Forever Neverland

by Forever Neverland (epub)

  And in between him and that place where he had been a Lost Boy for so long was – the storm.

  He’d never liked them. They had been rare in Neverland, though, only arising, really, when Peter was in some sort of dark mood. Hook was the only one who could put him in such a dark mood. A storm usually meant that there would be a battle before long. . . .

  And here was another one, just as they were coming up on Neverland.

  Was it Peter causing those clouds to gather and darken? Tootles wouldn’t be surprised.

  And, as stubborn as ever, Peter had shot straight into the thunder head, as if he was not at all afraid and maybe even wanted to face a foe as invincible and terrifying as lightning. As nature.

  Tootles shook his head and clenched his teeth. Of course, Tinkerbell was headed straight for it as well. She would follow Peter Pan anywhere.

  “Well, not me,” he hissed into the wind. “Not this time.” He would follow Peter and he would help save Wendy and her brothers from Hook. But he wasn’t going through the eye of the storm. He would damn well go over it.

  Thunder rolled in the distance and Wendy stopped reading. She and Michael looked up at the ceiling of the captain’s quarters. The sound rolled overhead and in the other direction until it was gone.

  “A storm is coming,” Michael whispered. A sudden gentle but telling list of the ship to one side had Wendy agreeing.

  “You’re right. That means the trip ashore will have to wait.”

  They fell silent for a moment and then Michael stood. “They’re probably. . . battening down hatches and whatever else it is they do on ships before a storm.”

  Wendy smiled at that. She watched her younger brother as he moved around the cabin, once more entranced by the plethora of priceless odds and ends that decorated Hook’s lavish quarters.

  He stopped beside a row of instruments and gently fingered the steel strings of a violin. “Can he play all of these? I mean -” He stopped and turned toward her, wiggling the fingers of his right hand. “Without the, you know. . . .”

  Wendy shrugged. “I don’t know. But he used to be able to. Smee suggested he could still play a few.” With that, she lowered her head and refolded her papers, stuffing them back into her pocket. Then she stared at the floor, remembering everything Smee had told her about Hook and his lost hand.

  That was why she had been crying. She couldn’t believe what Peter had done. She couldn’t come to grips with that side of him. With a side of Peter that she never would have imagined existed. And she’d been writing about him all this time. Had she ever really known him at all?

  Hook was the character in her stories that was bent on revenge. Full of hate. All this time, she’d been writing him that way – and she hadn’t really even known why.

  Until now.

  She knew a thing or two about human nature. It was impossible to be a teenager in the real world and not be a study to those lessons, willing or not. And the thing about hate is that it can’t survive on evil, which provides no calories, no energy, and nutritionally speaking, is an empty substance.

  Hence, when one is consumed by hate, everything within them is eaten except for the evil that resides at the back, crouched down and hidden beneath the unused and dusty psyches in a dark corner of their being. It’s all that’s left, and without competition, it becomes a monopoly; finally unharassed and right at home, alone, in the sloughing shroud of skin that once housed a kaleidoscope of humanity.

  Wendy knew now that when Peter had taken Hook’s hand, he’d unwittingly given Hook a very real reason to hate him.

  Could the captain really be blamed if there was nothing left in him now but the evil that spangled his ocean-colored eyes and made that sterling hook flash the way it did in the light? After all, everything else within him had been cannibalized by the wanton recklessness of a little boy named Peter Pan – along with the calloused palm and nimble fingers that once graced the end of Hook’s right arm.

  “Wendy?” Wendy jumped and looked up. She’d been lost in her dark thoughts. Now Michael was moving toward her, concern etching his young features. But as he stepped away from the wall, his leg brushed the silver carved handle of one of the cabinets that lined Hook’s cabin. The door rattled and then popped open, its contents spilling noisily onto the floor.

