Never, Never (31 page)

Wendy did open her eyes. And when she did, the landscape around them changed. The black of the clouds faded to grey, and then to white. The sea calmed, until it was glass once again, and the suns beamed brightly in the blue. Vanilla in the air.

“No,” Hook said, releasing the girl's smiling face.

“No,” he repeated, and he strode across the deck, yanking at his hair.

“No,” he screamed, the peace in the air like an awful racket in his head.

His crewmen scrambled about, drawing their weapons and loading the cannons, sprinting about in a clamor.

“I was finally going to leave, Starkey. I was going to do it.”

Hook's words were running together, and he was out of breath. Starkey clapped him on the shoulder.

“Ye won't be doin' so any time soon, Captain. Pan is alive.”

T
HE CAPTAIN TAPPED HIS HOOK NERVOUSLY ON THE
mast beside him and pulled his jacket around his arms, wishing to shield himself from the abominable warmth.

“Pan is alive. Of course he is. Blast the boy.”

Wendy looked indignant, bringing a scowl to Hook's countenance.

He stared out at the sky, disdaining it wholly. If Pan was truly alive, and it seemed there was no other explanation for the weather, then he would have to use the tools at his disposal to bring him there. Those tools, he knew, were the children.

Were Pan's Lost Boys, and especially his Wendy, in imminent danger, Peter would know just as soon as he'd known about his flute and his Tiger Lily, and the
Spanish Main
would call to him like a beacon.

“Starkey,” he said, voice on the edge of apathy, which was where it was the most frightening.

“Aye, Captain.”

Hook felt a drop of guilt in the pit of his stomach when he said, “Bind the children more tightly. Free their legs, but I want the hands behind their backs. There can be no chance that they will fly off. And then, you bring them all to me.”

Starkey nodded, and he made his way to the children, enlisting the help of several of the other pirates. Smee was
included in the retying, but this time, the children were not delighted by him. For whatever reason, this gladdened the captain a bit.

When it was done, the pirate marched the captives to the captain, and they stood in a solemn line, looking grim, as though they were being forced to drink castor oil. It was appropriate.

“Six of you will walk the plank today, boys.”

Jukes came to stand beside him and crossed his massive arms, muscles bulging, mouth hard and angry. He'd been nothing but hard and angry since Flintwise had died in the battle with the Indians. Hook nodded at him.

He very intentionally ignored Wendy and tried to ignore the voice in his head that said,
“Peter wins. Peter wins. Peter wins.”

Several of the boys puffed up their chests at the claim, but a couple of them slouched and cast their eyes downward. It made Hook rather sad to see the fear in them, particularly in Tootles and Slightly. Slightly had been his friend once, hadn't he? And Tootles was the small one, the one he still, inexplicably, felt an obligation to protect. But, unless they truly believed it, he had no doubt that Pan would not come.

“I've room on my vessel, however, for two cabin boys.”

After he said it, he felt foolish. But he was so guilt-stricken over the looks on the children's faces that he was compelled to offer them some glimmer of hope. Besides, perhaps the thought of his boys defecting to piracy would be more drawing to Peter than the threat of their deaths.

The boys looked at each other, heads whipping about, dancing with nervous energy.

Hook shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Well, hop to, boys. It's not often that you get an offer such as this from the dreadful Captain Hook.”

Tootles stepped forward, and Hook smiled with relief. Tootles had always been one of his favorites. When the child looked up into his face, Hook realized that Tootles did not recognize him in the slightest. That wiped the smile from him.

“The problem, Mister Captain, is that it doesn't seem proper to be a pirate. My mother would faint.”

“And who is your mother?”

“Wendy, Mister Captain, sir.”

Slightly piped in. “It's true. She'd have us for dinner. She's awfully strict for a mother.”

Slightly didn't know him either. Had he truly changed so much?

