FORGET-ME-NOT
Long lost words whisper slowly to me
Still can't find what keeps me here
When all this time I've been so hollow inside
I know you're still there
Watching me, wanting me
I can feel you pull me down
Fearing you, loving you
I won't let you pull me down
('Haunted', Evanescence)
- Day 1 –
Part I
On the other side of the darkness was water. She swam blindly, soundless and sightless in a sea of somnolence where there was no time or memory, only dreams.
Wendy's eyes opened and liquid light spilled through her vision. She was in the Mermaid's lagoon, a nebulous green glow illuminating the damp stone walls of the cavern. They yawned around her like the jaws of a primordial sea creature. Devouring. She remained still, her eyes slowly becoming accustomed to the strange phosphorescence, shivering in the thin white silks clinging to her body that was as cold as a drowned corpse.
Am I dead, she wondered dimly. But a strange kind of afterlife, where she could see and breathe and feel (and fear…)
A voice echoed in the hollow depths. Deep in sonorous liquid, a slick caress against her pallid skin. Wendy tensed.
Did'st thou ever think you would be free of me, child?
Spectral light rippled on the walls. Slick jet and glittering malachite. Her eyes strained in the dancing gloom, trying to find the source of those soft, damning tones. A rippling blur, a wavering reflection. Skin white and luminescent. A courtly silhouette in elegant profile, the impression of spectral, terrible beauty imprisoned on her eyelids. The chill breath caressed her skin like a thousand knives. Her throat was too tight to scream.
The words left her, hoarse and strangled. Impossible. Impossible. You're dead –
A cadaverous smile, the red cut of his mouth sensual and depraved. Gone, but not forgotten, dear girl.
Closer he came, emerging through the dense, impenetrable shadows. Aquamarine light hovered around his dark shape like a subaqueous halo, the cool glow teasing his features into focus amid the rippling shadows. The angular white face framed by a mass of curling black hair, luminous. The narrow mouth. Dark blue eyes lambent in the tourmaline glow. Before her numbed feet could move, he had pulled her to him in the macabre parody of a waltz; she was pressed against the ragged edges of his torn jacket, the once rich material sodden and waterlogged. Wet, she thought, with a shudder. But why?
Wine-red (blood-red) lips curved in cruel satisfaction. Have you not missed me? Most inconsiderate of you, my Darling girl, when you are all I've thought about in this cursed place. I am so grateful you've deigned to visit me in my subterranean hell.
Hook breathed against her neck, damp and cloying. Tainted with bitter (sweet) poison. Swallowing down her fear and revulsion (the shudder of sensation, a thrill strange and evocative), she found her voice. Her tone would have been petulant, had it not faltered.
If you are in hell, it is of your own making. You brought yourself here, captain.
No, he hissed. You did. You and that wretched boy.
He darted out a hand that curled around the back of her neck, and – Wendy bit down on her lip and tasted blood – the touch seared through her skin and turned her heart to ice. His cool, slender fingers ghosted down the contour of her back that arched shiveringly beneath that spectral touch. Silver trails of water trickling like ice down the curving slope of flesh (drowning…)
Tangled black hair hung wetly over his shoulders. Wendy tried to speak, but her voice caught in her throat as he gently brushed a kiss over her cheek. She turned her face away in loathing; feeling her body tense, tighten –
His lips traced the tense line of her jaw. A smile lit his forget-me-not eyes, but the gleaming light within was hollow and cold. You condemned me to this place. And you, dear girl, will share it with me.
Wendy choked as his breath, cold as metal (warm as wine), slid over her lips. She felt sick and faint, as though chains were weighting down her limbs, dragging her down into the slick, swirling depths of abyssal blue. You'll be just as dead, she managed to rasp weakly.
Indeed, he murmured.
She clenched her cold hands into fists. His whisper, cloying, melodious, insinuated into her mind. Still a beauty, Wendy… Darling…
She held herself rigid as his hand glided along her waist. The glint of his teeth sharp and predatory against the vivid red of his parted lips. Fingers skating along her hips, searing through the damp silks. She closed her eyes against the strange flash of uncertain longing, aware of a cold anger rising within her –
Stop, she said through clenched teeth.
Hook tore his hand from the imprisoning grasp on her waist, winding his fingers sharply through her hair, tugging her close enough to feel the silver point of metal pressing on her breast. Hard and cold against the voluptuous warmth of his body, ruffled lace and sumptuous brocade, sensual and decadent and dangerous and maddening –
Stubborn? His grip turned iron, his sensuous face twisting into a grimace of cruelty. You have a predilection for being difficult, my beauty. As you will. There are many ways you can die down here. The sharp edge of silver shall kiss you goodnight…
Metal flashed. Her eyelids flickered and she saw – bone –
Wendy looked at him, really looked. His jaw, his throat, his hand – all gilded by the pale light. His eyes a shade darker than the midnight blue of his coat embroidered with silver. Elegant and mocking and debonair as he had ever been. The aristocratic gentleman, the degenerate rake. Yet behind that, she caught a sudden, fleeting afterimage, of white bones and hollowed eyes and decaying flesh, long strands of ebony hair still clinging to the visible skull, heightening the gruesome contrast. Oily green bubbles formed at the corner of those lips that stretched back over grinning teeth. A skeletal hand outstretched to embrace her while on the other, the silver hook glimmered dully beneath the tarnished surface…
Wendy choked with horror and stumbled back. The mirror-light oozed down the walls. The decaying jaw tightened.
So, this form is less pleasing to you, is it?
