by Heidi Schulz
Jocelyn dipped, taking the older girl by the hand. “Think of something that makes you happy. Anything at all. And then just push off.”
“I can’t.” Evie seemed weighted down. It was clear that seeing the painting had rattled her as much, if not more, than the danger they were currently in.
“You can!” Jocelyn argued back. “You can do anything you want, if you just believe hard enough. Now fly!”
The ship moved faster down the slope. A split formed in the decking near Evie’s feet. She screamed, her eyes wide with fright.
Roger reached down from where he hovered above her and grabbed the girl’s other hand. He tried to help Jocelyn lift her, but Evie was firmly rooted with fear.
“Evie, you are the bravest girl I have ever met—besides myself,” Jocelyn cried. “You can’t lose courage now!”
Evie squeezed her eyes shut, as if not seeing the ship breaking apart around her might afford her some protection. The split grew.
“Courage!” Roger yelled. He let go of Evie’s hand and patted his pockets until he found what he was searching for: a small blue bottle. He bit the cork, pulling it out with his teeth. With a flick of his wrist, the shimmery liquid started falling. It coated Evie, mixing with the fairy dust, baptizing her with borrowed resolution.
The Jolly Roger lost its last remaining strength. A yawning hole opened beneath the girl. Evie’s hand was wrenched from Jocelyn’s, and into the breach she went. The girl fell into the churning guts of the doomed ship, but she did not stay there. In a heartbeat she returned, eyes open, fearless.
Evie soared.
Flight has a way of making you see things in a different way, or so I’ve heard. The ground grows small beneath you, as does everything that creeps upon it. Great lakes take on the appearance of puddles, elephants seem no bigger than mice, giraffes look like really small giraffes, and even that uncle who seems so large and brash in person shrinks until he is as insignificant as your aunt always claimed him to be.
While one part of Jocelyn enjoyed the weightless exhilaration of soaring among the clouds, another part felt encumbered by troubles. She looked over at Evie, gliding along in the air next to her. The older girl giggled at the antics of a sparrow, wings beating furiously in an effort to remain ahead of the children. The little bird muttered to himself about the affront of being overtaken by such gangly, featherless birds. He was having none of it.
Evie’s smile was genuine, but like Jocelyn, she had not left her problems behind. She carried them in a new crease between her eyebrows, a tension in her shoulders.
Jocelyn was prepared to tell her the whole truth, and promised as much, but asked Evie to be patient a bit longer. The older girl reluctantly agreed to wait until they reached their destination, when they could talk in quiet and relative comfort.
Though Jocelyn had resolved to stay by Evie’s side, she felt uncertain Evie would agree once she knew what had been kept from her. No matter how good Jocelyn’s intentions had been, her choice to conceal Evie’s identity from her no longer felt like mere withholding. Roger had been right. It felt like a lie.
Jocelyn’s other problems were no better. She was uncertain of the treasure—it seemed farther away than ever—and as such, she felt as if she had lost her direction. Without that quest to drive her, what would she do? Worse still, difficulties with Roger pulled and tugged at the girl. He had not mentioned their earlier fight—indeed he was as affable as ever—but still it lay coiled between them, unresolved.
At least she had been able to recover her sword, a fact that brought her no small sense of comfort. Roger had spotted it as they flew over the wreckage of her father’s ship. The blade had stood straight in the snow as if waiting for her. Roger drew it out as easily as Arthur did the sword in the stone, returning it to her with a midflight bow, just as poor Meriwether had awakened from his inebriated stupor. He pinched the boy’s nose in a jealous fit, then flew a wobbly course some distance away, tinkling curses and holding his head.
Though Jocelyn drew some consolation from the return of her sword, and even more from having her fairy back safe and sound, it wasn’t enough to bring her solace. For the first time since coming to the Neverland, the girl longed for home. But since that door was not open to her, she set her hopes on the next best thing.
Jocelyn led Roger and Evie toward the pirate village. They would reclaim the Hook’s Revenge.
