instinctive knack for navigating the terrain, and the alpaca bounded upwards as Alex cautiously struggled up the steps one at a time. She could barely watch as Moraika leaped from one ledge to the next. But she reminded herself that Moraika was not a regular alpaca. She was made from magic.
‘Is it really true you can’t die?’ Alex asked.
‘Not in the same ways as most creatures,’ Moraika said. ‘If this body gets irrevocably damaged, then my spirit will just go into another animal.’ She performed an impressive leap up to the ledge above. ‘The only thing that can truly kill me — kill any of us — is Kiala.’
‘Well, I’m not going to let her do that,’ Alex said, determinedly hauling herself up a few more steps.
Moraika smiled. ‘I know you won’t. You’ve got warrior blood in you. I can see it.’
Alex flushed at the compliment. ‘You can?’
‘Absolutely,’ Moraika said. She was quiet for a few moments, then asked, ‘Do you have brothers or sisters? Are they like you?’
Alex hesitated for a beat too long. ‘I’m an only child. Sort of.’
‘Sort of?’
Alex gripped the stone step above her head. ‘Well … Isaac and his girlfriend had a kid a few months ago.’
‘Who’s Isaac?’
‘My dad.’
‘Then you’re a big sister? That’s exciting. What’s her name?’
‘Luciana,’ Alex muttered, trying to ignore the tightness that gripped her chest. Truth was, she had been excited. She had desperately wanted a brother or sister her whole life, but when Mum and Dad split up she’d given up on the idea. Then Dad told her his girlfriend was pregnant. They were having a girl. Visions filled Alex’s head — teaching her new sister to ride a bike, read a book, invent her own sandwich. She immediately started saving her pocket money to buy the tiny pair of green Converse sneakers she’d seen online — the ones that matched Alex’s bigger pair.
But then Dad had uninvited Alex to spend the summer with them. He was going to be too busy looking after the new baby, he said. Now, Alex felt dumb. Stupid for thinking that Dad would still love her when he had a new daughter. One that didn’t remind him of all those years of fighting and shouting. One that didn’t remind him of Mum.
The tiny Converse were in the cupboard in Alex’s bedroom, still in their wrapping. Alex realised she should probably throw them out when she got home.
‘Yeah, well, I doubt I’ll ever meet her,’ she said to Moraika. ‘Isaac doesn’t have time for two kids.’
Moraika made a soft noise in the back of her throat that Alex took to be something like pity.
‘I don’t care,’ Alex said quickly. ‘Babies are boring. And gross.’ Her face flushed again. She didn’t want to talk about this anymore. ‘What about you? Any brothers or sisters?’
Moraika leaped up to another rock, landing with perfect balance. She was silent for a few seconds. ‘Sometimes I have these dreams. Four children, all playing together. Two boys and two girls. It feels … familiar. Like it’s not really a dream, but something I used to do.’ She paused. ‘But I’ve forgotten a lot of my human memories. We all have.’
‘You don’t remember anything from before?’ Alex asked.
‘Well … snippets here and there. But not a lot.’ Moraika was right near the top and waited for Alex to catch up so they could climb over the precipice together. ‘I suppose it makes it easier. In a way.’
Alex took the last few steps slowly. If she could choose to forget about Dad, would she?
Right up at the peak, there was a narrow ridge that ran around the perimeter of the hidden garden. Creepers and vines had crawled up from the forest floor and tangled over themselves, camouflaging the dormant volcano from the outside world.
Alex scanned the landscape. From up here, with the trees sprawling all the way to the horizon, it seemed as though there was nothing in the world apart from this forest.
At the outer edges, the trees stood tall and straight. But closer to the centre, the foliage leaned and twisted together, a tight spiral of leaves and limbs and trunks, terrifying and impenetrable. Alex knew that’s where they had to go. Because that’s where Kiala was going to be.
For a few moments, as the enormity of her task washed over her, her head swam with what-ifs and doubts. But then she shook herself. She couldn’t think like that. Right now, she had one job. To get a volcanic stone.
She looked down at the ledge and, sure enough, there were at least a dozen shiny rocks lined up, waiting. Alex ran her hand over each of them. The tips of her fingers fizzed and tingled ever so slightly with each stone she touched.
She eventually selected one that was a little smaller than a tennis ball because it fitted easily in her back pocket. The stone had a good weight to it. It felt solid. Right.
She smiled to herself, squared her shoulders. Her plan was going to work. She was going to stop Kiala. She was going to make Mum better. And no one else was going to get hurt.