Peter and the Sword of Mercy (19 page)

“All right,” he said. “I’ll stay here until Hook’s gone.”

Good.
Teacher smiled, revealing her sharp, pointed teeth.
You need to rest.

Peter lay back on the rock, resting. For the first time, he thought about what the island would be like without Hook.

He wondered if his life would become boring.

D
ANGER
C
OMING

E
ACH DAY
M
OLLY FOUGHT A GRIM BATTLE
against loneliness and despair.

Nobody spoke to her. She called out to the guards, pleading with them for information, or even just human conversation, but they never answered. And so she sat, day after day, in the tiny, dank, foul-smelling cell, sometimes sobbing quietly, sometimes talking to herself, finding it harder and harder to keep out the awful thought:

I will never get out of here.

She had no way to mark the passage of time save by the delivery of the awful food and the wretched, twice-daily spectacle of the exhausted prisoners trudging past. She dared not call out to them, for fear the guards would hurt them. But she waited for them eagerly, listening for the clanking of their chains in the hallway, pressing her face to her cell bars in anticipation of the only real human contact in her otherwise relentlessly bleak day.

As the prisoners passed, she and James always met eyes, each trying to cheer the other up, to communicate the simple message:
I’m still here, still alive.

But James was not the only prisoner with whom she exchanged looks. She was now certain that she knew the fourth man in line, the one who had looked at her so intently when she arrived. It took her several days to recognize him, but once she did, she was sure.

It was Thomas.

He had clearly been down in the tunnels longer than the others. His face was gaunt, his arms and legs bone-thin, his filthy clothes nothing but shreds and tatters. But it was Thomas.

Molly had spent a great deal of time—time was all she had—thinking about what his presence meant. She understood why she and James had been taken captive; they had learned von Schatten’s secret. But as far as Molly knew, Thomas knew nothing about von Schatten. Yet he had apparently been taken captive before either James or Molly.

Why?

The more Molly thought about it, the more certain she became that the reason had to be the island. Very few people even knew of its existence; Thomas had actually lived there. Molly believed that was why he had been captured: von Schatten, or Ombra, or whatever he was, wanted Thomas’s knowledge of the island. If Molly was right, there was a connection between the island and the strange activity in the Underground.

What was it?

Molly didn’t know the answer. But she knew that whatever it was, it could only mean trouble for the island and her dear friends who lived there. She wished there were some way she could send a warning to let Peter and the Mollusks know that they were in danger. But she couldn’t even get a message to the streets of London above her, let alone to an island far out at sea. She could only clutch the bars of her tiny, dim cell, waiting for the next brief glimpse of James and Thomas, her next brief chance to exchange the unspoken message that had become the only thing that any of them had left to cling to.

I’m still alive.

S
IGNPOSTS IN THE
S
EA

W
ENDY HATED HERSELF
for what she was about to do to Uncle Neville.

It’s for mother,
she kept telling herself. But that didn’t make her feel any better.

She’d returned the evening before. Uncle Ted, who’d stayed in Harwich, had tried to talk her out of her plan, but Wendy could not be budged. His last words to her as he put her on the train were “Wendy, you’re every bit as stubborn as your mother. I just hope you’re also as resourceful.”

“I hope so, too,” replied Wendy.

She took a taxicab from the Cambridge train station to Uncle Neville’s estate. Nobody seemed suspicious; apparently Mrs. Blotney hadn’t noticed the Harwich postmark on the letter Wendy had sent.

The next morning Wendy awakened early and filled a cloth bag with supplies—bread, cheese, three apples, and a bottle of water. An hour later, at breakfast, she peppered Uncle Neville with questions about his ornithopter. He was happy to answer them; in fact, the ornithopter was all he wanted to talk about. He was giddy with anticipation, having finally finished repairing the odd-looking craft. He intended, despite Mrs. Blotney’s heartfelt pleadings, to make a test flight after breakfast.

John and Michael were so excited they could barely stay in their chairs. Every few seconds, Michael would shout, “Uncle Neville’s going to fly the ornihopper!” Each time, he emitted a spray of toast crumbs, and each time John corrected him, saying, “It’s ornithopter, you ninny.” But they were both too excited to get into serious quarreling.

Meanwhile, Wendy kept pressing for information. She had gotten Uncle Neville to explain the controls, which were quite simple—a lever for up and down, and another for steering. But the next issue was more worrisome.

“So…the motor,” Wendy said. “It uses gasoline?”

“Yes,” said Uncle Neville. “It’s quite a reliable motor. It has two cylinders and a four-stroke—”

“I see,” said Wendy. “And how long does the motor keep going before it runs out of fuel?”

