JACK WENT SLOWLY deck by deck, checking each man he came to. Thus far, everyone seemed fine. When he made it to the last door, he took a deep breath and knocked.
“Aye?” came the irritated voice from inside the galley. “Breakfast will be ready soon enough. Patience be a virtue. Go look fer some.”
All alive and accounted for. Jack let out a content sigh. Then, he stopped. Well, all but Murphy.
The door swung open to show an unhappy, though no older, Boggs, who frowned at him. “Not like ye to loiter about behind closed doors. What is it, lad? If the cap’n sent ye to check on the state of his breakfast, tell ’im I’ll be there presently.”
“No, no…” Jack held out a hand. “He only sent me to check on the crew. He wanted to be sure everyone was all right.”
A look of understanding passed in the man’s eyes. “Who be dead? O’Reilly? Or was it Patterson?”
“Bob Murphy.”
Boggs looked shocked for a moment, as he’d been giving names of the older pirates on board. The expression on his face turned grim. “This cursed island be a mystery. Tell the cap’n all be right as rain here and breakfast will be done shortly.” In response, something on the stove hissed and a boiled over, sending Boggs into a mad flurry of rearranging pots.
Still, Jack wanted to be sure his plan had worked. “Boggs?”
“Hmm?”
“The lady tattooed on your belly. Do you remember who she was?”
Boggs turned back to look at him, in spite of the food threatening to burn on the stove. “Aye, lad,” he said in a voice so soft that Jack had to strain to hear him. “Aye, I do. Not a night passes by that she doesn’t haunt me dreams.”
3
A New Mother
TINK SCOWLED AS she zipped through the air over Peter’s head. She had the overwhelming urge to pull his hair again, just as she’d done earlier when he decided to bring two more Lost Ones and a mother to Neverland. He’d only been after the mother. Taking the two boys had been an afterthought, once they had all figured out how to fly.
He hasn’t learned anything from the last time, she thought angrily. These two boys most certainly weren’t dead—and neither was the mother girl. Something told her this was going to be even worse than the time he’d brought the smallest Lost One, the one he’d named Runt.
Ugly girl, she fumed, dropping away from Peter’s head to glower at the wobbling girl, who flew like a one-winged bird. Ugly, ugly girl. Peter never should have brought these three to Neverland—especially her. This one was, by far, his worst choice.
I’ve taken care of my Lost Ones well enough without any help. Only the smallest one has grown up. All the others are fine. They have me. They don’t need a mother. To prove her point, Tink had deliberately evaded sprinkling the mother girl with dust for the last half of the journey in hopes that she’d drop from the sky like a rock. So far, it hadn’t worked, though her flying was becoming more erratic by the moment.
Tink looked at the two boys, who were doing much better than their sister. It wasn’t their fault Peter had dragged them along for the journey, so she flew over their heads just long enough to ensure that they would have enough magic to make it to the island safely, then she planted herself directly in front of Peter long enough to stick her tongue out at him.
Once she was sure he knew the extent of her displeasure, she flew ahead, remembering the last place they had left Patch, Round, Morbert, Tootles, and Scuttle. Her Lost Ones might be needing her now and she needed to check on them. She’d been gone far longer than she liked. If the mother girl managed to make it to the island, she’d figure out what to do then, but right now, she had more important things to do.
The clouds below her cleared and the first thing that caught her eye was the ship that sat on the bright blue sea like a small brown dot as it sailed back toward the island. Her smallest Lost One lived there now with the others she’d managed to bring to Neverland, but he wasn’t small any longer. He was as grown up as the others he’d chosen to live with. Grown or not, he was still hers and she liked to check on him from time to time, even if he didn’t look like the little boy he had once been.
