Forever Neverland Read online

  “Wendy?” His voice choked this time as he called her name once more. Though he could see that she was still breathing, her breaths were so slow and shallow that Michael’s fingers trembled when he raised them to touch Wendy’s cheek.

  Her skin was soft, but cold.

  Michael leaned over her and grasped her shoulders, giving her a gentle shake. “Wendy, wake up!” He found himself pleading fervently. “Please, wake up!”

  In Neverland, where there had been nothing but still and calm and quiet above the dark sea for so very many years, something was stirring. As if the sky was drawing the slightest breath and releasing it, a tiny ripple disturbed the surface of the black water. And then another.

  The ripples grew in size and number until they smacked against the hull of the Jolly Roger in small, but audible waves. Then those waves grew as well.

  On the deck, the rigging began to sway ever so slightly in its encasements, clanking at first softly and growing steadily in volume. The white sails that had been dropped long ago began to fill.

  The Jolly Roger slowly tilted in the water, straightening itself as if awakening from a long nap. The rope holding the anchor, forgotten so far below, in the depths of Neverland’s haunted sea, pulled taut against the strain.

  In the luxurious cabin below the aft deck, on a bed surrounded by windows that looked out to sea, Captain James Hook turned his head in his sleep. And in that sleep, he listened.

  Wind whispered to him through the window latches. It grew to a low moan – a call from out there, on the sea. He turned again, frowning, the silver hook on the end of his right hand glinting in the moonlight. And when the wind finally became a howl and the latches on the windows broke open in a gust of roaring sea spray, scattering the ancient maps upon his desk. . . .

  Captain James Hook opened his eyes.

  “Peter!” John raced to the edge of the precipice, certain that he would find Peter plummeting to his death so far below, atop a motorcycle that could not fly.

  However, what he saw instead was Peter, and his motorcycle, rising in a golden spray of pixie dust, streaking in a thunderous roar, across the chasm that separated the cliff from the houses below.

  Stunned speechless, John could only reel back and watch as Peter rode the flying motorbike up and out of the gorge and then toward the house that John knew belonged to Wendy’s therapist, Dr. Alexander Coffer.

  He had absolutely no idea what Peter was up to as the flying boy circled around the house again and again, revving the engine noisily. In fact, he had no idea what was going on right up until the very moment when Peter pulled something small and dark from an inside pocket of his leather jacket and tossed it with practiced precision down the chimney of Dr. Coffer’s living room.

  “What was that, Tink?” John asked, absently.

  “Oh, you’ll see,” came the pixie’s reply. She had once more regained her human form and stood beside John, her arms crossed over her chest, her hip out to one side. She was smiling, and it was not a very pleasant smile.

  John didn’t like it.

  “This doctor of hers wants Wendy to stop writing. And if she stops writing, John, she’ll forget about Neverland,” Tinkerbell said, softly, and then shot John a dirty look. “Like you did.” She turned back to the figure on the motorcycle in the distance. “Peter won’t let that happen.”

  John digested her words, and their heaviness caused his stomach to sink.

  She hadn’t exactly answered his question. But he got that answer, nevertheless, as Peter rocketed back across the chasm just in time to escape the gigantic explosion that erupted from Coffer’s fire place.

  John cried out in surprise and reared back, his arms pin wheeling as he lost his balance and fell. On the ground, he feverishly scrambled backwards, scuttling on his hands and feet like a crab.

  “What the bloody-”

  His voice was drowned out in the roiling roar of rising fire and motorcycle engine. Peter flew the bike right over John’s head and looked down at the teenager as he passed. “Time to go, Johnny!”

  Tinkerbell took the cue and rose gracefully from the ground, arcing through the air after Peter. John looked back at the Coffer house, now billowing smoke from every window. Disbelieving numbness was setting in too quickly. He couldn’t make himself stand up, much less think happy thoughts so that he could fly.

  He laid there in the dust, breathing hard, his eyes as wide as golf balls, and barely noticed when Peter’s motorcycle came to hover noisily above him once more.