  Wendy jumped up from the bed and Michael crouched low, both of them gazing in wonder at what appeared to be a virtual treasure trove of expensive but destroyed articles. They seemed new, but were torn and tattered, broken and bent; remnants of items that had been viciously and, apparently, violently dismantled.

  “What in the world. . . ” Michael whispered. Wendy quickly crossed the room to join him.

  A collection of calligraphy pens had been snapped in half. A glass jar filled with buttons had tipped and spilled over. Michael could see that their threads were still wrapped in the button holes, as if they’d been ripped completely off of the fabric they were sewn onto.

  What appeared to be a set of steak knives had been bent horribly and thrown into the cabinet. Beside them where they now lay on the floor, were a similarly bent shaving razor, a dismantled pistol and it’s metal and splintered wooden parts, several amulets and leather-corded medallions, and a leather-bound journal.

  Wendy lifted the journal with trembling fingers. She turned it over gingerly in her hands. A few pages had come loose inside and now rested between their sister pages at odd angles, held in place by the leather tie that bound the journal, and nothing more.

  “What is all of this stuff?” Michael asked as he lifted a medallion and turned it in a shaft of sunlight. It sparkled and gleamed, reflecting blue and green light through the emeralds and sapphires embedded within.

  It was a moment before Wendy replied. But when she did, it was with a tone so soft and so poignant that Michael found himself replacing the medallion and turning toward his sister.

  “It’s all of the stuff that Hook couldn’t use when Peter cut off his hand.”

  Wendy gestured to the buttons. “When was the last time you were able to button a shirt with one hand?” Then she pointed to the pens and the journal in her hand. “And he was probably right handed. It’s nearly impossible to write in a journal like this with your left hand. The seam of the book fights with you.” She set the journal back down and began gingerly replacing the fallen items in the cabinet. “I should know. I tried once.”

  “Well, he has pens on his desk now.” Michael ventured. “And he carries a pistol.”

  Wendy nodded, slowly. “It’s been years since it happened, Michael. He’s had time to adjust.” She paused. When she spoke again, her tone had lowered a tad. “He probably did all of this right after it happened.”

  There was a knock on the door.

  Both Michael and Wendy jumped at the sound – then glanced at one another with stark fear. Somehow, they didn’t think that Captain James Hook would appreciate their snooping.

  “Wendy, are you all right?” It was Hook.

  Wendy’s eyes widened and she and Michael hurried to put the remaining broken items back into the cabinet. She struggled to get it shut as she replied, “I’m fine! Thank you!”

  “I heard a noise,” came Hook’s slight inquisition.

  “I dropped something, that’s all,” Wendy lied. Michael knew that Wendy hated lying. She was horrible at it and it made her feel terrible. So she didn’t generally do it.

  Which was probably why Hook didn’t believe her.

  The gold handle turned on the door. It opened just as Wendy was managing to shut the cabinet tight. She and Michael straightened to standing positions as Hook appeared in the doorway.

  Captain Hook stepped over the threshold and turned his piercing blue gaze on Wendy and her brother. Michael could feel himself grow smaller in the pirate captain’s presence.

  Still – he did his best to prepare himself for a fight. He wouldn’t let anyone hurt his sister. And, if he could handle the boys at school, he could handle Hook.

 
Right?

  However, the captain did not appear to be looking for a fight. Michael noticed that his blue eyes lingered on his sister’s face – and then dropped to the cabinet she stood in front of. A single red and gold button had gone unnoticed and glinted, guiltily, beside Wendy’s right shoe.

  Michael’s eyes widened. His sister saw it too; she began biting her lip.

  Hook took a deep breath and seemed to contemplate something for a moment. Michael swallowed hard. Surely Hook knew what they’d been up to now.

  “Mr. Darling, return to the deck, please. My men need help preparing for the storm. Your brother is already there; you can assist him.”

  Michael didn’t want to leave Wendy. He could sense the tension in the air. He may be a young boy, but he was no stranger to antagonism; his classmates at school had given him many lessons on the subject.

