Captain James Hook and the Siege of Neverland Page 7

  Again, I obeyed.

  They dove and I found myself neck-deep at the center of the cove. Something moved below my feet and I treaded water to say afloat. The two women circled me and cackled. Their eyes rolled white. They pinched me. They pulled at my feet. They smiled and their teeth arched forward like needles.

  I flailed my fists and my blades at them. They splashed me and bit my legs. They dragged me underwater, but released me after a few moments. Thick blood rose to the surface of the water around me, ringing me in widening circles. They dragged me under again, this time for longer. I kicked and swiped at them as the world darkened around me.

  Then a shriek screeched across the sky and the women disappeared into the red and black water. I swam for the bank and coughed up blood onto the rocks.

  “I am sorry about them,” a voice said. “They should know not to do that with you.”

  “Oh?” I said. I turned and saw the same slick black hair and stunning, angled face of the mermaid from the bay. Her eyes were a rich blue and, although beautiful, didn’t enthrall or terrify me. “And what makes me so special?”

  “You’re mine,” she said.

  “Am I?”

  “Oh yes,” she said. “All that you are, and, more importantly, all that you were.”

  I coughed more blood onto the beach, then wiped my mouth with the sleeve beneath my hook.

  “Dear, dear,” the mermaid said. “You’re just going all to pieces around here aren’t you?”

  I looked down at my hook and scowled. The thought reminded me why I came out this way and only then did I realize that I no longer had my bag. Panic gripped me. I searched the beach for it and found it washed up some yards away. I reached into it and my fingers slipped out the bottom. I turned it inside out and found nothing.

  “Stop looking,” the mermaid laughed. She reached behind her and held up the thin stems and leaves. “This is what you want?”

  “Yes,” I said. “How do you know?”

  “It is what the men of this world always come for,” she smiled. “In Neverland a man can live forever as long as he doesn’t die.”

  “That sounds ridiculous.”

  “It is as ridiculous as it is true,” she said. She handed me the herbs with a grin.

  “And you want nothing in return?”

  “You’ve already given me so much,” she said. “You don’t feel it?”

  “The Forgetting,” I said. “I’ve seen it in my crew. They lose themselves. Their memories.”

  “Oh, but you’ve given just as much.” She examined me for a moment. “Maybe more.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “Currency is currency,” she said. “We hear that you men trade in pretty rocks and metals.”

  “Again, why me?”

  “The others squabble over the children,” she said. “But I have first rights to the men of my choice.”

  “I’m honored,” I said, mockingly.

  “You should be. I am royal blood and you are a prize. You have worked so hard for what you have that a day of your story is worth a dozen common lifetimes.”

  “I’d trade it all to have never known him.”

  “No you wouldn’t,” she said. “And that’s the most valued secret I’ll take from you. Your hatred is so beautiful. You cherish it. You nurture it as you would a child. I’ll have it. All of it, in time. Then you can die. Not a day sooner.” She smiled her needle teeth at me and disappeared into the water.

  I stood at the banks for several silent moments.

  I knelt down to my reflection and collected my memories, mouthing every word carefully.

  “My name is Captain Hook. I was born James Hoodkins to Jonathan and Elizabeth. My father was the captain of the Jolly Roger back when it was called the Britannia. William Jukes is my oldest friend. He and I grew up together in Port Royal. His father was Harrison Jukes, a great man who served as first officer to my father. Emily Jukes was his sister and the only woman who had ever truly seen me and still chose to love me. Save for William, they are all dead because Peter Pan came into our lives through me.”

  I concentrated on their faces as I spoke their names. I stared hard into my reflection’s eyes and recited my memories again, this time with greater certainty in the wording.

  “Captain!” a voice called out from behind the trees.

  I took one more look at myself in the water.

  “Captain!” the voice called again. “Where are you?”

