Never Never

by Brianna Shrum

  She frowned. “Seems that way.”

  Hook stood and wrapped a blanket around his waist, then walked over to the window, leaning halfway out of it. The sun warmed his torso. The snow that had buried this place the night before was reduced to a couple small piles of slush, puddles melting and running in brown rivulets down the streets.

  He ran his tongue along his lips and squinted up at the sky. That familiar flavor back on his tongue. The sky that impossible blue.

  “He’s back,” he snarled, throwing the blanket to the ground and whirling away from the window.

  “Peter Pan?”

  Hook pulled on his clothes and boots and strode out the door purposefully, without giving so much as an acknowledgement to the woman. Starkey and several members of his crew were already gathered outside.

  “Captain—”

  “I’m well aware, Starkey. Time to cast off.”

  Starkey nodded.

  “Gather the rest of the crew. Meet me at the Main. And hurry.” If the island faded into nothing as quickly as it had appeared, they didn’t have long.

  “Of course, sir.”

  Hook walked powerfully toward his ship, compelled to return, knowing that if he stayed on Keelhaul a second longer, he was risking disappearing with the island, and he wouldn’t have the opportunity to return to Neverland until Peter left again. He boarded and stood, and ran a hand through his tangled hair. It was longer than it had been when they’d first come here. And there were whiskers on his face, lining his jaw and popping up over his upper lip. They weren’t more than a shadow, but they pointed to the time he’d aged since he’d been here.

  He perked up when he heard the familiar sound of a clock in the vicinity. The crocodile. The blasted crocodile. What was it doing all the way out on Keelhaul?

  Following you, whispered a voice. He backed up instinctively, shrinking into the middle of the deck toward his quarters, blood cold in his veins, and reached for his sword, starting to shake. “Pick up your feet, dogs!” he cried, muscles seizing up. “Or I’ll skewer the lot of you.”

  This seemed to quicken the pace, and Hook smiled coldly, masking the panic that frayed his nerves. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. The men boarded one by one, and Hook backed away from the wheel.

  “To the mainland!” he cried, voice uneven.

  The pirates responded with a collective shout. And they set to work. Hook stared back at his own little piece of Neverland, quivering from his head to his feet when he caught a glimpse of the massive reptile splashing into the sea and smiling coldly at him.

  Hook stumbled back into his cabin, slamming the door shut and scrambling over to his bed. He crawled in and rolled over to his side, pulling the covers up over his shoulders. Focused on the warmth. Pretended, for just a moment, that he was six years old again and his father was going to come in at any moment and dispel his nightmares of nasty creatures in the shadows.

  He shut his eyes until the cold had mostly gone away, and the thought that the massive beast was lurking just feet beneath him had mostly retreated into the inaccessible recesses of his mind. Then he sat up, one corner of the comforter still hanging from his shoulder, running his hand over his face.

  As he gazed around his empty quarters, he was immediately regretful that he hadn’t convinced a woman, any woman, to come back with him. Without a body next to him, he was reminded why he’d avoided this place for the last several Neverdays. This cabin was nothing but painful. He clutched the blanket, knuckles whitening and disappearing into the folds. Here was where he had kissed Tiger Lily. And where he’d fouled it all up when he’d gored her.

  The scene played out in front of him, hazy and just as painful as when it happened. About this time was when he would usually go in search of a distraction. But here, on the sea, there was none to be had. He slammed his hook down onto the frame of the bed. She was gone, and she would continue to be gone, and that was all there was.

  So he was left with nothing but a loneliness that gnawed through his bones.

  But crashing through the silence came a loud thumping on the deck, and then a thundering, as if every pirate aboard had suddenly taken up running and had chosen to train around him, in all directions. Hook shook his head, snapping out of his sorrow, and stood quickly, brushing his fingers over his coat.

  When he left his cabin, he was met with Starkey in his face, urgent and panicking. He reached out without a word and took the spyglass from Starkey’s hand, then brought it to his eye.

  Filling the circle was a flag, flapping and waving in the air. The emblems sent a shot of fear straight into Hook’s heart. He knew them as well as any good English boy obsessed with pirates. The only history lesson he’d ever paid attention to. There was a skeleton brandishing a spear in one hand, directing the tip toward a blood-red heart. And in the other hand, he held a goblet. According to legend, the undead fellow on the flag was toasting the devil.

