xoxo

Chapter 3

"Plans"

Ruth Kidd sat squished beside Robert Diaz on a rowboat headed toward an old fishing vessel called the Bluefin. With them was Helen Mull and gap-toothed Emmett Wallace who rowed them across the glittering sea. These four were the most favored of the pirate apprentices aboard the Jolly Rodger. They were nervous.

Kidd was glad to hear Mull break the silence with one of her dramatic sighs. "What?" Kidd asked, looking around Wallace's large, blond form to see her.

Small and with a shaved head, Mull leaned back against the bow of the boat and squinted at the far away coast of Port Smee. "I was just thinking," she said. "I suppose we'll always remember this as the last moment we shared as equals. Since, you know, the moment Captain Blackwood sees my Wendy-birds I'll be the clear choice for her successor."

Kidd scoffed. "That's right cocky of you, don't you think? You haven't even seen your girls. Or ours, for that matter." Unlike Mull and Diaz, Wallace and Kidd had only selected one girl each. And after months of research, Kidd was nearly positive that despite other…unfortunate aspects to her Wendy, she had at least blood on her side, and with this, she rather imagined herself as Blackwood's successor.

"Kidd's right, Mull," said Wallace while he rowed. "I wouldn't get ahead of myself if ye we me. She's the one who's got a dog watching the prisoners." Wallace paused to look at Kidd over his shoulder. "What kind of favors did you do for Elliot, eh, Kidd? To make sure yer girl's in tip-top shape for today?"

Mull threw a hand to her mouth in mock offense. "How scandalous!" she cried, and Diaz laughed and put his lanky arm over Kidd's shoulder. "Don't tease her," he said. "You know sensitive Kidd is about Elliot's crush on her."

Though she was fuming, Kidd didn't say a word: she'd learned not to engage the other apprentices' taunts when it came to her best friend, Arthur Elliot.

Ripping Diaz's arm from around her, Kidd caught the silverly eye of Henry Daniels in the rowboat a little ways behind theirs. A tattooed brute rowed him and Captain Verona Blackwood steadily toward them and she felt in his gaze that he was scolding their rowdiness. Now ashamed and irritated on top of nervous, Kidd faced forward and said, "Keep rowing, Wallace." Wallace winked at her and moved them into the shadow of the awaiting Bluefin.

Two brutes already onboard lifted them in when they were close enough. As soon as they were on deck, Billy Kincaid, the owner of the boat, fell upon them, smelling of fish and shaking his greasy curls. "I've had enough!" he shouted. "You tell Blackwood that I'll have no more secret pirate business conducted on me boat! I can't work like this, hear?"

Diaz clapped Kincaid on the shoulder. "Tell her yerself, Mate," he said. "She's coming this way."

Kincaid looked a little less sure of himself at that, but puffed out his chest regardless. "Right then, I will. I'll tell her meself!" he said.

Kidd saw Wallace and Mull share an amused look and felt a tickling pity for the man herself: he'd obviously never met the captain.

While she watched Kincaid ready himself for the captain's arrival, a tickle of hair on Kidd's face appeared with a low murmur of, "I need to talk to you." Kidd looked anxiously toward the other apprentices then followed her friend Arthur Elliot to stand looking over the wooden railing of the boat. They were close enough to the others so as not to be suspicious but far enough not to be overheard.

"Is everything okay?" said Kidd quietly. "Does she look alright?"

"Fine," said Arthur. "She looks fine." Though Kidd was watching the captain's rowboat approach the side of the Bluefin, she could feel Arthur's dark eyes watching her from underneath his floppy hair. "Listen," he said. "I don't think this is a good idea."

Kidd looked at Arthur, concerned. "What do you mean?" she asked. Remembering Wallace and Mull, she then looked quickly away, her face warming. Wallace was right that she had asked Arthur to pay extra attention to her Wendy-bird, but she hadn't done anything to get him to do it. Arthur would have done anything she asked without incentive — like any good friend would.

Captain Blackwood was lifted aboard the Bluefin along with her fairy, Lucy, her first mate, Daniels, and the brute who had rowed them there. Kincaid had already begun to shout at them. "I can't fish when me crew can't go below me own deck!" he was saying.

