Pan's Revenge (29 page)

I nod.

Remona lowers her head, her long, silky-white
mane falling forward. Angel squeezes my other hand. I close my
eyes.

“Wait!”

Startled by Angel’s shout I jerk around.

“Don’t do it. I have an idea.”

Whatever does
she mean? My brows furrowing to a line, I look from Bre to her and
back. The fairy’s focus is still on Peter’s face, but a smirk
sneaks to her mouth that makes me wonder if she’s been waiting for
this. If she’s actually
pleased
.

The tip of Remona’s horn hovers above my hand
on Peter’s heart. She doesn’t move. Her dark eyes glimmer, and I
can see all the Lost Boys’ anxious faces reflected in them as they
are gathered around their friend.

“Tell me about your idea, Angelina,” Bre’Shun
says, slowly tilting her head.

“I—I was thinking, maybe you could contain
the years for Jamie somewhere. Give him one at a time. So he will
age like it’s meant to be.”

She’s trying to save me. I love this girl
with all my heart. But she doesn’t make it any easier for me.
Living in Neverland, away from her, is not what I want. “That would
be eighty years without you, Angel.” My voice grows hoarse. “I
can’t bear that.”

“And he cannot grow older while the rest of
Neverland stands still,” Bre explains with a smile. She seems too
happy about how this conversation is going. What the hell—

“Then let him come with me,” Angel
argues.

“
With
you?” I blurt
out.

“Yes, Jamie.” On her knees, she scoots closer
to me, her face glowing with new hope. “Come with me. To my world.
We would have eighty years together.”

The boys
break out in excited mumbling. The pixie flutters her wings behind
her back. I don’t even know if that is possible, but growing older
with Angel…
by the rainbows of
Neverland
, this sounds wonderful. “Is
that—I mean can I—”

Now Bre’s smirk expands to the happiest smile
I’ve seen on her since the day we first met in this forest. “Oh
yes, James Hook. You can.” Then she turns to Angel and her smile
fades to a warm expression. “But as always, there is a price to
pay. If a resident of Neverland leaves, someone else has to take
his place.”

Who?

The two of
them lock their gazes for an infinite moment, obviously
communicating on their own way. Everyone holds their breath. Tami
places a small hand on Angel’s shoulder, biting her bottom lip. A
bad feeling rises in my gut. The fairies’ bargains are never easy
to fulfill. I tighten my hold around Angel’s hand and want to tell
her to back out but, by the time I open my mouth, it’s already too
late.

“I agree,” Angel says.

The calm determination in her voice shocks
me. Bre’Shun nods. What in the world did they agree on? A cold
shiver rakes down my back.

Gracefully,
the fairy rises to her feet and holds out a hand to Angel. “No one
is ever forced to stay in Neverland. But when the time
comes,
you
have to give your approval.”

Angel smiles as she pushes to her feet, but
it looks forced. “I understand.”

“No!” I shout at her. “You know how tricky
these bargains are. Don’t do it. Not for me.”

“
It’s okay,
Jamie. Come with me and stay in my world.” She caresses my cheek,
and her smile takes on genuine warmth. “It will be all right, I
know it will.”

For some
reason I can’t explain, I feel
it too at
this moment. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking or it’s the fairies
granting me glimpses of my future, I guess I’ll never know. But
what I see is a warm house with Angel in the kitchen, me standing
behind her, holding her with all the love I feel for her now.
Laughter of children drifts from the garden. It’s a place where I
long to be.

“So be it,” Bre says in a low voice. She
tells the others to stay with Peter while she asks me to follow her
to the back of the house. I don’t like leaving my brother or Angel,
but there seems to be some fairy magic to perform so I can go with
the girl I love.

Bre and I
walk through her amazing vegetable garden that is in full bloom. As
we pass the small square bed with the label c
arrots of horror
and
stroll farther to the back, I finally realize where we’re headed.
“The tree of wishes?”

