After recovering from her face-plant in the sky, Brooks had managed to swoop down and pluck the coconut from where it was bobbing on top of the water. Then she cruised over and picked me up. I grabbed the hairy orb from her other claw and gripped her outstretched wing to climb onto her back, where I clung to her slick feathers. I couldn’t believe it. My dad’s whole future could be inside this coconut.
What the heck happened? I asked telepathically. What did you run into?
It was crazy…. Some kind of barr
ier. But I couldn’t see it!
I pinched the bridge of my nose and took a deep breath, not wanting to grasp the truth of what Brooks was telling me.
The shadow magic was supposed to keep the gods out, not keep us in, I said.
I mean, I hadn’t left Holbox Island since we’d gotten here a few months ago, but that was because Ixtab had told me the second I stepped out from under the shadow magic’s protection, I could get nabbed on the gods’ radar and—ripppp!—off with my head.
I felt sick just thinking this island could be—was probably—some kind of prison. How could I ever rescue my dad if we were locked in ourselves?
Brooks flapped her wings angrily. Why didn’t we figure it out?
That we’re trapped here?
WHY we’re trapped here. I mean, if you leave the island, then the gods will know you’re alive, right? And they’ll know Ixtab lied to them about you being dead. Of course she doesn’t want to risk her own head. Ugh! We should have known not to trust a god.
She’s trying to save her own butt!
Well, if she thinks she can keep me…us here—Brooks’s bird muscles tensed—she’s got another think coming!
Brooks was right. No way was Ixtab going to keep me here. Not when I finally knew—or was about to find out—where my dad was being held. If that red bird could find a hole, we could, too.
* * *
By the time we got back to our own stretch of playa, it was already getting dark. Rosie, of course, was nowhere to be seen. She knew I was mad at her. I mean, she had almost ruined our seven-months-in-the-making quest.
The scent of pollo adobado wafted from the house along with some of Hondo’s Zen snorefest music. You read that right. He had turned over a new leaf since living on the island. Now he was all about visualization and meditation.
The coconut was clearly hollow, but I couldn’t find a seam in the shell. I cracked it open by hitting it with Fuego and looked for the hidden message. Inside was a black obsidian disk no bigger than a quarter.
“Jazz protected the message in magician’s stone?” Brooks said. “He takes this top secret stuff pretty seriously.”
“Yep,” I said. “He’s a regular James Bond.”
“Can’t blame the guy,” Brooks said. “The gods would gut him if they ever learned he was helping us.”
I lay the black glass on a rock and jabbed it with Fuego in spear mode, splitting it in two. In the middle was a dark strip of paper that unfolded once, twice, three times until it was the size of a three-by-five notecard. I stumbled back. It wasn’t that I was afraid of paper—it was that this was exactly how Ah-Puch, the god of death, had sprung to life before my eyes a few months ago.
My heart pounded as I picked up the message to check it out more closely.
“Well?” Brooks said.
“It’s blank!”
“No way.” Brooks snatched it away but held it out so we could both see it. That’s when the paper began to shimmer silver, like flecks of twirling stardust. Then, slowly, words appeared on it as if an invisible hand were writing them.
WaTiki Indoor Waterpark Resort
314 N Elk Vale Rd, Rapid City, SD 57703
Midnight
March 24