Peter and the Shadow Thieves (43 page)

Next off the ship was Gerch, who took a seat alongside to the driver of the first carriage; and Hampton, who sat alongside the second driver. Two of Nerezza’s men fol owed, taking positions on the footholds at the back of each carriage. Both men were armed with dagger and pistol.

Nerezza came down the plank next, carrying a sea bag. He was fol owed by four of the men who had accompanied Ombra to the Tower. They tied bags and a trunk to the roof of the second carriage, then climbed inside.

Ombra spoke quietly to the driver of the first carriage, so quietly that even Gerch, sitting right next to the driver, did not hear the destination. Then Ombra slithered into the carriage, closing the door and taking his seat across from Slank and Lady Aster. Slank shivered as the air inside the carriage suddenly felt much colder. Lady Aster sat immobile, her face vacant of expression.

“Soon enough, my
lady,
” Ombra groaned, “you’l be seeing your husband again.”

Lady Aster stared straight ahead through bloodshot eyes.

“Perhaps you’l see your little girl as wel ,” said Ombra. “At the Tower, your old family friend Mister McGuinn was kind enough to…
share
with me…where the Return is to take place. I suspect he may have told young Mol y as wel . If so, we shal have quite the family reunion, shal we not?” Slank was watching Louise Aster’s face; it revealed nothing.

“Oh, yes, my
lady,
” hissed Ombra. “I have plans for your happy little family.”

Slank thought he saw a flicker in Louise Aster’s eyes, the tiniest hint of emotion cross her haggard face. Then it was gone.

“Signal the driver,” groaned Ombra.

Slank raised his fist and banged sharply twice on the roof of the carriage.

The horses heaved. The carriages rattled and shook as they began to move, their wheels rumbling on the stone. They rol ed forward into the last of the lingering London night.

The rumble of the wheels was suddenly joined by another, harsher sound.

Caw! Caw!

The sound came from a half dozen ravens circling high above Ombra’s carriage, fol owing it obediently, like dark kites on invisible strings.

B
Y THE TIME Moly and Peter made it back to George’s house, the eastern sky was showing the first dul-gray streaks of dawn. Moly and Peter were cold and exhausted. After fleeing from the White Tower, they had hid in a dark al ey for the better part of an anxious hour until they were sure they were safe from their pursuers. Then, lacking the money for a cab, they had walked al the way back to George’s house, taking a roundabout route so as not to expose themselves on the busier streets.

Now, at long last, they were in the tree outside George’s bedroom window. As Mol y tapped on the glass, Peter tucked the complaining Tinker Bel back into his shirt.

In a moment George’s sleepy face appeared. He opened the window; Mol y and Peter climbed into the room.

“Thank you,” said Mol y.

George, wearing his nightcap and nightshirt, merely nodded, watching Mol y, obviously waiting for her to say more. When she didn’t, he spoke, his voice low but angry.

“Listen,” he said. “This won’t do.”

“What won’t?” said Mol y.

“This business of you and,” George said, gesturing at Peter, “your
friend
here staying in my room and traipsing in and out my window at al hours. I can’t keep hiding you here, Mol y. You come here in the middle of the night and tel me your mother’s been kidnapped and there are men in your house, and yet you don’t let me tel Father, you don’t let me help you, and you won’t tel me what’s happening, and—”

George paused, his face reddening, then went on: “Mol y, I want to help you. But I can’t help if you won’t let me.” Mol y sighed. “You’re right, George,” she said. “You’ve been very gracious, and I’ve been horribly rude. But this is something very, very dangerous. I don’t want to involve you or your family.”

“Mol y,” said George. “You and I—that is, my family and yours—are already involved. We have been for years. If I were in trouble, you’d help me, wouldn’t you?” Slowly, Mol y nodded.

“Wel ,” said George, “that’s how I feel. About you.” His face was now the color of a beet. “About helping you, I mean.” The room fel silent. Peter, though standing just two feet from Mol y, felt as if he were a thousand miles away. He hated the way she was looking at George.

“You’re right,” she said final y.

“Mol y,” Peter cautioned. She waved him off.

“No, Peter, George is right,” she said. “We’ve nowhere else to turn at this point.”

Now it was Peter’s turn to sulk, but Mol y ignored him.

“I need to find Father,” she said. “He’s the only person who can deal with the Oth…with the kidnappers. But he’s gone from London on a…a confidential business trip, and I don’t know where he is. Tonight Peter and I went to a place where we thought we might get some information about where he’s gone, but we found nothing. No, wait, that’s not quite true.

We found this.”

Mol y reached into her pocket and pul ed out the wine merchant invoice she’d found in the Starcatchers’ Keep. She handed it to George, who looked at it and frowned.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“Neither do I,” said Mol y. “But I know that’s my father’s handwriting, in the blue ink. And I know he must have written it just before he left London.”

“S,” George read, “ten thirty, two forty-six.”

“I thought perhaps it was an address,” said Mol y. “But I can’t make anything of it.”

“You say he wrote this just before he left London?” said George.

“Yes,” said Mol y.

“Hang on,” said George, striding from the room. He was back in ten minutes, this time holding a sheaf of papers.

“What’re those?” said Mol y.

“Train timetables,” said George.

Mol y’s face lit up.

“George!” she said in a voice that stabbed Peter’s heart. “That’s bril iant!”

George blushed as he dumped the timetables onto the bed.