She gives me a sideways glance, the corners
of her mouth curving up. But when we reach the spot where this
young tree should be that I helped water not so long ago, there now
stands a giant apple tree with lush green leaves and juicy fruits,
casting a shadow over half the place. My breath catches in my
throat. “Blow me down, what did you do to that tree?”

“Not me, James Hook. You.”

I lift one eyebrow. “How? Because I spat into
your soup back then?” When I think back to that strange morning in
the fairy’s garden, another realization suddenly sinks in. “You
planned this. All of it.”

“Of course, I did.”

“But why?”

With a sigh, Bre reaches up and plucks a
shiny red apple. “Because you and Angel needed a happy ending.”

“So you saw this coming?”

“Oh yes, I have.” She rubs the fruit on the
skirt of her dress then holds it out to me. “The only thing I don’t
get is why you’d grow apples on your personal tree of wishes. Would
you care to explain that to me?”

“Why, don’t they grow on everyone’s tree?” I
take the fruit from her and scrutinize it, not sure what to do with
it.

“No. They usually carry nuts or, in some rare
cases, cherries.” Her forehead creases. “You’re the first to ever
have an apple tree.”

A smile stretches my lips, because I think I
know why apples. A pleasant memory of how I first met Angel comes
up.

“Ah,” the fairy drawls knowingly.

It really creeps me out every time she reads
my mind. But since I obviously answered her question, it’s only
fair that she answers one of mine now. I lean on the tree and cross
my arms over my chest, one of my feet resting against the trunk.
“After the curse was broken, why did Peter age so much faster than
everyone else?”

Bre smirks. “Spells are a tricky thing. I
told you, you had to make him break the spell.”

“And so I did.”

“But you forced him. Peter Pan himself never
wanted to grow up again.”

“I had no choice. He would have never
agreed.”

“
I
know.”

I don’t understand the fairy’s logic in this,
or her amusement. “And yet you made me do it to get my own wishes
fulfilled. You knew what would happen then. You knew all of it. Why
did you let me destroy my brother’s life?”

“My dear boy.” Bre sighs and caresses my
cheek with her cold hand. “You and Peter are both the children of
Neverland. We love you. And you both deserve your happy endings.
Peter already found his. He decided to stay a boy forever, and he
was happy with it. You, on the other hand, needed your
adventure.”

There’s only one real adventure in this world. Love. It’s
finding the one person who makes you want to be better than you
are.
The words ring with a fairy-light
laugh in my mind.

“
To give you
both what you want, Remona and I had to create something a long
time ago. Something that would move
you
in the right
direction.”

They created something? It can only be one
thing. “A spell bound to a watch,” I mumble, lifting my gaze from
the ground to her face. “Peter never needed to destroy the watch to
grow older, did he? He made the decision to stay a child, he can
simply make a decision again.”

“You’re a smart young man, James Hook.”

“You could have told me that before, you
know.”

“
Yes,” is all
she says. And I realize if she
had
told me, nothing would have
worked out for the ending we’re all facing. Peter will be the boy
who wouldn’t grow up again. He will be happy with his friends and
the pixie. And I will have Angel. That’s all I want.

Adapting her
expression to my sanguine one, Bre gently places her hands on my
forearms. “Now, if you don’t mind, Captain, take a bite of the
apple but let me word your wish for you. We don’t want anything bad
to happen because of the wrong phrasing.”

With a shake of my head, I agree and lift the
apple to my lips. Keeping my gaze locked with hers, I take a
cautious bite. An exotic, sweet-sour taste explodes in my mouth. I
chew and swallow then take another bite. It’s better than anything
I ever ate.

All the time, Bre’Shun mumbles something
unintelligible, spreading her hands slightly and lowering to her
knees. When there’s nothing left of the apple, she looks up at me
and says, “Would you mind digging up this spot? There’s something
in the ground you’ll need.”

Digging? “With my hands?”

“You can take the spade.”

“What sp—”

Cutting me off, Bre nods toward my feet. I
look down and sure enough there’s a small shovel leaning against
the tree. It definitely wasn’t there when we came here, but there’s
no need to start questioning the fairy. I just pick it up and start
to dig a hole in the dirt. On the third delve of the spade, I hit
something hard.