  John looked from the motorcycle to the burning house below. A figure came running out the front door of the home and John’s gaze narrowed.

  It was Dr. Coffer.

  And Coffer was looking right back at him. He was looking at Peter. And the motorcycle. And the human-sized flying pixie beside them.

  “Bugger,” John muttered, wide-eyed.

  “Shit,” Peter agreed, his gaze locked on the doctor’s form below. “Not good, Johnny. Get up now.” Peter lowered the bike until it pulled up on the ground alongside John.

  “John,” Peter repeated, “get up and get on.” His voice, though relatively calm, still managed to convey an extreme sense of urgency. It cut through the chaos around John as if he’d used a megaphone. John made his legs move so that they were under him. He forced himself to stand.

  “That’s it. Hurry now.” Peter chanced a glance across the darkness toward the burning house, with its single figure in the front yard, and its licking flames and rising black cloud of billowing ash in the background.

  In the distance, sirens wailed. A few more people had left the comfort of their homes in order to gather in the cold street and peer, in awe, at the fire.

  John turned and got on the back of the bike, grabbing Peter around the waist, though his grip was weak in his numb state. He waited for Peter to take off, but when he looked up at Pan, it was to find his green gaze pinned on Alexander Coffer, who was running madly toward his car, which was parked on the curb in front of his house.

  “He’s going after Wendy,” John muttered under his breath.

  “Not before I get to her,” Peter replied.

  Peter took off at a slower pace this time, as if he could sense that if he didn’t, John would fall off. Soon, the glowing motorcycle was in the air and soaring across the night sky once more, the roar of its motor drowning out the crackling thunder of the conflagration behind them.

  Chapter Six

  Captain Hook slowly sat up in his bed, amidst the wailing song of wind and the mad flutter of papers that were free and sailing about his cabin. Absently, he reached up and, like lightning, snatched one of the sheets of paper from the air. He cocked his head to one side and listened. There were doors opening below decks. Footsteps.

  The crew was awakening.

  He stood and looked down. He was fully dressed, but for his red brocade coat, which hung over the back of his desk chair a few feet away. The last thing that he could recall was the lethargy. It had fallen over all of Neverland like a shroud. It hit the land first, but within sheer heartbeats, an evil plague of fatigue had overcome his crew. They’d had no time to draw anchor and escape.

  As his men had dropped off, one by one, some before they were able to make it to their beds, Hook had barely managed to close the door of his cabin, shrug off his coat and lie down before the sleep had claimed him.

  And now they were awake again.

  “But why?” he asked the wind softly.

  It answered with another loud howl. He looked down as the wind attempted, futilely, to tear the page of paper out of his hands. He idly studied it and recognized it as a small map. Have I tried to follow this one yet? He thought, distractedly.

  Then Hook shook himself, straightened, and calmly donned his coat, placing the small map in an inner pocket. He then shut and barred the windows once more against the building gale outside.

  There came a knock at his cabin door.

  “Enter, Smee.”

  Behind him, a shorter
, rotund man with glasses and a sagging sleeping cap entered the cabin, shutting the door behind him. “Good evenin’ Cap’n” said Smee.

  Hook turned to him, now fully composed. “What is the situation, Smee?”

  “There’s an evil wind about us, Cap’n,” said Smee, who very respectfully made it a point never to slouch in front of his captain.

  “Indeed?” Hook replied as he strode across the room toward Smee and the door. “I hadn’t noticed. And the men?”

  “Comin’ around, Sir, that they are.” Smee followed Captain Hook out of the luxuriously appointed cabin and onto the aft deck. The wind attacked them immediately, ripping at their hair and clothes. Smee leapt up off of his feet and caught his cap just as it was torn from his head by a hard gust. He thought better of replacing it on his head and, instead, stuffed it into the front pocket of his trousers.

  “Smee, wake the others. Douse them, if you have to. We need all hands on deck.” Hook gave Smee his orders and then turned to the few men who were already scrambling up onto the main deck of the giant ship.

