Peter and the Shadow Thieves (44 page)

“I see,” he said.

“No,” said Mol y, turning away. “You don’t.”

George, realizing he had badly misjudged the situation, spent several minutes trying to think of something diplomatic to say, but could come up with nothing before Peter returned. The three of them rode the rest of the way in silence.

Arriving, at last, in Salisbury, they descended from the carriage and stood on the platform as the train chugged away. The day was chil y, but for once the sky was clear; sunlight bathed the gentle hil s of County Wiltshire. Mol y, Peter, and George walked through the station, emerging onto a muddy, wel -traveled road. Several coaches-for-hire stood waiting, their horses tied to posts, their drivers presumably just across the road, refreshing themselves at the Railway Tavern. In the distance the sky was pierced by the tal , sharp spike of the Salisbury cathedral.

“Now what?” said Peter.

“I imagine we could ask somebody if he has seen Mol y’s father,” said George.

“Ask who?” said Peter.

“Wel ,
someone
must know,” said George, irritated. “Have you got a better idea?”

“Not yet,” said Peter, looking George straight in the eye. “But I wil .”

The two boys glared at each other. Mol y was paying no attention to them. She was staring at the cathedral tower.

“I’ve been here,” she said.

George and Peter looked at her.

“Father and Mother brought me here,” she said. “It was years ago—I was smal . But I remember that cathedral.”

“What else do you remember?” said Peter.

Mol y frowned, thinking back. “It was summer. We stayed at a large house. It was on a winding road, next to a river. There was a wooden bridge nearby. Father took me there and we would try to catch fish.” She paused, then her face lit up. “And I remember something else—Mister McGuinn was there!”

“Are you sure?” said Peter.

“Who’s Mister McGuinn?” said George.

“He’s…that is, he was an…an associate of my father’s,” said Mol y. “And I’m sure he was there. And I remember something else: I think the house may have had a weather vane, a
golden
weather vane.” She looked at Peter. “With a star on the top.”

“That’s
it,
” said Peter softly.

“That’s what?” said George.

“That’s where Father must be,” said Mol y. “That’s why he came to Salisbury. We need to find that house.”

“Do you have any recol ection of how you got there?” said Peter.

“No,” said Mol y. “But I’m sure we took the train to Salisbury. I remember that cathedral. We started out from here.”

“Then so wil we,” said George. Without another word, he strode across the road and into the Railway Tavern.

“What’s he doing?” said Peter.

“I don’t know,” said Mol y.

In a minute George emerged from the tavern accompanied by a coach driver, a slight man with the face of a ferret.

“This is Mister Peavey,” said George, when they reached Mol y and Peter. “He says he’s very familiar with this area.”

“Lived here al me life,” said Peavey. “I knows every inch of Wiltshire.” He grinned, revealing six teeth, widely spaced. “Every inch.”

“Then perhaps you can help us,” said Mol y. “We’re looking for a house, quite a large house, on a winding road, next to a river.”

“Lots of those around here, missy,” said Peavey. “Lots of those.”

“It’s near a bridge,” said Mol y.

“Could be any number of houses,” said Peavey. “Any number.”

“And it has a…a
golden
weather vane,” said Mol y. “Shaped like a star.”

Peavey hesitated before he answered. “Wel , now,” he said. “That narrows it down a mite, don’t it?”

“So you know the house?” said Mol y eagerly.

“Maybe I do,” said Peavey. He stroked his chin. “Of course, maybe I don’t.”

“Look here,” Peter said angrily. “If you know where—”

“Al ow me,” interrupted George, putting his hand on Peter’s arm, to Peter’s great annoyance. “I believe what Mister Peavey is saying is that his memory might need some assistance.”

“A smart young lad, this one,” Peavey said.

George pressed something into Peavey’s hand. Peter heard the clink of coins.

Peavey grinned. “Now that you mentions it,” he said, “I believe I might know the very house you’re looking for. Take you there in an hour, I can.”

“Excel ent,” said George, winking at Mol y, who grinned back at him in a way that made Peter’s stomach clench. George opened the door to the coach and gal antly helped Mol y climb inside.

“Thank you, George,” she said. “That was clever of you.”

“Not at al ,” said George, climbing in after her. “It’s just a question of knowing how to get things done.” He said this without glancing back at Peter, but he figured Peter’s expression would be quite unhappy.

He was quite correct.

Close to an hour later, with sunset nearing, the coach came to a stop in front of an enormous country house. Its driveway was guarded by a massive iron gate, on which was a sign that read: SE MONA.

George hopped to the ground and helped Mol y out of the coach. Peter fol owed.

“Wel ?” George asked.

Mol y studied the house, then shook her head. “No,” she said. “I don’t think this is it.” Her eyes swept upward. “Wait a minute!” She turned angrily to Peavey and said, “That’s the
moon,
not a star!”

Peter and George looked up. Sure enough: the weather vane was crescent shaped.

“Same thing,” said Peavey. “One a them planets.”

“It’s
not
the same,” said Mol y.

“Wel , missy,” said Peavey, “that there’s the best I can do.”

Peter was looking at the sign. “Maybe the…the Semonas can help us find the house.”

“The who?” said George, with a condescending smile.

Peavey cackled. “Se Mona ain’t the name of the people who lives here,” he said. “That there is the name of the house. It’s Old English, it is. Quite a few of the big houses round here has got Old English names.”

“
Se Mona
,” said George. “Means ‘the moon.’”

“You speak Old English?” said Mol y.

