Peter Darling

by Austin Chant

  *~*~*

  "Where on earth did you find that?" Hook exclaimed, as Peter dumped a pile of wood on the ground beside him.

  Peter took the flint from him and began striking sparks into the pile of kindling. The dry branches lit easily, smoking and then sprouting small orange flames like fungus. Soon they had a fire blazing, heat washing over them.

  Hook startled when Peter told him of the dead tree. "A fairy commune. Of course."

  "Of course?"

  "Red Dog was obsessed with fairies. He devoted his life to studying them, when he wasn't playing pirate. He naturally would have chosen a hiding place for his treasure that had something to do with the fae." Hook gazed thoughtfully at the crystal high above them. "I suppose these caves must have been a gathering place for them, once."

  The spark was back in his eyes. He smiled at the look on Peter's face. "This is the kind of thing that enchanted me as a child," he said. "Buried treasure, lost fortunes, mystic places…"

  Peter tried to picture Hook as a little boy exploring caverns like these, pretending to be a dread pirate. It was funny, but it made him feel odd. He hadn't realized they had so much in common.

  "Even if we find the treasure, you're not going to be able to carry much gold out of here, you know," he said.

  "I'll see to it that we mark the entrance so I can return and claim the lot of it," Hook said. "And not all treasure is gold and jewels."

  That caught Peter's attention. "It's not gold?"

  Hook sighed, a little dreamily. "Oh, he had the requisite fortunes. Vast quantities of stolen riches, heaps of diamonds, mountains of pearls—everything you could dream of. But he also had a coat made of spider silk that took a million spiders to spin, and a pair of merskin boots said to be made from the freely given scales of a mer queen. A wardrobe fit for a god. That was his real treasure."

  Peter stared at him. "Are you serious?"

  "Why wouldn't I be?"

  Peter didn't know how to answer, except: "Did he really leave his clothes with his fortunes?"

  "I bloody hope so," Hook said. "I certainly never found those boots anywhere else I looked."

  Eleven

  Despite the fire, it was cold—but when Hook woke, he found himself uncomfortably warm.

  He had slept for a long time, drifting in and out of consciousness, the fading glow of the embers the only way by which he could tell time. They were in total darkness when at last he was fully awake. He only knew Pan was still there because he had stretched out one of his legs in his sleep and draped it across Hook's ankle.

  Between the fever and his inability to see, it was hard to feel quite real. Hook nudged Pan with his foot until he heard an answering groan and levered himself into a sitting position. He couldn't put any weight on his injured shoulder; razors went through it when he tried, a sharp pain that burned for a long time afterward.

  Pan managed to create a sort of torch out of a few white branches, although it would not burn long before it started eating at his fingers. When he lit it and saw Hook's face, he paled a little, concern obvious. "We've got to find a way out soon."

  "I agree," Hook said, cradling his arm against his chest.

  Pan took a deep breath. "Do you know anything else about Red Dog's treasure? Any other clues? What was the symbol he used to mark the right way out?"

  "It was a fairy. I'd sketch it, but I haven't anything to draw with."

  "Why a fairy? Why did they interest him so much?"

  "Red Dog was a private and mysterious man," Hook said. "A vicious brute, you understand, but he also wrote a lot of strange poetry. He was full of contradictions, and I've always believed he was as human as you and I, so perhaps he knew that the fae were more real than the other inhabitants of this place. He would sketch them in all their various forms—he was a bit of a naturalist as well as a pirate. I still have the book of sketches his cabin boy gave me."

  Pan screwed up his face. He was not, as far as Hook could tell, a great fan of puzzles. "So… what does that tell us?"

  "Nothing. I don't know anything else useful about the treasure or its location. Sylvester had never seen it—no one aside from Red Dog saw these caves and lived. He murdered every member of his crew who helped him carry the treasure to its resting place."

  "Who's Sylvester?"

  "The cabin boy," Hook said. "A fine man with a finer ass."

  Pan spluttered. "What?"

  "You heard me."

  Pan seemed to have nothing to say to this. He leapt to his feet, leaving the torch, and stalked off abruptly into the shadows.