  With a quick, practiced glance, he took in the state of the ship. The sails were unfurled and at full mast, the wind rippling the white material with a dangerous snapping sound. The rigging swayed about wildly in the shrouds, its brass knocking against the wood forcefully. An agitated sea splashed up against the ship’s hull with reckless fury.

  In the distance, Hook could see the darker outline of Neverland’s shore against a dark sky. His gaze narrowed as he took in the stillness on the land. There were no camp fires dotting the landscape. No pixies dancing about on the shore like fire flies.

  In all of Neverland, it would seem, only he and his ship mates had come to life. Again, he wondered why. It was the wind, he supposed. The wholly unnatural wind. It had awoken them all from their dreams.

  Dreams? This thought gave Hook pause. But another blast of wind yanked at his red coat and he pushed the thought away and concentrated on the storm.

  Amidst the howling and the clamor, Hook noticed something else in the wind. He had been a pirate for a very long time. One who lives on the sea grows to know the water and the air very well, because that is all that there is. And so, when James Hook felt a bizarre warmth to the wind that should have been ice cold coming off the sea, he cocked his head to one side and sniffed. A new scent was carried on the next harsh draft. It smelled of fire and ash. He sniffed again. It smelled of wine and leather. Once more. It smelled of things he did not recognize – beguiling in their novelty. And there was something else…

  At once, Hook came to a decision. “Avast ye, ya bilge rats!” he roared into the wind. His voice carried masterfully, grasping the attention of every man on deck. They halted in their panicked floundering and stared up at their captain. As always, they were at once daunted by his impressive and commanding figure. Hook wasted no time. “Pull the anchor!” he shouted. “or, we’ll lose it!” Two men immediately broke away from the group and ran to do his bidding.

  The others waited.

  “Leave ‘er all standing, boys! We’ll cut and run and let ‘er ride it out where the wind takes us! Get to yer stations and keep alert!”

  There was a brief pause as the men sorted this out in their heads and then a unanimous shout of “Aye! Aye!” Once more, the men were all running in separate directions.

  Hook turned and bounded up the stairs to the quarter deck and took the wheel. At the moment, it merely spun slowly from side to side, the rudder beneath the ship floating back and forth in the troubled waters.

  In a few seconds, Smee informed him that the anchor was up. Just after he received the news, the ship began to list to one side. Expertly, Hook spun the wheel in the other direction, leveling the ship once more.

  The wind beckoned in the sails, pulling the giant frigate so that it cut through the water like the fin of a shark.

  “Well, blow me down, Cap’n. Under this wind and these sails, I’d swear we must be doin’ fifteen knots,” Smee said, from where he stood behind Hook’s right shoulder.

  “Be ready to take down the main and the fore, Smee. If the wind grows much more, I’ll not have the Jolly Roger stripped to pieces.”

  “Aye, Cap’n.” Smee left to speak with the men, who assumed stations beside the fore mast and the main mast. When he returned to Hook’s side, the captain had more orders for him.

  “Have a dozen men readied on the gun deck. I’ve a feeling, Smee…”

  “I agree Cap’n.. Will do.” Again, Smee left, and Hook was once more alone with the wheel and the wind.

  The ship began to list to one side again, and again, he straightened it. Something poked at his chest through the white ruffles of his shirt. He frowned and reached into his pocket, pulling out the folded map he had placed there earlier.

  With his hook holding the wheel steady, the captain expertly unfolded the map with one hand. He gazed down at it. It was unfamiliar to him. There were cliffs on one side and houses in a valley. But the roads were so plentiful and houses so tall. . . .It didn’t look like any port city he’d ever seen before. In fact, there wasn’t even a port.

  “Smee, what do you make of this?”

  The quartermaster was back at the captain’s side and Hook handed him the map. Smee looked down at it for a moment with a puzzled expression – and then turned it around so that it was right side up. “Er… Can’t say as I’m familiar with the locale, Cap’n.. Looks like there’d be a load of booty to be found, though. Is this where we’re headin’?”