  But as he looked from Wendy to Hook and was caught in a stormy sea gaze so intense, it caused his heartrate to double, his decision was made for him.

  “Aye, Sir,” he told the captain. For, he’d been made an honorary pirate, of sorts, hadn’t he? And rules were rules. Especially on the sea.

  Michael turned toward the open door and brushed past Hook on his way out. As he did, he prayed Wendy would forgive him for deserting her.

  *****

  When Michael was gone, James Hook closed the door behind him. He knew that Wendy had seen the cupboard with the. . . discarded items. They were remnants of a moment in time he would have given anything to forget. He wasn’t certain how to feel about Wendy witnessing any part of that moment. It was useless to hope that she wouldn’t put two and two together and realize that, when Pan had taken his hand, he had taken so much more of him than flesh and bone. Wendy was a very bright young woman.

  Hook peered into her gray eyes and considered his next words very carefully. In the end, he decided to let the matter drop. He possessed, at the moment, neither the courage nor the frame of mind to breach that particular subject with Wendy Darling.

  “I was informed, moments ago,” he said, slowly, as he turned and made his way to the table at the opposite end of his cabin. “That you were. . . .” He glanced at her over his shoulder and lowered his voice. “That you were in some distress.” He turned back, pulled a decanter of liquid from a shelf above the table, and popped the cork out with his left thumb. It was in a voice barely above a whisper that he then asked, “Are you all right, Wendy?”

  He hadn’t turned to look at her yet, but he could fairly feel her sudden alarm as he poured himself a glass of very fine rum. Billy Jukes had informed Smee that she was crying in his cabin. And Smee, of course, had dutifully come to his captain with the news.

  Most likely, she hadn’t wanted him to know about whatever it was that had her upset. But James Hook very much did want to know what had upset her. And he intended to find out.

  It took her a good while to reply, but he waited patiently, his back to her, and sipped at the rum in his crystal goblet. It helped a little when it came to dealing with Wendy. She had an uncanny and increasingly alarming tendency to set his nerves on edge when he was around her. It was the way she bit her lip. Or, perhaps, the way the sun caught the highlights in her hair. Or the new depth to her gaze that had not been there five years

  ago. . . .

  “It was nothing,” she finally replied. Hook almost laughed, but managed to hold it in. He did however allow himself a small smile. He’d expected her to say those exact three words.

  “I’m fine now,” she added.

  Hook turned slowly and pinned her with a searching gaze. “Are you?” He noticed, with some amusement, that she had picked up the button from the floor beside her. He wondered where it was – in her pocket?

  He remembered that particular button.

  It had been ripped from his red brocade coat. The one he’d worn as he’d fought Peter Pan on that fateful night. . . . In fact, it was the first thing Hook had destroyed after the battle. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be the last.

  Wendy nodded and clasped her hands in front of her. Her knuckles were turning white where she intertwined her fingers. She was very nervous. At that moment, James would have given anything for a glimpse at the thoughts most likely spinning in her head.

  “I really am fine,” she insisted, adding a quick nod for emphasis. “Any sign of Peter?”

  Hook watched her for a moment, not certain that he was willing to let the subject drop just yet. He had always been a curious individual. And when it came to Wendy Darling, whom he would bet his good hand was somehow connected to Neverland, just as Peter Pan was, his curiosity was much more than piqued.

  She stood there stubbornly, however, and waited for him to address the new issue.

  “No,” he replied, simply.

  “I gather that our trip ashore has been postponed?”

  He took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. “The leave would take most of the day, hence there is not enough time to make the trip and return before the storm sets in.” He paused and glanced toward the windows, where lightning flashed, followed by a quick peal of thunder that boomed at first and then faded into the distance.

  “Storms in Neverland are sporadic. And unpredictable. There’s no telling how bad this one will be or how long it will last.” There had also been no warning as to its arrival. Hook was frustrated; in his world, the world he’d been torn from centuries ago, he’d been able to read the skies with apt proficiency. It was a skill lost on Neverland.