Blind fear swallowed her. Her feet slipped on the slick rock. It was dark again and she was falling…the cavern whirling around her…
The water, oh, the water was cold as death, like ice against her skin… her hair floating about her, like a mermaid… black sails waving above her, high enough to block out the moon…
Hook's laughter was around her, fractured into a thousand echoes. Do you think you can escape me, my beauty? You can never escape me. I will haunt you –"
Tinkling laughter, a preternatural lure. Wendy blinked the water from her eyes. Something approached her, disturbing the still, black surface. An arm pale as alabaster and shimmering fish-tail scales. Mermaids. Ethereal eyes staring into her soul. And from behind, clammy hands pulled at her clothing, dragging her into the treacherous depths –
Floundering –
The water closed over her head, the green pool swallowing her whole. Her eyes opened to the lunar glow of gossamer shapes. She could feel the living things that moved, pressing against her. A pale hand entwined in her streaming skirts, sliding along her thigh. Horror rose up in her throat. Hook smiled at her with fiendish delight, liquid black hair streaming around his face like spilled ink. His laughter bubbled against her lips.
Stay with me, beloved, down here… such stories they would tell of us…
She was sinking into him, now straining away, now falling against the hard line of his body…hitting him with a muffled thud as she tore herself from the enveloping folds of his moldering jacket, only to be pulled back by some irresistible tide…
She flayed wildly, beating against him –
Thump… thump… thump…
No – no! she silently screamed and
the bright gold line of daylight fell slanting across her eyelids. There was material, rough and woolen, beneath her prone form. Dry… and warm…
Gradually, she rose from the fogged depths of unconsciousness, slowly gaining awareness of her surroundings. She was lying on a hammock and the dull thudding noise she heard had been the muffled sound of it swaying against the wall with a regular, rocking motion. Wendy sat up at once, swinging her legs onto the wooden floor. Immediately awake and alert in every nerve, she cautiously surveyed her surroundings.
She was in a cabin, small and sparsely furnished. Smooth wood floors and walls, polished with wear. A dresser sat across from her, a heavy oaken piece of furniture, and above it was a tarnished mirror, its dulled surface cracked, the rust casting a bronze sheen across the glass. Lamps hung along an oiled rope, swinging to and fro from the low ceiling with that steady, rhythmic movement. A circle of pale aquamarine caught her gaze; the only source of light in the room. Through the small porthole window, the sea glittered, foaming at the distant shoreline, turquoise slivers of light shivering beneath the surface. She could see the dusky pink coral reefs, the splash of green where the jungle breathed, palpable and mysterious, and could almost imagine she heard the cry of exotic birds, the sonorous drip of malachite stained water in the dark cave that housed the Mermaid's lagoon.
So she was aboard the Jolly Roger and the captain held her captive. She was strangely calm, as though it had been inevitable she would come here, that somewhere in the back of her mind, she had known this was always going to happen. This was the situation and she must face it with as much courage and resolve as she was able, no matter how dire the circumstances appeared. Peter would rescue her, and if he did not – well, she had three days to find a means of escape. The crew could not watch her all the time, and if they drew near enough to the shore, she could always chance a break for freedom and cast herself upon the mercy of the Indians who had long been allies of Peter's. No, she was not beaten yet. She could outwit a group of uneducated pirates, of that she was certain.
It was only when she thought of the captain that Wendy's resolution faltered and her heart sank within her. The memory of that cruel hook curving into her skin and the flash of those ice-blue eyes chilled her to the core, a lingering poison that flared and burned. She feared him because she did not understand him, and was unable to reconcile the charming, debonair gentleman with the vicious and heartless villain she knew he was. Handsome yet dissolute, soft yet treacherous, courteous yet cruel.
Why had he come for her? What did he want?
Pan had a Wendy, and he defeated me.
She was too young, she realized hopelessly, too sheltered and civilized to understand the thoughts that fermented like dark poison in the mind of this man who would stop at nothing to fulfill his dreams of vengeance. Her own experiences were smooth, straight and neat, formed in a rigid pattern of Edwardian refinement. To defeat him, she must first understand him; allow her mind to descend into dangerous and uneasy territory, to places such as she had dreamed about.
Even before she had ever set eyes on him, he had become a part of her, breathed to life through her stories, his voice a silken whisper in the depths of her mind, and always, haunting eyes of the deepest blue. His dark visage emerging through her nightmares that even now lingered ghostlike on the edges of her consciousness. And now, here, his presence pervaded the very walls. Corrupting her dreams like ink bleeding through water. She was trapped in a silver snare and she could feel it slowly tightening. He could never be cut free of her. But she would not stay here and wait for the worst.
Wendy stood up, smoothing down the gossamer-fine creases in her slim, high-waisted gown. The wooden floor dipped and surged beneath her feet, the low rhythm of the sea moving in her ears, a faint, distant roaring like the sound of a conch shell when held against an auricle. Fear was receding and curiosity was taking its place. And, beneath that, a low sense of excitement humming through her veins. She was back – back in Neverland for the first time in years, something she would never have dreamed possible. How different would it be viewed through the cynical gaze of adulthood? Would it be clearer and brighter or more elusive and dreamlike? Or would it be darker and more deadly?
It was this curiosity that prompted her to cross the room and reach for the brass-handled door. To her surprise it opened easily and she stepped into the dimly-lit passage with caution. No one hindered her. She moved warily, half-expecting to see Hook's grinning face leaning over her. Yet in spite of her unease, she felt a sense of humiliation at how she had behaved last night, as though she had somehow shown herself up, been less than what she was. She had probably shivered and swooned just as he had expected. The thought of the captain's quiet contempt made her face burn, made her feel uncommonly clumsy, awkward, childlike. She had not been herself – the true Wendy that peered through her reflections beneath the soft white powder and silk drapings of refined womanhood – the Wendy that had been suppressed since Neverland. The Wendy she must somehow find again if she was to have any chance of surviving.
The sun was shining as she stepped outside, the light falling in a dancing haze of mirrored gold on the surface of the water. The last time she had been outside, it had been a frosty night in midwinter, the stars glittering coldly overhead and snow splintering like diamonds beneath her feet, but here the freshness of spring was in the air, bright and brisk and cloudless. Wendy remained still for some moments, merely savoring the sensation of the warmth beating on the pale skin of her bared arms. It was as though she hadn't felt the sun in years, confined to formal parlors, always so mindful of maintaining the porcelain whiteness of her skin that fashion and class consciousness demanded. Even when the girls at school had been permitted an excursion to Torquay, they had been armed with parasols and respectable bathing suits that concealed far more than they revealed.
