Ch. 13
It was well after sundown by the time Jay pulled over the limo where Doug told him to, the great expanse of woods laying dark and quiet before them.
"How far from here to the cottage?" Jay asked.
"About another thirty minutes or so on foot, then the closest mine entrance is about an hour further on to those mountains," Doug replied, pointing to a faint row of jagged, snow-topped peaks cresting the trees in the distance.
"You're sure you can get us there in the dark?" Carlos asked, skeptically.
"Absolutely, there's a pretty clear trail and markers along the way so nobody gets lost. Making the hike from Snow White's castle to the Seven Dwarves cottage and mines used to be a pretty big tourist attraction, but I guess lately everyone who's ever want to see it has; so it's kinda been abandoned," Doug explained.
Equipped with maps, compass', flashlights and the rest of their gear in bulging backpacks, the boys locked up the limo and began their journey into the woods. It wasn't nearly as quiet as Carlos had first thought, nearly every step they took send something scurrying through the underbrush, the wind blowing through the trees rattled dry branches and sent pine cones crashing to the ground and owls could be heard hooting and screeching above them in the night sky. Carlos gripped the shoulder straps of his backpack tighter, he was not going to freak out over a few furry critters in the forest, there was nothing waiting in the dark to drag him off and eat him. As that thought crossed his mind he glanced back at Jay behind him, who gave him a smirk as though he could practically read his friend's scaredy-cat mind.
Doug was glad that his dad had emailed him over a map earlier that day, finding and keeping on the trail turned out to be more difficult then he'd originally thought. Although magic wasn't used in these woods anymore it was still a wild place and as soon as the human presence had gone, nature had been quick to reclaim any areas they had cleared. The trial was barely visible anymore and the markers had been covered in climbing vines, which Jay hastily yanked away. He'd reasoned that if they had to get back through here in a hurry, they wouldn't have time to keep stopping to check their map and compass.
"Okay, we should be here," Doug announced, as he stepped between a few large pine trees into what once had been a clearing.
"Uh-huh, is the cottage invisible?" Jay asked, looking around in confusion.
"No, just buried somewhere behind all those bushes and plants," Doug replied, motioning towards a wall of vegetation. "The last time I came here I was about eight years old, and it was pretty covered then too."
With Doug's guidance, the three began trying to find the front door underneath years of wild plant growth. The plants were deep-rooted, their stalks thick and strong and no amount of pulling from Jay made any difference. Carlos ducked down as Jay pulled hard to one side and crawled between a few stalks. Clamping his flashlight between his teeth, he climbed, crawled and wiggled through the tangle towards the house. Feeling the solid expanse of a door, Carlos shouted back to Doug and Jay and then shoved his shoulder hard against it. The wood creaked and bowed at the force but held firm until Jay managed to get through the plants and give it a strong kick. Doug winced as the wood splintered and cracked around Jay's heavy boot but held his flashlight steady as he and Carlos both started battering the door down.
Finally, inside, the three scanned the inside of the famous Seven Dwarves Cottage. Luckily the inside was devoid of any plants, and except for some dust, it was fairly clean. The kitchen area still looked in good shape and there were plates, silverware, and cups in the cupboards. A large metal pot hung over a cold hearth in the stone fireplace but there was a large supply of wood logs stacked neatly beside it just waiting to be used. Carlos started setting their packs on top of the long, low dining table in the center of the room while Doug ran upstairs to check on the bedrooms.
"I'd forgotten how small the beds were, nobody over five feet tall is going to be sleeping in those," Doug chuckled, coming back downstairs.
"It's alright, Jay's almost got the fire started so we'll be warmer sleeping down here anyway," Carlos said, hanging lit oil lanterns around the room for more light.
"I am so glad you guys came with me, aside from Ben I think all the other guys in our grade flunked Wilderness Survival training during our Fairy Tale Scout days. I seriously doubt any of them could start a fire and they definitely would have given up trying to get through that jungle back there," Doug said with a relieved smile.
"This kinda reminds me of camping out on the isle. We used to get together every now and then and find an abandoned building or open space to crash for a few nights whenever our parents were giving us a hard time. Mal found a cool hideout in this old factory building last year and we spent weeks fixing it up," Carlos said.
"Ya, it sure beat the hell out of sleeping under a shelf on the floor of my old man's junk shop," Jay added.
