Juliet Dove, Queen of Love by Bruce Coville

Author:Bruce Coville
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

TEN

She Who Wanders

“Oh, geez,” said Jerome, as the mist wrapped around them. “We’re in for it now. Where do you suppose we are, anyway?”

“I don’t have the slightest idea,” whispered Juliet, her voice trembling. She was terrified, but also furious at herself for having made this mistake.

“Well, it sure ain’t Kansas,” muttered Roxanne. Juliet glanced at the rat, who was clinging to her left shoulder. Roxanne shrugged. “The Wizard of Oz is one of my favorite movies.”

Juliet pivoted and began to retrace her steps.

“I suspect it’s too late to turn back now,” said Jerome.

The rat was right, as Juliet had to admit when she had walked back five paces, then ten, then twenty, then fifty, only to find the mist thicker than ever.

“Now what do we do?” she whispered, her voice husky with fear.

“I think we’d better go back in the direction you were walking before,” said Jerome.

“Jerome’s right,” said Roxanne. “Once you start one of these things, you pretty much have to go through to the other side if you want to get out again.”

“Have you ever been in ‘one of these things’?” asked Juliet.

“Not really,” said Roxanne. “But hanging around in the magic shop—well, you hear a lot of stories.”

“I hear something now,” said Jerome. “Listen!”

Juliet paused. In the distance she could hear waves crashing on rocks. The sound was familiar; Venus Harbor was a seashore town, after all. But it was not a sound she had ever heard from her own backyard.

“The mist seems thinner that way,” said Jerome. “Maybe we better go there.”

“At least I’ll have a better chance of walking without tripping,” muttered Juliet, who, unable to see the ground beneath the mist, had already stubbed her toe a couple of times. As she walked, the sky grew lighter. Soon they left the mist—and the darkness—behind, emerging into a sunny day. The landscape was rocky, with low-growing trees and shrubs. There was not a house or building in sight.

She started toward the waves and soon found a rocky path. It led upward, bringing them out at the edge of a cliff that was higher than anything Juliet had ever seen around Venus Harbor.

The air ahead was clear, and she stood for a moment to watch the sea roll toward shore in great combers, its surface unmarred by any ship, or buoy, or other sign of man. Far out, she saw a dolphin leap. She looked down. It was at least a hundred feet to the great rocks against which the sea was breaking in cascades of foam.

Running along the edge of the cliff was a path, not well traveled but easy enough to spot. To the right it sloped downward. To their left it made a steep climb up.

“Which way do you think we should go?” asked Juliet.

“My guess is up,” said Roxanne.

“Figures,” said Jerome.

“Hey, you’re not the one who has to climb it,” said Juliet.

“So I was being sympathetic. But if we’re gonna do it, let’s get going. This is making me nervous.”

Juliet comforted herself with the thought that at least there were no people here.

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