The Navigator

by Sky, Erin Michelle; Brown, Steven;

  “What is it?” she asked, but of course she couldn’t understand his answer. Instead, he grabbed her sleeve and tugged on it, then pointed toward the wheel.

  “I need to go there myself?” she asked.

  He nodded emphatically.

  “Michael!” she called out. “I have to get to the wheel! I need cover fire!”

  “Give us a minute!” he hollered back. “I’ll tell you when!”

  Wendy tried to visualize it in her mind. Flying to the wheel. Finding the trinket. Lifting the ship into the air. She had to be ready to move fast.

  A round of shots rang out from the stronghold.

  “Now!” Michael shouted.

  Wendy darted out from behind the mast. Michael, Reginald, and Starkey opened fire behind her. She reached the wheel, went to open the compartment, and discovered the problem. A silver padlock secured the latch. That was why Charming had seemed so agitated.

  Obviously, she didn’t have a key, but there was more than one way to open a lock. Moving as quickly as she could, Wendy snatched one of her pistols from its holster, loaded it, aimed it at the latch, and fired. An explosion of wood chips burst from the post where the latch had been, and the entire locking assembly fell to the deck.

  “Wendy!” Michael shouted.

  Without thinking, Wendy dove to the deck. More shots rang out from the battlements, and a bullet whizzed over her head. Michael and the others shot back. A man on the battlements screamed. Wendy looked up to see him being carried away upside down. She scrambled to her feet again.

  She reached into the compartment, and found nothing.

  “No. No!” Wendy blurted out. She reached her hand into the empty compartment again. There had to be something. A coin, or a thimble, or a knuckle bone, or … or a piece of paper? Wendy felt a small, folded sheet pressed against the back of the cubbyhole.

  Maybe it was a clue? Or a map? Whatever it was, she couldn’t stay here. Wendy grabbed it and ran for the relative safety of the mast. She ducked behind the thick, solid wood, pressing her side against it just in time as another round fired from the stronghold.

  With trembling hands, she opened the paper, and read this:

  “Mortimer Black.”

  It was penned in a woman’s delicate hand, and, suddenly, Wendy knew exactly what it was. It was the note that had been left with him at the orphanage. The note from his mother. The most precious thing Mortimer Black had ever owned.

  But … was it also … ?

  Wendy closed the note carefully and pressed it into her palm. She concentrated on it, and the paper warmed and fluttered in her hand.

  “I have it!” she shouted. “Peter! Come back! I have it!”

  Wendy lifted the ship into the air as quickly as she dared.

  “Sir?” Starkey shouted from the bow.

  “It’s all right, Starkey,” Wendy assured him. “We’re clear!”

  “Beg to differ, sir,” Starkey shouted back. “But we’re not, sir.”

  Wendy peeked around the mast and drew in a sharp breath. Dozens of everlost streamed from the castle’s ramparts. The light of the eternal sunrise gleamed across their leather-armored bodies and ragged wings, painting them in a blood-red glow. If Peter’s everlost had always looked to her like hawk-men, these looked like demons straight from hell.

  Wendy lifted the ship higher and tried to speed up, but she could already tell she would not be able to outrun the hordes. The sails were still furled, and they didn’t have the manpower they needed to set them.

  “Take down as many as you can!” Wendy shouted. “Try to buy us some time!”

  Time to do what, she had no idea, but her men fired loyally into the ranks of the flying everlost, and two fell from the sky. Only two out of dozens.

  They weren’t going to make it.

  “Good form, the Wendy,” Peter said. Suddenly he was there, landing on the deck next to her, and even though they were all about to die, it felt at least a little better not to be alone.

  “I’ve really done it this time, haven’t I?” she said.

  “I’ll say!” he replied cheerfully. “Using the same trick against Blackheart again. Now he’ll feel twice as foolish!” Peter laughed, and then Wendy finally saw what he meant.

  A shadow, just ahead. In the fog. And then a ship rose out of the light gray mist, thin tendrils clinging to its sides and reluctantly falling away.

