“There, you see?” Wendy said, returning her attention to John. “So then, when do we leave for Dover?”
John and Michael shared a glance that said, “You answer her. No, you answer her.” But of course Wendy was watching them and saw the whole thing.
“John,” she declared, and John frowned while Michael grinned triumphantly. “What is it? When do we leave for Dover?”
“We’re not going back to Dover,” he admitted, staring down at the table.
“We’re not? Then where are we going? Remember, Colin, not a word.”
Colin nodded mutely—a rapid, stuttering sort of nod—glancing at Wendy and then returning his gaze to John, awaiting his reply.
“We are all to remain here until further notice.”
“What?” Wendy exclaimed. “But the platoon!”
“Has been assigned a new lieutenant,” John explained, “with his own second-in-command, and his own …” John glanced at Colin. “His own attachment. His wife, as it happens.” He watched Wendy closely as he said this last bit. “They work together.”
If he was trying to feel Wendy out on the subject of diviners marrying their lieutenants, she missed the cue entirely.
“You’ve been removed from command?” Wendy demanded. Her own eyes flew wide, ranging back and forth between John’s gaze and Michael’s.
“It’s all right,” John assured her. “We’ve just been reassigned. That’s all. We’re glad to be here.”
“But the platoon!” Wendy said again, and her left eyebrow began to look dangerously cross, followed immediately by the other.
“It isn’t as though we’ve lost our rank,” Michael reassured her. “We were glad to get the assignment. We both were. We’ve been worried sick. Besides, we have a way to get back.”
“Oh, well thank heavens! Why didn’t you just say so?”
“It’s not quite as simple as he’s making it sound, I’m afraid,” John retorted, glaring at Michael.
“What? I never said it was simple,” Michael protested. “I just said we had a way.”
“What way, exactly?” Wendy wanted to know.
“Here,” John said. “It’s in the note.”
“Note?”
He reached into a small messenger satchel that hung at his waist and handed Wendy a note, addressed to Wendy Darling. She knew immediately from the handwriting on the envelope that it was from Hook. She would have recognized that arrogant scrawl anywhere.
“Oh, what now?” she demanded.
“Just read it,” Michael said, grinning wickedly.
“It’s not funny,” John growled.
“It’s a little funny,” Michael said, and he winked at Colin, who giggled.
“But how do you know what it says?” Wendy asked, moving to break the seal, but she soon realized it was already broken.
“You broke the seal on official orders?” Wendy demanded, brandishing the evidence with an angry flourish.
“Nana did it,” John and Michael both declared at once, pointing under the table.
Nana growled and Colin laughed more loudly this time, but Wendy only sighed.
“We had to know what it said,” John protested.
“In case he was moving you again!” Michael added.
“Oh, just let me read it.”
Wendy silenced any further protest with one delicate hand. She read the note without a sound, moving her lips just the smallest bit as she read, so that the secret kiss in the corner danced in and out of view, making both men and even Colin want to sigh a little, although none of them did.
My Darling Wendy,
I trust you won’t try to run away from these two. I’m sorry to have to send them, but you left me no choice. I can hardly have my fiancée running about the countryside unescorted. I have had to replace them in their posts, of course, but that arrangement need not be permanent. Find me the location of an everlost ship, and what I have done shall be undone just as easily. I will gladly return you and your escorts to the platoon at Dover immediately upon proof of true delivery.
Yours in earnest,
Captain James Hook
“How dare he?” Wendy cried. “I knew this was my fault! And to hold it over my head like some kind of … some kind of … wait, what part of this is funny?”
Colin looked back and forth among the others, trying to guess from their reactions what the note had said.
“Some kind of ransom?” John suggested.
“The part where he calls you his fiancée, obviously!” Michael declared, answering her question. “He is joking, isn’t he?”
“Teasing me mercilessly, yes,” Wendy affirmed.
Colin grinned, taking this in. He had never agreed with his mother’s opinion on the likelihood of an engagement—although he had been wise enough to keep that counsel to himself.
“See? I told you it was a joke!” Michael crowed this triumphantly while thrusting his chin at John in a taunting sort of way.
“I never said otherwise!” John declared.
“But you didn’t agree with me either,” Michael pointed out.
“Oh, hush, both of you,” Wendy said, and the two men fell silent. “How on earth are we going to get him to tell us where his ships are?”
“Who?” But from the threatening look on John’s face, he already knew the answer.
Wendy glanced briefly at Colin. “You know who,” was all she said.
“He’s been here?” Michael’s own expression now mirrored John’s, sending a bit of a thrill through Wendy, whether she wanted to admit it or not.
“Just twice,” she said.
“Twice?” they shouted together.
“Hush,” Wendy admonished them again. “You’ll scare Colin’s parents. Yes, twice. Once after I first arrived, and again just recently.”
“But how did he even find you?” John demanded.
Wendy was far too kind to admit that Pan had followed the courier John and Michael had sent.
“He has a spy,” she said instead.
“A spy! Inside the regiment!” John curled his hand into a fist on the table before him.
“No, no. A spy of his own,” Wendy said quickly. “Just … well … a very small one.”