“Careful,” she tells me. “You don’t want to
break this.”

Using my hands instead of the shovel, I clear
the rest of the dirt away and expose an ivory hourglass with golden
sand inside that bears a striking similarity to pixie dust.

“Remona will put Peter’s years into this.
Once the sand starts running, nothing can stop it. Wait to turn it
until you’re in your new world.”

Grateful for everything, I nod and lean in to
kiss the fairy on her ice-cold cheek. She chuckles as we both rise
from the ground. “Now come. Let’s finish this story.”

Walking around the house to the front with
her, I rub the back of my neck. “How will Angel and I get to
London?”

“With your ship, of course. I believe you
still have rainbow powder left for one more journey?” The
indication in her voice is unmistakable. She and her sister knew
I’d be stealing Angel to Neverland before all the dust was used up.
Maybe that’s what Remona meant in the first place that day inside
their house, when she told me to just be myself. It makes me laugh
now. I’m a pirate after all.

As soon as we reach the front garden again,
Angel jumps to her feet and flings her arms around me. “Is it done?
You didn’t change your mind, did you?”

If I had backed out of the deal, Angel’s
hopeful face would have broken my heart. “We’re almost there,” I
tell her, smiling, and place a chaste kiss on her lips. Then I lift
the hourglass to her eyes. “Remona only has to bottle my
years.”

“Remona?” Angel glances round the place until
the unicorn lifts its head and whinnys joyfully. Realization dawns
in Angel’s eyes. “Is she—”

I nod and pull her along with me to bring the
hourglass in position over Peter’s heart like Bre did with my hand
before. The Lost Boys move aside to let the unicorn through. With a
simple touch of the horn, the hourglass begins to glow. And the ice
melts out of Peter’s body.

Everyone gapes, their mouths dropped open, as
Peter’s aging process rewinds. The white is fading out of his thick
brown hair, the bushy eyebrows thin back to tilted lines. All the
wrinkles disappear from his face. He even shrinks the few inches he
had on me these past few weeks.

When all the clothes hang sloppily on him and
his skin is smooth like the surface of a pearl again, he slowly
opens his eyes. The collective exhale of relieved sighs makes me
realize even I was holding my breath. I laugh. I’m the first to
grab my brother and crush him to my chest in a hug that has been
overdue for a long time.

“Hey, wait! What—”

I don’t give him a chance for questions,
because I’m clearly cutting the airflow off from his lungs. “Oh,
you little bastard! You scared me witless!” Ruffling his hair, I
squeeze him even harder. “Never do that again, do you hear me!”

When he has enough room to breathe again and
lean away, he narrows his eyes at me. “I’m no longer an old
man?”

“No, you aren’t.”

“And you did this? You made me younger
again?”

“I guess, somehow I did. With the help of a
few friends.”

Puzzled as heck, Peter looks around,
obviously confused to find all his friends here. Until his gaze
lights on the pixie. She’s the first he swoops up in his arms after
I release him, making her squeak with surprise. “Sorry about all
the things I said to you! I’m so sorry I made you cry,” he tells
her. “Please forgive me.”

She nods her
curly head and golden dust rains down on her shoulders. But she’s
not the only one he begs for forgiveness. Seemingly he has some
making up to do with the Lost Boys too. And then of course with
Angel. When he hears from the fairy about our deal, he takes Angel
aside and embraces her with true sorrow and also gratitude. I catch
the words
never wanted to hurt
you
and
wish you’ll always be happy
at
some point, but I don’t want to stand in their way right now, so I
turn to the fairies and say goodbye to them.

Stroking Remona’s satiny mane, I glance over
her head to Bre’Shun. She seems please with the way today turned
out. I’ll miss her and her crazy house. A sudden tightness moves
into my throat.

“I sent Smee off with the ship to help me
save Angel. Where do I find them?” I ask her to quench the awkward
feeling.

“The Jolly Roger still berths at Mermaid
Lagoon. For some reason, the men never got the anchor out of the
sea.” She winks one shiny turquoise eye at me.