Something about the poem made James shudder.

        "What's it mean?" Zane asked when he'd read it over twice.

        James shrugged. "Sulva is an old word for 'moon'. I know that. I think the first part just means you can only find this place when the moon shines on it. That's got to be true, because when I first saw it in the dark, it just looked like some ugly old island. So this must be the Grotto Keep, whatever that is."

Zane leaned in. "What about this part? 'Upon return the fretted dawn'. Sounds like we're supposed to come back when the sun comes back up, eh? Sounds pretty good to me."

        Ignoring Zane, James wrapped his hands around the gates and gave them a hard yank. They rattled woodenly, but didn't budge. The action seemed to trigger a response from the island. A sudden, creeping sound came from beneath the boys' feet. James glanced down, and then jumped backwards as tendrils of thorny vines grew up from underneath the bridge. The vines twined through the gate, weaving up it with a noise like a newspaper in a fire. The thorns were an ugly purple color, as if they might contain some sort of venom. They grew longer as James watched. After a minute, the gates were completely entwined with them, obscuring the words of the poem. The noise of their growth died away.

        "Well, that settles that, then," Zane said in a strangely high voice. He was standing behind James, backing away slowly. "I think this place wants to be left alone, don't you?"

        "I want to try one more thing," James said, pulling his wand out from beneath his cloak. Without really thinking about it, he aimed his wand at the gate. "Alohomora."

        There was a streak of golden light, and this time, the result was immediate and powerful. The gates repelled the spell, obliterating it in a burst of sparks, and the entire island seemed to shiver, to tense menacingly. There was a sound like a thousand people suddenly breathing in, and then a voice, an entirely inhuman, swarming sort of voice, spoke.

        "Get… Thee… Hence!"

         James stumbled backwards at the vehemence of the response, tumbling into Zane and knocking them both to the floor of the bridge. The bridge shuddered beneath them, and then James saw that the gates were swaying, leaning over them. The trees overhead, the ones that were fashioned to appear as the upper jaw of the dragon's head bridge, were creaking down, looming, their broken branches looking more and more like teeth.

        "Get… Thee… Hence!" the island said again. The voice sounded like it was comprised of millions of tiny voices, whispering and raspy, speaking in unison.

        The floor of the bridge buckled, tearing loose of the shore. The upper jaws crackled and began to collapse, ready to devour the two boys. They scrambled backwards, tumbling wildly over each other, and fell onto the weedy shore just as the bridge ripped loose. The gigantic jaws snapped and gnashed ferociously. Broken branches and bits of bark exploded from the writhing shape, peppering James and Zane as they scuttled away, their hands slipping on dead leaves and pine needles.

The ground rumbled under them. Roots began to burrow up from the dirt, tearing the earth apart. James felt the shore disintegrate beneath him. His foot slipped into a sudden hole and he yanked it out, narrowly avoiding a dirty, carrot-like root that writhed up out of it. He struggled for purchase on the collapsing shore, but it sank beneath him, dragging him back toward the water's edge. The surface of the lake roiled, rushing into the forming sinkhole. The boys' feet splashed into the muck, and it sucked at them, pulling them in. Zane grasped at the shore as he was pulled slowly into the frothing water. James groped for purchase, but nothing seemed solid. Even the tree roots revealed by the crumbling earth grew loose and slippery under his hands, covered in a horrible slime that came off in coats.

        Then, suddenly, there was Grawp. He dropped to his knees, gripping a nearby tree trunk with one hand and reaching for Zane, who was nearer, with the other. He plucked the boy from the murk and plopped him onto his shoulder. Zane grasped for a handhold on Grawp's shirt as the giant lunged down to retrieve James, who was nearly submerged in the thrashing waters. A horrible, hairy root snaked across the water and curled around James' ankle, yanking him back. He hung there, caught between Grawp's grip and that of the horrid root, and James was sure he'd be torn in half by the force of it. The root slipped on his pant leg and yanked his shoe off. James saw it twine hungrily around the shoe and pull it under the surface.

        Grawp tried to stand, but roots were ripping up from the ground all around him. Huge, crackling wood tentacles twined his legs. Green vines grew with lightning speed up the thicker tentacles, sewing themselves into the fabric of his pants with tiny, threadlike roots. Grawp roared and yanked, ripping his pants and tearing the roots further out of the ground, but their combined force was too strong. They pulled him back to a kneeling position, and then lunged up, circling his waist, climbing his back and shoulders. The vines battened onto James and Zane, threatening to pull them off. Grawp roared again as one of the green vines twisted around his neck, forcing him lower, pulling him down into the sinkhole.

        Just as James began to slip off Grawp's shoulder, pulled back toward the ground by a dozen muscling vines, sudden, shocking light filled the air. It was a vibrant golden green, and it was accompanied by a low humming sound. The vines and roots recoiled from the light. They loosened, repulsed by it, but were dreadfully reluctant to abandon their prey. Waves of the light washed over them, and each wave loosened the tangling mass until the smaller vines fell away as dead and the larger roots retreated, sucking back down into the earth with a nasty, gurgling noise.

        Grawp, James, and Zane half fell, half crawled up the bank until they found firm ground. There they collapsed, panting and heaving, amid the dead leaves and broken branches.

        When James rolled over and pulled himself to a kneeling position, there was a figure standing nearby, glowing faintly with the same golden green light that had repulsed the vines. James could see through the figure, although what he saw through it was both brightened and refracted, the way things might look if seen through a raindrop. The figure looked like a woman, very tall and very thin, in a dark green gown that fell straight from her hips and, apparently, right through the ground. Her whitish-green hair spread and flowed around her head like a corona. She was beautiful, but her face was grave.

        "James Potter, Zane Walker, Grawp, son of the earth, you are in danger here. You must leave this wood. No human is safe under this canopy now."

        James struggled to his feet. "Who are you? What was that?"

"I am a dryad, a spirit of the wood. I have managed to silence the Voice of the Island, but I won't be able to hold it back for long. It grows more restless with each day."

        "A spirit of the wood?" Zane asked as Grawp helped him rather roughly to his feet. "The woods have a ghost?"