Hook & Jill Read online

  She lowered her eyes to focus on the danger. “Don’t hurt Peter. I’ll come.” Raising her eyes again, she locked his blue gaze in her own. “Now.” As she uttered the promise, the panic rushed inside her.

  Peter acted swiftly. He drew back his arm and slashed the dagger down, clanging against the hook. His blow met no resistance. He dragged Wendy three steps backward while his dagger rebounded to her throat. “I’ll kill her before I let you take her.”

  Michael screamed and John seized him. “No, Peter!” Lowering their weapons, all the boys stared. Jewel hung over them, her light fading to its merest glimmer. John pulled Michael’s face to his own chest and wrapped his arms around him, holding firm as Michael fought to free himself. Wendy couldn’t see them, she could only see Hook lifting his chin, triumphant. His gold ring swung upon his ear.

  “So!”

  Wendy grasped Peter’s wrist with her free hand. He was hurting her arm. Her head tipped up, her eyes turned toward him. She still believed. “Peter, you don’t understand what you’re doing!”

  “I do.” His face hung close to hers, his hair scented with myrtle. Keeping his eyes on Hook, Peter pressed his cheek against her own. “I do understand.” He brushed her hair out of the way with his lips, never losing sight of his foe. He whispered in her ear, “I’d rather see you dead than turned pirate.” She inhaled sharply. Hook observed, his muscles tensed.

  “Not my throat, Peter. That’s a pirate’s way.” Wendy sought to regain his confidence. “You taught me, remember? The weakest part of any creature is the heart.” And the fairy gauze of her gown was impossible to cut.

  Peter turned his head. With his beautiful eyes, he looked into hers. “I’ll remember everything. But I’ll pretend I never knew you.” Breaking Wendy’s grip, he rotated his dagger to point it at her heart. “I’m very good at make-believe.”

  He shot a look at Hook, then began to cut away the ivy he once, so gladly, twined about her body. His knife worked deftly. At each snap of the blade a tendril fell, until the garland lay in limp green pieces at her feet— the ever-after end of once-upon-a-time.

  Wendy closed her eyes. She felt Hook watching, permitting the scene he had staged to play itself out. He had threatened her. He had embraced her. What did he really feel? It didn’t matter any more. In one lesson, he had taught her to rely only upon herself.

  She could hear the boys’ restlessness in the grass behind her. She knew they wouldn’t save her, either, nor would Peter’s spiteful fairy. The creature was strangely quiet. No jealousy interfered now that Wendy’s wish was granted.… At last Peter clasped her in his arms, and she had stirred him to passion.

  He set his knife to her throat. “I promised you adventure, Wendy. To die will be the biggest one of all!”

  His words cut into her like his dagger. Wendy grasped Peter’s arm and fought against him. She had to act, to rescue herself. Jill would defend her life with any weapon at hand. Wendy would tell a story.

  “Peter, let me tell you about the adventure.” She stopped struggling, continuing the fight with words. John released his hold on Michael. All the boys stilled. Hook observed Peter, his gaze keen.

  “Today the Pirate King used your Wendy to bait a trap for you. But you were too clever to fall into it. You saw that I was only trying to save you. I know now that I can’t.”

  “I’m trying to save you, Wendy.” He returned Hook’s stare. “From yourself.” The cold knife began to burn against her neck. She pulled hard on his arm, trying to tear it away.

  It didn’t stop.

  Hook sprang at Peter, slashing with a vengeance, raking a red furrow from wrist to elbow. Peter let go of Wendy to double over, exhaling as he grasped his arm. Smears of blood marked both blades, and more tinted Peter’s fingers. Wendy reeled away, clutching her throat. Behind her, she heard chiming alarm and high-pitched screaming.

  Peter groaned and stumbled toward the forest as Jewel burned a trail to his side. Shouting, the Lost Boys scrambled to reach him. They gathered him up, each grabbing an arm, a leg, a vine or belt. Amid the skins, knives, and feathers, his chest rose and fell with his gasps. His green eyes sparked, shooting hostility toward the pirate. He vowed through his teeth, “It’s not over yet!” He didn’t look at Wendy at all. The boys leapt into the air, to fly him to safety at last.

