16. The Beach of Shoes

When Bodkin woke up, cold, shivering, the transformation medicine that turned him into Xar had worn off, as had any residual excitement. Maybe there was some bit of Xar that was still left in there when he had briefly taken over Xar’s body. But whatever mad impulse had taken him over, it was now gone.

He looked down at his arms, skinny as weeds.

He wasn’t even a hob anymore. He was just Bodkin… an extremely ordinary Assistant Bodyguard who had betrayed the trust of his princess.

Bodkin was used to being alone, even when he was in company.

But for the first time in his life he really was completely…

ALONE.

With shaking hands he took out the map that he had torn from the Spelling Book that showed him the way to the Nuckalavee. The path that led through the burned forest was shining bright on the map, which meant that he was heading in the right direction. The path ended somewhere called the Beach of Shoes, and opposite this beach was an island called the Isle of the Nuckalavee.

There was a warning on the bottom of the map, saying in big dark letters:

DON’T FORGET TO

TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES.

But there was no time to wonder what that might mean.

Bodkin drank a glug of water from his water bottle. He was sick with hunger, but the burned forest contained no food and he couldn’t return now. He had to go on, riding on Nighteye’s back, all the while taking terrified glances up at the sky above, scared that at any moment he might see a Witch, even though Witches weren’t all that keen on flying during the daytime. The broken trees didn’t provide much camouflage.

Bodkin arrived at the Beach of Shoes very late in the evening, hungry and thirsty, and so terrified by the sight of the distant island of the Nuckalavee, crouching like a dark predatory creature on the horizon, he fell asleep on Nighteye’s back and Nighteye had to carry him on, in a dead faint, to the edge of the water.

He woke up again at the brink of the ocean, waves breaking on the shore, looking out at the island. Bodkin shivered and thought, I have to do this, for HER… I have to prove that I can be a hero too, even if I will only be a dead hero… Maybe if I’m a dead hero, she’ll at least forgive me.

Nighteye swam out to the island, with Bodkin, who could not swim, holding on to her tail.

What am I doing? thought Bodkin. Some hero I am. I can’t even swim.

Bodkin and Nighteye landed on the Isle of the Nuckalavee, and Nighteye shook off the water like a cat. Bodkin felt rising determination as he put a hand on the hilt of the Enchanted Sword and pulled down his visor.

Before him were the sands of the beach, and the waters of the ocean were running into a dark and dreadful cave, open like the jaws of a monster. The Cave of the Nuckalavee. Bodkin felt his heart shrivel within him as he looked at it.

But I got here on my own! I can do this! thought Bodkin. I’m stronger than they think I am!

He tried to pull out the Enchanted Sword, but for some reason it would not budge from its scabbard. It was stuck fast, as if it were glued there.

By the whiskers of werewolves! thought Bodkin. I’m not even strong enough to draw the sword!

But Bodkin made himself put one foot in front of the other, even though it felt like each foot was made out of lead.

Bodkin stopped suddenly.

Feeling he’d forgotten something.

What was it?

What on earth could it be?

He looked down.

I’ve forgotten to take off my shoes!!!

Bodkin’s eyes closed and his head slumped gently to one side.

Snore!

He tipped forward, facedown in the sand.

There was a terrible high-screeching noise from behind and above, like the sound of swooping furies. The sound of many, many scrabbling feet on the sand, panting furiously, running toward the intruders.

Nighteye gave a terrified yowl, her fur all on end. She picked up the fallen Bodkin and ran into the Cave of the Nuckalavee, the unconscious Bodkin dangling from her mouth, like a cat carrying a kitten.

And goodness knows what awaited them in there.

No, I don’t think Bodkin was quite ready to perform a quest all on his own.

Wish and Xar and their companions arrived at the Beach of Shoes the next morning, so early that the sun was not yet up.

They had lost track of Bodkin for a bit, and it took the snowcats a while to pick up his scent again. When they finally reached the Beach of Shoes, Wish and Xar found a small log boat hidden in a reed bank that they would be able to use to cross the sea to the island of the Nuckalavee. They hid the Enchanted Door under branches and leaves.*

Many of the rocks on the beach had sprite-writing that gleamed in the light of the moon scrawled all over them.

The sprite-writing said, quite politely,

PLEASE TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES…

And then added, more ominously,

…OR ELSE…

“You have to take your shoes off,” explained Caliburn, “out of respect for the sea and the impossible quest. Then you become the shadow men and women, the shoeless ones, and only when you return are you allowed to put them back on again.”

Obediently, Wish and Crusher took off their shoes. Xar wasn’t wearing any shoes anyway because he had left the Learning Place for Spectacularly Gifted Wizards dressed as a hob.

Crusher walked ahead a few steps and carefully laid down his shoes in the grass at the edge of the beach.

