She walked in front of the curled slip of paper and recognized the drawing of a girl. One of her grown Lost Ones had this picture of her on his arm.. She’d watched him many times looking at her, as if he wished she was real. That Lost One’s name had been Harper. He and Hook had been friends, but Peter had killed him, and in doing so, had broken something in the captain.
Peter never should have done that, she thought. This one used to smile when he saw me. Now he doesn’t even see me at all. She stomped her feet so that a small cloud of gold dust kicked up, blocking his view of the picture so that he would have no choice but to look at her.
Wood groaned behind her, but she didn’t pay any attention to it. She took a step closer to her Lost One and put her hands on her hips as she peered up at him. A long lock of black hair hung in front of his face, so she reached out and moved it back. As if a spell had broken, something moved under the surface of his eyes and a glimmer of recognition sparked.
“Good evening, Miss Bell,” he whispered.
That was all it took for her to chime excitedly in return, asking him if he was all right and why he’d been tied up in such a way. She was just starting to fly behind him and tug on his bonds in an effort to free him, when he looked above her head, farther up than the picture and the hook were.
A strong hand snatched her out of the air and she squeaked in surprise. The grip around her middle was strong, threatening to crunch her wings, so she wiggled a bit and folded them behind her to keep them safe before leaning back to glare at the one who had been so bold as to grab her.
It was the cook who had the picture of the ugly woman on his belly, she noted, though she’d never seen him look so angry before. In fact, the look on his face looked very similar to the one that had been on the captain’s face on that bad day he had lost his hand in the cave. Something was happening with her grown Lost Ones. Something she knew nothing about.
She was just getting ready to forgive the fact that he had grabbed her and ask again what had happened when he tossed her into a tall tankard and placed his hand over the top, just as he had the last time he’d captured her and used her gold dust, shaking her in a cup over a barrel as if she had been nothing more to him than his favorite ingredient.
Oh, no, not again. All thoughts of forgiveness vanished and she got to her feet and pounded against the metal wall of the cup. It made pinging sounds that echoed in her ears, which only made her angrier. Even if something had happened, it gave him no reason to treat her in such a manner. She was a pixie, after all, and she’d been the one who had brought them all to Neverland. She deserved better than this.
“Let me out now!” she demanded, but the cook ignored her and sat the tankard on the table, shoving something over the opening in the brief second that his hand left the top. She thought of shouting all sorts of threats of what she intended to do to him once she was freed, but decided against it when she thought of the echoes that would be bouncing around her ears. Seething, she sat down and hugged her knees to her chest.
“Why do you need Miss Bell?” she heard the captain ask in a calm voice that didn’t really sound all that worried about her safety.
“We be intending to leave this island, Cap’n. She brought us, she can take us back,” the cook replied coldly. “I’ve plans for her, which is more than I can say about you. Lucky, ye be, that I hadn’t killed ye as o’ yet. Only the fear that I’d end up just like ye is all that keeps me from doin’ it this very minute.”
Silence. The pixie could imagine the emotionless stare the round pirate was likely getting. After a second, the cook sighed, proving she had been right.
“I only knew Jack was my lad for one night—only one. So many lost years, so much time gone. Then ye tossed ’im into that cursed sea!” the cook’s voice sounded broken now, as if his heart had shattered.
Intrigued, the pixie placed her ear to the cold metal and listened intently.
“It was mutiny,” Hook replied, indifferent.
“’Twas a wish to go home and nothing more!” She heard the scraping sounds as if a chair was being pushed back and the table jolted and his voice became clearer, as if he’d stood up to lean in closer to Hook. “Now he’ll ne’er get to do that.”
She heard paper crackle and knew the picture had been picked up. “He only wanted the same thing as Harper—wanted to go home. Now we’ll get to go, but Jack won’t.”
Jack! Runt? They were talking about her Lost One? Hook had killed her Lost One with the sea witch’s curse? Well, that explained a lot. Now she knew why he had been lying on the sand and Hook was tied up. It also explained the cook’s unusual behavior.
Tink stood up and paced the short two steps from one side of the cup to the other. Runt had been trying to leave Neverland and go back to the human world, just as the others wanted to do now. She’d always knew he missed his mother fiercely. She’d wiped at his tears and patted his hair too many nights to count. But she’d never thought he would try to leave.
She stopped in mid-step, suddenly realizing that she held the answer to all of their problems. She alone could fix everything—she could make it all right. She knew exactly what to do. She ran from one side of the cup to the other, throwing her weight against one wall and then the next until finally the cup toppled from the table and landed on the floor, rolling between the legs of the startled cook.
Freed, she sailed out of the cup, made it under the door a split second before she was recaptured, then flew back toward the island with a sense of determination. The solution to the problem was simple. And, fortunately for her, it would be easy.
Her grown-up Lost Ones needed a mother. And it just so happened that she had a perfectly noisy one under a tree they could have.
7
I will Tell You a Secret
THE WATER WAS glittering with small bits of gold dust. Lorelei looked up just in time to see a tiny pixie zip over her head and away. She ignored the little being and swam up to the beach, noticing the line of pixie dust in the water led straight to the place she was going.
