After a somewhat significant amount of time, he caught up with the rest of the band and collapsed onto the ground into a pile of leaves. His breaths were ragged and heaving and hoarse, and he was sure his face resembled a plump tomato.
Peter raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re here.”
A surge of adrenaline coursed through him, blood rising to the surface of his skin, a sudden, thick jolt of rage making him shake. “Of course I’m here, you nitwit. But barely. That crocodile was coming straight for me! You didn’t think to wait or come back for me?”
From the corner of his eyes, he could see Slightly’s jaw drop, emphasizing the boy’s crooked teeth and double chin.
“No,” said Peter, voice hard, leaving no room for argument.
The rest of the boys looked at their feet, but Peter stared him straight in the eyes. It seemed he’d lost him at the word “nitwit.”
“What if I’d been eaten?” James asked, quiet, menacing. The wind stilled until the air was so stagnant and quiet it felt heavy, as though it was almost sucking at him.
Peter didn’t blink. “Then you’d have been eaten.”
There was a hint of a challenge in Peter’s words. James wasn’t sure to what, but it was there nonetheless. “I want to go home, Peter.”
Peter straightened, fists digging hard into his sides. “This is home.”
“Not for me.”
The boys stared at one another for a tense minute, James very badly wishing that at this moment he had broken Peter’s second rule and had been just a bit taller. Being short gave him a disadvantage somehow, in the argument, which was rapidly turning into a battle over dominance rather than relocation.
“You’re a Lost Boy now, James. There is no home for you but here.”
“Stop saying that,” James said, his voice low and dangerous. Rage was threatening to break through his carefully constructed façade of self-control.
“Why should I stop telling you the truth? It’s what you are.”
“I’m not a Lost Boy. I was never lost. You knew that the moment you met me.” Fear was strangling him, words coming out all high and clipped and twisted. His hands had, quite without his permission, curled into fists at his sides.
“Nonsense. I only take Lost Boys back with me to Neverland. So, you must have been.” Peter shrugged.
“You know I’m not and never was, and you told me I could come here on holiday. You said I could go back.”
“So,” said Peter, flicking a hand toward the trees, “go then.”
James’s lip began to tremble—not from sadness, from rage. Every muscle in his body was tightened. “You know I can’t go back unless you show me the way.”
“I never said I would.”
Bibble shifted beside James, leaves crackling underneath his feet, and the rest of them all looked at one another and at the ground. Quiet. Charged energy in the air.
James could feel the darkest part of him expanding, taking him over. “Don’t lie to me, Peter Pan. Good things do not happen to boys who lie.”
A shadow fell over Peter’s face, and he stepped dangerously close to James. “Is that a threat?”
The forest itself was darker, more menacing, the leaves all decidedly deep green, and the boys were utterly silent. It seemed that everyone had decided not to breathe. James was not sure what to do next. Peter grinned self-importantly and turned away from him, facing the rest of the boys.
“You’re a liar, Peter Pan.”
“Excuse me?” Peter turned his head slowly back around. The salted licorice flavor hung in the dense air again. James wanted to choke on it, but he bit it back.
“I said you’re a liar.”
Peter’s eyes were barely larger than slits, and he shot a piercing black stare at James.
“Do not say such things to me, James Hook.”
James was shaking everywhere; even his eyelashes quivered. Suddenly, the fury he’d been trying to control burst out of him, and he was barreling toward Peter Pan. White-hot rage coursed through his veins as he sprinted toward him. Peter caught him by the throat the instant he got close and squeezed. Then, he threw him to the ground. James swore he could feel every bone in his body crash against the dirt. The grass hardened and curled around him, scratching at him like long, spindly fingernails.
“Do not threaten me again, boy.”
James said nothing. Who was this boy? The skipping, grinning boy from Kensington Gardens was gone, and in his place was this. Who had James trusted to take him so far from home?
