Hook & Jill Read online

  Peter crossed his arms, disapproving, his fine features severe. All the boys drew back and lowered their chins.

  “You two were flying too high. You’ve been here long enough to know the rules.” Peter’s gaze darted. “The rest of you were too low! The Indians could have shot you, and then I’d have had to avenge you all.”

  The boys were solemn. They knew Peter to be most foreboding when his rules were broken, the primary one of which was the rule against growing up. It was rare that his boys knowingly disobeyed. Peter’s laws hampered independent thinking somewhat, but Michael, as the littlest, was least grown-up and not as self-conscious as the others. He still asked questions. “Avenge! Our honor? Like in Wendy’s stories?” Michael often fell asleep before the happy endings and missed important bits, but even he knew the importance of keeping up with Peter’s decrees.

  “No. My honor, for leading a pack of fools!”

  The boys squirmed, not knowing whether to display amusement or shame, so in a practiced effort to appease their leader, some did one and some the other.

  Wendy came to their rescue. She turned from Peter, his dagger, and his wrath, to the jumble of children. Hugging Michael, she assessed the damage. “It’s all right, everyone is safe now. We’ve learned to take better care of ourselves next time. But Michael, John, how damp you are! Hanging about in clouds…”

  And Peter permitted Wendy’s motherly role to assume its authority. She gathered the family together. “Time to go home, children.” She was relieved to see Peter’s ill temper dissipate as swiftly as it had appeared, and they both hustled the Lost Boys toward their underground hideout. Wendy clutched the arrow, feeling even now that its tip pointed to danger. But no. That couldn’t be. She was living happily ever after with Peter Pan, in once-upon-a-time, and the adventure of the arrow was over. Surely, she reasoned, Peter would make everything all right again.

  As the band flew over the colorful Island toward home, the children took care to remain at the proper height, throwing occasional glances at their chief. Peter flew freely, shooting like the arrow after the tail of a parrot and wobbling comically alongside butterflies over their bushes.

  Wendy, too, watched him. He plucked a large leaf and wiped his dagger clean.

  Wendy looked away.

  Amid her circlet of roses, the hidden thorns stung her again as over her shoulder she searched the darkening forest. No creature moved there. Only the Indian drums beat on, slowly and solemnly now. A dirge for their fallen warrior. The arrow grew heavy in her hand.

  Wendy reminded herself that Peter had kept the children from danger. That always made it all right, afterwards.

  Soon they would be safe with their suppers, chattering and quarreling about the day’s adventures. They would gather before the fire to hear another of Wendy’s tales.

  Wendy shook herself and smiled uncertainly.

  It would be all right, then. Everything would be fine.

  It would be only a story.

  * * *

  That evening’s adventure tale, punctuated by gasps and sighs from the children, proved worthy of Wendy’s reputation. As it unfolded, even her brothers sat blinking. The Neverland was a mine of riches for Wendy’s inspiration, and it lent her plenty of material on which to draw.

  She had removed the uncomfortable crown with no loss of rank. Although none of her subjects appreciated the fact, Wendy remained a graceful, slender queen as she recounted her stories. She liked to imagine she had been enchanted by a gnome chief, to sit upon his throne in his underground cavern each night, inventing tales for the greedy ears of his gnome band. They were surrounded by walls of twining tree roots and leafy hangings, wooden flutes and animal bones, bows, quivers, and one sword. A pleasant loamy smell pervaded, perfect, her majesty thought, for a gnome chief’s den.

  This queen’s clear blue eyes always spoke the truth. Now they were lit by the hearth fire, and her fair hair fell over her shoulders. The boys squatted in a half circle at her feet, cozy on the earthen floor as she gathered the straws of each day’s experience, twisting the strands with nursery stories, to spin golden rings to hang upon their ears. Wendy’s words cast a spell that, as yet, even she didn’t fully understand. A blending of truth, myth, and magic.

  If this lady had a secret, it was in her smile. She didn’t need enchantment to call it; it flew naturally, willingly to her lips at the slightest excuse. It was just the right shape for a queen’s smile, and it cradled the hidden kiss, visible only to the few who could read her heart. Wendy’s smile seemed impatient to bestow its kiss upon her prince. But as yet, her desire remained as arcane to Peter as her kiss.