  But before they were away, Hook strode after them. “You’re right, Pan!” He reached up and snagged Curly’s belt with his claw, plucking him easily out of the air. Curly screamed, still clinging to Peter, and the boys dragged him. They pulled together toward escape while Hook raised his head to hiss at Peter, “I’ve only begun! Now I see how well you care for her. She’ll be better off with me— no matter what I do to her.” He savaged the belt. It fell away to slither into the grass, and the flock of boys sped upward and homeward, led by the brightness that was Jewel.

  Standing in the hollow of Wendy’s clearing, Michael rubbed his wrist across his eyes. John yanked him along, and together they braved the black man and rushed to Wendy’s side as he pivoted toward her. Placing an arm around each of her brothers, she let them lift her into the sky to float away from the little house, where the blue smoke would never rise again— because Wendy was no longer at home.

  Warm drops slid down her cheeks. Other, thicker drops congealed at her throat.

  She looked down into the clearing. She saw the man in black velvet watching her go. She saw him saluting her. There were the violated vines, the severed belt. There, the basket and its beads lying in the grass, the little brown book abandoned on her bench. She saw the colorful clothing of pirates emerging from the cover of the trees that had concealed them, and Mr. Smee bending over his captain’s hat, brushing it off.

  She felt her brothers’ arms supporting her and then she supported herself and shook them off to raise her arms and embrace the sky. She dried her tears upon it and soared upward as high as she dared. There were no more limits.

  This was freedom. Why did it hurt so badly?

  She had so much to think about. So much to decide. Much to do.

  It wasn’t just a story any more. It was her life. And she believed in it.

  Chapter 16

  Back… and Forward

  Wendy lay on the chilly grass under a blanket of moonlight. She was listening to the music of the spheres, watching the fairies float above the flowers, like constellations evolving.

  Harmony reigned within the limits of the fairies’ circle. It was soothing to give herself up to the garden and the fragrance of its midnight roses, stargazing. How they fanned their way along, these creatures of air. They appeared to be a universe in miniature, but they didn’t feel anything bigger than themselves. Life to these fairies was an airy, merry step such as Wendy used to dance, high in the sky above the Island, and believed she would dance again. She had almost found her smile, while watching them. Almost.

  Wendy, in turn, was watched by John. Michael had fallen into a dozing dream. Passion was hard to hold for long in the Fairy Glade. It became one with the ether, and dissipated from the hands and heart. Wendy reflected that Tinker Bell, ruled by her passion, had forsaken this tranquil place. She, too, must be acquainted with its nature.… There it was; the smile lived. Like Wendy, it hadn’t been murdered after all. Just changed.

  John was relieved to see the smile. “Wendy? What shall we do now?”

  Wendy breathed in slowly to steady herself. “We’ll have to go back, John. There isn’t anywhere else.” The herb garden had provided a poultice for her wounded throat. She removed it and picked up another. “And I have to take care of the boys. They’re all in much more danger than even I imagined.” But she must have imagined it; she had begun the story. She no longer wondered how long ago.

  “But what about Peter? Everything that happened!”

  “What happened was a pirate’s trick.” She had tried to be rational about this, after the tears had dried. It was so important to understand. Peter was limited by his unlimited youth. It was— it was a
weakness.… He lived adventure after adventure, but didn’t learn their lessons. Each one found him in the same place he started the last. And somehow, Hook perceived it.

  “Peter is only a boy,” she said, “and Hook laid his trap very cunningly. We all walked right into it, starting with the sailing of the Roger, and the Indians breaking camp. I should have seen it.” She wished she could consider Hook in the rational way she had considered Peter, but doing so was impossible. The closeness of their encounter made her thinking unruly. Her pulse still beat unnaturally fast.

  “But Wendy, he was so angry!”

  “Oh, no, I never saw a man so horrifyingly calm.”

  “I meant Peter. He nearly slit your throat!”

  “Oh.… Yes! But John, I won’t be afraid any more. I’ll explain to him, and you know how he is. By tomorrow he’ll probably think it was all a grand adventure. I only hope he doesn’t rush into revenge tonight.” The next moment, she tensed. “What if he’s already stormed the ship searching for us?”

