This story takes place only a few years after Wendy's first visit to
Neverland with Peter Pan, so it is considered a follow-up to the 2003 P.J.
Hogan film Peter Pan (with some references to the original Barrie novel
[1911] and his own Peter Pan prequel, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens
[1904]).
Again, I have no ownership of any of the characters or actors who portrayed them...Obviously.
After an excruciating wait (or not!), here's Chapter IX .....Comments, comments, s'il vous plaît! :-)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
IX. REAQUAINTANCE
Captain Hook had rather expected that Peter Pan and his band of juveniles would have come round to malice him and his crew whether they had any knowledge of Wendy's existence aboard his ship or not, if only for a childish lark. But quite the opposite proved to be the case. Hook had not a clue as to what would be keeping them away, although it happily afforded him extra leisure with which to tend to Wendy.
He had stayed by her side following the 'false alarm,' and it is with much benefit that he did, for her slumber thereafter was mightily fitful, serving up to the Captain several bits of useful tidings.
Wendy began to mutter in her sleep. More often than not, it was worthless gibberish, but on occasion was Hook able to discern quite clearly what emanated from her lips. He had transported a quill and tablet from his writing desk to the small endtable betwixt his chair and bed, and with these implements would he jot down anything at all that he could decipher from Wendy's mindless ramblings. There were quotes from Shakespeare, a few stern and one-sided instructions to her brothers, some children's limericks (these Hook disregarded immediately), a loving description of her mother's most divine evening gown, and there was even the frequent humming of bars of music, which Hook was easily able to scribble down and transpose into readable text for plucking out on his harpsichord later in the evening.
And thus was what eventually roused Wendy from her long and painful slumber.
She had been having a most curious dream, ever so much more so than the one where Captain Hook had been hovering over her as she slept. In this present dream, she saw herself tumbling from the cliff once more as Peter flew off, only to be caught mid-air by a large phoenix. This phoenix would then carry her back to her home in London, but it would be entirely empty. No parents, no brothers, just barrenness. Nothing but the sweetest and faintest sound of music bleeding through the naked walls, luring her tenderly to its source. Pressing her hand to the stark partitions, she would not feel a cold rigidity but a warm smoothness. Very curious indeed. Even more bizarre was that she found if she dug her fingers into the wall, it would yield just enough to allow her to grasp it. She longed for a closer look at this riddle...
And then, with a great rush, her mind cleared and her eyes shot open with a start. Quite contrary to her troublesome dream, she was surrounded by much. And she was not leaned vertical against a billowing wall but was on her stomach atop a plush bed, burgundy and velvet draped all about her. Everything was different – everything, that is, except the music. The enchanting tune remained, and just as in her dream, it coyly entreated upon her of its inspection.
She knew the tune well – Mozart's "Lacrimosa." She had in fact been dreaming of the tune recurrently. How peculiar that it was still playing though she was awake. Or was she truly?
To answer this query, Wendy rolled to her side and pushed herself to a seated position. Straight away she realized she could not still be dreaming, for the sharp pain in her right arm spoke loudly otherwise. Once the sudden sting subsided, Wendy turned her head all about her, trying to discern her location. All the light she was afforded came from the big blue moon outside a window across from the bed where she lay. This was not quite sufficient enough to fully reveal her whereabouts, but it was enough to allow her to move about the mysterious room if she wished to.
And wish she did, with a ferocious urgency. As the "Lacrimosa" continued to serenade her arousal, Wendy swung her legs around the edge of the bed and tried to stand. But she very nearly collapsed to the floor from the weight of her drowsy body upon a severely weakened left ankle. She instinctively looked down at it, and when she did, she saw her nightdress contorted in an odd assortment of ill-matching swatches and patches, crude mends and fraying slipstitches. Some unlearned individual had manhandled her clothing, though the intentions appeared well-meaning. But almost certainly more troublesome were the hodgepodge of bruises, scrapes, and patched up gashes – mended quite superiorly to her dress – upon her person. She remembered her fall from the cliff – surely, she should be dead. Or at the very least in far worse shape than she presently found herself.
And still was that music. And the kitschy room she was standing shakily within. Her eyes darted all round her, trying to penetrate the still dimness and discover some shred of recognition. Nothing was immediately familiar to her. And she imagined that the gentle rocking from side to side was only her weary head still climbing its way back to consciousness.
There stood near the window a writing desk, and it was quick to catch Wendy's eye. It was a marvelous piece – varnished rosewood in marble trim and legs molded to the likeness of Rubenesque ladies standing atop golden spheres. But far more interesting were the various objects atop the desk; a silver goblet with red gemstones, an inkwell in the shape of a Viking ship, and a large wooden box cast to the corner. She felt she had seen all these before, somewhere, and a tiny intuition inside her whispered that she might find her explanation inside of that daunting box.
Oh, if only she could make her way to it more swiftly! Her mangled ankle bade her no easy crossing from the bed to the desk. But her curiosity overruled her pain, and, using the bed and other nearby sturdy objects to lean against, she managed to hobble to the box and steadied herself upon the desk.
She now saw that the silver goblet had contents within, and the subtle scent of the dregs jogged her memory enough to at once begin forming an inkling as to where she was. 'Twas Muscat in the goblet. And only pirates drank Muscat.
Wendy sought to confirm her hunch when she gently lifted the lid on the box at the corner of the desk. The eerie glimmer which the contents therein seized from the moonlight outside sent a shiver through Wendy's spine. There, nestled with a terrible lovingness betwixt several folds of red velvet, was a collection of iron appendages, all more menacing than the next. And in the middle sat a dreadful double claw – which had once before come so frighteningly close to Wendy's throat. It was the old pirate captain's case of hooks.
So that was it – she was aboard the Jolly Roger. The pirates must have captured her after she fell. But whom was it playing Mozart in the next room? A new captain? Why were Hook's personal affects still strewn about the cabin? And what happened to –
Wendy's muddled thoughts were suddenly cut off. The music had stopped, and in its place the muffled hum of male voices conversing. Wendy froze and waited. And then came the ominous clunk of footsteps inching closer to the chamber door which cried out for Wendy to make herself unassuming.
As the footsteps grew nearer, Wendy's face screwed up in excruciation as she staggered her way back to the bed, first hopping on her good foot and then collapsing to the floor and crawling to her destination. The knob began to turn with a horrible moan as she hoisted herself up onto the bed, clawing her way toward the pillows in time to recover herself. Her brow dripping and heart pounding, she enveloped her wounded body within the heavy blankets and faced her back to the door, just in time enough to see a sliver of candlelight creep upon the wall in front of her.
Her anxious eyes peered over the bed sheets, watching breathlessly as a dark silhouette imposed upon the widening crack of light against the wall. So well-known to her that shape was. But it couldn't be...
A heavy sigh engulfed Captain Hook as he stood in the doorway of his bedchamber. Smee lingered close behind, craning his neck over Hook's shoulder toward the Wendy's flipside. She was as stagnant as they had last left her.
"No," Hook muttered. "The dark still clings to her."
His voice like a cannon hurtled through the air and struck Wendy in the back of her head, washing over her entire person like a sickening nightmare. She knew his voice as readily as she did Peter's, only there was one significant disparity – Hook was dead!
But the Captain stood very much alive at the threshold, looking upon the lump in his bed with growing disdain. And he was just about to leave when his keen eye was lured toward a glistening near the window. He noticed directly that his case of hooks was opened. He had not left it so.
A cunning smirk found its way to his face so handsomely grim, and in an instant his mind fixated on the opportunities before him. Contorting his expression into a faux melancholy, Hook brought his hand to his chest and sighed.
"Oh dear me, Smee," he groaned pitifully.
"Yes, Cap'n?" came the anxious reply.
Smee! Had Hook's poor old bosun expired as well?
For the benefit of Smee, Hook pointed toward the open case on his desk with his hand, which was cleverly masked by his shadow so as not to give himself away to Wendy.
Hook continued his charade. "I fear our poor Wendy may never waken. What a frightful shame, for I had so looked forward to making amends for the contemptible way in which I treated her when last we met. 'Tis quite regrettable that she may never hear my plea for forgiveness."