  Although the prince declined to come forward tonight, the smile presented itself as Wendy looked around at the faces of her listeners. “Don’t be afraid, children, it’s just a story.” She had given free rein to her imagination, and the ride had gotten a bit rough. At her reassurance, the gnomes breathed more easily. The difference between them and their chief was that Peter did not distinguish between the real and the make-believe, and yet he was not afraid. He was exhilarated.

  Only Tinker Bell, that moody bit of fairy, seemed unaffected. Here was another queen, and one not inclined to share power. Tinker Bell was proud, perhaps because she was different. Her wings, instead of the fussy, lacy affairs so common among her kind, were luxuriant like a butterfly’s. Wings such as these didn’t merely move through the air. They moved the air itself. And they were blue. The intense, iridescent blue of the peacock.

  Tinker Bell disdained to honor ‘the Wendy’ with her presence at story time. Scorning to be found among the gnomes, the fairy hid herself away in her niche to sit unseen and unheard with chin in hand and ears pricked throughout the narrative, hanging on every syllable. Tinker Bell listened assiduously to the big girl’s words. She stored them up and stacked them to use against her later, like cannonballs. The battleground was Peter. The Wendy was the enemy.

  As Wendy’s story concluded, Peter jumped up on his chair, exulting. “Nobody tells a story like Wendy!” Then, usurping success, “That’s why I chose her to be our mother.” Many nights, in what to Peter seemed the distant past, he had hovered outside the nursery window, listening with rapt attention to Wendy’s tales, especially those about himself. Now she was here and she was his. Peter had made up his mind; she must never go back and grow up. To that end, he discharged an appreciative smile.

  Enchantment not yet broken, Wendy was flattered by Peter’s warmth of feeling. Manners, however, dictated a show of modesty. “I only came to look after you poor Lost Boys. Peter told me you had not one pocket among you, and no medicine. Someone had to mother you.” The tale of her first meeting with Peter and his insistence that she come away with him was one of Wendy’s favorites, recited on many an evening. But as she remembered that long-ago night, a questioning look crossed her face, and she dropped her playful air to stare into the fire. The matter had begun to trouble her of late. How long ago? Exactly when had this enchantment seized hold of her?

  The boys were familiar with Wendy’s story of pockets and medicine, and accustomed to performing their part in it. They picked up their cue, and only Peter noticed their mother’s change in mood. “Thank you, Wendy lady! What would we do without a mother?” In a body, the boys poured themselves over Wendy, ending her distraction and earning Peter’s approval.

  Wendy recovered, laughing, and pushed her boys away, rising from the throne to light the nightlight. It was an opaque shell the size of her hand, spiraling into nothingness at the center, its inside sprinkled with fairy dust. Such grains of Tinker Bell’s magic had enabled Wendy, John, and Michael to fly from home. All it took to master the air was fairy dust and happiness. For Wendy, Peter supplied both.

  It hadn’t been easy to get Tink to part with more dust for the nightlight, but Peter had persuaded her, knowing it was important to Wendy. He had explained that it was important because Wendy wanted her brothers to remember their home. Michael and John might go back, someday, if
the nightlight in the nursery still burned by the open window. Tinker Bell had demanded a good deal of Peter’s attention until the subject was exhausted. Ultimately, she permitted herself to be swayed, surrendering the dust in hopes the Wendy, too, would remember home— and exit with her brothers.

  Wendy lit a twig in the fire and touched its flame to the grains of gold in the shell. With the gentlest of breaths, she blew on it, and the powder ignited to glow with a warm, dancing light, exuding a fragrance of fermented apples. As she placed the nightlight on the table next to the bed, John studied it, remembering something from far away. “Wendy, are you and Father going out tonight?”

  Wendy’s eyes glowed like the fairy light. “Peter, shall we go out like real mothers and fathers? We could go to the Fairy Glade!” In her excitement, she forgot and placed a hand on his arm.

