Hook & Jill Page 3

  Wendy nodded like a sage. “Only a mother knows how subtle pirates can be.” She herself had invented the dangers, conjured them up, in many a story. Wendy knew danger, intimately.

  “You’re a wise one, Wendy.”

  Peter’s praise warmed her as heartily as the fire, yet as she gazed into the flames, she found herself puzzling. “The danger is real now. But once upon a time it wasn’t.” Her forehead creased. “Even Time behaves differently here. It’s the only thing that isn’t real.” She looked up at Michael’s empty basket and thought of Slightly’s tooth in the maw of Peter’s pouch. “I sometimes think the crocodile swallowed Time right along with that clock. I never know where it will pop up next.” As she spoke of the crocodile, the image of its teeth caused her to wince. Like a row of knives, each committed to slaughter, they triggered an uncomfortable memory of Peter’s dagger, and his hands wiping a man’s blood from it this afternoon. The warmth receded, and Wendy felt much older than the girl she had been the night she arrived here.

  “You can tell the croc’s story tomorrow night!”

  Wendy’s posture sagged. “But how many tomorrow nights will come? How many have passed? I used to be so sure about Time. I could rely on it. But I keep trying, and I can’t think how long we’ve been here, away from home.”

  Innocent as he might be, Peter recognized dangerous ground. She’d worn that same look the night he flew back to the nursery to retrieve her china tea set. Peter would keep Wendy, no matter what he had to do, and he’d whispered that message to Wendy’s mother where she dozed by the window. He’d even shed a few of his skeleton leaves to be discovered by Mr. and Mrs. Darling in the morning, underscoring his determination. Peter didn’t know as much about parents as he pretended, but he suspected they could read an omen almost as well as he could.

  “You’re right, Wendy, Time isn’t real here, so it doesn’t matter how many nights.” With his sly smile playing along his lips, he scooted closer. She scented the lingering leaves, just as she had when he’d first awakened her, and his next words thrummed the memory. “I knew that first night how much you wanted to fly.”

  Her face cleared. “Yes, Peter. I wanted it very badly. You were clever to see that.” She gripped the thimble tighter.

  “The cleverness of me!”

  “You’re clever enough to see there’s something else I want badly, now.” She watched Peter’s face take on the alert expression he wore whenever she began a story. So many stories.

  She had been patient such a long while, anticipating the natural response of boy to girl. Wendy couldn’t gauge the time, but she’d grown at least an inch waiting for it. It had to come sooner or later. Setting the thimble aside, she held her breath. They were close now. No more delays.

  Slowly, Wendy reached for Peter’s hand. She cradled it like a fledgling and lifted it, placing it against her cheek, barely touching his thumb to the kiss at the corner of her mouth. “Can you see it?”

  Alive to danger again, Peter didn’t move. Wendy willed him to read her heart as she watched his wary eyes considering her. The time might be right at last. If she believed. For one long moment, she held hope in her hand.

  Then, like sunlight, Peter slipped through her fingers. He leapt to his feet and spun away. Snatching his sword, he darted toward the tree trunk at the end of the room. At a safe distance now, Peter, the superb make-believer, assumed his best paternal manner. “I’ll go up on guard, Wendy, now that the Little Ones are abed. Good night!” He nodded with authority, then snaked his way up through the hollow tree to the forest floor— to guard himself until such time as Wendy no longer threatened.

  Wendy sighed, her hand lingering on the hidden kiss. “Will he ever see it?” She frowned, and immediately heard a familiar mocking tinkle from a niche in the wall. Her eyes shifted toward the sound, the frown formed a line of determination, and her hand moved stealthily down. The slipper slid off her foot and sailed in Tinker Bell’s direction. A musical retort followed, after which both females put out the lights and retired, each harboring dark thoughts about Peter Pan.

  Chapter 3

  A Pirate’s Passion

  A dark man harbored dark thoughts about Pan.

  The night was black, the cabin blacker. The man was darker still. His hair spread in waves on the silken pillows, like the midnight surface of the sea. It parted at the ring hung upon his ear, a delicate filigree, yet solidly golden. The beard was trim, but further growth of whiskers darkened his face and neck with unsuppressed masculinity. Small beads of moisture lay stagnant on skin too taut to allow retreat.

