My Darling Love
Chapter 58 – Fight or Flight
"Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father."
-Lydia M. Child
Captain Hook lay flat on his back with Wendy kissing him so fiercely he could not breath. He gently eased her off of him and stood, her with her lips attached to his cheek, neck, hand and hook as he regained his feet. "Please, James, I love you, I remember it all, tell me its not too late, and tell me you love me! I love you, I love you!"
Captain Hook looked at Wendy; a compassionate expression filled his face only to dissolve into a nastiness that darkened his entire being. He harshly grabbed Wendy by her shoulders and turned her, trading places with where she was standing. Instantly, he cried out in dire despair, a slow and lingering call of agony echoed throughout Neverland as he fell into her arms, knocking her to the deck with his heavy weight. Wendy rolled Captain Hook on his back and looked up as an adult Peter Pan stood before her, his arms crossed over his chest, drenched in the blood of the pirate captain she held tightly to her.
"I WIN!" Peter shouted and began dancing about on deck.
Wendy felt the tear in his shirt and the cold jeweled handle of the dagger; all he was wearing evidenced Captain Hook's point of impalement, where he had been pierced jaggedly hacking flesh and bones on the blade's way to his heart. With the dagger still firmly implanted in his back, a mixture of blood and a silver liquid poured from his mouth and wound, pooling around him as he lay. Captain Hook's breath became labored while choking on the fluid rising from his chest, "Where is your father, Wendy?" he asked breathlessly to beloved who was crying, speechless, "Just as I found you, I lose you … "
George Darling stepped onto the deck from the Captain's cabin and gazed about at the mayhem onboard. His eldest daughter was lying on the deck holding the dying Captain in her arms, while Peter Pan rejoiced over his defeated enemy.
"Now you are mine, Wendy Darling, mine and only mine forever," Peter Pan commanded, pointing the foil he had picked up in her face. "Captain Hook cannot help you now, he cannot save you! I killed him! I finally killed him! No one can help you! No one!" Peter began spinning about, still on deck, but wanting desperately to be able to fly again, holding his arms out.
George Darling watched the display, and another part, a special part George had earned through years of selfless service to others he had been blessed with, now took over, the part of his manhood that was called "father."
"MURDERER!" George shouted walking right up to Peter knocking him off his feet with on quick jab to the jaw. With Pan down, weeping like a baby, George went straight to his daughter to examine the Captain and his injuries, offering her words of comfort as he turned the Captain on his side to check his injury. Wendy was still part child, the part of her that kept her memories of the Captain and their love locked away, and this child pleaded, "Please, Daddy, make him better, help him, please fix him," not wanting to believe his wound was a fatal one.
George removed his jacket and instructed Wendy to press down on the wound around the dagger in the Captain's back where the blood and mysterious silver liquid poured. "What is this?" George asked running his fingers through the platinum fluids that pooled below where Captain Hook rested.
"Blood of an Angel …"
Wendy touched the crimson red that looked as if it floated in smaller collections over the silver in the river that ran from him, "This is real blood?" she asked, and Captain Hook nodded, "Yes, Gwendolyn, its Jane's…."
Peter was shocked, being called "murderer" and then being knocked down by an older gentleman whom he felt was no match to his youth. He rose to his feet and stood glaring at George ready to fight him man to man. But the man he wasn't inside took flight instead of fighting, leaving Peter cowering like a little boy when George rose to his feet and shouted, "They are going to take you away and lock you in prison until you rot, you selfish, stupid boy! You had your whole life ahead of you and you wasted it! Wasted it! All your stolen money and unearned fortunes mean nothing if you are just a common useless criminal! And if you think I would ever have let you marry my daughter and take her away again, I'll see you dead first! God forgive me and my family as well, for I would proudly sit in jail for wringing your NECK!"
George stood, hands on his hips, shaking his head angrily, and saw Peter staring back, shivering, and shouted, "And another thing, boy, the day I discovered I could kill a man with my bare hands was the day I held the first baby I made with my wife. NO ONE WILL STEAL MY FAMILY FROM ME! NO ONE! Stab me in the back, you coward, I swear to you, you still wouldn't be able to pry my daughter out of my dead hands! You are nothing but a coward, a weakling, a nothing, an absence of maturity, empty, foul, loathsome--"
Captain Hook moaned for George, feeling the life within in failing. George leaned down to him after glaring another warning to Peter, who was now on the verge of tears, terrified of George's rage. "Don't even think about it, Pan, and remember my warning, MY BARE HANDS!" George screamed clutching his fists in front of himself. Squatting near James Hook, George whispered in a worried tone, "Why is he not fighting back? More importantly, why did you not fight back?"
