Read Emily Windsnap and the Land of the Midnight Sun for Free Online

smoothed his beard and spoke quickly. “My dreams were especially vivid this morning — such strong visions that I know without question these are memories. The places I visited — it was as though I were there. Look!”
    He held out his hand. “Touch it,” he said.
    I felt his hand. It was like ice. “Youch!” I said, pulling my hand away.
    “You see? It’s real!” Neptune exclaimed, his eyes wide and wild. “It’s coming for me! It’s
in
me!”
    By now, we’d become used to him talking in riddles, so we didn’t interrupt.
    Neptune leaped off his chaise longue and began to swim around us. He flicked his tail as he swam, and a line of bubbles followed him in a wavy trail. “I felt the ice. I saw it — saw where it had come from,” he said. “There is a lake — it has something to do with the memories — a lake where you must meet your own eyes and jump. And there is water — frozen at the top of a mountain. You must find this water. Only you can hold it. You must do that. You understand? And you must find the lake. Do this and you will also find the threat — and the traitor.”
    He stopped swimming and, gripping his trident, stared into our eyes. “Above all, I finally know the most important thing. I know where it is. I know where I am sending you.”
    Aaron swallowed. “Where?” he asked shakily.
    Neptune lowered his voice and leaned in close. Almost in a whisper, he said, “To the Land of the Midnight Sun.”

T he Land of the Midnight Sun? Where on earth was that? We stared at Neptune openmouthed, waiting for him to explain.
    The only trouble was, he didn’t.
    “We haven’t got long,” he went on hurriedly. “You’re leaving this weekend.”
    “This weekend?” I gasped. “As in, four days’ time?”
    “Well, technically, three days. You’ll leave on Friday.”
    “Friday,” I said, just to confirm I’d heard right. Three days to get our parents to agree to let us go off on a dangerous mission that we couldn’t even tell them about. “And we’re going to the Land of the Midnight Sun,” I added. “Which is?”
    “Which is in the very far north of the planet,” Neptune said. “A place where, for many weeks in the summer, the sun does not set.”
    “At all?” Aaron asked.
    “At all. It is constant daylight. Now, listen. I have told you about a mountain, and about a lake. They are linked. The lake is surrounded by the mountains. You must find this place. When you gaze into the lake, you will not be able to see the bottom — all you will see is the reflection of the mountains around it. But here is the thing — the reflection will not match the reality.”
    “Huh?” I said.
    “I can’t explain it better than that,” Neptune said. “All I know is that what you will see around you is not exactly what you will see in the lake. You must find this lake. One of the mountains surrounding it is covered in a glacier that looks like a giant’s tongue spreading down the mountain. This is where you will find my answers.”
    I let out a breath. So basically we needed to find a place where what we saw wasn’t really there, and then climb up a tongue into a giant’s mouth. Excellent.
    Neptune swam across the room and beckoned for us to follow. Batting away a brown-and-cream striped fish that looked as if it were dressed in pajamas, he reached into a drawer with handles like cobras and took out two shells. “Take these,” he said, passing us one each.
    I turned the shell over in my hands. It was shiny purple, with a spiral winding tightly around the top, opening up into a fatter shape in the middle, with a big gap that went into the center of the shell. The kind of shell you’d hold to your ear so you could hear the ocean. Aaron’s was silver. Neptune held a third one; it was gold.
    “You will use these to communicate with me. They are not ordinary shells. They are shell
phones.
They are infused with my magic, and with them you can contact me — no matter where you are, no