Captain James Hook and the Siege of Neverland (12 page)

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 and 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.
 

Bertilak moved two shelves.
 
Behind them, a large doorway was barred by a plank of heavy wood.
 
Bertilak slid the board across to the left and opened the right side.
 
Hinges creaked as he pushed it inward, revealing a long descending passageway, lit only by torches.
 

With my dream still fresh in my mind, I followed my host down the staircase and into the dungeon.
 
We walked past two cells before coming to the main chamber.
 
To our left, the stone wall opened to face the waterfall, which misted against the rusted iron bars and made the already dark dungeon humid and dank.
 

“A view of freedom?” I asked.

“The false promise of one,” Bertilak said.
 

“Do you always lead your guests to the dungeons?”
 

“Only those who I trust or punish,” the knight said.
 
“Which are you, Captain?”

I tensed.
 
“You should know that answer by now.”
 

“Truer words were never spoken,” a voice said from within one of the cells.
 
Gabriel stepped out into the corridor, holding a small bowl.
 

A hundred words spilled to the edge of my tongue, but caught there.
 
I readied myself to flee up the stairway.
 

“She relayed every detail, Captain,” the knight said.
 
“Every word of your honorable decline of her advances.
 
I told her that you’d be too clever to fail that final test.”
 

“Never should I have doubted you,” Gabriel said to him, then looked at me and stepped back into the cell.
 

Bertilak then motioned for me to follow him.
 
I stepped up to the third cell, but stopped just short of the doorway.
 
At the end of the hall, only four steps further, stood a bolted wood and steel door.
 
I stared at it for a moment, then joined my hosts.
 

When I saw what was inside, something deep within me cringed and my stomach turned inside out.

The boy knelt against the stone wall.
 
He was dirty and bleeding.
 
Three chains held him off of the floor.
 
Two shackled the boy’s wrists and the third bit at his neck like a collar.
 
There was a slow rise and fall in the boy’s chest.
 
Struggled breaths gurgled in his throat.
 
His flesh was waxy and gray, save for the welts that bloomed on his face.
 
His head hung loosely and a thin line of red spittle pooled on the floor.
 

Bertilak kicked the boy awake with a thud.
 
The hit lifted the boy against the wall.
 
He then yanked the chain latched to the boy’s neck until he stood.
 

“Come now, child,” the knight said.
 
“Time for your medicine.”
 

Gabriel brushed the boy’s hair away from his face and examined the bruises that shut his eyes.
 
She rubbed the paste into her palms, coating her hands front and back.
 

She then touched the boy’s twisted jaw and he screamed.
 
She pulled her hands back and rubbed the bruises that shut his eyes.
 
Soon his eyes opened, unmarked.
 
The boy looked at her and recognition washed over his face.
 
Tears welled in his eyes as she worked the inside of his jaw and down the side of his neck.
 
She dabbed a bit of paste on the upper part of his arm.
 
There was a crack and the boy yelled.
 

She took a pinch of the paste and put it into his mouth.
 

“Swallow this,” she said.
 

He did and a fleshy-pink tone flushed his face.
 
The dull distance in his eyes sharpened and the boy sobbed quietly.
 

Gabriel handed the bowl to Bertilak and turned to the door.
 
I didn’t watch her leave.
   

The boy stood as far forward as his chains allowed, rattling them in a chorus of steel and stone.
 
The veins in his neck pulsed as his muscles strained against his shackles.
 

Without a word, Bertilak drove a fist into the boy’s midsection.
 
I heard a loud snap and the boy collapsed in a heap on the floor.
 
He coughed and held his side.
 

“We’ll be having enough of that,” Bertilak said.

“You broke his rib,” I said.

“Call to him,” Bertilak said to the boy.
 

“He’s coming for me,” the boy wheezed.
   

“You said that before,” Bertilak said.
 
“So where is he?”
 
The knight waved his hand and the boy followed his movements, as if doing so would produce a savior.
 