Hook narrowed his eyes and looked back at Wendy, who was smiling softly. She looked older in this light, silhouetted by the blue sky and the light of the suns, and Hook saw her for a moment as the children saw her. She did remind him a bit of his mother back home in England. The hint of a smile, the wisdom behind the eyes, the softness in her face. It was nonsense, of course. Peter had fooled the boys into believing that she was their mother, nothing more. But it was a clever ruse.

He followed her gaze to two boys, two he did not recognize. One was tall and lanky and proud. The other was tiny with delicately angled little features, and he had a mischievous spark in his eye. Hook looked at Wendy out of the corner of his eyes and back to the boys, and he grinned.

“You, boy,” he said, pacing over to stand in front of the little one. He knelt in front of him and lowered his voice. “What's your name?”

“Michael Darling.”

Darling. A brother of Wendy's then, no doubt.

The child looked at his feet.

“Michael, can you really tell me you've never dreamed of becoming a pirate?”

Michael screwed up his face in the way of little boys and peered up at Hook. “Well, I've played at it. I've always wanted to be called, to be called…”

“Called what?” Hook said, stooping a bit more, tilting his ear toward the boy.

Michael leaned in very close to the captain, so his voice was only a whisper. “Red-Handed Jack.”

Hook raised his eyebrows and stood then set his hand on Michael's shoulder. “Red-Handed Jack. I truly believe I've never heard a fiercer name for a pirate.”

It beat Captain Bloodheart. That was for certain.

Michael smiled, though he looked a bit bashful. And he turned to the boy beside him, who looked deep in thought.

“What would my name be?” said the taller boy.

“What's your name now?”

“John Darling. But I won't be known as the pirate Darling.”

Another brother. Hook scraped his teeth across his lower lip. Starkey saw his hesitation and stepped forward. “We've been sorely needin' a Blackbeard Joe.”

“You haven't got one already?” said John.

“No. We're fresh out.”

John looked content with this and nodded.

“Boys!” came the shriek from Wendy. Both brothers jumped out of their skins. “How can you consider it? Think for a moment. You know what our real mother would say, don't you? If you became pirates? You're not fiends. I know it.”

John and Michael both stepped back at once and hung their heads.

“You'd truly choose to die rather than sail under my flag?”

The brothers peeked up at him, eyes large and woeful, then looked over at Wendy.

“Of course they will,” she piped in. “They will die like English gentlemen. With good form.”

She locked eyes with Hook, and he was struck again at how like his mother she seemed. He stared at her until the shame welled up in his gut, and he could take it no longer. Hook looked away from the group and out at the bright, calm sea. Pan had not yet come. He frowned. How was it that he wasn't here yet, with all his boys so close to meeting their deaths? Pan had always been cavalier about death anyway, and perhaps Hook's plan would fail and Peter would never show up. He sighed, and then turned back to his crew. The plan was in motion. Despite his misgivings, there was no stopping it now.

“Set up the plank,” he ordered to Thatcher. Thatcher and Cecco disappeared below deck and Hook surveyed the waters. He felt a vague stirring in himself when he gazed upon the faces of the children. None looked at him; all their eyes were fixed upon the plank. Their faces had all drained of color, and Hook wondered if his had as well. Pan was still out, gallivanting in Neverland. Of course he was. And very soon, Hook would be forced to send eight children hurtling into the ocean.

Cecco and Thatcher hoisted the rough plank between them and brought it out to the edge of the ship. They secured it slowly, or it seemed slow to Hook. There were several moments wherein both Hook and the Lost Boys shared looks of terror, the boys because they knew they would soon meet their doom, and Hook because he was dreading that he would have to be the one to introduce them.

Hook removed his hat and shivered, then looked away. The suns beat down upon him, warming his head until it burned. It was getting warmer. Did that mean that Pan
was getting closer? Or did it mean that he was distracting himself with some happy adventure? Hook made an exasperated noise. It was impossible to know.

“Captain?” Thatcher said.

In Hook's voice was a great weariness when he answered, “Aye.”

