Of ink and blood and failure

"Who is Sally?"

I felt a shock ripple through me. It had been so long since I'd heard her name and I'd almost forgotten…but her name spoken so curiously in the voice of a child and I was back in the woods, full of hope. Promising I would try not to grow up so fast. Feeling the warm brush of her lips on my cheek.

I was back in my cabin again with an abrupt jolt. On the swaying of the cold sea, everything smelling of salt, not in the forest's sunshine with the smell of damp earth. There was a sudden flash of anger, hot, not quite buried, directed at the girl who'd dared to speak her name.

"Where did you hear that?" I growled dangerously, hook biting deep into the arm of my chair, splinters protruding.

The girl looked suddenly frightened. She was so small, sat in the adult sized chair across from my desk, blue dress dirty in places, despite her obvious attempts to wash it, tears patched up inexpertly. Her face and hands were clean. Her blue eyes reminded me of another's; gentle and kind, defiant and stubborn. Fearful. Wordlessly she pointed at my chest.

I looked down and gave a soft curse. My shirt had fallen open to one side, exposing the looping script tattooed just over my heart. I straightened the fabric and, for added measure, stood up, throwing on my coat before sitting down again.

"Did you love her?"

The girl's tenacity was irritating but she was a storyteller and storytellers do like to sniff out stories. I wasn't going to harm her anyway, no matter how invasive her questions. She was too valuable to lure out Peter and somehow, she knew that.

"What makes you think I loved her?" I asked in a brittle voice, trying to divert her, scare her into silence. It didn't work.

"It is next to 'Mother'," she replied softly, so softly, like she knew she was stepping on fragile ground. Her speech was clipped and precise. She had been taken from a home who would miss her, a Mother who would search and cry. The Mother who taught her to wash her face and darn her clothes.

"Yes," I answered finally. I gave no further information. Was there no surprise that a monster with a hook for a hand, the heartless villain to Peter's heroism, could love? Her eyes drifted to my chest again, though she could not see the ink anymore, and back up.

"Did it hurt?"

"Aye." Yes, it had hurt, and I had been glad for it. Each pierce of hot pain a reminder of how I had failed her, failed all of them. It had not hurt nearly as much as I had hoped, as I had deserved, but the brand was permanent, and that was what I had needed. Nothing could scrub the ink from my skin, nor the memory that went with it, as much as Peter might try and try he did.

She was thinking something over, turning it in her mind, I could see it in her wide eyes as she studied me. I studied her back and waited. Little girls like her would have been told it was rude to question grownups. Would curiosity or rules win out?

Curiosity always won.

"Do you have more?" There was a dread-filled fascination in the way she asked.

I hesitated. My hand went involuntarily to my right arm and touched it lightly, resting there. Her eyes followed. Did I dare show her? There would be questions. Would I tell the truth? Once upon a time I had longed to pierce the bubble of sunlight that surrounded Peter in the eyes of all, the same bubble that I had been tangled in, blinded by. I did not think it was that simple anymore. The words of a villain, I found, are weighed with bias in the favour of the hero, because the villain lies. The hero declares it, and so the accusations of the villain, my accusations, seemed to only elevate Peter into higher regard. It hadn't stopped me trying over the years. Every so often a burst of desperation would take me, and I would try again. I was always bitterly disappointed.

The girl was looking at me with eyes so clear, seeing me as the villain and yet also as something worth questioning. She was looking for the back story. Looking for the reason. A true storyteller. Not content to see evil as evil just because. Wanting to know the why.

I shrugged my coat back off, careful not to snag it on the curved metal, and slowly rolled up my sleeve. With each fold I watched the child's eyes widen as black ink scrolled up, and up, more names with each strip of fabric. It had taken me years, but I had recalled them all. Every – last – one. At the top, by my shoulder, were the last to die, the most easily remembered. Crow, Fog, Kit, Ed, Nip, Billy, Slightly, Terry, Sam, Jack, Jonathan, Del, Harry…It had all started with Harry. The beginning of the end. Above the final fold, above Crow, hidden, there was one other name. A name only known by three others and used by none. A boy who should have died but never would. Not in body anyway. That was a reminder too. Jamie.

The girl's fingers reached out compulsively but did not touch. I watched as she read down the list, her lips forming each name.

"They're all boys."

I nodded, and her eyes met mine again, a small tremble as she asked, "Are these all the boys you've killed?"

It would be a lie to say no, but not the truth to say yes.

"In a way," I responded finally. "Their blood is…on me."

It was a heavy weight to carry, all that blood soaked into the island, soaked into me. I'd felt their blood on my hands as I'd buried each body, carried them and cradled them, not realising at the time it went deeper than skin.

I waited for her to recoil, to flinch back from the monster, the villain, but she merely dropped her hand.

"You look sad."

She had startled me again. Slowly I rolled the sleeve back down and manoeuvred on the coat.

"I am."

"Why?"

I desperately wanted to tell her. The story. The true story. The one where Peter lied. A burden for a child but bread and butter for a storyteller. A storyteller might believe. I opened my mouth to start…and the door flew open with a crash.

"He's here Captain!"

My First Mate stood in the doorway, hair no longer fluffy like duck feathers, but still blonde from the sun, sticking up at all angles.

"I'm coming Smee," I replied with a growl, using the name he'd given himself, a new name to hide him from the Boy who would forever hold a grudge. We shared a look of smoke choking nostrils, of blood, red on the beach – so much of it, of screams ripping the night and fear, deep and black and cloying. It reignited the fire of hatred in my chest.

I strode to the door declaring, "Bring the girl."

"My name," I stopped and turned my head at her defiant tone, "is Wendy."

There it was. The hatred on her face. She scowled at a monster. It made me pause, made my heart pang, this girl who did not know she was only the second Peter had brought. Who did not know what had happened to the first, or why I tried so hard to kill the boy she adored.

"I failed." I hadn't been intending to speak. "I failed them because I saw too late. I will not fail any others."

I turned away and out the door, refusing to explain further. I read the surprise on the face of Smee as I passed but there was no time to discuss it.

We had a flying monster to kill.