Captain Hook yanked George closer to his face by his tie, "I can only fight the boy, not the man. He fears the parts of you called father and husband that you have earned, George, the real man that you are. Do not falter in your anger. Use the power God gave you to fight him. A mother's love can find her children here and bring them home; a father's love is what keeps them home. Peter Pan fears fathers, that is why he does not look for those who left here …"
Captain Hook took his final breaths and turned to Wendy touching her cheek, "Forgive me for not being real … I wish loving you would have been enough to make it so Gwendolyn…"
As Captain Hook was stabbed through the heart, so was his daughter Jane, the only part of him considered by God to be alive in the real world. She died just as he did, finishing his sentiment to his beloved Gwendolyn, "Pray for me."
Wendy gently eased the dagger from his body, the same one Peter Pan had crafted, and it melted away into thin air. Where Mary sat clutching Jane's lifeless body in her arms, consumed in her sorrow, the dagger reappeared sticking straight out of Jane's chest. Repeating Wendy's careful actions, she too removed the dagger, reading the engraving on its blade aloud, screaming to the top of her lungs, "If the heart offends thee dearest, cut it out."
Mary gave a reverberating groan of grief and frustration clutching it tightly in her hand. Through her tears, she spoke softly the words of advice Captain Hook, her fallen comrade, had bestowed upon her many times before this night, "Pan has no heart, so you must give him one. Vengeance belongs to God. "
George looked up to the sky hearing Mary's voice resonate toward him where he rested on the deck next to his daughter and her darling love. "PETER," George stood, glowering with a horrifying expression of fury. "COME HERE!" He pointed to Pan and then to the ground in front of him, "NOW, BOY!" he shouted as Peter took several leaps into the sky in an attempt to fly away.
"That won't work this time, you can't just fly away and escape real life. You are real now, that's what you chose; you are a real adult, a grown up with real responsibilities to others. You are not a child anymore, now you are a man. A real man. No more flying and playing games, no more battling pirates and wasting away your carefree days. Now you belong to the real world. You will have to go to work, find a home, and get a real job. Then you will be expected to marry, and your wife will give you more responsibilities, responsibilities to her and the home and your life, you and you alone will have to provide for her. Soon there will be children, children that belong to you, that depend solely on you for EVERYTHING! If there is not enough food, you go hungry. They will not be clothed unless you dress them. They will not be able to sleep at night, unless you buy them a bed with money, money you have to earn. Then there are the heat and water and the rent that needs paying, more responsibilities to others that come out of YOUR HARD EARNED SALARY! When your family gets sick, you have to take care of them, when they have nightmares, you must wake up from your own sleep to comfort them. Don't forget, Peter, that children and wives are greedy, selfish creatures that cry and pout when they do not get their way. You know what happens then? YOU, the man of the house, the breadwinner, the HUSBAND, the FATHER, have to sacrifice anything and everything in your own life to keep those you serve, and spend day in and day out laboring for happy. And the best part is all so simple, what they don't take from you while you are alive, they will get from you when you are dead."
George stood firm through his tirade, although he did lower his head when his lecture was complete, for the words he himself spoke hit him like bullets.
Peter still trembled, but then noticed George seemed to grow weaker by his admission that grown up life was not the glorious gift from God it was claimed to be. "Yes, Mr. Darling, and no one thanks you for your efforts, instead they think you a coward or weak. They make fun of you behind your back and jeer at you. They don't even love you and still you keep working for them. It would just be so easy to run away and forget about all that stupid grown up stuff, for no one appreciates you anyway."
Peter began laughing, now he surely had George as a powerful ally, together they would rule Neverland forever! And that is just what he repeated to George.
George shook his head and continued, "And that is why you will always fail, Peter, for you think everyone is just as selfish and self-centered as you are. You have no idea what real love is. You think everyone looks at it like a burden and not the blessing it truly is. You are wrong. My family loves me, in spite of all my wrongs, they love me. They forgive my sins without number, and thank me for making their lives what they are. They thank me for everything I have worked so hard for to give them, even if they don't say it in words. The unseen gestures, the endless hugs and kisses they gave for no reason when they were children, the pats on the back and kisses on the cheek they offer when they are older."
