Peter and the Sword of Mercy (23 page)

O
NE
L
AST
P
USH

T
HE TRAINS HAD STOPPED
.

Because she was cut off from the outside world, Molly’s sense of time had come down to two factors: the workers’ schedule and the trains. She’d lost track of the schedule because von Schatten had ordered the work halted. That left the trains. She’d not heard one for over an hour. She knew the Underground stopped at midnight, which meant it was now past one in the morning.

That, in turn, meant there would likely be fewer guards on duty—and those who were on duty were likely dozing.

Carefully, Molly pushed the stout plank out her cell’s barred window. By the dim light from the bare corridor bulbs, she managed to fit the plank into a space she had made between the corridor’s clay wall and the closest vertical wooden support post.

Creating the space had required painstaking effort. Molly had hovered by the cell window, waiting for the rumble of a train to cover her efforts. When she heard one coming, after checking each way to see that there were no guards about, she would ram the end of the board into the clay and rock, chipping away what little she could before the train noise subsided.

The guards had nearly caught her. Despite the trains, they apparently heard her pounding and came looking. Fortunately, she was able to pull the board back into the cell before they arrived, and they had failed to spot the small hole she’d dug behind the post, hidden in shadow.

That had made her nervous enough to stop her work, at least during the day. But her digging had shown her that the corridor wall—which was also the wall to her cell—was not particularly strong. If she could move the post, the wall behind it would crumble. And that would leave a hole.

A way out of the cell.

She wasn’t sure exactly what she would do when she got out. Somehow she would have to get to James and the others, to try to free them before von Schatten decided to kill them. She would worry about how to do that later. First, she needed to escape.

She punched the board repeatedly into the small hole she’d carved behind the post. A tiny bit of clay and rock dislodged. At this rate, it was going to take forever.

But, she thought, if there was one thing she had a lot of, it was time.

Patience,
she reminded herself. She stabbed the board into the hole.

And again …

And again …

N
OWHERE
E
LSE

W
ENDY’S LEFT EYE BLINKED OPEN
. Her right eye felt glued shut. Her head pounded with pain. Her parched throat screamed for water.

But it was daylight. And she was still alive.

She felt the porpoises’ powerful bodies beneath her; felt the motion of the heaving sea. She was seized by a very unpleasant feeling in her stomach. She turned sideways, vomiting seawater onto one of the porpoises. She tried to say “I’m sorry” in Porpoise, but it came out as more of a croak. In any event, the porpoises didn’t seem to mind.

One of them surfaced close to Wendy’s face.

Fish? it said. It opened its mouth to reveal a dead cod.

Wendy nearly threw up again.

No thank you,
she said.
No fish. Water?

The porpoise regarded her for a moment. Then pirouetted full-circle, as if indicating the sea.

Water,
it said.

No,
said Wendy. She tried to think how to say “fresh water,” but the words didn’t come. Even if they had, she didn’t know how the porpoises would find fresh water out here. Wherever “here” was.

She leaned over and splashed some seawater on her face, trying to clean off the dried blood. She got her right eye open and gingerly felt the gash in her forehead. It was still painful, but the bleeding had slowed down to an ooze. That was something.

The porpoises carried her onward, taking shifts in groups of three or four. The sun rose swiftly in a blue, cloud-free sky; with it rose the temperature. The heat only made Wendy more thirsty. She took off her ripped coat and used it to form a crude pillow. In an hour, despite her thirst and discomfort, despite the sun’s glare, she fell back asleep, rocked on the backs of the porpoises.

She awoke with a start. The porpoises were making a lot of noise. She opened her eyes, then quickly closed them to block the glare of the sun, now nearly overhead.

She felt a shadow cross her face. Slowly, using her hand as a shade, she opened her eyes. She blinked, and saw him.

The flying boy.

He hung suspended over her, perhaps ten feet in the air. He wore tattered clothes, the pants and sleeves cut short, a knife tucked into his belt. His hair was a wild tangle of reddish-orange; his face a mass of freckles around an upturned nose and sparkling blue eyes.

“Hello, Peter,” Wendy croaked.

Instead of answering, he descended slowly, his feet crossed Indian-style, until he was hovering right next to her. When he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper.

“Molly,” he said.

“No,” she said. “I’m Wendy, Molly’s daughter.”

Peter nodded, and Wendy saw a flash of sadness in his eyes. “I guess I know that, after all this time. It’s just that you look so much—”

Like a cow,
said Tinker Bell, from deep inside Peter’s hair.

“Be quiet,” said Peter.

“What?” said Wendy.

“Ignore her,” said Peter, pointing toward his hair.

Wendy eyed Peter’s hair doubtfully, seeing nothing. “All right,” she said. “But…how did you find me?”