  I filled my wineskin with water, stood, and walked to my crewmen. They had not moved far from when I left. First they rolled from side to side, then their legs and arms jerked. Soon, they flexed their fingers and lifted their heads. I showed them the herbs.

  “Well, then, I guess this be a success,” Cecco said, rubbing his neck.

  We walked to the castle on unsteady legs. The road dipped and crested, but the men stayed in tight formation, occasionally leaning on one another for support.

  “And he couldn’t have warned us about that?” Smee asked.

  “He tried,” Noodler said, a few yards behind. I turned back to watch the man scuttle our tracks.

  “He doesn’t want us dead,” I said.

  “Aye, but he doesn’t want us all,” Smee said, burning a hole through me with his eyes. “He wants you.”

  “But why?” Cecco asked.

  “Yeah,” Smee said. “What makes you so special?”

  “I’ve been asking myself that a lot lately,” I said. We rounded the corner and the castle came into view. Behind the mountain, dark clouds schemed.

  As we stepped out onto the field, we saw Bertilak standing just outside of the door to the outer wall. His axe was strapped across his back and his bright tunic of green and gold shone in the overcast sunlight. All three hounds sprawled across the grass at his feet. He and Starkey were laughing over one of the books in the gentleman’s hands.

  Next to them was Gabriel, sitting atop several boxes laid side by side. Her blue dress clung to her wrists and waist tightly, but danced on the corners of the boxes as the wind blew through it. Her face cracked into a narrow smile as she saw me. She caught herself and looked away.

  “Where is Gustavo?” I asked.

  “Resting,” Bertilak said. “Inside.”

  I held the herbs out for him to see. “These were not easy to get, but you knew that.”

  A distant thunder rumbled.

  “Indeed,” said the knight. “You and your men are courageous beyond measure.” Bertilak scratched his beard as he examined the herbs. He looked to Gabriel and she quickly grabbed them from my hand and took them inside.

  “How soon can he be healed and on his feet?” I asked, wiping the first drops of rain off of my forehead.

  “He can be healed in moments,” said the knight. “It will be some time before he is well enough to walk.”

  A stiff wind ripped through the trees and assaulted us, carrying with it the promise of more to come.

  “The storm is upon us, Captain,” said the knight. “You will never make it back to your ship in time.”

  “I have weathered storms before.”

  “Not a Neverland storm, my dear Captain,” Bertilak said. “Come and let my walls protect you.”

  Black clouds rolled over the top of the mountain like a sheet of artificial night. I looked into the still groggy and sunken eyes of the men at my side.

  “Until the storm passes,” I said.

  Bertilak smiled and waved an arm for us to follow him inside. Over the rolling thunder and the crank of Bertilak’s gate lowering from the barbican, I heard Smee’s snide growl. I chose to ignore it, but my heart sank as the gate crashed down against the stone, sealing us inside.

  Chapter Nine

  The storm was on us before we were through the courtyard. We ran inside the keep as heavy rain pounded the stone walls. A fire burned in the main hall and the men made beds of the sheets and cushions within reach. I watched Gabriel heal Gustavo in much the same way as she did the boy. O
nly then did I join my crew by the fire.

  Bertilak drank and laughed with us on into the night. He showed Starkey and me his library of seven books, each of which he knew cover to cover. We talked about literature and history. We talked about what passed for art in the modern world. We talked about war, famine, feasts, and how to make rum. We talked about anything except Peter Pan.

  After several hours, Bertilak excused himself to bed. One by one, the men’s eyes became heavy and they drifted away into sleep by the fireplace.

  Every man save for me.

  It wasn’t nervousness that kept me awake. Bertilak’s actions all seemed like tests. Accepting the barrels of food was a test of faith. Retrieving the herbs from the plant was a test of might and courage. If my suspicions were right, there was another test waiting for me. In spite of this, I didn’t believe that the knight’s motives for me were of ill intent.

