The Wells Bequest (13 page)

The Terror

W
e shouldered our backpacks and wound our way downhill along Richmond's curving streets, through a tidy green park to the Thames River.

“Just over here,” said Auntie Shanti.

A sign read
Private Pier. Strictly No Mooring.

Jaya hopped over a chain, ran down a metal stair to water level, and stepped out on the swaying wooden pier. “Where's the
Terror
?” she asked, scanning the water.

We followed her down. “Cloaked,” answered Auntie Shanti.

“It has a cloaking device? I don't remember that from the book,” Jaya objected.

“It didn't have one in the book,” said her aunt. “But it got hit by lightning, remember? When the Phénoménothèque Centrale Supérieure de la Ville de Paris rebuilt it in the mid-twentieth century, they put in a number of improvements. People weren't as strict about authenticity back then.”

“If it's from a Jules Verne novel, why isn't it in the New York repository?” I asked. “I thought Mr. Steel bought all Verne's objects.”

“He did, most of them. But he thought the
Terror
was too badly damaged to rebuild, so he traded the pieces to the Paris Phénoménothèque,” said Auntie Shanti.

“What did he get for them?” I asked.

“Something of General Lafayette's, I think. A sword, maybe.”

While she was talking, Auntie Shanti stooped by the edge of the pier, running her fingers along it. She caught hold of something invisible and pulled. The water beside the pier churned and buckled, as if an invisible whale were surfacing. She strained at her invisible rope, splashing and sluicing water.

“Hold this, will you, Jaya?”

Jaya grabbed the air behind her aunt and helped tug. I felt a thump and the pier swayed. Then Auntie Shanti stepped over the railing and leapt into air.

She landed in the middle of the disturbance and stood, rocking but upright. She looked like she was walking on water. “Give me your hand, Leo,” she said. “I'll help you over.”

That water looked really unsteady. It was stupid to jump before I understood it. “If the boat's cloaked, doesn't that mean it's invisible? Shouldn't it look like a hole in the water?”

Auntie Shanti shook her head. “It's not invisible, it's camouflaged. It looks like its surroundings—in this case, water. Come along.” She held out her hand impatiently. Between the two of them, Jaya and her aunt had about as much patience as the number 2 express train.

I stepped over the railing, shut my eyes, and jumped.

I landed on my left foot. My right shot sideways, but Auntie Shanti caught me by the backpack before I fell. “Steady now,” she said. “Ready, Jaya?”

I held out my hand to Jaya. She took it, leapt, stumbled as she landed, and fell into my arms. She righted herself quickly. Too quickly—I wouldn't have minded if she'd stayed awhile.

Auntie Shanti bent and lifted something invisible. “Down the hatch,” she said. Jaya scampered over and climbed down.

Auntie Shanti untied the invisible rope. As soon as she detached it from the cloaked vessel, it popped into visibility. She coiled it and tossed it onto the pier. It lay there like a snake, hot pink and glaring yellow.

I felt a tug at my heels. “This way, Leo,” said Jaya from below. She fitted my feet onto the ladder rungs as I climbed down into nothingness.

• • •

The moment the top of my head cleared the hatch, the ship became visible. We were in a little room with hanging bunks. A round porthole let in water-green light. It smelled of metal and brine and old grease.

“Come on, I'll give you the grand tour,” said Jaya. She led me through the narrow sleeping cabin to a kitchen and a tidy paneled dining room—“the mess,” she called it—and the engine room, with its silent electric engines. The batteries were hidden under benches in the next compartment, the smoking room. I wanted to stop and figure out how it all worked, but Jaya hurried me through. “We need to get moving. There'll be plenty of time for that later, while we're crossing the Atlantic.”

She opened the next airtight door. A long room tapered dramatically toward the front end—the bow, said Jaya. Brass handrails ran along the sides. Instead of portholes, the entire front end of the vessel had a big, pointed windshield.

“Cool!” I said, running over to it. “It's like the ship on Gravity Force II: Planetbound!”

Below the windshield were the controls. Jaya plopped herself down in the captain's chair by the steering wheel.

“Out,” said Auntie Shanti.

“But you said I could drive. You promised!”

“I did not.”

“Come on! Please? Dad let me last summer.”

“Maybe once we've cleared the Channel. There's far too much traffic on the river here. Up!”

Jaya made a face and flounced out of the chair. “You just want to drive in the exciting part!”

“Can you blame me?” With a Jaya-like grin, Shanti sat down, twisted a knob, and pulled a lever. The
Terror
kicked into life.

It lived up to its name. “Grab the handrail, Leo!” she warned as I barreled into Jaya. I braced my feet wide apart, hung on like crazy, and hoped I wouldn't fall flat on my face. It was like playing Gravity Force III with my whole body. We sped furiously through the water, skimming around barges and diving under ferries. Our wake sent the little vessels bobbing like toys. I hoped the cloaking would keep us hidden.

“Watch out! There's the Richmond Lock up ahead!” yelled Jaya. “It's closed!”

“I see it, Jaya,” said her aunt calmly. “We'll go over. Hold on tight.”

I was already holding the handrail, but I grabbed tighter and bent my knees. Auntie Shanti pressed a button. With a metallic shriek, a pair of wings sliced outward from the
Terror
's sides. They gave three beats and we leapt into the air like a flying fish, just clearing the footbridge over the lock. We landed in the river and dove under, pulling a veil of bubbles around us.

“That was fun,” said Jaya. “Why don't we fly the whole way?”

“Not till we clear the populous areas,” said Auntie Shanti. “We might ghost.”

“A ghost? Where?” I asked. Nothing could surprise me now. It made sense there would be ghosts in a place this old.