  “Just a hunch, Smee.” Hook spun the wheel. “Just a hunch.”

  “Where be the port?” Smee asked.

  Before Hook could answer, there came a flurry of shouts and cries from the men below. Hook’s gaze raked over them and zeroed in on the pirates who stood at the forecastle. Those men were leaning over the wooden railing, yelling something inaudible, their fingers pointing to the sea below.

  Hook felt it then. And when he did, he needed no further explanation for his men’s behavior. As the front end of the ship slowly lifted up and out of the water, and the pirates aboard began to hug whatever secure hold they could grab onto, Hook smiled.

  “No port necessary, Smee,” he called out to his first mate. The Jolly Roger’s hull rose like a breaching whale, water cascading down its sides like waterfalls. Within a few short moments, the massive pirate ship was riding high above the waves and climbing the night sky. As the first wisps of clouds began to fog the ship’s deck, Captain James Hook threw back his head and laughed long and loud.

  *****

  When Peter and John pulled up on Peter’s motorcycle in front of the Darling house, it was to find all of the windows dark.

  “Is anyone home?” Peter asked as they dismounted.

  It took John a moment to answer as he was still stunned at Peter’s actions concerning Dr. Coffer’s house. He said, “Wendy and Michael. My parents are gone for the evening.”

  Peter glanced at John and saw that he was still very pale.

  Peter brushed past him to stand on the front steps of the Darling home. He glanced up. Though there was a second and even a third floor to this home, as there had been in the old Darling house, it was not painted white as the other one had been. And there was no nursery.

  At that thought, memories flooded Peter. Story time. Shadows run amuck. A little girl with storm-gray eyes in a billowing white nightgown…

  The thing is, for a boy who had never planned on growing up, having memories at all was a very strange thing. It meant that there were things that had once been – and were no more. It meant that time had passed and he’d caught the tail end of it like a kite and ridden it into tomorrow. Which meant that there was a yesterday. . . . And yesterdays were older days. If you got enough of them behind you, it meant you were old too.

  Peter blinked and turned to John, who was walking up the steps to the front door. “Which window belongs to Wendy’s room?” he asked.

  John shot him a weary look. “Let’s just use the door
, Peter. I’ve had enough of flying for the night.” He turned back to the door and produced a key on a string around his neck. He slid the key into the lock and turned it. The door opened.

  “Come in,” he told Peter. But he didn’t have to, for Peter was already pushing past him and striding into the home as if he owned it. “After you,” John muttered under his breath. Tinkerbell, in her tiny pixie form, flitted in behind Peter and John shut and bolted the door.

  The house was dark and quiet.

  Well, almost quiet. John cocked his head to one side and listened. Where there should have been the sound of two voices and, perhaps, a noisy video game involving drums or a sportsman-like banter about a board game, there was, instead - a sobbing.

  John darted up the stairs at precisely the same time that Peter arced through the air and literally flew to the second floor. They reached the door to Wendy’s bedroom as one, John slightly out of breath, Peter simply wide-eyed. Tinkerbell landed on his shoulder.

  Michael sat beside the bed on which a still Wendy laid, her eyes closed, her long lashes laying against the pale flesh of her cheek. Michael looked up from where he’d had his face in his hands. His own cheeks were wet and his eyes were red and puffy. He shook his head at the group in the doorway.

  His voice shook as he spoke. “You’re too late, Peter.” He hiccupped and turned to the girl on the bed. He took her cold hand and held it fiercely in his own. “You’re too late. She won’t wake up. Wendy won’t wake up.” His voice cracked. “I think she’s dead.”

  Chapter Seven

  It took a moment for Michael’s words to register. But, when they did, both boys rushed toward the bed. Michael didn’t want to leave Wendy’s side, but instinctively, as children can, he sensed that he needed to move out of the way – that if anyone in any world could save Wendy, it would be Peter Pan.