  My unrest was also not due to a lack of comfort. The floor of the hall was wide enough for each man to have his own corner if he wanted it. I lied in a warm and dry nook by the fire, wrapped in the fur of an animal I didn’t recognize.

  It would have been ideal, if only I could have stopped from getting sick. I tossed from side to side, trying to steady the room around me. I closed my eyes and the room spun. I opened them again and the walls settled not quite where they were before. This happened for long hours, or what seemed like hours, until I gave up the idea of sleep. I threw the fur off of me and grabbed my coat. The damp and cold fabric clung to my arms.

  I stepped over Smee, who snored on the stone floor, and walked to the window with as much care as I could gather. The Jolly Roger was in danger again and her captain was no where to be found. A tenseness settled in my chest, but I knew that the ship was in good hands. Billy Jukes was as fine a sailor as he was a friend.

  I stared out over the courtyard and beyond the walls that guarded the castle. Darkness blanketed the trees and blotted out the great ocean that surrounded Neverland. I squinted, trying to make out any form in the Crescent Wood. Trees shook and snapped in the torrent. Their trunks bent in all directions, but always with the wind. All except for a single line of parting branches moving away from the castle. They bent and fell at the feet of whatever it was that pushed through them. I looked past what was possible and saw the outline of a figure, green and larger than any man could be. My mind flooded with impossible images. Had I known a man like this in my past? I closed my eyes and thought back through my life. My memories stretched until all I saw was a cracked mirror of faces and dreams. The harder I concentrated, the fainter the lines between the two became. The figure disappeared into the forest and my shoulders dropped with the weight of a man who had grown accustomed to not having answers.

  The wind changed and rain poured over me. I stepped back from the window and brushed the water off of my coat. Just then, a movement caught my eye.

  Lady Gabriel stood further down the corridor, staring as a woman does when she is trying not to look like she is staring at all. I smiled at my hostess and greeted her with a bow. She curtsied and we stood in silence for a few heartbeats.

  “Trouble sleeping, kind sir?” Gabriel asked.

  “I have slept on a ship every night for twenty years, my lady,” I said. “Dry land takes some getting used to.”

  She looked at me and I felt her judgement drip from the expression. Judgement and something else. “I have seen comelier knights before.”

  I looked down at my wet coat and muddy boots. “No doubt, I’m sure.”

  “And far more courteous as well,” scoffed Gabriel.

  “Have I done something to offend you, my lady?”

  “What you did to that boy was a cruelty.”

  “Your husband would have done worse.”

  “He did,” said the lady. “The act of kindness would have been to let the boy die. But if this is all ever going to end, some kindnesses may need to be shed.” She looked me over again. “It seems to me a strange thing that a man of your breeding should not know the conventions of good society.”

  “Pray tell me, what have I forgotten?”

  “When a countenance is known, every knight who practices courtesy must claim a kiss.”

  A gust of wind tore through the room. The men stirred, but none woke. I pulled my wet coat tighter around me. “Kissing another man’s wife means something different in my time.”

  “No,” the lady said, “It doesn’t. Unless you have pledged your faith firmly to someone?”

  I turned my eyes to the window and stared out into the blackness. Deep in the folds of my mind, the name Emily was etched clearly in my script, but her face was a blur of golden hair and fair skin. “Not anymore.”

  Gabriel leaned in and gave me a kiss. I stepped back and Gabriel’s jade eyes ripped through my chest.

  “You’re as cold as he is,” Gabriel said. “Every day is a fine day to take advantage of a love that is close by.”

  “I hardly know you and every day is a fine day to not be stabbed by a jealous husband,” I said. “If you were to kiss me again, my lady, I would be sure to tell your husband immediately upon seeing him.”

  “And he would cleave you in two.”

  “I think not,” I said. “I think that being upfront with the lord of the house would end these trials he has been putting me through.”

  She stopped for a breath, then said, “There was a time when that may have been true.”

  “What changed?”

