35
After a long hour of bumbling about, the Lost Boys split up to find Peter. John and Michael headed out towards the lagoon, and the Twins went towards the Indian village. Curly set out to search the Lost Boy's hiding places and Nibs and Wendy went for the NeverFalls. Unfortunately, with Peter they had no assurance he was even in Neverland any more; he'd been known to travel all the way to Newfoundland on a whim, and could really be anywhere he wanted to by now.
As a whole their searches were fruitless. The Darling boys put their heads in the lagoon to ask the mermaids and they nearly drown them for their efforts. The Twins found the Indians clustered around Great Big Little Panther's tipi, and Tiger Lilly told them her father was inside tracing magic back to its origins. The Old Witch had been up to something, she said. Wondering if they had a lead, the Twins went out in search of the Old Witch's house instead, and found the thing sitting beside the creek bed, attempting to fall asleep. There was blood smudged on the largest stone nearby, and the Twins cleared out; if she'd been sacrificing things again, they didn't want to know about it.
Curly's search began in the Underground House, where he didn't find Peter, but he did find Toodles sprawled out in the big bed, still fast asleep. He poked the boy awake with a viciousness even Peter couldn't quite manage, and they both went out to search the other locations.
On their way, they encountered two pirates, Starkey and Mason, looking tired and irritable and aimless. Toodles waved cheerfully at them and Starkey growled and grumbled something that sounded grudgingly like a greeting. Curly decided not to ask.
At the NeverFalls, Nibs and Wendy didn't discover much anything of use, either. The crocodile was dominating the scene, her tail end wedged in the cave behind the waterfall and the rest of her jutting out, snoring in time with her clock. Having absolutely no desire to be eaten, the two crept past and on their way.
After all this, the Lost Boys didn't find Peter, though the Twins did find a mangled pair of spectacles crushed in the dirt and pocketed them for scrap. There was only one place left, if he was on the island, that they could possibly think to look, and that was on the Jolly Roger. Nibs collected the boys at the tree fort and together they made out for the ship. If Peter wasn't there, they'd have no choice but to wait patiently for his return, and hope that, this time, he remembered where they lived.
Billy Jukes woke up from a warm, foggy haze, and drifted in the comfortable place between sleeping and waking. It wasn't until his mind drifted a little too closely to the waking side that he remembered with a sudden bolt of panic that he wasn't supposed to sleep. This didn't mean he woke up any faster, unfortunately, this only meant he woke up frightened. When the boy bolted up in bed Mullins nearly hit the ceiling; he'd been sitting on the edge, waiting patiently, for almost thirty minutes now, and had been near to dozing off when Billy came out of it. The boy looked around himself with a frantic incomprehension and then down at his own body, throwing off the Old Witch's quilt and letting out a horrified gasp at the dried smears running down his belly and the dark blood stain on his trousers. Mullins grabbed him by the arms and Billy jerked back, staring blankly at the man for a good five seconds before recognition came into his eyes.
"...Mullins? What...?" he panted. Mullins relaxed his hands from a grip to simply contact.
"It's alright, Billy." He said. "You haven't hurt anyone. That blood's yours, remember?"
For a moment it was obvious that Billy didn't, but then he blinked and looked down at himself again, pawing at the scratch where the Old Witch had cut into him. It was hardly anything at all, now, though it was still leaving a scar in his belly. He looked at Mullins in confusion.
"She cut me." he said. "She cut me and put her hand in, I felt it!"
"And she healed it, too." Mullins said.
Billy fiddled with the gash experimentally, puffed, and dropped back onto the bed, relief sapping all the strength out of him. After a moment he realized the cottage was suspiciously empty.
"Where's Slightly?"
"Out." Mullins said. "You've been out two hours. She moved the house and is having the boy collect traps with her."
Billy closed his eyes. "He's alright then?"
"Close as he can be, considering."
Billy sighed and folded his arms over his face. "That's good." He mumbled.
They stayed in silence for almost a minute, then, or as close to silence as they could be; the house was starting to snore. Mullins stared at his locked fingers.
"Billy..."
The boy lifted an arm enough to peep at Mullins from under his elbow.