I’ll fly over and see if I spot him, she decided and zipped down to the ship for a quick look around. It didn’t take long to find Round and Patch tied to a big, limbless tree in the middle of the ship. She flew down and hovered right in front of their faces. Neither of them looked pleased to see her, in fact, they didn’t seem to see her at all. She flew directly in front of one of Round’s eyes and waved her hand back in forth in front of it. She could see her reflection, but still he didn’t acknowledge her at all. She did the same thing to the other eye, and then flew over to Patch and practiced the same maneuver on him. It was as if they were busy thinking of something else and weren’t there at all.
It wasn’t unusual for them to be on the ship. Adventures were very important to her Lost Ones and she knew they were probably willing to be captured. Such was the way of some adventures. Still, they had never acted like this before. Something had happened while she was gone—something was terribly wrong. She turned. All of the pirates seemed to be busy looking at an old grown up, lying on the wooden floor. That one was so still she wondered if he didn’t have any life in him. It seemed the others were thinking the same thing as they poked and prodded around on him. Luckily for her, they were all so worried about him, she hadn’t been noticed and likely wouldn’t be any time soon.
So Tink turned and patted the two boys’ hair and quietly chimed in their ears that everything would be all right, then zipped back up into the sky as fast as her wings could take her.
She found Peter a moment later, flying slowly as he coaxed the mother girl along as she wobbled and weaved in the air.
“Keep thinking happy thoughts, Wendy. Not much farther now,” Peter said. Ignoring the girl, the pixie flew to the side of his head.
“Round and Patch need our help,” Tink told him, gripping the soft edges of his ear to be sure he heard her. When he didn’t respond to her, she remembered the name he used for Round—“Beetles and Patch need our help!” she clarified. “They’ve been captured!”
He brushed her away. “Not now, Tink. Can’t you see I’m trying to help Wendy?”
The pixie turned loose of his ear, then begrudgingly flew over the girl’s head, dumping a sufficient amount of dust in her long, scraggly brown hair. Immediately, the girl stopped bobbing around in the air and began flying evenly.
“Thank you,” the mother girl said, giving her a bright smile.
Tink scowled in reply, and repeated her chime loud enough that even the pirates far below should be able to hear, “Hook has the Lost Ones. They need us to save them.”
Peter still didn’t seem all that anxious. He shrugged. “Runt will bring them back and turn them loose. He always does. They always play these games when we are gone, Tink. They just don’t think I know about it.”
The pixie pondered this bit of news over for a second, then shook her head. Having an adventure was one thing, but whatever had happened in this game was something completely different. The ship had been silent as the pirates looked at the old one. An idea came to her. There was one thing that Peter hated more than anything else…
“Hook had taken them away,” she told him, crossing her arms over her chest. “He’s making them grow up like he did with Runt.”
Well, that got a response. She fought to keep the smile from her face as a murderous look took over Peter’s. Without a word, he dropped through the sky, heading toward the ship.
“Wait! Wait for us,” the mother girl called out as Tink followed him.
Not likely, the pixie thought. My Lost Ones are far more important than you.
THE FAMILIAR CROW was the first indication that Peter had arrived, the next being the giant slice in the sail that had been in the process of being rolled up.
Jack winced as he looked up from his place in the rowboat. If there was one thing the captain didn’t care for, it was Peter
Pan. If there was a second thing, it was anything causing harm to the Jolig Roger. The cut was large enough the boy flew through it. Then Peter Pan swooped down toward the deck, and out of Jack’s sight. An instant later, he popped back up and scanned the deck, as if he was searching for something. Once his gaze landed on Jack and the two boys in the rowboat a short distance from the ship, the dark look on his face left and he laughed. A few crackling shots rang in the air as the pirates began firing at the boy, but the boy dodged around the mast.
When a girl and two small boys dropped from the clouds and hovered above the ship, the shots ceased, whether from the shock of seeing three other flying children or from the worries of shooting more holes in the Roger, Jack didn’t know, but he was sure the lull would be a short one.
A small streak of gold flew down from the deck and hovered in front of him.
