🎃 🎃 🎃
WE saw fewer people around the further we got out of the city.
The tourists and sightseers were replaced with women carrying baskets to the marketplace and men taking lunch breaks from their jobs. Children on the side of the road were enjoying a game of tag.
It seemed like a peaceful, quiet, blissful place.
“This is your stop.”
The carriage slowed to a halt at a small harbor outside of town. Across the calm seas, we could make out a solitary island enveloped in greenery. It was hard to see from that distance, but I saw some sort of stone building sitting in its center.
“That building’s where you’ll find Ark School,” the coachman said. “They call it Noah’s Ark in these parts.”
“So the school is on an island…” I hadn’t expected it to require a boat to reach, so I was a bit startled.
“Surprising, no? They use it as a school now, but it used to be a castle. The noble kids can’t run away this way.” The coachman gave us one last “Stay safe” before he left.
The luggage carriage sped off after tossing our trunks to the ground, kicking up a big cloud of dust with its wheels.
Leeds raised his fist in anger as he choked on the dust. “Hang on a second! That is no way to treat a lady!”
“You’re no lady. Twins, close your eyes, or you’ll get dust in them. My lady, you…” Jack covered the noses and mouths of the boys, then squinted at me. His eyebrows sagged.
Dark had pulled me close to him. He pressed my face into his chest so the dust wouldn’t get to me.
“Are you all right, Alice?” he asked.
“I’m fine, thank you. Oh, hello.”
A boy with a shaved head ran up to us from where the boats were lined up on the harbor. “You’ll miss the last boat if you don’t hurry! You won’t make it in time for the entrance ceremony if you don’t arrive today. I won’t stop you if you want to leave, though. Two students already went home today!”
“Why would the students leave at the last minute if they were set to attend the entrance ceremony?” I asked.
“They said they didn’t want to be stuck on the island!”
Perhaps attending school on an island with nowhere to flee was like a jail sentence to young boys at the age where all they wanted to do was play.
But how do Dum and Dee feel?
The twins were holding hands and staring out at the ocean. The silhouette of the distant island was reflected in their blue eyes. They seemed nervous, but they knew they needed to be strong to face this challenge.
Nerves were inevitable when taking the plunge into a new environment. This would give them life experience, too.
I bent down to speak to the boy, waiting for our decision. “Can you get the six of us on a boat?”
“This way!”
He led us onto a wooden ship, where we sat on its old benches.
The hull was oiled to prevent it from rotting, but the exposure to sunlight had turned it a strange gray color.
As the only passengers, the rest of the ship was empty. The wooden seats were splintering, and the neglect in repairing them made me feel that this ship must not have many customers.
Perhaps it only operated during times when students needed to come and go.
The ship set sail on a westward wind. It gradually picked up more and more speed. The waves roared against us, rocking the hull with each impact.
I grabbed the railing before it could knock me off my feet.
The sea looked so calm from the harbor!
Suddenly, a shadow enveloped the ship. A giant bird was flying directly overhead.
“Does anyone know what that bird is?”
No one answered me.
I looked back at the ship and saw Dark and Jack clasping their hands over their mouths. They were both deathly pale. Dum and Dee had slumped into each other, too—only Leeds seemed unaffected.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“I feel…”
“So sick…”
“Sounds like they’re seasick.” Leeds, paying no mind to the ship’s rocking, stroked the twins’ backs. “Sailing can ruin your sense of balance unless you’re used to it. How are you doing, my lady?”
“I’m fine. I wish we would have brought some medicine for nausea.”
Their symptoms only worsened the longer we were on the boat. They would have to recover once they disembarked.
We finally arrived at the island. The ship pulled up alongside a wharf.
As soon as I stepped onto the land, I gave the others orders.
“Let’s take a short break before we head to Ark School.”
The ship’s crew took care of our luggage while we strolled along the white beach.
The winding road stretched from the harbor into the forest. A giant castle gate protruded from the center of the lush greenery. That was definitely Ark School. The building certainly looked like the setting where a legendary monster would dwell.
There was also a rest area alongside the start of the road. The small log cabin was probably for visitors who needed to recover from seasickness.
“Come on, everyone,” I urged them along. “We just have to make it that far.”