  The dark thoughts interrupted his existence, punctuated it, so that he lived in broken segments of desire, urgent but never concluding.…

  Hook lay alone, hating it.

  Barely controlled hostility filled his eyes. Forget-me-not blue eyes, beautiful to look upon, deceptively blue. They’d be blood-red as he watched Pan die.

  The ship shifted as the sea tempted her. Small creaks and stretching groans sounded as she strained at the ropes of her anchors. Footsteps fell, and muted shouts, while men worked to confine her. A bird of prey, she was jessed but menacing.

  His hook lay at rest upon the couch, the peelings of a ravished apple scattered round it. The apple’s seeds languished where he’d spat them. Its sweet taste lingered, its last drop on his lip. He drew it in with his tongue. He was finished with it.

  When would he finish Pan?

  He ached to finish Pan. Pan’s destruction was his passion. The kind of passion only pirates know, the bloodlust, to be slaked at the thrust of a blade.

  And at the end of passion, victory. How deeply this man desired victory, prized it above most other things. The urge to win must be satisfied— at the expense of the boy. Only a man would live to see the conclusion of the blood feud. And already, much blood was spilled.

  His throat constricted. He couldn’t taste the apple any longer. That old, bitter loss of blood overwhelmed its flavor.

  But the hour of triumph was coming, and soon. It beat ever closer. Hook’s instinct felt it; his pulse throbbed with the feeling. His moment of vengeance for all the damage wrought by that arrogant boy.

  And now, a girl. Pan had taken a mother for his boys.

  The throbbing shifted lower.

  ‘The Wendy,’ they called her. She had the sense to keep them away from bloody pirates. With good reason. Hook considered the fate he and his claw would mete out to those tender throats when he had them. His good hand gripping the hair at the base of the skull, persuading a stretch of neck to lay itself bare. The blade lightly applied, coaxed, for maximum pleasure. And a ruby trail. Bloody boys.

  They were far from innocent, Pan’s accomplices. In unguarded moments he’d lost good men to those whelps. They’d made attempts on his ship, as well. Yet that girl protected them as if they were lambs. What to do with her? No doubt she, too, had a tender neck.

  But she had shown herself to be no fool. He would have to be subtle. With an untried female at his mercy, so many possibilities arose.

  Necessity decreed he begin by plucking her from Pan’s circle. She’d interfered with Hook’s plans. No boys abroad after dusk, watch posted at the Lagoon. She’d never even let them touch Smee’s poisonous cake. He’d finally had it thrown to the croc.

  Hook’s face contorted. He couldn’t abide the thought of the croc. He sat up quickly, apple peelings fluttering to the floor. He couldn’t abide the thought of his own dark blood, to remember it oozing through the teeth of that beast— and over the bright blade of Pan.

  The memory took him instantly. Blades clanging, metal flashing, blinding sun, swooping sword song, clattering, thick dark blood warm everywhere, sleeve, breast, eyes, hair, boy, boots, deck. Slipping on it, knees smashing. Unimagined pain, white hot, sparkling ring on white flesh flying into air, raining red, green monster snapping. Excruciating. Searing. Jeering face of insolent boy, crowing, crowing. Needing to strangle but unable— only one hand.…

  * * *

/>   By the time he stopped shaking, another taste lingered on his tongue. Dark crimson drops stained the rug. His own blood. The only thing in the world at which James Hook flinched.

  He mastered his ragged breathing, controlled his face.

  Soon.

  Teeth clenched, he raised the hook to forget-me-not eyes. Staring beyond it into the Darkness, he hissed his vow to the unseen enemy.

  “I’ll tear you!”

  Chapter 4

  Ship’s Company

  The tip of the knife severed the threads, tearing its way to the top of the seam. Mr. Smee replaced the knife in his teeth. He concentrated, positioning the cloth under the needle of his sewing machine.

  The fabric was robust. Hearty, like its handler. The red Irishman sat on deck this morning mending the flag with its skull over crossed swords, the Jolly Roger. Proud work, and Smee’s hands were skillful. The grinning standard would wave once again, inspiring fear in faint hearts and loyalty in black. Smee hummed along with the machine, his tall, muscular frame at odds with the homeliness of his chore, his boot beating time as it pumped the wrought-work treadle.

