Wendy Darling: Volume 2: Seas Page 4

  He shut the door behind them, and Wendy heard the turning of the small wheel, sealing them safely inside. Michael was already making his way down the short steps.

  “Oh, Wendy!”

  Though any room in the world would have held more charm than the dank hell that they had been in the last five days, this room, for being tiny, was actually quite comfortable. Two short beds were tucked in the corner, one on top of each other, the bottom one so low that you practically had to bend at the waist to fit inside. Each bed had a straw mattress and a scratchy blanket thrown on top of it. Across from the beds sat a ragged armchair, though it must have once been beautiful, as Wendy could see the remnants of a red damask pattern. She spotted some bloodstains on the carpet, but they seemed quite old, and she decided not to linger on them. The room was flanked by wood panels that were pockmarked with tiny holes in the wood grain. Wendy ran her finger across them. It was the perfect size for the end of a hook. She shuddered, wondering what exactly went on in this room, this room that Hook kept secret, even from his own men. A single port window looked out onto the pitching sea beside them, filling the room with a reassuring daylight. Wendy breathed in the Neverland sun as Michael climbed all over the room exclaiming over the smallest things.

  “Look, Wendy, here’s a letter!” He pulled it out from under the bed. “There’s some mouse poop, too.”

  “Well, don’t touch it!” she deadpanned, thinking of what her mother would say if she knew her children would be happily sleeping on straw beds with mouse poop underneath them. She hoisted herself onto the upper bed and unfolded her legs, giving a happy sigh when her body uncurled. She hadn’t known how much she had missed being able to lie down on a bed. Even her hammock on Pan Island hadn’t been this comfortable. This tiny room, where you couldn’t walk two feet without bumping your knee, suddenly seemed like Buckingham Palace. Michael curled up beside her.

  “I think we are safe now,” she whispered to Michael, before kissing his head.

  “Was Hook nice?”

  “No, he was not.” Wendy answered honestly before pausing. “But he wasn’t terrible either.”

  Michael’s eyes sparkled.

  “Not bad like Peter Pan is bad.”

  “No. Not like Peter.” Wendy closed her eyes, remembering the desperate look in Peter’s eyes as he wrapped his hands around her neck, strangling the breath out of her just before the Sudden Night rammed into them. It was like he had wanted to consume her, consume her breath, her life. She had never been so scared, for in that moment, she had thought she would lose Michael. Her arms closed tightly around him.

  “I’m sorry, Michael. Sorry for letting Peter take us away from our home. We should have stayed … we should have …”

  Michael wrapped his little fingers around Wendy’s slim ones.

  “We wanted to fly, though. I did like flying. I hope we can fly with the pirates.”

  Wendy knew that wouldn’t happen, but instead she stayed quiet as he prattled on. Flying. She couldn’t even think of the sky, its vast open blue, terrifying as she had plunged through it, untethered to anything except the possibility of death. Her mind lingered on Hook, on his cryptic words. “What you know about Peter Pan could fit into a thimble.” What did he know about Peter that fueled his hatred so? The man had enough ammunition to hate him as it was, with the constant battle of Lost Boys and pirates, and yet there was something else, something deeper. His words had been so soaked with hate, which could only come from a personal loss. Was it that Peter had taken his hand? Wendy clenched her hand, unconsciously, feeling the way the tendons pulled her fingers forward. Yes, losing a hand would surely do it.

  “Michael …”

  He was already asleep, finally safe, and finally warm. She wouldn’t wake him. Instead, she pried the letter from his bunched up fist, folding it open quietly, working hard to keep her own eyes open.

  Captain’s Log

  May 17, 1892

  My dearest Easter,

  It pleases me to say that the

  Jolly Rodger flourishes even in these caustic waters! We sailed out of the port of Shimoda, straight east until we pulled upwards into Alaskan territory. The wind and the waves seem to be on the side of our able navigators, pushing the Jolly Rodger onwards at a swift clip. Leaving behind a mild storm, we venture on, to places few eyes have seen in this dark North, a place of fearful night whispers and beauty that is so violent that it pierces your beating heart! As the green pines of Barrow slowly vanish from sight, I set my vision on the adventure before me, a destiny. I am at once a pirate, a voyager, and a theater patron, watching this stage of harsh, sharp landscape unfold beyond our bow. Peaks of unflinching ice penetrate the glaciers that make their way timidly down to our sea, and seals dance at our helm, their slippery fins slapping the icy waters, as if they were playing a game with us.

