James, abandoning the fly, turned to Peter. “You wouldn’t,” he said.
“Yes, I would,” said Peter. “I’m tired of staying in the village.”
“We all are,” said James. “But you promised Fighting Prawn that…”
“I nodded,” interrupted Peter. “A nod isn’t a promise. Fighting Prawn doesn’t have to know I went out there—that is, unless I find the Scorpions. And then he’ll be glad I went out.”
“But what about the poison arrows?” said James. “Fighting Prawn said…”
“They can’t hit me if they can’t see me,” said Peter.
“When do you plan to go?” said James.
“Tonight,” said Peter. “Keep it a secret, all right?”
“All right,” said James reluctantly. “But I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“I’ll be careful,” said Peter, grinning. “Aren’t I always careful?”
“No,” said James.
CHAPTER 8
THE FIRE GOES OUT
A QUARTER MILE INLAND FROM the western shore of Mollusk Island rose a ramshackle wall of palm-tree trunks, sharpened to knife points at the top and lashed together to form a respectable fort. At one corner, a live palm towered over the fort with a platform built atop it, creating a lookout. Upon that platform sat a deeply tanned man clothed in what would barely pass for rags, with few teeth in his mouth and hair down to his shoulders. Eagle Eye Potts—so called because he could spot a lizard scratching itself three-quarters of a mile away—spent a good deal of time in the lookout tree, watching for signs of trouble.
But right now he was troubled by something he didn’t see. He’d been thinking hard for the better part of a half hour, trying to figure out what it was. Suddenly it came to him.
“No smoke,” Eagle Eye muttered. Then he shouted it: “Smee! There’s no smoke!”
Below, in the shade of the fort wall, a very round man with a very round, red face jerked awake from his catnap and wiped some drool from his stubbly chin. This was Smee, the captain’s first mate at sea and his lackey on land.
“What?” he shouted up to Eagle Eye.
“There’s no smoke!” repeated Eagle Eye.
“Smoke?” shouted Smee. “Where?”
“No! There’s NO smoke,” shouted Eagle Eye.
“Where is there no smoke?” shouted Smee, confused.
“Anywhere!” said Eagle Eye.
Smee thought about that for a moment, then suddenly understood. He rose and scurried to the captain’s hut, a makeshift affair of stick walls and a palm-frond roof.
“Cap’n!” he said, tapping tentatively on what passed for the door.
“Get in here, Smee!” answered a gruff voice.
Smee stepped into the hut, which was occupied by a tall, gaunt man with long, tangled, black hair and a sharp steel hook where his left hand had once been. He was called Captain Hook by his men, though he had once been known as Black Stache, the most feared pirate on the seven seas. A prodigious display of facial hair sprouted beneath his nose, greased and curved on the ends and stretching nearly ten inches in length when fully extended. His focus at the moment was his long feet, and in particular his thick, yellow toenails, which curved around his toes like claws. He was rubbing the nail on his big toe with a piece of lava rock, attempting to grind it down.
“Cap’n, sir,” Smee said. “Eagle Eye…”
“It ain’t no good, Smee,” interrupted Hook, not looking up. “Either the nail is too hard or the rock too soft, but it don’t answer. Get down on your knees there, and give us a bite.”
“A bite?”
“My toenail, you idjit.”
“But, Cap’n…”
“Now!”
Smee shuddered, edged forward, and went down on one knee. He stared at the grotesque yellowed fang that protruded from the captain’s dirty big toe.
“But, Cap’n…”
“Just give it a nip there on the side. I can tear it off after that.”
Smee closed his eyes, held his breath, and did as he was told. He had five teeth and only two that met. He pressed these together, bit down hard, and heard a click. His mouth tasted like…he couldn’t think about it.
“Splendid!” said Hook, examining and then peeling the excess nail away from his toe. “Fine job, Smee.”
Smee spat onto the sand floor and said, “Cap’n, Eagle Eye says there’s no smoke comin’ from the native side.”
“What?” said Hook, looking up from his toenail.