  "Where are you going?" Hook heaved himself reluctantly to his feet. "Pan!"

  "Sitting here won't help us," Pan shouted back. "Do you want to die in this cave?"

  "Slow down," Hook said, going after him with the torch. He'd not taken Pan for the type to get upset over a mention of his attraction to men, least of all after he'd been so contrite over Samuel.

  Nonetheless, it had apparently gotten under his skin, because Pan did not slow down. He walked too quickly for Hook to follow, and soon Hook was reduced to calling after him, having lost track of his shape in the dark. He was beginning to feel genuinely worried and more than a little angry when, in the distance, there was a flash of light.

  "What was that?" Hook yelled.

  For a moment, there was silence. Then Pan shouted back, high and startled, "I think I've found it!"

  Hook hurried toward his voice, moving as quickly as he could. His body was weak and resisting and it seemed to take an age before the torchlight glanced off Peter's narrow form. He was standing beside the entrance to a tunnel.

  Peter stretched out and touched the wall. Light flared where his palm met the stone. Approaching, Hook saw a rough sigil cut into the wall. It contained several skinny loops that might have been stylized fairy wings. "I just touched it," Peter said, his eyes wide. "I touched it and it lit up."

  "That's it," Hook breathed. He reached out and stroked the sigil, but its light faded. "Why does it glow for you?"

  "I don't know," Peter said, a little smugly. "Why doesn't it glow for you?"

  He reached out to the wall again, and Hook saw the thin gash he had opened across his palm to summon the kraken.

  "Blood," Hook said thoughtfully. "Like a sacrifice?"

  He ran his fingers through the flaking blood on his shirt and pressed them to the sigil. Nothing happened, and Pan looked even smugger. "Just my blood, then," he said.

  "Don't look so proud of yourself. I'm the one who cut your hand, so really…"

  "I can't help it if I've saved us," Pan said. "Shall we go?"

  Hook sniffed and peered down the tunnel. "Well, I have no guarantee that there aren't traps down this way as well, but it's the best chance we have. Well done."

  They went into the corridor together, the air damp and stale within. There was no light, but a few meters in, there was another rough carving in the wall. When Pan touched it, the passage was bathed in a soft glow. The ceiling was made of jagged crystal which sparkled above them as they walked. Every so often there was a carving in the stone, so as one faded, they would reach the next without ever losing vision.

  Hook was staring at the latest fairy sigil as they passed it, wondering, when it suddenly hit him.

  "Fairy dust," he said, snapping his fingers.

  "What?"

  "It's in your blood," Hook said, pleased in spite of himself for having solved it. "That's why you can fly—Tinker Bell told me she gave you that gift."

  She had, at times, expressed a certain regret for giving Pan that kind of power.

  "So?" Pan asked.

  "So," Hook said impatiently, "that's why the sigil reveals itself for you. It needed fairy dust, not blood. Ingenious, really. I never thought I'd need pixie dust to find the way to Red Dog's treasure."

  Pan looked at his hand like he didn't quite recognize it. "She was always looking out for me," he said at length, and then fell quiet for a long time.

  *~*~*


  It was a good thing he had the merskin boots in mind as he continued, because Hook didn't know what else would have kept him walking.

  The crystal passage went on for an eon, and as it did, Hook's fever worsened. He was beginning to have the unnerving feeling that he wasn't as concerned as he should have been; the fever wrapped him in a haze that was almost pleasant, dulling his thoughts.

  He had survived worse, he told himself. Nothing in Neverland had ever managed to kill him before, so a little knife wound inflicted by Peter Pan wasn't going to do it either.

  But his temperature continued to climb, even as Pan shivered and hunched his shoulders against the cold damp of the passage, and with each step Hook wasn't sure if he was about to float away or crumple to the floor.

  When at last they reached the treasure room, he hardly noticed at first. It took Pan gasping and rushing ahead for him to realize that the latest twist in the passage looked different; he had been halfway asleep on his feet.

  The treasure room itself was rather shabby. It was the only part of the caves that showed signs of having being shaped by human hands, aside from the trap in the tunnel. Shelves built into the walls were coated in years' worth of dust, and wooden support beams held up the ceiling. Glowing sigils lit the room at regular intervals, and in the center there was a mass of rusty chests.