He could feel the burning in his throat as he gasped for air. Had Peter really crushed his windpipe in one grab? After what seemed an age, Peter rolled his eyes and walked off. James jerked up as the grass softened again, and stood stiffly, breathing hard. His mind and heart were all awhirl with regrets and fear and desperate, stabbing, greedy hope. He looked blankly at the rest of the boys, blinked for a few seconds, and walked slowly away.
“Where are you going, James Hook?”
He jumped at Bibble behind him, when he was just inside the tree-line. “Leave me alone,” James said, such pain in his voice even the wood could sense it.
“Don’t walk too far that way. You’ll wind up in the Never Wastes.”
“I don’t care.”
Bibble looked hard at him. “You’ll care when you step on the shimmering snow that’s so sharp it shreds your feet, and when you come face to face with a Grap that’s all white skin, because it’s drained of blood. When he rips you to bleeding pieces on the ground, and the last thing you see isn’t the stars, but a muted, empty sky that looks like day-old milk. You’ll care then.”
James stared blankly at him, his bright white skin, too-large ears, pale green eyes full of real concern, and allowed Bibble to turn him in the other direction. He nodded a half-hearted thanks, and took several steps in the way that did not lead to that horror, but probably to another.
“You’ll be all right, James Hook. We all are.”
James just kept on stepping.
Thankfully, the darkness lifted almost immediately, and here it was, afternoon. He’d forgotten it was daytime, in the heat of everything.
He stepped deeper and deeper into the woods, not looking at or feeling anything. He deliberately chose not to think anything, for the only thoughts, happy or sad, that popped into his brain evoked terrible pain. So, onward he walked into the depths of the forest, which was already shifting seasons again.
Finally, the adrenaline of the encounter wore off, and there was pain everywhere. He could feel tiny bruises forming where Peter had thrown him to the earth and where his fingers had dug into his throat. There was an ache in his bones, but he doubted that came from the fall.
Eventually, he stopped and eyed his surroundings. Trees to the right of him, to the left, all around. He sat heavily on a fallen stump and stared at nothing and tried very hard to think of nothing. But as the events of the day (days?) weighed on his mind and beat his spirit into exhaustion, he found that he did not have enough energy to keep the horrid thoughts at bay. Quite against his will, he gave in to them.
He was never going home. That was the thing that hit him hardest. Never going to meet his baby brother or sister—he didn’t know which—never again going to harass Mother over her horrendous cooking, never going to greet his father at port and breathe in the salt smell of him, feel his strong arms around him. The image pounded the breath from his lungs, until he was left gasping and sweating and shaking like a madman.
Then, secure in the knowledge that he was utterly alone, he dropped his head into his hands and cried. The boy cried in a way he was sure he hadn’t since he was a little child, all needing and disappointment and urgency and lack of any semblance of control. It was as though every bit of him was dying. But, part of it felt good, somehow, cathartic.
A leaf crunched behind the wailing boy and he sat up, wiping the tears from his cheeks, looking worriedly for whomever, or whatever, had made the sound. It was a good distraction, anyway.
“Hello?”
Nothing. Another crunch.
His limbs began to tremble. “Hello?”
More nothing.
James flung his head back and forth, beginning to panic, realizing that he was by himself in the middle of an enchanted wood and who knew what sort of creature would love to eat his bones for supper?
Another crunch. At this, he strongly considered leaving. As he was about to do so, the rogue noise-maker revealed herself. James let out a huge breath and his shoulders fell, relieved beyond words when he saw the little Indian girl walking shyly up to him.
“Hello,” James said in a small voice.
“Hello.”
Up this close, James guessed that he’d been mistaken. The girl was really just a bit older than six. Seven, perhaps. She had round cheeks and a long, straight nose, and brown eyes so dark, they looked nearly black. A lovely thing, for being so small, he thought.
“I heard you crying,” she said, and she crossed her little arms.