The trio waited until dark fell before conducting a reconnaissance flight over the village. The Neverland, seemingly conciliatory now, provided them with a cover of clouds. They landed on an especially dense one, sinking to their ankles in the vapor. Jocelyn knelt, the cold mist dampening her dress at the knees, and made a hole big enough for the three to peer through.
The pirate village was indulging in an extra bit of merrymaking that evening. News of Krueger’s demise had traveled quickly, spread by flocks of gossiping herring gulls. Someone had pushed the Black Spot’s piano into the street, and a cacophony of music filled the night. Men and women danced under the light of the full moon, the streets running with rum. Lights twinkled in every window and on every ship—including, there in the harbor, the Hook’s Revenge.
Jocelyn pulled her spyglass from its pouch and brought it to her eye. Her ship had never looked better. The damage from the cannon blasts had been repaired, and the hull had been touched with a new coat of paint. Even more wonderful, as far as she could tell, the Hook’s Revenge was deserted.
Like great birds of prey, Jocelyn, Roger, and Evie swooped from the sky and retook command. The three of them weren’t crew enough to properly sail the ship, but they were able to get out to sea, far enough that any accomplices of Krueger’s could not easily reach them. Roger flew to the crow’s nest to keep watch.
Jocelyn gave Evie the blank logbook she had found and asked her to tear out a page and write a note to Smee, telling him to bring his war to a close and prepare the crew to join her. She instructed Meriwether to shake off his headache and get ready to deliver the message.
If felt good to captain again.
Jocelyn was just about to go below deck to see if Krueger had outfitted the ship with any food supplies, when the hatch banged open and a pirate emerged. His hat was pulled low, cloaking his face in shadow, but Jocelyn could see that he was not a member of her crew, and therefore, he did not belong on her ship.
Roger flew down from the crow’s nest and brandished his pocketknife. Evie had no weapon, but arranged her face into a particularly fierce scowl. Jocelyn leveled her sword at the man’s chest.
“You are trespassing here,” she said. “Tell me why I should let you live.”
The man lifted his chin, his face catching the light from a hanging lantern. I can’t tell you whether shock was greater on his face or Jocelyn’s.
“Starkey?” she asked. “What are you doing here?”
He replaced his look of shock with one of derision. “I don’t answer to children. I’ve had enough of that in my life.”
“You were going to try and steal my ship, weren’t you?” Jocelyn accused.
He felt no need to respond. Only a fool attempts to defend his actions to a child, and Gentleman Starkey was, above all, no fool.
“What am I to do with you?” Jocelyn said. She tilted her head to the side, looking him over. “I freed you from your nursemaid service, but you double-crossed me. However, you rescued me and my crew when we were marooned in the ships’ graveyard, and you told me where the map leads. I suppose that makes us even.”
He lowered his eyebrows. “I’d say that puts you in my debt.”
“We can chalk that up to a simple difference of opinion. At any rate, you did just try to steal my ship—”
“From Krueger, not from you,” he interrupted.
Jocelyn ignored him. “—so I could argue that you owe me again. I’ll not be returning to the pirate village until I’ve word that my crew is there waiting for me. It looks like you’ll have to stay on until then, or swim.”
“I’ll do neither. The least you can do is return me to shore. I’d say me telling you the treasure is under that Miss Eliza’s school is worth that much.”
Evie’s eyes grew wide. “Miss Eliza’s school? You don’t mean Miss Eliza Crumb-Biddlecomb’s Finishing School for Young Ladies?”
“Aye,” he said, while Jocelyn shot him a murderous look. She had wanted to speak to Evie, to tell her everything, but in her own time and on her own terms.
Evie didn’t seem to notice Jocelyn’s frustration. She chattered on, thrilled at the prospect of further adventures. “But that puts the treasure at my very own school! Jocelyn, we have to go get it!”
Jocelyn turned away. “We can’t. The treasure won’t be there in your time, and neither of us can go to mine.”
Evie’s face fell. “Oh. All right, I won’t be able to go. But why can’t you?”
Jocelyn kept her back to Evie and shrugged.