“The plank is ready.”

Hook did not answer. He ran his hand through his hair, releasing several tangles from it, and stood slowly up. He put his hat back atop his head and tipped it at a rakish angle, still turned away from the solemn little crew. He polished his hook on his jacket until it gleamed. When he knew he could stall no longer, he turned around, looking more elegant and more menacing than any of the crew had ever seen him, and he looked one by one over the children.

“Which of you desires to lead the band?”

Not a child raised his hand. Hook met the eyes of the tallest one, John. How had he not been killed yet? He was nearly as tall as Peter. It didn't matter much, did it? Strange thoughts go through a man's head in the instant before he does something despicable.

“You there.
Blackbeard Joe
,” he said, sneering.

John looked up at him, eyes shining with fear, but face stubborn and collected. An Eton man, that one. Or at least with the heart of one.

“You may have the honor of walking first.”

John drew in a breath then stood, struggling to get fully upright, being that his hands were still bound. His skinny legs wobbled, and everyone could see it. Hook felt a great pang in him as John approached the plank. Where was Peter? Was he truly going to force him to send a child into the ocean?

John walked slowly over to the spot where the plank met the
Main
, and he looked, long and doleful, over the band of Lost Boys.

Hook made a sudden, panicked move toward him, unwilling for him to plunge into the water with his hands tied behind his back. John jumped, and he fell backward onto the plank, which vibrated heavily beneath his weight.

“Wait, boy.”

John sat up and hung each of his legs over the rough wooden beam, wincing momentarily. Hook cringed when he saw a spot of blood appear on the child's leg.

“You won't die with your hands bound like that. I will allow you to die with dignity.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of surprise on Wendy's face. He smiled to himself. Then, he approached the plank and held out his hook.

John eyed it, suspicion written plainly all over him. But the captain remained steady, and John held out a shaky hand and took the hook. He pulled John back onto the ship and turned him around.

“I thought you'd slash me for sure,” John said.

“That would be terrible form, boy. And I am nothing if not a man of good form.”

He took John's bound hands in his and drew back his hook to cut the rope, when he froze. A sound came, first from the sea and then from the side of the boat. It turned his insides and made him white at the gills. He forgot completely about John and left him tied, then backed away, trembling from head to toe.

Tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock.

H
OOK SHRANK BACK UP AGAINST THE WALL OF HIS
cabin, pale and shaking.

“Captain?” Starkey said, looking at him strangely.

“Do you not hear it?” Hook was next to breathless. The ticking of the clock had changed him wholly in a matter of seconds.

“Hear what, sir?”

A sweat broke out over Hook's brow and he hissed, “Listen.”

Starkey cocked his head toward the edge of the boat, and his eyes widened. “The crocodile.”

In an instant, Starkey was by Hook's side, brandishing his sword in one hand and a gun in the other. Smee came to him as well, and most of the rest of the crew followed— Cecco, Noodler, Thatcher, Jukes, all of them. Despite the fear paralyzing him, Hook was touched by this. The men all looked terribly fierce and aggressive, ready to defend him in a blink.

Hook breathed in and out, in and out, then drew his weapon. He refused to play the coward while the rest of his band looked able to fell the creature with their bare hands. The boldness started to dissipate when the ticking grew louder.

“He's coming up the side of the boat,” Hook whispered, and Starkey drew a bit closer to him, and stared, unblinking, out over the ship's edge.

How was it that a mindless creature terrified him so, when the thought of fighting a cunning knave like Pan did not chill his blood, but boiled it? Perhaps it was the mindlessness itself. A cunning person, he could predict. A fellow with a brain had strategies and thoughts and precaution and weakness. But a reptile, one that lusted after his blood, he could not hope to understand. A reptile would stop at nothing to get what it was after, even if it was foolish. Though he hated to admit his fear, he could not stop himself imagining the thing ripping at him and biting into him and consuming him whole.