  “He and the boys might be at it again!”

  John and Wendy looked at each other, faces white as the moonlight.

  “Wake Michael quickly, we have to go.” She stood and collected herself for her youngest brother’s sake, and for her own, but her heartbeats refused to slow.

  With a gentle nudge, John roused Michael. “It’s time to go home, Michael. Can you fly?”

  “To the nursery? I was dreaming of a nightlight.” He blinked at the little moving stars. “It must have been the fairies.”

  Wendy took his hand to pull him up. “Not the nursery tonight. But maybe, if the window’s open, you’ll go back there soon.”

  “Are there fairies there?”

  “If a fairy loves you, Michael, it will follow you anywhere.”

  “Wendy, you love Peter like Tinker Bell does, don’t you? That’s why you were so brave.”

  Her smile came through again. “You were brave, too, you and John. You saved my life.”

  John stood very tall and faced his sister. He had to look down to her by now; adventure after adventure had taught him lessons he’d have never learned in London. He shook his head. “No, Wendy. Captain Hook saved your life.”

  She hadn’t thought of it that way. She thought of it now.

  “Right after he nearly lost it for me!”

  The fairy stars continued to orbit their budding planets as the two Darlings and their sister skimmed away over the dark, drowsing treetops toward the only shelter the Island afforded, the home that had formed and nurtured them. Peter Pan’s secret hideout under the ground.

  * * *

  All alone and injured, Peter presided over the evening ritual. One by one, the Lost Boys had swallowed their medicine, and now, with the nightlight burning, they slept in the one big bed. Their solitary chief reigned from his willow chair, surrounded by its leafy blades and trying not to coddle his wound. A grubby bandage wrapped around the slash. Jewel perched on his hand, which was far too still to be a part of Peter. But it hadn’t been cut off. Its stillness was just a measure of his pain.

  Jewel, too, was still and in pain, yet she was sure her part in the play would work out for the best. Her heart was too small to master the grand plan, but that didn’t mean the plan wasn’t at work. She had faith. The discomfort wouldn’t last, and Time would arrange everything. Time and—

  She and Peter swiveled toward the sounds only one of them hoped to hear. Three swishes in the tree trunk, and Michael, John, and Wendy were back. Wendy?

  Wendy! Peter leapt up grinning, ignoring the fire of his arm. Jewel fluttered, confused, to alight on the back of his chair.

  “You came back!”

  Wendy beheld the bright green eyes almost covered by his golden hair, and the dagger, silver once more and, she was relieved to see, at his belt. Just like the first time she’d ever seen him. “We’re back. Are the children all right?”

  “Of course,” he said, and gripped his elbow. “How did you get away?”

  “We flew away right after you did.” Wendy noted the bandaging. His wound was haphazardly wrapped in a cloth none too clean.

  “Why didn’t you come home? The boys and I tried to rescue you but we couldn’t find the ship. Hook must be hiding from me.”

  “It will be back in the bay by morning, I’m sure of it. He—” But with chilling clarity, Hook had indicated his goal was to kill Peter. Why had he missed two opportunities in one day? Wendy shivered at the question; today’s experience hinted how unfathomably deep Hook’s motivations might plunge.

  Then, with an effort, she stirred herself toward her duties. Touching each of her brothers on the shoulder she said, “John, Michael. Please go to bed.” She remembered how, to a child, bed seemed the safest place to be. As of tonight, she envied that feeling, and those who could believe in the shelter of the covers.

  But John, no longer quite a child, threw Peter a distrustful look. “Wake me if you want, Wendy.” He didn’t hang up his knife tonight, but kept it with him.

  Peter eyed him, then glanced at his own injured arm. “I got a scratch today. It was glorious, wasn’t it?”

  Wendy bit her lip, but found herself approaching Peter with less caution than had been her habit. Her instinct informed her now that he wouldn’t startle any more. Tangling at the point of Peter’s knife this afternoon, they had been too intimate to be shy. Still, she was glad to have business to tend, and she pushed Peter toward his chair. “I’ve brought you an herbal poultice from the Fairy Glade. Let me put it on.” Jewel jumped to his shoulder, and with delicate motions, Wendy lifted his wrist to lay his arm on that of the chair. As she removed the red wrappings, he merely winced, and although she touched him, his demeanor continued bold.