She let out a deep breath when she saw Jack lying in the same place where she’d left him. Other than the light, golden sprinkles of dust that covered his hair where the pixie must have flown over him, nothing looked different. He hadn’t moved an inch.
Her breath caught as she looked at him. She was wrong. He did look different. He looked so, so much worse. His eyes had all but sunken in and his face looked skeletal.
Tears threatened to spill over and run down her cheeks as she pulled herself up on the sand next to him. The surf washed over them both as she took his still hand in hers and squeezed, hoping for some sign that he hadn’t died—that it wasn’t too late.
“I love you,” she whispered. “Please come back to me.”
She leaned over him and pushed a lock of his hair back, cupping his face and pressing her lips to his for a long moment. She broke the kiss and sat back up, but nothing happened. He still lay there, silent.
I was too late. She curled up beside him and laid her head on his shoulder. The tears she’d been holding back, rolled down her cheeks and soaked his damp shirt. Her sobs broke free as she buried her face in the soft linen, clutching handfuls of it, as if that alone could keep him with her.
A short raspy breath shook his chest, jolting her.
“Jack!” she rose up and cradled his face in her hands. “Jack!”
At the sound of his name, his eyelids fluttered, and after a few more seconds, opened.
“Lori…”
His voice sounded rough and scratchy, as if he had swallowed the fine sand from the ocean bottom.
“Don’t talk. Everything’s okay now. You’re going to be okay. I love you,” she said, covering his face with kisses.
“Lori…I…” he made a face, then managed to trap both of her hands in his. “…stop.”
Perplexed, she sat back and watched him struggle to get up. He pushed himself up on his elbows and looked at her. Nerida’s spell broken, it was magic
watching his body return to normal in just a few seconds. His face filled back out and the first rays of the morning sun glowed on his hair, bringing out the golden dust the pixie had left behind.
He looked confused for a second and she remembered the last words she had said before he made her get away from him.
I love you. Then it hit her. A selfless soul. This was the part where she had to let him go—even though she would give anything to hear him say the words back to her. Unable to say anything else to him for fear of crying again, she gave him a small smile, then turned and started to move toward the surf so that the tide would take her away.
“No, wait!” he exclaimed, when he realized what she was going to do. He launched himself in front of her, seeming not to care that the water could easily wash over him and cause the curse to fall upon him all over again. “You have to listen to me, Lori,” he insisted. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
He’s going to tell me he’s leaving. He’s going to tell me goodbye, she thought, ducking her head. The tears spilled free again.
“No, don’t cry,” he begged, brushing them away with his thumbs. “Look at me, Lori, please? There is something I need to say. I wanted to say it before, and then, when I knew I was dying, that was the only thing that I regretted…not telling you.”
She managed a quick nod and did as he asked. I have to be strong now, she told herself.
He watched as she squared her shoulders, preparing for the worst, then he brushed another tear from her cheek, his eyes going soft. She wasn’t being nearly as strong as she had hoped. Tears kept rolling free, making tracks down her face and, ever patiently, he kept wiping them away, one at a time. Then he trailed a finger down the line of her jaw to her lips and stopped.
“I love you,” he said softly, “more than anyone or anything.”
Her breath caught. He’d said the words! He loved her! Her heart felt ready to burst, she was so happy. She smiled, and her tears vanished.
Jack continued, “I promised myself I’d come back for you when I left Neverland, whatever it took. I know I have to take back the ship and find a way to get the crew home. They’ve lost so much already, they deserve to go back home to the ones they love. I think I know how to get us back home, but it will be different this time. I don’t know if I’ll be able to come back. Time is strange in Neverland. It seems to be frozen here and I don’t know how much time has passed in our world.”
She felt her smile melt away and his next words caught her completely off-guard.
“There is one thing I know for certain, Lori. Life won’t be worth living if I’m there without you. Won’t you please come with me when I leave Neverland?”
This is it, she thought. I have to tell him everything. I have to tell him my secret so he’ll understand.
“I can’t go,” she said, then raised her hand. The questions that piled up in his eyes were going to come out any second. She had to say what she needed to say—before she lost her courage. He had to know why she couldn’t leave.
Understanding dawned and he sat back, waiting.
Here goes nothing.
“You remember I told you about my mother? How she never leaves the ocean floor?” It wasn’t a question really, but he nodded and stayed silent. “There was more that I didn’t say. I didn’t tell you why.”
Lorelei took a deep breath and continued, “Nerida came to the castle when I was young. I was one of the first ones to see her…” Memories of chasing Odin through the tall ocean grass zipped through her mind. She had been carefree and lighthearted then. It seemed so long ago… “She had just come back from the portal that led back to the human world—the same one that the water sprites used to bring us to the Never Sea.”
Jack fidgeted with this information and she could tell he wanted to ask more about the portal, so she continued, “It wouldn’t work for humans. It lies in a deep cave on the bottom of the sea. You would drown before you reached it…and it’s dangerous.”
He frowned and nodded. “Please keep going, Lori.”