He allowed himself to consider the possibility and to collapse into his own mind, give in to the panic, only for a moment. After he'd exhausted every possible feeling he could have about the brutal death he so dreaded, there was nothing to do but stand up straight. So, he did.

Hook blinked quickly several times, then straightened to his full height. He controlled his breathing until it was even and low. And he ran his fingers through the hair that hung by his chin and brushed his hook across his lips.

If he was to meet his death at the jaws of this awful creature, he was resolved to do it, as Wendy had said, an English gentleman, a captain. He flipped the sword once over in his hand and stepped in front of his men, steeling his features, staring out into the blue, resolved not to be afraid.

In that moment, as he faced the deepest fear he'd ever held, he felt a profound sense of peace. That could have had to do with the instant change in him, or it could have had to do with the sudden lack of ticking.

Hook frowned and let his sword drop just a bit. “Do you hear that? The quiet?”

“Aye. Seems to me the beast is gone, sir,” said Starkey.

Hook was uneasy and shifted his weight. It seemed odd behavior, even for a mindless creature, to simply swim off in the midst of a pursuit. He turned around and faced his crew, then opened his mouth to speak. But as he did, he there was a tiny
thump
behind him. He whirled around. Nothing. Perhaps he was finally going mad.

Hook ground his teeth and took several paces toward the children, who were all still safely bound and sitting in a huddle. One of them was grinning a little.

“Why are you smiling, boy?” he asked Slightly.

Slightly's grin left his face quite quickly. “I'm not.”

Hook shook his head. The entire ship was going batty. Hook paced back and forth in front of the group for a moment, trying to calm his rapidly fraying nerves.

“Cecco,” he said.

“Aye, aye,” said the man, running up to the captain, dark curls flying behind him.

“Fetch me a glass of wine from the main cabin. Red.”

“Wine, Sir?”

Hook's nostril flared. “Do not question me.”

Cecco gave him a strange look and headed off toward the cabin.

Hook was aware that alcohol was a strange thing to be requesting, especially at this moment. But, without it, he would be a paranoid mess if Pan ever did come to call. And without it, he feared he would not truly be able to send any of the children overboard.

Minutes passed. Hook furrowed his brow. “Blast that Cecco. Where is he?”

Slightly said solemnly, “One.”

“What?” he said, peering at his old friend.

Slightly shut his mouth and stared defiantly up at him, seeing him fully as a pirate, and not at all as James. He would get no answer from the boy.

Hook rolled his eyes and made off toward the cabin.

“Cecco! What could possibly be taking this long?”

Cecco did not answer.

He stepped closer and stared into the dark. There were no lights in this cabin, which seemed strange. It contrasted completely with the warm brightness outside. Hook felt a chill course through him. And then, he furrowed his brow and lifted his boot. Pooling around it was a circle of dark red liquid that was not wine. The blood stuck to his shoe when he stumbled backward.

“Cecco!” he called, voice holding no malice now, but fear.

Several of his crewmen rallied around him, and they all looked on into the black.

“Show yourself.”

There was no response.

“I said, show yourself or be known as a coward!”

There was a second of silence, and then, “I am no coward.”

Out of the cabin shot a boy, the one Hook had been baiting. He was ticking and tocking and laughing. He'd come after all. A little light shot out with him. A fairy. Pan's fairy. Of course—the one he'd seen in the woods. Pan went through fairies like he did Lost Boys. Hook had never had the time to learn the difference between Pan's fairy and the myriad of others, particularly since he'd had a difficult time telling fairies apart anyway. She'd warned him, no doubt. Hook scowled; he hated this fairy more than any other he'd had the pleasure of hating.

Peter did not come at Hook, not at first. Instead, he went for Wendy. Of course he went for Wendy. He slit her bonds easily, before any of the pirates could react. Then, he freed several of the boys. There was no detaining them now. Each of the ones who was freed was hastily untying another, and it was a useless cause.