  The men spotted a pod of black-tipped whales rising out of the water to the east—what monsters lie underneath us I can’t even imagine, here at the tip of the world. Though it be bitter cold (imagine had we come in winter! The madness!), I have taken to wandering outside for the sunset, wrapped in a silly amount of blankets. The sunsets are different here, they are paler, the deep black of the water melding with the cleanest air you have ever breathed, and a blue horizon rising out over the ocean like a great eye, calculating and precise.

  It makes me feel small, my darling. I miss you.”

  Yours forever,

  Arthur Tiberius Hook

  Wendy smiled as she reached the end of the letter. There was something uniquely comforting about reading in bed—it was akin to pulling a warm blanket over her mind. Even though she was a prisoner on a pirate ship, her brother was being held captive by a maniacal god-child, and she may never see her family or the boy she loved again, she could, for just a page or two, escape into the mind and words of someone else. She carefully folded the letter and placed it back in the torn pages of the deep-maroon journal, its cover frayed and loved. Arthur Tiberius Hook. That must have been Hook’s father, and Easter—his mother? Did Hook know this letter had been left in here? It had been tucked deeply under the bed, so perhaps not. Wendy put the letter down before placing her hands on her neck. She could still feel the slight raised bruises of where Peter had choked her and with a shudder she withdrew her hand. Michael breathed warm and soft across her face, his filthy hair pressed up against her cheek. They were both disgusting. She snuggled against him and fell into the folds of soft darkness like an old friend.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  They slept for twelve hours, rocked hard by the Sudden Night, before gnawing hunger woke them both. After attempting to brush Michael’s hair and her own, Wendy changed them into the garments that Smith had left for them outside the door: breeches and a loose tunic for Michael, a simple and conservative cream dress for her, and a shawl patterned with thick roses and shades of pale green that draped heavily over her shoulders. Wendy loved it immediately, as it reminded her of a time when she didn’t reek of fish and other unspeakable filth. After they were dressed, Wendy listened at the door, shushing Michael, who was pawing at her legs and braying about how hungry he was. She heard nothing, and so slowly and cautiously, she unlocked the door and pushed the wooden lever outwards. The hidden door swung open quickly, and they tumbled into the hallway. Moving quickly, Wendy shut the door behind them, taking care to flip down the black iron casing to cover the tiny wheel. She looked down the hallway, trying to remember where the stairs were.

  “Here, follow me,” Wendy whispered.

  They made their way down a long, straight hallway, listening to the constant clink of the knives that rattled on the walls as the ship battered the waves. They stumbled over their feet as the hallway swayed one direction and then another, Wendy fearing that the emptiness in her stomach would turn to nausea if she paid too much attention to it.

  “Wendy,” moaned Michael, “I’m so hungry!”

  “I know. I’m trying to find …” she turned a corner and spied the bone sta
ircase, “that!”

  She had to coax him up the stairs, trying her best to explain why the rails were made of long femurs. As they climbed, the air became cleaner, and she smelled, for the first time since Hook had pulled them out of the sea, that cloying sweetness of Neverland air, the hibiscus and the sugar plants saturating the air. The feeling of life entering her nostrils was such as relief. Finally, they reached a heavy wooden door that lay horizontal at the top of the stairs. Light peeked in from above, giving the door a square halo of bright, natural light. Wendy took a deep breath and pushed the door open, emerging into the sunlight like a creature of the night. She was at once overwhelmed by the noise of the monstrous ship: waves battered against its side, sending the occasional spray of salty water up over the deck. There was the sloughing noise of the bristles that a pirate was moving back and forth with vigor over the black wooden planks of the deck, and the faint knock, knock of the rudder that moved effortlessly behind them. Above her, massive black sails snapped in the wind, unfurling their shrouds like a caress, retracting them again only to meet the wind once more. The ship creaked underneath her feet. Michael squeezed her hand with excitement, a happy grin on his face.

