The Untold Stories of Neverland: The Complete Box Set

by K. R. Thompson

  “That sounds like the place we should lay anchor,” Archie mused. Their encounter with the crocodile had not proved to be as daunting as that of the mermaid, so it did not come as a surprise when Harper nodded.

  Peter must have thought that Archie had agreed to join forces, for the boy jumped up from the branch and stood upon it and crowed. This strange commotion must have been a good thing, for Beetles and Runt began to cheer.

  Archie traded a surprised look with Harper. Somehow, without their knowledge or Archie’s consent, his fearless pirate crew had managed to join forces with a group of children.

  16

  A-Hunting We Will Go

  HARPER WAS SCOWLING so hard that Archie wondered if his face was going to freeze in that expression. “I don’t like it,” he repeated. The scene seemed vaguely familiar to Archie, as the lad had voiced his opinion is much the same way when they had brought the Indians aboard the Jolig Roger and settled them in the hold as slaves. He is even in the same place as before, Archie noted. Propped with his bum against the map table and his arms crossed over his chest, with a brown thatch of hair falling into his eyes, Harper looked more like an unruly teen than a pirate who had commanded the ship on more than one occasion.

  Archie wondered if the reason for his noticing that Harper looked younger than normal was the fact that Peter had tried once again to recruit him for his own troupe before they left the island the previous evening. The invitation had been rather bold and callous, making Archie wonder if perhaps he shouldn’t be trying to recruit Peter as a pirate.

  “You’ll get old and die if you stay with them,” the boy had told Harper in a cold, unfeeling tone, much as if his demise would be imminent the second he stepped back on the deck.

  Much to Archie’s delight, Harper had answered Peter in true pirate fashion, telling the boy in no uncertain terms, “Shove it, and leave me be, else I’ll slit your throat where ye stand. Then we’ll see who lives longer, aye?”

  Archie suppressed a smile at the memory, for now his young friend was looking murderous once again at the prospect of having to spend additional time with Peter and his troupe of young boys as their forces joined to hunt down the crocodile. Truth be told, Archie could probably have found a way of getting out of the agreement, but after discovering from Tiger Lily that the caves Peter had mentioned were just below the mountains where her people had started to build their village, he began to worry. The thought of the enormous croc being so close to her was unsettling. Better to be done with the beast, once and for all.

  So that evening, he had given his orders to leave the inlet and head east. It had taken some maneuvering to get the ship into the narrow mouth of the cove, but once they cleared the rocks, the water cleared from black to the clearest blue waters that Archie had ever seen, free of icebergs and the sharp jutting rocks that seemed to fill all of the other water. It was easy to see why the croc would prefer this part of the island. The cove widened and soon the Jolig Roger sat on a still sea as clear and smooth as glass.

  They had let down anchor and waited, the few hands on deck watching through the night for any sign that Tic-Tock was indeed present. The night had shown no sign of the massive beast and morning came, bringing only Harper to the map room to voice his opinions on the matter.

  “You can’t trust him, there’s something not right when you look in his eyes,” Harper said, a faraway look in his own, as if he were remembering. “If you aren’t careful, he’ll feed you to the croc himself. I think he would do it just to have a bit of fun.”

  “Well, we’ll have to be careful then, won’t we?” Archie replied, a slight smirk popping up to quirk around his mouth as Harper shot him another dark look. “I’m leaving the ship under your command whilst we are gone. With luck, you won’t have to deal with Peter and, hopefully, no mermaid shall show her beautiful face while we are away.”

  “That would be too much to wish for,” Harper replied dryly.

  “I am leaving half the crew under your watch. Cannons will be more useful against the croc than pistols,” Archie instructed. “You have as much of a chance of hunting him here as we have around the caves. So if you see him, blow him out of the water.”

  “Aye, Cap’n.” The lad’s shoulders slumped in resignation.

  “All will be fine, Harper. You have no need to worry. I have no intention of losing you to Peter’s troupe,” Archie grinned, watching the fire light back up in Harper’s eyes.