She could hear the sails creaking above her. The wind had whipped the waves into turbulent green crests, white foam flying onto the deck, stinging her face and blowing her hair about her shoulders. It brought colour to her cheeks and a sparkle to her eyes, and she clung to the side of the deck, inhaling deeply. The strong smell of sea air, the tang of salt and rum and oiled leather was sharp and invigorating; it filled Wendy with the heady sense of adventure, called her to answer the challenge set by the sharp and bracing winds. Her heart was beating with a strange excitement. Last night, she had been resigned to the chill domesticity of a dutiful engagement, and now she was a captive held on a ship by an enemy that had haunted her since childhood; there was danger, and there was adventure, there was a wild unpredictability that had been missing from her life for longer than she cared to remember.
Feeling refreshed and emboldened, she set to exploring her surroundings with a new sense of eagerness and resolve. So accustomed to furnished rooms and fine draperies and expensive carpets, her outdoor rambles had been primarily limited to London's enclosed horticultural and botanical parks or the regimented naturalism of Kensington Gardens. Always so perfectly cultivated, never allowed to become wild or untamed or free –
Far away, London was awakening in the chill grey of dawn, her father setting off to work, collars swathed highly around his throat, his top hat pulled low. Mother would be seeing John off at Victoria Station, and Michael… goodness knows what mischief Michael would already have gotten himself into. The thought of John's absence struck a painful chord in her heart and yet it already seemed a part of someone else's life, like looking at the photographs of an old acquaintance. My world was in a dream last night, she thought. And now it has woken up.
It was with some force of will that Wendy reminded herself she was a prisoner and this ship was her cage. She was trapped aboard her very own Flying Dutchman, haunted by a ghost who could not die. For all the deceptive calm, this was a place of evil and cruelty, ruled over by a tyrannical captain who delighted in murder and pillaging and possibly viler crimes she was as yet unaware of. She was alone and friendless, prey to the mercurial whim of a man who possessed no honour to bind him to the promise he had so carelessly made last night.
However, the change of scenery and her own adventurous spirit wakened out of its long torpor made self-pity impossible. In the light of day and under the warmth of the bright sun, the horrors of last night were chased away; even the lingering vestiges of the nightmare that had awoken her was receding to nothing more than a dim, unpleasant memory. Everything seemed fresh and bright and new; and her situation did not seem nearly so daunting as it had only a few hours ago.
It did not take long for her to become accustomed to the motion of the ship on the water. It was a strange feeling, to once again be walking the swaying, salt-drenched boards that had haunted her imagination for so long. Canvas sails billowed wildly overhead in the fresh, sharp, choppy winds. Her skirts of stiff, raw silk rapidly became saturated, dragging heavily with each movement. It would have been far easier to cast them off…
A floorboard creaked behind her. Wendy stilled, hardly breathing. Anticipation tugged at the cords of her beating heart. Dreading (hoping) –
"Come out," she said, determined not to tremble. It took all her strength to resist turning around.
There was a cough and the sound of a low, shuffling gait that made the boards groan. The agonizing tension left her shoulders. Appearing before her was a face semi-hidden beneath a tangled white beard, pale blue eyes creased with friendly welcome through a pair of precariously balanced spectacles.
"Miss Wendy, is it?" he asked, the faintest hint of an Irish brogue discernible in his salt-roughened tones.
She greeted him formally. "Mr Smee."
"How d'ye do, Miss?"
Wendy looked him up and down warily. She could not forget that this man had played a part in deceiving her (oh, what fool she had been back then!) leading her blindly into the captain's insidious trap and standing by while she had been forced to walk the plank. He may not have directly harmed her, but Wendy had a suspicion that there was a shrewd, cunning mind beneath the simple, well-meaning exterior. The past few years had taught her deceptiveness could live within the most guileless faces. She had learned to be cautious of kindness.
"He sent you to watch me," she said. "Didn't he?"
"The Cap'n is busy, that is t'say…"
"And what is the captain doing?"
"Can't really tell ye, Miss."
Wendy examined a dainty white hand, the skin unblemished by any marks of wear or labour. Barely fit for holding a heavy parasol, let alone a pistol or cutlass. She looked at him imperiously, a faintly bitter smile on her pursed lips. "Do you think I need watching, Mr Smee? You cannot tell me that you look at me and consider me a threat?"
The small man twisted his hands in his apron. "It's not my place t'say."
"No," said Wendy. "I don't suppose it is." Adding rather cruelly, "Your place is merely to follow orders."
Smee's face flushed beneath the weathered tan and he made a lot of noise clearing his throat.
"I'm sorry," she said, more gently. I never used to be unkind. "You should learn not to pay too much attention to what I say."
If anything, this seemed to embarrass him even more. He affected not to hear her, instead saying, "Why don't I get ye something to eat, Miss?"
His words made Wendy realize that the exploration had awakened her appetite, so she obediently followed him down into the small, square kitchen, where a great tureen hung suspended over a lowly smoldering fire, the ashes of which blackened the surface of the narrow table and benches aligning the wall. Smoke clouded the porthole windows, turning them grey with years of grime. The floor was filthy with cabbage peelings, scraps of potato and overturned bottles that she stepped over with barely-concealed repugnance. The state of the kitchen appalled her natural instincts for cleanliness, but she said nothing, primly taking a seat and crossing her hands over her lap.
Smee laid a full flagon before her. Wendy stared at him. "That's rum," she said.
"Aye, the finest."
"Haven't you any tea?"
Frightened by the look of icy contempt in her eyes, he hurried to oblige.
Curling her hands around the cup, she took a sip of scalding hot tea that went some way to abating the chill in the brisk air. Wendy could not remember the last time she had tasted tea that wasn't Earl Grey or did not come in little white bone-china cups, but there was a smoky and slightly bitter tang that satisfied her body far more than anything she ever remembered having at home. She felt stronger, strong enough to start asking questions and learn more about her situation (the one who had brought her here).
