“Did he say where to bring them, or am I just to shuffle them off on the beach anywhere I choose?”
“He said to bring them to the place where you saw him last. Said you would know where that was.”
Archie knew very well the place he had seen the flying boy. It was the place where Peter had murdered Harper in cold blood. The look on Archie’s face must have been a sight, for not only did Dougherty look away, but so did Boggs.
“We will do as he asks,” Archie muttered, though he didn’t say all that he wished to say. We will do as he asks—for now. Once I have my men back, he will pay for what he has done.
IT WAS NEARLY dusk when they arrived in the dark canopy of trees. Expecting to find Peter hovering in the same place as before, Archie had come armed to the teeth with a troupe of his men behind him. Pistols and cutlasses were aimed in every direction, but what they found was their men, bound against a tree.
“These ropes be familiar,” Beckett announced, hurrying over to untie the men at the tree.
“Yes, I believe they are ours, though I hadn’t realized they were missing,” Archie said, taking in the lumps on each pirate’s head. Three out of the five were still unconscious, slumped against one another. The two who were somewhat lucid were talking nonsense about cannons.
Seeing no threat anywhere around them, Archie took to untying the ropes.
“He’s on the sh-ship,” one man managed, leaning his head back against the tree in an effort to focus on Archie’s face. “The boy is on the ship.”
“With… the… cannons,” the other added as Archie turned to look back in the vicinity of the ship. He knew that he wouldn’t see anything, due to the dense foliage of the forest, but the urge to turn to look was too great. “He said to tell you he would know if you didn’t do as you were told.”
“What do you want us to do with these boys, Cap’n?” Boggs asked, the line of Lost Boys behind peering around his round frame to see what was happening.
“We have our men, we will release his.” Archie nodded, waiting as Boggs untied the ropes around each boy’s wrists and set them free. As soon as the ropes fell, they scattered, disappearing into the forest. Only Patch stayed just long enough to mumble a quick thank you, then he vanished behind the others.
“We might oughta kept ’em for safe-keeping,” Boggs grumbled.
“No, he kept his part of the bargain. We will keep ours.”
The entire trek back to the longboat, Archie worried about the safety of the ship. In his haste, he had taken the majority of the crew with him to the island, leaving a skeleton crew aboard the Jolig Roger. It had been a foolish, ill-thought plan to take so many with him. With the ease that Peter had shown in taking a half dozen of his men, Archie had no doubt that he could best the few, unsuspecting souls he had left on deck.
Let them all be safely on board and whole, he hoped, taking his spyglass out to look at the ship, which, thankfully, was still afloat where he had left it.
Beckett’s tattooed body was the first thing that caught Archie’s eye. Flanked by the last rays of sunlight, he stood tall and imposing on the quarterdeck, looking every bit ready for any fight that would come his way. Archie’s worry disappeared as they rowed back to the ship.
“Is all well? Did you catch yon flying fiend?” Beckett asked, reaching over to give Archie a hand onto the ship.
“All is well enough. We never saw him. How is everything here? Anything new to report?”
“Nay. All quiet here.”
Archie nodded. “Keep your watch. If anything should happen, let me know. I will be below.”
He hadn’t intended to do it, but he began walking each inch of the ship. Something told him that Peter had been on the ship, even though no one had seen him. He wouldn’t have given an idle threat, his mind reasoned logically. Had we not released his men, he would have found a way to make us. He’s been here. I can feel it in my bones.
Step by step, he searched each deck and each room, finding nothing amiss until he came to his own quarters. A wave of anxiety rolled over him as he opened the door and found the contents of his map table lying on the floor.
Paper was strewn over every inch of the room. Maps had been pitched here and there and more than a few of his charting instruments had been flung in every direction. Most disconcerting was the small knife that had been sunk into the wooden surface of his table, as if it had been put there as a signature. That knife said more than if Peter had been there himself to announce his presence. It was a small blade, nearly a twin to the one he had used to kill Harper.
