Forever Neverland Read online

  Wendy truly did not know what to say to that. It seemed that Hook’s words begged a following of silence; of digestion and contemplation. And, so, as her voice remained quiet, her mind became a chatterbox: Neverland is a story world. . . .Its hero is Peter Pan. . . . Her storyteller’s brain ran circles around the implications. Every good adventure tale had a hero. But a hero was worthless without an anti-hero. That was where the bad guy came in. The antagonist. The villain. He was the single most important aspect of every adventure story. A good bad guy made a good story into a great story.

  If Neverland is a story and Peter is its hero, then its antagonist must be. . . . Wendy looked up at the captain of the Jolly Roger, who had once more turned to peer out over the vastness of space, toward that one place where he claimed that the sun was supposed to have risen so long ago. Her mind finished its damning thought. The bad guy is

  Hook.

  “What the bloody. . . .” Hook suddenly muttered under his breath, his blue eyes growing wide.

  Wendy turned to look. A faint glow was beginning to outline the farthest horizon. Below it was an endless sea. Above it was a slowly brightening sky.

  It was sunrise.

  “The sun is rising,” Wendy whispered. “That must mean – ”

  “Pan,” Hook hissed. “Neverland’s indolent son has come home at last.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Holy fruitcakes…” Tootles looked over Peter’s unconscious form, taking in the cuts and scrapes and forming bruises over his face and what was visible of his arms. “He doesn’t look so good.” He wisely chose not to comment, at the moment, on his general surprise that Peter Pan had grown up, and focused, instead, on the damage the boy had taken.

  “He fell,” Tinkerbell said, simply. “Peter?” She knelt beside the teenage boy, gently brushing a lock of blonde hair from his closed eyes. “Peter, wake up.”

  Peter stirred and rolled over onto his back. The empty bottle of pixie soda rolled out of his open hand.

  Tinkerbell picked it up. “Well, at least he finished this off. It’ll help.” She stood up. “Come on, we need to get him home and warm him up.”

  “Okay. . . .” Tootles considered Peter and his relative weight. “I’ll get his upper half if you can carry his legs.”

  “Fine,” Tinkerbell nodded and switched places with Tootles. Luckily for them both, Tootles, or Jason Carmichael, as he was called these days, was a big boy. He always had been. He’d been, by far, the largest of the Lost Boys in Neverland and he’d grown accordingly. So, it wasn’t too difficult for him to lift Peter up off of the ground – especially with Tinkerbell’s help.

  “Lead the way, Tink.”

  It took the two of them several hours to navigate all of the alleys and darkened city streets that they had to walk through in order to get home without being seen by other people or, worst of all, the police. When Tinkerbell finally led Tootles behind the green brush and overhanging branches that hid the opening of their forest trail from view, Tootles could have cried with relief.

  “Not much further now,” Tink told him.

  “Good, because I think I just gave myself a hernia.”

  “There it is,” Tinkerbell nodded past Tootles’ shoulder. Tootles glanced at the small cottage and smiled, despite the throbbing in every single one of his tired muscles. The “cottage” was actually a giant hollowed-out tree; a replica of the one they had lived in Neverland. Except, this one was larger and had a second story. Tootles looked up and could see warm fire light streaming through windows that were the shapes of flowers and acorns. It was an architect’s impossible dream.

  “You made this place, didn’t you, Tink?” Tootles asked as the door magically opened for them and they hauled Peter’s unconscious body inside.

  “Lay him there,” Tink nodded toward a sofa-like structure a few feet away. It rested in front of a beautifully lit fire place.

  Tootles set Peter down and then straightened. He closed his eyes and sniffed the air. Immediately upon entering the cottage, he’d caught the scent of caramel and vanilla. Pine and sap and honey. It was the scent that had filled the tree house in Neverland.

  He opened his eyes again and turned to Tinkerbell.

  “Now what?”

  “Now we cover him up and wait.” Tinkerbell was busy unfolding blankets that had been piled in the window seat along one side of the room.

