Pan's Revenge (13 page)

I get up, walk toward her, and dip a finger
into the multicolored, glistening slime in the bucket. “So that’s
the stuff big wishes are made of?”

“
Not
everyone’s wish. Only yours.” She takes my hand and gently wipes my
finger with the skirt of her dark red dress. “Rainbow essence is a
powerful matter,” she explains in her ever patient tone. “Unless
you’re comfortable with turning into a unicorn over night, I
suggest you don’t stick your hand in it again.”

Her amused laugh while I shudder feels
totally out of place. I’ll certainly heed her warning. “How’s that
crazy stuff getting me to London?”

At that precise moment, the other fairy
sister bursts through the door—not bothering to open it actually.
“Did somebody say my name?”

Said
crazy? I
did.
Biting my tongue, I take a step
back, not to give her any reason to walk through me like she tends
to walk through doors.

Remona swipes her long silvery hair over her
shoulder and tilts her head at me. “I heard that, Captain. You’re
lucky I like you.” She grins and pinches my cheek. Then she hands a
jar the size of a foot filled with white sand over to her
sister.

Bre unscrews the top. “Go for it,” she tells
Remona.

The crazy one out of the fairies erupts in
hiccups of giggles as she scoops rainbow essence with her cupped
hands into the glass jar.

I lock gazes with Bre’Shun over Remona’s
shoulder and mouth, “Does she know about the unicorns?”

Throwing her
head back, Bre laughs. “It’s in fact why she’s been dying for you
to bring the rainbow. She’s going to have the best week of her
life.”

Remona pours some of the essence over
herself, which results in multihued strands of violet and yellow
appearing in her hair. “Oh, it will be so good!”

There’s no more essence left in the bucket,
but Bre is obviously content with the amount of rainbow slime in
the jar. She seals the lid and shakes it until the sand takes on
its bright colors. When she opens the lid once again, a bluish
cloud puffs out. The sand turns gold and specks of light sparkle in
it. She hands me the jar.

I lift one brow. “Pixie dust?”

“Pixie dust.” She nods. “A little altered. If
you strew this powder on your ship, it will take you away from
Neverland.”

I wonder if I can—

“Yes, you can touch it,” Bre cuts my thought
short. “No turning into a unicorn.” Then she explains, “When you’ve
finished the dusting, eat a beckon bean.” She quirks her brows.
“You do have one left, don’t you?”

I reach inside my pocket and fish out the
last bean. The day that Peter stole one of them, I had the entire
crew searching for the other until it was safely returned to
me.

“Good,” Bre’Shun says. “Eat it when you’re
ready to go. The ship will follow your course then, no matter
where.”

Good to know, since my suspicion is that
we’ll have to fly into the sky for getting to Angel.

“
But beware,
Captain.” The fairy’s voice loses all the friendliness the next
instant. “You must only anchor in Angel’s world at night. The land
you’re going to can be unfriendly at times. Don’t expose the ship
to any person’s eyes. Clouds will shroud it in the dark, but you
must return to the sky before daylight breaks each
morning.”

Okay, I’ll manage that somehow.

Remona searches my face as though she can
read my mind—which she probably can. “It is your ship, Captain
Hook. It will only follow your lead. Don’t leave it to anyone else
during the day, or you won’t find back to it.”

“Fine. So I have the nights to find Angel and
win her back.”

“
You have the
nights, yes.” Bre’Shun scrunches her face, sending a shiver of
foreboding down my spine. “Three of them exactly.”

“
What?
Only
three
?” But that’s far
too little time with Angel.

“It’s a faraway place you’re headed to. One
third of the bottle’s contents will get you there. You have to dust
the ship again as soon as you feel the Jolly Roger sinking of her
own accord. One third will keep her going for one day exactly. The
Jolly Roger will return to Neverland at the end of the third night,
and you have to be onboard.” At my obvious glaring, Bre heaves a
sigh. “I’m warning you, James Hook, there’s no way around that
condition.”

“All right,” I mumble after a long pause.
“Guess three nights is better than nothing.”

