Author's Note: I don't have to tell you - I have a controversial view of Neverland, Captain Hook and Peter Pan. These are my own thoughts, ideas and total fiction of my own creation. I hope you like them, as this is my favorite chapter in the tale.
My Darling Love
Chapter 54 – The Patron Saints
"Thy God hath lent thee, by these angels he has sent thee..."
-Edgar Allan Poe
God bless Grandpa Joe, he was a good God-fearing man. A little misguided at times, but otherwise an all around nice guy. In his youth, newly married, he made mistakes, lots of them. At times he could be truly criminal in his thinking. A classic bastard, if you will, rotten and evil, but oddly enough, with the best interests for those he loved foremost in his heart. In his older days, he became wiser from the errors of his ways, and watchful of others. And so, God blessed Grandpa Joe. Without his open eyes, his perceptible ears, his wise tongue and his experienced mind, the family he cared for and after would have been lost in desperate times. He loved his only daughter, Mary Elizabeth, and his son-in-law George, her husband. He loved his grandchildren, Wendy, John and Michael. He loved his great granddaughter Jane, the only one of his great grandchildren he was to know personally, at least on Earth. For that reason alone, the Pope should canonize him a saint.
Captain Hook once said, "All surprise attacks must be conducted improperly." That -- combined with simple fact that, in order to cover a lie, another must be told -- led to the divine intercession of the patron saint of the Darling family. Peter told Wendy of the couple who had lost their children and wanted another baby desperately. She voiced her reservations, "What if they don't want a baby girl? What if they won't love her as I do? What if they change their minds and take her to an orphanage?" and countless other questions Peter Pan's childlike and uncomplicated mind was unable to fathom.
"Write them a letter, Wendy, tell them you want to give them your baby, but only if they agree to all that stuff you want. And tell them under no circumstances are they to change her name..."
Peter Pan carried with him a card Captain Hook had presented him with, "Contact this man if anything befalls my Gwendolyn. He will help." Mr. Joseph Baker, the card said, Wendy's last name was Darling but just the same, he gave her the address and she penned a letter to him, begging for his aid.
Peter Pan knew Wendy's parents, but he did not he know Wendy's grandfather. Thank the Lord though, for Grandpa Joe was swift to catch on that his only daughter Mary had set up some sort of odd communication with her only daughter Wendy by means of the attic window. Therefore, being the saint that he was, he wrote his own note to his granddaughter after she went off on her own adventure at twenty-one, "If every you need me, darling, I will be there." Just to make sure his note got to its intended destination, and was not intercepted by the devil, he used his proper title. Wendy picked it up and placed that note in the hands of her lover Captain Hook. He replied to Grandpa Joe's letter, formally introducing himself. Thus, their contact via letters left on the windowsill of Joseph Baker's room began.
The time came when Grandpa Joe's return address was given to Peter Pan when he was entrusted with the expectant Wendy back in the real world. Captain Hook wrote his final note of concern in regard to his intended beloved, and Grandpa Joe gave his word to be on the lookout.
Wendy Darling sent the letter about Jane and her troubles to her Grandfather, as he was expecting it. Had it not been signed in his granddaughter's hand, he would have thought a stranger sent it. She referred to her own parents by their formal titles of Mr. and Mrs. Darling. In addition, she wrote that she was aware they lost all of their children, while all were at that time still alive and well. Saint Grandpa Joe read it and reread it, and then ate it in front of George and Mary, saving them the heartache of thinking their eldest child -- and at the time, only daughter -- was insane. Jane arrived and he, being the Patron Saint of the house, working for the Lord God himself, named Mary and George her parents. "Please, dearest Lord, don't make me write this to the good pirate captain in a letter, let me tell him in person..."
His selfless acts of mercy landed him on a ship in Neverland, and there he met Jane's real father, the pirate captain, in the flesh for the first time. Through his good graces and God's as well, Jane was able to see her father -- on one condition, "As long as you are alive Joseph, Jane can visit Neverland, for you are her sacred protector. Children who are released willingly by their parents here cannot not be saved just as those brought here against their own free will are trapped. Those are the rules and you must always remember that. You must wait for her by the window. Once you are called to heaven, Jane will be bound to the Earth and will no longer be able to visit Neverland, for then not even I will be able to protect her..."