“The natives has put out their fires.”
“But they never put out their fires,” said Hook.
“That’s the point, I believe, sir.”
“Shut up, Smee!” snarled Hook. “I know that’s the point.” He pondered for a moment, then said, “Send out a scouting party. I want six men who can work the jungle quiet as snakes. They’re to cross the mountain to the other side—”
“But—”
“Don’t ‘but’me, Smee. To the other side. Get as close as they can and find out what them savages is up to. No good, is what I’m guessing. Planning some kind of trap, some raid on yours truly.”
“But—”
“Shut up, idjit.”
“Aye, Cap’n,” said Smee, turning to leave.
“And before you go, Smee…”
Smee turned around to see the captain wiggling his toe talons in the air.
“Nine to go,” said Hook.
CHAPTER 9
A MYSTERIOUS GENTLEMAN
ENVELOPED IN THE bumpity-bump and clickity-clack of the train car they’d boarded in Paddington Station, Molly and George made the hour’s journey to Oxford, looking at the scenery and sipping tea. It was a beautiful, sunlit day with only the occasional puff of cloud dotting the rich blue sky.
They passed thatch-roofed farmhouses, green fields surrounded by stone walls, horses and cows, dogs and ducks. Occasionally one of them would attempt conversation, but it was awkward; both were nervous about being away from home on their own, and all too aware of being together, boy and girl.
As they neared Oxford, George, after a long gaze out the window, turned to Molly and said, “I don’t want to be negative, but I don’t see how we’ll ever find out who placed these personal notices. There are far too many for anyone to remember a particular one, especially given that the last one your father mentioned ran in the paper more than twelve years ago.”
“There was a name in the ad: a Mr. Starr.”
“But even so…” George complained.
Molly lowered her voice. “And we have a date. Father said the last notice for Mr. Starr was placed twelve years ago, just before I was born. So we can start looking at the newspapers right around then.”
George nodded. “I suppose that’s a start,” he said.
“Yes,” said Molly. “It’s better than nothing.” She hesitated, blushed, then added, “I’m ever so grateful you’ve come along.”
It was George’s turn to blush. “I wouldn’t miss it,” he said.
After that they spoke little until they arrived in Oxford, where they took a cab to the Oxford Observer, which occupied a massive stone building on High Street. The lobby, smelling of ink and glue, was busy with people bustling this way and that.
A receptionist directed Molly and George to the Archives Department, on the third floor. They climbed the stairs and found themselves in a large, musty room that looked like a sort of library, with bank after bank of racks filled with newspapers hanging from wooden rods. Molly filled out a request slip and gave it to a clerk, who disappeared among the racks and returned ten minutes later with several weeks’ worth of newspapers. The clerk passed these across the counter to Molly and George, who took them to one of the long wooden tables where several other people sat poring over old editions of the Observer.
Molly and George began paging through the twelve-year-old newspapers, starting with the one published on Molly’s birthday, then working back. It was slow going—scanning page after page, readin
g dozens upon dozens of notices printed in small, cramped type. At the end of an hour they had gone through three issues and found nothing, and Molly was beginning to worry that their trip had been a waste of time.
And then, on the thirteenth page of the issue printed four days before her birthday, she saw it.
“There!” she whispered, gripping George’s arm with one hand and pointing with the other at a two-line notice on the bottom of the page:
Mr. Starr: Expect your package Friday the 18th.
(DS5G3—10/2)
“Capital!” exclaimed George. “But what are those letters and numbers?”
They put this question to the Archives Department clerk, who explained that the letters and numbers were a billing reference used by the Accounts Department. The date that followed represented the first day the notice had been posted; it had run for over two weeks before the current issue. Molly wrote down the billing reference and the date of the notice, and, following the clerk’s directions, she and George went down to the Accounts Department, which was on the floor below ground level.
They found themselves in a dimly lit hallway, which they followed to a door marked ACCOUNTS. George knocked, and they were called inside by an ancient-looking man wearing thick glasses and seated behind a cluttered desk piled high with ledger books. A plaque on the desk read: MR. RINGWOOD.
