***
17
***
The trees filled with shifting, excited bodies, the branches swaying under the new weight as the higher bar of the wave circled back to answer the sparrows' calls. The corners of Wendy's mind barely registered the bright pinks and whites as long legged waterfowl lighted on the forest floor to see. The noise was painful. On the ground, Peter flailed his arms at the swarming sparrows, knocking an unfortunate few to the earth to twitch, stunned. Wendy couldn't shoo the things, and her throat tightened with tears of panic at her own ineffectiveness.
"—GOT THE ----NOT------PAN!--------"
A voice was trying to scream over the bird calls and Peter's angry shouting, and Wendy couldn't hear.
"---STOP-------NOT THE-----"
Something gangly and white suddenly dropped into the middle of the swarm, right on Peter's chest, and let go a shrill, shivering scream. Peter rolled and flung it off. The sparrows, falling silent all the sudden, shot away from him into the trees and disappeared among the crowd. Wendy fell on her knees beside Peter Pan and frantically checked his hands and face, but wells of bloody peck marks were all the damage done. He pushed her hands away.
The interloper flopped onto its spindly legs and narrowed its eyes. Something from the trees dropped down to its side; a familiar mess of white feathers and red eyeliner.
"I TOLD you, it's the wrong one!" The diamond dove said heatedly into the unnatural silence.
The yellow eyed egret looked at the dove scrutinizingly. "Tiddly didn't say there was more than one on the island. Are you sure it's the wrong one?"
"Of course I'm sure! What kind of leader are you if you don't even know who you're looking for?!"
The egret snarled and darted its beak out, sending the dove scuttling back with a squeal. There was something painted on its wing with black dye, a mark like a japanese archway fallen on its side. Wendy's eyes widened as the recognized the branding from her Bible classes.
_MURDERER_
The girl grabbed hold of Peter's arm, but Peter shoved her persistent hands off again and frowned down at the bird. His eyes narrowed.
"You look awfully familiar." He said. The egret smirked.
"Well I should hope so, my clever young lad. There were pictures of me up allover the place a few years ago. Care to hazard a guess at my name?" It proudly flared its wings, revealing the same marking dyed into the spread flight feathers underneath. Peter frowned a moment, then blinked.
"Wait! The fairies put you in prison!" he blurted, standing up. The bird chuckled and ruffled itself.
"That's right. Aldus Aborigine, at your service. Well, not REALLY at your service of course. It's merely a saying."
Wendy noticed that the diamond dove suddenly backed away further.
"Who's Aldus Aborigine?" Wendy asked, a bit confused.
"A dirty criminal." Peter growled. "The fairies caught him over a year ago."
"Well I wouldn't say DIRTY criminal." The egret said, looking offended. "My ablutions are quite thorough and regular, which is more than I think can be said for either of you. And as soon as this triviality of a search is taken care of I won't even be a criminal anymore. King Oberon is prepared to grant me a full pardon for my…indiscretions."
"Why?"
Aborigine smiled. "For once, General Tory wants something done right. He put me in charge of the search for and capture of our ghoulish friend Billy Jukes. The rest of his companions I can dispose with as I please." The smile turned decidedly nasty. "I'm looking forward to this. Though I apologize for my party's assault. I wasn't specific enough in my instructions. After all…" He turned to leave, looking over his shoulder at them "No one ever told us there were TWO monsters on this island."
As Aborigine took to air and tucked his spindly legs up beneath him, the rest of the birds lifted off in unison, causing the trees to bob at the weight shift.
"Wait!" Wendy called. "Why are you looking for Billy Jukes! What did he do?!"
"I can tell you what Jukes did!" The diamond dove piped.
Peter snatched up the dove like a rattlesnake and glared into its tiny eyes.
"Then tell us." He growled. "Why are the fairies after Jukes? I thought he got in trouble with Captain Codfish."
"If you mean Hook, I daresay he is in VERY grave trouble with him." The dove said. Its voice slipped into a silkier tone than its previous whining. "The seagulls had an interesting tale to tell yesterday. The early risers, the ones who got up before dawn? Some of them saw the Jolly Roger floating off the shore. More specifically, they saw the PIRATES from the Jolly Roger, two of them, up on deck. There was the little black one, Billy Jukes, and the skinny little fellow with a beard."