Wendy listened intently. A rueful Hook? What sort of alternate universe had she slipped into?
Happily playing along, Smee added, "Indeed, Cap'n! An' that loverly pendant necklace ye 'ad planned to give 'er, well, ye may as well throw it back into the sea where ye found it now!"
Pendant necklace? Why, how charming!
Hook thought so too, and he tossed his bosun a widely approving glance.
"Aye, Smee, the necklace..." Hook thought a moment and then expelled one last weary sigh. "We will allow her one more day, Smee, and if she is yet unroused, I'm afraid we shall have no other choice than to leave her at the disposal of the mermaids."
Hook believed he saw Wendy stiffen.
"I sincerely hope it shan't come to that," Hook continued, almost as if addressing Wendy directly, and he grew rather thoughtful. "'O that you were your self; but, love, you are no longer yours, than you your self here live: Against this coming end you should prepare, and your sweet semblance to some other give...'"
His humid voice trailed off as he stepped back and let the door close gently, half-hoping Wendy would pop up from her bed and reveal herself right then. But she did not, and so he slithered off, grinning shrewdly, and shut his chamber door.
Wendy held her breath a bit longer and listened for the sound of Hook's boots to fade. He had recited the first few lines of Shakespeare's Sonnet XIII, whose portentous allusions of death left Wendy greatly unsettled. Did this mean she was still alive? Or had she truly expired as well, hence making Hook's ghostly narration no more than a misguided threat from a reluctant soul in limbo? And if this was the case, could Wendy herself be trapped in purgatory?
From whence Wendy lay, there was truly only one way in which to address these uncertainties. She would have to be brave and face whatever lurked beyond the bedchamber, be it the Ghost of Hook, or the Devil himself...or perhaps both one in the same!
All became still once again. As Wendy rolled over onto her back, nary a footstep nor another note of Mozart bled through the chamber walls. The silence nearly became deafening, until Wendy was sure she heard the cabin door open and close. Had Hook left? 'Twas now the time to discover her fate.
A grueling limp staying her haste, Wendy staggered to the chamber door but by inches. Once there, she put one bruised hand upon the knob and gave it a laborious turn. It moaned softly, making Wendy grimace, and gave way for the door to crack open. Leaning her face close to this tiny gap, she peered into the stateroom.
There were no Hell fires or demons gaily prancing about, no indications at all of anything other than precisely how Wendy had remembered the Captain's quarters to be. It was eerily quiet – but are not most things aboard the Jolly Roger eerie – and presumably unoccupied for the moment, and so Wendy parted the door further. Having been asleep for so very long a period, even the soft glow of several lit candelabras strained Wendy's weary eyes, and she squinted in her ocular perusal of the cabin.
It was indeed quite lifeless as far as she could determine, and a scarce opportunity to escape the wicked brig presented itself heartily before the girl. She knew the ship well – its very blueprints were stored in her dreams – and she believed she could slip away undetected through the stern if only she could flee the Captain's quarters without exposing herself. Where she should go from there she would think about once at it.
The door was now fully agape, opening into the stateroom. No one had leapt from the shadows to catch her in the act, and so Wendy supposed herself quite alone. Hobbling awkwardly, she crept across the room, around opulent furnishings and plush carpets, toward the cabin doors – so near yet so far.
She was not halfway to her destination when she heard that sound which makes all mortal men's bones rattle...
"Evening, Wendy."
In spite of her injury, Wendy was spun around as if not of her own power, and thus she saw Hook, sitting at his supper table so unobtrusively as if just another part of the gaudy décor.
"So delighted you could join us."
Us? Wendy's eyes shifted to the bedchamber door, which began to close and reveal Smee standing on the other side of it, his trusty jug of Muscat in hand.
Another untimely fainting may very well have occurred at this point, but Wendy had a much tighter grip upon her faculties this time. Though her head was a-swoon and her stomach in knots, she managed to find her voice.
"Then it is true," she gulped, her gaze moving back toward the shady Captain.
"I am afraid so," Hook replied regrettably, not entirely sure of what Truth she spoke.
Wendy's shoulders sank. "I am dead, aren't I?"
"'Dead'?" Hook blurted, startling her. And then came a hearty laugh. "Oh, no, my dear, you are very much alive, thank Heavens!"
"Then what is it I am looking at?" Wendy took a wary step forward. "Some sort of ghost?"
"Ghost? Me?" Hook scoffed sardonically. "I do often feel in such a fashion. But no, I have not gone on to my Great Reward either, I assure you."
Wendy stood in the center of the room, a million and one questions threatening to spill forth from her cluttered mind, and Hook took note of her wavering.
"Oh dear, where hast mine manners gone?" He gestured to his bosun. "Smee, see our guest to a chair at once!"
Smee set down his jug and tottered toward Wendy, helping her into a chair across the supper table from the Captain. She had found herself in this position before, hadn't she, and under rather similar circumstances.
At this proximity, Wendy could clearer see the Captain's face, not wholly different from how she recalled from years past, but indeed there was something peculiar and new about the way in which her eyes beheld his visage. But she could not conclude whether it was a change in he or a change in herself. Somehow, he seemed...milder.
"There, much better," Hook said, letting a charming grin play upon his battle-lined features. "Smee, fetch a plate for Miss Wendy so that she may share a proper meal with me."
"No, thank you," Wendy asserted quickly.
"Oh, but you must!" Hook insisted. "You have been asleep for days and have not eaten a thing!"
"Little would that matter; nobody ever starves in Neverland," she retorted.
Hook was admittedly rather taken aback by Wendy's surliness, but he let it roll off his back at once.
"As you wish, m'dear." And he waved Smee away from the table.
"And what of you?" Wendy finally found the gumption to ask. "How are you not dead?"
"Aye, that..." Hook mused, taking a sip of Muscat. "'Twas quite simple, really, and a touch ironic. As I am sure you gleefully recall, what with that delightful little chant you and your comrades crafted at my expense, I was most brazenly buried alive in the belly of that bloody beast."
Hook smiled to himself. He did so enjoy a good alliteration.
"I had spent nary an entire minute within that abyss," he continued with barely contained amusement, "when it dawned upon me that I was not unarmed. That which first put the taste for me in this monster's mouth proved to be my divinity after all."
He brought his claw near his face with an almost lascivious pride. "And so I gutted the brute, from the inside out."
Wendy wrinkled her nose at such a vile image, but only in reaction to Hook's spirited telling of it. For you see, she had only been half- listening anyway. He was alive and he had an explanation for it, and that was all she was needing to know on the matter. More important quandaries weighed upon her mind.
"How long have I been here?" she asked.
Hook could not help but feel disappointed at how unimpressed she appeared with his gallant tale. "A couple days," he sighed, putting on an unaffected front.
"And you have not heard..." Wendy started but then stopped, not sure if she truly wanted to ask. "That is, there has been no..." Now she was not sure she wanted an answer.
Hook watched her and feigned obliviousness to her concern.
She decided to ask after all. "And Peter has not come for me?"
Hook pretended to be surprised at the question. "Peter?" He stroked his beard. "Peter, Peter, Peter...Peter Pan. Why, I don't believe I have seen that boy in ages, have I, Smee?"
His bosun was quick to the task. "Been a dog's age since your last spar with 'im, aye, Cap'n!"
Hook turned back to Wendy with a casual shrug. "I'm sorry, dear, but Peter Pan has not breached this ship in quite some time."
Wendy looked incredulous, though in her heart, she had quiet expected – and dreaded – this answer.
"He...does know you are here, does he not?" Hook asked shrewdly.
"He ought to," Wendy replied, mostly to herself. "He knows everything that occurs in Neverland. And what he does not know, the mermaids tell him."
"Aye, indeed, the mermaids," Hook stifled a wicked grin, but Smee was not quite so successful, and he turned from Wendy. "I would suppose 'tis only a matter of time before Pan comes for you."
Wendy's eyes suddenly grew large. "That is why I am here, isn't it? You are setting another trap for Peter!"