  On the other side, a small door was set into the rock. Pan put his shoulder against it, grunting as he shoved. "It's stuck," he said. "The kraken shaking everything up must have squashed it in. Give me a hand."

  "Now, wait a minute," Hook said.

  He was amazed to discover that the treasure chests were unlocked; apparently Red Dog had been confident enough in his traps that he hadn't felt the need for keys. The hinges, however, were rusted stiff. Hook pried open the first chest and found himself face-to-face with a small ocean of polished sapphires.

  His mouth fell open. He dipped a hand into the chest, feeling the jewels' smooth edges slide over his fingers, and scooped up a handful.

  "Pan, come over here."

  Pan came obediently, although he looked exasperated. "You know where to find the cave now," he said. "There's no need to look at the treasure."

  "I need a rest anyway," Hook insisted, partially because it was true—it was getting worryingly hard to keep his eyes open. "And I don't trust you not to collect your Lost Boys and raid the cave before I can get to it."

  "I'd hold those boots for ransom," Peter said.

  "Exactly. And speaking of boots, help me shift this chest."

  Peter took most of the weight as they shunted the collection of sapphires to one side. Beneath it was a painted chest held shut by a dozen tiny clasps. "This looks special," Hook said, and set about undoing all the clasps. There was a gulp of air as the lid lifted, as if a seal had been broken.

  A golden crown lay on top, set with sapphires and emeralds. Each precious stone was wreathed with tiny blue and green pearls, and the largest sapphire was placed in the center of a stylized trident.

  "Poseidon's circlet," Hook said, his heart pounding. "A crown for a sea king."

  Pan snatched it. He danced out of arm's reach like he expected Hook to grab it back, and then placed it on his own head. "For the king of Neverland," he said.

  "No one crowned you."

  Pan grinned, the circlet slightly too large and slipping over one of his ears at a jaunty angle. "I don't need anyone to crown me," he said, unruffled. He picked up a polished silver platter from a nearby chest and studied his reflection in it, looking pleased by whatever he saw.

  Hook scowled after him, resisting the words on the tip of his tongue. It suits you, he wanted to say, against all his better instincts. The crown made Pan look like a lazy young god, his curly hair spilling out under and over the golden rim. His eyes matched the jewels in their gleaming. Prince of runaways, Hook thought, and caught his breath and looked away.

  He had an irritating notion that Pan didn't realize he was handsome, but Hook was going to reveal that to him by accident if he wasn't careful.

  He refocused his attention on what the crown had been resting upon: a silk coat, pale gold, trimmed with black velvet. Hook ran his fingers over the fine stitching, scarcely daring to believe it. "There it is," he whispered. "Spider silk." He picked it up, holding it up in the matchlight, watching it shine. "Pan, look."

  "I'm looking," Pan said.

  "You must admit it's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen."

  "You said we were telling stories," Pan said. "You didn't admit that the only story you wanted to tell was about clothes."

  "Clothes, adventure, and a worthy opponent," Hook said, shooting him a look. "Who could ask for more?"

  Pan turned pink and swiveled away, and Hook returned to digging through the chest. His fingers brushed over the texture of scales, and he lifted out the merskin boots with an involuntarily lustful sound. His shoulder throbbed when he lifted his arm, but Hook ignored it; the fever was helping to dampen the pain, making him drift. And anyway, the boots were knee-high and covered in blue-black scales, giving them a gloss like blackbird feathers.

  They were beautiful, and they appeared to be his size. "God above," Hook said.

  "We should go," Pan said. "You can't take the coat now, anyway, you'd bleed on it."

  Hook dropped the boots back into the chest with a scowl. "Take that crown off, then. You can't bring it with you either."

  He was almost sorry when Pan obeyed, laying Poseidon's circlet carelessly on a nearby chair. Then again, the most unfortunate thing of all was that taking off the crown didn't make him look any less regal. That was all in his bearing, in his arrogance and grace.