We slowly made our way to the cabin. The interior consisted of misshapen chairs and a table made from halved logs. The countertops were covered in pamphlets.
“I guess it’s just us here.”
With relief on their faces, the seasick members collapsed into chairs.
I left Leeds in charge of our luggage cart and looked around the room.
I’d assumed this was nothing more than a place to sit and rest, but the glass cupboards on the walls had signs telling us to take whatever we wanted from inside. The cupboards contained a map of the island, bite-sized pieces of cake on plates, and three blue juice bottles.
“These must be free drinks for visitors,” I said.
“That’s perfect. The sea breeze left me parched.” Dark stood up from his stool. He collected two bottles and a bottle opener from the cupboard.
I carried the plates of cake to the table. Jack raised his sagging head while the twins, who’d quickly recovered from their seasickness, gathered around me.
“Get me a drink too.”
“We want cake!”
“We want cake!”
I popped the corks of the juice bottles.
White steam formed at the top of the bottles as the liquid began to bubble. As the drops of condensation dripped off the bottle, for some reason, I felt goosebumps form on my skin.
They’re cold?
It was as if someone had just taken them off ice. The cakes were warm to the touch too, like they were fresh out of the oven. But no one else was around—there wasn’t any kitchen equipment in the cabin either.
So, who prepared these?
“Hang on, everyone,” I said. “I need to be sure it’s safe—”
But I was too late.
Dark and Jack sipped juice from the bottles.
The twins swallowed bites of cake.
“Yummy!”
“Yummy!”
“What a mysterious flavor. I’ve never tasted anything like it before. It’s like a mix between a cherry tart, custard, pineapple, roast turkey, and toast with caramel and butter. Why, I— Urk!” Dark went pale in the middle of his description. The bottle slipped from his hand and hit the ground with a thud.
Jack dropped his bottle next. He had one eye closed as he clutched at his throat.
“I-I can’t breathe…”
“Mph!”
“Mph!”
Even the twins jolted and fell to the floor.
It has to be poison!
“Hurry and vomit it back out!” I shouted. “If you can’t get your fingers down your throats, then I’ll—”
“No, my lady!” Leeds intercepted my hands before they could reach the twins. “You’ll be hurt if the poison is absorbed by your skin. You can’t touch them.”
“So you want me to stand here and watch them die?!” I cried.
“You’re the head of the Liddell family. It has to be done.”
His words were so cold. A wave of despair consumed me.
The family motto my father always said to me echoed in my brain.
“Don’t forget that death lurks around every corner.”
My death meant the end of the Liddell family bloodline. It was only natural my life would be prioritized during an emergency. Jack and the twins were family to me, but their actual purpose was to protect my true family and nothing more.
The pawns died so that the king could live on.
“B-But…”
As I hesitated, an orange glint of light flashed in front of me. Like a firefly, it soared through the air, drawing lines as it rotated counterclockwise.
Leeds wrapped his arms around me and scowled upward at it.
“Now what?!”
The light wrote the numbers one through twelve as it completed one revolution. A giant clock had formed in the air. The surface glittered before peeling apart and falling onto the four people below.
“Look out!” I shouted in warning. It was all I could do.
The pieces of the clock flashed when they touched the boys. Their bodies were enveloped in light, spinning around them like chrysalis until they finally popped and split apart.
White smoke billowed to the ceiling. The table collapsed, sending cake scattering and bottles rolling across the floor.
Amidst the chaos, I heard fabric hitting the ground through the smoke.
It started to disperse. Under the chair where Jack had just been sitting was a young boy wearing an oversized shirt.
“Huh? What the hell’s going on?”
His sharp, bright green eyes went wide as he stared at his hands coming out of the sleeves.
That curly black hair and the necktie hanging off his neck… They feel so familiar…
“Um… I can’t see anything. Alice, where are you?”
Another high-pitched voice called out. It was a beautiful, icy voice, but muffled—like someone had covered his mouth with a cloth.
I found the source of the voice—a young boy with his head buried inside a top hat. He probably couldn’t see with the hat in the way. The boy flailed his arms like he was fumbling around in the dark, with his too-long sleeves flapping limply.
The extreme decorations on his outfit looked exactly like the ones Dark had been wearing.