Free Tigerheart by Peter David Page A

her mind racing, trying to determine what the source of the noise could have been, how she was going to deal with it—all that and more.
    For the first time in a long while, fear for Paul created a crack in her veneer. She began calling out his name in a manner that, had he heard it, would have given the first true lift to his heart that it had felt in quite some time.
    As it was, he did not hear it, for he had received a lift of a very different sort. And so when Colleen Dear burst through the door into the room, all she found was her pot, deftly repaired, shutters banging open in the wind, and no sign of her son at all.

Chapter 6
    Dark and Sinister Boy
    S ee him there? Pull him up in your mind’s eye now, and he should be clear to you.
    The Boy, walking about the deck of the
Skull n’ Bones,
a rakish-looking craft, foul to the hull. See the swagger in him as he develops his sea legs, swaying back and forth. Occasionally he will lash himself to the wheel in anticipation of a storm possibly blasting him off the deck, even though the sun is shining down upon him. Realizing then that it has missed its cue, the sun will scuttle behind clouds to accommodate him and a storm will come rolling in, pounding harshly upon him while he grips the wheel, turns it sharply, and bellows, “Stay the course, ye scabrous dogs, or every man jack of you will feel the lash of the cat before we’re done!”
    It is a sight that brings a smile to our lips, or at least to mine, and very likely to yours as well. A boy at play, pretending that he is a pirate with the same enthusiasm that any other child might…except any other child is conjuring his sailing vessel out of pillows or sofa cushions or large cardboard boxes.
    The smile fades slightly, however, when one notices a few things. Gone is the forest raiment that The Boy was sporting when he returned to London to fly Gwenny away for spring cleaning. He has instead donned the suit that Gwenny once made for him, right after Hack had abandoned himself to the jaws of the serpent. It is an evil suit, made from the wickedest garments in Hack’s wardrobe. Moreover, The Boy has developed the curious habit of straightening his right arm and chopping it, as if it bore a hatchet the way that Hack’s had, waving it around every so often and threatening those of his crew who make the mistake of drawing near during one of his foul moods.
    That, however, believe it or not, is among the lesser of our concerns. Our greatest concern stems from this: that one judges a man, or a boy, by the company he keeps. The company that The Boy is keeping is of the most disturbing variety, so much so that we almost hesitate to tell you lest they take root in your dreams and make it impossible for you to sleep well. You might wake up one awful night screaming, for instance, “The Terrible Turk is coming for me!” If that should happen, I must confess that the chances are the Terrible Turk is, in fact,
not
coming for you. But my advice to you is that it’d be best if you stayed awake until sunrise on the off chance you might be right; and I would hate for you to believe otherwise, leaving me feeling responsible for your sudden and violent demise.
    Let us survey the deck of the
Skull n’ Bones
as the crew goes about its business, all under The Boy’s watchful eye. Let us discuss, in more detail than before, the remaining Vagabonds who accompanied The Boy when he heartlessly abandoned Gwenny for his newfound activities.
    First among them is Big Penny, The Boy’s second in command: bold and brassy and tanned almost to a copper hue and hard as the coin for which he’s named. When The Boy swaggers, Big Penny swaggers as well.
    Big Penny is busy bossing the other Vagabonds…except we should backtrack and make clear that they, in fact, no longer go by that name. Big Penny, you see, presented the notion to The Boy that it was a misnomer, considering they were not aimless wanderers, as vagabonds most certainly were. Instead