"You mean Mr. Smee?" Wendy asked.
"Yes, indeed, Mr. Smee. Jukes came up from below first, and Smee followed behind him. They say it looked like they were going to the captain's quarters, but Jukes turned around and stopped Smee before they got there. Nobody got close enough to hear, you understand, since they thought it wasn't anything worth listening to. But the gulls say they talked for a few minutes, and it looked like Mr. Smee got right agitated there for a while. Jukes had his back to them the whole time so they didn't really get a good idea of what he was about. But they say that at one point Jukes turned his back on Smee and leaned against the bulwark, and he looked like he was about to cry, but when Smee put his hand on his shoulder Jukes grabbed him!"
"He attacked Mr. Smee?" Peter asked, confused.
The dove huffed. "If I went through the trouble of hearing this story in the first place you can be quiet until I finish it, alright?"
They said nothing.
"Alright then. Jukes grabbed Smee by the wrist and turned on him. Smee looked baffled for a moment and then WHACK!" The dove flared, obviously very into its gossip. "Jukes cracked Smee on the temple with his fist, and knocked the fellow onto his back. Before he got his bearings Jukes sat on his chest, pulled a kitchen knife out of his belt, and stabbed him clear through the neck!"
"Oh!" Wendy put her hands to her face, horrified.
"That isn't the best part!" the dove said. "They say Smee hadn't even stopped squirming yet when Billy Jukes bit his shoulder and started EATING him ALIVE!"
Wendy put her hands over her ears and shut her eyes. "STOP! That's terrible!"
"Isn't it just?" The dove said, sounding pleased. "By noon there wasn't a single civilian bird on the island who hadn't heard that story. The FAIRIES didn't hear about it until the next day, and heaven forbid the military listen to gossip." He snorted. "Billy Jukes and the blonde boy, Slightly, went to Small Monday Island thinking they could get some help. One of the fairies found out Jukes is a GHOUL. Can you believe it? A ghoul! And the boy didn't even know!"
"Is that why they sent someone like Aborigine after him?" Peter asked flatly.
"I suppose. Though I'm surprised Oberon was willing to let him out of prison. After all, Jukes' companions might be total innocents. When Aborigine finds them he's going to take out their eyes." The dove made a face. "Wasn't that his thing? Eye collecting?"
"I think I'm going to be sick." Wendy announced quiveringly.
"Too bad about Slightly's eyes. He's really a very nice boy." The dove said nonchalantly. "Aborigine will probably be thrilled to collect a human eye, though. He never managed anything larger than a rabbit."
"Oh, Peter!" Wendy hid her face against Peter's shoulder.
"Stop it." Peter told the bird sternly. The dove blinked at him, then smiled.
"Of course. I didn't mean to upset the girl. Only…if all your charges are so squeamish, how are they going to bury poor Slightly once he's been pecked to death and…collected?"
"We can't let Slightly be killed because of Billy Jukes and your silly grudge!" Wendy caught hold of Peter's elbow. "Please, Peter! If Aborigine doesn't get him Captain Hook will! I don't think I'll be able to stand looking at you if you let Slightly die because of your stubbornness!"
"But Wendy—"
"Peter, if you don't go I'll do it myself! I know John will go with me if no one else will!"
For a long moment they just glared at each other, and the dove, knowing Wendy was going to convince him anyway, began to ponder the merits of just biting Peter's thumb and making him let go.
Peter finally looked away. "Fine! I'll go save Slightly if it'll make you happy, but that's it, Wendy! I'm not taking him back! He still betrayed the Lost Boys and he's still a pirate as far as I'm concerned!"
"Oh Peter, thank you!" And she hugged him, which got a very startled and pink-eared expression from Peter Pan and a smirk from the captive dove. "Let's go get the rest of the boys, they're still at the house!"
She ran off ahead of him, towards the Underground House.
The damned dove was still smirking. Peter gave it a glare that was somehow undermined by the color of his face. "What?"
"Nothing. Nothing at all."