Doug snapped his mouth shut, deciding as he and Ben usually did when any of the foursome started reminiscing about their lives on the isle to just listen and try not to comment. Most of the time what any of them said was fairly shocking to the kids from Auradon, so they had mutually agreed that they would continue to try to make their lives better every way they could.
"Well it's not quite as comfy as our beds back at school but these goose down filled sleeping bags will definitely be comfier than the floor," Doug said, once he'd finished laying out the bags and pillows near the fireplace.
"I've got all our supplies laid out, we might want to repack our bags before we leave tomorrow, no point in taking the extra stuff we can leave here. Doug do you know how to get to the mines or which ones we need to check out?" Carlos said.
"I spoke to my Uncle Doc, and he was pretty sure the maps we would need were somewhere around here," Doug said, opening a closet and rifling through its contents. Several pick aces, shovels, dusty jackets and hard hats were thrown out before a triumphant cry was heard.
"That closets bigger then it looks," Carlos remarked as Doug climbed over the discarded pile just outside the door.
"This whole place is like that, my dad and uncles built it to fit all seven of them," Doug replied, taking a large rolled up piece of parchment to the dining table. "This is diamond mine number one, meaning it's the closest one to the cottage.
"How long as these tunnels?" Jay asked, tracing the fading ink lines across the paper.
"Miles I think, without these maps, you could get lost for days. My dad warned me that not all the tunnels are safe, there are cave-ins that have blocked a few of the passages," Doug said, pointing to a section in the lower right corner of the map that had a large red X over it.
"I don't see any rivers or underground springs on this," Carlos commented.
"But this isn't the only mine, right?" Jay asked.
"Right, so we just need to find a map with a tunnel near some water. Lets split up and start looking, the rest of them have to be around here somewhere," Doug replied, rolling the map back up.
Closets, cupboards, chests, and dressers were quickly pulled apart, all their contents scattered across floors, beds, and tables until several more rolls of parchment were piled in the kitchen.
"Nothing on this one," Jay grumbled sometime later, shoving map number four away from him to join map number two and seven that he'd already looked at and discarded as well.
"This looks like a river going through this one but it's crossing through about four different tunnels," Carlos said, holding map number three closer to the light.
Doug scooted closer to get a better look, but the writing was so faint and smudged it was difficult to decipher. "That may be a good one to start with then, the only other one I found with water is map number eight and that's going to be the furthest away from us."
"Then we know where we're going tomorrow then. When we get there, do we just pick the first tunnel and follow it?" Jay asked.
"There are five main tunnels, three of which branch out into secondary tunnels, two of those look like they may intersect with each other so we're going to have to be very careful that we don't wind up going around in circles. We should probably use the Hansel and Gretel method so we don't get lost," Doug replied, getting confused looks from the other two.
"Didn't they get lost in the woods and eaten by a witch?" Carlos asked.
"No, they actually outsmarted the witch and shoved her into her own oven, but afterward they had to get out of the forest so Gretel tied a red string to a tree branch by her family's house and they were able to follow it all the way back," Doug said.
"I thought they left a trail of breadcrumbs?" Jay said.
"They did the second time they went out into the woods, but the birds ate it, and Hansel realized they needed a better way that they wouldn't lose," Doug answered.
"I'm pretty sure I saw some bundles of string in one of the dressers, and if it's not enough there are a few blankets that are unraveling pretty badly we could use too," Carlos commented.
Now that their plan was set, the boys dug out the sandwiches that Jay had made earlier and settled down on their sleeping bags in front of the warm fire. It had been a long and active day and they began to wonder how everyone back at school was doing.
"I'm not getting any service," Carlos said, holding his cell phone above his head as he watched the antenna signal bar flash 0%. Jay and Doug both checked theirs out to find the same problem. "I wanted to call Evie and see who had come over from the isle tonight, I forgot to ask Ben before we left."
"Sorry guys, I guess we are pretty deep into the woods for cell phone service," Doug apologized.
"Seriously hope we don't need to call for help, 'cos I don't know how to talk to forest creatures," Jay muttered, tossing his phone back into his backpack.
"The others know where we are, if we're not back in a day or two I'm sure Ben will send help just in case. We can leave a note here at the cottage telling them which tunnels we were heading for, so even if we don't get back they'll still be able to find us," Doug said confidently.
Neither Jay nor Carlos had a better alternative so they agreed and ate their sandwiches in silence. Sleep stole over the three soon afterward and after brief goodnights the boys were sound asleep.