Auntie Shanti laughed. “Not
a
ghost—ghosting. That's when the cloaking leaves a glint in air. It's best to stay under when the water's deep enough. Oh, but I'll make a quick exception.” She pulled the
Terror
's sharp nose straight up out of the river. “Look to starboard, Leo.”

A green vista flashed past on the right-hand side. “What was that?” I asked, craning my neck as it vanished behind us.

“Kew Gardens. See? I kept my promise.”

“Uh, thanks.”

As we went deeper into London, the river deepened too, but it got more crowded. We dodged and dove and zipped around vessels of all sizes. It looked like fun—I wished I were driving. Auntie Shanti pulled us out of the water from time to time to show me sights: the Houses of Parliament, the giant Ferris wheel, and the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral. The Tower Bridge winked past from a cockeyed airborne angle.

“How did you like London?” asked Auntie Shanti, plunging into the Channel.

“Charming city,” I said.

“It is, actually,” said Jaya. “You'll like it next time we come. Can I drive already, Auntie Shanti?”

Next time
—Jaya expected to come back here with me!

“I said
after
the Channel.”

“But we're past the exciting part, and I'm good at this. You know I am.”

“Fine,” said Auntie Shanti, climbing out of the chair. “If you crash, make sure I die. That way I won't have to explain it to your father.”

Jaya climbed into the chair, then looked at me. “Leo, you're the guest. Want to take the wheel first?”

How generous! I could have hugged her. “No, you go first,” I said. “You've been dying to.” I hung over the captain's chair, watching her take us under ships and over shoals. She would be killer at Gravity Force III, I thought.

Dim green light sifted through the window. Plastic bags floated like jellyfish. Marine life loomed into view, then flicked away. We nosed through a school of fish. They parted around us like a shiny beaded curtain.

“Whiting,” said Auntie Shanti. “They live in shipwrecks. You'd better pull our nose up. There must be a wreck nearby.”

“Ooh!” Jaya slowed down abruptly. She spun us around, snapped on our headlights, and dove. Glinting bits of who knows what came at us in the twin cones of light. It was like driving through snow.

“Up! I said up, not down!” shouted Shanti.

“I just want to take a look.”

“Oh, very well. I'll admit I'm curious myself.”

The wreck swam into view: an ancient pirate-looking ship lying on its side. Its masts had broken off and lay buried in the seafloor. A brown-gray layer of muck covered it like a velvet blanket. Little fish darted through the wreckage.

“Maybe it's a Spanish galleon full of gold!” Jaya said, hovering over it. “Let's get out and look.”

“You know we can't. It would be a legal nightmare,” said her aunt. “Jaya!
Now!
”

“Spoilsport,” said Jaya. She reluctantly turned us back around and sped us forward. “Leo, want a turn?” she asked.

“Yes, please!”

She got up and offered me the captain's chair. “Okay, we're in the Atlantic now. Stick to the mid-depths and watch out for whales,” she said. “Check the sonar and the GPS.”

I followed the course she'd set. The engines whispered. We followed our headlight cones through the brown darkness.

Suddenly Jaya shouted, “Watch out! Shark!”

I whipped around to look. Something loomed on the sonar, and a moment later the headlights illuminated a huge, blunt snout dripping with teeth. I swerved just in time. With a flip of its tail, the shark vanished. “Will he follow us? Can he hurt the ship?” I asked.

“Of course not. Are you afraid he'll try to eat us? He's not a goat. We're basically a big tin can—pretty indigestible. I was worried about
him,
not us! We would hurt him if we rammed him.”

“Or her,” said Auntie Shanti. She glanced at the GPS. “We'll have cleared the coastal radar surveillance by now. It's time to fly,” she said.

“Me, me, let me!” cried Jaya.

“All right. Take us up to eight thousand feet. Use the air button and the—”

“Yes, I know. The alt lever. May I, Leo?” asked Jaya.

“Buckle up, Leo,” said Auntie Shanti.

I gave Jaya the captain's seat and buckled myself into an armchair. She took us upward through the lightening sea. Just as we burst into sunlight, she pressed the air button, snapped the wings out, and leapt us into air.

Up, up, up we went, the wings pumping like a heartbeat. The acceleration pressed me back into the armchair. We flew toward a fluffy cloud, which engulfed us, then let us go. We popped out into clear blue.

“Engage the autoflight and the traffic avoidance now,” said Auntie Shanti.

“I
know.
Please stop backseat piloting,” said Jaya.

“Aye, aye, Captain,” said Auntie Shanti, grinning like her niece.

• • •

We flew west over the ocean on autopilot, stretching out the day into one long afternoon. Auntie Shanti made cauliflower curry for lunch, or maybe it was dinner. We ate in the mess, with sunlight slanting through the portholes. She and Jaya kept hopping up to check the sonar and make sure the avoidance system hadn't missed anything.

After lunch, Jaya found two copies of
The Master of the World
in the main cabin, one in French and one in English. “Have you ever read this?” she asked. “It's the Jules Verne novel the
Terror
comes from.”

“Cool!”

“French or English?”

“English, please.”

“I was hoping you'd say that. It's better in French,” she said, curling up in an armchair and opening it.

Show-off, I thought. And the annoying thing was, she had so many impressive things to show off.

A few chapters in, I said, “This book is hilarious! First they were all trying to climb an unscalable volcano in west North Carolina, and now the
Terror
is diving in a giant lake high in the mountains of Kansas. The mountains of
Kansas
!”

“What's the matter? You've never been to the mountains of Kansas?”

“There aren't any.”

“Maybe not in
this
universe.”

“Really? Are there other universes where Kansas has mountains?”

“Sure! Jules Verne's fictional universe, for one.”

“But that's fictional. By definition, it's not real.”

“Depends on what you mean by real. The
Terror
is fictional, but it feels pretty darn real to me,” said Jaya, thumping the floor with her feet.