***
"Damnedest thing!" Mullins announced, dragging his thick coils of vines into the chamber. Billy and Slightly looked up at him, both with mouths full of vine ends and hands tangled in the green mess that they were determined to knot up further. The fire was sputtering dimply behind them. He dropped the coil by Billy's splayed legs and the boy automatically picked the end up and added it to the mess. "I was just heading back with that, from the quietest woods ye ever heard, and I find birds coming at me. Sparrows, the bloody lot of em. I didn't see another bird the entire trip. It wasn't natural, I tell ya."
Billy tried to mumble something through the vines, flinched, and carefully pulled them out of his mouth, trying not to mess up their order. "Did you see any fairies with them?"
"Not a one."
Billy frowned. "Do you think they were the scout party the dove mentioned?"
Slightly just looked at him helplessly, too tangled up to do anything else.
"I didn't see hide nor hair of the Captain, either." Mullins added. "'course, I didn't look too hard. How much longer?"
"Twenty minutes at least. If we try and go too fast it won't hold. You could start tying off the…..ends?" Billy paused and frowned at Mullins. There was something peeping around of the rim of his hat, a pair of tiny, bright buttons with a beak in the middle.
"What?"
The sparrow, who wasn't quite stupid enough not to realize it had been spotted, kicked off from the side of Mullins' hat and shot off towards the exit. Only a second later there was a sick thud as it struck a stone wall, invisible in the dark, and fell to the floor of the cave.
Billy started swearing and went to collect the little spy. It lay on its back in his palm, little legs twitching.
"Well I'll be." Mullin said, frowning at the stunned sparrow. "One of the birds for the fairies, right?"
"Has to be. That must be why the sparrows swarmed you, so they could plant a spy on you without it looking that suspicious."
"Assuming I'd lead them to you." Mullins finished. "But if the spy don't come back, the fairies still don't know where we are."
He picked the bird up by the ribs, and the little thing came-to hanging upside down in Robert Mullins' hand.
And the first thing it saw was Mullins' face.
"EEEK!" It flapped its wings frantically but Mullins just gave it a little squeeze between his thumb and forefinger, stressing its ribs and making it go still, whimpering.
"Ya know what pirates do to spies, don't ya?" Mullins said maliciously. "We cut em apart bit by bit and feed em to the fishies."
The sparrow eeped. "I was just following orders!" It whined.
"Then talk. Tell us what the fairies are planning for Billy and maybe we'll let you go."
It looked, if anything, more horrified at that prospect. "No! If he finds out you even saw me he'll KILL me! There's nothing you can do that he can't do worse!"
"Who?"
"Aborigine! General Tory put him in charge of the search party! He's crazy, he'll—" the bird suddenly covered its beak; it had let slip more than it ought. "Please don't kill me!" It blurted, sniffling.
"Who's Aborigine?" Billy asked.
The bird just hung there sniffling and hiccoughing, its beak clamped shut. It wasn't going to dig its own grave any deeper.
"I slightly know who Aborigine is." Slightly spat out the vines and stumbled to his feet, untangling himself clumsily from the net. "He used to be part of Oberon's guard until the fairies found out he was responsible for the murders that had been going on. The whole island was in an uproar until they caught him."
"Since when do the fairies punish murder?" Mullins snorted.
"When it's someone under their jurisdiction. Like birds or gnomes or…" Slightly looked at Billy, and then stared down at his feet, not finishing the sentence. He figured he knew what it was, anyway.
"So what's this Aborigine after?" Mullins asked. "He's being sent to kill Billy?"
The bird said nothing, so Mullins squeezed it again. It made a shrill bleating noise but nothing more.
"Leave it alone." Slightly took the bird from Mullins. He took off his hat and hid the bird under it, trapping it against the floor. The hat jerked a few times and let a pathetic eep, then went still.
"If this Aborigine's as crazy as the bird says he is, maybe Hook'll finally have someone to talk to." Billy deadpanned as he went back to work on the vines.
Mullins frowned and fiddled with the hilt of his dagger. "After today, Hook won't be doing any talking to ANYONE."
Slightly, looking up from his work for a moment at the towering Brooklyn pirate, felt a butterfly twitch to life in his stomach.
