Captain James Hook and the Siege of Neverland (20 page)

“No.”

“Funny how I never thought to ask.
 
No one thinks that Captain Hook could have had sisters.”
 
He looked out into the horizon again.
 
“I had sisters, two of them.
 
One died young.
 
The other… I covered her eyes when they hanged our father.
 
She heard it too, the cheering, I mean.”
 
His voice became quiet.
 
“I can’t even tell you her name now.
 
I try to picture her and all I see is a head of long brown hair and no face beneath it.”

“The island is affecting us all.”

“That was Phillip Gulley’s worry,” Jack said.
 
“I ran after Peter Pan with him.
 
I didn’t care for Gulley’s talk about taking the ship.
 
I just wanted it over.”

“Killing Peter Pan will get us home.”

“And what if you can’t kill Peter Pan?” he said, his voice now distant.
 
“I’ve killed men who were faster or stronger than me, but that boy ducked me and I fell over barrels like a blind old fool.
 
He didn’t even look back at me.
 
I wasn’t a thought to him and I won’t be a memory either.”
 
Jack Elroy drew the pistol from his belt and placed it to the side of his head.
 
“T’where you headed, Captain?”
 

He pulled the trigger.
 
Chunks of gray and pink sprayed over the deck and onto my shirt.

A dozen men gathered around the body.
 
No one spoke.
   

The wind died and the waves that lapped the hull of the ship settled.
 
It snowed, but only for a minute.
 

We wrapped Jack Elroy’s body in a sheet and moved him to a cargo hold.
 
Collazo said a few words.
 
We then swabbed the deck where he laid and agreed to bury him on the island the following morning.
 

The next few hours passed quietly so I took on some routine maintenance, both for the ship and for the crew.
 
Billy Jukes, Smee, and I checked the stays, the sails, and our rations.
 
We then split off and talked to each of the men.
 
Every one of them suffered in his own way.
 
Some knew that they lost family.
 
Others weren’t sure if they had any.
 
Most recalled names, places, and even a few of our trades, but many of their accounts differed widely.
 
No one remembered their mothers.
 

It worsened by the hour.
 
Soon we would all slip away like Peter’s children.
 

When finished, I told them that I’d be in my cabin for a bit to pour over our findings.
 

I closed the cabin door and walked to the mirrored glass above my wash basin.
 

T’where are you headed?

Jack Elroy’s last words echoed in my thoughts.
 
How long was I going to hold out telling them about the passage behind the falls?
 
As far as the men knew, their choices boiled down to freedom through killing Peter Pan or death, either at his hands or their own.
 
Jack chose his own end.
 

Some time passed in thought before I realized that I was holding my pistol.
 
It was heavy.
 
How many more men will go the way Jack did?
 
I paused for a breath, then tucked it away in my belt.
 

It was then that I saw how much of a mess my cabin was.
 
Papers littered the desk and floor.
 
I began sorting these sheets and scrolls into manageable piles.
 
Charts.
 
Letters.
 
Manifests.
 
Some I recognized.
 
Others were foreign to me, save for the handwriting that marked them, which was clearly mine.
 

One paper, in particular, caught my eye more than once.
 
It was one of the pages on the pile of journal entries.
 
I held it for a moment, then decided to put it down.
 
It was important to try this without reading it first.
 

I spoke to the mirror.
 
“My name is Captain Hook.
 
I was born James to Jonathan and Elizabeth.
 
My father was captain of this ship…
 
Jukes is my oldest friend.
 
He and I grew up together…
 
His father was a great man who served as first officer to my father.
 
Emily Jukes was his sister.”
   

Not one image passed through my mind.
 
I said it again and listened to each empty word disappear into the air.
 
I closed my eyes and mined my memory for any information.
 
One blurred face melted into another until it focused on the dirty, childish features of Peter Pan.
 
I thought back to my first meeting with Peter Pan in my room.
 
I saw Pan on this ship and in this cabin.
 
I remembered my first moments in Neverland, after I had traveled the passageway behind the waterfall.
 
I saw the boy as the only clear fragments in an otherwise clouded glass.
 

And I heard the ticking clock.
 

The metallic beat rose out of the quiet and filled my thoughts.
 
This clock hadn’t been mine for long, I remembered that much.
 
So why did its gentle pulse mean so much to me?
 
I swam in its soft measure, searching for meaning beyond the predictable strike of the brass hands.
 

Then the clock stopped.
 

Several seconds passed and I kept my eyes closed, listening for the beat that wasn’t there.
 

In its place came a quiet and familiar ringing.
 

A shock jolted through me.
 

My eyes opened wide and I watched a fairy climb out from a fold in the shirt I wore yesterday.
 
It stretched, then fluttered about the room.
 

I drew my pistol and fired as it ducked behind the clock.
 

Wood splintered.
 
Glass and gears rained down onto the floor.
 

The light circled above me, then dove for the desk and grabbed more papers than its little arms should have been able to carry.
 

“No!” I shouted.
 
“What are you doing?”

A devious smile crept across the fairy’s face, the kind a child has when he knows he has something you want, even if he doesn’t know what it is.
 