Grandpa Joe agreed, and waited by the window on the first full moon of each month to assure his great granddaughter's safe passage to and fro. The devil didn't like the arrangement; this was cheating, as far as he was concerned. In retaliation, giving the reason that he had the God given right to punish Grandpa Joe for his sins early on in life, (thereby saving him from hell in the hereafter), the devil stripped him of his congregant mind. He sent him to an earlier grave than God intended. But that was all right, for another rule of the game is that turnabout is fair play, and so (in a measure relevant further along in the story elsewhere,) it was.
Grandpa Joe is not the only Patron Saint of the story, for there was another in Neverland. Captain Hook, however undeserving it is rumored he is, should also be canonized a saint by the Pope as well. He had the makings of a saint; he believes in God and dedicates his work, however undignified, in his honor. He suffers infinitely at the hands of an egotistical and nefarious boy. This boy's sole purpose being to suppress Hook, and to punish God for deciding that being a grown up -- with responsibilities to others -- was far too important to stay young and incomplete forever.
God looked down on James Hook and did not see a ruthless pirate captain who helmed the ship the Jolly Roger. He saw a soul set against his fate and vocation, whose faith in a higher power was proven every night when he lowered himself to his knees and prayed for the secured deliverance back home to their parents of all children lost in the world of Neverland.
Far from dreaded tyrant, Hook's sole purpose, as assigned by God, is to protect the children who still hold within them a desire to return home and mature into the lives that the good Lord had laid out for them. It was he who created the sort of Underground Railroad back to the homes a boy named Peter Pan tempted them from with promises of eternal youth. And it was he who delivered them back safe and secure to the adult lives full of pleasures and rewards that come with that duty.
God watched down from heaven and smiled on James Hook the same way he smiled when gazing over and always to Mary Darling and her family. It was what it was for years before there were Darlings and Bakers intermingled in madness, for in fact the war had already been in full swing for centuries; always Peter Pan brought more and more children to the hell of Neverland, and James Hook always did his best to bring them home. His "mother" as assigned by God -- Jane -- named him to honor her friend Saint James the Lesser, for he was said to be the brother of God, and she believed without a father to guide him in his youthful exile, no safer sibling than the Lord himself would do. She felt her choice was blessed and accepted for without question by God, "James" it was.
God never sent word to the Pope nominating Captain Hook for sainthood; He already held him in a higher regard, for James Hook was an archangel that fell from heaven and landed onboard a ship in Neverland. The reason for his punishment was between himself and God, but even there, he was as wise as the angels in heaven, soaring aloft on their wings. Still predestined and appointed to defend heaven, James first attempted to lure the children home to their loving parents with kindness and truth.
That never worked, no matter how much he assured them they were adored and missed, they only played on in the sun and frolicked away. Away forever. They called him a liar, for Peter Pan moved them about on the strings of his lies and promises of never ending adventures. And James, being of pure heart and soul, finally living in peace without a thought of vengeance or war, even endeavored briefly to save Peter Pan, and relieve him of his undertaking from the evil forces that lingered far below in the never-ending fires of hell. Peter Pan's retribution came swifter and more severely than God's to the courageous soldier James was, who seemed to meet every challenge with the power and an iron will he was entrusted with. And so, while James slept onshore, Peter Pan cut from him his right hand and tossed it to a starving crocodile that favored the taste of angel's blood, shouting, "Next time it will be your heart if this beast does not devour your whole body first!"
He asked his brother, the Lord Himself, for protection and direction, and he received both. Protection came in the form of a pocket watch with an unusually loud tick that miraculously found its way in the unsuspecting crocodile's belly. "To warn you, James, when danger nears." Rather humorous it was that Captain Hook always thanked Lucifer for the clock; more to taunt him than a true appreciation for something he had nothing to do with.
Next, direction came in a pirate crew that had shipwrecked lost at sea and was delivered to him. They hated children, and that hatred was contagious, even though James fought the emotion just as valiantly as he had Peter Pan. "If an enlightened heart cannot save them, James, a darkened one surely will."