Remona pats my shoulder. “Be yourself,
Captain, and it will be enough.” There might be a hint buried in
her dry reply, but if there is, I don’t get it. Then she steps up
to me and runs the nail of her long cold finger from my navel to
the waistband of my pants. Hooking her finger in it, she winks and
pulls at it slightly. “We will get that too, won’t we?”

I roll my eyes as I nod, which sends her out
of the room on a happy skip.

My next
question is addressed to Bre.
“You said
you had other clothes for me?”

“Right here.” She smiles again and taps her
fingers on a white wooden chest that appears next to her on the
floor.

This doesn’t surprise me
, I keep
telling myself.

“I’ll leave you to yourself for a moment. Put
your pants over there.” She nods at the board at the end of the
bed. “And when you’re ready, knock on the top of the chest three
times. Knock like you mean it. You shall then find the right
clothes inside.”

“What do you mean like—” I don’t get to
finish the sentence, because Bre already scurries out of the room
and the door shuts on its own accord behind her. Great.

I suck in a deep breath. Why do I keep
finding myself in this weird house? But whacking my head over it
doesn’t get me out any faster, so I pull off my pants and drape
them over the board at the bed’s foot end. Then I knock on the
chest like I was told. But seriously, how do you knock on something
like you meant it? I try to picture the chest to be the door to a
tiny troll’s house. When I’m done, I almost expect someone to shout
“Enter” from inside.

Of course, there’s no reply, so I lift the
lid and take out a bundle of dark clothes.

The pants are made of gray fabric that
reminds me of ship sails. They are wide and baggy. Without a belt
they sit loosely on my hips. The top is something similar to the
long-sleeved shirt Angel wore on her the first day we met. It’s
black with a hood and two pockets on the front.

A pair of gray shoes was in the chest, too. I
lower on the bed and put them on. The soles are flexible and long
laces are threaded crisscross through tiny metal hoops. After I
tied them, I stand up and test the new footwear. It feels a bit
strange to have my ankles bare. But then the pants are long enough
to cover them and even scrape on the floor as I walk.

The weirdest
item of this new clothing is, however, the dark gray hat…if one
could call it that anyway. There’s no feather on it, and the brim
is practically non-existing. There’s only this small part that
shades the eyes. Raking my hair back, I put the hat on. Like the
rest, it fits perfectly. It doesn’t mean I’m feeling in the least
comfortable in these clothes, though.

As I close the chest and turn around, Bre
stands behind me. I didn’t hear her come in and gasp.

“You look good in London clothes, James
Hook.” She fumbles with the hood on my shoulders, weaving an aura
of cold around my face. “Otherworldly.”

And that’s exactly how I feel. But putting on
these things also brought a whiff of adventure with it. My heart
speeds up at the prospect of seeing Angel again. Tonight?

Hopefully.

I decide not to think about Peter and his
cruel plan right now but let the rush of anticipation swap me away.
There’s time later to figure out the rest.

I grab the
jar with the pixie dust and slip the last beckon bean into my
pocket. Bre shows me out through the door. It leads into the
familiar front garden of her neat little cottage. “Thank you,” I
tell her and head along the path leading toward the low picket
fence. Halfway there, I whirl on the spot and jog back.

Bre smiles as I stop in front of her again. I
kiss her on the cheek. “Really, thank you, fairy,” I say.

“Good luck, James Hook.”

I nod and make the mistake to glance over her
shoulder. Behind her, inside the house, all the furniture has
disappeared once again and all that’s left is a great hall with
stone walls and a chessboard floor. Shaking my head, I smile to
myself and head off through the forest.

Another rush of excitement makes me up my
pace. These new shoes are prefect for a jog through the woods. Once
back under an open sky, I can hardly cope with the anticipation
boiling inside me and run as fast as I can.

Almost there at the Jolly Roger, I hear
Bull’s Eye Ravi shout from the crow’s nest, “Commander Smee!
Someone’s coming at us. Crazy look, wants to enter!”

From fifty
feet away, I see how Jack gapes over the railing in my direction. A
couple of seconds later his voice rises above all. “Pull in the
gangplank!”

I skitter to a halt just in time before I’d
have dashed over the edge and into the ocean, with the gangway
being drawn in right in front of my nose. “What the hell—Smee!”