  Harper had opened his mouth, no doubt to give a sarcastic retort of some sort, when the pounding of feet overhead cut him off, and a cloud of dust came down from the ceiling.

  The first thing Archie spotted when he arrived on deck was pirates running in every direction. Ignoring them, Archie searched for the one he had left in charge through the night. Beckett stood on the quarterdeck, with a face gone pale under the dark stubble of his beard.

  “Out there, Cap’n.” He pointed a few yards out, ahead of the ship. “I don’t know what it is, but it be big.”

  A dark shape moved through the water, a stark contrast of black in crystal blue water. As Beckett had stated, whatever it was, was indeed large—and moved faster than seemed possible, sluicing through the water like a hot knife in butter.

  A single, white seagull had been perched on the mast. As the men scaled the rigging for a better look, it flew off and swooped down toward the deck. Upon seeing even more pirates, it changed its mind, swerving over the railing just before it would have smacked into it. The bird flew low over the water for the first couple of seconds, then altered its course and began to ascend higher in the air, en route toward the mouth of the nearest cave.

  It had gotten a good distance above the swells when a giant crocodile launched itself out of the water. Jaws open, the seagull flew between the rows of teeth before it disappeared and the jaws snapped together with an audible crunch. The body of the croc smacked the surface of the sea and sent up a giant splash that disturbed the calm water and sent waves to slap at the sides of the ship.

  “Tic-Tock,” Archie’s voice was a hoarse whisper that sounded cracked. “He’s here.”

  As if the crocodile had eaten the bird only because it had come from the ship, it dove back below the surface of the water and swam toward them.

  “All hands to quarters! Prepare to fire the cannons!” Archie managed to find his voice long enough to shout his orders. Time seemed to slow down on the deck as he listened to his orders being shouted from one man to the next, as he watched his men move slow as the dark figure in the water came toward them at a speed so fast it seemed unreal.

  No ship in the world has ever been sunk by a crocodile, his brain told him. Then a small part of it whispered—but no ship has ever been to Neverland, either. Instinctively, he gripped the railing on the quarterdeck and kept watching.

  The blur disappeared at the side of the Roger just before she quaked and the sounds of splintering wood filled the air. Had Archie not seen the croc hit them, he would have sworn they had hit an iceberg. Several of his men had lost their footing and were sprawled on the deck. Had he not kept his handhold, he would have joined them. He glanced over the side of the ship where he had last seen the crocodile.

  A few of the boards looked as if they had buckled under the blow, but the hull was still intact and the monster was nowhere to be seen. The sounds of splashing on the opposite side of the ship caught his attention. One of his men had been thrown over the rail.

  “Man overboard!” The cry went up and blended into another yelled at the same instant as his crew took their positions. “Cannons ready, Cap’n!”

  Archie scrambled to the opposite side of the ship just in time to see his lost crewman open his mouth to scream. In that same second, Tic-Tock emerged from his place under the ship and snagged him, dragging him below the surface before he had even enough time to make so much as a squeak.

  “Fire at will!” Archie ordered, watching as the pirate’s hand traveled through the water just ahead of the dark shadow beneath th
e surface, as if a last plea for help. Its owner was most certainly dead in the mouth of the crocodile that was just now within reach of the cannons.

  The loud blasts were deafening as the cannon balls splashed all around the croc. One blast hit its mark, and an earsplitting scream rent the air just before a giant, scaly tail sprayed water as it flipped in a giant arc before disappearing back under the surface.

  Then, the water colored red.

  “We got him,” Archie said numbly, as the cannons continued to fire. Even after he gave his order to cease, a couple still fired, as if wanting to make certain the beastie was dead and at the bottom of the sea.

  A few moments later the sea calmed; the only indication anything had happened was that now the surface was painted with blood.

  “Well.” Archie had forgotten about Harper, who had stayed at his side during the whole incident. “I suppose you have less to worry about now,” Archie told him. “We have finished hunting the crocodile.”