  But he didn’t shake it off. He bent his elbow like a high-born gentleman and escorted her. “We shall go to the theatre, Madam, and wear chimney hats.” Everyone laughed while he strutted around the room with Wendy on his arm. Her fingers met the toned energy under his bare skin, and she looked up at his well-formed profile. Although it was impossible to determine an age for Peter, Wendy knew herself to be petite for her own. As he allowed her to press against him, she observed again that Peter was just taller than she, and in her opinion, they were a perfect match.

  Only one boy had grown taller than Peter. It was Slightly, light-haired and lean, who now interrupted their promenade. “I think I remember the theatre. Isn’t that a story-place?”

  Peter stopped. “We have the best stories right here. And mothers and fathers don’t leave the children at night, do they? Afraid they’ll fly away.” He dropped Wendy’s arm and turned to face her, breaking the connection. For a moment, she had been wearing her mother’s white evening gown. But it was gone.

  Curly, named for the nature of his rusty hair, was fascinated with the world the Darlings had left behind. He turned to Wendy, too. “They can leave the children as long as a dog is there, right, Wendy?”

  “Not a dog, Curly. A nurse, or a nightlight, like ours. Now it’s nighttime, boys. Into bed.”

  Peter propelled himself into his chair by the fire and watched while Wendy presided over the ritual.

  “Give me your hats… clothes for mending… weapons.… Now here’s your medicine.” Make-believe medicine was gulped with genuine distaste. “I’d think you’d be used to it by now!” Wendy was amazed at how her boys resisted it, aware as they were that it was only water. But she excelled at dispensing it. It had become a challenge. “I spent all morning working out how to get you to take it.” She released her grip on the nose of the last boy, who happened to be the tough, solidly-built Tootles. He rubbed his nose and appealed to Peter.

  “If we take our medicine, will we get strong enough to wear boots? To stomp around in all day and stow by the bed at night, like pirates?” It was Tootles’ greatest sorrow that there was not one pair in the hideout to polish after adventures.

  Peter leaned back, his answer casual. “We’ll have plenty of boots, once we’ve slain the lot.” He directed a meaningful stare at Wendy.

  Wendy ignored the hint and nudged Tootles toward the rest of the children on the bed. “Make room for Michael tonight, boys. He’s just outgrown—” Wendy stopped short and shot a glance at Peter. He eyed her sharply, then looked up at the basket hanging over the bed, in which Michael had slept… until tonight. Squinting at Michael, he sized the little boy up, then laughed.

  “He’s got a ways to grow yet. I’ll keep him a little longer!”

  Wendy promised herself to be more careful. Her rapid heartbeat slowed.

  “Peter!” Slightly tossed a tiny missile. “Here’s another baby tooth. I think I’ve only two left now.” Peter caught it and held it up to examine in the light of the fire. Wendy’s heart sped again. A mystery was at work here, in spite of Peter’s rules. It had something to do with growing up, and as Slightly’s mother, Wendy would one day have to guide him through it. She had recently begun to wonder who would guide herself when the time came.

  “I don’t know why you boys can’t keep your teeth. I still have my first set.” Peter shoved his dagger aside and stowed the tooth in his pocket, the first Wendy had fashioned on the night she was initiated as mother of his hearth. It was too tricky to fasten a pocket to his skeleton leaves, which in any case were perpetually falling off and regrowing themselves— such leaves were rare, only to be found in the Neverland, and so far found only by Peter— nor was it feasible to fasten a pocket to the ivy vines he liked to wind about himself. But Wendy was resourceful. Now Peter’s pocket had a flap to secure its contents when he flew upside-down, and she had made it of leather and strapped it to his sword belt, which he always wore whether or not he carried the sword, for he was never without his knife.

  At last the boys lay piled on the one bed in the hideout. It was comfy, and big enough for all, including Michael, and there they wiggled under the furry skins provided by Peter’s forest kills. Hunting was Peter’s favorite sport, and he kept the hideout well supplied. Tonight the animals seemed still alive until Peter sprang from his chair and advanced with face aslant and dagger drawn. “Do I have to slay those beasts again?” At which the boys immediately lay still.