She echoed his nod, swallowed the lump in her throat, and did as he asked, though she couldn’t meet his gaze. Instead, she picked up a handful of sand and let it sift through her fingers, watching as the small grains fell back to the ground. “I hadn’t meant to be eavesdropping. It was just that I was curious about her being the sea witch, so I wanted to get close. I overheard her tell Odin’s mother about the portal and when I went home, I told my father. He always had a sad smile when he told me about the old ocean. I could tell he missed it. He asked me all sorts of questions so I told him what I knew. The next day, he went to find the cave—and he never came back.”
Tears filled her eyes, but now the words wouldn’t stop. “It took days before I got the nerve to find the cave for myself. It was deep and dark. It took forever to swim to the bottom, but I finally made it. I didn’t find my father in that cave, but I did watch the crocodile swim back and forth through the portal. It seems he’s a monster that belongs in both worlds.”
Jack didn’t say anything, just reached out and took her hand in his.
“Whether the crocodile killed my father, or if he made it to the old ocean and couldn’t come back, I’ll never know,” she looked up at Jack. “It was my fault, either way—and my mother hasn’t ever forgiven me for it.”
The tears rolled free and Jack pulled her into his arms. “I’m the reason she is the way she is.”
“No,” he said softly, as he cupped her chin, forcing her to look at him. “You have to listen to me. You were only a child and your father’s decision wasn’t yours—just as your mother’s decisions aren’t yours now. If there is one thing that I’ve learned in Neverland it is that you must never give up on what you want. Only you can decide what that is.”
She sat back and wiped her face with the back of her hand to clear the tears away and looked up at him. He looked so hopeful, his heart in his eyes, but there was a sadness in them too, as if he had come to a decision of his own.
“Whatever you choose to do, Lori, I support your decision. What I want is for you to be happy, whatever that takes. If you want to stay, I’ll still love you always. Wherever I am, my heart will belong to you.”
There it was, she realized. This was what true love was. He was willing to let her go—just as she had been ready to let him leave earlier. She knew everything that she had to do.
“I won’t turn into the mermaid my mother has become. The only thing that will make me happy is you. I want to be with you, wherever you are. I love you, Jack—and I’m coming with you.”
8
Wendy Darling, if You Please
JACK WAS SURPRISED that Lori agreed to leave the only home she had ever known, but the surprise was short-lived, immediately replaced with such happiness that he thought he should surely be flying as easily as Peter Pan.
“I’ve got to tell her goodbye,” Lori told him when they spotted a boat coming to the island. “I can’t let her wonder what’s become of me too. I have to explain why I’m leaving, then I’ll come to the ship tonight.”
After a long kiss goodbye and a promise that she would be with him soon, Lori jumped back into the sea, leaving Jack to walk down the sandy beach in search of his crewmates. As he walked he wondered what had happened after Hook had pushed him overboard. Were they still fighting the captain to take over the Roger? And if so, how many had met their end at the end of his rapier? Questions upon questions piled up in his mind.
He found the pirates a few moments later, having already pulled the boat up and secured it. They were all armed—as was usual for when they went hunting—but all of the weapons were strapped to their sides and every one of them held a small container of sorts. Every question in his brain disappeared but one.
What in the world are they doing? The twelve pirates hadn’t split up into groups as of yet and looked somewhat lost, as if they hadn’t decided exactly what they were going to do after this point.
He cleared his throat to
get their attention. Smee was the first to turn around and spot him. His eyes went wide as if he were seeing a ghost. “Saint…Brendan!” he wheezed, clutching his chest.
That had all of the others whirling around, first looking at him with much the same expression as Smee had done, then looked over at the ship’s surgeon, who had flopped down on the sand to take his canteen from his belt.
“It be Pritchard’s ghost!” he heard one of them hiss. Artemis Stewart, from the looks of it, as the man was hurriedly crossing his chest in an attempt to ward Jack’s evil spirit away.
“It no be ’is ghost, ye daft wee idiot,” Smee managed, after taking a gulp. A drop of amber liquid stuck to his white beard and he brushed it away, then patted his chest. “Aye, that be much better,” he said to himself, before glowering at Jack. “And the next time ye come back from the dead and attempt to give me a heart seizure, ye best hope I die from it—or else ye’ll pay.” His eyes narrowed and he pushed his spectacles farther up on his nose as he peered at Jack. As if he’d decided to forgive him for the fright, he got up from his place on the sand and came closer for a better look. “Mind tellin’ us how ye escaped the curse, lad? Long Jeff did no look nearly as good after he was dunked under the water. Is the curse broken, or did the sea witch take it back some way?”
“No.” Jack shook his head. “The curse worked. I just happened to have a friend who helped break it this time.”
“A friend, aye?” Smee asked, obviously wanting more details.
But Jack was saved from telling him about the mermaid who had stolen his heart when a girl and two small boys appeared at the edge of the trees.
“Tink,” Jack smiled, recognizing the small golden pixie who fluttered just over their heads.
At the sound of her name, she zipped over to him, chiming so fast that he had a hard time keeping up with everything she said, but from the affectionate pats to his hair, it seemed that the majority of it was that she was happy he was alive and well, even though the last time she had seen him he had most certainly been dead.
The Untold Stories of Neverland: The Complete Box Set Page 45