"My dear!" Hook exclaimed, pretending to be scandalized.
"Well, I shan't be a pawn in your dirty dealings again, Captain!" Wendy attempted to stand abruptly, but she had quite forgotten about her ankle, which bade her cry out and fall back into her chair at once.
"You really must be careful, darling, you are not quite fully recovered as yet," Hook instructed flatly.
Still reeling from the sudden burst of pain, Wendy went mum momentarily.
"Look, Wendy," Hook began, laying his hand and hook flat on the table, "I can understand that you have every reason in Creation to distrust me, but you must believe it when I tell you that my intentions here are bereft of any malice."
"And how am I to believe that?" Wendy asked, softening a bit as she recalled Hook's rueful monologue in the bedchamber.
The Captain took a pondering breath. "'Tis a funny thing, you know, being swallowed whole by a crocodile – It really makes one think!"
Wendy remained quiet and gave ear.
"And as I lay in its belly," he continued, "utterly humiliated and defeated, I thought to myself 'What have I done to deserve this fate? What sort of atrocities can one person possibly commit in a lifetime to have this brought upon himself?' And at that moment, I had an epiphany – an awakening! And most important, I had a way out. This fine hook of mine should afford me a second chance, but how would I then repay the Fates for bestowing it upon me? One is not just handed an opportunity for redemption such as this so they may continue pursuing their aimless lives as if nothing had ever happened. Do you follow me?"
Wendy nodded prudently.
"And so I gathered up every lingering scrap of rage and bitterness inside me, and I allowed it to carve out a path to indemnity through the walls of my prison, both internal and external. Once free, I found myself immersed beneath the waves, and when I finally breached the surface and took a deep breath, well, I rather felt as if I had been...reborn!"
Hook caught Wendy's skeptical glare and grinned sheepishly. "I know it must all sound rather hackneyed and melodramatic from where you are sitting, but, my dear Wendy, only when you have existed going on centuries within the pits of Hell, 'tis when you scratch and claw your way out of it that you can truly understand that which I struggle to illustrate to you now."
Wendy's head and heart were having a quiet squabble over whether to believe the pirate's words as genuine. And she knew not for which she was rooting to prevail. Oh, blast that man and the ease with which he could throw her reason and emotions into such disorder! 'Twas so much simpler in her dreams – when she did not have to face him on her own.
She glared at him and found herself speaking at last: "Your words fly up, your thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to Heaven go."
Hook knew it from Hamlet, and he happily rose to her clever challenge. "'The quality of mercy is not strain'd. It droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blest: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.'"
"The Merchant of Venice," Wendy murmured. She lifted one begrudging eyebrow. "I would never imagine that you would be versed in Shakespeare."
The Captain gave a charmed laughed. "My dear, I was not born a pirate, you know!"
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way." Wendy cast her eyes down at her hands in her lap. "Have you renounced piracy altogether then?" She had just the tiniest spec of hope.
But the true Captain revealed himself once more. "My darling girl, I do need to make a living, you know! Redemption is not so all-encompassing as one would like."
Wendy figured this would be his response, and she crossed her arms with blatant suspicion. She turned over his most recent recitation in her mind. "So, by 'him that takes' of your mercy...Do you mean Peter?"
"You know that I do," Hook replied with a sudden and disquieting softness.
"Why?" was all Wendy could think to ask further.
He upturned his palm. "Is it not perfectly obvious? Peter Pan has been the one source of my Great Suffering. I was quite a cheerful and noble fellow once, you know. I should like to reacquaint myself with these sentiments someday. Long before the crocodile did so, my obsession with that boy had swallowed me whole."
"Oh...and am I to be your 'new obsession' again, Captain?"
The frightful sarcasm in her tone nearly left Hook breathless, and he put his hand to his chest.
"My, but you are so much more churlish than I remember!"
"I was younger then," Wendy confessed reluctantly.
"Aye that you were." Hook could nary disagree. "And had I not warned you then what a dreadfully barbarous endeavor was growing older?"
Indeed he had, Wendy admitted to herself. Such a frightful inconvenience it was. Hook, on the other hand, rather thought it suited her nicely. He watched her carefully mull over all the words that he had rehearsed so diligently whence she slept.
He stepped lightly round his next query to her. "I gather...Pan has not taken this too agreeably?"
"Quite not!" Wendy blurted against her better judgment. "He thinks me so old! But I am not yet eighteen!"
She perhaps should have remained vague and surly, but in truth, she longed for someone to be her sounding board in this matter. And Hook was all to eager to oblige. Though he had not yet decided whose side with which to ally himself.
"A shame it is too; the boy is so awfully unforgiving," Hook divulged with faux concern. "I find it shall take a Herculean effort for him to accept mine own amends."
"Do you honestly seek a truce with Peter?" Wendy could almost believe anything else but this.
"Intensely." On cue, Hook was remarkably able to produce a single, disingenuous tear in his eye. "But alas, he continues to refuse me. I suppose he shan't be blamed for that. But it is of utmost cruciality for me, for without his forgiveness, I am still trapped. But if I can gain it, then maybe he will be so kind as to liberate me once and for all from this island."
And then he grinned with a perverse impishness. "I must confess, I did have an ulterior motive for bringing you to my ship."
Aha! She had suspected so all along!
"You see," he explained, "I figured that if I were to salvage you from those rocks, bring you aboard my ship and coax you back to life, then perhaps Peter would receive my penance whence he saw how well I had taken care of His Wendy."
Wendy seemed as though she was wrestling with offense. Hook was quick to cover his tracks.
"Oh, but I assure you, this did not come to me until after I had you on board and knew you would live. Of course, I could not, in good conscience, leave our Red-Handed Jill pitilessly for dead upon the Bluff." He smiled charmingly, his charismatic blue eyes twinkling in the candlelight.
Wendy strove hard not to be influenced by those eyes. "But yet he has not come for me."
Hook dismissed the detail with a wave of his hand. "Oh, he shall, I am certain. 'Tis only a matter of time. Why should he not? You are still his Dear Wendy, aren't you?"
She hung her head so that he would not see her eyes grow moist. "I am unsure anymore. I should very much like to go to him myself and ask, but I suppose I am not well enough for travel as of yet."
A clandestine twinge in Hook's gut celebrated Wendy's acknowledgment of her extended stay aboard his ship. Though she appeared none too thrilled by it.
"I have a proposition," he offered matter-of-factly, as if just thinking of it. "One that shall satisfy us both I think...When you regain your strength, if Pan has still not called upon you, then, perhaps...I can deliver you to him myself."
Wendy's eyes shot back up towards his, peering in trade at her innocently over his goblet.
"You...would take me to him?" The words spilled out of her mouth disconnected from her thoughts.
Hook set down his Muscat. "Yes, you see how it should work amicably for us both? You could see Pan, and Pan could see me at your aid. And then, hopefully, alls well that ends well!"
Wendy at once thought it most gentlemanly and gallant of the Captain, to see her safe passage into the forest to reunite with Peter as an olive branch. But could she truly be so gullible to take the pirate's word for it? I am happy to say she could not completely.
"Captain..."
Hook's eyebrows rose expectantly. "Mm?"
"Is this just another cunning scheme to find Peter's hideout so that you may finish him off?"
And then, Hook said something most unexpected:
"Oh, I already know where his hideout is."
"You do?" Wendy exclaimed. Smee almost did so himself.
Hook nodded casually. "Absolutely! Why, I believe every creature on the island shares in this knowledge. Although I must profess, I have forgotten the way exactly. Possibly you could refresh me." Another beguiling smile spread across his lips.
Wendy sat still, each new thought being negated by a newer one. She wanted to believe him, if for no other reason than she would like to see Peter again without a bloody battle ensuing. Could she trust him? To her advantage, she did have previous experience on her side. And in the meantime, Hook appeared to mean her no harm whatsoever. If nothing else, he was offering her a warm place to recuperate – and where should she find this if she were to jump ship and set out upon the island on her own? Perhaps, if only for a little while, she should play Silly Childish Wendy once more until she regained her health.