“A very small spy? What does that mean?” Michael cocked his head and rested his chin in his hand, awaiting her reply, his eyes already twinkling in anticipation. Wendy always did tell the best stories.
“It’s an innisfay,” she said, watching Colin out of the corner of her eye.
“And what, pray tell, is an innisfay?” John wanted to know.
“It’s a magical creature,” Wendy finally blurted out. “It’s very small, and it can look like any creature it chooses, but it was a dragon when I saw it.” Colin’s eyes opened even wider, but he showed no sign of disbelief—a fact that both worried and comforted her at the same time.
“A tiny dragon spy,” John said, trying to take that in.
“Yes, she’s been following me. Oh!”
Wendy planted both hands on the table and thrust herself to her feet all at once, causing both men and both dogs to do the same. Not to be left out, Colin followed suit immediately. When Wendy turned and ran for the rear garden, they all trailed behind her in a line behind from smallest to largest: Poppy, then Nana, then Colin, then Michael, and then John.
As soon as she was outside, she cupped both hands to her mouth and called into the night, accompanied by a low growling from Poppy and Nana.
“Oh, innisfay! Little innisfay!” She was embarrassed to realize she had never asked the tiny creature for its name. “I know you’re out here! Tell your friend we need to speak with him, please. It’s very important!”
“Wendy, I don’t think—”
There were quite a few things that John might have thought. He might have thought that calling to magical creatures in the night was not the best course of action, for example. Or that Wendy couldn’t be certain the little spy was anywhere nearby. But Wendy cut him off before he could say e
xactly what it was he did think, so now we will never be certain what it was.
“Tiny dragon-person-innisfay!” she called again. “Do you hear me? Go now, please. Go on! Go find him!”
As though in answer, there was a sudden explosion of tiny, jingling chimes, rising into the night out of a lovely patch of bellflowers and fading rapidly into the distance.
“There now,” Wendy announced, and she placed both hands on her hips, clearly satisfied. “He’ll come to us. All we have to do is wait.”
(As for what Tinker Bell thought, well, it’s probably all for the best that we will never be certain what that was either.)
hile they waited, Wendy admitted to John and Michael that she had told Peter Pan she was Hook’s prisoner, which both men felt was closer to the truth than they would have liked. She had tried to convince Peter to tell her where his island was, claiming she intended to meet him there later, but he had refused to do so, insisting there was no point in it. She would not be able to get there without his help.
But he would not explain any further.
They all wondered about that for a bit, but the point of the story, Wendy reminded them, was that Pan still thought she was a prisoner who had to sneak away from the house, and he would surely know something was amiss if he found her waiting for him in the garden with two guardsmen and a member of Hook’s personal staff. Not to mention two guard dogs, she added hastily, so that Nana and Poppy would not feel left out.
“We’re not leaving you alone out here,” John declared, and Michael stood a bit straighter beside him, setting his jaw and crossing his arms over his chest, making it perfectly clear whose side he was on about that.
“Well of course I’m not asking you to go inside,” Wendy assured them. “But you can’t stand out here in the open either.”
“And what would you have us do then?” Michael wanted to know.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to hide somewhere,” Wendy said, looking around for ideas. “Like over there behind the bushes.”
“You can’t honestly expect us to cower in the bushes like …” John stopped himself and looked down at Nana, who was watching him suspiciously. “Like cowards!” he finished. Satisfied, Nana turned back to Wendy, waiting for the answer.
“Of course not like cowards,” she said. “Like members of a …” Now Wendy looked at Colin, who was watching her face and listening very attentively. “Of a certain office … who occasionally have to behave in … in unusual ways.”
John glared at Wendy, and Wendy glared back at him, all the while darting her eyes meaningfully at Colin. Colin looked back and forth between the two, thinking how much more interesting this was than reading or practicing his mathematics before bed.
Michael ran his thumb and forefinger across his chin and finally said, “You know, John, she might have a point. It could be dangerous.” And now he darted his eyes down to Colin and back again, willing John to catch his meaning. Which was that maybe they shouldn’t leave the boy out in the open while they were awaiting the arrival of a kidnapping blood drinker.
“Thank you, Michael,” Wendy said. She smiled and placed a grateful hand lightly on his arm, at which Michael smiled in return and blushed wildly.
“Fine. Stay with him then. From now on, he’s your responsibility.” John growled this at Michael, who replied that of course he would be more than happy to, holding Wendy’s eye all the while and taking her hand gently in his own to kiss it.
“Over there!” John ordered, pointing at the bushes.
Michael winked at Colin, making the boy giggle, and the two headed off to duck behind the foliage.
“I still don’t like it,” John said, once he was sure they were out of sight.
“Don’t worry, John. You won’t be far. I’m sure I’ll be quite all right.”
“At least keep the dogs with you.”
Nana and Poppy looked up at Wendy, clearly agreeing with him.
“Oh, I couldn’t,” Wendy said, and both animals hung their ears in disappointment. “They have a natural dislike for magical creatures. They’ll only bark and wake up the house if they’re out in the open. I need you to stay with them, to keep them quiet.”