"It is a strange captain," she mused aloud, "Who does not come out aboard his own ship, but remains shut in his cabin all day."
"He's a strange man, Miss," Smee replied over his shoulder, still clattering over the stove. The faint smell of burning lingered in the smoky air that hung around her in swathes like grey sea mist.
"Yes. Strange enough to fall to his death yet emerge completely unscathed. How does that happen?"
"That's a simple enough story. No crocodile could complete with the likes of James Hook when his blood's up – oh no! He sliced it clean open and climbed right out. He's got the head displayed on his wall."
Wendy stared, for once surprise startling her from her formal restraint. "Do you mean to tell me that he cut his way out of a crocodile?"
"Oh yes," he said lightly, as though such an occurrence were commonplace.
"And that masterful feat took him seven years to accomplish?"
The bo'sun did not reply, but placed a dish before her. A bowl of oatmeal and a thick-cut loaf of bread generously spread with butter. There was no sense in starving, so she quietly thanked him and fell on the meal hungrily. It was plain, but wholesome with that same earthy, vital quality she had tasted in the tea. But still she was curious, insatiable, the captain looming at the back of her memory, piercing deep through her consciousness. She felt him, as though he was there with her, silent and smiling and so very dangerous. His essence clear in the haze of her mind, real yet unreal.
"He's insane," she said at last. "Rational people don't behave as he does; they do not allow themselves to become so consumed by revenge." She set the bowl down, feeling the steam rise against her face, warm and cloying. "What is it that draws a man to the brink of madness? There is more to this story than he has told you, Mr Smee. I would stake my reputation on it."
"Don't let it trouble ye, Miss. He's a difficult man to understand, the Cap'n, and ye'll only drive yerself mad with wonderin'. Best t'just let it be."
Sound advice, thought Wendy. Which I shall not be following. "Perhaps you are right," was all she said aloud, and they spoke no more of it.
The sun had passed its zenith and raced westward in a blazing trail. The ocean waves were as she had seen them many times in her dreams, rolling hills of green light, strewn with wreaths of white foam. Lone rock islets lay in the distance, the cragged grey tops emerging from the deeps like ancient sentinels. The crying of sea-birds and the harsh voices of the crew reached her ears. The pirates were rough and coarse, broad-shouldered and bearded. Used to the men surrounding her to be as immaculately tailored as they were unvaryingly polite – high-collared dinner jackets and folded trousers, shirts of finely-pressed linen – Wendy was momentarily thrown by their lack of manners, appalled by their coarse way of speaking. She was too conscious of the difference in social standing, too conceited to offer the hand of friendship, even though doing so might have been of use. Instead, she ignored them with the effortless disregard that society called good breeding.
And yet…
Without seeming to, Wendy watched them engaged in trimming the sails, raking spars and handling the great wheel as the ship tossed on the high seas. In a strange way, she envied them, their steady sense of purpose. She thought of the duties that she was expected to perform in her own daily life: studying what was permitted just enough to be able to hold an educated conversation, shopping trips to Oxford Street, paying calls on acquaintances, attending society parties. All intended to prepare her for the sole ambition of marriage. Nothing to relieve her from the suffocating inertia, the one dream that she had harboured – to be a writer – deemed improper by her friends. All those long hours when she had been forced to remain seated in drawing rooms, head high, gracious manners, merely a decorative ornament, while her body and soul were being slowly crushed from her and her imagination was dwindling like the light from a dying candle…
She hungered for activity, she realized, not to be sitting around in idleness waiting for a rescue that might never come. Nothing was worse than this dreadful, interminable waiting. If she could only do something –
Her drifting gaze paused, lingering on a cabin larger than the rest and far more grandiose. Hook's quarters. An idea leapt into her head – dangerous, mad, irresistible – and held her in place. The captain had not emerged from his cabin all day and his absence was a great abyss that filled her with dread and a sickening, pervasive curiosity. Reason cautioned her to return to her cabin and not take such a foolish, impudent risk. Had she not been relating the cautionary tale of Bluebeard's wife only last night? But she was too intrigued. She had tasted the bitter edge of danger and had a strange thirst for more. Turning away was impossible. The prospect was too enticing to resist. Her heart thudded under the flesh of her ribcage. The blood beating hotly in her veins. Wendy drew a deep breath – salt and sharp winds and oiled leather – and felt a galvanizing surge of energy. She was young and strong, vital, tough. And he was…
A ghost she was unable to face down; of the deep seas, the abyss, of blue glass and cold iron. Inside her head, in her dreams, slowly taking over her thoughts, draining the life from her. This tearing feeling clawed beneath the strains of her corset, left her unable to breathe at the fear of him that she fought against with raw, animal instinct. She must master it, conquer it, and if he discovered her… well, she would worry about that when the time came. She must and would see him, in the harsh light of day.
She drew nearer until she could feel the rough surface of the wall, the wooden beams warmed by the sun. She avoided the window that was only partly screened by velvet drapes. Movement was visible within. Wendy stood and listened for a moment, at first hearing nothing. She slid the shoes from the feet, holding them in one hand as she crept closer. A board creaked beneath her bare feet and she stilled, tense. Nothing. Then –
Low voices within. She could hear Smee's distinct Irish brogue, rapid and earnest. And in reply –
Her breath stopped. Smooth, fluid tones that she recognized immediately as belonging to the captain. Dark and liquid and daring. Taking her back to last night… his hook at her throat, short white gasps of air against the coldcoldcold –
Her nerves heightened to a painful intensity, Wendy leaned in as far as she dared and listened, her ear pressed against the wood –
"…Become a nuisance ever since they allied themselves with Pan."
Smee cleared his throat. "Perhaps we'd best be cautious, Cap'n –"
"No…" Hook said thoughtfully. "No. Swift action is needed."
"The clouds threaten storms."
"A mere caprice. Pan's moods are changeable; it will clear. Do you have the map?"