The tables turned, now Captain James Hook, he became the most feared and dreaded pirate of all who held his loyal crew in Neverland, declaring, "We shall not sail from this place until the boy called Peter Pan is destroyed and sent back to hell!" With his men working just as hard as he, they frightened the children into returning home. Who would want to stay trapped on an island constantly raided by angry pirates and savages threatening the plank or worse if captured? They were a rowdy, horrid bunch of criminals, and every once and a while a few would get out of hand. That was taken care of swiftly and by the correct means necessary to ensure order. "Those too violent, or those who do not obey, James, return to me. I will send them elsewhere." With one look, those too difficult to control faced the hook and were returned from whence they came.
They were not the only ones going places. Many youngsters fled on their own regard, the happy thoughts of home and their warm beds awaiting was often enough to fly them back. Others who were captured walked to plank into the churning waves of the cold ocean. They didn't drown and die the awful deaths they expected, for the mermaids saved them, swimming them back to their bathtubs at home filled with warm water and bubbles.
The mermaids had always been Captain Hook's secret allies, only he knew of their mission. They spied on Peter Pan best they could from the water, reporting back to him new arrivals and their whereabouts inland. Devious, mystical creatures that swam about in the lagoons, tempting the children in for a dip, they were first seen the night James Hook lost his right hand. "You paid with your hand, James, and bought yourself another army."
Under the water the lost children were rolled to their death in Neverland, only to be reborn again back in the cozy blankets they ran away from. Peter Pan never suspected their motives, for he believed they supported his quest by their openness to notify him of the pirate captain's plans of attack, revelations that James himself had requested they divulge. They were dangerous, just the same, and Peter warned his comrades to stay far away from waters of Neverland when they were out basking in the moonlight.
There were many others lost in Neverland. Every so often a blameless nanny, maid, butler, step-parent or even step-sibling would grab onto the foot of a child Peter Pan was leading away and be whisked off to the exotic island, only to find there was no sound or sure way back to the window they'd left from. It took Captain Hook forever and a day to figure out the dilemma, and by the time he did it was too late. The grown- ups and children lead away against their own free will, soon grew discouraged and incensed at their confinement. A very important rule of this game was never discussed between the good and bad. It would be those innocents who were to suffer, for they had never been given the choice to stay in their own world or the world of Neverland, and so they were trapped. This was to be the only stalemate of the game, where neither heaven nor hell could agree to a compromise. Thus, those innocents were forced to live their lives in an eternal purgatory where hope and faith dissolved into nothingness. They disliked the pirates for wanting to stay there, and Captain Hook all the more, for it was his fault they met their untimely ends in the night, which was exactly what Peter Pan had told them happened.
When Captain Hook found the means by which they could safely return to their world, they refused his assistance, believing it another one of his traps to send them further into doom, and swore allegiance to a boy who refused to grow up. Those poor souls, on the suggestion of Peter Pan, became the Redskins.
For every child returned home, a child remained. They were lost children that were never found, intent on staying forever young, as Peter Pan was. Captain Hook could not save them, and so they perished to another end, fairyhood. This was a sentence given to the children for their selfishness, the desire to be eternally irresponsible for their own actions, and refusing to face the lessons of life that came with growing old.
God had His reasons why man was born, and He had His reason why they must spend their years walking the face of the Earth until the time of their death, and every baby ever born came into the world aware of those reasons. But still, some questioned and the answer came, "No one shall remain youthful and full of life and enjoy carefree days with no feelings aside from self-centered happiness forever. On every step up the ladder to heaven, man is given a new lesson. Childhood is nothing more than a temporary learning experience, teaching those who pass through it all they will ever need to know about love, plain and simple."
It is much easier to love and be loved when you are a child. Even angels in heaven know all the emotions of man, with the exception of one, free will. They were never gifted with the choice to make their own decisions, and so it was their allowance that those who can choose -- and always choose themselves over others -- should be banished to an imaginary world of stories and fairytales, giving a warning to others who may befall the same fate. For who were they to question God? Once they made their transformation complete with wings and tiny little lighted aura, they aged as any grown up would, without the God given right to be released from their elderly state in death and receive their endless awards for their services on Earth in heaven. After all, as God stated, "You wanted immortality, and now it is yours," and so, they lived on forever.