  Neverland was erratic, capricious, and arbitrary. Somewhat like its favorite little

  boy.

  “Hook,” Wendy’s voice pulled him from his thoughts. A small part of him flinched at the sound of his last name on her lips. It was strange and unexpected to think it – but he would have paid dearly to hear her speak his first name instead.

  “Yes, Wendy?” he asked softly as he brought the goblet to his lips once more. He watched her over the rim of his glass as she struggled with her next words.

  Finally, she seemed to square her shoulders and she looked him dead in the eye. “What are you going to do with me?”

  The directness of the question took him by surprise. A voice in his head whispered, keep you forever. . . .

  But he ignored it, set down his goblet, and pinned her with a gaze that he knew through experience was difficult to argue with. “I haven’t decided as of yet,” he told her, firmly. “However, I’ve little doubt that the answer will make itself known soon.”

  Lightning flashed at every window and thunder followed immediately on its heels, thrumming through the room like a shockwave. Wendy jumped and hugged herself. Hook straightened and watched the windows warily.

  Normally a storm meant that Peter Pan was in a foul mood.

  However, Peter was not in Neverland at the moment. If he was, surely he would have attempted to rescue Wendy and her brothers by now.

  He wondered, therefore, what was causing the storm. And what it meant.

  At that, he glanced back at Wendy and narrowed his gaze thoughtfully. “Do you still tell stories, Miss Darling?” How easy it was for him to slip back into the roll created for him. He would have marveled at it if it hadn’t been for the way Wendy’s sparkling eyes captivated him so.

  She swallowed hard and then nodded. “Yes. When I can.”

  “When you can?” he questioned, raising a brow.

  “In my world. . . .” She paused, looking at the floor. Then she shook her head and shrugged. “They want me to stop. They don’t believe in you –” she waved her arms around them, “in any of this, and they say my stories are dangerous.”

  Lightning flashed again, thunder rocking the cabin. Wendy gasped at the sound and Hook frowned. Above them, they could hear the men yelling to one another.

  “I must go above. Remain here.”

  “My brothers!” Wendy shouted, bringing him to a quick stop as he reached the door of his cabin. He turned to face her.

  “Please, I need to know they’ll
be okay during the storm. May I join them?”

  Hook’s grip tightened on the door. There was no way he would allow Wendy to go below securely battened hatches with his men. She would remain here with him.

  “The storm has little wind, Wendy. If it were going to be worse than I believe it will be, I would either insist that we brave the waves and go ashore to leave the ship or raise the anchor and attempt to sail away from it,” he explained. So far, it was the truth. The storm was loud with thunder, but the ship was not listing or pitching as it would in hurricane winds. “Your brothers will be fine below deck with my crew. You will remain here in my cabin.” He tried to urge some gentleness into his tone. “It’s where you’re safest.”

  With that, he opened the door and left the room, shutting it once more behind him.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Outside, the gathering wind played with his hair, sending it flying about him in wild locks of raven black. He stood there, on the threshold of his quarters, and fingered the small gold key around his neck.

  Then, before he could change his mind, he lifted the key off and locked the door. When he was finished, he lowered the gold chain over his shoulders once more and tucked it beneath his black undershirt. Then he lifted his face to the darkening skies.

  He might be wrong about the storm. The clouds were roiling overhead, deepening and growing taller. There was a chill in the air around him. Someone called to him from the shrouds on the foredeck. He glanced in their direction. Then he stepped away from the door, wondering if he’d made the right choice.

  *****

  Wendy stared, wide-eyed, at the door that Hook had just locked.

  He locked it! He locked me in! Her mind screamed the accusation. She could die in that cabin! She was no fool! In storms, ships were unstable – anything not locked down and securely fastened in place could fly around the quarters and knock people unconscious or kill them outright. The ship could go down, in fact, and she would be there, locked in the cabin, to go down with it!