  “Vegard!” Wendy shouted.

  She hadn’t been alone, after all. She never had been.

  an’s ship was already turning broadside, preparing to fire, so Wendy sped right for it, and then over it, just as she had when she first arrived in Neverland. The cannons exploded beneath them, and then the men of the Fourteenth, lined up at the railing, fired into the hordes. Six more fell, disintegrating in midair, and just like that, the enemy scattered.

  A dozen or so of Peter’s everlost streamed from the ship. With raucous shouts, they gave chase to the enemy for a hundred yards or so, but it was just a game to them. They came back laughing and jostling each other’s shoulders in the air, but they didn’t return to their own ship. Instead, they landed in the rigging of the new vessel—England’s new vessel, Wendy thought proudly—and unfurled the sails with practiced ease.

  They had hours ahead of them for the flight back, so Wendy turned the paper trinket over to Pan to let him fly the ship for a while. After all, Wendy thought, it had been his before it was England’s, since he had created it for Mortimer as a gift. (And then she realized it might also have been England’s before it was his because who knew where Peter had gotten it. French ships, crocodile ships, twice-stolen ships … England’s new flying fleet had a questionable pedigree, to say the least.)

  But Wendy wasn’t too tired to fly. She just wanted an excuse to slip away and talk to Michael, Starkey, and Reginald before they returned, to ask them not to tell Hook that Peter had yelled Buri’s name and alerted Blackheart to their presence.

  “I take full responsibility for my own actions,” Wendy told them. “I hesitated, and, as a result, the enemy was able to escape. That is why the mission failed. I ask only that you not mention Peter’s shout. Our alliance with the everlost is fragile, at best, and his outburst would have had no effect on the outcome if I had performed my duties as … as a commissioned officer.”

  And that, of course, was the hardest thing about all of it, at least for Wendy. She had worked so hard to become an officer, and now that she finally had her chance, she had let England’s greatest enemy get away.

  “I didn’t hear anything,” Michael said immediately.

  “I never hear anything,” Starkey agreed. “Or see anything. Or remember anything. It’s a matter of personal policy.”

  “I didn’t see any hesitation either,” Reginald added. “I saw the Viking arrow miss. That’s all I saw.”

  Wendy was touched by their loyalty and thanked them all, but she would include the hesitation in her own report nonetheless. As well as Blackheart’s true identity. She was done leaving things out of reports. Hook would believe her now. Let him worry about what to say to his superiors once they returned.

  Assuming he had survived.

  Wendy shivered. She had had so much to worry about in trying to execute her own mission that she hadn’t given any thought to the others. Now, worries poured in, one on top of another. John and Nana were on those ships. And Charlie. And Tigerlilja, who was already becoming a friend. And Hook. She might not have called Hook a friend exactly, but she had come to see the value of his experience. And his leadership—the leadership of his men, at least, if not actually of her.

  Would she return to the valley, only to find it empty?

  No, she refused to think that way. They would be there. John and Nana and Charlie would be there waiting for her. The fleet was intact. It had to be.

  She hated just sitting and waiting, so she took the trinket back from Pan to fly the rest of the way. Having something to do helped keep her mind off her worries, but when they finally
passed old Snaggleclaw and entered the valley to find The Pegasus and the Jolly Roger sitting neatly in their cradles, looking relatively unscathed, she breathed a huge sigh of relief nonetheless.

  Pan’s ship, flying ahead of them, settled in its usual dry dock, but then Wendy noticed something else. There was no cradle waiting for their new flying ship. They had nowhere to land.

  Wendy blinked. And then she blinked again. She looked all across the night valley, but despite the thin light of the moon, she was still absolutely certain there was no dock for them anywhere. She had assumed there would be, and it had seemed like a reasonable assumption. Yes, she had been counting on a fully formed dry dock cradle just appearing for them magically out of thin air, but in Wendy’s defense it had happened twice before. There had been a dock for The Pegasus. There had been a dock for the Jolly Roger as soon as they had procured it. But there was no dock for her new ship.

