Peter and the Secret of Rundoon Read online

  He suddenly emitted a series of harsh sounds. Instantly, the warriors began paddling faster, and the canoes shot forward. They rose and fell with the rising and falling of the sea, aiming for the cloud, the men not yet seeing what had excited their leader. And then, a few minutes later, as an especially large wave lifted them high, they all saw it—a speck on the horizon under the cloud. Now all the warriors were whooping and shouting. The leader raised his arm to quiet them, then spoke. They would wait here an hour, then move to the island as the sun set behind them. Its glare would blind anyone on the island looking in their direction. The warriors nodded, grateful for the rest. They sat in the open water and stared at the distant speck—their prey.

  An hour later, with the sun low, the men began paddling again. As they neared the island, the cloud gave them a gift—a small but intense rain squall, which further concealed the canoes from the land. Paddling through the rain, the warriors reached shore just as the squall ended. The showers left behind a damp and steamy island smelling of rotting vegetation.

  They climbed out of the canoes, each man carrying a bow and a quiver of arrows. These weapons were to be used only as a last resort: the Scorpions did not intend to be seen. This was a scouting expedition. The attack would come later.

  The men dragged the canoes up the narrow beach and hid them in the dense undergrowth. Using palm fronds, they carefully swept the sand clean of their footprints. Then, with the leader in front, they entered the jungle. Beneath the thick tree canopy, a cloak of near-darkness enveloped them, and the sound of songbirds gave way to the hum of insects and the rustle of lizards and snakes.

  The men moved as if a single being, one after the other, in complete silence, yet with surprising speed. They dodged monkey-puzzle trees and bushes of ironwood, smelly swamp and patches of fireweed. In time they came to a footpath. The leader bent to inspect it, smiling at the sight of fresh footprints. He rose and signaled the men to follow him, staying in the jungle but now moving alongside the path, which was just to their right. The leader moved more slowly now, pausing every few yards to listen.

  He raised his hand, and the line of men stopped. He touched his eyes, then pointed. Just ahead on the path were two boys. They didn’t look like islanders; they had light skin and hair. They were talking to each other in a language that sounded strange to the Scorpions.

  Chattering away, the boys ambled along the path, oblivious to the men following them. The boys came to a clearing, in the middle of which was a tree stump. As the Scorpions watched with interest, the boys pulled on the stump, tipping it over. Underneath was a hole. The boys climbed into the hole, then pulled the stump back upright and were gone.

  The Scorpions’ leader left two men to keep an eye on the stump. He led the rest silently forward, still following the footpath but remaining within the cover of the dark jungle. After a few hundred yards they stopped again. Ahead was a much larger clearing and a high wall of sharpened poles lashed together with vines.

  Signaling to his men to stay hidden, the leader crept forward to the wall and put his eye to a crack between two logs. On the other side, he saw a bustling village of thirty or more grass huts, as well as pens holding goats and wild pigs. Dozens of men and women were gathered around cooking fires, eating and talking; children darted about, chasing each other, shouting, laughing.

  The Scorpion leader focused on the men, studying the markings on their arms and chests. He tensed with excitement: these were the markings he had hoped to see—the markings that according to legend were used by the Mollusk tribe. The Scorpion leader smiled grimly. The legend was true. They had found Mollusk Island. And soon they would conquer it.

  The leader turned and crept back to his men. The expression on his face told them that their scouting mission was a success. Eager now to get back to their canoes, they retraced their steps, traveling alongside the footpath.

  By the time they reached the boys’ tree stump, night was descending, the sky lit by the last faint rays of the dwindling sun. The Scorpion leader was surprised to find that his two sentries, instead of staying concealed in the jungle, were standing in the middle of the clearing. Furious that they had taken such a risk, the leader ran toward them, only to stop when he saw the fearful expressions on their upturned faces.

  Following their gaze, the leader looked up at the sky and saw what had so alarmed them.

  A boy.

  A flying boy.