Yes, she would match the old pirate at his own game...if there be one.
"Very well, Captain Hook," she stated with her nose upturned. "I shall consider it."
Inside Hook, a tiny parade erupted. But externally, he only grinned and bowed his head slightly to her. "'Tis all I ask."
Wendy harkened to the words she heard him speak to Smee when he thought she was still asleep. This was the best evidence she presently had of his sincerity.
Oh, but there was one other intriguing tidbit she remembered from that exchange...
"Erm," she began offhandedly, "Is...that all...you wish to say to me?"
Hook's brow lowered. "My dear?"
She furrowed as well, coaxing an understanding from him. "Nothing else...at all...that you might...perhaps...want too...give me?"
Hook went rigid, nary an idea in the least at what she may be drifting. What could he be wanting to give her? Why, the suggestive hint in her eye could almost be construed as something quite improper...
But when Wendy aimlessly brought her hand near her throat, Hook's stomach did a flip.
"Oh, oh! Quite so! Yes!" He recovered himself quickly, regressing back to his former confident character. "Aye, Wendy. I have a gift for you which I had been saving for the occasion of your arousal. A token of my earnest, you might say...But, erm, first, you must close your eyes!"
Wendy, being merely a girl and hopelessly partial to the proposal of gifts, was only too happy to do so. 'Twas then that Hook saw her first smile, and it alighted upon the old pirate's shriveled heart like a kiss.
But Smee's panicked flailing about the room quickly propelled Hook back to the present. He gestured toward a chest behind his harpsichord.
"I think you will fancy it greatly," Hook prattled, trying to fill the silent breaks betwixt seeking the gift and finally presenting it. "I retrieved it, erm..."
Smee had wondered to an urn by the window, and Hook impatiently snapped his hook to motion further to the right. Wendy remained giddily expectant and unseeing.
"I retrieved it off the coast of Sicily," he continued, tapping a finger to his nose frantically when Smee finally set his hand upon the correct chest. "Um, yes, the coast of Sicily on route to Tunisia...across the Mediterranean..."
Smee opened the chest and began to tunnel through a mass heap of plundered jewels and baubles, causing an unwanted racket. But still Wendy kept her eyes shut and paid heed to Hook's story.
"We...intercepted a Spanish brig seeking passage to Egypt..."
Smee anxiously held up a long beaded necklace, fitted with at least a hundred gold pieces, but Hook waved it away.
"They had...been on a journey to deliver a large cache to the Royal Family..."
Smee, in his haste, absent-mindedly held up a jewel-encrusted chalice, which gained him a very severe look from the Captain.
"...We took the brig in only a matter of minutes..."
Now Smee held aloft two necklaces, one in each hand. Hook's claw shot toward his bosun and pointed violently at one of them. Smee lifted the one in his right hand higher, and Hook waved his claw and shook his head.
"We outnumbered them four to one..."
Smee lifted the necklace in his left hand, but Hook's frantic nodding and waving confused the poor old man, and he presented the trinket to his right once again.
Hook began to furiously wave Smee over to him at the table.
"We fought them to the DEATH!" Hook hurled the final word to Smee with burning eyes, but Wendy thought it nothing more than an exciting illustration of his story.
Quite flustered, Smee tottered over to the Captain, the two necklaces at hand, which Hook grappled for.
"I killed the captain...keelhauled his crew..." He shoved Smee aside. "...and raped his mistress!"
Wendy's face fell into visible disgust.
"DRAPED!" Hook cried, tossing one of the two necklaces behind his chair. "I draped his mistress...in a cloak...and then made her walk the plank!"
Wendy noticeably softened, though she did find it a frightful thing to have done.
Taking a deep breath at last, Hook hung the prevailing necklace – a delicate gold chain off of which dangled an opal pendant with a diamond- plated setting – over his hand. He rose from his chair and came around to crouch on bended knee next to Wendy.
"I recovered this from her private boudoir," Hook said coolly, his velveteen voice tickling Wendy's ear. "You may open your eyes now, Wendy."
Wendy did, and Hook was so very pleased to see her eyes grow large and enchanted by the sparkling bauble. She clutched the pendant between her fingers and examined it more closely.
Despite the brutish manner in which the gift had been obtained, Wendy smiled broadly. "How stunning!"
Hook straightened and moved a bit closer. "Here, allow me..."
"Oh...yes, of course..."
Wendy turned her back to him and moved her waterfall of hair away from her neck. A rather pretty neck it was too, Hook thought, one that ought to be constantly adorned in jewels. For a moment, he wondered what it might look like with his claw buried in it...
Hook brought his arms over her head and rested them blithely upon her shoulders, and thus was when he realized there was a problem. He could not possibly clasp the necklace with one hand and a hook. But this was not a quandary that he was wholly unfamiliar with, and he knew precisely what to do.
"Pardon me a moment, dear," he said in a rather businesslike manner.
Wendy half-turned her head just in time to see Hook incline his own nearer hers and toward his claw and snatch up the male end of the necklace with his teeth. The Captain observed Wendy stiffen significantly, and he found a slight humor in it.
Wendy felt his hellish breath on the back of her neck, and though she did not find it wholly offensive, it was unsettling nonetheless. The Captain, however, was hardly affected at all, but he did take some enjoyment from the brief closeness. Despite all she had been through, she still emanated a most sweet and pleasant scent from her skin. He had many fond recollections of that scent from a few years past. 'Twas a very soothing and comforting fragrance.
At last the necklace was attached, and Hook adjusted it a bit to fall properly upon Wendy's neck. The white and gold suited the fair Wendy's creamy skin like a dream. And she was quite pleased with the results.
Thus Wendy bestowed her first genuine smile upon the Captain.
"Thank you."
This satisfied him immensely, and did he not once more experience the pangs of guilt for having to deceive the poor girl? Indeed, he did, but as always, his hatred for Peter Pan overruled all.
"You are very welcome," Hook replied courteously, rising back to his feet.
And then Wendy suddenly grew quite sad. She could not help but to recall the last time she had received a token to wear about her neck from an inhabitant of Neverland. Peter had given her that lovely acorn – his Kiss – which had saved her life when Tootles shot her. She now kept that Kiss safe in her hope chest.
And with these recollections came the immediate reminders of her present predicament – that she was stuck, injured, aboard Captain Hook's ship and Peter had not yet attempted to rescue her. All the priceless opal pendants in the world could not truly make up for that.
Hook plainly saw Wendy's cheerful countenance wane, but of course he knew not the reason for it.
"If you don't mind terribly, Captain," Wendy said, staring off sadly, "I think I should like to excuse myself and get some more rest."
"Oh, but of course...yes, you must," Hook acquiesced, now believing her sudden melancholy to be due to her wounds. "Smee shall see you back to bed."
And with that, Smee came to Wendy's tender aid as she rose and hobbled to Hook's bedchamber. But just as she broached the door, she stopped and turned back to Hook.
"Captain," she began meekly, "'Tis your bed that I am occupying, isn't it?"
"Aye," Hook responded as casually as he could, should she be thinking something lurid of the matter.
"But if I am sleeping in your bed, then where are you sleeping?"
He was rather caught off guard by the question, but he found an answer anyhow. "Well, I have my fainting couch..."
"Oh, but that shan't be sufficient for sleeping, could it?" Wendy went on, her maternal nature getting the best of her.
Hook could not help but smile and be touched at her concern. "To be perfectly honest, Wendy, I really do not do much sleeping whence Peter Pan is in residence. So you needn't worry for me." Although he was delighted that she did. No one else ever had.
"Are you quite sure?" Wendy pressed. "Because I am smaller and so much better suited to the couch..."
Hook raised a hand and shook his head. "Nonsense. You require all the remedy that the bed affords more so than I."
Wendy ceased her contention and smiled humbly. "All right then, if you insist."
Hook gallantly waved her off. "Pleasant dreams, my hearty."
Wendy returned to the peace and quiet of the bedchamber, her weary head craving no further troublesome thoughts and only delicious sleep. And just before she slipped away, she silently wished she had never taken the Wizard's magical offer...