  “I doubt that I stop worrying.” Archie followed Harper’s glance across the railing, where a flying boy appeared, hovering above the red water.

  HARPER WATCHED AS Peter flew to the ship and circled the mast. Before he could blink, the ruffian had taken his little pig-sticker of a knife from his side and sunk it into the top of the sail, and slit it midway down, and then flew through it as proud as if he had just killed the croc instead of a helpless sheet of canvas.

  “Hope you plan to make him stitch it up,” he grumbled to Jameson, who stood with his hands folded behind his back, looking up at the mast with no emotion whatsoever playing upon his face. The man stood as still as a statue for several seconds, making Harper wonder if perhaps he hadn’t frozen in place as he stared at the boy walking along the beam.

  “Cap’n,” he hissed, trying to shake Jameson out of his trance.

  A single hand flattened, palm-out, behind the captain’s back as if ordering silence. Harper rolled his eyes and waited. No way was he going to be the one mending that sail, especially since there had been no call for such an action. Death guardian or no, the scoundrel would have to answer for his deeds. Harper crossed his arms over his chest and waited, muttering low curses under his breath.

  “Go below and wait for me.” The order came whispered so quiet-like that Harper thought at first he had imagined it. He didn’t move, thinking that maybe he hadn’t heard him correctly, but then Jameson turned and fixed him with his cold, blue eyes.

  “Go below,” he repeated.

  “Aye,” Harper grumbled and walked toward the steps, glancing up at the mast just long enough to realize that Peter was fixing him with an odd stare, one that sent a cold chill up his spine and made the fine hairs on the back of his neck stand at attention. There was no doubt in his mind that the boy known as Peter was also the death guardian from his mum’s bedtime stories. Whatever he seemed to be—a boy he was not.

  As everyone else was still above from the excitement of the crocodile, he found only one man below the deck.

  Boggs was propped up against a wall, clearly hammered from his latest batch of alcohol, that he had dubbed “never-right.”

  “Ah, Harper. Good of ye to join me.” He lifted his tankard up in welcome. “Have a cup, will ye?”

  “No, I prefer to have my wits about me, thank you.”

  Harper couldn’t help smiling at the jovial cook who grinned at him and shrugged. “’Tis your loss, lad.” The grin left a moment later, followed by a serious expression and a rather loud belch that sent the tattooed woman to quivering upon his belly. “I uncovered a wisdom just last night. I’ll share it only with ye,” Boggs said in what Harper guessed to be a conspiratorial whisper, though it was loud enough that likely every soul on board would hear this important secret.

  “It’s in the pixie dust,” Boggs confided, pointing a finger to a can with holes poked in the top. “The secret to my never-right. It was r-r-right here all along.”

  Arching an eyebrow, Harper took a quick glance down into the can and was surprised to see the golden pixie that Jameson referred to as Miss Bell, sitting on the rusty bottom. Noticing the shadow over her prison, she looked up, scowled at him, and smacked the side of the can with one hand in anger, sending tiny puffs of golden dust up through the holes that caused Harper to sneeze.

  “Whatever have you done, man?” Harper asked, wiping his eyes with one hand as he carefully set the can back down on the table. “Jameson will not be happy with you. He’ll skewer you with his sword when he learns you’ve captured his pixie.” He paused, then added, “How exactly did you do that? I’ve seen her fly. She’s frightfully fast.”

  “Well, truth be told, ’twas an accident of shworts,” Boggs drawled. “She flew into me cup.”

  “You jest.”

  “No! No, I wouldn’t pull yer leg on such a thing.”

  Oddly enough, Harper believed him. He had never met a pirate who had the ability to lie whilst being drunk and rarely did ever one stretch the truth when it came to the status of their liquor. If a pixie had just happened to fly into that cup, then so be it. “So what is this secret of yours?” he asked.

  “That gold dust fixes the never-right. Here, take a nip out of me cup.” The tankard was thrust at him. There wasn’t much left in it, only the dregs in the bottom. Refusing to drink anything that had been at Boggs’s lips, he bent his head to the open cup and smelled, instead. A surprisingly sweet odor greeted him.