  With the children settled, Wendy moved about, listening to the breathy music of Peter’s pipes and putting the hideout to rights, making it feel like home. From time to time she studied Peter. One of the few places he sat still was in his big chair next to her own, while playing father to the boys or prince of the palace. Peter had woven his throne from willow boughs, and their greenery clung to it yet. Wendy watered it every morning with the dregs of the medicine bottle. It, too, thrived under her care, lending to the cavern a foresty touch from the upper world.

  Peter noticed her watching him and cocked his head in curiosity. Smiling, she kept her voice low. “I was thinking how you sit enthroned on your seat of honor, like a prince in his feasting hall. You rule your realm from that chair.”

  “I like being prince! It’s even better than being father.”

  Wendy gathered up the discarded clothing and joined Peter at the hearth. She advanced with caution, as always, for instinct and experience informed her that, prince or not, he might startle when approached, like some woodland creature.

  Maybe if she made it sound like a story he would understand her this time.

  The fire spoke first in soft pops and crackles, then Wendy. “One night, I was sleeping in my bed in the nursery, and a wonderful boy whispered in my ear.”

  He was listening.

  “You wanted me to come away with you, so you taught me to fly. Do you remember?”

  Peter remembered. He remembered how, with the promise of flight and something else he didn’t yet understand, he had cunningly drawn her out the nursery window— just before her mother and father burst through it, breathless, reaching vainly into the night to pull her back. It had been a grand adventure!

  “It’s one of your best stories!”

  “It’s our story, Peter, and it really happened.”

  Peter shrugged. “They all really happened.”

  “No, no.” She leaned closer. “In London, I longed for adventure. I couldn’t wait for it so I made up stories to tell Michael and John. It’s only here the stories are true,” except, so far, the love stories. “Most of them.”

  She had long ago returned his acorn for the thimble kiss she had given him. Peter didn’t understand what a kiss was, and when Wendy quite shamelessly offered one that first evening, he simply held out his hand to accept it. Not wishing to embarrass him, she had slipped her thimble into his fingers instead, and with an honorable sense of obligation, he’d given her an acorn in exchange.

  The acorn saved her life once. It still bore the scar of the arrow Tootles had fired at her. Wendy didn’t blame Tootles for being bloodthirsty. It was the way he’d been brought up, and of course he was urged to shoot by Tinker Bell before Wendy ha
d the chance to be introduced to the Lost Boys. But that was all in the past. These days, Wendy got more practical use out of the thimble than the acorn, so the acorn lay on the mantel, displaying its wound.

  Like most of the furnishings in the hideout, the mantel was crafted by the enterprising Twins with their building skills. Carved from a hunk of alder, it was constructed to exhibit Peter’s array of trophies, from beadwork to buck racks, with a brass button winking here and there. The mantel dominated the room and dwarfed the acorn. But Wendy wasn’t deceived by dimensions. Like her love stories, the tiny seed might yield a forest yet. Neglecting her mending, she stared at the mantel and fidgeted with the thimble.

  Peter said, “As long as I’m in the stories, I don’t care if they’re true or not.” His eyes grew bright. “I had a fine adventure in the woods today, Wendy. I killed that Indian!” He bounded up to seize the arrow from the mantel, and struck a heroic pose. “He threatened you and the boys.” With its shaft in his fist, Peter shook the arrow above his head in a victory rite. Leaping from the fire, his shadow played along, arching over the earthy ceiling.

  “Peter! For no better reason than that?”

  He stopped, indignant. “Should I have let him kill one of you first?” The arrow came down. “I have to protect my family.”

  “You’re full of courage, and a good father to the boys. But sometimes you frighten me.” Wendy peered up at his shadow, looming, but momentarily still. “Just like the forest beasts.”

  He tossed the arrow and perched close again, his shadow condensing. “You never act frightened. You’re always very brave on adventures, even if you won’t let the boys and me kill any more filthy pirates.” But Peter’s instincts about Wendy were alert, too, and now he offered rare credit for her cunning. Admiration oiled his voice. “You’ve managed to keep the pirates at bay so we haven’t had to fight them. Even Nibs and Tootles have piped down about attacking them. And we’d have gobbled that cake if you hadn’t warned us it was a pirates’ trap.”