In the stateroom, Hook remained, lounging across his fainting couch, and pondering all the marvelous possibilities laying before him in the days ahead.
Again, I have no ownership of any of the characters or actors who portrayed them...Obviously.
After an excruciating wait (or not!), here's Chapter IX .....Comments, comments, s'il vous plaît! :-)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
IX. REAQUAINTANCE
Captain Hook had rather expected that Peter Pan and his band of juveniles would have come round to malice him and his crew whether they had any knowledge of Wendy's existence aboard his ship or not, if only for a childish lark. But quite the opposite proved to be the case. Hook had not a clue as to what would be keeping them away, although it happily afforded him extra leisure with which to tend to Wendy.
He had stayed by her side following the 'false alarm,' and it is with much benefit that he did, for her slumber thereafter was mightily fitful, serving up to the Captain several bits of useful tidings.
Wendy began to mutter in her sleep. More often than not, it was worthless gibberish, but on occasion was Hook able to discern quite clearly what emanated from her lips. He had transported a quill and tablet from his writing desk to the small endtable betwixt his chair and bed, and with these implements would he jot down anything at all that he could decipher from Wendy's mindless ramblings. There were quotes from Shakespeare, a few stern and one-sided instructions to her brothers, some children's limericks (these Hook disregarded immediately), a loving description of her mother's most divine evening gown, and there was even the frequent humming of bars of music, which Hook was easily able to scribble down and transpose into readable text for plucking out on his harpsichord later in the evening.
And thus was what eventually roused Wendy from her long and painful slumber.
She had been having a most curious dream, ever so much more so than the one where Captain Hook had been hovering over her as she slept. In this present dream, she saw herself tumbling from the cliff once more as Peter flew off, only to be caught mid-air by a large phoenix. This phoenix would then carry her back to her home in London, but it would be entirely empty. No parents, no brothers, just barrenness. Nothing but the sweetest and faintest sound of music bleeding through the naked walls, luring her tenderly to its source. Pressing her hand to the stark partitions, she would not feel a cold rigidity but a warm smoothness. Very curious indeed. Even more bizarre was that she found if she dug her fingers into the wall, it would yield just enough to allow her to grasp it. She longed for a closer look at this riddle...
And then, with a great rush, her mind cleared and her eyes shot open with a start. Quite contrary to her troublesome dream, she was surrounded by much. And she was not leaned vertical against a billowing wall but was on her stomach atop a plush bed, burgundy and velvet draped all about her. Everything was different – everything, that is, except the music. The enchanting tune remained, and just as in her dream, it coyly entreated upon her of its inspection.
She knew the tune well – Mozart's "Lacrimosa." She had in fact been dreaming of the tune recurrently. How peculiar that it was still playing though she was awake. Or was she truly?
To answer this query, Wendy rolled to her side and pushed herself to a seated position. Straight away she realized she could not still be dreaming, for the sharp pain in her right arm spoke loudly otherwise. Once the sudden sting subsided, Wendy turned her head all about her, trying to discern her location. All the light she was afforded came from the big blue moon outside a window across from the bed where she lay. This was not quite sufficient enough to fully reveal her whereabouts, but it was enough to allow her to move about the mysterious room if she wished to.
And wish she did, with a ferocious urgency. As the "Lacrimosa" continued to serenade her arousal, Wendy swung her legs around the edge of the bed and tried to stand. But she very nearly collapsed to the floor from the weight of her drowsy body upon a severely weakened left ankle. She instinctively looked down at it, and when she did, she saw her nightdress contorted in an odd assortment of ill-matching swatches and patches, crude mends and fraying slipstitches. Some unlearned individual had manhandled her clothing, though the intentions appeared well-meaning. But almost certainly more troublesome were the hodgepodge of bruises, scrapes, and patched up gashes – mended quite superiorly to her dress – upon her person. She remembered her fall from the cliff – surely, she should be dead. Or at the very least in far worse shape than she presently found herself.
And still was that music. And the kitschy room she was standing shakily within. Her eyes darted all round her, trying to penetrate the still dimness and discover some shred of recognition. Nothing was immediately familiar to her. And she imagined that the gentle rocking from side to side was only her weary head still climbing its way back to consciousness.
There stood near the window a writing desk, and it was quick to catch Wendy's eye. It was a marvelous piece – varnished rosewood in marble trim and legs molded to the likeness of Rubenesque ladies standing atop golden spheres. But far more interesting were the various objects atop the desk; a silver goblet with red gemstones, an inkwell in the shape of a Viking ship, and a large wooden box cast to the corner. She felt she had seen all these before, somewhere, and a tiny intuition inside her whispered that she might find her explanation inside of that daunting box.
Oh, if only she could make her way to it more swiftly! Her mangled ankle bade her no easy crossing from the bed to the desk. But her curiosity overruled her pain, and, using the bed and other nearby sturdy objects to lean against, she managed to hobble to the box and steadied herself upon the desk.
She now saw that the silver goblet had contents within, and the subtle scent of the dregs jogged her memory enough to at once begin forming an inkling as to where she was. 'Twas Muscat in the goblet. And only pirates drank Muscat.
Wendy sought to confirm her hunch when she gently lifted the lid on the box at the corner of the desk. The eerie glimmer which the contents therein seized from the moonlight outside sent a shiver through Wendy's spine. There, nestled with a terrible lovingness betwixt several folds of red velvet, was a collection of iron appendages, all more menacing than the next. And in the middle sat a dreadful double claw – which had once before come so frighteningly close to Wendy's throat. It was the old pirate captain's case of hooks.
So that was it – she was aboard the Jolly Roger. The pirates must have captured her after she fell. But whom was it playing Mozart in the next room? A new captain? Why were Hook's personal affects still strewn about the cabin? And what happened to –
Wendy's muddled thoughts were suddenly cut off. The music had stopped, and in its place the muffled hum of male voices conversing. Wendy froze and waited. And then came the ominous clunk of footsteps inching closer to the chamber door which cried out for Wendy to make herself unassuming.
As the footsteps grew nearer, Wendy's face screwed up in excruciation as she staggered her way back to the bed, first hopping on her good foot and then collapsing to the floor and crawling to her destination. The knob began to turn with a horrible moan as she hoisted herself up onto the bed, clawing her way toward the pillows in time to recover herself. Her brow dripping and heart pounding, she enveloped her wounded body within the heavy blankets and faced her back to the door, just in time enough to see a sliver of candlelight creep upon the wall in front of her.
Her anxious eyes peered over the bed sheets, watching breathlessly as a dark silhouette imposed upon the widening crack of light against the wall. So well-known to her that shape was. But it couldn't be...
A heavy sigh engulfed Captain Hook as he stood in the doorway of his bedchamber. Smee lingered close behind, craning his neck over Hook's shoulder toward the Wendy's flipside. She was as stagnant as they had last left her.
"No," Hook muttered. "The dark still clings to her."
His voice like a cannon hurtled through the air and struck Wendy in the back of her head, washing over her entire person like a sickening nightmare. She knew his voice as readily as she did Peter's, only there was one significant disparity – Hook was dead!
But the Captain stood very much alive at the threshold, looking upon the lump in his bed with growing disdain. And he was just about to leave when his keen eye was lured toward a glistening near the window. He noticed directly that his case of hooks was opened. He had not left it so.
A cunning smirk found its way to his face so handsomely grim, and in an instant his mind fixated on the opportunities before him. Contorting his expression into a faux melancholy, Hook brought his hand to his chest and sighed.
"Oh dear me, Smee," he groaned pitifully.
"Yes, Cap'n?" came the anxious reply.
Smee! Had Hook's poor old bosun expired as well?
For the benefit of Smee, Hook pointed toward the open case on his desk with his hand, which was cleverly masked by his shadow so as not to give himself away to Wendy.
Hook continued his charade. "I fear our poor Wendy may never waken. What a frightful shame, for I had so looked forward to making amends for the contemptible way in which I treated her when last we met. 'Tis quite regrettable that she may never hear my plea for forgiveness."
