Hook & Jill (The Hook & Jill Saga) (40 page)
Read Hook & Jill (The Hook & Jill Saga) Online
Authors: Andrea Jones
Tags: #Fantasy, #Fiction, #General, #Literary, #Pirates, #Folk Tales, #Never-Never Land (Imaginary Place), #Adventure Fiction, #Peter Pan (Fictitious Character), #Fairy Tales, #Legends & Mythology, #Darling, #Wendy (Fictitious Character : Barrie), #Wendy (Fictitious Character: Barrie)
Peter knew where to harvest them. A visit to the wharves under cover of night, and he had plucked a brace of knives. A speedy foray across town to the palace guardroom, and Peter gleaned two sturdy swords. He tucked them all in his belt, a steely bouquet he might once have presented to his Wendy— he smiled shyly— his ladylove. The wind had told him what she was to him, and it was safe to admit it now… she was gone. He remembered that she’d thought weapons were romantic, she’d once requested one in exchange for a kiss. But he hadn’t given it to her, and now she was gone. Peter’s smile waxed grim. There was plenty of steel aboard the
Roger
.
And two new men. Hook played a dirty trick on him, stealing his boys. A worse trick, unforgivable, to steal his fairy! Peter would never make peace with him. Nor with the Indians. They’d taken his boys and left him all alone to fight their enemies. As well as things worked out, it could have been better if he’d had braves behind him.
Being alone was no fun. He missed Wendy, he missed his band of boys. Peter had already visited the House in the Clearing. He’d gone there to get the Twins back, but he hadn’t found them. Pungent ashes smoldered in the fire pit and footprints danced around it, small, medium and large. Wendy’s little place still stood, and the chimney poured out its smoke. Red, now. Peter could see it wherever he flew on the Island. When he landed in the clearing, he’d heard a parrot squawking in the trees, and over the lusty laughing of the stream rose a sound of children’s voices. But he didn’t seek out the muddy stream bed. After the wind departed to leave him alone, he had known. He wouldn’t be following that path again.
Peter had paced all around the big new house the Twins had built, and seen no one. The nursery window was open and draped with an Indian blanket woven in vivid colors. Peter had listened outside in case one of the native women was telling a story, but he’d heard nothing.
Yet the boy had been determined to find the Twins. He’d stalked back over dry sprinklings of sawdust to the face of the house and confronted the door. It was a handsome one mimicking those in London, made of oak, and warm in the sunshine. The door boasted a shiny brass plate with a knob and a keyhole. Peter peeked through the keyhole, and all he saw was the stub of the key. Someone had to be at home, but when he knocked on the door, there was no response. He tried the knob and it was smooth and solid in his hand, but although it turned easily, the key had done its work. The Twins’ door was bolted.
Peter had stepped back from the doorstep to the long grass of the Neverland that tickled his ankles. He looked to the second-story window. It was open and a lazy green curtain waved at him, but no one else. Above it, the red smoke steamed its way over the clearing and swirled above the trees. In its own kind of cursive, it spelled out its message: many would be welcomed here, but except in story, not the wonderful boy. Peter Pan must never enter here.
So Peter missed his boys, all lost again. And right now he missed Tinker Bell as he made a quick round of the park. Tink and Peter used to visit her cousins here, collecting the boys they’d found. Now it was after hours and the gates were closed. The park was lit by fanciful moving lights— fairies, stringing ribbons along the pathways to mark passage to their ball. They fluttered their bright little wings, like matches struck and flaring. One of those matches was a bit brighter, bluer, a bit broader than the others. It flamed in a secret spot surrounded by greenery, and shed its rays on the withered remnants of little discarded sweaters. Lost sweaters.
Peter blinked. He slowed his flight and descended to the dewy grass, then jumped in the air to perform a back flip. “Tinker Bell!” She’d come back to him! She must be glad to be back, her aura shone more intensely than ever before. Even her wings appeared fuller somehow. “Tink!”
She jingled when she saw Peter. She zoomed up to meet him, and the two swirls of gold circled and chased, speeding over the treetops. They skirted the boundaries of the park, rattling the cage of its fencing, and as they rushed over old haunts, their draft stirred feathers on the nesting birds in the trees of the island. The pair of pixies dove and coasted, and they grinned at their reflection in the pond as it broke into silver pieces under the plinking of the fountain. Peter crowed, and Jewel laughed her shiny-bell laugh.
His voice was bold. “I’m glad you’re back, Tink!”
But at his words she slowed to a halt, becoming strict with him. In musical terms she let him know who she was, and who he was. She was Jewel, and he was her boy.
Peter scoffed. “Tink, you don’t mean it.”
She leveled a stare at him.
“Why didn’t you come with me? Why did you sail away?”
With her chin in the air, her language resonated. Jewel had responsibilities. She had people who relied on her. She might be called away; she might perform important duties elsewhere from time to t—
“You just had an adventure. I’ll keep you with me from now on.”
Jewel narrowed her eyes and rang out as plain as speech.
Watch yourself
.
When Peter’s laughter subsided, he struck a pose in the air, grinning. “Make me!”
And she did, easily. She flew away from him.
“Wait!… Tink… Jewel?”
The fairy stilled.
“Jewel.”
She straightened.
“
…
Jewel!”
Jewel smiled. She turned around.
“Does Hook still think you’re his fairy?”
Her light pulsed, and the smile curved her lips. Then she grew cool. She drifted toward her boy, eyebrows raised, trailing a frosty vapor of snow stars. Icily, she folded her little arms and intoned the lesson.
Some things, a girl keeps secret
.
Peter laughed. “Let’s see what we can find in the garden!” He turned tail to race her back. With her new wingspan, she eclipsed him.