  What did that mean? Did it not belong here? Did the magic of Neverland still think the ship belonged to Blackheart?

  And, more importantly, where were they going to land?

  In the end, she settled the vessel down very slowly and gently in the long grass of the open field. The keel was shallow enough that the ship didn’t topple over, although it did list significantly to starboard once it had come to rest.

  Wendy didn’t feel right about placing the folded paper trinket back into its compartment, now that the latch had been blown away and the little door no longer shut properly, so she placed the paper in her pocket for safekeeping. She would find a good spot for it later. Right now, she needed to report to Hook. The process of landing had taken long enough that Vegard would have reported in already. Which meant Hook knew everything.

  She didn’t look forward to facing her failure yet again and seeing it reflected in Hook’s eyes, but Wendy had never been one to put off uncomfortable tasks. Better to get it over with.

  The innisfay dust had not worn off yet, but flying in front of Michael and Reginald and even Starkey was one thing. Flying in front of Hook’s men would be something else altogether. So she pretended to climb down one rope and up another, secretly using the magic of the dust to think down and then up, which made the entire process much easier. It also gave her less time to worry about things like whether the alliance was still intact, whether Hook would shoot Peter when he found out what had happened, and whether the captain had already renounced her commission.

  She hoped he had not, but suspected he probably had, which is why she was entirely unprepared for the scene that awaited her when she walked through the captain’s door.

  Pan was already present, and he wasn’t at all dead. That, at least, was something. He must have flown across while she was preoccupied. Vegard and Tigerlilja were there as well, along with Charlie, which wasn’t any surprise. But Hook was—Wendy frowned in puzzlement—was Hook … smiling?

  He was. He was smiling. At her.

  He had been leaning his good left hand casually on the map table when she walked in, but he straightened as soon as he saw her, smiled, and said, “Miss Darling! Congratulations. Vegard told me what you did—capturing Blackheart’s flagship and salvaging the mission.”

  “Salvaging …” Wendy said, confused, but Vegard interrupted her.

  “I told him,” Vegard said, “how Blackheart’s guards remained behind and warned him of our arrival. I took the liberty of providing my report while we waited.”

  “Oh. I see,” Wendy said. “Of course.” Apparently, Vegard had had the same concern about the alliance. When Wendy didn’t contradict Vegard’s version of events, both he and Tigerlilja seemed to relax. Fortunately, Hook wasn’t watching them. He was watching Wendy.

  “As we all know, Blackheart’s forces are much larger than anticipated,” he said. “Against such odds, both teams were incredibly fortunate to make it out alive. And to steal a ship out from under their noses! Again, my congratulations, Miss Darling. My faith in you is proving to be well founded.”

  “I … thank you, Captain,” Wendy said. But she couldn’t accept his congratulations. It wasn’t right. Not after what she had done. “But …” Her voice trailed off, and she looked down at her feet—at her strong sailor’s boots that she loved so much. “I admit that stealing the ship was my idea, sir. But I had a chance to kill Blackheart, and I missed the shot.” She stood up straight, squared her shoulders, and met his gaze directly. “I hesitated, sir. I hesitated, and it cost us everything.”

  Hook stared back at her for a long moment. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet. Almost gentle. “I assume, Miss Darling, that you have never taken a human life?”

  “I have not, sir,” she admitted.

  “It is extremely common to hesitate the first time one is called upon to do so in the line of duty. The fact that you took the shot at all is commendable.”

  But that wasn’t why she had hesitated. Or, maybe it would have been, if it hadn’t been for the other thing. She had already promised herself she wasn’t leaving things out of her reports anymore, and yet here she was, keeping Pan’s shout from him. For good reason, yes—to protect the alliance and Neverland and England and all the world, if what Tigerlilja had said was true—but she couldn’t hide this, too. It was too important.

  “I knew him,” she blurted out.

  “You … knew him?” Hook asked.

  “Yes,” she said. She tugged unconsciously at her vest and then smoothed it with her hands. “I knew him from the almshouse where I spent my childhood. His name is Mortimer Black.”

  “What?!” Charlie exclaimed.