  The boy, his hair fiery red in the sun’s dying rays, was swooping among some trees about twenty-five yards away. He shot from tree to tree, knocking coconuts to the ground. Apparently, he had not seen the Scorpions. The Scorpion leader blinked, but there was no question: the boy was not swinging on a vine or jumping. He was flying.

  For a moment, the leader could only stare, his mouth hanging open. He came to his senses just in time to see one of his men, panicked by the sight of the boy, fitting an arrow to his bow and drawing it back. With a quickness that belied his size, the leader lunged toward the man, reaching him and grabbing the arrow just as the man released it. It burned through his grip, sending splinters into the meat of his hand, but he did not let go.

  Angrily, the leader broke the arrow across his knee. He grabbed the man by the neck and lifted him off the ground, holding his face only inches from his own. No words were spoken, but none were needed: this man understood that he had almost ruined everything by giving their presence away. With his feet back on the ground, the man hung his head shamefully.

  Still angry, the leader waved his men back toward the canoes. He went last, constantly glancing backward at the flying boy, who was still darting from tree to tree, growing smaller and smaller until he was finally absorbed by the night. Turning to follow his men, the leader could feel his mind racing as he tried to comprehend what he had seen, and to figure out how much of a problem this boy would be.

  These thoughts so occupied him that he forgot altogether about something that, ordinarily, he would have remembered: the broken arrow lying in the mud.

  CHAPTER 3

  WORRYING QUESTIONS

  COLD RAIN FELL IN SHEETS FROM THE DARK LONDON sky. The gusting wind spattered raindrops against the dining-room window of the grand Aster mansion on Kensington Palace Gardens. Inside, at a table large enough for dozens of people, sat just three: young Molly Aster and her parents, Leonard and Louise.

  The room was warm and bright, but the mood of its occupants more closely matched the gloomy weather outside. Lord Aster had spent the afternoon in his study, meeting with four men, all of them members of the Starcatchers, a secret group to which the Aster family had belonged for many generations.

  Leonard had emerged from the meeting with a somber, troubled look. Both Molly and Louise knew he had something to tell them; they also knew that it would have to wait until they were alone. Now, with their meal finally served and the household staff back in the kitchen, Molly and her mother looked at Leonard with questioning faces. He glanced at the doorway to make sure he would not be overheard, then spoke quietly.

  “I must go to Paris,” he said. “There’s to be a meeting of the senior Starcatchers.”

  “Is it about what happened at Stonehenge?” asked Molly. She shuddered, recalling the terrifying night among the massive stones—her father lying on the ground, grievously wounded; her mother a ghastly sleepwalking shell, unable to recognize her husband or her daughter, her life spirit stolen by the hideous shadow creature that called itself Ombra. That night Molly had very nearly lost both of her parents, and the Starcatchers a huge quantity of precious, powerful starstuff, which would have fallen into the hands of humanity’s most evil enemies. If Peter hadn’t been there…

  “Yes,” said Leonard, his voice low. “It’s about what happened at Stonehenge. And some other troubling things, which I was a fool not to recognize earlier.”

  “What troubling things?” said Molly.

  Leonard hesitated before responding, and for a moment Molly thought she had pressed too hard. Until recently
, her parents had revealed little to her about the inner workings of the Starcatchers. But since the awful night at Stonehenge, and the courage Molly had displayed there, Leonard had been more willing to answer his daughter’s questions.

  “Actually,” said Leonard, “what’s most troubling is something that didn’t happen. That was a very large batch of starstuff we had—the largest in centuries, at least. Yet we received no warning before it fell in Scotland. That’s why the Others got to it first. We were so concerned about getting it to the Return that we didn’t stop to ask ourselves why we weren’t warned about it in the first place.”

  “What kind of warning?” asked Molly. “I thought the Starcatchers could sense when starstuff fell.”

  “Yes, we do feel something when a large amount of starstuff falls,” said Leonard. “But the Others feel it, too. The reason we always manage to reach fallen starstuff before they do is that we always receive warnings before it falls.”

  “Warnings from whom?” said Molly.