“You’re mistaken,” he said, sniffing and sitting up straight. Despite the gravity of the situation, James was quite embarrassed at being caught weeping, and by a little girl, no less.
“I’m not. I know I heard someone crying, and I know it was you.”
James stared at the little girl then patted the log beside him. She climbed up on it.
“You’re perceptive.”
“Not really,” she said, shrugging. “Every animal in the woods heard you, I think.”
They sat in silence for a little while, James getting over his embarrassment, the girl just sitting. James wished he had a way of knowing what she was thinking.
“What’s your name?” she asked. Her skin was brown and pretty, and her voice was sweet, like he imagined a honeysuckle would sound, if a honeysuckle could speak.
“James. James Hook.”
“James Hook.” She giggled. “That’s a funny name.”
“It isn’t!” he retorted, indignant. “What’s yours?”
“Tiger Lily.” Tiger Lily smiled with her teeth, quite proud, apparently, of the title.
James smirked. James Hook was certainly no sillier a name than Tiger Lily.
She held out her tiny hand and James shook it and smiled brightly, unreasonably thrilled at a familiar gesture.
“Why were you crying?”
“You’re full of questions, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am.”
He regarded her for a second, concluding she was trustworthy. Most children her age were. “It’s just—it’s hard to explain. Well, I, it seems I can’t go home.”
Tiger Lily nodded gravely, as though she really understood what he was saying.
He wondered, briefly, if somehow, she did.
He frowned. “How did I end up crossing paths with you anyway? I thought you lived across the river.”
“I do.”
“Well, I wonder how that happened.” He stared away from her, eyes resting on the branches and the leaves and the grasses that swayed this way and that. The leaves were brighter now, back to usual, and James thought it very unfair that the foliage wasn’t darker, for his sake. It seemed it should have been, all things considered. But he wasn’t Peter. And the trees didn’t care about him.
She shrugged and stared at the ground, kicking her little feet. He figured he must have crossed the river earlier, when he had no reasonable thoughts running through his head.
The silence was nicer, it turned out, in the company of the little girl. She sat, picking at the log and examining the wildlife peacefully, felt no need to chatter on, and he was grateful for it. He felt a flash of embarrassment when tears threatened to spring from his eyes again, but Tiger Lily just looked up at him and smiled too wise a smile for a girl of her age, and the flush in his cheeks went away. So, he cried quietly for what must have been several minutes at least, and Tiger Lily scooted closer to him, unabashed and trusting, in the way of small children, and laid her head on his shoulder.
When evening began to fall, the little Indian girl slid off the log, and James finally decided to get up. She pointed over his shoulder. “The river is that way.” Then, she just turned and disappeared into the trees. James walked back, as best as he could remember, to the last place he recalled seeing the boys. After quite a bit of roaming, he managed to find the place, and he sat at the periphery. Peter noticed him and smiled, like there had been no argument, no fight, no unspeakable betrayal. Had he truly forgotten the incident? That didn’t seem possible, as it had only occurred hours ago. But, Peter, he was learning, was rather adept at forgetting things, inconvenient things, impossible things. Perhaps he truly had forgotten.
James did not return the smile. He simply laid his head on the ground outside the clearing and closed his eyes. He’d no inkling of how to get to the Spanish Main, and he feared that once they’d realized he was part of Pan’s crew, they’d turn on him even if he did know the way. Tiger Lily certainly hadn’t invited him back to her camp. And he would rather stay with a threat he recognized than risk a Grap, whatever that was, swallowing him whole in the middle of the night.
Neverland was frightening enough during the day. Who knew what emerged from its heart in the dark?
No, he would stay with Pan and the Lost Boys, for, at the moment, he had no other choice. Though his heart denied it with every fiber of its being, his mind knew that home was no longer an option.
And he didn’t cry. He didn’t fret. He lay there on the earth, realizing and accepting and hardening. That was the night that James Hook began to grow up.