But it seems only the Lord believes in eternal damnation, for the angels eventually granted them mercy. At least once a day, someone, somewhere will say, "There's no such thing as fairies." And then -- and only then -- one is saved, with its sins forgiven; it drops dead where it stands. In this Captain Hook found his favorite past time when not acting the part of dreaded pirate captain. Those fairies, finally willing to accept salvation from his merciful heart, became the first thankful and truly appreciative for his ever imposing presence in the land of lost children.
Where fairies were concerned, the only 'forever' came in everlasting enslavement by Peter Pan. He assigned each of them to a child living in the real world. This tiny little demon was empowered with magic dust. When it was shaken over the body, it enabled those with happy thoughts to fly -- happy thoughts of mindless things of childhood and wishes to runaway from home.
With their jealousy of children still holding a spark of impending maturity within them, and a desire to avenge their own destinies, they whispered secrets in the insignificant crevices of little imaginations, foretelling of the wonderful world awaiting them away from their parents. They all reported back to their leader, the first female child brought to Neverland, Tinkerbell. And she, holding Peter Pan's ear, informed him of all the small children eager to flee the disaster of one day holding a title such as "Husband, wife, mother, or father."
And so they came in droves, and Peter Pan and Captain Hook battled on.
There is a very simple reason there were always more boys in Neverland than girls. Peter Pan did not like girls. Little girls mature into womanhood more quickly than little boys do into manhood. Therefore, in order to bring them, they had to be infants, no older than three or four years of age. Once they saw how lovely being a woman was, and carried around a doll they'd named themselves, they were already lost to the grown up world. It is the simple joys of womanhood and the anticipation of romance and babies of their own that lead them to maturity quicker than boys.
Not that boys don't dream of being men, but boys' fantasies are not rooted in reality. Most boys pick a whimsical and unlikely profession of pretend where they could be prime minister or sea captain, difficult to attain without endless hard work and their sincerest efforts, only to find it impossible to achieve in the end. Little boys want their adult lives to be easy and come without struggle, so most would find themselves sitting at desk in an office or in a factory with a weekly paycheck and nagging responsibility awaiting them. Therefore, with an offer of escape to what they really wanted, how could they ever resist?
From Peter Pan's own experience, a simpler reason there were more boys than girls was that little girls had a reputation of being bossy, which was well earned. They also were infamous for crying when they didn't get their way. They didn't like to get dirty, they didn't like to fight pirates, and they thought the treacherous mermaids fanciful and lovely, and were always more willing to disregard his order, and go for a swim. "Why do I bother bringing little girls here? They go as quickly as they come. They are stubborn and refuse to listen to me, taking the word of a pirate captain over that of their trusted friend."
For some reason that Peter Pan could never guess, the only true emotion he felt, that of sadness, came when little girls captured by Captain Hook, were given soft words in their ears by him as they stood tied ready to walk the plank. After hearing his whispers, they ran at full speed with their eyes closed off without ever looking for Peter who waited below to catch them, "Fear not the waters below, you will be gone back to your mommy before you open your eyes. I promise you if you keep your eyes closed as you fall, you will land safely in her loving arms, and no matter what Peter Pan told you; your mother could never ever forget you. Now run as fast as you can to her, she has been praying for your safe return, she has been waiting for you."
The little girls listened to the Pirate Captain, never out of terror only out of desire; desire to know their mother stilled loved them and was waiting. There was something in his tone as the words left his lips that brought those children who listened comfort and courage. They raced down and jumped, ignoring Peter Pan and his able arms ready to rescue them. And true to his word, when they opened their eyes, they were home.
"You lie to them, Pan, and for that you will burn! How can you make them believe their parents would ever be capable of forgetting them? You know as well as I do the seven days only apply to those who venture here! Best hope one of your little fairy friends never runs into their real mother back home, lest you be the one enslaved for eternity! How foolish of me to forget, you already are!"
"I'll show you, Captain Hook, only boys from now on! Little boys won't listen to you! Little boys always hate their mothers and fathers more!"
Only boys from then on it was, and girls were forgotten. Every once in a while, a little girl would make it over, and Captain Hook was quick to snatch her up and shove her back where she belonged.
