The Isle of the Lost: Chapter 19–Epilogue

For the next several hours, Mal, Jay, and Evie helped Carlos with the painstaking task of finishing his mother’s laundry.

Her mother might ignore her and resent her and scold her, but at least she wasn’t Maleficent’s virtual slave.

The giant spider guarding the door moved away as docile as a cat when Dr. Facilier tickled its belly.

“You know this foul beast?” asked Mal contemptuously, to hide her embarrassment at having been scared.

They stood, paralyzed, unable and unwilling to figure out what to do next, while the black box in Carlos’s hands kept beeping incessantly.

“And Genie’s request for unlimited travel within the kingdom?” Grumpy frowned. At this point, he looked like he was struggling to find things to still be grumpy about.
“Approved, so long as he clears his itinerary with the palace beforehand.”

That was a difficult concession to make, as his father did not want the “blue-skinned-maniac popping up everywhere without notice,” but he had been able to convince King Beast that as long as the subjects were warned about Genie’s arrival, all would be well.

Before long the pathway curved once again, and now the thick rain cloud surrounding it seemed to part on either side of the four adventurers, revealing a sudden and dramatic vista—what appeared to be a long and slender stone bridge, half-shrouded in mist, that jutted out above a chasm in the rock directly in front of them.

The bridge was the only way to reach the castle, as sheer cliffs surrounded the black fortress on all other sides.

The winged gryphons glared down at them from where they perched, flanking the bridge on either side.

“You cannot pass,” they said again in unison—and just as the creatures spoke, the thick gray clouds surrounding the long stone ramp dissipated, revealing a gap in the bridge, a forty-foot gulf with nothing below but air.

“Wait—did you just—”
Carlos looked incredulous. “Turn off the monsters? I think so.”

“Maybe this is just a waste of time.” Jay sighed.
“No, it’s not,” Mal said, giving them a beseeching look.

“The refracted energy seems stronger here. I think we’re closer to the source than we’ve ever been.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t touch anything,” said Carlos, scrutinizing the device in his hands.

“Are you describing the things you’ve stolen today? Because those are all terrible analogies,” Evie said, looking at Jay. “And I’m saying that as someone who was castle-schooled by a woman who thinks the three R’s are Rouging, Reddening, and Reapplying.”

“This is where the goblins live. That’s why the ceilings are so low and the corridors are so strange. This isn’t a place for humans,” he said, and when he finished, the air filled with a terrible, raucous laughter, the sound of claws tapping and teeth grinding.

Evie was almost done now, and her voice gained confidence as she remembered the last words of the incantation. “‘A blast of wind to fan my hate, a thunderbolt to mix it well, now reverse this magic spell!’”

A fairy tale come to life.
A castle—only, the way castles looked in nightmares.
Every wall and every stone was rendered in shades of gray and black, a faint green glow sometimes seeping through a wedge here and there.

Carlos and Jay and Evie fell like a phalanx of soldiers behind her, almost in formation.

There was an empty place in the middle of the room where her mother’s throne used to be. It had sat upon a great dais, flanked by two curving sets of stairs.

The tattered remains of purple tapestries moldered on the walls.

“It’s…” she faltered, unable to find the words to describe what she was feeling.

It was, just as they had predicted, exactly in Mal’s line of vision from the missing throne, but raised by some sort of magical light a good twelve feet into the air. Far out of the hands of any interlopers—and yes, where it could not be touched.

What remained of her power and her energy crackled off the walls of the room, sparked to life by one accidental moment and latent until now, when it had victims to torture.

It was all so sweet, it was sickening.
Mal had never seen anything like it, not up close like this. Not in some kind of insipid storybook.

“Ah, I see everyone has been invited. The royalty, nobility, the gentry, and the rabble. I must say, I really felt quite distressed at not receiving an invitation.”

What if Mal really was weak like her father—and worse, had a propensity for good somewhere in her black little heart?

When the others caught up to Carlos, they stopped and stared over the precipice where he stood. The dizzying depths of the ravine below were, well, dizzying.

“I think what my companions are trying to articulate is that we’re incredibly impressed by that show of fortitude. The bravery. The perseverance. It’s a bit unusual, in these parts.”

“I think what my companions are trying to articulate is that we’re incredibly impressed by that show of fortitude. The bravery. The perseverance. It’s a bit unusual, in these parts.”

“And if you’d like our assistance in any way, we’d be more than happy to help convey you to your destination.”

“You do seem far away from home,” he said, adding hastily: “Not to presume. It’s a conclusion I draw only from the irrefutable fact that neither you or your friends seem, well, remotely goblin-esque.”

When Mal returned to the Bargain Castle, she fully expected her mother to scream invectives at her for failing in her quest.

“So, the prodigal daughter returns,” she said.

Over at Hell Hall, Carlos was getting an earful after Cruella finally discovered her furs in disarray in her closet. “Who has been in here? It looks like a wild animal was trapped with my furs! What imbecile would do such a thing?”

With a whoop, the four descendants of the world’s greatest villains ran through the crowded streets of the Isle of the Lost, causing havoc, stealing and plundering together while the citizens of the island ran the other way.

“Ouch,” Ben said, as a needle poked him again in the armpit.
“Sorry, sire; forgive me sire.” Lumiere, who was measuring him for his coronation suit, quailed.

For a future king, he was surprised by how little he knew about the Isle of the Lost. How did the villains fare, beneath the dome? How did they live, eat, take care of themselves? How were their families? What were their hopes and dreams?

“Sire! Where are you going?” cried Lumiere as Ben suddenly leapt away from the needle and thread, a flurry of straight pins and bespoke chalk and measuring tape flying into the air around him.