  He shrugged, boasting, “This is nothing. It won’t slow me down.”

  Diplomacy had gotten her nowhere with Peter, and Wendy had had enough of it. “I’m tired of mopping blood off you boys. I’d like to draw some myself for once!” Like Jill, she thought. On any other day, the comparison might have startled her.

  Peter brooded as he watched her hands. “I would have drawn blood. I would have killed him.” Wendy straightened, her fingers hovering near the ruby line at her throat. Had he forgotten the blood he’d drawn, already? Loath to remind him, she didn’t answer.

  “I gave him the hook he used against me.” He said it proudly.

  Wendy saw the irony. She’d seen it all day. It had been intended that she should see it. “You do seem to have gotten back a bit of your own. But you still don’t understand. Everything that happened is because of what you did to him. Everything that is still happening.”

  Peter looked mischievous. “He’d have done the same to me.”

  Wendy paused to get used to him again. With reluctance, she smiled. She shook her head and bent over his arm to dress the wound. It was not as deep as she had feared, but it would leave a scar, no doubt of that. How much uglier was the scar Peter had left on Captain Hook? That was a more difficult thought to get used to, and she shuddered, and shoved it from her mind.

  “Maybe, Peter. But today he had the perfect chance to do the same to you. He could have taken your hand, and he refused it. Why?” One thing she knew now. Hook had reasons for everything he did, or didn’t do.

  “Why did you give your kiss to him?”

  Wendy looked up, surprised. “He wanted it.” And she was even more surprised by her answer. Her eyes were drawn to the fairy, who glowed with a warm light that spilled onto Peter’s wound. “I didn’t think you could see my kiss.”

  “I can’t. Tink told me.” His face grew stern. “But I saw you giving it to him.”

  Wendy was wary. She kept her eyes on him. Jewel watched Wendy with her wings shut tight.

  “What did he give you for it?”

  “Give me?” Her insides lurched. “For a kiss?”

  For her kiss, he had given her… his own.

  Wendy caught up to her beating heart. “It really doesn’t concern you, Peter. I�
��m sorry you happened to see it. You should never have known.” But his knowing had been intended, as well.

  “We should know everything about each other, Wendy. We’re a family.”

  With a pitying look, Wendy studied Peter. He really was innocent. His wonderful belief in himself made her feel oddly sorry for him. Today’s incidents had shaken Wendy, but granted her in exchange a valuable lesson. Peter, on the other hand, seemed unscathed even by his injury, and at the Fairy Glade Wendy came to understand that as long as his experience never changed his outlook, he could sustain his confidence. A naïve kind of Paradise, to be sure, but one in which, at least up to now, Peter made his home.

  A peculiar silence attracted Wendy’s attention, and the girl looked to his fairy, so close to him, whose downcast head gave evidence that this member of the family might have her own secrets to conceal. Wendy wondered if she’d gained an ally on this front. But the sprite remained quiet, and Wendy renewed her effort with Peter. Clinging to patience, she adopted a guiding tone. “People do keep some things secret as they grow up, even from those they love.”

  Peter winced again. At her words, or at the pain? “Another reason not to grow up. I don’t want you to keep secrets from me.”

  Exasperated, she sighed. “Well, I seem to have none now!” Jewel released a grace note. Wendy sat on the hearth and threw the bandage in the fire. It burned with an acrid cloud that quickly dissipated, like a genie emerging from its bottle.

  A genie of truth. Wendy did have secrets, as innocent as baby teeth. She had withheld the truth instinctively, loosening Peter’s vines to be comfortable in her clothing, hiding evidence of the boys’ growth to protect them. Yet those secret parts of her that she had tried to reveal to Peter— her love, her kiss— he hadn’t accepted.

  But Wendy’s eyes were clear. If he had looked to see the truth in them, he’d have found it. He was too young, he hadn’t the perception. It was no wonder he had been blind to the subtle shadings of this afternoon’s design. Startled by that thought, Wendy stopped to consider her own perception. Subtle shadings.… Shades… of black?