Peter Pan was right, little boys were harder to capture and send back. They went fighting, tooth and nail, to their suspected deaths, screaming, shouting and holding their ears from the pirate captain's instruction. But as they opened their eyes and saw their parents' glorious celebrations of their return, filled with kisses and hugs, each and every boy got down on his knees and thanked God for all the saving graces in their childhood. "God bless mother and father, cousin Kitty, Aunt Paula, Uncle Robert, Uncle Richard, and Uncle Sam, my sister Ellen, my sister Patty, and my dog Spot. God bless my toy train, my building blocks, my school uniform and my stuffed rabbit, Samson. Bless them Lord, and keep them safe. Oh wait, I almost forgot, God bless Captain James Hook and all those nasty pirates on the good ship called Jolly Roger."
The days passed into years, and the years passed as quickly as days, and it was as it always was, a never ending game of cat and mouse, until one day when Peter Pan met his Wendy. She brought with her two brothers, who bided Captain Hook's time and attention. He had not known of her presence until he had John and Michael chained against a rock, submerged in water at the black castle. To put John and Michael back was easy, it was too easy and that troubled him.
He had arranged for the mermaids to stop in and pick the boys up along with Princess Tigerlily, "I will fight Peter Pan, and keep him busy, as he cannot resist the temptation if I challenge him. You take the two boys home and get rid of Tigerlily." The mermaids voiced their concerns over the Indian Princess; after all she'd been in Neverland for at least one hundred years. "I don't care where you send her, let the Lord God Himself find her a family. It's time for her to grow up..." The plan was already well on its way when he heard her voice, a young girl, not quite yet a woman, but there on the brink of maturity.
Wendy's face revealed to him something else, a resemblance to another he had seen before, her mother Mary. "That is why Pan has brought her here, to taunt me. Lord, give the strength, I beg You."
Mary had been in Neverland as a young woman herself, a few years older than Wendy was this time. It was a trick Peter had played on him to influence him into sailing from Neverland.
"Your Auntie Millie just tells you what to do all day long, how can you stand it, and she never lets you have anything you truly want. Soon you will be married to someone you do not love and then your entire life will be over. I bet she is planning your wedding to that man who spilled punch on your gown this very night, and didn't even say he was sorry. Come with me to Neverland, Mary. I will save you from your fate."
And so she, a pawn in Peter's game of Chess, went off in the night undetected, but only for one night. For that night was enough to win the heart of the Patron Saint of Neverland. Peter Pan flew Mary Elizabeth Baker straight to the Jolly Roger and dropped her down on the deck in front of the dread Captain Hook, now covered in the blood of a pirate who had just questioned his authority.
It was a gruesome scene made worse when Peter Pan shoved Mary forward and said, "Here, Captain, I promised you your Queen, and here she is," with a sinister smirk of his true intentions. There, Pan abandoned her, and there on the spot she fainted, only to awaken in the arms of an angel in his full glory sans the pirate costume and hook.
George was not the first man who won her heart without saying a word, well, in this life anyway. Captain Hook was. George was not truly her first lover either, Captain Hook was. In his bed, in his cabin, they made love under a starless sky. But Mary was never to remember that, for God was watching, and the longer they shared parts of each other that were not theirs to share, and changed fates predestined not to be changed, the angrier He became.
Captain Hook drifted into a troublesome slumber, almost like death when God spoke down his verdict to the uninvited guest hysterically trying to shake her lover awake on the matter, "Your highness, Queen Mary, the longer you stay the more likely it is that James will falter in his penance. He will burn in hellfire for eternity for his sins and yours. Is that what you really want? Leave now and grow up. I promise you, if you ask it of me, I will bestow upon you your true love as you knew him once, now elsewhere already waiting to be discovered..."
That was to be the only time in her life Mary heard God's voice, and it was His promise of her true love that made her leave, not His voice. And it was her last request as she walked to the plank to her parent's bathtub that made God keep her in the corner of his eye thus far her entire life, "Please God, send James another who will love him more than I, for he is deserving of it. Forgive him his sins and have mercy on him," she prayed.
