More red eyes opened in the dark water and chased them.
They swam toward a cypress tree that grew out of the middle of the marsh like a little island. But the gators were gaining on them.
Riley reached the tree first and scrambled up the thick roots. Her hands slipped, but then she hooked a branch. She reached back for Jamal. Their eyes met for a split second.
“My hand—grab it,” she yelled.
He swam toward the tree, but the gators were right behind him. He could see their red eyes drawing closer. He held his breath and tried to swim faster.
Desperately, Jamal reached up and clasped her hand. She yanked him up onto the tree right as a gator snapped at his ankle, almost taking his foot off.
They scrambled farther up the roots while the bewitched gators swarmed around the cypress tree, circling it and blocking any means of escape. Their red eyes glowed in the murky water. The sun had fully set, and the swamp was pitch-black.
They were trapped.
“Malik…are you here?” Jamal called, feeling panicked that they’d lost him in the chase.
“Right behind you,” Malik rasped. “Even though you can’t see me.”
“At least we’re safe up here,” Riley said, clinging to the tree. “Gators can’t climb trees—”
But then a gator scrambled up the roots.
It snapped at them.
And then the others followed, climbing the tree.
“Wait, gators can’t do that,” Riley hissed. “How’s that possible?”
“These aren’t normal gators,” Jamal said, snagging her hand and pulling her up higher.
He struggled to hold on, but his hands were wet from swimming and slipped on the slick tree bark. He plummeted down, right toward a gator. It snapped at his leg. He scrambled away but then slipped down farther. The gator opened its jaws, its teeth glinting in the dim light.
Suddenly, a voice boomed out of the darkness.
“Foul creature, release them! Go back to your swamp!”
A flash of reddish light illuminated the bayou, driving the gators back into the water. They snapped at the air, angry to be denied their prey.
Jamal’s eyes fell on the source of the light.
On the edge of the swamp stood an old woman with brown skin just like Riley’s, clutching a staff hewn from gnarled, twisted cypress wood. A crystal adorned the top of it and glowed red in the darkness.
The old woman threw back the hood of her cloak, revealing hair and eyes that were, oddly, bright blue.
“Grandma!” Riley called.
“Hold tight, child,” her grandmother called in her resounding voice. She turned her attention back to the gators, who had regrouped and circled around the cypress tree.
Her grandmother reached into her cloak and pulled out a handful of glittering silver dust. Jamal flinched back when he saw it, recognizing it as similar to the magic the shadow man used.
The old woman blew it at the gators.
“Release these foul creatures from your dark magic,” she boomed out, blowing the dust at them. “And return to the shadows—where you belong.”
The silver dust clouded the air, swirling around the gators. They slowly stopped circling the tree. Their eyes blinked out, one by one, the reddish light extinguished.
She had broken the spell.