Evie grabbed her by the arm and whirled her around, forcing Jocelyn to face her. “What aren’t you telling me? It’s time I heard everything.”
It may very well have been time, but time is funny on the Neverland. Jocelyn opened her mouth to tell Evie all the things she had kept from her. She had quite a speech planned, but she didn’t get to give it. Before she could say a single word, a dark shadow passed over the moon. The hairs on Jocelyn’s arms stood up.
Something was coming.
Jocelyn looked up. The outline of something huge and dark blocked the stars. It wheeled, sinking low enough for the ship’s lanterns to give it form: a great black bird with a wingspan as long as the height of a man.
Jocelyn smiled in spite of herself, happy to see Edgar Allan the courier crow once more. It had been a long time since he brought her to the Neverland. He landed on the deck in front of her with a little hop.
“Hello again, young Jocelyn Hook.” He nodded politely to Roger, still in the crow’s nest, to Starkey, and to Evie, who merely stared in return (quite rudely, I might add; her finishing-school training must have abandoned her at that moment, though her frustration at the interruption is understandable). Roger nodded back.
“Edgar,” Jocelyn said, “this is a surprise. What are you doing here?”
“I am doing my job. Delivering letters.” He removed a packet of letters tied to his leg. “Please sign here.”
Jocelyn signed a delivery receipt, her heart pounding. The last letter he had brought her had been from her father. Could he have arranged for another delivery before he died? Perhaps she would find the key after all, though what good it would do her at this point, she didn’t know. The great bird shuffled through his papers and then placed a parchment in her hand. She unfolded it with trembling fingers.
The message was short, scrawled across the page in a reddish-brown ink—or was it blood?
Jocelyn Hook,
The ice and snow only served to freeze my resolve. Hook’s gold will be mine. I have taken that pompous fool Sir Charles Hopewell. Such a shame that I will have to torture him into madness before I kill him. Bring me Hook’s map, with all its secrets revealed, and I will deliver him into your care. I’m at execution dock—I believe you know the place—in your very own When, waiting, but not patiently. Come alone. Do not cross me again.
—Captain M. Krueger
The blood drained from her face. How had Krueger survived? And how could he have traveled to her When?
Roger climbed down the rigging from his perch in the crow’s nest. He took the letter from Jocelyn’s hand.
“What does it say?” Evie asked. “What’s wrong?”
Roger looked to Jocelyn for permission. When she nodded, he read it aloud.
Starkey grew interested, despite himself, “Who is this Sir Charles person?” he asked.
Evie started to answer. “My fath—”
“My grandfather,” Jocelyn said, without thinking.
The two girls looked at each other, and Jocelyn could see understanding dawn on Evie’s face.
“It’s not possible,” the older girl said, then sat hard on the deck. “I’m…I’m your…”
“You’re my mother.”
Family reunions can be uncomfortable even under the best circumstances. There’s that cousin who’s younger and more beloved, the brother who is more skilled at thievery, and the cheek-pinching maiden aunt (no doubt testing to see if one is plump enough for roasting). Still, I doubt there has ever been a reunion as awkward as this one.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Evie asked.
“I…” Too much was happening to Jocelyn all at once.
“And how is this even possible?”
Roger stepped in to explain. “People come to the Neverland from many different Whens. You came from your time—or at least the time when you are this age. Jocelyn came from hers, about twenty years later.”
“Twenty years from now I’ll have a thirteen-year-old daughter? But I’ll be so old.” She touched her face as if testing to see if wrinkles had already begun to scrawl across her skin.
Tears came to Jocelyn’s eyes, though she said nothing.
“But that means I must marry that dashing Captain Hook! Won’t my father be scandalized?” She beamed at the very idea. “What kind of mother am I? Are we friends then, like we are now? I hardly remember my own mother, so I only have a vague idea of how it works.”
Jocelyn allowed a tear or two to fall. “You are one of the best friends I’ve ever had.”
“I suppose that won’t be terrible then, even if I am ever so old.” She was obviously warming to the idea, becoming excited, even.