  The pirate vessel lay at anchor in Neverbay, a favorite haunt of both captain and crew after weeks at work on the sea. The great ship returned there time and again between her experiences on wilder water. After her most recent flight, she’d come home to roost again. The bay’s refuge allowed for repairs to the Roger and fresh paint for her gilded accoutrements; the Island offered leisure for the pirates and the sport of destroying its resident enemies. Of fish, fruit, and game the Neverland yielded plenty, and for those who knew where to find it, female companionship— although not abundant— was avid. In these men’s opinions, no more welcoming port existed.

  Nor sailed a more effective officer than Mr. Smee. Although the Roger was anchored in a port of pleasure, its immaculate deck spoke for Smee’s efficiency, as did its polished fittings. Confident his fellow crewmen would execute their duties even in the cheer of a sunlit morning, he felt no need to prod them. Smee paid little heed as the sailors hustled about the deck, performing their tasks and swapping tales with mates. These men knew his reputation. As he labored over his sewing, not one of them would invite the consequences of baiting Mr. Smee about his domestic talents. He had demonstrated that his skill at cutting and stitching was not restricted to inanimate objects. He’d cut with the knife if the matter was personal, or the cat-o’-nine-tails on captain’s orders, and then he’d stitch the sailor up again and see him fit for duty.

  Not many shirked their duty. And none begrudged Smee his position of bo’sun to Captain Hook, in charge of the ship. It placed him within a proximity to that magnificent and volatile man that would have tested the mettle of the best of them. No, Mr. Smee, reputed to be as strong and as sweet as rum, was respected.

  But now his mates subdued their banter. The sunlight hadn’t dimmed, yet the men’s aspects darkened as if thunderheads scudded in. Nudging one another, they found work elsewhere, deserting Mr. Smee on the deck while they melted away toward safer posts. The sloshing of the bay waters filled the void, and the gait of fine boots on the boards, all unnoticed by Mr. Smee humming at his machine until a shadow slid over the cloth, staining it blacker. A sharpness on Smee’s shoulder cut song and motion short. His knife thumped onto the flag. Carefully, he heeded the low, silky voice.

  “You neglected to attend me last night, Smee. I was alone.”

  Alone. Smee heard the echoes ring within that word. “Aye, Cap’n.” The bo’sun’s eyes peered sidewise over his spectacles, the only part of him daring movement. He was a brave man, but not foolhardy. “The ship was restless last night. The lads had a time keeping her to anchor, Sir.” He hoped he’d find smooth sailing in these waters. Smee knew better than any of his mates that in the absence of fellowship, the vessel was of highest concern to her captain.

  “I know. I felt it.” The hook lifted. It snagged and snapped a thread of Smee’s striped shirt. Hook’s gaze on his bo’sun was keen, and it shifted to the banner where it lay stabbed by the needle. Silently, the white teeth grinned accord with the legendary captain. Hook’s handsome face leered back at it. Living on the edge of crossed swords wasn’t comfortable. It was invigorating.

  The flag called the Jolly Roger was his ship’s namesake and Hook’s sole companion among this crew, for the elegant Captain James Hook had no mate. His men were good pirates all, fierce and lusty, and Hook valued them. But even Mr. Smee, with his many talents and well knowing his captain’s ways, was a common man. These sailors had championed Hook and sworn oaths of loyalty to the death— but they were so far beneath him. They toiled below while Hook rode high like Roger, alone, regarding the horizon.

  Hook regarded it now. Silver seabirds sailed above him, their thoughtless flight appearing so easy. Of all the creatures on and above the earth, Hook envied only the birds, which possessed the final freedom of flight. But he didn’t need to be airborne to view the arms of the bay cradling the Roger, nor the open sea reclining beyond them, shamelessly tempting men of appetite to partake of her offerings. And the Island behind so full of promise, burgeoning with life and color. The captain breathed deeply, relishing the salt-scented breeze that dared to twine his hair. Its boldness brought a smile to his lips. “The horizon looks well today.”

  It was time to unfurl the scheme. His hook prodded black Roger, needling him like Smee’s machine. “Rattle him back up, Smee. We’ve work to do.”