“The porpoises,” said Peter. “They sent word to the island that there was a girl sent by Ammm. Ammm’s a porpoise.”

“I know,” said Wendy.

“They said the girl was in trouble,” continued Peter. “So I flew out here. Since they said ‘girl,’I figured it probably wasn’t Mol—your mother. But I thought maybe …” He stopped, clearly embarrassed.

“Anyway,” he went on, “the Mollusks will be here soon with a canoe. They’ll have you on the island in a couple of hours. Meanwhile I brought you this.” From inside his shirt he pulled out a coconut, with a hole plugged by a piece of wood. He unplugged it and handed it to Wendy.

“Water,” he said.

Without a word she grabbed the coconut and gulped until there wasn’t a drop left. The water was warm, but she had never tasted better.

“Thank you,” she said, finally. “And thank you for rescuing me.”

“It’s nothing,” said Peter, blushing.

“No,” said Wendy. “It’s not nothing. Mother said you were very brave.”

“Did she?” said Peter. “Molly said that?”

Wake me up when this is over,
said Tinker Bell.

“What
is
that sound?” said Wendy. “Like bells.”

Peter pointed to his head again. “It’s Tinker Bell,” he said. “She likes to sit on my head.”

Wendy peered at Peter’s hair and saw a tiny, exquisitely beautiful face poking out of the curls with a deeply unhappy expression.

“A fairy!” Wendy exclaimed.

Tink emitted a burst of bells that Peter chose not to translate literally.

“She prefers the term ‘birdwoman,’” he said.

“I see,” said Wendy. “She’s quite lovely.”

Yes, I
am,
agreed Tink. And
you are a cow.

“She says thank you,” said Peter. “But you were saying about Molly …”

Wendy’s face grew somber.

“My mother is in trouble,” she said.

“What kind of trouble?”

“Years ago,” said Wendy. “Some very bad men came to your island, I’m told.”

Now Peter’s face was somber, too.

“Yes,” he said.

“Peter, they’re in England.”

“But they can’t be! They were destroyed! I was there when it happened!”

“That’s what everyone thought. But they weren’t destroyed. They’re in England, and they’ve got my mother.”

Peter only stared at her.

“I’ve come to ask you to help me find her,” said Wendy.

“You…you want me to go back to England?”

“Yes.”

“But can’t her father…Can’t the Starcatchers …”

“My grandfather is very ill,” said Wendy. “The Starcatchers have disbanded. He told me to come here and get you, Peter. There’s nobody else.”

“But if I go to England, what would I do?” said Peter.

“I don’t know,” said Wendy.

That’s quite a plan,
said Tink.

“And he said something else,” said Wendy.

“What was it?”

“He said ‘confess.’”

“Confess what?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know that, either,” said Wendy.

Does she know anything?
said Tink.

“Be quiet, Tink,” said Peter. He stared into the distance for a minute, then another. Finally he said, “I’ll have to think about it.”

“I see,” said Wendy, her voice suddenly cool.

“No,” said Peter, stiffening. “I don’t think you do. I’ve been on this island for more than twenty years. I’ve heard nothing from Mol—from any of you Starcatchers. And now, suddenly, when there’s trouble, you ask me for help.”

“Yes,” said Wendy. “I’m asking you to help your friends.”

“Who I haven’t seen for twenty years,” said Peter.

“I didn’t know there was a limit on friendship,” said Wendy.

Peter didn’t answer that. He stared out at the sea. A minute passed, and then Wendy spoke.

“Please,” she said, softly. “I’ve nowhere else to turn.”

Peter looked at her, then out to sea again. His mind went back to another time at sea, long ago, before he could fly, when he had been hurled into a raging sea. He would have drowned for certain had it not been for a brave girl who leaped from the deck of a ship, risking her own life to save his.

That was Molly, the mother of this girl, who had come all this way to ask for his help.

He nodded his head once, then again more emphatically.

Oh no,
said Tink.

T
HE
C
ALL

G
EORGE
D
ARLING IMPATIENTLY PACED
the hallway outside the door to Chief Superintendent Blake’s office in Scotland Yard. George was not accustomed to being kept waiting.

The call from Uncle Neville about Wendy had turned George’s already troubled world completely upside down. First his wife had disappeared, now his daughter. In a
flying machine.
George was furious at himself for entrusting his children to his batty relative Neville, with his lunatic inventions.

George’s first act had been to order Neville to bring John and Michael back to London,
immediately.
His second act had been to contact the Cambridgeshire police to have them organize a search for Wendy. They had been scouring the countryside, so far without success. George was pressing them hard to widen the search. He wanted desperately to go organize it himself, but felt he had to remain in London, to keep pressure on Scotland Yard to find his wife. That was what had led him to request—actually, demand—an appointment this morning with Blake.