Nana and Poppy looked at each other as though to say, “This is your fault. I’m the trustworthy one.”
“Oh, you both growl at Peter. You know you do,” Wendy chided them. “After all, it’s your job to warn us when magic is nearby, and you’re both very good at it.” Mollified, the dogs puffed out their chests proudly, but they continued to eye each other with suspicion whenever Wendy wasn’t looking.
John didn’t look any happier with Wendy than the dogs did with each other, but he did as she asked and took the dogs with him to hide where Michael and Colin had already settled in. Wendy sat on a stone bench to wait.
She did not have to wait for long.
Soon enough there was a taste of pickles in the air, followed by a low growl, which John managed to silence almost immediately. Colin’s sharp gasp—a natural reaction upon seeing a flying man descend from the sky—was a bit louder than the growl, but Peter was too busy making an impressive entrance to notice.
He came in so fast and landed so hard that he slammed one knee into the ground. Again. Ever since the first time he had done so (which had been a bit of an accident), he had been practicing the move, trying to make it faster and even more heart-stopping every time and leaving knee-shaped depressions all across the southeastern fields of England.
“Peter,” Wendy said, hardly batting an eye.
“The Wendy,” Peter said, and he bowed.
“It’s just Wendy,” she corrected him.
“I know that, of course,” Peter proclaimed. “I only say it that way to indicate what you are not. Not my Wendy or someone else’s Wendy, but your own Wendy. The Wendy. Obviously.”
In truth, he had forgotten until just now how that whole thing had come about, and he had begun to think of it as a title. The Wendy of Dover. The Wendy of Hertfordshire. But Peter spent a lot of time with Tinker Bell, and the innisfay never admit to being wrong about anything, as you already know. Unfortunately, more than one of her bad habits had rubbed off.
As for Wendy, she rather liked the idea of being her own Wendy. So much so that she almost regretted correcting him.
“Well, when you put it that way …” she said.
Peter watched her for several long moments, waiting for her to finish, but she said nothing else.
“When I put it that way, then what?” he finally asked.
“Well, I mean I don’t mind it so much, now that I understand it,” she admitted. “If you want to call me the Wendy, that is.”
“Tinker Bell is very angry at you,” he said, giving her no indication as to what he would or would not continue to call her.
“Oh,” Wendy exclaimed, “the innisfay! Tinker Bell! What a lovely name! Is she angry? I’m truly sorry.” Her mouth pursed in concern, and a tiny line formed between her brows.
“She’s not your scullery maid to order about, you know,” Peter told her. He placed both fists on his hips when he said it and leaned forward at the waist, looking more than a bit cross.
“Oh my goodness! I didn’t mean—”
“Her words, not mine,” Peter said, interrupting. “I was told to tell you.” He dropped the angry expression, stood up straight, and turned his hands upward in a helpless shrug. Apparently, his posture had been part of the message.
“I see,” Wendy replied slowly. “Well then, tell her for me, please, if you would, that I was not trying to order her about. I just didn’t know how else to find you.”
“You can tell her yourself if you like,” Peter offered.
“Oh! Is she here?” Wendy looked around and listened very hard for the sound of jingling bells.
“No. She’s back on the ship. She’s sulking. Like I said, she’s very angry.”
On the ship! Wendy thought.
“On the flying ship?” she asked, careful to sound
skeptical.
“That’s right,” Peter affirmed.
“Why, I don’t believe you,” Wendy declared. “A flying ship would be quite impossible.”
“Haha!” Peter crowed. “That shows what you know! I have a whole fleet of flying ships!” (This was a bit of an exaggeration. In point of fact, he had two flying ships, and only two, but that was still infinitely more than England had.)
“I don’t believe you have even one,” Wendy maintained, and she drew herself up to her full height, tilting her chin into the air, taunting him. “I don’t believe you can make a ship fly.”
“I’ll prove it to you!” he declared. Quick as a wink, he pulled a small leather pouch out from beneath the armor that covered his chest, opened it up on the palm of his hand, and blew upon it boldly. Its contents, which consisted of a small pile of golden dust, exploded into the air before him, glittering as it fell gently upon Wendy’s hair and spring riding coat.
“What was that?” Wendy demanded, somewhat alarmed.
“Fairy dust!” Peter declared. “You can fly now. Go ahead.”
“I … what?” Wendy looked down at her feet, which had not raised even one inch into the air, and then glanced back at Peter suspiciously. “How does it work?”
“Think happy thoughts,” Peter said. “The happier the thought, the higher you’ll go. To come back down, think of something sad. It takes the wind right out of your sails.”
“Um, all right,” Wendy said. She closed her eyes and thought of every happy thing she could remember. Mr. Equiano and Charlie. John and Michael. Nana and Poppy. Her new friendships with Colin and Mrs. Medcalf. And, of course, books. Shelves and shelves full of books. But it was all for nothing. Her feet remained firmly on the ground.
“It isn’t working,” she finally said. She opened her eyes to find Peter grinning.
“What is it?” she demanded.
“I was only teasing you,” he admitted. “What did you think of?”
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