Peter Pan watched above on the mast as Mary took her steps and vanished into the sea and then laughed while the pirate captain cried on his knees. The words Captain Hook used on Peter the day of their final battle, the words that stole Peter's happy thoughts had been said before. They were same spoken in reverse by the dueling foes the night Mary decided to grow up.
"I know what you are Captain Hook! A fallen archangel! A tragedy! She left you. Your lovely Mary left you. Why should she stay? What does an angel have to offer? You are not real. Let's take a look into the future, shall we? You go to her bedroom window... what's this? The window's closed."
"I'll open it."
"I'm afraid the window's been barred by her father."
"I'll call out her name."
"She can't hear you. She can't see you. She's forgotten all about you."
"Stop it. Please. Stop it. I am punished enough by the powers that be, I don't need you to tell me how it will be in the future, what do you know you are just a boy! I have faith, I am loyal, I am obedient, and one day, I will be real! "
"And still you will be chastised by the God that claims to be merciful, but only makes you suffer more. No matter what you do, you will be too late! There is another already in your place and he looks just like you. I think I hear her calling him! Yes she's calling him! Your lovely Mary is calling him HUSBAND! Cut your heart out, James! Follow with me!"
James Hook, the archangel, the Patron Saint of Neverland, released Mary to her adult life, and God himself as punishment erased all her memories of him. James broke a sacred law he had already been warned of once, he chose, of his free will, to love a Queen not his to have. George was sent to her as she asked for another to take James' place, and she married him. Captain Hook's wings were cut from him, and he was cast further down into the dark abyss with no hope of freedom from the nightmare of Neverland. But, as Mary asked, God did forgive his sins, and had mercy on him, and instilled in him a admonition, "The freedom of will and true love you desire must earned, not taken. Cut your heart out, James, and neither free will nor that love will be yours. And as I have told you before, Queen Mary belongs to another..."
Where other angels who befell the same fate would have faltered, James Hook stood firm. "I will always dedicate my life to You, Lord, and I will keep my heart in my chest for you have placed it there. All I ask is for your absolution and my penance."
God looked down and nodded. "Prove you words true, James." And many years later, there came that time, significant in the eyes of God. For Captain Hook and Peter Pan battled in the sky once again, and the pirate captain repeated the strong words that had destroyed his heart, flinging them into the face of the boy who had fallen into the same misfortune by wondering after grown up feelings, with a one addition, "Now you will be alone and unloved, just like me."
It was not Wendy's farewell to her first love, nor was it her thimble of a kiss that saved Peter Pan from his fate, although he would swear it was. "Not only did I take the only person who ever loved you away, your lovely Mary, I get to keep her daughter, the daughter she made with her HUSBAND, who is obviously not you, MY LOVELY WENDY LOVES ME, HER KISS JUST FOR ME AND NO OTHER!"
Now Angel's wings work whether they want to or not, even challenged with anguish and misery. At times when all hope has been lost, they take those who are favored in the eyes of God high above into the skies. Fairy dust does not work that way nor does it enable those it is sprinkled on fearless flight. As they dueled over the skies, the evil Captain Hook was fearless and fought not for himself but for the children of George Darling. God saw this and blew off the fairy dust of Tinkerbell and returned his wings unseen to the eyes of man, just on that night and for that fight. Peter Pan did not lie; God would and had made George in his likeness, his mirror image, only clean-shaven, with spectacles, and short hair. And it was Wendy, John and Michael Darling he repeatedly screamed, "But I won! I won!" for. They were going home to their parents, George and Mary Darling, no matter what.
They chanted "OLD, ALONE, DONE FOR," and he conceded, he was old, spending all his years in the torment of Neverland. He was alone, for Mary had married George, and he made her happy, and although she had seen James at times in her life when she needed him most, he was not the same to her, and she was never coming back. And he was done for; God whispered in his ear Surrender into the mouth the ticking crocodile, James, to hasten their escape. This he did without question. Since none the of the Darlings said it that night, with the exception of Mary, when they prayed, it deserves to be said now being more abreast of the true situation, therefore "God bless Captain James Hook."