17
***
The trees filled with shifting, excited bodies, the branches swaying under the new weight as the higher bar of the wave circled back to answer the sparrows' calls. The corners of Wendy's mind barely registered the bright pinks and whites as long legged waterfowl lighted on the forest floor to see. The noise was painful. On the ground, Peter flailed his arms at the swarming sparrows, knocking an unfortunate few to the earth to twitch, stunned. Wendy couldn't shoo the things, and her throat tightened with tears of panic at her own ineffectiveness.
"—GOT THE ----NOT------PAN!--------"
A voice was trying to scream over the bird calls and Peter's angry shouting, and Wendy couldn't hear.
"---STOP-------NOT THE-----"
Something gangly and white suddenly dropped into the middle of the swarm, right on Peter's chest, and let go a shrill, shivering scream. Peter rolled and flung it off. The sparrows, falling silent all the sudden, shot away from him into the trees and disappeared among the crowd. Wendy fell on her knees beside Peter Pan and frantically checked his hands and face, but wells of bloody peck marks were all the damage done. He pushed her hands away.
The interloper flopped onto its spindly legs and narrowed its eyes. Something from the trees dropped down to its side; a familiar mess of white feathers and red eyeliner.
"I TOLD you, it's the wrong one!" The diamond dove said heatedly into the unnatural silence.
The yellow eyed egret looked at the dove scrutinizingly. "Tiddly didn't say there was more than one on the island. Are you sure it's the wrong one?"
"Of course I'm sure! What kind of leader are you if you don't even know who you're looking for?!"
The egret snarled and darted its beak out, sending the dove scuttling back with a squeal. There was something painted on its wing with black dye, a mark like a japanese archway fallen on its side. Wendy's eyes widened as the recognized the branding from her Bible classes.
_MURDERER_
The girl grabbed hold of Peter's arm, but Peter shoved her persistent hands off again and frowned down at the bird. His eyes narrowed.
"You look awfully familiar." He said. The egret smirked.
"Well I should hope so, my clever young lad. There were pictures of me up allover the place a few years ago. Care to hazard a guess at my name?" It proudly flared its wings, revealing the same marking dyed into the spread flight feathers underneath. Peter frowned a moment, then blinked.
"Wait! The fairies put you in prison!" he blurted, standing up. The bird chuckled and ruffled itself.
"That's right. Aldus Aborigine, at your service. Well, not REALLY at your service of course. It's merely a saying."
Wendy noticed that the diamond dove suddenly backed away further.
"Who's Aldus Aborigine?" Wendy asked, a bit confused.
"A dirty criminal." Peter growled. "The fairies caught him over a year ago."
"Well I wouldn't say DIRTY criminal." The egret said, looking offended. "My ablutions are quite thorough and regular, which is more than I think can be said for either of you. And as soon as this triviality of a search is taken care of I won't even be a criminal anymore. King Oberon is prepared to grant me a full pardon for my…indiscretions."
"Why?"
Aborigine smiled. "For once, General Tory wants something done right. He put me in charge of the search for and capture of our ghoulish friend Billy Jukes. The rest of his companions I can dispose with as I please." The smile turned decidedly nasty. "I'm looking forward to this. Though I apologize for my party's assault. I wasn't specific enough in my instructions. After all…" He turned to leave, looking over his shoulder at them "No one ever told us there were TWO monsters on this island."
As Aborigine took to air and tucked his spindly legs up beneath him, the rest of the birds lifted off in unison, causing the trees to bob at the weight shift.
"Wait!" Wendy called. "Why are you looking for Billy Jukes! What did he do?!"
"I can tell you what Jukes did!" The diamond dove piped.
Peter snatched up the dove like a rattlesnake and glared into its tiny eyes.
"Then tell us." He growled. "Why are the fairies after Jukes? I thought he got in trouble with Captain Codfish."
"If you mean Hook, I daresay he is in VERY grave trouble with him." The dove said. Its voice slipped into a silkier tone than its previous whining. "The seagulls had an interesting tale to tell yesterday. The early risers, the ones who got up before dawn? Some of them saw the Jolly Roger floating off the shore. More specifically, they saw the PIRATES from the Jolly Roger, two of them, up on deck. There was the little black one, Billy Jukes, and the skinny little fellow with a beard."