  He brought the spyglass down from his eyes and looked at Starkey. Both of them said in the same breath, “Blackbeard.”

  He remembered drawing pictures of the sail, tacking it up in his room. Sometimes, he’d even pretended that that was where his father went, all those days on the sea, even if it didn’t exactly fit within the time frame. It wasn’t possible, really, that it was Blackbeard in this vessel, either. The fellow had died nearly two centuries ago. But, in Neverland, stranger things had happened.

  “Some fool child’s conjuration, no doubt,” Hook grumbled under his breath.

  Starkey quirked a brow. “Come again, Captain?”

  “Never mind, Starkey. Ready the cannons.”

  As he said this, a blast rang out, and the ship jolted and trembled. Bits of wood splintered off the ship’s side and flew into the air. Hook jumped, slack-jawed for the moment, and tried to convince himself that it was one of his men, an unusually prepared crew member already firing upon the enemy ship. But he could not lie even to himself. They’d wounded the Spanish Main. Bested him. This brought out the fear in him as well as the malice. For Hook, the two generally went hand in hand.

  He whirled around and glared, fiery-eyed, at his crew. “Fire on them, you fools! Don’t just stand there, or I’ll kill you myself,” he cried.

  The men hopped to organized action in the presence of their captain. Several of them were at the cannons, and several more were grabbing the guns. Hook and another few went for the swords. He would always prefer the sword, despite its lack of power. He enjoyed its elegance.

  The cannons fired again and again, from both sides, but he did not flinch, did not even slow down. He simply pressed forward, looking ever more the devil, wondering if perhaps the skeleton on the flag was toasting him.

  The ships careened toward each other, and the men braced themselves as they crashed. Jukes winced as a shudder rippled through the Spanish Main, and the ships scraped against one another. Hook ground his teeth, hoping the damage to the Main wasn’t too great.

  Though he had easy access to the other ship and her captain now, Hook hung back, cool and unaffected—and not just on the outside. Let the braggart come to him, for Hook was made of more than a menacing flag and a bloated reputation. He was Captain Hook.

  It was not long before Blackbeard and his band of reprobates boarded the Spanish Main. They were aggressive and loud, roaring as they jumped onto the ship. Large, with tattoos on several faces. One fellow even had a mouth full of gold and thick piercings in his nose and eyebrows. Another was short and fat and dirty, and the one beside him had to have been nine feet tall.

  Hook, however, was focused on an altogether different quarry. He took one look at Blackbeard and tugged his jacket sleeve over his hook, hiding the iron. Then, as the opposing captain noticed him, he raised an eyebrow, turned on his heel and walked easily over to the starboard deck.

  Blackbeard bellowed. Hook clenched his jaw and smiled wickedly, shrinking his hook farther into his sleeve. The beast of a man thundered toward him, but Hook remained with his back facing the ruffi
an, and he twirled his sword round and round. At the last minute, when Blackbeard’s breath was nearly upon his neck, he turned, blocking the man’s cutlass with his sword.

  They were total opposites, the captains. Where Blackbeard was hulking and terrible, Hook was thin and elegant. Where the brute had a thick and scraggly but extravagant beard, Hook had a shadowy spray of whiskers that spoke of easy nonchalance. Though Blackbeard’s cutlass was monstrous and heavy, Hook’s was light, almost lovely.

  Hook noticed the difference in the blades, and with Blackbeard’s weight on him, shaving bits of metal off his sword, Hook grinned wryly.

  “What?” Blackbeard growled.

  “Oh, nothing. It’s just that your reputation suggested something entirely different than what you are.”

  The men separated and Blackbeard came at him. Hook easily parried the slow and hurtling blows.

  “How so?”

  “Well,” said Hook, blocking and blocking again, and thrusting for good measure, “you’re large, that’s for certain.”

  “I’ve cracked skulls with one hand behind my back,” the other man grunted, movements becoming labored.