"Before the witch came out, when we were talking before. When you told me..." He bit the side of his mouth, obviously uncomfortable and out of league, and Billy groaned and covered his eyes again.
"Look, cully, you don't have to stay around me if you don't want to. I understand. You're talking to me, at least. That's more than I ever thought you'd do again."
Mullins shut his eyes. "Just shut your yap for once, Billy. This is hard enough without yer helping."
Billy stayed quiet. Mullins waited long enough to ensure he was going to stay that way, then swallowed, and tried again.
"When ye told me you were...that way...you said you'd been that way since you were on the Walrus." Mullins paused, and fidgeted with his fingers. "I know something happened on that ship, boy, somethin' more than that scratching you got on your back." He explained hesitantly.
Billy's hands were slowly closing into fists, but he said nothing.
"I'm not going to ask ye about it, it's no business of mine if you don't want it to be." Mullins said, which was mostly the truth, he supposed. "But are you...that way...because of what happened?"
The boy's fists were so tight he was shaking. Mullins saw the boy's throat work. "No." he said thickly.
In the long moment of silence in which Mullins tried to rethink what he would say, Billy let out a short burst of noise that was only partly a laugh.
"That would make it so much easier for you, wouldn't it, cully?" Billy said, his voice high and depreciating. "If you could blame it on good ol' Captain Flint."
"Billy—"
"Hey, I know, maybe we can blame the rest of it on him, too!" Billy's fists suddenly swung down and punched wells in the straw mattress. He sat up. "Maybe it's his fault I'm a ghoul! Hell, why not, I bit him, after all! If him FUCKING me turned me into a queer, maybe my BITING him turned me into a ghoul!!"
Mullins stared at him, shocked, and Billy punched him in the chest. "How DARE you!" he shouted. "Flint had nothing to do with it, you hear me?! If he did, I'd be straighter than any other man in the world! Do you have ANY idea what that was like?" Billy hit him again. "Do you have ANY IDEA?!!"
"Billy, calm down!" Mullins tried to put a hand on his arm but Billy slapped him away.
"Don't TOUCH me! Dammit, Robert! Flint killed my friend! He attacked our ship, and he killed EVERYONE! He kept ME because I could prime and aim the fucking cannons, except it wasn't the –ships- cannons he wanted me to fire!" Billy punched the mattress this time, and squinted his eyes shut as angry tears threatened to fall. "God DAMN it! I stayed on that ship for a year! Do you have any idea what a man can do in a year?! I couldn't take it anymore, I bit him, I nearly emasculated him, and he BEAT ME so bad I thought I'd die! And he kept COUNT!" Billy snarled. "He MAROONED me, Mullins, he left me to DIE, and you think THAT made me want to be a god damned queer! You think I'd be this if I could change it?!"
The rage was suddenly draining out of him, leaving something much worse in its wake, and Billy put a hand to his forehead. "You-You think I'd WANT to be something you hate so god damned much?" Billy covered his face in a futile attempt to hide it. "H...how can you..."
He couldn't finish the sentence, because his hitching ribs wouldn't let him. Utterly humiliated at his outburst, Billy tried to get up and away from Mullins, but the man grabbed his wrist and pulled him back down. "Billy, listen to me."
The boy turned his face away and made a humiliated effort not to cry, but he was failing at it.
"Billy, I didn't know. I wouldn't have asked that if I'd known." Mullins said urgently.
Billy hitched, and tried to hold his breath to stop it.
"I wasn't mad at you and I wasn't disgusted with you back there." Mullins lowered his eyes. "I was disgusted with myself, alright?"
Billy stared at him, blinking, momentarily forgetting that he was crying.
Mullins sighed. "When you told me, the first thing that came into my mind was terrible. Then I realized who I was thinking about and I was too ashamed to even look at you."
Billy averted his face again, but Mullins pulled his head back.
"But I'm not mad you." he stressed. "I'm mad at myself, Billy. Not you. Got it?"
Billy nodded, and went right on crying. Mullins sighed and rubbed his back, and figured he might as well let him.