"Sir," said Daniels, moving his coat to show off the array of weapons on his hip. "I suggest you rethink your tone."

Blackwood put up a thin hand. "Please, Henry," she said. She was an elegant, dark skinned woman, with long braids wrapped up into a large bun on the top of her head. She looked almost frail beside Kincaid's bulkiness. "We are a guest on this man's vessel. I will hear his complaints gladly."

From the other side of the ordeal, Kidd locked eyes with Wallace who raised his brows suggestively at her. She looked angrily away into the water below, gripping the railing. "Not a good idea," she repeated derisively. "This is the greatest plan to ever leave the Jolly Rodger."

"That's not what I—" Arthur began.

"No captain has ever concocted a scheme so thorough and clever, so certain to win the war of our people and at last—" Kidd was quite aware of the fact that she had begun to parrot the rhetoric of Daniels and Blackwood herself. She finished their speech regardless, saying breathlessly, "at last defeating the murderous Peter Pan."

"Right," mumbled Arthur. "I suppose what I really meant was that it isn't right, what we're doing."

Kidd turned fully toward Arthur with her face scrunched up in confusion. "What?" she said, perhaps too loudly, then at the sound of Kincaid's wail of pain, looked back over her shoulder. She watched him crumple to the deck while Blackwood hid her favorite dagger in her belt.

"I must be going, Friend," said Blackwood. "But we'll speak more about your demands later. Now, will someone be kind enough to lead me below deck?"

"Some people just don't know when to quit," Kidd murmured, and giving Arthur another curious look, followed Blackwood and the other apprentices to the hatch. She spared a glance at Kincaid reaching for his dismembered ear on the deck beside him, blood matting up the curls on the right side of his head.

—

Kidd found herself at the back of the pack as they approached the holding cells in the sudden darkness below deck. She had been bombarded by a parade of unpleasant emotions in the last half-hour but was then reduced back to simple nervousness. At last, the result of months of hard work would be appreciated — hopefully.

"Boy," Captain Blackwood called from ahead. Kidd could spot Lucy's glow bouncing around the group.

"Yes, Captain," said Arthur. He left Kidd's side to shimmy through the crowd. He had held a lamp, and with his absence, the area around Kidd grew even dimmer. The other apprentices gathered around the cells, and while Kidd had, before today, been desperate to see her girl in person, she was now short of breath at the thought. She wasn't sure why she was so anxious — was it just that she was afraid Blackwood wouldn't choose her Wendy for the plan, or was it something else?

Kidd pressed in closer, allowing Diaz to block her view of the girls. But she could hear their whimpers. One was fully crying, though trying to keep it quiet.

"Why are they being kept in this condition?" Blackwood said, almost as if she pitied them. She crouched beside the cells. "They're sitting in their own filth."

Kidd felt a flicker of another sort of nervousness: if Arthur displeased Blackwood, she may well do to him what she did to Kincaid — or worse — and Kidd could do nothing about it. "My apologies, Captain," said Arthur from somewhere in the crowd. His voice was calm and it soothed Kidd's worries. "The brutes and I have taken care of the prisoners as well as we could with the resources we were given."

"No, no, no, no," said Blackwood, rising. "These girls are not our prisoners. They are our guests and they shall be treated as such."

"Yes, Captain," Kidd heard Arthur say.

Mull looked over her shoulder at Kidd and she mouthed mockingly: Yes, Captain. Kidd did nothing but narrow her eyes spitefully back.

"Despite the grubbiness," said Blackwood. "I am pleased with your choices, Apprentices…Very pleased. Henry, what do you say?"

Daniels cleared his throat. Kidd saw only the glowing back of his head while he said, "This one is a little…old."

Kidd's heart spasmed in her chest: this was the moment she had been readying herself for. Hesitating only half a second, she pushed forward in front of Mull. "Yes," she began. "Captain, if I may." Kidd still did not look at the girls on the floor of the two cells before her, and looked instead between the the steady face of the captain to the flickering blue eyes of her first mate.