Archie felt his breath catch. No one on deck had heard anything. Beckett had been watching, but he hadn’t seen even the slightest sign of Peter.
His name isn’t Peter; it’s Pan. Harper’s voice popped up in his mind, reminding him of his friend’s story of the death guardian. Archie began picking up his maps and started putting his quarters back together again. All the while, Harper’s voice kept echoing in his head. His name is Pan.
A WEEK passed by with no sign of Peter. The search commenced every morning, though in an attempt to keep the focus on Peter, Archie had given his orders that no Lost Boy was to be captured. Each evening, his men came back empty-handed.
Then, it happened. As Archie walked along the beach to meet Tiger Lily, a single boy appeared, as if he had been waiting for him. But it wasn’t Peter.
“Hello, Runt,” he greeted the youngest of the Lost Boys. “How are you?”
“Not good,” the boy replied. His small face was scrunched up in an expression that looked like he was ready to cry.
“What is the matter?” Archie asked. He was more than ready to offer assistance to the smallest of Peter’s troupe, especially since the boy stayed with Tiger Lily most of the time and held his own special place in her heart.
“I’m supposed to give you this,” he said, thrusting out a rolled up sheet of paper that had been somewhat creased by his small hands. As Archie took it, two large tears escaped and rolled down Runt’s cheeks.
“Whatever it is, I’m sure everything will be all right,” he tried to reassure the boy as his own heart dropped at the sight of the familiar scroll with his own handwriting.
“It won’t.” Runt shook his head, sending more tears free to track down his face. “It won’t be all right ever again.”
Trying not to concentrate on the distraught boy in front of him, Archie focused on unrolling the paper. His hands shook as he realized that he held his map of the stars—the same one that he had charted on that fateful night before their arrival. The map that had been tucked away in his desk because he had valued it above all the others. It was the one that he had planned to use to bring him back to Neverland one day, the one that would bring him back to Tiger Lily. In his tidying of the map room, he hadn’t noticed its absence—had not realized that Peter had stolen it.
Archie looked up from the map to Runt’s tear-streaked face. The boy was staring at the back of the map. Perplexed, Archie flipped the map over, and found the reason for Runt’s intense gaze.
There, on the back of his map, was another map, drawn in the shape of Neverland.
Runt’s next words sent chills down Archie’s spine.
“Peter said to tell you that the X is where you will find Tiger Lily.”
19
The Map
SMEE GLARED AT the back of the map as if the parchment contained the secrets to the greatest evil on earth instead of a crude drawing of the island. “What, in the name of Saint Brendan, does he expect ye to do with this?”
Archie sighed. The odds of his figuring out Peter’s strange map were about as good as discovering the reasons behind Smee’s obsession with the patron saint of whales. Both mysteries would probably remain unsolved. Still, he answered as best he could. “I believe he expects me to follow it in some fashion.”
“Are you going to follow it?”
“If it leads me to Tiger Lily—yes.”
“Mmph.”
“Yes, tha
t’s my assessment of the situation as well,” Archie said before taking the parchment from Smee’s hands and giving it another inspection. Though crude, the map depicted the correct shape of Neverland as far as he could tell, each inlet and cove that they had visited were recognizable. There were also a few shown that Archie had never seen.
“Was the boy certain that she had been taken?” The look on Smee’s face told Archie that the old man did not believe Runt’s story.
“Yes, he was certain. But to be sure, I checked with her people. They haven’t seen her in over a day and have been doing their own searching. They haven’t found any trace of her, which worries me. They can track anyone. There is no other explanation. Peter has her.”
“Well, what are ye going to do? It says clear as can be at the bottom o’ the page that ye haven’t much time to be dawdlin’ about.” Smee leaned forward and placed a gnarled forefinger at the place he spoke of. Though it wasn’t quite as clear as Smee made it out to be, the words You have two days were printed in a childlike scrawl, along with two more at the bottom. Come alone.