Jewel’s light led the way through the shrubbery. It was a hidden circle, the secret garden where the park fairies tended Lost Boys. There were plenty of decomposing sweaters and a blanket or two, which the birds mined for nesting material. Once arrived at the heart of the ring, Jewel’s radiance illuminated something Peter hadn’t noticed before. A compact face. The face of a new one, a smallish one, with restless feet and the air of a miniature knight errant bound upon a quest. Jewel hailed him with music, and the new one put out a fist. Peter touched down and cocked his head, regarding the fist and its owner for a moment. Then he shook it, saying, “Hello, green eyes!”
The little boy, too, cocked his head, and looked sideways at Peter. “I been waiting. That pretty fairy told me you’d come for me.” He grinned. He had a bold little voice. “She can cuss like a sailor!”
Jewel piped up as if to prove it.
Peter’s voice held a touch of pride. “I named her Jewel.”
The child tossed the hair out of his eyes. “Where are the adventures?”
As he grinned back, Peter’s eyes flashed under his own hair. “You’re in one now!”
The boy almost crowed in his excitement. “Then I’ll be needing one of those weapons!”
“We’d better get on home, now, Chip.” Peter hunched down. “Hop on. I’m your father.”
Chip scrambled onto Peter’s back. Before he got a grip for traveling, he raised himself up and pecked Peter on the cheek. “That’s a kiss for you.” Then he hung on tightly, ready to go.
But Peter stood with a ghost of a smile on his face, unable to move. Like an arrow, Chip’s kiss darted straight through his heart. Peter’s weak spot, since Wendy went away.
Chip urged him with a leading question. “Are we going to the Neverland, Father?”
Peter’s smile came fully alive. “There isn’t anywhere else! Hold on.”
Jewel whirled around Peter’s head as he hiked Chip higher onto his back, and she blew a handful of golden sparks over the little boy. Having thought it through, she was sure her master would allow it; all Lost Boys should be able to fly. And her fairy dust matched the child’s hair perfectly. Jewel wasn’t surprised Peter took a shine to this new one. Chip was a tiny piece of Peter.… Almost as if he’d been made to order, by some clever storyteller.
Peter took a running leap and called over his shoulder, “Your knife is sharp, Chip, be careful with it.”
Jewel halted in mid-air, and her grin fell away. Eyes wide, she chimed in alarm,
Careful?
She shook herself and beat her wings to catch up to Peter, contemplating an idea identical to his own at that very moment.
Maybe
, they each thought as they skimmed over the islands of London and dipped in and out of cloud currents with their hearts swelling.
Maybe the Wendy isn’t so very gone, after all!
Chip shouted into the wind. It ransacked his golden hair, but left Peter’s untouched. “Will you tell me a story, Father?”
“If you promise to call me Peter, and take your medicine.”
“I will!”
“Which one do you want to hear, Chip? I know them all!”
Chip had his answer ready. “A pirate story!”
Peter’s green eyes ignited. “I’ll tell you all about my favorite pirate. On some adventure in the Neverland, you may even catch a glimpse of her… The Pirate Queen, Red-Handed Jill!
* * *
“Be brave, my hearty, for you never know when you’ll meet her. You must be prepared, if anything can prepare you for that kind of shock…”
Chapter 31
Never, Again
In the bed on the ship in the sea in the night, the never-ending lovers are entwined, swaying together, and the rhythm of their intricate dancing slows. Ebbing and flowing, the sea’s own time takes them over again. They fall back to lie at rest, Hook and Jill, while the moonlight swirls in wavering pools on the ceiling. Their earrings gleam, their eyes are lustrous, like the dusting of stars shining overhead in secret recesses of wooden beams. The ship purls as she flies through the darkness, her hungry wings swelling with every breeze she seizes.
Rent apart and recreated, Red-Handed Jill seizes her breath, too, and whispers silently, like the sea.
“I know what you’re thinking.”
Complete, replete, he waits.
“You’re thinking about Time.”
Hook smiles, all the way this time. “I am thinking about Forever.” He gathers his treasure in his one-handed grip. “And I am not alone.”
They roll together again, on the ship in the night, sailing past the ever-after end of once-upon-a-time, loving and living with all the passion only pirates can know.
Acknowledgements
With an ocean of gratitude, I salute ship’s company…
Jolene Barjasteh, Catherine Leah Condon-Guillemette, Stacy DeCoster, Victoria Everitt, Linda Ford, Greg Gressle, John de Guzman, Erik Hollander, Maureen Holtz, Scott Jones, Barbara Kaufmann, Kim, Mary Lawrence, Christopher Mabrey, Sarah Meehan, Krista Menzel, David Mertz, Deena Sherman, Ginny Thompson, Beth Vlad.
My highest compliment to the genius who engenders genius…
Sir James Barrie
About the Author
Combining a career in media with her literary and dramatic grounding, Andrea Jones reaps the result in writing.
As a producer-director, writer, and manager in television, she has worked for CBS, PBS, and corporate studios. She also performed as on-camera and voice-over talent.
She holds a B.A. from the University of Illinois in Oral Interpretation of Literature, with a minor in Literature. A continual student of the arts, history, and humanity, Jones finds her work informed by such sages as Carl Jung, Robert Graves, P.G. Wodehouse, and, of course, Sir James Barrie.
Jones is an enthusiastic patron of her public library. She dedicated several years to promoting a non-profit children’s organization, and is active on stage in local theatre. Having outgrown the “hideout under the ground,” she lives near Chicago.
Hook & Jill
is her first published work, and the first book in the
Hook & Jill
Saga, a series of “grown-up” Neverland novels. Book Two is
Other Oceans
. Set a lookout for Book Three,
Other Islands.
Table of Contents