George looked at Peter Pan and remembered all the times his children said thank you to him, or showed how much they loved him, without ever having said it. He now repeated it to Pan, "'Read me a story daddy, rub my tummy and make it better daddy, help me with my school work daddy, how did you get so smart daddy? Why is the sky blue daddy? Why is the grass green daddy? Hold my hand when we cross the street daddy. Kiss me good night daddy. Come and play with me daddy. Tuck me in to bed daddy. Promise you will never get sick daddy. You look tired daddy. This is exactly what I wanted for my birthday, how did you remember that daddy?' And that's just when they are children. Now that they are adults; 'what do you think I should do about this father? What university should I apply to father? Would you look over the house books again for me father? Would you watch over my own children for me father? Can I stay here with you in your home father? You know best father. If father says it's that way then it must be. We can't get married without my father's blessing'."
George looked to Wendy who now stood near him, "True, there are times we don't get along, but if everyone was happy and carefree all their days, eventually they would get bored with life. We say things we don't mean that we can never take back, we do things we wished we hadn't. We hurt one another, and we do it out of love. It is the conflicts that keep our hearts beating and remind us why we chose the life we did. Through the torments and suffering, in the end we stay together, because we know that better things will come from the lessons we learned together."
George hugged Wendy to him as he spoke, "There is no greater love in the world than the love you hold in your heart for another person, that is stronger than the love you keep for yourself, like the love that you have for a wife and children, if you're lucky. And you never have to worry about all you give away to them, because you get it back from them tenfold."
In that exact moment, the evil George perished.
"And why can't I have all that, Mr. Darling? I can, I can have anything I want, and I have more money than God himself! And if you will not allow me to marry Wendy, I don't care; all I wanted was to seek my revenge against her for loving the pirate captain who ruins all my fun. You call me a murderer? Who did I kill, certainly not him, he isn't even real!" As Peter spoke he raged towards George, who took Wendy and pulled her behind him, not only now her father, but her sacred protector.
Peter lifted up the body of Captain Hook, and carried him to the side of the boat. As he turned round to see their expressions, he shouted, "Know what happens when an angel falls from heaven and lands in hell?" George and Wendy were silent watching him, Wendy gripped her father around his waist. "The gates of hell open and swallow him up!" With that, Peter threw Captain Hook overboard, Wendy ran screaming in an attempt to save him, but it was too late.
Not only did the gates of hell open and swallow Captain Hook, it began to swallow Neverland as well, starting with ocean, drinking large gulps of land and shore with it. "You can join him now, if you like…" Peter yelled to Wendy over the sounds of crunching earth being sucked into the massive hole of fire that erupted under the ship.
"For there to be good, Wendy, there also must be evil, and if there is evil, then there must be good, for neither one can survive without the other. That is the only universal rule of all the worlds including heaven and hell contained within," Wendy repeated to Peter Pan, the red fire of Captain Hook's eyes rolling in her own. "James Hook told me that, Peter, he told me that the night you took me from him."
Peter now realized something already too late to correct. The Jolly Roger began to tip to one side and sink into the molten lava that replaced the sea.
"Without good, there can be no evil. Vengeance belongs to God. Peter, I want you to stay with me." Wendy grasped him by the wrist and yanked him over to where George stood waiting by the entrance to the cabin.
"Where are you taking me?" Peter shouted as George grabbed him from behind and propelled him as they began running towards the wardrobe of the cabin.
"I'm taking you were you belong, home in the real world."
Peter attempted to jerk free from George who would not release his hold, "My home is here in Neverland."
"I told you, Peter, there is no more Neverland. You killed the good and without the good there can be no more evil," Wendy repeated.
"Peter, you grew up remember? You are not a boy anymore, now you are a man, a man that killed Baby Jane," George jeered as they stepped through the wardrobe into the mist of smoke that poured out from within.
"No I didn't!" he retorted, shoving George up against the sidewall of wherever it was they walking through.
"Yes, you did," Wendy declared through her anger. "You were jealous that she was the daughter of another man, you were angry that I wanted her to live with us once we were married. You were ashamed that your fiancée had lain with another man she could never have. You knew I loved him more than myself and had taken from him a child, a piece of him that I could keep, that you could not take from me. But you made me leave her with my parents, and lie that she was really theirs. You knew the only reason I wanted to marry you was for your money. For once I was wealthy, I could return home and reclaim her. I know you killed my darling love and destroyed the body, I have no proof, but for my daughter I do."