  “Wendy! This is a REAL pirate ship!” It wasn’t a pirate ship, she mused, it was THE pirate ship, larger and swifter than any she’d ever seen or heard of. The Sudden Night’s curving deck was unlike any of the ships Wendy had seen at port in London, or in the many books that John read featuring pirates and deserted islands. Like a hand creeping up her spine, Wendy felt the intense eyes of the pirates on her, but she consciously decided not to focus on them. Instead, she let her eyes widen at the sight of what this ship really was, the truth of the Sudden Night: it was a weapon. The right side of the ship was lined with harpoons of all different shapes, loaded into round cannons that swiveled on the wind. Their sharp barbed lips gleamed in the afternoon sun, their cruel tips pointed at the sky. She counted twelve separate cannons, each loaded with dozens of harpoons of varying size and shape. Underneath the harpoons lay a coiled black net that stretched the length of the deck. Wendy recognized it—she had been hauled out of the sea by this net. She shuddered at the memory of Michael’s lifeless body, and then without warning, pulled him tight against her body, hugging him close. He gave an annoyed sigh.

  “Wendy, stop!”

  At the ends of the net, there were two open baskets full of hand-sized cylinders, smooth stones, polished white. She reached for one. Her arm was grabbed roughly and she looked up to see Smith, his hulking form blocking the sun, the angel tattooed on his arm staring down at her with its naughty cherubic grin.

  “I wouldn’t be touching those. Those pearls have just a touch of gunpowder inside of them.”

  Wendy recoiled.

  “See, if we can’t shoot a harpoon through the Lost Boys chest, we can blow their eyes out of their skull, singe their skin! Just about everything on this ship is about as dangerous it can be, for a good reason. The Lost Boys attack from the sky—and we have to be ready for them.”

  Smith raised his eyes.

  “See that man there, in the crow’s nest?”

  Wendy followed his gaze to the center mast, where a cherry-wood basket lorded over the deck.

  “That’s Hawk. We call him that because he always has his eyes on the skies. That is his whole job. And when he sleeps, Owl takes over at night.”

  Smith stood up straight, his hands on his broad waist.

  “Can’t ever not watch the skies. They’ve tried to take us before, but the captain is smart, and he knows what he’s looking for.”

  He grunted.

  “Peter Pan and his brood of psychotics.”

  Wendy brushed her tumbling hair out of her face.

  “They aren’t a brood of psychotics. They are boys. Children.”

  “Well, if I could kill me one of those boys a day, I would be a happy first mate.”

  “You’re utterly revolting.”

  “Indeed, I am.”

  Smith beat his chest with one hand before letting out a loud burp.

  “C’mon, I’ll give you the tour and introduce you to a few of the men.” He gestured to Wendy’s wildly blowing hair. “Pull that back. You’re on a ship now, girl, not at some namby-pamby boarding school where your curls need be bouncing all over the place!”

  Once a small group of the crew had assembled, Smith instructed them to stand in a line. All eyes were on Wendy, a disturbing bunch—sunken eyes with dark bags underneath them, red rimmed and jaded. Pirates, she would learn, were always tired.

  Some of the pirates were quite ordinary, cheery-looking chaps with loose-fitting tunics and leather belts, who stared at her with a hopeful curiosity. The older men mostly looked miserable, as if nails had pierced through their shoes, obviously uncomfortable at her presence onboard. Their uniquely terrifying names rolled off Smith’s blunt tongue and into Wendy’s waiting ears like a persistent drip of water. Bloody Blair, Wu, Svengili. Voodoo, an impossibly tall black man, whose cocoa skin shone in the sunlight, except for his arm, which had been badly scorched and was now covered in hideous scars. He nodded kindly to Wendy as Smith ran through the names. Olathe, Bouff—a squatty man, with piggish eyes and a belt with a dozen different knives hanging from it. Redd, the one-eyed bastard that she had met in the brig leered at her, his eyes resting hungrily on her collarbone. Black Caesar was a very white man dressed in all black, pale and gaunt, as if he had one foot on the other side of the grave.