  Standing up made Hook dizzy, but at least it gave him an excuse for feeling his stomach turn over as he approached Pan at the door. "Go on, then," he said. "Lead the way."

  Twelve

  The door did not go quietly. Peter bruised his arm trying to shove it, and in the end it took him and Hook pushing together until Hook's face turned gray to force the door open. They emerged behind a waterfall that cascaded into a shallow lake, showering the surrounding cliffs with mist. Sunlight flooded over them, streaming through the waterfall and dappling on the rocks.

  It was a beautiful day. They were at the place where the mountains met the wildest forest, which was in full bloom.

  "Here," Hook said. "There's a path around to shore." He began to pick his way tentatively across a narrow rocky ledge. He was still extremely pale; the strain of opening the door seemed to have taken the last of his strength. Peter flew along beside him, ready to catch him in case he slipped. When they reached the shore Hook sank to the ground abruptly, like his legs would not support him. When Peter moved closer to him, he could feel the heat radiating from his skin.

  "What is it?" Peter asked, though he knew the answer.

  "What do you think?" Hook asked between gritted teeth.

  He struggled with his sleeves, trying to pull off his coat. Peter wrestled him free of it and pulled his tattered shirt over his head. Blood had soaked through the makeshift bandages on his shoulder, and they gave off a sharp, unpleasant smell. Peter unwound the bandages slowly, afraid of what he would find underneath. The wound was tender; Hook jerked and swallowed a curse when the cloth peeled away from it.

  The gash itself didn't look markedly worse than before, but all around it the skin was inflamed, blotchy red with spidery dark veins extending out from the wound.

  "Is it infected?" Peter asked helplessly. This would never have happened in the Neverland of his childhood.

  "I should think so," Hook said. He looked down at the wound and then away, heaving a painful breath. A few beads of sweat rolled down his chest.

  "What do I do?"

  Hook flashed an anxious grin. "I don't suppose you have any more pixie dust up your sleeve," he said.

  "No," Peter said. But a second later he lurched to his feet, leaving Hook on the ground. "Wait. Hold on!"

  He sprinted off into the forest, crashing in
to the underbrush and tripping down the hill it had concealed. He caught himself in midair before he could hit the ground and scrambled on, half running, half flying.

  He scanned the brush, the greenery tearing past him uninterrupted until—at last—he saw a familiar gleam of silver.

  A fairy hive was wrapped in the boughs of a tree, swathed in papery gray silk. Peter seized the hive and shook it until the fairies came out, buzzing furiously and biting at his arms. "Stop it!" he cried. "It's me, Pan!"

  Several more of the fairies bit him before they were satisfied. They were sluggish to follow even when he explained that he needed help, glaring at him with angry yellow eyes. He shouted until they came streaming after him, a procession of seven, all of them with shining black fur and sheet-glass wings.

  Hook had slumped over when they returned, and for a moment Peter's heart stopped; he was irrationally afraid that Hook had managed to die in his absence. But when they saw Hook, the seven fairies began to buzz nastily, and Hook stirred.

  The fairies bared their teeth and rushed at him. "Wait!" Peter yelped, leaping in front of them. "You have to heal him! I owe him."

  "Heal Hook?" hissed the largest fairy, its tiger eyes bulging.

  "I owe him a debt," Peter repeated.

  "Good Lord," Hook said, faintly. He made a quiet sound of terror when Peter moved aside and let the fairies land on him. "Oh, no."

  "They won't hurt you," Peter said, crouching beside Hook's head and glowering at the fairies. "Help him, or I'll tell the fairy queen that you let a friend of Peter Pan die, and she'll tear your wings off."

  "Will she?" Hook murmured in a tone somewhere between amusement and horror.

  The fairies hovered around the wound on his shoulder, glowing, and an evil-smelling smoke began to pour from the gap in Hook's skin. Peter looked away, the reminder of Tinker Bell landing in his gut with the strength of a punch. Hook's hand lay limp and pale on the ground beside him. Peter had the sudden urge to reach out and take it, to squeeze it in reassurance.

  He stood instead, backing away and leaving the fairies to their work. He thought he saw Hook turn his head after him, but when he looked back, it appeared Hook had just fainted.