"You mean Mr. Smee?" Wendy asked.
"Yes, indeed, Mr. Smee. Jukes came up from below first, and Smee followed behind him. They say it looked like they were going to the captain's quarters, but Jukes turned around and stopped Smee before they got there. Nobody got close enough to hear, you understand, since they thought it wasn't anything worth listening to. But the gulls say they talked for a few minutes, and it looked like Mr. Smee got right agitated there for a while. Jukes had his back to them the whole time so they didn't really get a good idea of what he was about. But they say that at one point Jukes turned his back on Smee and leaned against the bulwark, and he looked like he was about to cry, but when Smee put his hand on his shoulder Jukes grabbed him!"
"He attacked Mr. Smee?" Peter asked, confused.
The dove huffed. "If I went through the trouble of hearing this story in the first place you can be quiet until I finish it, alright?"
They said nothing.
"Alright then. Jukes grabbed Smee by the wrist and turned on him. Smee looked baffled for a moment and then WHACK!" The dove flared, obviously very into its gossip. "Jukes cracked Smee on the temple with his fist, and knocked the fellow onto his back. Before he got his bearings Jukes sat on his chest, pulled a kitchen knife out of his belt, and stabbed him clear through the neck!"
"Oh!" Wendy put her hands to her face, horrified.
"That isn't the best part!" the dove said. "They say Smee hadn't even stopped squirming yet when Billy Jukes bit his shoulder and started EATING him ALIVE!"
Wendy put her hands over her ears and shut her eyes. "STOP! That's terrible!"
"Isn't it just?" The dove said, sounding pleased. "By noon there wasn't a single civilian bird on the island who hadn't heard that story. The FAIRIES didn't hear about it until the next day, and heaven forbid the military listen to gossip." He snorted. "Billy Jukes and the blonde boy, Slightly, went to Small Monday Island thinking they could get some help. One of the fairies found out Jukes is a GHOUL. Can you believe it? A ghoul! And the boy didn't even know!"
"Is that why they sent someone like Aborigine after him?" Peter asked flatly.
"I suppose. Though I'm surprised Oberon was willing to let him out of prison. After all, Jukes' companions might be total innocents. When Aborigine finds them he's going to take out their eyes." The dove made a face. "Wasn't that his thing? Eye collecting?"
"I think I'm going to be sick." Wendy announced quiveringly.
"Too bad about Slightly's eyes. He's really a very nice boy." The dove said nonchalantly. "Aborigine will probably be thrilled to collect a human eye, though. He never managed anything larger than a rabbit."
"Oh, Peter!" Wendy hid her face against Peter's shoulder.
"Stop it." Peter told the bird sternly. The dove blinked at him, then smiled.
"Of course. I didn't mean to upset the girl. Only…if all your charges are so squeamish, how are they going to bury poor Slightly once he's been pecked to death and…collected?"
"We can't let Slightly be killed because of Billy Jukes and your silly grudge!" Wendy caught hold of Peter's elbow. "Please, Peter! If Aborigine doesn't get him Captain Hook will! I don't think I'll be able to stand looking at you if you let Slightly die because of your stubbornness!"
"But Wendy—"
"Peter, if you don't go I'll do it myself! I know John will go with me if no one else will!"
For a long moment they just glared at each other, and the dove, knowing Wendy was going to convince him anyway, began to ponder the merits of just biting Peter's thumb and making him let go.
Peter finally looked away. "Fine! I'll go save Slightly if it'll make you happy, but that's it, Wendy! I'm not taking him back! He still betrayed the Lost Boys and he's still a pirate as far as I'm concerned!"
"Oh Peter, thank you!" And she hugged him, which got a very startled and pink-eared expression from Peter Pan and a smirk from the captive dove. "Let's go get the rest of the boys, they're still at the house!"
She ran off ahead of him, towards the Underground House.
The damned dove was still smirking. Peter gave it a glare that was somehow undermined by the color of his face. "What?"
"Nothing. Nothing at all."