Wendy listened intently. A rueful Hook? What sort of alternate universe had she slipped into?
Happily playing along, Smee added, "Indeed, Cap'n! An' that loverly pendant necklace ye 'ad planned to give 'er, well, ye may as well throw it back into the sea where ye found it now!"
Pendant necklace? Why, how charming!
Hook thought so too, and he tossed his bosun a widely approving glance.
"Aye, Smee, the necklace..." Hook thought a moment and then expelled one last weary sigh. "We will allow her one more day, Smee, and if she is yet unroused, I'm afraid we shall have no other choice than to leave her at the disposal of the mermaids."
Hook believed he saw Wendy stiffen.
"I sincerely hope it shan't come to that," Hook continued, almost as if addressing Wendy directly, and he grew rather thoughtful. "'O that you were your self; but, love, you are no longer yours, than you your self here live: Against this coming end you should prepare, and your sweet semblance to some other give...'"
His humid voice trailed off as he stepped back and let the door close gently, half-hoping Wendy would pop up from her bed and reveal herself right then. But she did not, and so he slithered off, grinning shrewdly, and shut his chamber door.
Wendy held her breath a bit longer and listened for the sound of Hook's boots to fade. He had recited the first few lines of Shakespeare's Sonnet XIII, whose portentous allusions of death left Wendy greatly unsettled. Did this mean she was still alive? Or had she truly expired as well, hence making Hook's ghostly narration no more than a misguided threat from a reluctant soul in limbo? And if this was the case, could Wendy herself be trapped in purgatory?
From whence Wendy lay, there was truly only one way in which to address these uncertainties. She would have to be brave and face whatever lurked beyond the bedchamber, be it the Ghost of Hook, or the Devil himself...or perhaps both one in the same!
All became still once again. As Wendy rolled over onto her back, nary a footstep nor another note of Mozart bled through the chamber walls. The silence nearly became deafening, until Wendy was sure she heard the cabin door open and close. Had Hook left? 'Twas now the time to discover her fate.
A grueling limp staying her haste, Wendy staggered to the chamber door but by inches. Once there, she put one bruised hand upon the knob and gave it a laborious turn. It moaned softly, making Wendy grimace, and gave way for the door to crack open. Leaning her face close to this tiny gap, she peered into the stateroom.
There were no Hell fires or demons gaily prancing about, no indications at all of anything other than precisely how Wendy had remembered the Captain's quarters to be. It was eerily quiet – but are not most things aboard the Jolly Roger eerie – and presumably unoccupied for the moment, and so Wendy parted the door further. Having been asleep for so very long a period, even the soft glow of several lit candelabras strained Wendy's weary eyes, and she squinted in her ocular perusal of the cabin.
It was indeed quite lifeless as far as she could determine, and a scarce opportunity to escape the wicked brig presented itself heartily before the girl. She knew the ship well – its very blueprints were stored in her dreams – and she believed she could slip away undetected through the stern if only she could flee the Captain's quarters without exposing herself. Where she should go from there she would think about once at it.
The door was now fully agape, opening into the stateroom. No one had leapt from the shadows to catch her in the act, and so Wendy supposed herself quite alone. Hobbling awkwardly, she crept across the room, around opulent furnishings and plush carpets, toward the cabin doors – so near yet so far.
She was not halfway to her destination when she heard that sound which makes all mortal men's bones rattle...
"Evening, Wendy."
In spite of her injury, Wendy was spun around as if not of her own power, and thus she saw Hook, sitting at his supper table so unobtrusively as if just another part of the gaudy décor.
"So delighted you could join us."
Us? Wendy's eyes shifted to the bedchamber door, which began to close and reveal Smee standing on the other side of it, his trusty jug of Muscat in hand.
Another untimely fainting may very well have occurred at this point, but Wendy had a much tighter grip upon her faculties this time. Though her head was a-swoon and her stomach in knots, she managed to find her voice.
"Then it is true," she gulped, her gaze moving back toward the shady Captain.
"I am afraid so," Hook replied regrettably, not entirely sure of what Truth she spoke.
Wendy's shoulders sank. "I am dead, aren't I?"
"'Dead'?" Hook blurted, startling her. And then came a hearty laugh. "Oh, no, my dear, you are very much alive, thank Heavens!"
"Then what is it I am looking at?" Wendy took a wary step forward. "Some sort of ghost?"
"Ghost? Me?" Hook scoffed sardonically. "I do often feel in such a fashion. But no, I have not gone on to my Great Reward either, I assure you."
Wendy stood in the center of the room, a million and one questions threatening to spill forth from her cluttered mind, and Hook took note of her wavering.
"Oh dear, where hast mine manners gone?" He gestured to his bosun. "Smee, see our guest to a chair at once!"
Smee set down his jug and tottered toward Wendy, helping her into a chair across the supper table from the Captain. She had found herself in this position before, hadn't she, and under rather similar circumstances.
At this proximity, Wendy could clearer see the Captain's face, not wholly different from how she recalled from years past, but indeed there was something peculiar and new about the way in which her eyes beheld his visage. But she could not conclude whether it was a change in he or a change in herself. Somehow, he seemed...milder.
"There, much better," Hook said, letting a charming grin play upon his battle-lined features. "Smee, fetch a plate for Miss Wendy so that she may share a proper meal with me."
"No, thank you," Wendy asserted quickly.
"Oh, but you must!" Hook insisted. "You have been asleep for days and have not eaten a thing!"
"Little would that matter; nobody ever starves in Neverland," she retorted.
Hook was admittedly rather taken aback by Wendy's surliness, but he let it roll off his back at once.
"As you wish, m'dear." And he waved Smee away from the table.
"And what of you?" Wendy finally found the gumption to ask. "How are you not dead?"
"Aye, that..." Hook mused, taking a sip of Muscat. "'Twas quite simple, really, and a touch ironic. As I am sure you gleefully recall, what with that delightful little chant you and your comrades crafted at my expense, I was most brazenly buried alive in the belly of that bloody beast."
Hook smiled to himself. He did so enjoy a good alliteration.
"I had spent nary an entire minute within that abyss," he continued with barely contained amusement, "when it dawned upon me that I was not unarmed. That which first put the taste for me in this monster's mouth proved to be my divinity after all."
He brought his claw near his face with an almost lascivious pride. "And so I gutted the brute, from the inside out."
Wendy wrinkled her nose at such a vile image, but only in reaction to Hook's spirited telling of it. For you see, she had only been half- listening anyway. He was alive and he had an explanation for it, and that was all she was needing to know on the matter. More important quandaries weighed upon her mind.
"How long have I been here?" she asked.
Hook could not help but feel disappointed at how unimpressed she appeared with his gallant tale. "A couple days," he sighed, putting on an unaffected front.
"And you have not heard..." Wendy started but then stopped, not sure if she truly wanted to ask. "That is, there has been no..." Now she was not sure she wanted an answer.
Hook watched her and feigned obliviousness to her concern.
She decided to ask after all. "And Peter has not come for me?"
Hook pretended to be surprised at the question. "Peter?" He stroked his beard. "Peter, Peter, Peter...Peter Pan. Why, I don't believe I have seen that boy in ages, have I, Smee?"
His bosun was quick to the task. "Been a dog's age since your last spar with 'im, aye, Cap'n!"
Hook turned back to Wendy with a casual shrug. "I'm sorry, dear, but Peter Pan has not breached this ship in quite some time."
Wendy looked incredulous, though in her heart, she had quiet expected – and dreaded – this answer.
"He...does know you are here, does he not?" Hook asked shrewdly.
"He ought to," Wendy replied, mostly to herself. "He knows everything that occurs in Neverland. And what he does not know, the mermaids tell him."
"Aye, indeed, the mermaids," Hook stifled a wicked grin, but Smee was not quite so successful, and he turned from Wendy. "I would suppose 'tis only a matter of time before Pan comes for you."
Wendy's eyes suddenly grew large. "That is why I am here, isn't it? You are setting another trap for Peter!"
"My dear!" Hook exclaimed, pretending to be scandalized.