“May I help you?” His voice sounded dry and fragile, like the paper in his old ledger books.
“Yes,” said George. “We’re interested in…that is to say, we’re trying to find out…That is, we’d like to know…”
Molly, rolling her eyes, interrupted. “Someone placed a personal notice some years ago in your newspaper. It mentioned a package and a man’s name—Mr. Starr. That’s my, ah, father, and…well…”
Molly ran out of steam. Ringwood sat patiently, waiting.
“Her father has taken ill, I’m sorry to say,” said George. “This person who placed the ad, he…he…”
George looked at Molly for help.
“I believe he may be my father’s brother,” she said. “A long-lost brother, that is. My uncle. I’m hoping you might have his address, as it’s quite important we locate him. Our business with him involves my family’s estate.”
Ringwood sighed, then carefully placed his pen in its holder and slipped a wooden disk over his inkwell. He gestured at the shelves behind him, which were filled with hundreds of fat ledger books like the ones on his desk.
“Young lady,” he said, speaking slowly and carefully, as though afraid his words would break. “The Observer has printed a great many personal notices. Could you be a bit more specific as to when your uncle…”
“Yes, of course,” said Molly, hastily pulling out a piece of paper. “I have the date of the notice and the billing reference.”
“Well,” said Ringwood. “That’s another thing altogether.” He took the piece of paper in shaking hands and peered at it through his thick lenses. Then he slowly stood and turned to consult his ledger-lined shelves. He dragged a ladder that moved on rollers to a certain spot, and with some difficulty, climbed up several steps. He withdrew a leather binder, climbed down, and returned to his desk. There he began to turn the pages far too slowly for the impatient Molly, who was intensely aware of the need to get back to London before nightfall.
Finally, Ringwood found the page he wanted. He ran a bony finger down a column of writing.
“Ah, yes,” he said. “Here it is.”
George and Molly waited. Ringwood read the ledger entry, then looked up at Molly and frowned.
“Interesting,” he said.
“What?” said Molly. “Do you know him?”
“As it happens, I did,” said Ringwood. “I wasn’t a personal friend of the gentleman, but he was a customer here for a number of years. Put in a notice only every few years, but it always ran several weeks. And he had a…memorable way about him.”
“You speak of him in the past tense,” Molly said softly.
“Yes, miss. Sadly, I do.”
“What happened?” said George.
“Bit of a mystery, actually,” said Ringwood, eyeing Molly. “The gentleman and his wife went missing under…odd circumstances. They simply disappeared. Vanished. The police searched for weeks on end, but they were never seen again, at least not here in Oxfordshire. It was on the front page of this very newspaper for days. Weeks.”
“What kind of odd circumstances?” George asked.
“You can read the articles,” Ringwood told him. “We’ll have copies upstairs in Archives. But as I recall there was a child—a son, just a baby, left behind. Terrible thing.”
“A boy,” said Molly, suddenly feeling a strange chill. “Do you know what happened to him?”
“As I recall,” said Ringwood, “he was not claimed by family, so he was placed in an orphanage.”
Molly felt light-headed. “What orphanage?” she said.
Ringwood frowned and rubbed his chin. “Saint Somebody’s, I believe. St. Nigel’s? No, that’s not it…”
“St. Norbert’s?” Molly whispered.
“St. Norbert’s! That’s the one,” proclaimed Ringwood.
Molly, her face pale, grabbed Ringwood’s desk for support.
“Are you all right?” said Ringwood.
“Yes,” said Molly, though she was obviously shaken.
“Well, in any event,” said Ringwood, “this man could not have been your father’s brother.”
“Why not?” said Molly, looking up.
“You said your father’s name is Starr,” said Ringwood.
“I…uh, yes. Starr,” said Molly.
“This man’s name was not Starr,” said Ringwood. He looked down at the ledger. “Quite a mysterious gentleman,” he muttered.
“What was his name?” said Molly.