PART TWO
SEVERAL YEARS (IF YOU COULD CALL THEM YEARS) LATER
SEVEN
THE WIND BIT INTO JAMES’S MUSCLES AS HE RAN, faster, faster, into the woods. He leapt the rapidly flowing river and crossed into Lost Boy territory, Indians hot on his heels. Despite the inherent danger in the situation, he was laughing. Loud, barrel laughs that reverberated off the trees. He could hear a war cry behind him and gave one of his own right back, stopping for an instant, only to be sure it was aimed in the Indians’ direction.
“Come and get me, Chief! And give me my war!” he taunted, voice loud, confident, booming. Adrenaline coursed through him, fueling his powerful strides as he neared the Lost Boys’ current encampment. The closer he got, the more distant the war cries became, until he was fairly certain that no one was trailing him anymore. He gradually slowed his pace to an easy trot and stepped into the barren clearing where Peter and the boys were waiting.
“Why are you alone?” Peter barked. “Where are the Indians?”
“Back across the river. They’re not stupid, Pan. They won’t fall for the same trick twice.”
“Of course they won’t. If you were half as clever as me, you would have got them here easily.”
James set his jaw and raised an eyebrow. “If only I were half so clever.”
Peter threw down his weapon in frustration, and the otherwise bright weather punctuated his tantrum with a single clap of thunder. James jumped. Peter flicked his hand out, signaling for the rest of the boys to come out of hiding. There would be no ambush today, and certainly no war with the Indians. James didn’t mind. Peter, as always, minded terribly. It put him in a foul mood, which was not good for anyone in the vicinity. The boy stalked off, probably to cavort with the fairies. The fairies didn’t endlessly disappoint him, it seemed.
“Bibble,” James regarded, clapping the boy on the back as he passed. He noticed with a slight smile that he was significantly taller than Bibble now and looked a great deal older. How that had happened, he wasn’t entirely certain, but he was definitely now the older of the two. Where Bibble had grown maybe a month and a quarter-inch in the last several years, James had grown by nearly five inches and at least that many years. He was sleek and tan, muscular and powerful, and regarded himself to be rather handsome, something no one could say for Bibble—or Bobble either, but that was something of a given. The twins were still all knees and elbows and too-l
arge ears and noses.
James ran a hand through his black waves of hair, which reached nearly to his shoulders, and dunked his face into the water barrel nearest him, coming out and spraying the nearby area with water droplets. This elicited groans from all the boys nearby, but James just grinned. He walked through the camp and out of it, having nothing better to do with Peter gone. Several of the Lost Boys scampered up to him.
“Lagoon,” he said, thereby creating a line of followers. The lagoon was teeming with life that day, mermaids frolicking, rainbow-colored birds whistling as they darted around in the skies above the water. He noticed the giant rock that jutted out of the middle of the lagoon, Marooner’s Rock, was empty. Likely because Peter wasn’t there to lounge around on it.
The mermaids shot James frosty looks as he removed his shirt and dove headfirst into the pool. He ignored them, which was typical. Tootles kept all his clothes on, and they about swallowed him, he was such a tiny thing. He dipped a toe into the water and slid slowly in, until the blue came all the way up to his little upturned nose. Fairhaired, freckled Simpkins dove in after him, attempting and yet again failing a perfect swan dive. Simpkins would claim, of course, that he’d executed it exactly as he’d intended. James snickered.
Most of the Lost Boys joined in, splashing one another, whooping and hollering, decidedly undisturbed by the lack of war between them and the Indians.
“Well done, James,” taunted Bobble, swimming up to him, Bibble at his heels.
James rolled his eyes. “Please. The Indians were never going to fall for it.”
“Well, no,” said Bibble, “but you could have at least drawn Tiger Lily out and distracted him.”
James swallowed and backed off just a bit. He’d been keeping his distance from Tiger Lily since she’d started to grow up into something undeniably more than a child. He hadn’t even spoken to her or seen her up close for longer than he could remember. He kept it that way very intentionally.
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