“Hello, Tink,” he managed to say before being assaulted with a barrage of chimes that sounded both accusatory and concerned as the pixie zipped from Beetles to Patch to him and back again. No doubt she was worried about the two boys, but she seemed to be inquiring about his well-being at the same time.
“I’m taking them back to the island. They’ll be okay,” he told her. “And I’m fine, too.” Then he glanced up, “You might want to let Peter know that I don’t think his new Neverlings are safe there. If he cares anything for them, he’ll get them away from here before Hook tells the crew to start shooting again.”
Tink stopped for a second and cocked her head to one side, as if she were contemplating whether or not that would be such a terrible thing, then she sighed and took back off in a splash of golden dust, a second later appearing as a small sparkly bit around Peter’s head, no doubt relaying Jack’s words to him.
Peter looked down and gave one solemn nod before flying up to join the children and together they disappeared into the clouds just as another volley of shots rang out.
Once it was apparent that his men were shooting at nothing, Jack heard Hook call for the crew to cease firing. Jack waited another moment to be sure there wouldn’t be another order called out to him and when it didn’t seem there would be, he began the chore of rowing toward the island.
The two Neverlings had been silent ever since they had woken up at their place at the mast. They’d sat there, motionless, as Peter flew above the ship and as Tink flew only inches from them, never so much as uttering a single word. It was unlike them. In fact, Jack couldn’t remember the two boys ever having been so quiet. They’d even gotten into the boat without their usual sarcastic comment of “thank you for your hospitality” to Hook upon leaving. Jack had waited for it, and from the way the captain had paused in front of them, he’d expected it too. But the two said nothing, only took their places and waited to be taken back to shore.
Now the tide was coming in and the water was beginning to get choppy, so he tried to ignore the strange behavior of the two boys and concentrated instead of making sure not to get near any rocks.
It was doubtful the mermaid who had saved him the day before was going to be there to guide him again today, but the unexpected thought of her made him want to peer into the water in hopes of seeing her beautiful face.
He shook his head. It wouldn’t do to get preoccupied with her now. He glanced over his shoulder and spotted a crooked wooden sign hung precariously on one jutting rock at his left. Shallows. Ye be warned, it told him. Each time the pirates had a mishap, they’d gone to making some sort of sign to warn others in the crew. Being as the pirates were a suspicious sort, there were such signs scattered across the island. Jack had seen many of them. Some of them were legitimate, while others were a matter of opinion. Once he’d seen a sign at the bottom of a tree, an arrow pointed up at the branches where a honeybee’s nest sat.
No worth it. Ye be warned. The maker of that particular sign had been Bob Murphy, who had fallen out of said tree and suffered a broken finger.
The thought of Murphy made Jack turn his attention back to Patch and Beetles. In a few more strokes, they would be at the shore, and were clear of all signs of the rocks. The taller boy seemed lost in thought, oblivious to everything around him. Beetles, on the other hand, was staring directly at Jack. “The one Pan brought isn’t right,” he said finally.
The boy startled Jack so badly he nearly dropped an oar. “Beg your pardon?”
“The mother Pan brought today. She isn’t right,” the boy said again. He crossed his arms and hugged his middle, as if he had suddenly gotten cold. “I remember my mother…” He stopped and glanced over at Patch. “…and he does too. Our mothers didn’t look like her.” His gaze locked onto Jack’s. Knowledge and understanding gleamed in his eyes. “We remember who we were when he found us. We know why Neverlings don’t grow up.”
Patch’s voice cut in, quiet yet accusing. “And we know why you did.”
ONCE JACK PULLED the boat onto shore, the two boys got out and disappeared into the copse of trees beyond. He waited for them to ask when he was bringing pirates to continue their adventure, as was their custom, but neither of them said another word to him, only melted into the forest like ghosts.
Jack shivered in spite of the warm breeze brushing against him. All of the other Neverlings had the skill of becoming nearly invisible when they were on the island. Before, he’d always thought it a combination of having camouflaging fur clothing and knowing the right places to hide. Now he wasn’t so sure that it wasn’t so much as a skill, but rather a bit of their former lives showing through. The breeze picked up and something creaked overhead.