  “We don’t know,” said Leonard. “The alerts come anonymously, by various methods. Long ago, it would be an unsigned letter slipped under a Starcatcher’s door. More recently—for the last century or so—the warnings have appeared in an Oxford newspaper, the Observer.”

  “Warnings about starstuff…in a newspaper?” said Molly.

  “They were coded,” said Leonard. “They took the form of personal notices to a ‘Mr. Starr.’ Every day for more than a hundred years, a Starcatcher stationed in Oxford has scoured the Observer for these notices. Sometimes decades would go by without one appearing. But then, one day, he’d find a notice that said something like ‘Mr. Starr: Expect your package Thursday.’We then knew that there would be a starstuff Fall on Thursday. We wouldn’t know where it would fall, but by knowing when we could have teams alerted all over the world, watching the skies for the Fall, ready to go collect the starstuff. That gave us a huge advantage over the Others. We almost always reached it first.”

  “Until that big lot fell in Scotland,” said Molly.

  “Yes,” said Leonard. “There was no warning for that. Last week we had our man check and recheck the Observer for the days leading up to that Fall; he found no notice for Mr. Starr. That’s troubling enough. What’s more troubling is how quickly the Others got to the starstuff in Scotland. It’s as if they were warned instead of us.”

  “When was the last warning, then?” said Molly.

  “It was twelve years ago,” said Leonard. “In fact, just a few days before you were born. That was the last notice for Mr. Starr that appeared in the Observer.”

  “And you have no idea who’s been doing the warning?” asked Molly.

  “None,” said Leonard. “Whoever they are, they’ve always kept their identities hidden. And for whatever reason, this time—even with such a dangerous amount of starstuff at stake—they didn’t warn us. We were very fortunate to get that starstuff back, thanks to you and Peter.”

  “And George,” said Molly.

  “Yes, of course, George, too,” said Leonard. “In any event, we’re quite worried that the next time there’s a starstuff Fall, we won’t be so fortunate. We need to find out why we weren’t warned and what we can do about it. That’s one reason for the meeting in Paris. The other is this…this Ombra creature.”

  As he said those words, Lord Aster glanced at his wife; her face went pale at the name of the hideous thing that had held her captive.

  “Do you think there’s a connection?” said Molly. “I mean, between Ombra and the fact that there was no warning?”

  “I fear so,” said Leonard. “It’s difficult to believe it’s a coincidence. And whatever this Ombra thing is, or I should say was, it’s apparently not the only one. Our man Bakari, in Egypt, encountered something quite similar a few weeks ago; we lost five people there. We’re very concerned that the Others have allied themselves with some new power—a very dangerous power. That’s why the senior Starcatchers are meeting in Paris. We need to find out quickly why this is happening and what we can do about it—before the next starstuff Fall.”

  “How long do you expect to be gone?” said Louise.

  “Not more than two weeks, I hope,” said Leonard. Seeing the apprehension on their faces, he added: “The house will be guarded. And I promise we’ll do a better job than last time.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” said Louise. “You didn’t know….”

  She faltered, remembering how easily Ombra had taken over the three burly men guarding the Aster mansion when she had been kidnapped.

  “It won’t happen again,” said Leonard. “We know what we’re up against now. And whatever that thing was, it was destroyed at Stonehenge.”

  “Don’t worry about us, dear,” said Louise, smiling bravely. “We’ll be fine. Won’t we, Molly?”

  “Yes,” said Molly. She was also smiling, although she could not help but glance, if only for a moment, at the dining-room window and the darkness beyond. Despite her faith in her father, disturbing questions filled her mind: How can we be sure that Ombra was destroyed! And do we really know what we’re up against?

  CHAPTER 4

  “THEY WILL BE BACK”

  PETER AWOKE, AS HE USUALLY DID, ahead of the other boys, not having slept well. from England, his slumber had been haunted by a strange and troubling dream.

  The dream always began in the same place and at the same moment: that awful night at Stonehenge when—grievously wounded by a gunshot—he had somehow become connected with Ombra, the shadow thing. Their connection had been brief—but a few seconds—yet Peter could not put those seconds out of his mind.