  “It appears you are onto something, Boggs,” Harper said, handing the tankard back. “But I still say you’d better release yon fairy before the captain gets word that you’ve been using her like a salt shaker.”

  “Ach, I will. One shake fixed me whole barrel. I’ll turn her free soon,” Boggs said in a very unconvincing sort of way.

  Harper let the subject drop. He wasn’t the captain of the ship. Jameson could deal with Boggs, Peter, and the ruined sail however he saw fit.

  Boggs drained the last drops in his cup and bent over to set it down. A large lump rolled on his round belly and he grimaced.

  “Are you all right?” Harper asked, “How long have you had yon bulge?”

  “This?” Boggs asked, rubbing his wide torso with both hands in an authoritative way. “This belly has been here longer than ye have been alive, lad.”

  “No, you’ve got a place right where her bosoms are…”

  “Ah. Ye mean me belly pop.”

  “Belly pop?”

  “Aye, one day it just sorta popped out there. It no hurts unless I squish it hard. Mostly just causes gas,” Boggs replied, then added with a sly wink. “It fills Nessie out pretty well, don’t ye think?”

  Harper sighed. Having a strange bulge in the exact place of a tattooed woman’s bosoms was an odd coincidence to be sure, but being proud of it was another matter entirely. Instinctively, he covered the tattoo of Mary on his forearm and said a silent prayer in hopes that no strange bulges would mar her perfect image.

  Boggs was doing some reminiscing of his own. “Ah, Nessie.” Though Harper had not asked for any further explanation of origin or history of his tattooed woman, he continued, “The beautiful Natasha de la Costa, daughter of Juan Marco Velasco, Duke of Cardona. The greatest dancer me eyes have ever seen—and me one true love.”

  His attention captured, Harper leaned forward to hear more of the tale.

  “I was a younger lad when I first lay me eyes on her, but no quite as young as you. I was also a bit… smaller,” this followed by a light pat on his belly and a memory that appeared in Boggs’s eyes, which seemed to sober him up. “I just arrived at a Spanish port and was looking for the nearest tavern. I seen one up at the end of the street and was fixin’ to head there when I heard a scream that stopped me in me tracks. It was then that I turned and seen her. She was standing in the middle of the market spillin’ out the longest stream of curses that I ever did hear. The sun was a-glowin’ on her hair and lighting on her face. Looked like a beautiful, angry angel, she did.” Boggs sighed, forgetting that his
audience was waiting for the rest of the story.

  “Well?” Harper demanded, “Why did she scream? What did you do? And how did you know she was cursing? You don’t speak Spanish.”

  “Ach, some words are the same, no matter the language,” Boggs waved a hand dismissively, repeating a few rude words that made Harper blush.

  “All right.” Harper was ready to concede the small point if Boggs would continue his tale. “What about the rest?”

  “Well, dressed in white, she was. All ready for her wedding day.” At this point, Boggs must have felt the need to replenish his tankard of ‘never-right.’ Harper watched the man stagger to the keg and refill his cup. Such things to recall could be painful, Harper thought, so much that a drink might help numb the pain, so he waited as patiently as he could.

  Once Boggs had flopped back in his seat and downed three-quarters of his drink in one long gulp, Harper tried to coax a bit more of his story out of him. “Well, man? You can’t leave me hanging.”

  “Well, Nessie—that was my pet name for her—she was fighting. Scratching and cursing as a man pulled her along. So’s I rushed in and clocked him. Knocked him right on his arse, I did. Then I grabbed her hand and we ran away.” Boggs’s lips twisted in a wry smile. “Didn’t know the bugger was her own father and he was a-takin’ her to marry her future husband. A Count Viscount-somethin’-or-the-other. ’Twas an arranged marriage, ye see.”

  Harper gasped. He would never have imagined the rotund cook in his younger years would ever have done something so dashing and debonair. As he sat there open-mouthed and silent for a moment, Boggs stared down into his cup.