"Well, I shan't be a pawn in your dirty dealings again, Captain!" Wendy attempted to stand abruptly, but she had quite forgotten about her ankle, which bade her cry out and fall back into her chair at once.
"You really must be careful, darling, you are not quite fully recovered as yet," Hook instructed flatly.
Still reeling from the sudden burst of pain, Wendy went mum momentarily.
"Look, Wendy," Hook began, laying his hand and hook flat on the table, "I can understand that you have every reason in Creation to distrust me, but you must believe it when I tell you that my intentions here are bereft of any malice."
"And how am I to believe that?" Wendy asked, softening a bit as she recalled Hook's rueful monologue in the bedchamber.
The Captain took a pondering breath. "'Tis a funny thing, you know, being swallowed whole by a crocodile – It really makes one think!"
Wendy remained quiet and gave ear.
"And as I lay in its belly," he continued, "utterly humiliated and defeated, I thought to myself 'What have I done to deserve this fate? What sort of atrocities can one person possibly commit in a lifetime to have this brought upon himself?' And at that moment, I had an epiphany – an awakening! And most important, I had a way out. This fine hook of mine should afford me a second chance, but how would I then repay the Fates for bestowing it upon me? One is not just handed an opportunity for redemption such as this so they may continue pursuing their aimless lives as if nothing had ever happened. Do you follow me?"
Wendy nodded prudently.
"And so I gathered up every lingering scrap of rage and bitterness inside me, and I allowed it to carve out a path to indemnity through the walls of my prison, both internal and external. Once free, I found myself immersed beneath the waves, and when I finally breached the surface and took a deep breath, well, I rather felt as if I had been...reborn!"
Hook caught Wendy's skeptical glare and grinned sheepishly. "I know it must all sound rather hackneyed and melodramatic from where you are sitting, but, my dear Wendy, only when you have existed going on centuries within the pits of Hell, 'tis when you scratch and claw your way out of it that you can truly understand that which I struggle to illustrate to you now."
Wendy's head and heart were having a quiet squabble over whether to believe the pirate's words as genuine. And she knew not for which she was rooting to prevail. Oh, blast that man and the ease with which he could throw her reason and emotions into such disorder! 'Twas so much simpler in her dreams – when she did not have to face him on her own.
She glared at him and found herself speaking at last: "Your words fly up, your thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to Heaven go."
Hook knew it from Hamlet, and he happily rose to her clever challenge. "'The quality of mercy is not strain'd. It droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blest: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.'"
"The Merchant of Venice," Wendy murmured. She lifted one begrudging eyebrow. "I would never imagine that you would be versed in Shakespeare."
The Captain gave a charmed laughed. "My dear, I was not born a pirate, you know!"
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way." Wendy cast her eyes down at her hands in her lap. "Have you renounced piracy altogether then?" She had just the tiniest spec of hope.
But the true Captain revealed himself once more. "My darling girl, I do need to make a living, you know! Redemption is not so all-encompassing as one would like."
Wendy figured this would be his response, and she crossed her arms with blatant suspicion. She turned over his most recent recitation in her mind. "So, by 'him that takes' of your mercy...Do you mean Peter?"
"You know that I do," Hook replied with a sudden and disquieting softness.
"Why?" was all Wendy could think to ask further.
He upturned his palm. "Is it not perfectly obvious? Peter Pan has been the one source of my Great Suffering. I was quite a cheerful and noble fellow once, you know. I should like to reacquaint myself with these sentiments someday. Long before the crocodile did so, my obsession with that boy had swallowed me whole."
"Oh...and am I to be your 'new obsession' again, Captain?"
The frightful sarcasm in her tone nearly left Hook breathless, and he put his hand to his chest.
"My, but you are so much more churlish than I remember!"
"I was younger then," Wendy confessed reluctantly.
"Aye that you were." Hook could nary disagree. "And had I not warned you then what a dreadfully barbarous endeavor was growing older?"
Indeed he had, Wendy admitted to herself. Such a frightful inconvenience it was. Hook, on the other hand, rather thought it suited her nicely. He watched her carefully mull over all the words that he had rehearsed so diligently whence she slept.
He stepped lightly round his next query to her. "I gather...Pan has not taken this too agreeably?"
"Quite not!" Wendy blurted against her better judgment. "He thinks me so old! But I am not yet eighteen!"
She perhaps should have remained vague and surly, but in truth, she longed for someone to be her sounding board in this matter. And Hook was all to eager to oblige. Though he had not yet decided whose side with which to ally himself.
"A shame it is too; the boy is so awfully unforgiving," Hook divulged with faux concern. "I find it shall take a Herculean effort for him to accept mine own amends."
"Do you honestly seek a truce with Peter?" Wendy could almost believe anything else but this.
"Intensely." On cue, Hook was remarkably able to produce a single, disingenuous tear in his eye. "But alas, he continues to refuse me. I suppose he shan't be blamed for that. But it is of utmost cruciality for me, for without his forgiveness, I am still trapped. But if I can gain it, then maybe he will be so kind as to liberate me once and for all from this island."
And then he grinned with a perverse impishness. "I must confess, I did have an ulterior motive for bringing you to my ship."
Aha! She had suspected so all along!
"You see," he explained, "I figured that if I were to salvage you from those rocks, bring you aboard my ship and coax you back to life, then perhaps Peter would receive my penance whence he saw how well I had taken care of His Wendy."
Wendy seemed as though she was wrestling with offense. Hook was quick to cover his tracks.
"Oh, but I assure you, this did not come to me until after I had you on board and knew you would live. Of course, I could not, in good conscience, leave our Red-Handed Jill pitilessly for dead upon the Bluff." He smiled charmingly, his charismatic blue eyes twinkling in the candlelight.
Wendy strove hard not to be influenced by those eyes. "But yet he has not come for me."
Hook dismissed the detail with a wave of his hand. "Oh, he shall, I am certain. 'Tis only a matter of time. Why should he not? You are still his Dear Wendy, aren't you?"
She hung her head so that he would not see her eyes grow moist. "I am unsure anymore. I should very much like to go to him myself and ask, but I suppose I am not well enough for travel as of yet."
A clandestine twinge in Hook's gut celebrated Wendy's acknowledgment of her extended stay aboard his ship. Though she appeared none too thrilled by it.
"I have a proposition," he offered matter-of-factly, as if just thinking of it. "One that shall satisfy us both I think...When you regain your strength, if Pan has still not called upon you, then, perhaps...I can deliver you to him myself."
Wendy's eyes shot back up towards his, peering in trade at her innocently over his goblet.
"You...would take me to him?" The words spilled out of her mouth disconnected from her thoughts.
Hook set down his Muscat. "Yes, you see how it should work amicably for us both? You could see Pan, and Pan could see me at your aid. And then, hopefully, alls well that ends well!"
Wendy at once thought it most gentlemanly and gallant of the Captain, to see her safe passage into the forest to reunite with Peter as an olive branch. But could she truly be so gullible to take the pirate's word for it? I am happy to say she could not completely.
"Captain..."
Hook's eyebrows rose expectantly. "Mm?"
"Is this just another cunning scheme to find Peter's hideout so that you may finish him off?"
And then, Hook said something most unexpected:
"Oh, I already know where his hideout is."
"You do?" Wendy exclaimed. Smee almost did so himself.
Hook nodded casually. "Absolutely! Why, I believe every creature on the island shares in this knowledge. Although I must profess, I have forgotten the way exactly. Possibly you could refresh me." Another beguiling smile spread across his lips.
Wendy sat still, each new thought being negated by a newer one. She wanted to believe him, if for no other reason than she would like to see Peter again without a bloody battle ensuing. Could she trust him? To her advantage, she did have previous experience on her side. And in the meantime, Hook appeared to mean her no harm whatsoever. If nothing else, he was offering her a warm place to recuperate – and where should she find this if she were to jump ship and set out upon the island on her own? Perhaps, if only for a little while, she should play Silly Childish Wendy once more until she regained her health.
Yes, she would match the old pirate at his own game...if there be one.
"Very well, Captain Hook," she stated with her nose upturned. "I shall consider it."