Everybody
comes to stare at me, Jack Smee does so the hardest. “Cap’n?” he
shouts, grimacing.

“
Yeah, well,
that would be me.” Pulling off the weird hat, I send him a wry
look. “Now lower the gangplank, dammit!”

The board is
extended. “Thanks for letting me get on
my
ship, Mr. Smee,” I snap
at him as I enter.

“
You’re
welcome.” He flashes a bright grin which then turns into a really
clueless expression. “What in the name of God are you
wearing?”

“Clothes.”

“
Not
yours
.”

“The fairies gave me them.”

“You’ve seen the nutcases again? Why didn’t
you say so when you left?” He steps a little closer and lowers his
voice. “I actually started to worry about you, James.”

“It’s all good.” Smirking, I clap a hand on
his shoulder. “I didn’t mean to see them, but as it was, I happened
to run into a rainbow. Literally.”

Smee’s eyes grow wide. “You caught one?”

“Aye. Now pull anchor. I’ve a date with my
girl.”

After looking at me in quite a wondrous way
for half a minute, Jack swallows his bafflement and turns to the
crew. “All hands on deck, ye filthy bilge rats! Draw anchor! Set
sails! We’re leaving Neverland!”

Excited bustling starts on the main deck. The
men hum a well-known tune as they turn the wheel that lifts the
anchor. In the meantime, I open the jar and start dusting the
entire ship with the glimmering gold powder, careful not to use
more than one third of it. Wherever the dust rains down, the boards
of the ship turn a fancy golden color. Gasps erupt from around me.
Oh yes, the Jolly Roger looks quite impressive when I’m done.

“Which course?” Jack demands as I join him on
the bridge.

“Let that be my concern.” Grinning, I pull
the last beckon bean from my pocket and pop it into my mouth. When
it burst between my teeth, the expected longing for the sky takes
hold of me once again. Only this time, I know exactly what to
do.

Spinning the
wheel hard to the left, the Jolly Roger takes a turn that knocks
everybody off their feet. “Hold on, ye mangy dogs!” I shout over my
shoulder and laugh out loud as the ship’s bow rises out of the
water and glides into the air. The wood creaks, the sails bloat.
Water drips from the ship’s belly. On a slow but steady ascend, we
climb the sky.

“Wicked,” Smee breathes next to me, gripping
the railing with clawed fingers.

I cast him a sidelong glance and nod, then I
face forward again. “You wait, Peter Pan. I’m going to get my girl
back.”

WHATEVER I DO, whichever way I turn the
wheel, it feels perfectly right. The crew latches onto the railing
or ropes so as not to fall off. Fin Flannigan kneels on the main
deck, his arms wrapped around the mast, teeth clattering. The rest
of them don’t look any happier. Except for Smee next to me—he
laughs as the ship cuts through the sky, higher and higher.

“Scuttle me bones, Cap’n! If this is what you
get for catching a rainbow, we should’ve doubled the men’s efforts
from the start.”

He gets a nod
from me, but secretly I’m wondering if I’ll ever tell him how I
really happened to knock into one. Chances are slim.

The sky rapidly grows darker until we sail in
the midst of a midnight blue canopy decorated with sparkling bright
diamonds on all sides. On a constant, calm pace, the Jolly Roger
moves through a shower of falling stars, then I turn the wheel
gently to the right and steer her around a breathtaking moon.

“How do you know which route?” Smee asks and
leans out, extending his arm as far as possible. Still, he’s not
able to touch the silvery orb, if that was his aim.

“
The beckon
bean, I guess. I just know.” Behind the moon all I have to do is
think
down
, and the ship starts a lazy descent. If the feeling in my
stomach can be trusted, we’re getting closer. And really, it only
takes a few more minutes until a new sea of lights appears beneath
the ship’s belly.

Evading the overcrowded area where an
overflow of sounds drifts from, our destination is a little outside
this tremendous town which can only be London. The lower we sink,
the thicker the layer of clouds gets around us, but they soon
change their consistence. It’s almost like we’re looking through
the swarming surface of water. Everything is visible underneath,
but slightly blurred. This must be what the fairy talked about. Our
shield, which protects us from the foreign world below.