  Suddenly remembering the ship’s trinket, Wendy fished it from her pocket and handed it to Charlie, who opened it and then stared at it in wonder.

  “What is that?” Hook demanded.

  “The ship’s trinket,” Wendy told him.

  “He used to brag that he had a mother,” Charlie explained, showing Hook the note. “She had left a note at the almshouse in his basket, with his name. It seems a strange thing to brag about, I suppose. But most of us were given names by the orphanage. Having a real mother and a real name …” Charlie shrugged. “But we were all just children. I don’t think we know anything that can help us. He was apprenticed to a shipwright. We never heard from him again.”

  Charlie handed the note back to Wendy. She folded it neatly and put it in her pocket.

  “Still,” Hook said, thinking aloud, “it’s more information than we had before. Good work, Miss Darling.”

  Wendy didn’t see how recognizing someone from her childhood was especially commendable, but she didn’t reply one way or the other. She was just relieved Hook hadn’t renounced her commission the moment she told him the truth about missing the shot.

  “Thanks to your daring escape,” he continued, “not only do we have a new ship, but we also have a veritable treasure of new information. We know Blackheart’s identity. We know the size of his fleet. We also know he is a pawn in a greater game, and that this giant called Buri is England’s true enemy.”

  Wendy glanced worriedly at Peter, but he showed no sign of recognizing the name. Vegard must have told Hook about Buri. Perhaps not all of it, but at least what they had heard in the temple. Still, Hook had come a long way from the man who would not even believe a ship could fly. Imps and innisfay and dragons and wyverns and Neverland itself had a way of doing that to a person, she supposed.

  “We must return to England at once,” Hook declared. “Now that we know exactly where we’re going and what we’re facing, we can bring back far more ships than Blackheart can possibly steal in the same amount of time. We’ll make them fly, and we’ll hit him with overwhelming forces, crushing his insurrection before it leaves these shores.”

  “You can’t,” Tigerlilja told him.

  “What?” Hook barked. “Why can’t I?”

  “Because time works differently here. It isn’t just that the sun doesn’t move. People don’t age beyond adulthood. Animals don’t age beyond adulthood. Copper doesn’
t green. Iron doesn’t rust. At least … not usually. There are places where you can jump backward and return to the same time you left. My point is, by the time you got back, even with fifty ships, Blackheart could have one hundred times that number. He could have figured out how to turn the rest of his men into everlost.”

  She paused to share a worried glance with Vegard.

  “By the time you got back,” she finished, “Neverland could already have fallen. And Odin help England if it does. If you want to defend your kingdom, you must defend Neverland. Here. Now. While there’s still time.”

  Hook stared at her for a long time, engaged in a battle with himself. He had accepted flying men. And then flying ships. He had seen them with his own eyes. He had accepted imps, and tiny little flying creatures that liked to chime at him angrily. He was even willing to believe in a giant ancient Norseman that could turn an orphan into England’s greatest enemy. But time behaving differently in different places?

  And yet, the proof was right here. Where in England had anyone seen a dragon in the modern world? Nonetheless, there was a dragon lying on a mountain that he could see from his window. A living creature thought to be long dead. Not to mention Vegard and Tigerlilja themselves. Any Vikings that had come to England’s shores had become a part of England itself hundreds of years ago.

  If Hook had ever once in his career been tempted to lose his composure, it was now. Here, in this moment. He wanted to yell at the top of his lungs, cursing at men for flying and at time for being malleable and at Neverland and all its magic for even existing to threaten his every last belief about the universe, not to mention threatening his beloved England.

  Nor was it lost on him that Wendy Darling was somehow a part of all of it.

  Nonetheless, he did not give in to temptation. He took a long breath in through his nose and expelled it through his mouth, and then he nodded without saying a word.

  “We have taken one of Blackheart’s ships and evened the odds,” Tigerlilja said then, “but he will not be so easy to surprise again. Furthermore, we have only seen a hint of the forces he controls. He will soon complete his warship, and there are rumors of other bases we have yet to discover.”