Inside Hook, a tiny parade erupted. But externally, he only grinned and bowed his head slightly to her. "'Tis all I ask."
Wendy harkened to the words she heard him speak to Smee when he thought she was still asleep. This was the best evidence she presently had of his sincerity.
Oh, but there was one other intriguing tidbit she remembered from that exchange...
"Erm," she began offhandedly, "Is...that all...you wish to say to me?"
Hook's brow lowered. "My dear?"
She furrowed as well, coaxing an understanding from him. "Nothing else...at all...that you might...perhaps...want too...give me?"
Hook went rigid, nary an idea in the least at what she may be drifting. What could he be wanting to give her? Why, the suggestive hint in her eye could almost be construed as something quite improper...
But when Wendy aimlessly brought her hand near her throat, Hook's stomach did a flip.
"Oh, oh! Quite so! Yes!" He recovered himself quickly, regressing back to his former confident character. "Aye, Wendy. I have a gift for you which I had been saving for the occasion of your arousal. A token of my earnest, you might say...But, erm, first, you must close your eyes!"
Wendy, being merely a girl and hopelessly partial to the proposal of gifts, was only too happy to do so. 'Twas then that Hook saw her first smile, and it alighted upon the old pirate's shriveled heart like a kiss.
But Smee's panicked flailing about the room quickly propelled Hook back to the present. He gestured toward a chest behind his harpsichord.
"I think you will fancy it greatly," Hook prattled, trying to fill the silent breaks betwixt seeking the gift and finally presenting it. "I retrieved it, erm..."
Smee had wondered to an urn by the window, and Hook impatiently snapped his hook to motion further to the right. Wendy remained giddily expectant and unseeing.
"I retrieved it off the coast of Sicily," he continued, tapping a finger to his nose frantically when Smee finally set his hand upon the correct chest. "Um, yes, the coast of Sicily on route to Tunisia...across the Mediterranean..."
Smee opened the chest and began to tunnel through a mass heap of plundered jewels and baubles, causing an unwanted racket. But still Wendy kept her eyes shut and paid heed to Hook's story.
"We...intercepted a Spanish brig seeking passage to Egypt..."
Smee anxiously held up a long beaded necklace, fitted with at least a hundred gold pieces, but Hook waved it away.
"They had...been on a journey to deliver a large cache to the Royal Family..."
Smee, in his haste, absent-mindedly held up a jewel-encrusted chalice, which gained him a very severe look from the Captain.
"...We took the brig in only a matter of minutes..."
Now Smee held aloft two necklaces, one in each hand. Hook's claw shot toward his bosun and pointed violently at one of them. Smee lifted the one in his right hand higher, and Hook waved his claw and shook his head.
"We outnumbered them four to one..."
Smee lifted the necklace in his left hand, but Hook's frantic nodding and waving confused the poor old man, and he presented the trinket to his right once again.
Hook began to furiously wave Smee over to him at the table.
"We fought them to the DEATH!" Hook hurled the final word to Smee with burning eyes, but Wendy thought it nothing more than an exciting illustration of his story.
Quite flustered, Smee tottered over to the Captain, the two necklaces at hand, which Hook grappled for.
"I killed the captain...keelhauled his crew..." He shoved Smee aside. "...and raped his mistress!"
Wendy's face fell into visible disgust.
"DRAPED!" Hook cried, tossing one of the two necklaces behind his chair. "I draped his mistress...in a cloak...and then made her walk the plank!"
Wendy noticeably softened, though she did find it a frightful thing to have done.
Taking a deep breath at last, Hook hung the prevailing necklace – a delicate gold chain off of which dangled an opal pendant with a diamond- plated setting – over his hand. He rose from his chair and came around to crouch on bended knee next to Wendy.
"I recovered this from her private boudoir," Hook said coolly, his velveteen voice tickling Wendy's ear. "You may open your eyes now, Wendy."
Wendy did, and Hook was so very pleased to see her eyes grow large and enchanted by the sparkling bauble. She clutched the pendant between her fingers and examined it more closely.
Despite the brutish manner in which the gift had been obtained, Wendy smiled broadly. "How stunning!"
Hook straightened and moved a bit closer. "Here, allow me..."
"Oh...yes, of course..."
Wendy turned her back to him and moved her waterfall of hair away from her neck. A rather pretty neck it was too, Hook thought, one that ought to be constantly adorned in jewels. For a moment, he wondered what it might look like with his claw buried in it...
Hook brought his arms over her head and rested them blithely upon her shoulders, and thus was when he realized there was a problem. He could not possibly clasp the necklace with one hand and a hook. But this was not a quandary that he was wholly unfamiliar with, and he knew precisely what to do.
"Pardon me a moment, dear," he said in a rather businesslike manner.
Wendy half-turned her head just in time to see Hook incline his own nearer hers and toward his claw and snatch up the male end of the necklace with his teeth. The Captain observed Wendy stiffen significantly, and he found a slight humor in it.
Wendy felt his hellish breath on the back of her neck, and though she did not find it wholly offensive, it was unsettling nonetheless. The Captain, however, was hardly affected at all, but he did take some enjoyment from the brief closeness. Despite all she had been through, she still emanated a most sweet and pleasant scent from her skin. He had many fond recollections of that scent from a few years past. 'Twas a very soothing and comforting fragrance.
At last the necklace was attached, and Hook adjusted it a bit to fall properly upon Wendy's neck. The white and gold suited the fair Wendy's creamy skin like a dream. And she was quite pleased with the results.
Thus Wendy bestowed her first genuine smile upon the Captain.
"Thank you."
This satisfied him immensely, and did he not once more experience the pangs of guilt for having to deceive the poor girl? Indeed, he did, but as always, his hatred for Peter Pan overruled all.
"You are very welcome," Hook replied courteously, rising back to his feet.
And then Wendy suddenly grew quite sad. She could not help but to recall the last time she had received a token to wear about her neck from an inhabitant of Neverland. Peter had given her that lovely acorn – his Kiss – which had saved her life when Tootles shot her. She now kept that Kiss safe in her hope chest.
And with these recollections came the immediate reminders of her present predicament – that she was stuck, injured, aboard Captain Hook's ship and Peter had not yet attempted to rescue her. All the priceless opal pendants in the world could not truly make up for that.
Hook plainly saw Wendy's cheerful countenance wane, but of course he knew not the reason for it.
"If you don't mind terribly, Captain," Wendy said, staring off sadly, "I think I should like to excuse myself and get some more rest."
"Oh, but of course...yes, you must," Hook acquiesced, now believing her sudden melancholy to be due to her wounds. "Smee shall see you back to bed."
And with that, Smee came to Wendy's tender aid as she rose and hobbled to Hook's bedchamber. But just as she broached the door, she stopped and turned back to Hook.
"Captain," she began meekly, "'Tis your bed that I am occupying, isn't it?"
"Aye," Hook responded as casually as he could, should she be thinking something lurid of the matter.
"But if I am sleeping in your bed, then where are you sleeping?"
He was rather caught off guard by the question, but he found an answer anyhow. "Well, I have my fainting couch..."
"Oh, but that shan't be sufficient for sleeping, could it?" Wendy went on, her maternal nature getting the best of her.
Hook could not help but smile and be touched at her concern. "To be perfectly honest, Wendy, I really do not do much sleeping whence Peter Pan is in residence. So you needn't worry for me." Although he was delighted that she did. No one else ever had.
"Are you quite sure?" Wendy pressed. "Because I am smaller and so much better suited to the couch..."
Hook raised a hand and shook his head. "Nonsense. You require all the remedy that the bed affords more so than I."
Wendy ceased her contention and smiled humbly. "All right then, if you insist."
Hook gallantly waved her off. "Pleasant dreams, my hearty."
Wendy returned to the peace and quiet of the bedchamber, her weary head craving no further troublesome thoughts and only delicious sleep. And just before she slipped away, she silently wished she had never taken the Wizard's magical offer...
In the stateroom, Hook remained, lounging across his fainting couch, and pondering all the marvelous possibilities laying before him in the days ahead.