He looked up and saw another wooden sign. Giant spiders. Ye be warned. This one was written in childish scrawl, but was so far up in the tree, it was obvious that no one but Peter Pan could have put it there.
The bad part was, as suspicious as the pirates tended to be, Jack had no problem imagining more than one of them believing Peter’s prank. Grumbling under his breath, he trudged over to the base of the tree and began climbing.
It wasn’t as hard to reach as he thought it would be, and a few moments later, he pulled the sign free and flung it down to the ground. He started to turn and climb back down when something in the distance caught his eye.
There, sitting in the surf, between two tall, sandy dunes, was a mermaid. Mesmerized, Jack watched her for a moment as she stared out at the sea. She had to be the same one who had saved him. He was sure of it. Her fiery red hair caught in the wind, swirling around her.
The need to get out of the tree became nearly uncontrollable. He found himself scratching his hands on the branches in his haste to get down. His shirt became tangled and he heard a slight rip before it came free and let him continue his descent. He groaned, noticing the tear in his sleeve. He’d definitely have to borrow one of Smee’s needles tonight. He gave a quick pat to the bottom of his shirt, ensuring that his charm was still safe, and kept going.
It seemed to take forever to get to the ground, but he finally made it. He ran around the hill, all the while hoping she would still be there when he arrived.
And she was.
Her back was to him and she hadn’t noticed him. Not wanting to scare her, he cleared his throat. “Excuse me…miss?”
Her eyes were wide and wild as she whirled around and saw him. In the next second, she leapt further into the sea with a splash, disappearing from sight.
Jack slowly walked over to the place where she had been, and knelt down. “I won’t harm you, I promise. I only wanted to thank you for saving my life,” he said, in case she was still nearby. When there was no response, he stood and searched the waves for any sign of her. Finally, he turned and trudged away from the water’s edge and back toward the knoll. Then he heard a light splash.
“You’re welcome,” a pretty voice replied.
His heart pounding, he slowly turned around so as not to spook her again.
Though she had swam back up on the shore, he noticed that she was keeping a safe distance away. Waves washed over her and she ground her hands into
the sand to keep from being swept back out.
He gulped. For some reason all of his words had escaped him. While he’d thought she was beautiful before in those scant seconds he watched her beneath the water, now he realized she was the most gorgeous thing his eyes had ever seen.
“I…I’ve never seen you before,” he managed, finally finding his voice. Mentally, he kicked himself, wishing he could have come up with something better to say.
“The surface is forbidden for merpeople,” she said, dropping her gaze. A flush crept into her cheeks. “This was the first time I’ve ever sat on the shore. The sun was so inviting and the sand was so warm, I couldn’t help it. If the others find out I’m here, they won’t be happy with me. My mother, especially.” As she said those words, she frowned and let the tide pull her a few inches back into the sea.
“Wait,” Jack said, holding out a hand, as if the gesture would keep her there. He gave her a smile, then ran over to a small clump of yellow flowers. He picked one and came back and knelt down a short distance away and held the flower out to her.
“It’s pretty,” she said, reaching out to take it from him. Then she looked up at him and smiled, and Jack’s heart melted. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, sitting down in the sand, as close as he dared to the water. “You know, I think you found the perfect place.”
A questioning look came into her eyes, but she didn’t say anything, only waited for him to explain.
“The surface may be forbidden for you, but the ocean is forbidden to me. I think you’ve found the perfect place where the two meet,” he smiled.
She laughed. It was a light, happy sound and Jack found himself wishing it would go on forever. “There’s another perk with this perfect place,” she told him, letting the tide wash her farther up on the shore so that only her vibrant blue tail stayed in the water. “It’s warm.”
The Untold Stories of Neverland: The Complete Box Set Page 40