Ringwood looked up; his eyes met Molly’s.
“The gentleman’s name,” he said, “was Mr. Pan.”
CHAPTER 10
THE JACKAL
LE FANTOME TACKED TO STARBOARD under a cloudless, moonlit sky. The coast of Africa now loomed close ahead; Spain was somewhere astern.
It was just past two in the morning when the ship slid past the ancient stone jetty outside the harbor of Maknar, the primary port city of the kingdom of Rundoon. Helped by an onshore breeze, the ship made straight for the main wharf, where a carriage hitched to two horses awaited. Standing next to the carriage were four guards wearing the loose-fitting pantaloons and red tunics of the Rundoon Royal Guard. Each man had a large, curved sword at his belt.
Le Fantome was quickly tied up, and her gangway lowered. Nerezza thumped three times on the deck with the heel of his boot. A moment later, the dark shape emerged from the aft companionway. It flowed across the deck and down the gangway. Some of the crewmen turned away; others stared in open horror at the hideous thing that they had been traveling with.
Nerezza watched also; his expression was blank, but he hoped this was the last he would see of Lord Ombra. The instant the thought formed in his mind, the shadowy shape stopped on the gangway and turned slowly, until his face—or, more accurately, the opening in his cloaklike shape where a face should have been—pointed directly at Nerezza. For several very long seconds Ombra faced him, and in the darkness Nerezza thought he could just make out two red orbs, like glowing coals. Then the shape turned away and resumed descending the gangplank, and Nerezza could breathe again.
Ombra glided onto the wharf and slithered—floated—up into the carriage. The horses skittered nervously, unsettled by the dark creature. The guards, hiding their own nervousness, closed the carriage door and took positions on the exterior footholds. The driver flicked the reins, and the carriage rolled off the wharf, into the night.
It climbed the deserted road toward the center of Maknar. The air was dry and warm even at this hour. The road itself was made of sand and dirt packed hard as stone. Rising directly ahead was the royal palace of Rundoon’s supreme ruler, King Zarboff the Third. It was
an enormous, sprawling castle made of gold-hued stone, with a series of sharply pointed spires rising high into the night sky. But the carriage did not go to the palace; instead, it veered to the right, onto another road that carried it through a marketplace, deserted at this hour, and then down a hill. The road snaked through a series of progressively more crowded neighborhoods consisting of ramshackle mud huts built close together. A long snake slithered across the road as the carriage left Maknar altogether and entered the open desert.
The road here was no more than ruts in the moonlit sand; the horses strained to maintain the momentum of the carriage, a vehicle ill-suited to desert travel. A mile, two miles, three—and then a foreboding shape loomed on the horizon. As the carriage drew closer, the shape grew more distinct, and its great size became increasingly apparent.
It was the head of a jackal, a wild predator related to the dog. The symbol of death.
The Jackal was made from enormous carved blocks of stone: two sharply pointed ears—each sixty feet high—rose on either side of a massive head with cavernous, staring eye holes above a huge, cavelike mouth lined with rows of jagged teeth.
The Jackal had been built a thousand years earlier by a conquering tribe from the east, brutal warlords who had enslaved Rundoon for centuries. They had used the Jackal as a temple, a place where they conducted their rituals, many of which involved human sacrifice. Since their departure long ago, the Jackal had stood unused, abandoned—and feared.
The people of Rundoon believed the Jackal to be possessed by evil. Indeed, many travelers, having made the mistake of passing too close, claimed to have heard strange sounds or seen dark shapes moving about. The carriage guards had been handpicked for their bravery, but to a man, they were intensely uneasy as they drew closer to the huge jagged-toothed maw opening above them in the moonlit desert. The horses also grew skittish; finally they stopped, ignoring the driver’s whip, refusing to go any closer. The mouth of the Jackal was still fifty yards away.
In the sudden stillness, the driver and the guards exchanged nervous glances. Nobody knew what to do; nobody wanted to approach the coach door.
Peter and the Secret of Rundoon Page 4