Before Billy had woken, the Old Witch had made them all tea in gaudy, pink reproductions of willow pattern china. She'd been the only one who ended up drinking it, of course, since Mullins couldn't care less for tea and Slightly had never tasted the real thing, but somehow just holding the hot, ugly teacup had settled down nerves he hadn't even known were jumping. The Old Witch and Mullins had gone across like two fairies bartering at the market. She detailed, first, the stipulations of Slightly's contract, the general summation being that she could make him do anything, so long as it didn't hurt him. Mullins had argued with her about what could harm a boy, and she decided that she also couldn't order him to do anything that would hurt anyone else; against his will, of course.
Apparently Slightly was also required to go with her wherever she wanted to go, so long as that place was no place that could hurt him, like the bottom of the lagoon. She was not to let him sleep on the bare boards and she was not to work him too hard (her rules, not Mullins'), nor was she to keep him from seeing anyone else. Slightly, oddly enough, had very little say in the rules of his own contract. He wouldn't have known what to say if she'd asked him. His contract, sealed by a verbal agreement, terminated his servitude at the dawn of the day exactly three years from this one. Three years was an almost abstract about of time to Slightly. When Mullins seemed satisfied that it was as good as it was going to get, Slightly had said it was slightly alright with him, and that finished it. The Old Witch had smiled, nodded, and told him "Drink your tea, dear."
Tea, he discovered, was vaguely disgusting, but it left his insides feeling comfortable and warm. The witch collected their cups and ordered the house to move to the western part of the woods, which it did, grumbling to itself with its latches. Then she had taken Slightly out to empty starling traps and left Mullins and Billy alone.
The starling traps, essentially, were charmed wire nooses that seduced birds' heads into them. It left the branches of the trees hanging thick with strangled starlings, like a tiny hangman had gone rampaging through the island. Slightly took them down and put them in the witch's basket. She had twenty by now.
"This is much easier with a flying boy." She sighed, patting the side of the basket while Slightly struggled to free a noose from its branch. If he wasn't careful the wire could cut his fingers. He was continually looking up at the sun, judging how much time had passed.
"Do you think Billy is awake now?" he asked nervously, drifting down to deposit the bird. The Old Witch closed her eyes and listened, and shook her head.
"Nope. Sorry, dear, he's still quite out of it. He should be alright by the time we get back, though, so no worries there."
She's stopped the house about half a mile from where the starling traps were. She could use a good walk, she said, to loosen up the joints, but it meant that it added fifteen minutes to the trip both ways. Flying up to get them, each starling took a minute or two to get down, so in total this collection would take an hour before he got back again. He wished the old woman could have waited until Billy was awake. He wanted to make sure he was alright.
There were two traps left, and Slightly took them down so fast he actually DID cut himself. A drop of blood fell onto the starling's head and Slightly stuck his finger in his mouth, drifting back down to put the last bird in the basket. The Old Witch frowned and tugged his hand away from his lips.
"That's not healthy, dear, touching dead things and then doing that."
"It was slightly bleeding." He said stubbornly.
"It doesn't matter. Stop that."
He almost glared at her, then decided against it. He was feeling a little more like himself than he had all day. He wondered if tea had any magical properties to do that to a person.
The Old Witch kept a calm, measured pace returning to the house. Slightly wasn't allowed to fly on ahead, she told him, he had to stay with her. He didn't much like the idea. She was moving much slower than she really needed to, and had that calm, placid smile glued to her mouth. Slightly offered to carry the birds, to see if that would speed her up, but she gave him a sly look and said she could manage just fine on her own. Getting back took them more than fifteen minutes, after all. When the house did finally come in view, she stopped, listened intently for a moment, and then nodded to him.
"Alright, you can go on now. Shoo!" she said with a smirk.
Slightly took the basket from her and flew back to the house. The building was sleeping again, and snorted awake when the boy opened the door. Inside, Billy was sitting up, though his face was splotchy and he hadn't put his vest on yet. Mullins was sitting next to him. He moved the moment Slightly came in.
The boy dropped the basket on the cluttered table carelessly and whooped.
"You're alright!" he yelped, and tackled Billy (a behavior quite entirely learned from the Lost Boys). Billy went down with a shout and Mullins couldn't help a snort of laughter as Slightly proceeded to tickle the wits out of the boy. He'd never heard Billy laugh much on the Jolly Roger. He decided it was a good thing to hear.