There was the faint rustle of parchment and she heard a metallic thud. A hook slamming into the outspread paper.
"There," the captain murmured, "That series of narrow and enclosed coves would hide any approach. That is the weak point, the place to strike. It'll take caution, mind, and care. I'll have no blunders this time. You will inform the crew and make all ready for an attack when I give the word. Do you understand me, Smee? No failures."
So Hook had not been idle in solitude. She should have known he was planning something. The three days he had granted her was not a grace period bestowed from the kindness of his heart (what heart did such a villain possess?) but merely a chance for him to rally his forces and be the first to strike, taking down Peter's allies one by one. Even while her heart and lungs burned with loathing, Wendy could not help but feel a grudging admiration for his cunning. She heard the floorboards creak as someone moved around within. A shadow passed across the window, dimly visible in the space between the partly-drawn curtains. Wendy pressed herself against the wood, not daring to breathe. She caught a glimpse of claret brocade and long dark curls, dressed cavalier-style. There was a momentary flare of amber light. The faint smell of cigar smoke reached her faintly through the wall, cloying and aromatic. Clouding the glass. She leaned forward, desperate to hear more of what he intended, but the captain seemed to have exhausted the subject, swiftly changing the tide of the conversation.
"What of the girl?"
"Still out on the deck," replied Smee promptly.
"You've been watching her, I presume?" The tone was one of polite inquiry.
"Yes… just as you requested, Cap'n. But should we not send her back to her cabin, turn the key on her?"
"Why?" A careless laugh, rich and deep. "Do you fear for your safety, Smee? Or is it mine?" Wendy heard the creak of leather and supposed he had just sat down, long legs stretched out before him. She did not dare betray herself by chancing a look through the window. "Such a precaution is hardly necessary. There is nothing we need fear from Miss Darling. I spoke with her myself last night and found her nothing more than a proud, unpleasant, disagreeable girl."
The bo'sun said something in reply, too low for her to catch the words. The captain laughed again. "Even if she had the wits to suspect something, she has neither the courage nor the resolution – nor the means – to do anything. S'wounds, it's cowardice that makes you speak out, not caution. Only a gutless craven like you could be quaking at the thought of a mere girl. Pour me another drink."
Wendy listened unmoving, white-faced and silent. The only betrayal of emotion was the convulsive movement of the fists clenching at her sides. She vowed to remember those words – remember them so that one day she would make the captain rue the day he ever uttered them.
She heard an exclamation of annoyance and flinched at the sound of breaking glass. "I asked for port, you blithering oaf. What do you mean by giving me brandy?"
The sound of footsteps moved to the left and Wendy followed soundlessly, keeping her back to the wall. From the slow, dragging steps, she surmised it was the bo'sun moving, while the captain remained in place. She would have to pass by the window in order to keep the two men within earshot. Bracing herself, hands pressed against the wood behind her, she moved sidelong, cautiously looking through the narrow space granted by the parted curtains. She caught only the briefest glimpse of vague, shadowy outlines and impressions. A glowing cigar between slender fingers, a leg lazily propped up, recognizable by the languid yet rakish manner he slouched against the chair. That was Hook accounted for and her imagination could supply the rest. Too well she could picture the artistic contours of that hateful face, the plush velvet of his decadent attire. And the slower, clumsy movements of Smee, who continued talking all the while –
"I am only sayin', Cap'n, that it might not hurt to delay a few days. See if the weather changes. Look for signs of Pan. We've heard naught of his movements for weeks. You've waited seven years, Cap'n, a couple more days wouldn't hurt –"
"Are you questioning me?"
Wendy did not dare unclench her jaw. If she did, her teeth would begin to chatter.
The bo'sun, too, must have caught the silver thread of menace in Hook's tone, for he stammered and laughed nervously. "No – no, of course not. I was only thinkin' –"
"Smee…" murmured the captain dangerously, "You are forgetting your place."
That voice. Like a rapier dancing, beautiful, deadly, without mercy. The very sound of it sent uneasy currents surging through her. Wendy rested her head against the cabin, trying to cast off the reminders of her dream that clung to her mind like rigging in a shipwreck. Skin so pale it seemed to glow against the dark, waterlogged fabric. She closed her eyes, feeling sick and faint. Icy fingers dragging her down into the treacherous, murky depths…
A flash of light darted across her closed lids. Wendy started, swallowing down the shocked cry that rose to her lips. Bright as a fallen star, rapid and darting, almost too fast to see – but unmistakable –
"Tinker Bell," she breathed.
The light moved away down the corridor, waxing and waning. The kind of bewitching illumination that once might have led mariners to their doom. Wendy hesitated. The temptation to stay and try to discover what the captain was planning was almost overwhelming, but this might be her only chance to convey a message to Peter. With a sigh of frustration, she quietly pursued Tinker Bell into the sanctuary of her cabin, carefully closing the door behind her. She leaned back against it, eyes following the movements of the fairy that flashed like summer lightning, leaving fiery trails glittering in the room. The dresser. The window. The glass lantern –
Wendy darted forward, slamming the small door shut and fastening the tiny metal catch. A steam of incoherent words echoed against the glass like silver raindrops as the fairy helplessly pounded the door with small fists. She waited patiently until the tirade was over.
"You know me, I think. I am Wendy Darling."
No response, save for the beating of those wings, gossamer thin and filmy, more rapid than the flutter of a butterfly. That face, light and delicate as a flower, ever-changing, a rapid array of emotions passing over those vivid features in constantly varying shades and hues. Wendy sighed hopelessly. The fairy was forgetful as a child, as innocent and narcissistic as Peter himself. How could she have expected any of them to remember?
"You don't remember me."
That beautiful little face contorted in a vicious frown. Wendy was too much of a woman not to recognize the unmistakable flash of jealousy that lit the fairy's tiny form like an electric blaze.
"All right," she said. "So you do remember me. Good. Because I need your help. I want you to deliver a message to Peter for me."