“Perhaps you two would like some privacy?” Roger suggested.
Jocelyn nodded and led Evie into her cabin. It was time to tell her the whole truth. “I can’t leave without you, because outside the Neverland I don’t exist. That is, if you never go home, I am never born.”
“Oh.” Evie deflated. “Well, I’ll go home, then. I’d rather go on a treasure hunt—can you believe it was below my school all along? But at any rate, that’s your adventure, not mine.” She blushed ever so slightly. “Besides, it sounds like I have some adventures of my own coming up. I’d better get ready for them.”
Jocelyn sat on her bed, her fingers picking at the coverlet. “But that’s the thing. You can’t go now. I don’t want to lose you.”
Evie sat next to her. “You won’t lose me. You’ll just have me in a different way. I’ll be your mother.” She giggled. “I’m going to dress you in the frilliest pink dresses, just to get back at you for some of your peevishness.”
“But you won’t—you can’t.” Jocelyn didn’t know how to tell her.
“Of course I can. Who will stop me from doing whatever I like? You’ll be a baby and subject to my whims.” She nudged Jocelyn with an elbow. “Right now my whims are telling me that you will want to wear giant hair bows.”
Tears filled Jocelyn’s eyes and she dashed them away.
Evie looked about for a handkerchief to give her, but finding none readily available, she tore off the edge of her own hem. “Look at the example you have set for me.” She laughed. “But I’ll have my turn in the end.”
More tears threatened, but Jocelyn refused to let them fall.
“All right, all right,” Evie said. “You don’t like hair bows. I’m only teasing. It’s nothing to get so upset over.”
Jocelyn wadded the fabric scrap in her hands. “I’m not. I mean, I’m not upset about hair bows. I wish you would have a chance to put them in my hair, and dress me in the frilliest, ugliest, pinkest dresses you like, but you didn’t. You don’t.”
“Jocelyn, what are you talking about?”
“If you go home, yes, you marry Captain Hook, my father, and you have me, but…” Jocelyn hesitated.
“But what?”
“But that’s it. There is no more. You…you die. When I am still a baby.”
Evie went very still. “Oh. I see.”
“So you cannot go back. If you stay here, you can grow old. We
can grow old together. Maybe not like mother and daughter, but like sisters.” Jocelyn’s vision swam with unshed tears.
Evie clasped her hands together quietly in her lap. She stared down at them. “We will grow older, but not really grow up. We’ll be like your pirate crew, like grown-up children, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not sure now if that’s what I want. You wanted me to go home before—what changed your mind?”
Jocelyn felt sick with shame. “I thought having you go back was simply setting things right. Putting them back the way they were supposed to be. I didn’t really like it, but I thought it was the only way. I wanted to be able to go home someday. But having you in my life is more important.”
“If I stay, you will never be able to leave the Neverland.”
“That is true.”
Evie caught Jocelyn’s gaze and held it. She spoke quietly, but her words were heavy. Each fell upon Jocelyn with the weight of the world. “If you cannot leave, who will save my father?”
Jocelyn’s tears fell freely now. Things had not always been easy between her and her grandfather, but she loved him. She had no answer.
Evie continued to look her in the eye. Jocelyn watched a series of emotions play across her face. The older girl took a deep breath and seemed to steel herself. “Jocelyn, you must go. My father—your grandfather—he needs you. You can’t leave this to anyone else, not even Roger.”
“Are you sure you don’t still have some of that borrowed courage clinging to you, making you say this?”
“I’m quite certain this is all mine.”
Jocelyn looked away. “But if you go back, you’ll die.”
“If I don’t, he will. And you will never get to properly grow up.” Evie straightened, some of her usual excitement returning to her voice. “The thing is, I won’t die right away. I’ll get to really live first. I’ll get to do a lot of things with my life between here and there. Growing up will be a great adventure. Besides…” She nudged Jocelyn again, prompting the girl to lift her eyes to her face. Evie raised an eyebrow, a mischievous grin on her face. “Captain Hook is in my future, and he is wickedly handsome.”