“Give a hand, then,” he said, his attempt to sound gruff undermined by his obvious pleasure.

“Come on, Peter!” said Mol y.

“What are we doing?” said Peter, feeling like an idiot.

“We’re looking for a train that leaves at ten thirty and arrives at two forty-six,” said George, with more than a hint of condescension in his voice.

“And that somehow involves the letter
S
,” added Mol y, grabbing a timetable and settling on the floor to study it.

Without speaking, Peter picked up a timetable and joined the other two in their search. It was tedious going, wading through long lists of train numbers, cities, and times. It reminded Peter of school—something he’d had nothing to do with for quite a while. Several times, feeling the effects of another sleepless night, Peter felt his eyes closing. He had in fact dozed off entirely when he was awakened by George’s unwelcome voice.

“Hang on,” said George.

“What?” said Mol y.

“Look at this,” he said, thrusting a timetable toward Mol y. She looked at the number marked by his finger.

“So it departs at ten thirty from Waterloo Station—” she said. Her eyes scanned across a column of figures. “And it arrives at two forty-six at…Salisbury. That’s it! Father took the train to Salisbury!”

“What’s in Salisbury?” said Peter.

“I don’t know,” said Mol y. “But I have to go there.”

“What?” said George. “Now?”

“Yes,” said Mol y. “I’ve got time to make the train. Can you lend me the money for a ticket?”

“Wel …yes, of course,” said George.

“And Peter as wel ?” said Mol y. “I’l repay you, I promise.”

“
He’s
going with you?” said George.

“Yes,” said Mol y.

“If he is,” said George, “then I am.”

“No,” said Mol y.

“Why not?” said George.

“Because…” said Mol y, “because your parents wouldn’t al ow it.”

“My parents left yesterday for Paris,” said George. “I’l tel the housekeeper I’ve gone to spend a few days with a friend. I’ve done that many times.”

“It’s too dangerous,” said Mol y.

“You’re going,” retorted George. “
He’s
going.”

“But he…” Mol y searched for words, then gave up. “George, it’s just too complicated.”

“Yes,” said George. “And that’s why you need al the help you can get. You wouldn’t even know to go to Salisbury if not for me.” Mol y had no answer for that.

“If you want me to buy the tickets,” said George, “you have to let me go with you.”

Mol y hung her head, thinking.

“Al right,” she said.

“Mol y!” said Peter.

She looked at him. “He’s right,” she said. “I have to take whatever help I can.”

“But what about the…your family’s business?”

“Right now,” said Mol y, her tone grim, “al I care about is getting my mother back. If George can help, then I want him to come with us.”

“Al right,” said Peter, though it was clear he did not think it was. Mol y and he exchanged a long look, but neither spoke.

“I’l get dressed,” said George, breaking the silence. “We’l take a cab to Waterloo Station.”

VANE

A
N HOUR INTO THE TRAIN ride from London to Salisbury, Peter announced that he wanted some fresh air and left his seat to stand in the open space between the clattering, jostling train carriages. Here, after making sure nobody was watching, he opened his coat and al owed Tinker Bel out. She perched on his shoulder, looking at the engine smoke bil owing overhead, and wrinkled her nose.

Why do we have to stay on this loud, smelly thing
? she asked.
Why can’t we just fly
?

“You know Mol y and George can’t fly,” he said.

So? YOU can fly.

“But I’m with them,” he said.

But you’re not one of them.

“What do you mean?”

They live in this awful cold place. They’re stuck on the ground. You live on our island, and you can fly. You’re not like them.
Tink put her tiny face close to Peter’s.
You’re like
me.

Peter looked at her, then stared out at the fields rushing past. He wondered: was Tink right? Had he become more fantastic creature than person? Was there any place in England for someone like him? Could he ever be Mol y’s friend, the way George was her friend? If he never grew old, could he be the friend of
any
normal person?

Standing on the rumbling platform, Peter felt keenly aware of how out of place he was here, how far from home. And for the first time, he understood where his home real y was.

“You’re right, Tink,” he said softly. “I am like you.”

At that same moment, back in the train carriage, George turned to Mol y and asked, “How did you come to know Peter?”

“I met him on a ship,” Mol y answered.

“Real y? And how did you become friends?”

Mol y thought back to the eventful voyage aboard the
Never Land
—her discovery that the ship carried a trunk fil ed with starstuff; her desperate decision to enlist Peter as an al y in her effort to get the precious trunk away from the Others; the attack on the ship by the infamous Black Stache; the storm at sea that marooned them on the mysterious Mol usk Island; the struggle there, pitting children and mermaids against murderous pirates, and the even-deadlier Slank, with hostile natives and a giant flying crocodile thrown in for good measure; and, above al , the courage and resourcefulness Peter had shown, risking his life to save Mol y’s, and the starstuff.

These images and more ran through Mol y’s mind. But al she said to George was: “I needed help. And Peter helped me.” George nodded. “That’s very admirable,” he said. “But I’m stil puzzled by your continued…
association
with him.”

“Why?”

“Wel , he’s not exactly your sort of person, is he?”

“What do you mean?” said Mol y.

“I mean,” said George. “The way he talks. His level of education. His…his
breeding.
Is he real y a suitable companion for someone of your background? I mean, your family, your father—”

“My father,” interrupted Mol y, “considers Peter to be one of the finest young men he has ever met.” She glared at George.