“Curtana?”
“Yes. It is also known as the Sword of Mercy,” said Leonard. “In any event, it was never needed. Eventually it changed hands, more than once. It was used in an attempt on the life of Charlemagne, during which the tip was broken off—by an angel, according to legend. When it broke, it was like the key to the vault breaking. The starstuff was sealed forever. I’ve no doubt that tip of the sword is the ‘missing piece’ James overheard von Schatten talking about in the palace. It has been lost for centuries, somewhere in Belgium or Germany. I have a hard time believing …” His voice trailed off.
“What about the rest of the sword?” asked Wendy.
Grunting with effort, Leonard raised himself up and looked at Wendy, his gaze intense. “It is now part of the Crown Jewels,” he said. “And that is what worries me.”
“But why? The Crown Jewels are very well protected, aren’t they?”
“Yes. Locked and guarded in the Tower of London,” said Leonard. “Completely safe. But they are brought out on certain special occasions.”
Wendy gasped. “The coronation,” she said.
“Yes,” said Leonard. “The jewels will be brought out, including Curtana. Von Schatten, or Ombra, or whatever he is, intends to get hold of the sword and reattach the missing tip. Once Curtana is whole again, it can be used to open the Cache. There have been no starstuff falls since Rundoon, Wendy. That means the Cache is one of only two large stores of starstuff left on earth. If von Schatten gets hold of it…”
“Where is the other one?” said Wendy.
“Mollusk Island. Deep inside. It fell into a crevice from the flying ship. I don’t know if von Schatten knows about that one; we must pray that he doesn’t. But somehow he found out about the Cache.”
Leonard gripped Wendy’s arm. His hand was cold. His breath was coming in gasps.
“Wendy,” he said. “They must not get that starstuff. They must be stopped.”
“But how?” said Wendy.
“You must be very careful,” gasped Leonard. “They must control at least some of the Metropolitan Police. They captured your mother because she was asking questions. They’ll be holding her somewhere. We cannot risk endangering her further. Or you!” He paused, gasping. “You must not go to the police. You must go …” Leonard winced in pain, groaned, and fell back onto the pillow.
“Go where, Grandfather?”
Leonard fought for breath. “Peter,” he whispered.
“The flying boy? On the island?”
“Yes.”
“But where is the island? How can I get there?”
Leonard raised a shaking hand and pointed toward the locket.
“It has power,” he said. “Great power.”
Leonard gripped her hand, stopping her. He was trying to say something, but fast losing strength. Wendy leaned close to hear the old man’s whispered words.
“He must come…Tell him …” Leonard’s eyelids fluttered shut.
“Grandfather, what? Tell him what?”
“Confess,” whispered Leonard.
He groaned again, and his hand went limp, releasing Wendy’s arm. His face was ashen.
“Grandfather!” said Wendy. He did not respond. Wendy ran to the door and yanked it open. “Mrs. Bumbrake! Please come! Hurry!”
Moments later Mrs. Bumbrake bustled in. She felt Leonard’s pulse, then bustled to the doorway and bellowed downstairs, ordering the maid to summon Dr. Sable, the Aster family physician. Then she glared at Wendy and said, “I told you not to get him excited.”
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Bumbrake. I didn’t mean to. But…”
“Sorry doesn’t do any good now,” said Mrs. Bumbrake, turning away. She went to Leonard’s bedside. Wendy, her eyes burning, went downstairs. She sat in the parlor, weeping, refusing the maid’s offer of tea. Twenty minutes later, Dr. Sable arrived; he was in Leonard’s room for the better part of an hour. When he came back down, Wendy was waiting at the bottom of the stairs.
“Will Grandfather be all right?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Dr. Sable said softly. “His will is strong, but his heart is weak. Right now he’s stable, and sleeping. He needs rest, and he needs your prayers, Wendy.”
Wendy nodded. Tears streaked her face. Dr. Sable put a hand on her shoulder.
“It’s not your fault, Wendy,” he said. “I’m sure that seeing you did him good.” He turned to Mrs. Bumbrake, at the top of the stairs. “Call me if there’s any change. Otherwise I’ll be back tomorrow morning.”