  Smee’s shoulders loosened a bit. He liked the smile on his captain’s face. So cold it warmed him. He ventured a quick inspection of his threadbare sleeve. He’d have to run up a patch for that— later.

  Smee’s red beard spread with the grin. “Unrip your plan, Captain!”

  Chapter 5

  The Story of Red-Handed Jill

  By the standards of the Neverland, the day had been an uneventful one, and Wendy was obliged to tap her creativity for fresh material. This night’s tale would be new— one of those that hadn’t as yet come true.

  “Tonight I’ll tell you the story of Red-Handed Jill.” She inspected the crew gathered at her feet.

  “Oooo!” Every nook of the cavern filled with anticipation, and Peter and the boys leaned into the firelight.

  “Red-Handed Jill was a Pirate Queen. She was known far and wide for her prowess in swordplay, and she was a crack shot. The first time she fired a pistol, she shot the eye of a parrot at fifty paces.” Wendy aimed a make-believe pistol in both hands, and fired. “She wore sturdy boots and sailed on a fearsome pirate ship. And she left terror in her wake.”

  Big eyes all around the circle.

  “Red-Handed Jill got her name from her very first adventure. She killed a beast when she was only a girl—”

  “Not even grown-up?” piped Michael.

  “Not even. But that did it. She was a lady from then on.” Wendy put her back into her task. “You see, Jill had gone rambling through the forest one day, looking for fun— she was quite a bold girl— and a tiger scented her out and followed her, creeping until it could get a good jump at her. But Jill was too clever for that. She heard that tiger stalking her and she hid behind a tree, and when the beast passed by, she waited for its tail. Then she grabbed it. She yanked on it, and the animal was so surprised that Jill laughed— it had such a funny look on its face.”

  “Like this?” Slightly had been a boy longer than most of the others, and he always knew how Things looked. He’d had a lot of experience imagining them.

  “Yes, Slightly, only not so human.” She licked her lips. “Jill whipped the knife from her belt.” Wendy whipped it. “And slashed that tiger’s throat.” Wendy slashed it. “But not before the animal dragged a sharp claw across her wrist, drawing blood.” Gripping her arm, Wendy began to ‘bleed’ profusely. “And when she saw her own blood mix with the blood of her first kill, she dropped her knife and went all savage and got the blood-rage!”

  The boys clutched at each other’s shoulders. Wendy heard a ripping i
n the shirt she’d be mending that evening.

  “Jill dropped down on her knees by the pool of blood and plunged her hand into it. She raised up her arms and whooped and danced until the rage left her. She knew no one would believe she’d killed a tiger all on her own at such a tender age, so she cut off the tiger’s tail with her gory knife and tied it round her waist.”

  “Eeeww.…”

  Peter rolled his eyes and scowled at Curly.

  “And her right hand never came clean again. It was stained with her first blood— the blood of the beast that stalked her. When the people of her village saw her red hand and the tiger-tail belt, they knew she was fierce and they named her Red-Hand. They thought of her as a tiger herself, and they were so afraid that they wouldn’t come near her. She was beautiful, too, and she took to carrying a whip and she used it to bring down any boy who tried to tame her. Well, as you can imagine, even her mother and father didn’t want such a headstrong girl any longer. She left the village with a reputation and stowed away aboard a barge on the river. And eventually she got out to sea and joined up with pirates.”

  “The pirates let a lady join them?”

  “Yes, Nibs, but she had to prove her valor first.”

  “I thought women are bad luck aboard ship?”

  “Oh, no, Tootles. That’s just girls. She was a lady by then, as I told you. Pirates love ladies.” Tootles nodded with an understanding he didn’t yet own.

  “The Pirate King didn’t even try to take her whip away and tame her. He knew she was too magnificent for that, like her tiger. They sailed together and had lots of adventures, and the Pirate King fell in love with her. He made her his Queen, took her to Paradise.… In the end they kissed… just like the end of all great stories.”

  Sighs all around. When Wendy roused herself from her magic to speak to the boys again, she noted their wistful expressions; they were learning to appreciate the finer points of her stories. And the boys weren’t alone. A musical breath issued even from behind the curtain of Tinker Bell’s niche. As always when Wendy spoke, the fairy was aloof. But she was listening.