Shay woke her up when she was only part way through the dream, and she could tell from his face that something strange had happened again. When she asked, he said, ‘It was snowing all around you, right here inside the cave. Look.’ He pointed and Stella saw that flakes of snow still clung to her clothes. ‘Aren’t you cold?’ Shay asked.
Stella shook her head. She wasn’t cold at all. Finally, she decided she would tell Shay about her dream, as she felt obliged to give some kind of explanation now he’d had to wake her up from it three times – but he couldn’t make any sense out of it either.
‘One thing’s for sure,’ he said. ‘It’s no normal dream. It means something.’
He didn’t add: something bad, but Stella felt as if those words were hovering right on the tip of his tongue.
The next day they set off, only hours away from the coldest part of the Icelands, according to the map. Stella found herself wondering once again whether any of the other members of the Polar Bear or Ocean Squid expeditions had already beaten them there, or whether the four of them would be the first.
‘How will we know when we get to the coldest part of the Icelands?’ Beanie asked.
‘The compass arrow should just go round in circles instead of pointing anywhere,’ Stella said. ‘If I had Felix’s sextant I could take a reading as well but that’s with him. I think we’ll just know, though, once we arrive. For one thing it’ll be really, really cold.’
It was a bright, sunny day, but as they travelled through the morning and into the afternoon, the air around them became colder and colder. Frost formed in the furry linings of their hoods, and ice glinted all around the surface of the sled. Even Shay’s wolf fang earring froze solid. It felt more and more like breathing knives, and the four explorers couldn’t help thinking with longing about the warm beds and hot chocolate waiting for them at home.
And then, all of a sudden, the sled rose up over the crest of a hill – and they came face to face with a white, sparkling, magnificent castle. Countless spires and turrets rose up high into the sky, the frozen windows reflected back the sunlight, and the frost icing the turret roofs sparkled at them like hundreds of tiny diamonds.
For a moment, they all just stared at it. Then Shay said, ‘Do you think it belongs to a snow queen?’
‘It looks like the kind of castle a snow queen would have,’ Beanie replied.
‘We should stay away from it,’ Ethan said quickly. ‘Snow queens have frozen hearts. It could be dangerous.’
‘But the compass is pointing straight towards it,’ Stella said. ‘Perhaps the castle marks the coldest part of the Icelands? We should get a bit closer. We need to put our flag in the snow outside at least.’
‘Won’t the snow queen think that’s rude?’ Beanie asked.
‘There might not even be a snow queen,’ Stella said. She glanced around at the others. ‘We’re explorers, aren’t we? We’ve come all this way. We can’t leave without at least taking a look.’
To Stella’s relief, Shay agreed with her that they ought to get closer, and so they continued on across the snow. She suddenly had the strongest feeling that she was supposed to go to that castle. Something about those thin, white spires, pointing up into the air like fingers, was strangely familiar to her, as if she had seen the place before, a very long time ago. Felix had found her in the Icelands, after all. Perhaps she had been here before.
They couldn’t see any other explorer flags in the snow around the castle as they approached.
‘We’re the first!’ Stella said as the sled pulled up to the huge front doors. ‘This is it, look!’ She showed the others her compass. She’d set it to Cold but the arrow wasn’t pointing anywhere – it was just spinning round and round. ‘We’re the first explorers to reach the coldest part of the Icelands!’
There is no greater thrill to an explorer than to be the first to do something incredible, and they were all extremely excited as they piled out of the sled and staked their flag in the snow. It had frozen solid so it didn’t flutter and flap so much as swing stiffly back and forth, but it was still a flag and it was still a first, so everyone felt pretty happy about it.
‘They’ll have to let you stay in the Polar Bear Explorers’ Club now, won’t they?’ Beanie said to Stella. ‘Now that you’re one of the first explorers to reach the coldest part of the Icelands!’
Stella hadn’t thought of it like that, but she sincerely hoped Beanie was right. She hugged her cloak tighter around her, almost bubbling over with happiness at the idea of being able to stay in the explorers’ club on a permanent basis. There were so many other places she wanted to visit. Why, she could spend her whole entire life exploring, and it still wouldn’t be enough time to see the world.
‘We should take a photo,’ Shay said. ‘So that there’s some kind of record to take back to our clubs.’
The tripod was duly unloaded from the back of the sled and they set it up on a timer. The four of them gathered in front of the sled, and were all trying to hold as still as possible, when suddenly sparkly silvery things started to drift down from the sky. At first, Stella thought it had started to snow again, but then she saw that these flakes were not made from snow at all. They were cold to the touch, but smooth and solid. And they