  “I don’t get it,” Tootles said, trying to keep his tone respectful enough that he didn’t set off the pixie’s notorious temper. “Why couldn’t you at least use your magic to make him a little smaller or even use it now to cover him with blankets?” He helped her unfold the remaining blankets and draped them over the sleeping Peter.

  “I’m kinda running low right now,” Tink told him. When she’d finished tucking Peter in, she turned to Tootles. “The thing is,” she said, “he fell really far.”

  Tootles considered this for a moment and then sighed. “All right, you’d better tell me about it.” He gestured to the chairs around a table by the fire place. They sat down. “Start from the beginning,” he said.

  So, she did.

  *****

  One thing you can say about pirates is that they each have a story. Wendy had learned this over the last few days. There were many men in Hook’s crew, as he needed a large crew to man the more than forty guns his ship sported. She hadn’t had a chance, yet, to personally meet them all, though they had all been surprisingly genial to her, thus far.

  However, she’d managed to make the acquaintance of a few, and, in her writer’s opinion, their stories begged pen and paper…

  There was a pirate that they all called Cecco. Though he was not dressed as well as Starkey and didn’t possess Starkey’s gentlemanly air, Cecco was still quite a handsome man with sandy brown hair and hazel eyes and a strong jaw. However, there seemed to be a shroud forever hanging about him – an invisible warning, of sorts, to keep your distance. Once, while she was secretly watching the attractive pirate adjust one of the sails, Smee had come up beside her.

  “’E’s one to watch, miss, that Cecco.”

  Wendy had jumped a little, startled by Smee’s sudden appearance. Smee was holding a long, heavy coil of rope in both hands and rocking back and forth on his the balls of his feet. He did this often, she’d noticed. It was a nervous habit that made him seem constantly and somewhat inappropriately giddy.

  “What do you mean?” She asked.

  Smee busied himself with setting down the rope and then straightened as if he had a crick in his back. He then leaned forward conspiratorially. “The handsome Cecco,” he whispered, as if reading a line from a storybook, “escaped from his cell, though no living soul knows how, and left his name carved on the back of the warden at Gao.” Smee looked Wendy in the eyes, nodded once, smiled, and then picked up his rope again.

  Wendy watched him walk away, a spring in his step.

  Cecco was the first of the pirates she’d learned about, so to speak.

  There was also Skylights, who looked, for all the world, utterly and completely different from Cecco. Where Cecco’s hair was sandy brown, Skylight’s was as white as the froth on the sea. Where Cecco had all of his teeth, Skylights was missing most of his. To call Skylights old would be a horrific understatement. When Wendy looked at him, she imagined parchment paper so ancient that, if it were to be unrolled, it would crack and crumble.

  Then there was Arnold. The other men called him Arnold the Black. True to his name, he sported short-cropped black hair and a long, ragged black beard, which he braided sea shells and beads into so that it looked a little like a fish net stuck on his face. His eyes, too, were black. But blackest of all was his tongue, which the men claimed he had tattooed long ago so that if he ever had to play dead, he could let his tongue loll out of his mouth and the black of it would convince any other pirate that he had gone to Davy Jones’s locker.

  There was Murphy, the ship’s doctor. He was a middle-aged balding man who wore spectacles much l
ike Smee’s and was the only other pirate on board, besides Hook, who would play Chess with the first mate. Seeing as how this was Smee’s favorite pass time, he and Murphy had become fast friends long ago. Smee especially enjoyed the fact that when he played with Murphy, he was sometimes able to win. It was a different story when he played against the captain.

  There was also Cookson, who, was not a cook, but the son of a cook and, in fact, was, himself, a tailor. He was a tiny man who appeared to be in his mid-thirties, with very blonde, straight hair and a clean-shaven face. His story was that he’d been shanghaied by another pirate faction many years ago and set to work as their captain’s private tailor. Since that time, however, Hook had defeated the other captain and now Cookson sewed Hook’s clothes, and the clothes of his crew.

  Cookson seemed to be a polite enough man, but he possessed an unfortunate stutter which made conversation with him somewhat painful. However, he was such an excellent tailor that Hook strictly forbade any of his men from teasing him. So, none of them did.