“He’ll come and when he does he’ll make short work of you,” the boy spat.
 
The same accent dripped from the boy’s words, but there was a difference in his voice.
 
Bertilak grabbed the chain from around the boy’s neck and yanked him back to his feet.
 
A flicker from the knight’s candle lit up the boy’s thicker brow and sterner jaw.
 
In that one instant, I saw how little hope this boy had.
 

“Pan isn’t coming for this one,” I said.

The boy’s eyes grew wide and angry.
 
He started to speak, but Bertilak cut him off.
 

“What do you mean?”

“Pan’s forgotten him.”

“He’s been here a day.”

“A day is as good as a year or a century,” I said.
 
“How do you not know this?”

A stillness descended on us.
 

“By all the saints!” Bertilak cursed.
 
“He’s no good to me.”
 
The knight gripped the back of the boy’s hair and pulled his head back.
 
He drew a knife from his belt and brought it to the boy’s throat.
 

“Wait,” I said.
 
In a flash, I caught the knife’s edge with my hook.
 
We strained against each other for a moment.
 
“Maybe you have been asking the wrong questions.
 
Pan and the boys have to live somewhere and he has to know where that is.”

“I tried that last night and he lied,” Bertilak said, inching the knife closer to the boy.
 
I shifted my weight back on my heels, but the knight still pulled me.
 

“We live high up in a hollow tree deep in the forest,” the boy said.
 
The knight relaxed and he lowered his knife.
 

“Good,” Bertilak said.
 
He unlatched the boy from the wall and wrapped the chain around his hand.
 
He tugged hard and the boy winced, clutching his ribs.
 
“This time you are coming with me.”

“You aren’t healing him first?” I asked.

“Why waste it?”

“He will never survive the trip.”

“That is true either way,” Bertilak said.
 

“He is not the problem,” I said.
 

“What is this sympathy you have for these boys?” Bertilak asked.
 
He shook his head and shrugged his shoulders with a chuckle.
 
“Fine, Captain, it will be done your way.”
 
Bertilak turned to the boy and yanked again at the chain around his neck.
 
“Understand me well, boy.
 
You will lead us to Peter Pan or you will die in the woods.”

The boy nodded.
 

“You should come, too, Captain,” Bertilak said.
 
“We can end this together, just the two of us.
 
Quick, private, and personal.”

I stood in silence for a few moments, then took in a breath of stale air and steeled myself from head to heart.
 

“Let’s go.”

Chapter Eleven

I hurried up the staircase.
 
Behind me, chains rattled.
 
There was a crash of steel against stone, then two dull thuds.
 
I continued looking forward.
 

The light of the main hall stung my eyes.
 
I looked to the floor until my sight adjusted, then over to Bertilak as he dragged the boy up the staircase.
 
The knight and his captive stepped into the light and I saw the boy’s fresh bruises.
 

“He will need to be able walk to show us where Peter Pan is,” I said.
 

“He walks fine,” Bertilak said.
 
The knight held the chain for the boy’s collar up so high that the boy was nearly on his toes.
 
The boy’s face flushed red, then purple, before Bertilak released him to stand on his own.
 
The boy slumped forward, but caught himself before falling.
 

The three of us walked in silence out of the main hall.
 
Not one pirate, servant, or maiden stirred as we passed through the doors of the keep and the inner wall.
 
Bertilak stopped just past the outer gate and jerked the boy closer.
 

“Now, where are we going?”

The boy didn’t talk.
 
Instead, he pointed into the Crescent Wood.
 

Bertilak gripped the boy’s arm and shook him.
 
The boy clutched at the knight’s thick fingers and tried to pry them off of him.
 

“You have until the next sunset to get me there,” Bertilak told him.
 
As he said this, the sun raced across the clouds in staggered leaps.
 
The boy could have had hours or minutes until dusk.

The boy bowed his head and led us into the forest.