The kind of smile that says, “You want these?
 
You’ll have to catch me!”
 

I jumped for it, but missed by inches.
 
The fairy darted through the porthole and out over the open sea.
 
I sprinted after it and reached my head and arm through, grasping air.
 
Once away from the ship, the fairy let the papers fall to the water.
 
I watched the remnants of my recorded life sink out of sight.
 
I screamed.
 
I beat my fist against the hull of the ship.
 
I pulled at my hair.
 
Had I fit, I would have thrown myself overboard.
 

Footfalls outside of the cabin grew louder.
 
There were two great bangs against the door before Billy Jukes and Smee stormed into the room.
 
“Oh,” said Smee.
 
“We thought…”

“It was here,” I said.
 
The men stood at the doorway, dumbstruck.
 
“A fairy.
 
Secure the deck.”
 

They sprinted out of the room and shouted orders.
 

I knelt at the foot of the wrecked grandfather clock and scrambled to pick up the pieces.
 
I reached for a spring and caught sight of Jack Elroy’s blood on my sleeve.
 
I stumbled to the mirrored glass.
 
An emptiness grew in my chest.

“My name is Captain Hook.
 
I was … James.
 
My father … No, Billy Jukes is … my shipmate and he is a great man.”
 

The dark well in my heart sank deep into the pit of my stomach and a singular loneliness gripped me.
 

Tears streaked down the sides of my face.
 
I screamed and my shouts faded away.
 
Nothing lasted, especially not me.
 
Not for long and certainly not here.
 

Then you can die.
 
Not a day sooner.

The mermaid’s words came to me like a drowning man’s last breath.
 
How long did I have until even my hatred was gone?
 
Once through the passageway, will all return to me?
 
If I abandon this siege on Neverland and my hunt for the boy, will I be whole again?

“The deck’s secure, Captain,” Billy Jukes said from the doorway.
 

I stared into the face of my oldest friend and felt nothing for him.
 

“Mr. Jukes,” I said, “prepare the men to go ashore.”
 

“Aye, sir.
 
How many?”

“All of them.”
 

Chapter Seventeen

“You men have a choice to make.
 
Jack Elroy’s death could have been any one of ours.
 
He didn’t feel as though he had a choice, but he was wrong.”
 
I paused to watch the gathered crewmen mumble to one another, then tapped the railing on the quarter deck to quiet them down.
 
“There is a way home and I can take you all there.
 
Today.
 
Right now.”

The men looked at each other with cautious excitement.
 

“What course?” Robert Mullins asked.

“No course,” I said.
 
“It is through the island.”
 

“The cave on the north side?” asked Cecco.
 

“Not that way,” I told them.
 
“There’s a passage behind the waterfall.
 
A cave with a pool of water at the back of it.
 
A quick swim and you come out the other end in our world.”
 

I expected them to ask me how I knew about this passage and for how long.
 
I was even prepared to tell them.
 
Instead, a different question greeted me.
 

“So we’re just abandoning ship?” Teynte asked.
 

“That is where the power of choice comes into play,” I said.
 
“We can choose to stay here and give up much of what we know.
 
With that choice comes possession of the ship and any treasures on this island, along with all of the dangers.
 
The second choice is to take the passage back to our world.
 
We’ll lose the ship and be stranded on a deserted island, but, with hope, we’ll regain what we have lost.”
 

“With hope?” Starkey asked.
 
More mumbles followed, these ones louder than the last.
 
Some men shouted.
 
I raised my hand and quieted them again.
 

“Yes,” I said.
 
“Hope is the best that the second choice offers without yet having been tried.”
 

“Then why not try it, then?” Smee asked.
 
“We could send an advance group.”
 

“No,” Ed Teynte said.
 
“We’re done watching small groups go out to the island while we waste here.”
 

Some of the men cheered, Starkey one of them.
 

“And besides,” Starkey said, “how do we know that any group we send would come back?”
 
The men grumbled at that.
 
“It’s not about trust.
 
It’s just that if we forget about our world here, isn’t it possible that we would forget about this world once we are there?”
 

“Yea,” Mullins said, speaking after Starkey but clearly not following his line of thought.
 
“Why can’t some choose to stay and others choose to go?”
 

“I thought about that, Robert,” I told him.
 
“Each man should choose whether to stay, but only after recovering himself first.
 
Only then would he have the faculties to make such a decision.”
 

“I’m with that,” Starkey said.
 

“Me too,” followed Ed Teynte.
 
He turned and some of the men nodded their agreement with him.
 

Billy Jukes stepped up beside me.
 
“So it’s a vote.”
 

“Aye, Mr. Jukes,” I said, “but not here.”
 
The large man shot me a questioning look then nodded.
 

“Right, we all go through the passage first,” Smee said.
 
“Even me?
 
Even though I know I’m staying?”
 

For some reason, Smee’s certainty caught me by surprise.
 
It shouldn’t have.
 
He spent most of his life not remembering his parents, drifting from one fight to another.
 
And then there was the blow to the head that he suffered in Port Royal that slowed him a half-step every day since.
 
After an ounce of thought, it would be more surprising if he chose to go back.