Straight On Till Morning (Disney Twisted Tales) - Liz Braswell Page 0,87

inside this cage was a dark, oily figure that could only have been Peter’s shadow.

Watching over it was Hook, unmistakable even at that distance in his bright red coat.

“What are they doing? It looks like they’re torturing him!” Wendy took the bee into her hands without thinking, trying to get a better look. She had to resist shaking it to see if that would help.

What is the cage for? Why are they suspending it over the water?

“I don’t know—is it to threaten the shadow with drowning, I wonder? Or are they…are they using him somehow to power the ship? Or maybe…” She spun around, letting that thysolit go and running back to where Tinker Bell had first found it. Now she batted the creatures carelessly in her zeal to find the right one. “Let’s see…water, more water, no. Oh—I know that face,” she said, seeing a surprised and angry-looking pirate in one, as if the bee had almost knocked him in the nose. “Ziggy. Interesting fellow. Sewed a patch on for him, sort of a lightning-shaped one. Look—a beach! With rocks! Tinker Bell, does this look familiar to you at all?”

Tinker Bell watched the rolling waves and strangely shaped boulders rewind and replay. She shrugged.

That could be anywhere on the eastern coast. If the thysolit is following the boat or the pirates, though, they are heading south.

Wendy frowned. “Why? Do they know where they are going? Did they somehow get the shadow to tell them where Peter is, do you think? Is that why they are torturing him?”

Tinker Bell shrugged again. But her brow was furrowed with worry. She made a little flying-off gesture with her fingers: we should go.

“Yes, of course. Peter’s shadow is in more peril than ever—and Never Land as well. Let’s be off.” And Wendy turned to launch herself into the air.

But…

A thysolit drifted by with an unusually dreary image in its thorax. Almost entirely black-and-white and grainy, the interior of a dull house. Somehow the room seemed both vacant and cramped at the same time. There was an un-set table. Two ghostly figures sat at it. One looked like he was about to say something—but didn’t.

“Michael! John!” Wendy cried.

She grabbed the next closest bee and peered desperately into its bulb. A misty view of the street the Darlings lived on, at dusk or dawn, empty of people.

“Tinker Bell! You said these thysolits only gathered moments in Never Land. How are they showing me London?”

She caught another one, her fear of the supposedly dangerous things now entirely gone as she tried to find another view of home.

Wendy…Tinker Bell jingled warningly. We have to go. Stop. This is what they do.

“But Michael and John! They looked so sad! Do you think they miss me? How much time has passed there since I left? Oh, do let me find just one more.…”

As she searched among the bees for more images of her brothers, she was vaguely aware of the insects’ growing numbers. The air was filled with the pleasant hum of their ridiculous little wings. It was hard to see anything now, much less take a close look at their behinds.

Wendy! Tinker Bell jingled. Your brothers are fine! They’re distracting you! Poisoning your mind!

“Don’t be silly. I feel fine. Oh, look, it’s the Shesbow household,” Wendy said, turning another thysolit over in her hand. “What are they up to? Piano lessons? Funny, looking in on someone’s house without them even knowing it. It’s like being a peeping tom, one second at a time. I wonder if Mr. Crenshaw’s house is here, too.…I would so love to see what he’s up to.”

Wendy!

Struggling, Tinker Bell wove her way through the tightening mass of bees. She grabbed the human girl’s arm and yanked it. This is exactly what happens. You get caught. You humans—too interested in what you can’t see for yourself. You fill your heads with too much…noise.

“Too much news, you mean,” Wendy corrected. “Look! There’s parliament. Oh my goodness, they’re all arguing! Whatever do you think it is? Taxes or something to do with Europe? Wait, is that a view of Paris? I’ve always wanted to see Paris.”

Wendy reached out for a bee with the Eiffel Tower flashing on and off in its thorax like a strange warning beacon.

It flew just out of her reach. She lunged too far—

But didn’t fall.

Instead she found herself drifting softly several feet above the ground.

It wasn’t the fairy dust; she wasn’t concentrating on floating or flying or anything else but grabbing at the