Wendy walked a few steps ahead of Peter, being pushed forward by George, suddenly they all stopped, and Wendy continued, "First you tried to drown her, purposely asking her to skate to you on the pond where the ice was thinned, she fell through but to your dismay she survived, for I was there to pull her out. Now you are in her room where her grandmother and grandfather rest watching over her, as she is still quite ill with a horrible fever, but would still recover because she is strong like her father. Seeing him in her, that strength of heart she received from the part of him he left inside of me increased the rage in you. You stabbed her, in the place where she most resembles her father. Her heart, her kind compassionate loving heart. You killed her, you are murderer." Wendy spoke, beholding his lost expression.
"That's not true, I killed no one. I wasn't even there when she fell through the ice Wendy. I was at home sleeping."
"She told me you were there, Peter, she said you were in the tree watching us play. You crept out of the house, and went to the park. She said you told her to come over to catch you. You told her it was safe to skate on the thin ice. You swore to her she would be safe. That's when she fell. She said she called out to you for help and you laughed at her and fled. You weren't in the nursery sleeping. I saw you come into the house after she was put into bed. I asked you where you went, and you lied and said out for a walk. But I knew, I knew Jane would never lie, for that is just another part of her father in her. And now, here, my mother and father saw you stab her. They rose from their chairs too late to save her. Look at yourself, you covered in her blood."
Peter looked down, his hands and pajamas were soaked in red with not one solitary drop of silver.
George whispered, "Neverland was destroyed by your own hand, you removed the evil by taking yourself away and then murdered the good by cutting from him the only part of him that was real. Now you have a heart." Peter gazed about the room, Mary was crying holding Jane to her chest.
"Satan, murderer, devil, sinner, assassin…assassin," Mary hissed at him. George was holding him from behind and before he could speak in his defense, George thrust him face down to the floor.
John and Uncle Harry came barreling up the stairs and into the room where the noise was coming from. "Get the constables, this monster just stabbed and killed our Jane." George called out to his son and brother. They went running, one to the phone, and the other to the door.
Peter opened his eyes and saw Wendy's slippers in front of him. "Wendy, please tell them it isn't true."
Wendy stood devastated over the body of her child, a daughter she shared with her parents, thinking over all the years and joys she had missed, not wanting to grow up. "How did you find out about Peter, father?" She meant his true identity as a boy who would not grow up, but her father was unwillingly to look at him as anything more than Pan had pretended to be. There was no magically mysterious fairy tale character where Peter Pan was concerned, only a man of the world who had just executed his baby daughter.
George held the Peter on the floor, knee in his back. "Something in his finances seemed questionable when I looked over them. I still have plenty of favors owed to me at the bank. He's a fraud, an imposter. All the money is either falsified or stolen, swindled from old widows and widowers who lost their children. Criminal, scoundrel, a waste of a man…"
"God has a special place in hell for those like you Peter," Wendy muttered, as Peter was lead away by the authorities.
"This is hell, Wendy! Hell is on Earth!" he screamed, as the constable kicked him into the back of the paddy wagon.
"Don't you worry, Mr. Darling, we'll give him a good beating before we send him to the prison, and what we don't pound out of him, the rest of inmates will. No one thinks much of a child killer."
Peter Pan did not last very long in the real world, the day after he reached prison he was sent to an insane asylum. It seems the heart George had given him drove him insane. He died only a week later, falling stories as he jumped off a balcony to the hard cement courtyard. "Apparently Mr. Pauper was under the delusion he was an exotic bird with the ability to fly to an imaginary world he called Neverland," the doctor wrote on his death certificate. They named him Peter Pauper, Pauper for his penniless state, which meant he was buried in Potter's field in an unmarked grave with only a priest consecrating the ground and not a soul present when the dirt was thrown into the hole covering him.
Margaret was buried first, her daughter Martine's name was also placed below hers on the headstone, the constables doubted her whereabouts let alone her body would ever be discovered. Jane was buried next, in between her Great-Grandpa Joe and Uncle Michael in the church's cemetery, two soldiers in heaven to protect the innocent angel's body here on earth. On her headstone George had written,
Jane Gwendolyn DarlingWe shall find peace.
We shall hear angels.
We shall see her living in sky
sparkling with diamonds.
Real man that he was, George Darling was the pillar that his wife and daughter, his own brother, son and his children leaned on during the funerals, and as the coffins, all white, were lowered into the ground. Mary wept inconsolably as Jane was covered in earth. George carried her the whole way home offering her words of comfort filled with kisses and love to sooth her misery. Wendy cried tears enough to fill an ocean. She had lost her darling love Captain Hook, and their daughter as well. She was left with nothing but her journal of their adventures together, her drawing of him and the fair maiden Gwendolyn, and her necklace, which mysteriously disappeared the night Jane was laid to rest as she slept in it.