“Yes, doctor.”
Dr. Sable left. Mrs. Bumbrake descended the stairs. Without a word, she pulled Wendy into her arms and gave her a massive hug.
“I’m sorry I snapped at you,” she said. “It’s just that, with Mrs. Aster gone, he’s all I have left.” She sobbed into Wendy’s shoulder.
Wendy hugged her back, hard. “I know,” she whispered.
“You’d best go now,” said Mrs. Bumbrake. “Catch your train back to Cambridgeshire. Your uncle will be worried.”
“Right,” said Wendy.
“I’ll send word of your grandfather,” said Mrs. Bumbrake, getting Wendy’s coat. “I’m sure his condition will improve with rest.”
“Thank you,” said Wendy.
A minute later she was back outside. She walked north, reaching busy Bayswater Road as the late afternoon deepened into dusk. She considered taking a taxicab to the train station. She saw one clopping her way, and almost raised her hand to signal the driver. But then she glanced behind it and saw, amid some pedestrians, a bobby. He was walking toward her.
She turned around and started walking quickly in the other direction. She came to a busy intersection and turned right. She glanced behind her. She saw a taxicab turning right; was it the same one? She saw the bobby reaching the corner. He seemed to be looking around. Wendy started walking again, even faster, not looking back. She came to an alley and turned into it. Trotting now, she followed the alley to another street, where she turned left, then right into another alley. She kept this up, turning and turning, avoiding main roads, working her way toward the train station, hoping she would get there in time to catch the last train to Cambridgeshire.
And then what? The questions nagged at Wendy as she trotted along. Why had her grandfather said “confess”? And how would she find Peter? She had no idea where this mysterious island was. Even if she did find him, how could a boy—even a flying one—stop von Schatten and the Others from reaching the Cache? For that matter, where was the Cache? Wendy realized that her grandfather had told her only that it was in London, somewhere underground.
The more Wendy thought about her situation, the more hopeless it seemed. As far as she knew, only four people understood the danger that faced England, and for that matter the world. Two of them were James and her mother, who had both disappeared, presumably captured by the Others. The third was her grandfather, who lay on his bed with death hovering near.
That left Wendy, an eleven-year-old girl, afraid to trust the police or hardly anyone else. She thought about her mother, who at about Wendy’s age had also found herself alone, trying to protect a trunk of starstuff on a ship far out at sea. She had been strong, Wendy knew. But she had also found allies.
Wendy’s hand went to the locket around her neck. She would try to be strong, too. She owed that to her mother. But where would she find allies?
Who will help me?
Her hand still on the locket, she hurried on, alone in the deepening London night.
CHAPTER 16
“FOR GOOD”
PETER TOOK OFF FROM THE MOLLUSK VILLAGE at dusk, carrying a coconut. Tinker Bell, as always, flew at his side.
Fighting Prawn watched them soar skyward, a frown of concern on his face. “Be careful,” he called.
“I’ll be fine,” Peter answered, leveling his body as he began to swoop across the village compound. He passed over the hut that housed the shipwrecked sailors, who were seated on rough stools outside, eatin
g supper. Their leader, the huge Cheeky O’Neal, shouted up, “Where are you going, Peter?”
Bad men, chimed Tink, as she always did when she saw the sailors.
Peter nodded, ignoring O’Neal. The big man was always asking questions, lately more and more of them about the island’s water supply. Peter didn’t trust him any more than Tink and Fighting Prawn did. He’d be glad when the sailors were off the island.
That was the purpose of the coconut. On its shell was a message, composed by Fighting Prawn and etched in squid ink by Fighting Prawn’s daughter, Shining Pearl. The message read:
CAPTAIN HOOK:
I PROPOSE A DEAL. MY MEN WILL REPAIR YOUR SHIP AND PROVISION IT SO YOU CAN LEAVE THE ISLAND PERMANENTLY. IN RETURN YOU WILL TAKE FOUR SHIPWRECKED SAILORS WITH YOU. SEND A MAN TO OUR VILLAGE AND WE WILL ARRANGE A PARLEY.