Captain Blackwood nodded for her to continue and Kidd spoke over the sound of her heartbeat in her ears and over the sound of the crying girl's sobs. "I have strong reason to believe that I have found the true direct descent of Wendy Darling in this girl—" she glanced at her briefly and barely saw her "—in Margaret Vega. She is sixteen years old, but it is my belief that it will take more than a little blonde girl to capture Pan's heart. It'll take—" the girl huffed and at last, Kidd looked down at her properly. She felt her face harden into a frown as she took the girl in. She was curled up on the floor as far away from the others as possible. She was warm-toned and and green-eyed and newly-blonde and furious, looking directly back at Kidd with not a tear in her eyes. "—blood," Kidd made herself finish, despite the hollowing in her stomach. "It'll take Darling blood."

Kidd looked back at Blackwood importantly. "Also, there are the rumors," she said.

Wallace scoffed. "Rumors."

"Carefully Emmett," said Blackwood, watching Kidd. "It is true that Peter Pan has been in hiding for quite a while, but you would have us believe these…rumors…that he has gotten—"

"Old," Kidd interrupted, anxious to finish the conversation. She immediately regretted it but continued. "Yes. Perhaps for the Wendy's sake. Who can be sure how this bond works?"

Blackwood turned back toward the girls, humming to herself. Kidd decompressed for the first time in weeks, sensing that she had pleased her captain. Having seemingly been dismissed, she looked around for Arthur in the dim light and went to stand beside him, though he did not look at her when she arrived.

"Her name is Claire Bandercoot," Diaz was telling Blackwood when Kidd tuned back in.

"She's very pretty," Daniels said.

"Yes, if she would stop whimpering," said Blackwood. "Claire, dear," she called out to her. The girl's cries became more of a bellow once addressed. Blackwood raised her voice to be heard over her. "If you just stop crying, I'm sure we can become great friends."

But to no avail. Blackwood shook her head. "Shame," Kidd heard her say. She turned away to exit the hull. "Henry, if you will," she called over her shoulder.

Kidd was looking again at Margaret Vega and trying to rid herself of the odd feeling she had developed. Watching the girl sat alone and fuming, Kidd wasn't even sure of what to call the thing sitting in her chest. Curiosity? Anger? Fear? She thought about what Arthur said, about the plan not being right, and at last, the wail of Claire Bandercoot rising higher and higher, Kidd settled on guilt.

And Daniels pulled out his revolver and shot the girl Claire through the bars.

Several things happened at the same time then, but it took Kidd quite a while to notice them all. First, the girl's crying stopped, but then the other girls had begun to scream in a muffled sounding way. They controlled it quickly, though. Kidd supposed they knew now what happened when they made too much noise.

The girl was heavy and contorted on the floor, blood soaking through her pajamas. Kidd thought, to herself, I've never seen someone die before.

The dead girl shared a cell with Margaret Vega and another girl in glasses, and Margaret had gotten off the floor to pull the smaller girl away, wrestle her to the other side of the cell, hold her tightly, both covered in blood.

Don't feel bad, Richard, Kidd heard Blackwood tell Diaz. You still have another pick.

Arthur's dark eyes were watching Kidd from underneath his floppy hair.

And look at Margaret Vega! Kidd looked at Blackwood lit by lamps and already climbing up to the hatch. She looked impressed. Very motherly, she said, winking at Kidd.

Arthur grabbed Kidd's hand roughly in the dark, trying to pull her close to him but Mull took hold of her other wrist and led her toward the bright opening in the ceiling across the room.

Margaret Vega was holding a crying girl with glasses and they lied on the floor, Kidd could see them in a fading light.

Above deck the Bluefin again, where it was bright and blue out and Kincaid had gone somewhere to nurse his wound, Kidd followed the other apprentices toward the rowboats so they could leave. Arthur grabbed Kidd's hand again. He said, purposefully, "Ruth," and Kidd looked at him disoriented, unsure of where to sort all of her feelings.

Of course there would be killing, they were pirates, she shouldn't be so shocked, of course this would happen, this is what she wanted, of course, of course.