A flash of movement. Haughtiness and fire and impulse. How galling it was, Wendy thought, to beg a favor of this infantile, vindictive creature. But she kept her voice steady and dignified. "I want you to tell him that Hook has Wendy. That Hook is returned – he has Wendy and Peter must rescue me. Once he comes, I can do the rest. I will leave Neverland at once and I'll not return. And believe me, there is nothing here I want to stay for." Those last words caught in her throat slightly but Wendy hardened her heart, indignant that she should even struggle over such a supremely simple decision. A few breaths of fresh air and a taste of self-reliance would not make a fool of her. It would not.
The fairy tilted her head to one side, considering, her glance full of lightning. Wendy dared not move in case any action would spark a change in that wayward, callous, elemental nature. She continued, quiet and self-assured, "Besides, Peter certainly won't want me around – as you see, I have quite grown up."
Silence. Wendy's expression was bland, serene. She held her breath. Careful, careful. You almost have her.
"And I am sure he'll thank you. Imagine how grateful he will be when I tell him everything you did to help me."
A spark of hope lit the fairy's vivid, intent face. Fleeting, ephemeral, intangible. And finally – yes – a swift nod.
It was all the affirmation she needed. Wendy opened the glass door. Without a moment's hesitation, Tinker Bell disappeared in a tiny supernova of light, leaving behind nothing but a glimmering trail of fairy dust in her wake. It lay scattered across the floor, catching the light like the surface of water under a midday sun, or the glint of the first frost in winter. Wendy did not even observe the departure. Whether the fairy delivered the message was of no matter. She had gotten what she wanted. Her eyes fell on the fairy dust shimmering at her feet. Wendy knelt down and swept the glittering remnants into the palm of her hand and remained still for some moments, lost in thought. Slowly, she began to smile.
It was the revelry that drew her out from her room and onto the deck. The sounds of carousing, the shouting and singing, must have been audible from the distant shore, and the bright lights lit the Jolly Roger like a beacon blazing in the darkness. Wendy blinked under the sudden glare as she emerged outside in the cold night air. A sense of relief filled her. If the pirates had so little care for being seen it meant that they were planning no attack – at least, not tonight – but on the other hand, it also meant they had no fear of being attacked; a sobering realisation that made Wendy aware she was aboard the greatest threat to Neverland. She shivered at the sudden chill that passed through her, and the thrill of adventure dispersed like mist through her fingers.
She leaned over the side of the deck, gazing pensively across the vast stretch of sea inlaid with watercolour swirls. The ocean was dark as black glass, the cosmos reflected in its smooth surface. Infinite and full of possibilities. It was a strange place to find such a sense of harmony, on an enemy ship adrift on the high-turning seas. Diamond bright stars flashed through the gauzy straits of cloud, wheeling nebulae turning over and over the moving seas. Wendy wondered whether she would catch lumen glimpses of mermaids riding the waves, aqua hair streaming in their wake. She imagined what it would be like to see pearls pulled fresh from the sea, gleaming iridescent pink and ivory in their shells, not merely aligned in pristine order in the window of a Bond Street jewellers. Everything here seemed brighter, more real. So far from the light, empty rooms and hollow routines she had lived in, untouchable, every emotion closed from her heart. And to think she might have stayed in Neverland, always at Peter's side…
Then flashed a sudden memory of dancing to the light of fairies and fireflies beneath a canopy of stars. Silently, she smiled. My happy thought. Had Peter's heart really been untouched in that moment? Was that the truth she had to accept? He could so easily forget her, this mocking child of no one, the boy she had carried in her heart for years ever since she kissed him (had she kissed him?), the sensation light and burning as a hummingbird flutter against her mouth. A burst of naive, immature emotion. Playful and teasing and spirited – that was what romance should be. Not the shallow infatuation of Charles, nor the decadent hunger of – Wendy closed her eyes, forcing down the memory of a stirring, an awakening felt in the shadow of a dream. Instead, she thought of John buried in his books, Michael's love affairs, her mother patiently waiting at home for father's return... It is the fate of women, Wendy realised heavily, not to love as men do – easily, fondly – but rather to suffer inwardly, to burn and be crushed beneath its overbearing weight. Men have so many other occupations, so many other lives outside the home, that love is merely a pleasing distraction. It is only to women, who have nothing else to occupy them, that love is an oppression, something we are doomed to suffer and die for. It was better, far better to remain aloof and alone. To spurn admirers and scorn the romances her schoolmates devoured between classes. The idea of an intense, all-consuming passion terrified her. I will never love again, she told herself firmly. Never. Not as I loved Peter.
She had opened her soul to him, and he… he… (Pan has abandoned you, my beauty)
This was the time for her childhood fantasy to materialize and guide her home. Her lips parted, a strange vulnerability wavering across her stiff, inflexible features. Hear me, Peter. Find me.
But this was no story, and she was no fairytale princess to be awoken with a kiss. These things did not happen in real life. There was no happy ending. No fairy godmother. No handsome prince. Love stories, Hook had so contemptuously called them. And perhaps they were. Love stories with eternal youth and beautiful virgins encased in coffins of ice… Skin white as snow, hair black as ebony, lips red as blood…
Her fingers tightened on the acorn around her throat. The locket was empty no longer but now filled with fairy dust, her last resort should Peter not come. And if there was Tinker Bell and fairy dust, there was hope. I know these things are real, that they exist. If Hook is alive, then so must Peter be, for one cannot live without the other…
She sighed, resting her chin in her hand, her expression intent and meditative. What is it you want, Wendy Darling?
I wanted to remain a child. Then I wanted to grow up.
She had wanted to grow up, but not in a world where all the magic had flown away from her, back to Neverland where it belonged, leaving her hollow and empty. Aching for something gone from her that could never be reclaimed. It was heart-breaking, really; so many years gone by, so many things fallen into neglect.
Her mind went back to the nursery and she felt it again as she silently said farewell to her childhood – the overwhelming sorrow – that great weight, the moment of change –
Then he had come.