FIGHTING PRAWN
The plan was for Peter to fly over the pirate fort and drop the coconut. Peter was confident he could handle this task. Over the years, he had dropped many items on Hook, among them ripe mangoes, dead fish, and vast quantities of bat poop. He generally flew these missions at suppertime, when the pirates were outside, eating and enjoying the evening cool. Peter loved watching them scatter to avoid his missiles. He never tired of tormenting them, especially Hook. Hook, for his part, never tired of thinking up revenge schemes, none of which had ever worked.
Peter, leaving the Mollusk village behind, swooped low across the jungle canopy, his body only a few feet from the treetops. In seconds he reached the side of the steep volcanic mountain that divided the island in two. He shot upward, Tink at his shoulder, the two of them zooming up the mountain face, reaching the top in minutes. From here, looking back, Peter could see the mermaid lagoon and the smoke from the Mollusk village cooking fires curling into the reddish-gold sunset sky. Looking ahead, he could see the high log walls of the pirate fort. Beyond that, he saw the masts of the sailing ship that, kept aloft by starstuff, had flown Hook, Peter, and others back from Rundoon. It now sat on the sandy bottom of Pirate Cove, a large hole in its hull.
From somewhere on the mountainside below him, Peter heard the mournful trumpet of a conch shell. The pirates, copying the Mollusks, had learned to communicate with one another over great distances by blowing into the shells.
Peter angled himself downward and began his long, swooping descent. Because of the massive mountain’s shadow, night fell quicker on this side of the island, and as Peter closed in on the pirate compound, the darkness was almost complete.
As he crossed over the top of the fort wall, well above it, Peter frowned. He saw no pirates below; in fact, he saw nothing but blackness, because there was no cooking fire and no torches or lamps—no lights of any kind. Peter wondered if the pirates had gone somewhere.
Be careful, chimed Tink.
“I am being careful,” he answered. Flying about a hundred feet above the ground, he circled the compound, peering down: nobody. Peter frowned. He wanted to be sure Hook, or at least one of his men, saw the coconut when he dropped it. He swooped lower.
Careful.
“Quiet, Tink,” said Peter, peering into the darkness below. He descended slowly, warily, his eyes darting this way and that. Forty feet above ground, now. Thirty. Twenty. Now he was almost even with the top of the fort walls, and still he saw nobody. He stopped his descent and drifted toward the fort’s big log gate, slowly, slowly …
Get away! chimed Tink.
“NOW!” roared an unmistakable voice.
Peter lunged upward. For an instant he thought he would soar free.
Then he hit the net.
It was made of vines braided into thick ropes by skilled sailor hands. The net had been attached to two tall palms that grew just outside the fort gate. Had it been light, Peter would have seen that the tops of the palms had been pulled to the ground and attached to stakes with thick ropes. The palms thus became giant springs, to which the net had been attached. When the signal came from the lookout on the mountain—that had been the conch sound Peter had heard—the pirates had run outside and taken their positions. Then they had waited and watched as Peter flew over, his silhouette just visible against the sky. When he was low enough, Hook had given the command, and the men had yanked the loose vine ends, untying the slipknots and unleashing the palms, which snapped up and flung the huge net high into the sky over Peter. There were rocks tied around the circumference of the net; these, plus the weight of the net itself, quickly dragged Peter to the ground. He slammed into the hard dirt of the compound, the breath leaving his lungs, pain shooting through his body.
Hurry! chimed Tink. They’re coming!
Wheezing for breath, Peter struggled, trying to stand, but the net held him fast. He felt for the dagger he wore in his belt, hoping to cut himself free of the thick braided vines. But as he pulled the dagger out, a boot came down heavily on his hand. Peter yelped in pain and dropped the dagger.
He saw a shape looming over him. A pirate trotted up with a torch, and Peter saw Captain Hook staring down at him, dark eyes gleaming in the flickering torchlight.
“Got you, boy,” he said. He leaned over, his face close enough that Peter could smell his foul breath.