  By day, it was possible to turn his thoughts away from that memory. But by night, it came back to him and returned often. In his dream, he felt the coldness creeping into him as Ombra joined him and began to take control, like a snake swallowing him from within. He felt himself fighting to drive the invader out. Most vividly, he recalled the horrible sensation of becoming one with the shadow thing—feeling what it felt, thinking what it thought.

  That was when he always woke up—sweating, disoriented, thrashing around in his hammock, much to the annoyance of Tinker Bell, who slept in his mass of red hair. Sometimes Peter would lie there trying to make sense of the dream, to recapture the thoughts that had seeped into his mind from Ombra’s; but the thoughts were always out of reach, drifting away like wisps of smoke.

  The nightmare troubled Peter, but something else troubled him more. Since that night at Stonehenge, he had noticed something odd about himself—or, to be specific, about his shadow. Actually, it was Tink who had noticed it first. It had been on a bright, sunny day; Peter, having had a rollicking swim and a splash fight with the mermaids, was standing on the beach that curved around the mermaids’ lagoon. Tink had fluttered onto his shoulder and, making her bell sounds, said, He’s watching you.

  “Who is?” asked Peter.

  Tink pointed at Peter’s shadow. He is.

  Peter looked down at his shadow. It appeared no different than usual. He studied Tink, thinking that perhaps she was joking, but her expression told him she was quite serious. He glanced again at his shadow, his thoughts flashing back to that encounter with Ombra.

  “What should I do?” he asked Tink.

  Nothing, Tink answered. He can’t hurt you. He’s just watching.

  “Why?”

  I don’t know.

  And that was all she could tell him. Peter tried not to think about it, but it was not the kind of thing you could forget. It never really left his mind. He found himself glancing at his shadow more than usual. He welcomed the sunset, knowing that the coming of night would banish the shadow and bring him some relief from his thoughts of Ombra—that is, until the dream returned.

  So Peter was a tired boy when he awoke this particular morning. But as he stuck his head out of the underground hideaway where he and the other boys spent most nights, his spirits were lifted, as always, by the dawn of another fine day on Mollusk Island. A
fter a quick look around the clearing, Peter flew straight up out of the hole and ascended to treetop level, where he turned in a slow circle, eyes scanning the area, just in case there were pirates about. There weren’t any pirates, a fact that left Peter feeling relieved but also just the slightest bit disappointed: he loved taunting the pirates.

  Peter felt a tickle on his bare legs as a pair of tiny wings fluttered past.

  “Morning, Tink,” he said as Tinker Bell shinnied up to his eye level.

  No, it’s not, she answered in melodious tones that Peter, and few others, could understand. It’s the middle of the night.

  Peter laughed. “Tink,” he said, “if you want to keep sleeping, be my guest.”

  Tink crossed her arms and made a noise that could be loosely translated as “hmph.” As she and Peter both knew, she did not like to let him out of her sight.

  “Morning, Peter,” said a voice from below.

  Peter looked down and smiled. “Morning, James,” he said.

  He dropped lightly to the ground as James, always the second to rise, climbed from the hole. The two close friends stood for a moment, enjoying the morning coolness. Peter’s enjoyment was tempered by his awareness of how much James had grown recently; he stood a good inch taller than Peter now, maybe two, and he was wider about the shoulders. Peter wondered if James, in addition to being taller, had also become stronger.

  Peter’s thoughts were interrupted by the emergence from the hole of the two youngest boys, Prentiss and Thomas, who were followed, reluctantly, by Tubby Ted.

  “What’s to eat?” said Ted, blinking at the dawn.

  “There’s fresh coconuts,” said Peter. “I knocked them down last night.”

  “Coconuts again?” complained Ted.

  “It’s what grows on the trees,” said Peter. “If it was cakes on the trees, I’d knock those down for you. But it’s coconuts that’s up there.”

  “Cakes,” sighed Tubby Ted. “I’d pay a hundred pounds for a piece of cake.”