It seemed she was always doomed to find Hook. A demon who had cast a dark shadow over her existence; they were bound together by a mutual hatred for one another, a mutual obsession. Peter dominated both their lives, twisting them into a strange kind of affinity with one another. Was this what made him so ruthless, so full of hate? She recalled the terrifying bleakness in his expression as he had stood wreathed in snow on the balcony. I don't need happiness. His eyes filled with a drowning loneliness. Perhaps there was more sincerity in his offer than she had dared to admit. He was the shadow of which she could never flee. Wendy thought of his paralyzing touch of cool fire, of burning ice that she was unable to shake herself free of. To be bound to him, to this place, forever…
A roar of merriment jolted her from the unsettling thought. She glanced over at the crew seated together. Until now, she had merely ignored them with a proud, sovereign indifference. She studied their merrymaking through narrowed eyes, wondering at their rough, liberated ease. Something about the uninhibited Dionysian abandon was strangely appealing. Abandoning all duty and being free of all restraint…
Wendy stood and looked at them quietly, her chin slightly raised. Then, coming to a silent decision, she unhesitatingly walked over to the crew. Unconstrained by self-consciousness, it was easy for her to maintain a calm and collected demeanor. A riotous chorus greeted her ears as she approached.
"Charlotte the harlot lay dying –"
"Don't stop on my account," she said pleasantly.
The men looked uneasily at one another. The same expression, thought Wendy, as Michael always wore whenever he had been caught in some misdemeanor. She predicted the stream of excuses that immediately followed (was she always to play the role of mother, even to these great, lumbering brutes?)
"Don't be offended, Miss, we were only –"
"Don't tell the captain –"
"It was just a song –"
"I love a good song," said Wendy, surprising even herself with the unknown impulse that prompted the words.
Bill Jukes hesitated, flushing beneath his tattoos. "It's not really appropriate, Miss, you bein' a lady an' all…"
"And it is bad manners to turn down the request of a lady," she returned coldly.
"But the captain said -"
"Well, I don't see the captain anywhere, do you?" Wendy gave her most implacable smile, one that had been used to devastating effect in London drawing rooms. So unaccustomed to anything feminine aboard their ship, the pirates did not stand a chance against such an appeal.
The Italian Cecco started to laugh, dark eyes and strong white teeth flashing in the gloom. He reminded her of a wolf. A tanned, hungry wolf. "Well, I suppose one wouldn't hurt…"
Someone pushed a cup into her hands, the strong smell of the drink within making her eyes water. Wendy would have deigned not to notice it, but the memory of the captain's mocking face flashed through her mind, and on impulse, she lifted the cup and swallowed the contents. Someone roared in approval, but she was unable to identify who through the stinging tears that blurred her eyes. It tasted nothing like the various spirits adorning her father's liquor cabinet that she had once sampled at a dare from Michael on her fifteenth birthday. Her throat was burning like fire that coursed a blazing trail down to her stomach.
Crossing her legs under her, she sat and listened with reluctantly increasing interest as the men began another song.
"Come, messmates, pass the bottle 'round
Our time is short, remember,
For our grog must stop,
And our spirits drop,
On the first day of September.
For tonight we'll merry, merry be,
For tonight we'll merry, merry be,
For tonight we'll merry, merry be -"
Wendy laughed in spite of herself, surprised by a sudden feeling of recklessness and daring. She stood up, and felt the deck sway alarmingly beneath her, the blood surging swiftly through her veins and dizzyingly to her head. She gripped at the side to keep from falling. The hint of derision that marred her voice came more from habit than genuine feeling: "Are all your songs about drinking?"
"Not all," said Cecco, to a roar of merriment. He winked at her and Wendy foolishly felt her cheeks burn with colour. She looked away quickly, striving to maintain an emotionless façade.
"Roll your leg over
And roll your leg over
And roll your leg over
It's better that way
If all the young lasses were boats on the ocean
Then I'd be the waves and I'd show 'em the motion -"
Wendy's first instinct was to rise in outraged disbelief and be offended at the audacity of it when she wondered, with a sudden rush of vindictive pleasure, what Aunt Millicent would make of the respectable Miss Darling carousing with a group of pirates singing bawdy songs. Purely for the childish sake of being stubborn and contrary, she determined to remain exactly where she was and enjoy herself.
Some of her innate youth and spirits returned, and she found herself losing her customary inhibitions to the gaiety and mood of the company. The dim fog of dread that had been hovering over her all day lifted slightly. Clearly perceiving her as neither a threat nor a hindrance, the pirates went back to ignoring her, regarding her as they might a stray dog that could be thrown a few scraps and then happily overlooked. She, on the other hand, made a deliberate point of learning their names, one of the few talents acquired from the tedious number of formal gatherings she had attended that made having a good memory such an essential part of courtesy. She was almost beginning to forget the gravity of her situation when slowly, one by one, the voices gradually trailed off into uneasy silence. She looked for the source of the disturbance and realized it was the arrival of Mr Smee. His short-sighted eyes sought and found her among the crew, and Wendy thought she could detect a faint flicker of sympathy in those watery blue depths.
"The Cap'n invites you to dine with him."
And with those words, Wendy turned cold and knew what she had been dreading. It was as though that hook had already pierced flesh, twisted deep inside and touched her heart with its point. She glanced at the assembled crew. The air of festivity had fled at the mention of Hook, and she wondered uneasily how it was the captain had such a hold over them. She felt she could face Hook's men, if it came to that, but the captain was an unknown entity that filled her with fear and something else that wasn't fear at all – a strange, disturbing unease beneath the skin that she did not understand. The memory of his Cavalier appearance and erudite tones chilled her far more than the threat of crocodiles and cannon fire. Her tone was haughty and bored, though a barely discernible tremor ran beneath the surface. "Tell the captain I am otherwise engaged."
The bo'sun shifted uncomfortably on his feet. "The captain orders you to dine with him."