  There were so many different pirates, Wendy thought. So many different stories. However, right now, there was one story, in particular, that she wanted to hear most. It was the story of the striking and powerful man who now restlessly paced back and forth across the deck, his telescope in his good hand.

  “Still no sign of ‘im, Cap’n!” Smee yelled down from the crow’s nest, where he, too, peered through a telescope.

  Hook cursed under his breath. He glanced at Wendy, holding her gaze for a fraction of a second. And then, without a word to his first mate or any other member of his crew, he turned on his heel and headed toward his cabin, shutting the door behind him.

  Five years ago, once more on Hook’s ship, Wendy had asked the captain, “Why do you hate Peter Pan so much?”

  Hook had not answered her. Not really. Instead, he had pretended that the question was absurd and told her that he did not, in fact, hate Peter Pan.

  It had all been part of an elaborate plan of Hook’s, at the time. A plan to capture the boy who he did, in fact, despise more than anything in the world.

  But that was then. And now that Wendy stood again on the deck of the Jolly Roger and once more had a chance to watch the notorious pirate captain as he waited for the boy he loathed, Wendy noticed things that she would not have noticed as a child.

  There had been more than hatred in Hook’s expression as he and his men prepared for Pan’s inevitable return. There had been something else – something more subtle, but somehow more troubling.

  “Pssst.”

  Wendy turned to find John trying to get her attention from where he stood several yards away, a mop handle grasped firmly in both hands.

  Wendy shoved her hands in the pockets of her gray zip-up hoodie and walked in his direction as if she were simply taking a leisurely stroll on the deck of the Jolly Roger. The pirate they called Gentleman Starkey watched her closely but stayed where he was, leaning casually against the banister.

  As Wendy neared her brother, he whispered, “Do you think Peter’s out there somewhere?”

  Wendy bent to untie and re-tie her shoe. As she did, she whispered, “I don’t know…. It’s strange, but I don’t think so.”

  “Then why’d the sun come up?” John asked as he redipped the mop and noisily wrung it out to cover the sound of his whisper.

  Wendy untied her other shoe, pretended to inspect the somewhat frayed string, and answered, “Not sure about that either –”

  “All right, boy. That’s enough of that. To the quarterdeck with you.”

  Wendy stood to find the “handsome” Cecco taking John’s mop away. Cecco gave John a slight shove in the direction of the quarterdeck and Arnold the Black shot Wendy a warning look as they passed her by.

  Wendy gritted her teeth. The moment the sun had begun to rise, Hook had gone into combat mode. He had sent Michael back below decks and doubled the guard on John, assigning to him the most dangerous pirates in his service. Wendy, for the most part, had been left alone with only Starkey keeping an eye on her, as he always did. She assumed this was because she had given Hook her word that she would not attempt to escape. And a promise, to a pirate, was a powerful thing.

  Wendy blew out a frustrated sigh and peered across the clear blue water toward the shore of Neverland. The sun was high in the sky now and Neverland was once more green. In the far distance, the smoke of campfires signaled that the Piccadilly tribe had awoken and was preparing a hunting party. Random spots of light from deep within Neverland’s forest gave away the locations of flitting fairies. And every once in a while, a brief white crest of sea foam appeared on the surface of Mermaid’s lagoon, as the beautiful but treacherous water-dwelling creatures surfaced and then disappeared again in the blink of an eye.

  “Pardon me, miss,” Smee addressed Wendy from behind.

  She turned to find him smiling, as usual, his hat in his hands. “If you don’t mind, miss, the Cap’n would be most honored if you’d join him for a cup o’ tea.”

  Wendy’s eyebrow shot up. “Oh?”

  Smee’s smile broadened. “It’s quite good tea, if you don’t mind me saying so meself,” he assured her. He leaned in and added, “Liberated it from a group o’ pixies that was picnicking on the shore of Kidd’s Creek last Spring.”