Two days until what? Archie wondered. Would Peter kill Tiger Lily as quickly and easily as he had Harper? And if so, why? She had never done anything to him that Archie knew of. The only conclusion that Archie could come up with was that Peter had taken her out of amusement, because he knew of Archie’s feelings for her.
At that thought, Archie wanted nothing more than to rush to her aid, to follow the cursed map wherever it led him in hopes that it would lead him straight to her side, but his previous escapade with his men and the Lost Boys as prisoners made him wary. Now he wished to think every angle through as thoroughly as possible. As for coming alone, he didn’t plan on taking any of his crew with him, but if they happened to just show up in an effort to win Harper’s gold, he wasn’t going to stop them.
He traced his fingers over the map, much the way he had when charting the stars that lay on the other side of the paper. One thing worried him more than anything else. His map was torn. While Peter’s map of Neverland was complete, the paper on either side of his drawing had been ripped free, as if Peter had wished his drawing to be the only focus of his map.
“The X is where you will find Tiger Lily.” Runt’s words ran through his head, so he repeated them aloud in hopes that Smee would make some sense of them.
“That is all that he said?” Smee asked, scooting his bench closer. Once settled, he adjusted his spectacles on the end of his nose and took on a scholarly appearance as he studied the map on the table. “I see no Xs,” he muttered under his breath. “The lad be a poor map maker, that be sure.”
Archie didn’t bother stating his agreement, but rather sat and stared at the drawing, wishing the phantom x would appear. Silence enveloped them. Several long moments later, Archie jumped and pointed at the map. “There it is.”
The sudden commotion made Smee fall back, nearly off his stool. He placed one gnarled hand over his chest and glared at Archie. “Do not do that again. Ye nearly gave me a heart seizure.”
“It’s here, hidden in the trees at the bottom of this mountain.” Archie was standing now, fingertips trembling as he pointed to the drawing of a grove of trees not far from the Indians’ village. Hidden between two of the branches, near the trunk of one tree was a small, barely discernible X.
“I hate to be the one who tells you this, lad, but there be no way he left her so close to her own people,” Smee said darkly, “Not alive.”
Archie hated hearing the words spoken aloud, but the truth was that he had thought them, too. “It could be a trick. He’s tricked us before. He seems to have a great fondness for games.”
“Aye, I s’pose so.” Smee scratched his bearded face. “Hope, we will, that he is only making sport of us again.”
Yes, hope we shall. Archie looked down at the map again. He didn’t believe Peter would kill Tiger Lily, to do so would take away his fun. Still, his heart hurt at the thought of not being able to protect her.
Let her be unharmed, he sent up a silent plea, hoping that in the first rays of the morning sky, he would find her safe.
BY THE TIME dawn broke, Archie’s nerves were a frazzled mess. The thought of finding her hurt—or worse—gave him the worst sense of dread that he had ever felt in his entire life.
The row to shore that normally took a half hour at most, stretched on for so long that he wondered if they would ever reach Neverland.
As he set foot on the white-sanded beach, a new problem arose.
“Best ye let us come with ye, Cap’n,” Boggs said, patting the pistols strapped to his sides. Then, he nodded to the other five pirates who had helped row the boat. Each of them gave him a grave nod, agreeing with Boggs. “Ye never know what ye might find and then ye will be needing us.”
Come alone. The words echoed in Archie’s head, over and over. He had the funny feeling that if he did not follow the instructions exactly, that Peter would somehow know and then Tiger Lily’s fate would be sealed.
“No, stay with the boat,” Archie decided, shaking his head. “If I do not return within the hour, come and look for us.”
“Aye.” Boggs sighed, flopping back down on the seat of the boat. He landed so hard that the wood made an audible crunch as the boat squashed down into the sand.
Archie smiled in spite of himself. Should everything work out all right, it would take quite a bit of time to extract the boat from the shoreline.