***
"Damnedest thing!" Mullins announced, dragging his thick coils of vines into the chamber. Billy and Slightly looked up at him, both with mouths full of vine ends and hands tangled in the green mess that they were determined to knot up further. The fire was sputtering dimply behind them. He dropped the coil by Billy's splayed legs and the boy automatically picked the end up and added it to the mess. "I was just heading back with that, from the quietest woods ye ever heard, and I find birds coming at me. Sparrows, the bloody lot of em. I didn't see another bird the entire trip. It wasn't natural, I tell ya."
Billy tried to mumble something through the vines, flinched, and carefully pulled them out of his mouth, trying not to mess up their order. "Did you see any fairies with them?"
"Not a one."
Billy frowned. "Do you think they were the scout party the dove mentioned?"
Slightly just looked at him helplessly, too tangled up to do anything else.
"I didn't see hide nor hair of the Captain, either." Mullins added. "'course, I didn't look too hard. How much longer?"
"Twenty minutes at least. If we try and go too fast it won't hold. You could start tying off the…..ends?" Billy paused and frowned at Mullins. There was something peeping around of the rim of his hat, a pair of tiny, bright buttons with a beak in the middle.
"What?"
The sparrow, who wasn't quite stupid enough not to realize it had been spotted, kicked off from the side of Mullins' hat and shot off towards the exit. Only a second later there was a sick thud as it struck a stone wall, invisible in the dark, and fell to the floor of the cave.
Billy started swearing and went to collect the little spy. It lay on its back in his palm, little legs twitching.
"Well I'll be." Mullin said, frowning at the stunned sparrow. "One of the birds for the fairies, right?"
"Has to be. That must be why the sparrows swarmed you, so they could plant a spy on you without it looking that suspicious."
"Assuming I'd lead them to you." Mullins finished. "But if the spy don't come back, the fairies still don't know where we are."
He picked the bird up by the ribs, and the little thing came-to hanging upside down in Robert Mullins' hand.
And the first thing it saw was Mullins' face.
"EEEK!" It flapped its wings frantically but Mullins just gave it a little squeeze between his thumb and forefinger, stressing its ribs and making it go still, whimpering.
"Ya know what pirates do to spies, don't ya?" Mullins said maliciously. "We cut em apart bit by bit and feed em to the fishies."
The sparrow eeped. "I was just following orders!" It whined.
"Then talk. Tell us what the fairies are planning for Billy and maybe we'll let you go."
It looked, if anything, more horrified at that prospect. "No! If he finds out you even saw me he'll KILL me! There's nothing you can do that he can't do worse!"
"Who?"
"Aborigine! General Tory put him in charge of the search party! He's crazy, he'll—" the bird suddenly covered its beak; it had let slip more than it ought. "Please don't kill me!" It blurted, sniffling.
"Who's Aborigine?" Billy asked.
The bird just hung there sniffling and hiccoughing, its beak clamped shut. It wasn't going to dig its own grave any deeper.
"I slightly know who Aborigine is." Slightly spat out the vines and stumbled to his feet, untangling himself clumsily from the net. "He used to be part of Oberon's guard until the fairies found out he was responsible for the murders that had been going on. The whole island was in an uproar until they caught him."
"Since when do the fairies punish murder?" Mullins snorted.
"When it's someone under their jurisdiction. Like birds or gnomes or…" Slightly looked at Billy, and then stared down at his feet, not finishing the sentence. He figured he knew what it was, anyway.
"So what's this Aborigine after?" Mullins asked. "He's being sent to kill Billy?"
The bird said nothing, so Mullins squeezed it again. It made a shrill bleating noise but nothing more.
"Leave it alone." Slightly took the bird from Mullins. He took off his hat and hid the bird under it, trapping it against the floor. The hat jerked a few times and let a pathetic eep, then went still.
"If this Aborigine's as crazy as the bird says he is, maybe Hook'll finally have someone to talk to." Billy deadpanned as he went back to work on the vines.
Mullins frowned and fiddled with the hilt of his dagger. "After today, Hook won't be doing any talking to ANYONE."
Slightly, looking up from his work for a moment at the towering Brooklyn pirate, felt a butterfly twitch to life in his stomach.