Captain James Hook and the Curse of Peter Pan (15 page)

“What are you doing?” he asked.
 
“We’d like to get cleaned up.”

“Not yet,” she said, “and not here.”

“All’s well,” I said, a little confused.
 
My courage to confess my sins to Emily faded with each moment and there was still someone I had to see. “I need to get home, too. We can get cleaned up there.”

“James,” she said. Her tone was serious again.
 
“There is something you need to know.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Standing over your own grave is an unnerving experience.

It couldn’t really be called a grave.
 
There was a tombstone, that was true, but there was no body.
 
There couldn’t have been one.
 
I still breathed.
 
My father’s grave, right next to mine, was also a lie.
 
They were memorials, at most.

The engravings on my father’s headstone told of the man he was:
Daring sailor, Loving husband and father
.
 
Mine were meaningless:
Dutiful and loving child
. Was there no honor in the accomplishments of a child? Was there nothing one could say about wasted potential or unfinished work? Even Pan, who would hardly understand such ideas, was a seeker of adventure and shallow fulfillment. I asked these questions to distract my mind from what I was brought here to see.

My mother’s grave was all too real.
 
She lay in the dirt, waiting for us to come back to her.
 
I didn’t need to see her body to know she was there.
 
I could feel her.
 
The engravings on her headstone were as meaningless as mine:
 
Loving wife and mother
. Accurate as they may have been, they didn’t do her justice. There would be no more stories, hugs, or kisses.

This was not how I felt when I found my father, face down on a beach.
 
I could never roll my mother over, bury her, and move on.
 
It was impossible to steel myself.
 
I did little else than sob, tears ran down my cheeks for the first time in years.
 
Emily held me to her chest and I felt at home.
 
Words escaped me, but I had to know, so I tried to speak anyway.

“No,” was the best I could do at first, followed by the equally impressive, “When?”

“After she heard about you and your father,” Emily said, “she shut herself in the house and wouldn’t allow me to let anyone else in.” I wished she would stop.
 
She wouldn’t.
 
She knew I needed to hear this.
 
“I watched as her health faded. When doctors finally saw her, she was so very weak.
 
She died two months after your funerals. There didn’t seem to be any reason for it.”

I was taken aback by the comment.

“No reason?” I asked as I began to swell with rage at her lack of emotions.
 
“No reason,” I repeated.
 
“I sob now for someone who is taken from me and I find plenty of reason.”

“Medically, I mean,” she corrected.

For all that Emily was, she was logical.
 
She wouldn’t see a cause for prolonged grief.
 
Still, how long did she mourn my death? A month? A week? I knew she’d remember me always, but did she mourn for me at all?

“James, about your father…” she said.

“Captain Ashley,” I sneered.
 
I looked back to my father’s grave and thought of his body lying in dirt and rocks on some island I’d never be able to find again in a thousand years.
 
“Ashley wasn’t where he needed to be and my father died because of his incompetence.”

“James, you need to listen,” she continued.
 
“Heath brought back news of our fathers’ deaths. He had a whole tale to tell about finding the site of the battle and how he fought off Jesse Labette,” she added.

“Oh, he found it alright, after arriving a day late,” I said.
 
I told her about the meeting in the admiral’s office and the battle with Jesse Labette.
 
I told her that Captain Ashley was late and because of that, I watched my father be blown off of the deck of his own ship. I told her about how I found my father and about the dirt mound in which he rots because of the returning hero.

I told her everything except what I was most desperate to say. With every breath I wanted to tell her about Neverland or our time aboard the
Queen Anne’s Revenge
or staring into the eyes of Jesse Labette or about the French soldiers, but I couldn’t.

Emily was quiet for some time after that. When she finally talked, her words cut through me.

“James,” Emily said, “I am engaged to Heath Ashley.”

Chapter Thirty

The news of Emily’s engagement to Heath Ashley ran over and over in my head until I grew dizzy.
 
My mother lay dead of a broken heart and her husband’s betrayer was set to marry the only remaining reason I had for returning to Port Royal.
 
The world spun and I was no longer able to stand.
 
My knees gave out and I crumbled to the ground.

Emily knelt beside me and placed her hand on my shoulder.

“Since our mother died when William and I were young, Father was alone,” she said.
 
“We had nannies and maids, but they weren’t the same. When Heath returned with news of Father’s death, he offered to take care of our estate until I was of the proper age to marry.”

“And, of course, you agreed,” I snapped. There was more hatred in my voice than I intended.
 
Never before had I disliked her coolness.
 
How could she just forget William and me and agree to marry such a despicable man as Heath Ashley?
 
I tried to stop myself from saying more but I failed.

“How long did you wait after hearing of our deaths before you ran into the arms of your new lover?” The question startled her. My tone was hard, but I had little fight left in me.

“I thought you were dead,” she said.
 
“I was afraid I’d have to move back to England.
 
Heath’s offer was the only way I’d be able to stay in Port Royal.”

“Do you love him?” I asked.
 
I was certain she heard my voice crack as I spoke.
 
I rose from the ground and braced myself for her response.
 
“Well?”

She began to speak but her answer was broken by heavy galloping.
 
The horse and her rider were upon us immediately. The thundering footfalls beat dust into the air so high that the rider was almost unrecognizable.
 
I raised my hands to cover my eyes from the dust.
 
All I saw were shining boots, a red coat, and a ring of keys dangling from the saddle. I looked higher and saw a man with sharp features, a lean build, and dead, grey eyes.

“Emily. What is the meaning of this?” Captain Ashley called out.
 