After nodding a quick farewell to a disgruntled Boggs, Archie set off into the shadow of the trees. It did not take long to find the spot that had been marked on the map. Archie’s heart sped up as he neared the place. His palm slick with sweat, he placed his hand on the hilt of his rapier, expecting to find the worst. Instead, he found nothing.
There was no sign of Tiger Lily. Letting out a few low curses, Archie stalked around the circlet of trees several times over before he stopped and pulled the map out from his coat.
The parchment crackled as he unrolled it and lifted it up for a closer inspection. He squinted at Peter’s drawing, trying to take in each branch and limb that had been scrawled there. The sun streaked through an opening in the trees and lit up the back of the map, sending his own written details to shine through the back. Various stars mottled the drawing, making Peter’s workmanship even worse than it had been before.
Frowning, he stepped under the shadow of a giant tree to avoid the sun’s glare. If the map had been drawn true to form, he was standing under the tree where Tiger Lily should be. The X was hidden between two branches, high up in the tree. With a sinking feeling, Archie looked up, hoping that Peter hadn’t placed her above him in the giant oak.
A flash of white caught his eye in a forked branch. It was a piece of parchment, not unlike the one he held in his hands.
“A fine place to leave me a note,” Archie grumbled, looking at the slip of paper that seemed impossible to reach. The tree was old, half-dead, with splintering branches that popped out like dried-out tentacles. It would be treacherous to attempt to climb it.
Several ideas jumbled through his head, one after another, each crowding out the one before it.
If I had a pistol about me, I could shoot the limb holding it. Maybe the wood is rotten enough that it would break. No, the branch is too thick for that.
He tapped the hilt of his rapier with his fingertips. No way to throw it at the branch and hope to knock it free. With the luck he had had of late, he would either get his blade caught in the tree branch or skewer the paper—both instances that he would wish to avoid.
Letting out a sigh of frustration, he looked at the trunk of the tree. It was enormous, but the bark was rough and uneven. It might be possible to climb it, but Archie was betting that it wasn’t going to be pleasant. He laid his map down on the ground and walked around the base of the tree, searching for the best spot to climb.
“I detest heights,” he cursed. Finding what he thought to be the best spot, he sat down and took off his shoes. Perhaps, climbing
the tree would be like the ropes of the rigging and be easier without them.
Barefoot and heart thumping, he stood up and began to climb. After a few seconds, he realized that it wasn’t as hard as he thought it was going to be, so he calmed and began focusing only on reaching the branch that held the paper.
He didn’t realize that the branch just below it was rotten—until it was too late.
With a loud snap it broke and sent him falling back to the earth. He landed solidly on his back. The force of the fall left him gasping for air. He watched in a surreal way as the slip of paper came free and floated in slow motion, landing upon his heaving chest.
“Bloody hell,” he managed to croak as he snatched the paper off and sat up. His heart had been hammering before, but now it was ready to beat its way out of his body. He sat for a long second, forcing himself to take a single, long breath—then he opened the folded paper.
It was another map, much like the one that lay crumpled beneath him, only this one was different.
He means to send me on a wild goose chase, Archie thought, incredulous, as he looked at the section of paper that had been ripped from his own map. Once again, Peter had charted his own rendering of Neverland, and on the opposite side of the island near the coast, sat another blasted X.
“At least it looks easier to reach,” Archie grumbled, slapping his shoes back on. He gathered up his maps, stood, and made the trek back to the longboat.
“YE THINK PERHAPS we should have brought Beckett along with us this time?” Boggs asked as they rowed along on their way to the next spot.
“Why ever for?” Archie answered with a question of his own.
“Because he be a sure shot with that musket of his. He could take out the wee bugger that keeps sendin’ us in circles and we would have Miss Lily back safe and sound-like.”
“A fine time to tell me that Beckett is a good shot, Boggs,” Archie said. “It would have made hunting a lot easier had I known this sooner.”
The Untold Stories of Neverland: The Complete Box Set Page 23