  Hook struck then, powerfully, a loud clang in the midst of the roar of battle around them. He leaned against the blade, and his face was no more than a few centimeters from his enemy’s. “That, I believe. But you don’t frighten me in the slightest. You’re strong, you’ve got a sword the size of Neverland itself, but you’ll never land a blow. There’s as much brain in you as there is in that skeleton on your flag.”

  Blackbeard fairly roared at that and slowed even more. Hook, however, was only gaining momentum. “Tired?” he taunted.

  The other man’s nostrils flared. “Never.”

  Hook smiled and came at the man, feet nearly dancing with the swordplay.

  “A man as small as you would dare challenge me?” the pirate rumbled. “I’ll split you in two in a blow.”

  “I’d pay to see that. And a man as stupid as you would challenge me? Have you never heard my name?”

  Hook mustered all the power in him and drew his sword across his chest. He released it into the other pirate’s blade with impossible force, feral scowl practically radiating from him, and his hair blew around with the blade, making his face even more menacing, if that were possible. His hook crept out from beneath his sleeve, gleaming in the sunlight. The ruffian stepped back suddenly, eyes bulging. Hook smiled, kicking the man’s sword away with his boot. Then, he held up the hook and stared down at the man.

  “I didn’t—You’re, you’re—”

  “Captain Hook? Aye. Perhaps you’ve heard of me.”

  He pulled his hook back, vicious light in his eyes, and began the slash intended for the ill-fated pirate’s chest. But he was stopped mid-swing by a small voice.

  “Wait! He’s not the captain! I am.”

  Hook turned to find a small boy staring back at him, and he raised an eyebrow, an uncomfortable sort of recognition in the depths of his heart. The little boy had freckles sprinkled across his face, cropped medium-dark hair, a mischievous look in his eye. He couldn’t have been more than eight years old, and he looked almost comical in a captain’s garb, brandishing a much-too-large-for-his-body cutlass. He pointed the cutlass at Hook, tip bobbing this way and that, as his skinny arms tried to hold it up.

  Hook ignored the odd feeling in his gut and asked, laughing, “Is that so?”

  “Yes. Now, unhand the knave,” the boy said, voice bright and loud for his size, blue eyes narrowed.

  “You dare challenge the authority of Captain Hook?”

  The child laughed brashly, in the way of little boys, then stared into Hook’s face and faltered, mouth falling open, tip of the sword crashing to the ground.

  “Father?” said the boy.

  Hook was silenced rather immediately. The boy staring back at him, he realized, was no miniature pirate. Hook was staring at a near mirror image of himself.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  WHAT DID YOU SAY?” HOOK SAID, VOICE UNSTEADY.

  “Only that you look just like…”

  “Spit it out, boy. Or my hook will persuade you.” He thrust out his hook at the boy, and the child shrank back. The threat was empty, but to an eight-year-old it was effective.

  “You look just like my father.”

  Hook breathed in and out, barely noticing when the clanging and the gunshots quieted. Daniel Thatcher behind him jerked his knife across a man’s throat. After the fellow thudded to the floor and soaked the wood with blood, he simply stood, eyes trained on Hook and the boy. Starkey and the man he’d been grappling with both stilled together. Blackbeard hadn’t yet risen from the floor, and one by one, the rest of the pirates, his and the boy’s both, had slowed to nothing.

  There was a charge in the air, one that no one could ignore. It made the hairs on Hook’s neck stand on end.

  Hook clenched his jaw, staring the boy down, peering into his eyes, which were the exact same shade of blue as his, and the little half-smirk he kept waiting at the corner of his mouth, the lips that were thin and expressive, like his. But it wasn’t him, not really. His hair was much darker than the boy’s, and the child had a prominent spray of freckles over his nose and slightly rounder cheeks. But the straight nose, the high cheekbones, the cornflower-blue eyes—everything else was the same.

  What’s your name, pirate?” the captain asked, slowly letting his hook fall to his side.

  “I am Captain Bloodheart,” the boy boasted, puffing out his tiny chest.

  Bloodheart. A name that could only be conceived in the mind of a child.

  Hook rolled his eyes. “No. Your real name.”

  He lowered his gaze a smidge, then glowered back up at Hook. Then, he heaved a great sigh. “My real name’s Timothy. Timothy Hook.”

