br /> Dizzy looked down at the necklace, confused, but when she looked back up at Mal, there was a crafty smile on her face. It wasn’t Dizzy’s smile. Mal knew that smile.
“I wouldn’t say that Dizzy’s wearing my necklace,” said a voice that was definitely not Dizzy’s. “It’s more like my necklace is wearing Dizzy!”
“Uma!” Mal said angrily. “This is so low! Your fight is with me, not Dizzy! And she’s a child!”
“Oh, I can go lower, princess,” said Uma as Dizzy. She took off Dizzy’s glasses and stomped on them. “Oops!” She shrugged. “Just you wait.”
Mal scoffed. Uma didn’t scare her. “Am I supposed to be frightened?”
Just then Harry and Gil appeared out of nowhere and flanked Dizzy/Uma. Both of them had similar glowing lights at the bases of their throats.
Harry waved his hook in Mal’s face. “You’re not welcome on the Isle anymore!”
But Mal was simply amused. “Really? And what are you going to do about it, pal? Mr.…Coat Hanger?”
“His name is Harry,” Gil said smugly. Then he realized. “Oh, I get it…because it looks like…That’s pretty funny, Mal!”
Mal smirked. “Thanks. I’ll be here all week.”
“Uma’s going to have the last laugh, though,” said Gil, as the three of them began walking closer to Mal, and she had to walk backward, closer to the pier. “I wouldn’t want to be you right now, Mal.”
“I wouldn’t want to be her ever,” sneered Dizzy with Uma’s voice.
The three of them kept inching forward as Mal kept walking backward, edging onto the pier, but now she was annoyed. “What makes you think this is going to be any different from every other time that I’ve beaten you?”
Now Harry spoke in Uma’s voice. “Those were measly little battles. There’s a war coming!”
“And in this war, I will triumph, I’ll have everything—the Isle and Auradon!” said Gil in Uma’s angry voice.
Uma was definitely getting worked up, wherever she was.
“And you, princess—I’m coming for you, Mal,” said Uma menacingly through Dizzy.
Mal stood her ground, even as Harry unsheathed his sword and the three of them kept edging toward her in a threatening manner. “Mal…Mal…Mal…” they whispered, as they glowed with the light from Uma’s seashell necklace.
“Oh yeah?” Mal said, curling her lip. She wasn’t afraid of them, not now and not ever. “Not if I come for you first!”
With that, she turned away from them and began running down the pier. If Uma wanted a fight, Mal would bring it to her. She ran to the very end of the dock, determined to fight and vanquish Uma once and for all.
She leaped gracefully, throwing herself up in the air.
Then Mal heard a different voice shriek her name, but it was too late to turn around.
fter trying to warn Mal and her friends, Celia decided to go back down the mine shaft to see what Uma and Hades were up to. Holding on to her hat, Celia ran to the basement tunnels until she reached the one that led to the mine shaft and Hades’s cave.
She grabbed a torch and hopped onto an old rusty bicycle that was on the train tracks. She began pedaling furiously. Surely Mal would figure out some way to thwart Uma’s plans after Celia had warned her about the danger. Celia hadn’t realized just how much she wanted to go to Auradon Prep until the prospect had been put in jeopardy. She had to get off the Isle and make a name for herself somewhere it would matter. And she wanted to see the world beyond the barrier! There were so many places she had heard of but had never been.…
One day she would fly to Never Land and meet the pixies and the fairies of the hollow. Or she would tour the castles in the Auroria Priory and see how they compared to the ones in Cinderellasburg. But best of all she would travel to the bayou, to dance with an alligator who played trumpet in a jazz band. After hearing her dad’s stories all those years, she was desperate to get a glimpse of it herself.
The VK program was her one shot to get everything she’d ever dreamed of. There was no future on the Isle of the Lost. Her cards always said so.
Her cards…She felt around for them in her pockets and realized she’d dropped them somewhere in the tunnel. She got off the bicycle and began to search, sweeping her flashlight to and fro, but they were nowhere to be found. She’d have to retrace her steps.
But just then the flashlight sputtered out—she had forgotten to replace the battery! Celia shook it in annoyance. To her surprise, she realized that without the beam, she could see light peeking in through tiny little cracks in the cave walls. She’d never noticed them before, but then, the flashlight had always worked before.
“Where are my cards?” she asked herself, and, almost like magic, her cards flew to her hand.
Almost like magic? she wondered. Or magic itself?