And for the first time the children noticed that all along the outer perimeter of the shore, higher than the tide could reach, was a line of shoes patiently waiting for their owners to come back. Some of them had been waiting a long, long time. Their leather was wind-battered, storm-eaten, half-broken, and buried in the sand. Others looked perkier and more hopeful, as if their owners had only just taken them off and were about to return.

“Not very many people come back to collect their ssshooessssss…” squeaked Bumbleboozle in nervous alarm.

Ariel’s eyes gleamed green and then red. “Particularly when you conssssider these are the shoes of some of the greatest Wizards in the wildwoods…”

They couldn’t find Bodkin’s shoes, so they weren’t sure if he had gotten there before them.

Crusher picked up the small boat, carefully carried it across the beach and put it gently in the water. The others followed in his giant footsteps.

There were will-o’-the-wisps flying right out of the bogs and onto the beach in a glorious firework display, singing and taunting and pulling the hair of the sprites.

Will-o’-the-wisps are mean little faeries that sprites hate even more than pixies. At least pixies are only mischievous. Will-o’-the-wisps willfully lead unwary travelers to their doom.

“Don’t you DARE go after the will-o’-the-wisps, sprites!” shouted Xar, shaking his fist. “I’m warning you all! Pay no attention!”

But it was very hard to ignore the impudent little creatures, and their eerie song sent a chill into Wish’s soul and made her swallow hard. Whatever was over on that island must be very, very scary indeed.

“The Nuckalavee!” sang the will-o’-the-wisps. “The fools on their way to the Nuckalavee…”

The Fools on Their Way to the Nuckalavee

Care-less, love-less, heart-worn, soul-blast?

Come this way…

Thought-less… shoe-less… hope-less?

Come this way…

Love is weakness…

Love is kindness…

Love is childish…

Love is thoughtless…

No more second chances

No more silly dances

LOVE is weakness… so

Come this way…

“Take no notice. Don’t look back until we’ve got in the boat,” said Caliburn, all of a fluster.

Crusher tied a rope to the front of the boat and they all jumped in. The giant waded out thigh-deep, and then he gave a great shiver of “it’s cold!” before holding his nose and launching himself into the sea in a great breaststroke, sending backward waves that nearly overturned their boat.

The day turned to a warm night, and the swimming giant pulled the boat after him along the path of the moon, heading out to the island of the Nuckalavee with the sprites singing overhead.

The wolves and the snowcats put their heads over the side of the boat, wind waggling their ears, as they looked back at the beach. They could still see the shoes.

The shoes were waiting.

They would wait forever if they had to.

And little did they know it, but there were eyes OTHER than the eyes of will-o’-the-wisps watching them leave the Beach of Shoes…

The eyes of WITCHES.

Witches were crouching like great dark spiders in the reed beds, muttering to each other, “Sehs gnimoc… sehs gnimoc…” which means, “She’s coming… she’s coming…”

But oddly, they did not yet attack. They were waiting too.

What were they waiting for?

Crusher swam through the quiet black water, so far out that they could no longer see the shore and the beach with the waiting shoes behind them, and then Wish began to feel not-so-brave.

As they drew closer to the island of the Nuckalavee, the shadowy outline coming nearer and nearer, bottles began to appear in the ocean—at first only a few passing the log boat every now and then, but then there were more of them, and more and more and more.

Xar leaned over the side of the log boat and picked one out of the water. It was a perfectly ordinary bottle with a blank piece of paper in it, and a bit of hair, and a fingernail, and some other things he couldn’t quite identify.

“Why are all these bottles here?” asked Wish.

“They’re curse bottles,” said Xar, putting the bottle back in the water. “Somebody on that island must be putting them in the water and pushing them out to sea. Whoever it is really doesn’t like someone else, but I don’t know who. Normally you write the name of the person you are cursing on that piece of paper, but there’s nothing written on the paper.”

Wish shivered. There were so many bottles bobbing past in the sea around them. That was an awful lot of cursing, and she didn’t really want to meet whoever was behind it.

Mists suddenly descended out of nowhere, great choking sea mists, treacherous, shifting, there one minute gone the next, sometimes so thick that they could barely see the comforting head of Crusher swimming out in front of them.

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But they knew they were still going the right way, for they were following the bottles.

Ariel tasted the mist. “This fog is not natural—it is Magic, summoned by the Droods,” whispered Ariel, his eyes gleaming red for danger in the swirling, confusing fog all around them. “The Droods are concealing something.”

The mists cleared and there it was, finally, close-up.

The Isle of the Nuckalavee.

“Oh my goodnesssss!” squeaked Bumbleboozle, turning multiple somersaults in panic. “It’s not an island. It’s a MONSTER! Look at how big its JAWS are… Pleassse let’s go back…”

But Wish screwed up her eyes and flicked up her eyepatch a smidgeon because her Magic eye was good at seeing through magic-made mist.

“That isn’t a mouth,” she said at last. “It’s a CAVE…”

A dark island, shrouded in fog, with a gigantic dark sea cave like the open mouth of a monster.