They leaned on each other as they staggered away from the boiling ravine and found a new trail toward the coast. Soon, a clean sea breeze hit their faces and they breathed the wonderful air so deeply, they both started coughing again. They emerged from the forest onto the rocky beach. Malcolm took his bearings. He started down the beach toward the dock where they had left Charlotte and Imogen. It couldn’t have been more than a half a mile away.
They had gone five hundred feet when they felt it. A tremor. Penny’s face fell with dismay as the ground shook. The rocky terrain was precarious, but only when the ground beneath them actually shifted did they stumble. Gaios surely realized his pet had failed to kill them and was taking the matter into his own hands. The earth beneath them shuddered again. Everything started to quake and rumble. Trees cracked and fell at the jungle’s edge. The ocean water flinched with a frothy slap against the shore. Malcolm pulled Penny upright.
They ran faster now, risking a broken limb on the slippery rocks. Finally Malcolm recognized the area ahead of them. This was where they had landed. But when they rounded a rocky outcrop, the dock was empty. The boat was gone.
Penny let loose a hoarse shout, “No!”
Malcolm exhaled heavily, fear gripping his chest. Did the crew somehow overpower the girls? Or some other of Gaios’s sentry creatures happened onto them? Either way, he should never have left them.
An ear-rending crack split the earth. The ground shifted unnaturally under their feet and they struggled to keep their balance. A huge fissure opened high on the shore and ripped its jagged way along the edge of the forest, creating a domino crash of trees. Gaios was going to tear off a piece of his island to smash them.
Behind them, a high-pitched shout pierced the low rumbling. “Mr. Malcolm! Miss Penny!”
The paddle steamer came chugging around the shoreline. Charlotte leaned over the bow, waving frantically. Imogen stood in the wheelhouse. The boat rocked in the rough water, but Imogen angled awkwardly for the dock. Penny and Malcolm ran out onto the twisting jetty. Charlotte lifted a coil of line, but Malcolm motioned her aside.
“Jump for it!” he roared at Penny, hoping she heard him, as the boat rolled toward them, smacking into the pilings. They both leapt as wooden planks cracked. They cleared the rail and spilled onto the deck in a heap.
“What’s happening?” Charlotte’s eyes widened as she stared at the fracturing island.
“Get us out of here!” Malcolm waved his arm at Imogen. “Head for open water.” As she frantically wrestled the wheel over, he shouted to Penny, “Get to the engine and scrape whatever you can out of her.”
Penny ran to the stern and pulled open a hatch. She grabbed tools from her bag, peering through the access way at the churning machinery of the motor. She whistled and shook her head at another example of the Baroness’s design prowess. Then she grinned with excitement and leapt into the hatch.
Malcolm joined Imogen in the wheelhouse. “Do you know how to handle this thing?”
“Father took us sailing.” Her mechanical eye jutted out to focus far beyond the bow.
“This isn’t a pleasure skiff.”
She cast a baleful glare at him. “I’m an Anstruther. We don’t use pleasure skiffs.”
Malcolm grinned at her spirit. “Then take us out, love.”
Crack after resounding crack echoed from the island until it became a single roar, almost like an artillery barrage. The fissure widened. Enormous piles of dirt and rocks cascaded in with a hissing sound. The shoreline behind them started to roll. The roar filled their ears. A huge expanse of rock lifted in a spray of water, almost seeming to rise from the ocean, before it crashed back down in a vast plume of spray. A wave of rolling water came at them, growing larger with each second.
Ahead of the steamer rose the jagged spears of rock that surrounded the island. Malcolm stood by the wheel and helped Imogen steer toward the barrier of dragon’s teeth. Charlotte perched at the bow, trying to shout directions, but the roar of the earth and sea made it impossible to hear her.
Imogen pointed as the waterline dropped away ahead, exposing more of the deadly shoals. “We’ll be crushed!”
The massive wave caught up and lifted the boat. They tipped forward, eliciting a scream from Imogen as they almost pitched on their prow. The sluggish paddle wheels groaned at the amount of fast-moving water rushing through them. They were heading helplessly for the massive rocks.
The engine revved suddenly loud and furious. The stovepipe above belched a huge green cloud. The paddle wheels spun faster with a frantic whine at Penny’s command, digging hard into the water.