  Wendy blinked at this, wondering how Smee had managed such a feat, and then she shook her head as if to clear it. “Fine, Smee.” She sighed again. “I’m thirsty anyway.” Though, the truth was, she wasn’t thirsty at all, and, in fact, had not been hungry or thirsty or cold or hot since she’d been on Hook’s ship. But maybe taking tea with the captain would give her a chance to find out what was going on.

  At this, Smee bounced up on his toes and turned to nod at Starkey, who nodded back. “Splendid, miss!” He offered her his hand, and since Smee, unlike so many of the pirates, always had clean hands, she took it. He lead her to the door of Hook’s cabin and knocked.

  “Enter.”

  Smee opened the door and gestured for Wendy to head inside. Wendy took a deep breath and stepped foot into Hook’s cabin. This would be the third time in her life that she had been inside of the notorious pirate captain’s private quarters. As she always did, she looked around as she entered, taking in the opulence and vastness of his living space. It seemed almost impossibly large; as if it shouldn’t really fit on the Jolly Roger.

  “Ah, the fair Wendy.”

  Wendy found Hook immediately. He stood from his side of his dining table and moved around to the other side, pulling her chair out for her. “I’m honored that you’ve decided to join me.”

  Smee stepped out of the room, closing the door behind him.

  Wendy noticed that Hook was no longer dressed in the red brocade coat and vestments that he wore whenever he fought with Peter Pan on the Jolly Roger. Instead, he had donned the black clothing that he’d worn in the massive keep built into the maw of Skull Rock five years ago. These clothes, as all of Hook’s garments, were richly sewn and embellished with the finest fabrics. Cookson, the tailor, truly was excellent at his craft. The sable material of Hook’s black coat blended with the darkness of his long, curly hair and made his eyes appear impossibly blue.

  “No longer expecting Peter Pan?” Wendy asked as she made her way to the chair he held out for her.

  Hook cocked his head to one side, studying her with great interest. “You’re quite observant, Wendy,” he told her, no hint of mockery in his tone. She sat down and he gently pushed in her chair. Then he returned to his own chair and took it gracefully.

  “To be honest, my dear,” he said as he began to pour tea into two delicate china cups, holding the pot with his left hand. “No.” He set the pot down and picked up the bowl of sugar. “I am not expecting Peter Pan.”

  Wendy had a second to digest this.

  “Sugar?” Hook offered.

  “Yes, please,.” she answered automatically.

  He scooped a few small spoons-full of the powder into her cup and deftly s
tirred it.

  “Why do you think he’s not coming?” Wendy ventured.

  Hook glanced up at her then. His intense blue gaze drifted from her lovely face to the X-Men logo on her t-shirt. She subconsciously glanced down and then back up again, meeting his eyes.

  “Frankly, my beauty, I no longer believe that Pan is the reason behind the sunrise in Neverland.” He set down the sugar bowl. “Cream?”

  “No, thank you.”

  He stood then and brought the tea cup and saucer to her side of the table, setting it gently in front of her.

  “He’s not?” Wendy asked.

  “No.” Hook replied, remaining beside her so that she was forced to look up at him as he towered over her.

  “Then. . . who is?” she asked, becoming lost in the oceans of his eyes.

  “My dear Wendy,” Hook replied, leaning in so that his breath caressed the side of her face as he whispered in her ear, “you are.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “I tell you, Princess Tiger Lily. If the Great Peter Pan were in trouble, the spirit of the Never Bird would tell us.”

  Tiger Lily turned to Great Big Little Panther and her gaze narrowed. “Why does he not visit, then?”

  Panther, as he was called for short, was a hunter in the Picadilly tribe, and one of Tiger Lily’s two best friends. He was a giant of a boy, nearly popping out of the extra-large leathers that had been sewn for him. But he was good with a bow and arrow and, despite his size, his step was as light as that of a cat’s. And the thing that Tiger Lily valued in him the most was his honesty.

  Her other best friend was Lean Wolf, an opposite to Panther in every way except for his honesty. Lean Wolf was true to his name, tall and thin as a reed. He was no good with a bow, as Panther was, but luckily for him, he was very good at hand-to-hand combat and was very sneaky. What Panther and Tiger Lily could not take care of from a distance, Lean Wolf could finish off up close.