Thus, already immortal in certain regards, the crocodile didn't really eat him although the late night snack of the presumed dreaded and wicked pirate captain finally killed the retched beast. Thus, Captain Hook continued his plight, and Wendy grew up and came back, the story went on from there. Grandpa Joe prayed for someone to watch over his granddaughter, as she had disappeared from the face of the planet, and the good Lord introduced him to her soul mate, James Hook, as he was the replier to Mr. Joseph Baker's letter. "She is safe with me, I promise. If she ever wishes to return, I will bring her home myself," Captain Hook swore to her grandfather.
"Keep her away from Peter Pan, don't trust him. He IS the devil," Captain Hook told Grandpa Joe that night on his ship when Grandpa Joe returned the favor of God's good graces upon his family, and saved the life of the pirate captain. Unfortunately, there was not much for the patron saint of the Darling family to do. Peter stole Wendy and he made sure she was not heard from again until Grandpa Joe walked through heaven's gates, and sometime after (for good measure.) He also abandoned the residents of Neverland, sealing their fates. All who lived within that world at the hands of Peter Pan perished. Captain Hook and his loyal companions lived on, for God knew, one day, he would return.
Without children in Neverland, there was no magic to keep the hellfire burning, thus winter befell the ship and its island's shores. And so the good lay in wait for evil's homecoming. Be patient, James, there is still much undone.
Captain Hook never saw Mary again, although he never forgot her either. Mary herself never thought of him, as, from time to time, she got stuck in a little hell of her own making, that he could not save her from. But when she prayed for a savior in the hall closet, God, seeing Hook was not busy, and as a way to kill many birds with one stone, sent him.
"I'll make you a deal, Madam, let me keep company with you so that I am not alone, and I promise to protect you from your husband. Although I must tell you, Madam, mine is to be the easier of the tasks, for I know as if God told me Himself, George Darling will never raise his hand to you again as long as you both still live. And yes, I will tell you about the fair maiden Gwendolyn and our adventures together. And yes, Madam, your husband will never know of our arrangement."
Mary was the first bird and her husband George was the second. Mary had prayed for the safe return of her daughter-in-law Margaret, and her child by her brother-in-law, Peter, named Martine, George asked the same. He also prayed for forgiveness for abusing his wife. He confessed his sins to God, the priest, and the nuns cleaning the church, and to Captain Hook.
"Don't hit her again. I would never hit her. She did what she did to keep you; if that is not a feather in your hat, I don't what is. And above all else, she gave you a handsome healthy son who could pass for your twin. You should thank her. She saved you. If you ever raise even a finger to her again, I will see to it personally that I am not the only one missing a right hand. The demon of your father has not yet been defeated in your penance, but you must let the fiend in your blood go, George, and forget it. There is no other way."
As for the fates of those George and Mary wished returned, Captain Hook agreed to help with that too. "I'll make you a deal, you let me keep company with Mary so that I am not alone, and I will do my best to bring them back to you."
George had two conditions, "As long as you don't take Mary from me, I know you will treat her better than I ever could. I know she is a precious gift I am unworthy of. And please, Mary can never know of this arrangement."
Ironically, Mary had asked for his silence in the same manner. And like Mary's bargain, Captain Hook had the easier part of the deal. Seeing George was giving up something that would make him suffer immeasurably, he conceded, "George, she will only love the part of me that you and I share. And George, she will NEVER leave you for another, you should know that by now."
After his investigation into the whereabouts of Margaret and Martine, Captain Hook struck another deal with both Mary and George, "You have my word that this will happen, as Mary has already agreed to her part in it. All I ask is that you allow me to spend Christmas with her. Not the whole day, I understand she has a family, but time enough that I can make the memories to last me a lifetime."
George nodded, knowing the good captain's master wisdom in a scheme such as this. "Since the most important part of plan will take place in the afternoon, just keep her there with you... Midnight, you have until midnight. A deal is a deal. After this is finished, no more."
God bless Captain James Hook the Patron Saint of Neverland, and children lost there who wish for safe return to their parents. God himself replaced him as Grandpa Joe's watchful presence in the house, for in Joe's death, they were left without a saint to guard and guide them. A fine example set by Mr. Joseph Baker, a pirate captain followed to perfection. And for this reason alone, God bless Grandpa Joe.