  Hawk came grumbling down from the crow’s nest for the introduction, and was joined by Owl, his twin. These two reminded Wendy of the pictures of robust circus performers with their long, curling mustaches. Owl wore gigantic, bottle-cap spectacles, while Hawk had none. Attempting to be magnanimous, Wendy stepped forward to shake their hands.

  “I hear you watch the sky.”

  Hawk reached forward shyly before his face turned cruel.

  “’Tis wrong having a lady on board,” he said quietly. “You’ll curse us all.”

  He squeezed her hand tightly, cruelly. Wendy kept the smile frozen on her face, her hand in midshake. Hawk turned away from her and began making his way back up the rope ladder to the crow’s nest, grumbling loudly about Wendy as he went.

  “She’ll be the death of us! Best to throw her overboard, I say. Let the crocs have a taste.”

  “Oh, shut the hell up, you cur-infested lout,” snapped Smith. “We’ve all had it with your prophecies! About a quarter of them come true, and those are only the ones that are already gonna be true, like we’re having fish for dinner tonight!”

  The rest of the pirates roared. Wendy turned back to Owl, the quieter brother. Wide eyes blinked out from behind thick spectacles. Wendy smiled at him to no response. Smith let out a barking laugh.

  “He can barely see, girl. He’s blind as a bat.”

  Wendy’s face must have betrayed her, because a bunch of the men burst out laughing. Owl stepped shyly forward. “My lady, though I can’t see your face, I am guessing that you are wondering how a blind man sits in the crow’s nest, and how this blind man is going to keep you safe from one devilish Peter Pan.”

  Wendy bit the inside of her cheek, but weighing her options, decided to go with honesty.

  “Yes sir, I was indeed wondering.”

  “I like an honest girl.”

  He stepped closer to her, and Wendy could see that past the thick spectacles, his eyes were a milky white, as if a cloud of fog had descended into his irises. “I protect you with these.” His grizzled hands reached up and tapped his ears.

  “Peter Pan is quick, and he is smart. During the day, we can see him from afar and aim our harpoons, but at night, or in a fog, he might be able to sneak up on the ship from the water, or from the air directly above us. He wouldn’t dare come on us during the day, but night is a dangerous time for enemies of Peter Pan.”

  Wendy’s heart went cold at the thought and her tongue failed to make intelligent words come out of her mouth.

  “Y
es, yes. I suppose it would be.”

  Owl leaned forward, and Wendy smelled his rotten breath, reeking of spoiled milk and cheap wine. “Peter Pan can do those things, but Peter Pan cannot defy nature. He cannot silence the air around him that parts as his body sluices through it.”

  Owl made a slicing motion with his hand, then brought it up and down in waves.

  “As he flies, the air swirls around him.”

  He pursed his lips together.

  “Whoosh, whush, wheeww …”

  Then he banked both of his hands. “Peter Pan likes to fly very fast. Not slow. He sounds different than a bird. A bird flaps. It goes phhffftt, pause. Phhfft, pause. Peter goes, whush, continually. Whush, whoosh, wheeeeww, as he’s descending. No flaps. The air parts for him like he’s a king, and down he comes.” His eyebrows narrowed. “And then we aim the cannons at him. One day, he’ll forget. One day, maybe now that you’re here, he’ll drop down into our range. And when he does.”

  Owl raised his finger to the sky.

  “Bam.”

  Wendy nodded.

  “My brother, Hawk, he watches during the day. Sharp eyes, but also sharp ears. But me … I listen at night, and in the fog. I hear, everything. The slithering beasts of sea, hungry for food, hungry for mates. Birds, desperately flapping for land, their wings giving out too soon. Mermaids, singing their ethereal and deadly songs in the depths. And I hear Peter Pan. In fact, I heard him last night.”

  A chill shot through Wendy. No, no.

  “He was out to the east, circling. Watching our ship from a great distance. He had two others with him, not as skilled. Clumsy fliers, loud. He was very agitated, his movements sharp, hard, and reckless. He wants you. I can hear it in the wind.”

  Wendy curled her hands into fists, willing herself not to be afraid.

  “He may want me, but he does not have my permission to take me. I do not belong to Peter Pan. Or any man, for that matter.”

  Owl gave a toothless grin as the a few men around her gave a hearty, “Hear, hear!”