“Who are these men?” He looked me over with fresh eyes, as though he weren’t my father’s murderer and my only remaining love’s future husband.

“It’s James and my brother, Billy,” she said.
 
“They’ve returned to us.”

“James…” he started, “…Hoodkins?”
 
He squinted as if I were standing in the thickest fog of London.
 
His angled face twisted to show several recognizable emotions. Disbelief was followed by recognition and shock. He then parted his lips and smiled with everything except his eyes. I didn’t know this look when he and I first met, but I knew it now. It was the look of a predator.

“James. William,” he finally said with a nod to each of us. “You look awful.
 
Come back with Emily and me and clean yourselves up before lunch.” This wasn’t a request as much as it was a command.
 
Captain Ashley had grown quite accustomed to giving orders, it seemed.
 
“We can’t have you two looking like a pair of pirates.”

Stunned as I was and with nowhere else to go, I followed the predator to his den, knowing full well I might not survive my next meal.

Chapter Thirty-One

The next two hours were a haze.
 
I bathed and clothed myself without thought.
 
The fabric clung and pinched in a way that I’d almost forgotten.
 
When my mind rejoined the present, I was seated at the Jukes’s dining room table.
 
Despite my hunger, I ate nothing.

“We’ll be wed in one month’s time,” Captain Ashley said. He looked to Emily, who was seated next to him.
 
He held her hand too tightly to be comfortable. The few times she broke free, he grasped it and rested it back on the table.

“By then, you’ll make admiral for sure,” I said.
 
The statement gave him pause, but only for a moment. His eyes narrowed. A grin stretched across his face.

“I’m many years away from that,” he said.
 
“To make admiral, I’d have to put in as many years as your father did. Even then, the promotion to admiral is not a guarantee.”

“Of course not,” I said. “You’d have to be some kind of hero.” William dropped his fork.
 
Emily froze mid-bite.
 
Captain Ashley just smirked.

“You’re angry at me for the way I greeted you earlier,” Captain Ashley said. “You’ll have to excuse my abruptness.
 
It’s been an exciting day. I just arrested a small group of pirates who docked a sloop this morning.”
 

“No,” William gasped.
 
I shot him a look that quieted him for the rest of the meal.
 
He hadn’t said much so far and I wanted to keep it that way.
 
I didn’t know if Captain Ashley caught on to William’s comment, but Emily certainly did.
 
She visibly stiffened.

“Indeed,” Captain Ashley responded. “I have no doubt that there are more of them. They refuse to talk, but I’m sure our interrogators will get something out of them before they’re hanged tomorrow morning.” His eyes never left mine.
 
He was searching for something. Guilt? Remorse? As it was, William’s fidgeting gave our guilt away faster than a full confession.
 
Why was Heath Ashley so interested in my reaction?

“They put up quite a fight,” he added.
 
“I had to rap one over the head with the hilt of my sword.” I was curious to ask which, but couldn’t without giving myself up. Although none of them were my favorite person, there wasn’t one I’d favor less than Captain Ashley.

“A sloop is a small vessel,” I said.
 
“However did you know to look for her crew over any other ship?”

“Interestingly enough, the information came to me,” Captain Ashley said.
 
“An innkeeper gave me this.” He tossed the gold coin down on the table in front of me.
 
I stifled the appearance of recognizing it, but it was undoubtedly my father’s coin.
 
I could tell by the markings. “He told me that the dockworker paid his tab with it.
 
Once I spoke to the dock worker, I had all the information I needed to make the arrest.”

If he spoke to the dock worker, then surely he was given a description of the two men who negotiated the price.
 
He’d know how many men were on the ship and how we were eager to change our time of arrival.
 
Still, there was something that was bothering me.

“What’s so important about that coin?” I asked, genuinely curious.
 
“It could be from anywhere.”

“No, it can’t,” he said.
 
“It’s your father’s.
 
Besides, one of the pirates had this.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled a familiar gold watch.
 
My father’s watch. The watch that Smee took from me the day he brought William and me aboard the
Queen Anne’s Revenge
. “The coin and the watch are your father’s, which means that these pirates were a part of Jesse Labette’s crew at the time of his death and can lead me to him.”

Whatever the story was behind the coin, there was no denying the connection I had to that watch.
 
If he was telling the truth, no one else would have had possession of either item aside from my father.
 
Even the possibility that any pirate on Labette’s ship had stolen them seemed unlikely while two pirates were missing and William and I were seated in front of him.

Then my mind snapped to attention.
 
This was his game.
 
He didn’t want to tell Emily of our deeds.
 
He knew that would never work. He wanted us to admit it to her ourselves so that we would be forever ruined in her eyes.

“Which reminds me,” Captain Ashley said. “You never did tell us of your harrowing rescue and return to Port Royal.”
 
The trap was sprung and we were caught in his net. Emily’s eyes shot back and forth between William and me.
 
I could tell by her stares that she’d figured us out.
 
It was over.
 
I opened my mouth to talk, but she interrupted me.

“Excuse me,” she said.
 
“There’s work around the house that must be done.” Her voice was nearly as shaky as her attempt to stand.

“Of course, my dear,” Captain Ashley said.
 
He released her hand and we all rose as the lady left.
 
She did not look back at us as she went.
 
Once she was gone, I gave in to my curiosity.

“How would you know that the coin is my father’s?” I asked.

“It’s from a rare chest of native treasures that only three men know about.” He pulled his shirt open to reveal an identical gold coin dangling from a silver chain.
 
“We each keep one as a reminder. Terms of our fortune, you can say.”