“And this time,” hissed Hook, “I’ve got you for good.”
CHAPTER 17
A FAMILIAR FACE
MOST OF THE TIME, Molly’s captors kept her in a small, damp cell. There was a barred window in the door, through which Molly could look out into a passageway lit every twenty feet by bare electric bulbs, the dim light from which provided the only illumination for the cell.
She was somewhere close to the Underground—that much she knew from the rumble and screech of trains in the distance—but where exactly, she had no idea. Her last memory had been of aboveground when the hackney driver had swerved suddenly into an alley, and three men, their faces hidden behind scarves, had grabbed her, pulled a hood over her head, and carried her roughly into a building, then down some stairs, and still more stairs, then through a maze of dank corridors, and finally into this awful cell.
Once established here, she had pleaded with her captors, then shouted at them, but to no avail. They told her nothing, refusing to speak a word. Three times a day they brought what passed for food—bread as hard as bricks, a slimy potato or carrot—sliding a wooden plate under the bolted door. Molly had learned to eat quickly, and to then slide the plate back out when she was finished, because the rats would come looking for it. A few times a day the men took Molly down the hall, where she was allowed the use of a crude toilet; this was her only time outside the cell.
Twice each day—Molly assumed it was morning and evening, though she had no way to keep track of time—prisoners were herded past her cell door. There were eleven of them, by Molly’s count, all men, chained together at their ankles, the chains clanking on the corridor’s stone floor as they shuffled past. They were covered from head to toe in dirt and grime, as though they’d been digging.
The first time they’d passed, Molly had spotted James immediately, seventh in line. She had called out his name. He looked at her and quickly shook his head. The guards, big men who carried pistols, shouted at Molly to be quiet and roughly shoved the prisoners forward, causing them to stumble into one another.
After that, the prisoners knew better than to try to talk to Molly. But some of them, always including James, glanced in her direction each time they passed, their expressions ranging from exhaustion to desperation. Molly watched them, her face pressed to the bars, trying wordlessly to communicate some comfort and to receive some in return.
Because of the filth covering the men, it was difficult for Molly to make out their features. But two of them, aside from James, seemed familiar to her. One of them looked like the missing Underground passenger whose picture had appeared in the newspaper the day James had come to her house. The other was the man who was always fourth in line. He always looked at Molly intently, as if he wanted to say something. Each time he passed, Molly became more cer
tain that she knew him from somewhere. But from where? Another picture in the paper? A neighbor? A businessman or friend of her husband’s? Who was he?
For long, bleak hours in her cold, cramped cell, Molly pondered this question, along with others: Why had she been kidnapped? Why brought here along with the others? Why was she still being held? Certainly it had something to do with the Starcatchers, with everything James had told her; but why the Underground? Why were men being captured to dig?
The questions multiplied in Molly’s mind, but no answers came. One thing she knew and clung to: her absence would be noticed. George would be frantic by now. She felt awful for him, and the children—how worried they must be. There would certainly be people looking for her. Half of Scotland Yard, if she knew George! They were looking, and they would find her.
Wouldn’t they?
Molly pulled her coat tight around her, shivering against the unrelenting chill of the cell. She heard the scratching of a rat in the corridor.
Please let them find me.
CHAPTER 18
UNCLE TED
WENDY HAD A PLAN. Actually, it was more of a desperate hope than a plan. But at the moment it was all she had.
It had come to her on the train ride back to Cambridgeshire. Searching her memory, trying to remember everything her mother and her grandfather had told her about the Starcatchers, she’d convinced herself that there was indeed someone she could turn to: the flying boy, Peter. He was more than just his mother’s friend. He was an ally of the Starcatchers. He had joined forces with her mother and grandfather more than once. Wendy prayed that he would help her now.
If only she could find him.
Her mother had told her about the island. But what island, and where? And how would she get there? Again, Wendy scoured her memory. Her mother and James had spoken of the other orphan boys who’d been on the island, then returned to London. James had said that one of them was now a fellow at Cambridge. What was his name? Wendy had almost given up in despair when it finally the name came to her: Pratt.
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