  “Everything,” she said, then shook her head. “Nothing. Nothing changes here. It all just becomes different with time. The same moments. The same days. Over and over again, all only slightly different than the last.” A sadness washed over her face. She kissed me again and sighed. “A gentleman should know better than to remain a statue when a lady offers him a kiss.”

  “I have kissed men’s wives, sisters, and mothers. Two king’s daughters still pine for me off of Madagascar,” I said, wondering why that memory was still clear to me. “I find myself less and less a gentleman with each passing year.” A pulse surged through me and I caught the back of her dress with my hook, snagging the lace. She scowled at me, but it was only a thin mask of the feelings she communicated with her eyes. Her face flushed and the muscles in her jaw tightened. She pulled against me, but I held fast and the dress ripped even further down her back. I reached my left hand around her waist and drew her in closer. She braced her hands against my chest, but didn’t push.

  I kissed her, harder than she kissed me before.

  Then I felt a chill against my neck. I looked down and saw a small knife in Gabriel’s hand. She held the flat of the blade to my throat and, for a moment, neither of us breathed.

  Gabriel scraped the edge of the knife down my neck and cut off the top button of my shirt. She smiled and cut off the second as well.

  We tore at each other in the empty castle hallway. Gabriel blindly reached for the door of her chambers. We tumbled into the room. She shut the door and locked it behind her.

  Chapter Ten

  August 17th Assumed

  Sleep found me quickly after that, if not peacefully.

  Images rushed through my mind. Glimpses of different battles raged around me. Screaming faces called to me, all unfamiliar and impossible to name. A shade caught the corner of my eye and my heart raced, thinking that my shadows are always Peter Pan. I looked around and found myself in the castle hallway. The shade flashed again and I saw it more clearly. A woman trailed a long red cloth, like a dress or a scarf. Soaring above my sleeping crew, I followed the shade past the main hall, through a stone wall, and down a dark stairwell lit only in torchlight. The stairway opened into a dungeon and she led me past one cell after another. Rushing water roared on my left, but my eyes were fixed on the woman cloaked in red who seeped through the final cell door as though she were no more than a whisper.

  From that which I have wronged will come an end to all suffering. The phrase repeated. Then again.

  I reached the door a
nd was stopped hard against the wood and steel. My blood surged and reddened my vision. I scratched and pounded at the door as though opening it were the only way to stop the ceaseless recitation of these words. I was certain of it, more certain than I had been of anything before. I kicked the lock and the bolts that held it in place. I beat my fists against it and cut deep grooves with my hook. Exhausted, I yielded and looked through the bars. There was no woman. There were no beds or chains. The room was empty save for a single large pot in the center. Its width covered half the cell and its height was taller than a small child. The pot boiled and rolled in spite of there not being a fire underneath it. A small blue orb rose from the boiling fluid. It was, as I saw it, singularly important.

  The woman’s face rose to meet mine at the door, startling me. Her eyes pleaded, flashed red, then disappeared. In the emptiness that followed, I again heard the same phrase: From that which I have wronged will come an end to all suffering.

  A touch on my shoulder woke me and I sprang upright. My mind raced to catch up with my body’s reflexes.

  Bertilak stood over me, fully dressed and smiling.

  “Come,” the knight said. “There is something you will want to see.”

  Thoughts flooded my mind as I cleared the fog of sleep. There was no one in bed with me, so I decided not to ask Bertilak where his wife went. I searched for my clothes in the darkness, retrieving my pants by the door and my shirt tangled within my coat. I groped under the bed and found my hook. I latched it on, pulling the straps tight, and felt the familiar ache settle into a throb. When I finished dressing, Bertilak led me out of the room and back to the main hall.

  “This way.” Something in Bertilak’s voice implied secrecy. The knight prowled over the stone floor with hardly a sound and I crept after him. We skulked past my crew, who still slept by the smoldering embers of last night’s fire.

  I kicked Noodler’s boot as I passed him. The man’s eyes parted and fixed on me.