Without warning, her legs plunged into the ocean. “Grandfather!” He pushed in a burst, and she skimmed fast along the wild surface. When she looked up next from the churning depths, blackened rocks raced toward her, and the mountainous shadow blocked the sky. Waves broke around her, and he heaved her onto the shore.

She slammed down into the breakers, slicing her knees on the rocks. Waves crashed into her neck. Salt water in her face, she crawled, choking, up onto the rocky shore. She hoisted herself onto a boulder. Shivering and shaking, she stroked her stomach. “I’m sorry, kiddo. You all right in there?”

One wave crashed into her, knocking her sideways. She spat salt water as she clambered out of the swells. Slick seaweed coated the rocks, and another wave crashed into her legs before she managed to pull herself up to the first tree. Black and leafless as if burned, it did not seem to be alive. Shivering uncontrollably, she clung to it. “Grandfather, are you okay?”

The whole sky looked bruised. He stirred the sea, and she felt the wind. She took that to be a reply: He was alive. She pushed her hair out of her face. “Are we here?” she asked. Sea, wind-flung, sprayed her, as if in answer, and she flinched. “All right, all right.” She turned.

Black as basalt, the troll castle loomed over the shore like a nightmare.

“Oh, God,” she breathed. Suddenly, she was more afraid than she had been diving into the frigid ocean, hanging from Father Forest’s ceiling, or falling from a dragon. She stared up at the monstrosity. It loomed over her, frighteningly silent.

Using the trees, she climbed toward the castle. Branches creaked and then cracked. Seaweed oozed between her toes. As she reached for the wall, her stomach tightened like a fist—hard. She doubled over, and for one terrible instant she thought, The baby is coming now.

Sweat popped out on her forehead as she strangled the nearest tree. She whispered to her stomach, “Be good, and I swear I will never again storm a castle while pregnant.” For an instant, her eyes blurred, pricked with tears, as her insides squeezed.

Her breathing was as loud as the crashing waves. As the contraction passed, she realized that the waves and her breathing were the only sounds on the rock island. There were no gulls in the sky and no voices in the castle. It was as if the island were dead. “Please, Bear,” she said. “Be all right.” She put her hand on the damp wall. After all the miles, only a wall stood between them—the wall and the trolls, who were somewhere inside. She gulped. She could do this. She’d come so far. She wasn’t going to be stopped now.

She tilted her head back. The wall rose incredibly high. She saw no windows or doors, only shadowed arrow slits. “Scaling the wall is out,” she said, forcing lightness into her voice. She patted her stomach. “I know you wanted to.” The crash of waves on the rocks swallowed her words and left her feeling even more small and alone. Holding the wall for balance, she started around the perimeter.

Storm clouds filled the sky, and it felt as if the world were hovering between day and night. She moved in and out of shadows as she made her way across the slippery rocks. In eerie semidarkness, she rounded the first corner.

Glistening with sea spray, the second wall could have been a mirror image of the first. It stretched unbroken to the end of the island. Black rocks led down to the sea. The same twisted, lifeless trees protruded from cracks between the rocks. Cassie felt her stomach tighten again—the contraction stealing her breath—and she waited it out, leaning against the chilled wall. Her skin cringed from her cold, wet clothes. When the pain subsided, she hurried across the rocks and turned the second corner. The third wall was also featureless stone. Three walls, no doors. She scrambled over the rocks and turned the third and final corner.

The castle had no door.

She leaned against the stone and wanted to cry. Cheek pressed to stone, she banged on the wall. “Hello? Let me in. Open up, damn you! Please, open.”

Her stomach squeezed, and she bent over it with a groan. Bent, she saw the rock melt inward into the shape of a door. Surprise overwhelmed pain. She turned her head sideways. Instead of standing beside black basalt, she was standing beside a wooden door. How… Magic, she answered herself. She thought of Bear’s castle.

She laid her hand flat on the door—warm and dry, it was untouched by sea spray—and pushed. She heard it clink, latched shut. She tried the latch. It rattled loosely in her hand.

Cassie examined the wood. It was half-rotted pine and looked brittle. She wondered if she could break it down. She licked her lips. Throwing her body against a door, rotten or not… Did she have a better idea? If her contractions got much worse…

Cradling her stomach protectively, she rammed her shoulder into the door. It creaked. She backed up and bashed it again. She felt herself bruising, but the door did not break. She smashed into it again.

Cassie rubbed her shoulder. All she was doing was tenderizing her arm. After everything, to be stopped by a door… The thought made her feel ill. It couldn’t end now, not like this.

She rattled the handle. Owen used to fix the station shed door all the time. She wished he were here with his tools. Squatting, she poked the wood around the handle. She bent sideways and felt for a rock. Rocks, unlike doors, were not in short supply. Finding a hand-size one, she held it like a mallet and hammered above the latch. It thudded dully, as if the air around the castle sucked sound. Behind her, in rhythm, waves pounded on the rocks. After pushing her hair behind her ears, she struck harder.

She felt the door weaken. She whacked it with all her strength, and the wood splintered. Cassie dropped the rock and pried pieces of wood away from the latch. She wormed her fingers through the widened hole, and her fingertips brushed the handle. She jiggled it. Wedging her hand in farther, she groped for the crosspiece of the latch itself.

“Yes,” she exulted. She flicked it and heard it swing off its hook. Scraping skin, she yanked her hand out of the hole and shoved the door open.

From the doorway, a rectangle of light fell onto the stone floor. Cassie stepped into it. She peered into the darkness. It was complete blackness—no contours, no shadows. Her heart thudded faster and she forced herself to stay calm. Wishing for her flashlight, she stepped out of the rectangle.

Behind her, the light dimmed, and a voice said, “No one ever tries to break in.”

Cassie bolted for the door. Her hands slapped solid stone. She pounded on the wall, but the door had vanished. Dammit, it’s a trap. She should have realized it. The materializing door had been too convenient. She pressed her back against the wall and strained to see or hear the troll. The room was as dark and as quiet as outer space. Her own breathing thundered. “Where are you?” she said. “Who are you?”

Without warning, the walls brightened like sheets of fluorescent bulbs. Sterile and white as a hospital, the room blazed. Cassie’s eyes teared. She squinted, looking for the troll, but the room was blindingly empty. “You aren’t a new one,” the voice said from nowhere. “You’re alive.”

“And I intend to stay that way.” Wishing she had some way to defend herself, she spun in a circle to see the whole room. “Show yourself.”

In the center of the room, sparking out of nothing, a flame danced. Cassie had expected a Cro-Magnon man with horns and fangs. Somehow, this flame was worse. Pulsing red and orange, it ballooned into a writhing jellyfish. Red spread into pink, and the pink jellyfish sprouted tentacles. The tentacles thickened into arms and legs that stretched like rubber bands. It budded a head.

Cassie flattened against the wall. Oh, that was not human. “What are you?”