Wendy silently reprimanded herself for not having expected this. Did you think you would be so fortunate as to have him forget you entirely? Of course he would do something like this – delude her into thinking he would leave her in peace, only to then summon her to a dinner that would no doubt be a cruelly recreated reminder of her last visit (capture) here, when she had fallen for his well-meaning words and alluring smiles. If this was an attempt to unnerve her, she was determined he would not succeed. She looked across at Mr Smee, affecting a careless, indifferent attitude, though her heart faltered within her. Inside, she felt sick and hopeless.
"Very well."
After all, what choice did she have?
She stood before the mirror in her room, straight and still in her gown of white lace. The sweeping folds of her dress hung stiff and discolored by the persistent lash of salt spray, though a faint hint of white musk perfume remained. Exposed to the elements of air and water, her hair had lost the tightly crimped perfection of sleek ringlets that last night had been so neatly piled in a shining coronet above her head. Now the hazel tresses were loose about her shoulders like Botticelli's Venus, windblown and tangled like snarled threads, with no restraining pins or beribboned hats to hold back its disorder. So far from the sumptuous dresses and heavy, coiled hairstyles that London adorned its women with. A parade of pristine, porcelain dolls, delicate as spun glass.
What would her family say if they could see her now? John would disappear behind his glasses, seeing nothing beyond the dusty pages of his books. Michael would look up, his attention caught briefly until some new amusement diverted him. Both were set on their paths to adulthood, while she… Even though she was the eldest, she was the most undeveloped, the most uncertain. Her future was shrouded in mystery.
Wendy's eyes fell on the love-locket nestled in the hollow of her throat. Her fingers traced the smooth-varnished acorn, flooded with thoughts of Peter. Where was he? Was he even now amassing the Lost Boys and the Indians together, delighting in the chance to wage another attack on Hook and to see her again? Or did he not care at all? Why had he not come already? Would she not, after all, be better to rely on the fairy dust and her own ingenuity? She could not deny that the thought of matching her own wits against the captain's was a strangely intriguing one…
Hook. He was around her, everywhere. His presence trembling through the darkening air, drifting in invisible clouds to form a ghostlike figure behind her own wavering reflection. The flash of lapis lazuli eyes and a vulpine smile turned her cold. It was as though she could already feel the chill of his fingers across the back of her neck, the sinuous silver thread of his voice whispering sweet nothings in her ear. A breath of air, like the touch of a forgotten lover's lips. She dreaded what the night might bring, trying not to think of what terrible things might happen when the blue lantern went out and she was forced from her sanctuary and finally, they would look upon one another, face to face. Wendy shuddered, and turned her face away from the mirror.
Night pressed against the windows like velvet curtains. The wavering lantern over her head was swinging with the ship's motion, a weak, guttering flame casting long shadows across the wall. She suddenly felt very cold and alone. No walls could protect her here.
She cast another gaze over her attire. The armor of a lady. Lace and satin, delicate pale shoes and silk stockings. White, like the snow outside the nursery, or the feathers on Tiger Lily's headdress, or the nightgown she had worn seven years ago. Robed like a sacrificial victim, long hair falling down her back. Wendy smiled, though beneath the scorn was a hint of fear. Glanced at herself in the mirror again, ran stiff fingers down the hard line of her corset and faced her reflection squarely.
"Coward!" she suddenly burst out accusingly. "Weakling! How dare you tremble before him? Do you want to be mocked, ridiculed, derided? Do you want to give him that power over you? If you cannot rise above fear, then hide it. Conceal it as you have concealed everything else."
What would Peter do? She closed her eyes, strained to memorize every line and detail of his laughing, mocking face, the forest-green depths of his eyes –
There was a low tapping on her door. Wendy turned around. This is it, she thought with frightening calmness.
"I am ready," she said.
She ignored Smee's extended arm, walking stiffly past his waiting figure into the dim, narrow corridor, her shoulders erect. The bo'sun's shuffling gait sounded behind her, the lantern held in his raised hand swinging to and fro, casting a weaving path of uneasy light before her feet.
Wendy felt her heart beating faster as they approached, throbbing in tandem with her lungs. Her fingers toyed nervously with the netted lace and threaded ribbon at her chest. She had no idea what reception awaited her. Would the captain be polite or brutal? Courteous or violent? She could not say; all she knew was that hours of anticipation had heightened every nerve in her body to a painful tension, but whatever he was; whatever faced her behind that stylized, embossed door, she must crush the fear, force it down until it choked her. She lifted her head back, her haughty chin raised with a sense of stubborn resolution. Decision and roundness were marked in the outline of her face, her firmly set figure poised and steady. The bo'sun pushed the door open. Sudden memory gripped her, held her in its clutches. Captain Jas. Hook written in gilded letters across the dark wood and seven years had passed like a dream…
A red-cut glass chandelier swung on the ceiling. The light from the candles ebbing, pulsing in a soft glow of dusky gold and shadow. Mist blurred the windows. The air was musky, spicy, thick. Cutlasses, polished and gleaming, hung on the wall above the harpsichord. A small writing-table neatly stacked with reams of paper sat in the corner. Across the room, the crocodile's enormous head grinned at her. That part of Smee's story had been true, at least. The rest of the cabin was filled with all the typical trappings of piracy; piles of books, globes, tobacco pipes and snuff canisters. Reminiscent of the Renaissance galleons, that great age of exploration where peril and danger and treasure were still to be found on the high seas.
The coldly contemptuous expression in Wendy's eyes softened at the stacks of leather-bound tomes that greeted her interested gaze. Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot… why, his library collection resembled John's, although she was fairly certain that John had never owned a copy of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Huysmans' Against Nature: A Rebours, or anything written by the Marquis de Sade. The captain clearly had a predilection for French literature, and there was something in his elegantly cultured affectations that was vaguely reminiscent of that country and era.
She gave an involuntary start, the rigid line of her shoulders stiffening as someone cleared their throat behind her. She felt a fixed gaze on her back, stripping the fabric of skin, piercing right through to the bone. Her heart quivered, missed a beat.
Wendy turned, slowly, and her eyes met those of the captain.
Every time you don't review, a fairy dies. It is known.