Though Hook could focus on no one but Pan, the boy was darting around, totally scattered, poking at a pirate here, kicking another there, laughing. His little dagger was flashing in the sunlight, sending flares into Hook's eyes. Hook squinted up at him, and his vision distorted. Peter darted in and out among the pirates and back into the cabin before any of them could move. He came back out in a blur, arms full of weaponry, and dropped the treasure trove of daggers and tomahawks beside the Lost Boys, who gathered them up immediately.

Hook brandished his sword as the whole lot of the children scrambled toward him and his crew, weapons flailing. It put him in a position he desperately did not want to hold, one where he was forced to slash out at the children who were more or less playing war games and dress-up. Most of the rest of his crew was on the defensive as well, all pirates, but none villainous enough to seek the blood of children.

Despite the chaotic nature of the swordplay, the battle itself was not terribly frightening. Children with knives were decidedly less threatening than many of the other foes he had faced. So, he found that as he swung his sword and hook this way and that, he did it in an easy manner, almost relaxed, until a loud cry sounded to his right. He turned his face over his shoulder to see a large body, covered in tattoos, falling to the floor. Blood coated Bill Jukes's back and seeped out onto the waistband of his pants. Hook stifled a cry.

The Lost Boy standing nearest Jukes was Slightly, and he was grinning wickedly, his knife coated red and shiny.

“Two,” said the boy. And then Hook understood. It was a body count.

He felt a horrible hollow in his stomach. Hook had lost men before, of course, but not this way. Not to a Lost Boy, and not a man he truly knew. Hook was stuck looking
at the hulking, dying man. In the midst of that paralyzing, silent moment, he felt a large force crash into him.

“Captain, look out!”

There was a blur of color and arms and legs twisting together and a crash as Hook's body hit the deck. And there was Peter above him, laughing and spinning and flying off, his little dagger slick with blood. Hook felt sick, for whoever was lying on top of him had taken the blow for him.

He only felt sicker when he heard the man's voice.

“Captain, don't ye be concerned. 'Tis barely a scratch.”

When Hook detected a bit of wetness seeping onto his own shirt, soaking onto it from the other man, he nearly lost the contents of his stomach. Starkey.

Hook slid out from under his first mate and stared at him, willing it not to be him. But, of course, it was.

“Starkey, why did you do it?”

Starkey coughed, color draining from the leathery skin of his face. “It's my job, sir. Protectin' the captain.”

“You shouldn't have, you shouldn't have,” Hook said, barely able to come up with full sentences. He was desperate, grabbing at Starkey's shirt, pressing his hand into the pool of blood.

“I'll stop it. We can stop the blood. Of course we can. Don't you worry, Starkey. Don't you worry.”

“Careful, Captain,” he choked, bits of blood spraying out onto his lips. And he smiled. “Don't go usin' the wrong hand. That hook won't do a whole lot to help me, will it?”

“Don't joke, Starkey. Don't waste your breath.”

“Don't have much of it left anyway.”

Hook was frantic, eyes darting around, searching for anything he could use to stop the flow. He could not lose Starkey. Anyone but him. And not to Pan.

“Don't speak that way. I am your captain. That is an order.”

Starkey grinned and leaned his head back, staring up into the sky.

“Don't you just lie back and die. I'll have none of it.”

Hook's voice was unnecessarily aggressive, hoarse with fear and sorrow mixed. He kept pressing at the wound until Starkey reached out and grabbed his hand.

“Leave me be, Captain. Worry about the
Main
. This isn't the first time I been stabbed, and it won't be the last.”

The dullness in Starkey's eyes suggested otherwise. He was dying, and the sparkle of Neverland was leaving his skin.

Starkey pushed Hook in the shoulder. “Go. Three more've died since you been sittin' here.”

Hook clenched his jaw, eyes stinging.

Starkey blinked slowly, eyes clearer than they'd ever been as his gaze shifted to Pan, like a fog was drifting away from them. Then he looked directly into Hook's eyes. “Kill the boy, Captain Hook.”