Arthur looked as lost as Kidd felt, and he was searching for something in her face.

"Elliot, let her go," Mull said, yanking Kidd away again.

Kidd watched Blackwood and Daniels approach Arthur as she got aboard the rowboat. "Let's talk, Boy," Kidd heard Blackwood say.

—

They didn't come for the body until late that night.

The little girl hardening in her death on the other side of the cell made it a little difficult for Margaret to pretend that she wasn't in an actual horror movie, that she wasn't likely going to die there in that cell, having never seen her father again, having none of her questions answered.

And she had a lot of questions.

Most of them were why? Why them? Why her? And what for? Who were these monsters? What did they want? Who was that girl who knew her name? She was young like the boy who had bleached Margaret's hair — most of them were young except for the burly men and the small black woman — the captain — and the tall, white haired man with blue eyes who stood beside her.

But the girl who knew her name…in the lamplight Margaret watched her talk about her like she knew her…she looked normal, like someone on Facebook she was friends with but had never met, with brown skin and fat freckles all over her cheeks and nose and eyelids, reddening brown hair pulled into a bun at the back of her head. She looked sweet. It was a betrayal to see her on the other side of those bars, watching Margaret and the others like that.

And what for? Glancing at the dead and the living little girls locked up with her, Margaret was afraid to know what.

The other girls had questions, too.

"Did you see the fairy?" said the littlest girl with the lisp in the other cell. By then, Margaret knew her name was Amy and that she was six years old.

Was Margaret in a coma? Had she already died...or are fairies real?

"Are they going to leave us in here with her?" said Victoria, who had braces and was ten.

"Are they going to shoot us, too?" Hannah was seven and had red hair.

"Did you catch it?" said the other living girl in Margaret's cell. Her name was Mia. She was from Scotland and she wore glasses. She was nine.

"What?" said Margaret. Hours before, Margaret sat alone in the left corner of the cell. Now, Mia sat with Margaret. She and the others were now repelled from the bars that separated the two cells, where the little girl lay, waiting. No one was crying anymore.

"They're giving us to someone," said Mia, "called Pan."

That was the last question Margaret had: who is Peter Pan?

When they came for the body at last, there was only three of them. Two of the big ones and the mop-haired boy: the same group from before the others came.

One of the big ones held Margaret and Mia at gunpoint while the other unlocked the cell and came inside. "No funny business from the two of ye," he said, picking up the dead girl and stuffing her stiff, bloody body into a sack.

Then they brought in rags and a bucket of soapy water. "That's for you to clean up a bit," said the boy quietly. They put one in the other cell, too. Margaret thought the boy didn't seem as haughty as he had before. He seemed, Margaret thought, ashamed. Or maybe she just wanted him to. She wanted him to see why he should help her get home — because they were nearly the same age, and so it could have been him thrown in this cell, or her, the girl who knew Margaret's name.

"Get some rest," the boy said. One of the big men waited for him by the hatch. "Early tomorrow morning we will be transferring you to a inn ashore. You'll be much more comfortable there. Put these on before then." Reaching through the bars of the other cell, the boy placed a pile of folded up clothing on the floor. Moving over to Margaret's cell, the boy placed hers and Mia's piles separately. He patted one and gave Margaret a pointed look. "This one," he said, "is yours. It's larger."

Something about the boy's gaze gave Margaret's heart a hopeful squeeze and the moment the hatch closed and the boy and the man had left, Margaret scrambled over to the clothes and lifted up the pile he had indicated. It was a light blue night gown, long and made of cotton — it appeared that's what he'd left all of the girls, except—

Except there was a note left in the folds of her gown, and a necklace. Margaret's breath was loud in her mouth; she was so excited she thought she might be sick.

"What is it?" whispered one of the girls behind her. Amy or Mia or Hannah or Victoria.

In the light of a lamp left on the wall by the hatch, Margaret could read the first line scrawled on the note: I'm getting you all home before the sun rises, it said.

The charm on the necklace was an old acorn with a perfectly round hole on its side.

wow I care about this so much thanks for reading!

- zoe