  All the air left Hook’s lungs, and he bit down on his tongue. He blinked several times, too quickly, and noticed that all the members of each crew were gathered around them.

  “Starkey!” he shouted.

  “Aye, Captain?”

  “Send the rest of these men back to their ship. The boy comes with me.” He grabbed Timothy’s upper arm.

  Timothy blustered, but furrowed his brow until he looked quite brave and quite menacing. “Don’t leave without me, ye scurvy lads! Or I’ll have you all clapped in irons.”

  Starkey snickered, but none from the other crew reacted. They simply obeyed, walking heavily and slowly back to their ship. Timothy stumbled along beside Hook, who was forcing himself not to look at him. Hook opened the door to his quarters and gestured for Timothy to enter.

  Timothy kept his face carefully expressionless. He truly did look like a tiny pirate captain, Hook mused. But gruffer than him, apparel-wise. His garb was deep brown and weathered, layer upon ratty layer sticking to his little chest. He had worn leather straps that crisscrossed in front of him, a gun fastened in them. The boots were scuffed, his hat wide-brimmed, but not elegant, not garish. Simple. Like the rest of his outfit, deep brown.

  “Timothy Hook?”

  “Aye.”

  “Do you know my name?” he asked, voice low and imploring, fiddling with his hook.

  Timothy smiled proudly and puffed his tiny chest out, and Hook realized that his front tooth was missing. “Of course I do. You’re the scourge of the seas. Captain Hook.”

  “Captain James Hook.”

  Timothy frowned. “James Hook?”

  “Indeed.”

  “Strange,” he said, looking at the ground and then back up, peering into Hook’s eyes. Did he see his own there, Hook wondered, when he looked?

  “You’re familiar with the name?”

  Timothy screwed up his mouth and looked at his shoes for a moment. “It’s odd. I’ve heard Mother whisper it in her sleep. And Father too. I’d a brother once. Name the same as yours. I never met him, of course. Died before I was born.”

  Hook was staring at the boy, not even blinking. His voice cracked when he said, “She still does that?
”

  “What?” Timothy said.

  “Talks in her sleep?”

  Timothy took a step backward, stubby little fingers brushing against the wall behind him. “What do you mean?”

  Hook breathed in shakily and sat on his bed. “I’m not your father, Timothy.”

  “Of course not,” Timothy said, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms tightly in front of him. “I’m not an idiot.”

  “I’m your brother.”

  Timothy regarded him with shock and grave suspicion. “You’re—you’re not my brother. You’re Captain Hook.”

  “I am both.”

  “You’re dead.”

  Hook sank down further into the bed and crossed one leg over the other, resting an ankle on his knee. He regarded his brother, gaze intense and focused, and set his chin in his fingers. “That’s a truer statement than my presence would suggest.”

  The boy backed up until he reached a heavily gilded and crimson-padded chair. Then he sat, the gigantic seat making him look even smaller than he was. “How do I know you’re telling me the truth?”

  “I never tell a lie.” Hook looked up at the polished, wooden ceiling of his room then, and allowed himself, for the first time since he’d come here, really, to remember. “Your father,” he said, “he’s a sailor. When he comes home, he looks just like me, but with hazel eyes, and without all the getup. He smells like the ocean. And your mother, she loves music, sometimes more than you, you think. But it’s all right because when she sings you can feel it in your soul. And when she cooks, you can feel it in your stomach, but it isn’t anticipation. It’s dread. She’s always been a horrid cook.”

  Timothy’s little face was white; his mouth was hanging open and he was clenching and unclenching his hands over and over again. “How could you know that?”

  “I’m your brother, Timothy. I swear on the Spanish Main herself.”

  “You’re a figment of my imagination.”

  “I resent that.” Hook sat up straight and raised an eyebrow.

  Timothy got a rather haughty look on his face. “No, that’s what you are. I’m only dreaming anyway. It’s where I always come at night. Well, not dreaming exactly. In that in-between place. And here you are. You know all these things because I know them, so of course you would if I dreamed you up. Just like I dreamed up Blackbeard and my pirates and my ship.”