“Wel , not
fluently,
” said George, trying without success to sound modest. “But I’ve studied it enough to get by. The house you stayed at with your father—do you recal if it had a name?”

Mol y frowned. “It might’ve,” she said. “But I don’t remember what it was.”

“What’s the Old English word for star?” said Peter.

“I believe it’s
steorra,
” said George.

Peter looked at Peavey. “Is there a house named
Steorra
?”

“Never heard of one,” said Peavey.

“What about ‘light’?” said Mol y.

George asked Peavey: “Are any of the houses named
Leoht
?”

“Not so as I know.”

“What about ‘return’?” said Peter, with a glance at Mol y.

George shut his eyes, deep in thought. When he opened them, he said to the driver, “Is there a house by the name of…
Gecierran
?” At the sound of the name, Peavey flinched.

“You know the name?” said George.

“Yes, I know it,” said Peavey. “But I don’t know that I’d want to go there, if I was you.”

“Why not?” said George.

Peavey hesitated, then said, “There’s talk that strange things happen there. For years and years. People stay away from there.”

“What kinds of strange things?” said George. “Ghosts?” He smirked at Peter and Mol y. “Witchcraft?”

“Yes,” Peavey said, in a quiet voice that erased George’s smirk.

Mol y and Peter exchanged a look.

“We want to go there,” said Mol y.

Peavey nodded slowly. “Al right, then,” he said. “But it’l cost extra.”

“We’l pay,” said George.

“Get in, then,” said Peavey. “It’s a half hour away.”

But it was sooner than that when the roofline of the grand house came into view. On the highest peak, clearly visible in the last rays of the setting sun, was a weather vane.

And atop it, gleaming gold, was a five-pointed star.

T
HE POUNDING ON the carriage roof startled Slank awake. He opened his eyes to see Nerezza parting the curtain. Ombra leaned past Nerezza to see out the carriage window, Nerezza pressing himself back into the seat to avoid contact with the dark form. Lady Aster stared unflinchingly ahead.

Ombra studied the scene out the window. The sun had set; a ful moon was just rising in the clear evening sky, stil low on the horizon but bright enough to il uminate the countryside. The carriage, after a ful day of travel, had reached its destination—a dirt track on a smal rise overlooking a patchwork of fields that ran for miles. Fifty yards away, at the end of the track, sat a stone cottage, chimney smoking, and a few tumbledown outbuildings of weathered wood.

“No neighbors,” Nerezza said. “And a good view. As you requested, my lord.”

Ombra made a noise that sounded like agreement. “Mister Slank,” he groaned. “Take Gerch and look around.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Slank climbed out; he and Gerch headed off toward the cottage. A few minutes later they returned.

“The outbuildings are empty,” Slank reported. “There’s two people in the cottage—an old woman knitting, and an old man splitting kindling in the kitchen.” Ombra slid out of the carriage. “Stay with her,” he said, indicating Lady Aster. He glided swiftly down the dirt track to the cottage. He paused at the door, where he seemed to melt and spread, losing height and shape until he was nothing but a pool of darkness, which quickly disappeared under the doorsil .

The pool reappeared inside the cottage, where an old woman sat knitting by the dim light of a candle and a dying fire. A low doorway behind her led to the kitchen, from which chopping sounds could be heard.

Feeling a sudden chil , the old woman raised her head, looking first at the window, then the door, but not seeing the dark shape oozing across the floor. She returned to her knitting, but only for a moment, as she saw some motion from the corner of her eye.

“John, is that—” she said, but those were her only words before Ombra, now back to ful height and form, covered her shadow.

The knitting stopped. The woman slumped forward, a bal of yarn tumbling from her lap to the floor.

The chopping sound from the other room stopped. “Bea?” said a man’s voice. “Did you say something? Bea?” Silence. Then the sound of shuffling steps. The old man appeared in the low doorway, his right hand holding an ax. He looked at his wife’s slumped form, then saw the dark shape standing next to her.

“Who the devil are you?” he said.

“Not the devil,” groaned Ombra, gliding forward. “But a good friend of his.”

The man raised the ax, gripping it with both hands.

“Stay back,” he said.

Ombra kept coming.

“I warn you,” said the man.

Ombra kept coming.

The man swung the ax, a swift overhand stroke cleaving the dark shape cleanly top to bottom, the ax head burying itself in the floor. The cloaked form split into two detached halves, which, as the man watched in horror, quickly flowed together into their original form and resumed coming at him. The man was too stunned to move as Ombra reached his shadow and sucked it away.

“You wil take your wife to the barn,” Ombra groaned. “You wil remain there until I say otherwise.”

“Yes, my lord.”

The man helped the woman from her chair. Ombra opened the door, and they walked out. The woman was stil holding a strand of yarn; the other end was attached to the yarn bal , which tumbled behind the couple, dancing in the dry leaves as they walked to the barn.

Ombra faced the men waiting by the carriages and gestured for them to approach. As they did, Ombra looked out over the fields, swiveling his hooded head until he saw what he was looking for. It was more than a mile away, but clearly visible by the light of the rising moon.

The site of the Return.

As Ombra stood looking at it, a half dozen black shapes glided out of the night and fluttered to rest on the roof of the cottage.

Caw! Caw!

Ombra turned to the ravens, then slowly raised his arm, pointing toward the Return site. Immediately the ravens took wing again. Ombra watched their swift passage across the fields. He did not know when the Return would be—in his struggle with the soul of McGuinn, he had not managed to get that information—but this was
where
it would be. Sooner or later, the Starcatchers would have to bring their precious starstuff to this place.

And when they did, Ombra, and the ravens, would be waiting.