Uncle Neville looked at the ceiling and scratched his cheek, thinking. Then he said, “I don’t know, actually, since it has never operated under flight conditions for more than a brief while without…ah…without …”

“Crashing,” said Mrs. Blotney.

“Quite so,” Uncle Neville agreed cheerfully. “But I imagine that with a full tank of fuel, it would run for, I should think, three or four hours.”

Wendy gulped. “Will the tank be full today?” she asked.

“Yes, I always fill it, just in case,” said Uncle Neville. “Although I’m planning just a short flight today. I won’t be going to France, at least not yet, ha-ha!”

Wendy tried to smile, but her mind was buzzing with troubling thoughts. Three or four hours. That didn’t sound like nearly enough time, but it would have to do.

“All right, then!” said Uncle Neville, wiping his mouth, then tossing his napkin onto the table as he rose. “Wind is down and the sun is up! It’s time to fly!”

With a whoop apiece, John and Michael were racing to the front door. Uncle Neville was right behind, followed by Wendy, who was holding her cloth bag. A very unhappy Mrs. Blotney brought up the rear.

Two minutes later, Uncle Neville and the boys were swinging open the big barn doors. Just inside, the orniqthopter was waiting, its feathered wings arching out on both sides like enormous eyebrows.

Uncle Neville and the boys took hold of the orniqthopter frame and began rolling it out of the barn on its four small, wire-spoke wheels. Wendy went to help them, and as she grasped the wooden frame, she was struck by how flimsy it was—just sticks, really. The wings looked especially frail, literally made from feathers (ostrich, her uncle had told her). They were connected by wire cables to the two large control levers mounted next to the platform where the pilot stood. There was a smaller lever there also, connected by a cable to the motor. Wendy assumed this was the throttle.

The motor itself looked a bit more substantial than the rest of the craft, but Wendy knew nothing about what made it work; its wires, belts, and hoses were a mystery. She did note, with relief, that the fuel tank was on the side of the motor facing the pilot’s platform.

When the ornithopter had been wheeled into place, Uncle Neville lugged a red metal can out of the barn. Wendy, touching her golden locket, watched closely as he unscrewed the cap on top of the fuel tank and filled the tank with gasoline. He put the cap back on, tightened it, and wiped the tank with a rag. Then he spent a few minutes inspecting the motor and making some small adjustments.

“All right, then!” he said at last. “It’s time!”

“I’ll go call the doctor,” said Mrs. Blotney, turning back toward the house, unable to watch.

“You boys stand back!” said Uncle Neville, shooing John and Michael a few feet farther from the ornithopter. The instant he was done shooing, they moved right back to where they had been. Uncle Neville, busy with the starter crank on the front of the motor, wasn’t watching the boys. He also wasn’t watching Wendy, who, clutching her bag, had stepped around the back of the ornithopter and moved next to the platform.

“Ready?” said Uncle Neville.

“Ready!” shouted John and Michael.

Uncle Neville grabbed the starter crank in both hands and gave it a yank. The motor coughed, then sputtered to life. The boys cheered. The giant wings started moving, rising slowly, then descending. Uncle Neville was making one last adjustment to the motor.

Now,
thought Wendy. She climbed up onto the platform.

The engine roared as Uncle Neville finished his adjustment. The big feathered wings swept up and down, kicking up dust. On each downbeat, the ornithopter jumped a foot off the ground, then settled back onto its little wheels.

“Hurry, Uncle Neville!” shouted John.

Uncle Neville was already bustling around the side of the ornithopter, avoiding one of the huge flapping wings. He stopped suddenly when he saw Wendy.

“Wendy!” he shouted over the sputtering of the motor. “Get down from there!”

“I’m sorry, Uncle Neville,” she shouted back. She put her hand on the throttle lever.

“No!” shouted Uncle Neville.

Wendy pushed the lever all the way forward. The motor belched black smoke and then roared much louder. The big wings beat faster. With a
whoosh,
the ornithopter shot gracefully forward and upward.

Despite his concerns, Uncle Neville could not help but pause for a moment to admire the brilliance of his invention—with a child at the controls, it was actually flying! Then, remembering the danger, he lunged toward the ornithopter. He managed to get a hand on one of the wheels, but the next downbeat of the wings knocked him back, and the ornithopter shot upward and forward, gaining altitude.

Another flap of the wings, and it was well out of reach, rising steadily as it flew across the open field. Uncle Neville ran behind, trailed by Michael and John, all three shouting and jumping. But Wendy couldn’t hear them over the sound of the motor and the pounding of her own heartbeat in her ears. She was
flying.