Shahrazád's Ghosts


Chapter 8: Peter (Edward) Part II


2368 A.D.


The days and years progressed. Peter's stockpile of supplies only grew larger and his deliveries multiplied to the point he required a motorized cart to complete them all during his working hours. Construction around Neverland never ceased and the underground fortress grew in tandem with Peter's workload.

His songs remained undaunted. He hummed and sang to himself as he worked, creating his own patterns of lyrical pictures as he did, delighting in the ways the melodies filled the rooms he walked through and coming up with ever more complicated odes. Sometimes he sang the work songs of his former Pirates. Sometimes he sang their resting songs. Always, always, he sang the songs he created in honor of his Lady.

The Lady he still delighted in reading to, no matter how many months or years slipped by between the pages of her tattered book. He lost track of the number of times he read that story to her. It was so many that he began to recite the lines verbatim in his sleep. He didn't mind. If it meant he stole precious moments alone with the Lady of Neverland, he would gladly memorize the entire story.

It was rare when Darling broke from the confines of the lines of text and asked him a question. More often than not, she listened in rapt silence, her eyes closed, until she wished for no more and dismissed him without a glance. He might as well have been the mechanical voice on the machine which taught him to speak instead of a living person in the room with her for as often as she allowed his voice to depart from the worn phrases of her book. Sometimes he wondered why she bothered to have him read it at all.

He never asked.

"I can tell you another story, Darling," he told her, nearly every time. "If you wish it."

"No," she answered, every time. "Read this story."

In those moments, she was still and subdued. She removed her regal haughtiness at the threshold of her favored room. She no longer held herself statuesque and erect. Her granite edges crumbled into a pile of fragile petals on the carpeted floor. She never let any of the Braves or Lost Boys near her during those moments and her eyes remained as black as Peter's boots. When she emerged through that door, back into the halls of Neverland, she held her head aloft, golden eyes bearing down fiercely onto her subjects, and all knew it was the Queen that emerged. None of the others called her "Darling." Only in that room, in those moments, was she "Darling."

"You know she shields you the entire time you are in there, right?" John casually informed Peter one day. "She doesn't want us to see her so she covers your mind to keep us all out. We can only see her through your memories, which are quite informative and descriptive."

Peter winced and determined to guard his thoughts even more than he already tried to.

"Why does she do that?"

"Don't know. Don't care," John responded.

When Peter grew especially brave and his curiosity outgrew his good sense, he asked her questions.

"I don't understand," he said one day. "You name us all according to this book. Yet, I do not follow your pattern. Why am I called Peter when I am a Pirate?"

She opened her eyes at that and peeked at him from under her arm. The edge of her lips crept upwards only the smallest amount as she considered him.

"Because you are all the same. You all 'want blood.' But Peter was the most dangerous Pirate of all," she said.

"I don't understand."

"No, I don't suppose you would. Tell me, what became of Mrs. Darling's kiss?"

He flipped to the first chapter and read:

"She was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet mocking mouth. Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the puzzling East, however many you discover there is always one more; and her sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that Wendy could never get, though there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the right-hand corner.

"The way Mr. Darling won her was this: the many gentlemen who had been boys when she was a girl discovered simultaneously that they loved her, and they all ran to her house to propose to her except Mr. Darling, who took a cab and nipped in first, and so he got her. He got all of her, except the innermost box and the kiss. He never knew about the box, and in time he gave up trying for the kiss. Wendy thought Napoleon could have got it, but I can picture him trying, and then going off in a passion, slamming the door."

"Yes, that is the one. What became of it?"

"Peter took it."

"You see? And yet he could not remember Tinkerbell's name, after she loved him so or even Wendy's name, after she took care of him as she did. No, Peter was, and always will be, the most dangerous of Pirates. I always name one of you 'Peter' so I remind myself of how 'heartless' you all truly are."

"I am not heartless!" Peter protested. "Even if my namesake was!"

"You say so now, but someday, you will forget my name and replace me with another. You all do. The day you stop growing up. Then all you will want is a mother - someone to take care of you and give you medicine and let you feel convinced of your own cleverness - but you will not wish for anything else."

Peter's anger burned at this picture she painted of him and he did not pause to think, he only acted. Though, later and in a saner moment, he did not think even a five minute's reprieve would have calmed his boiling blood long enough to prevent his rash invasion of their Lady's fortress. In a rush of impulsive suicide, he did what he had only ever dreamed of. He lunged forward across the foot of space separating them on the floor, placed his lips on hers and drank from the sweetness he had always longed for a draught of.

It was, as he expected, pure ambrosia.

She froze as a statue beneath him and her eyes flew open in accusatory fury as she pulled away from him.

"Do not say I will not remember…or that I do not have a heart. Even if you will not give that kiss to me, does it follow that I do not wish it could be mine?" he said. "You will, and always will be, my Darling."

"Get out," she commanded, ice in her tone. She did not need to ask a second time. He obeyed, kicking himself for his impertinence, while still congratulating himself for his audacity. He knew he would never forget the reward that night had given him and the memory would keep him warm through all the empty, lonely nights that followed.

She never mentioned that stolen moment again and he knew better than to remind her. He did remind himself of it…often…but he did not dare to test her patience a second time.

Oooo


Peter was tired, bone tired. His workload had been especially heavy that week and he finished later than he hoped to. His back ached and his eyes were blurry from all the hours reading the fine print on a screen. He planned to swallow down his ration of porridge as quickly as possible and then sink into the soft reprieve of his pillow. He was surprised, as he neared his room, to find the door ajar and John standing in the doorway with a deep frown on his ashen face.

John moved away from the door, but only to allow two more men through. Slightly and Curly emerged, each carrying a limp, blood-stained bundle over their shoulders. Their faces mirrored John's grimace and their red eyes burned like the kitchen's oven.

Peter rushed down the hall, but John's hand stopped him before he could enter.

"Whoa, there, Pirate. You are better off not coming in here. Thank the stars above and the fates below that you weren't in there with the rest of them," John said.

"What happened?" Peter asked, fear creeping into his veins and singing through his thoughts.

"Peter? Peter? Is that you?" came another voice. Mullins emerged, his face as pale as printer paper and his hands shaking like a rattle. His fellow Pirate threw his arms around Peter with tears streaming down his cheeks. Peter hesitated before he placed his arm around Mullins shaking shoulders. "Oh, it was terrible!" Mullins cried out. "We were gathered sharing our supper and composing a new work song. We didn't hear him. He came out of nowhere. None of us saw. He just appeared and he bit them with his teeth and they screamed and they could not get away. I would have been next if they hadn't come. They are gone, oh they are gone!"

Peter's eyes grew wide and he looked over at John, pleading his old tutor for an interpretation of Mullins jumbled ravings. John rolled his eyes and pointed. There, beneath Peter's bed, lay a severed head fringed with shaggy black hair. Red eyes gazed into nothingness and the terrible mouth was still fixed in a blood-stained snarl. The body was dismembered and stacked in a sticky, oozing pile in the corner. The rest of the room was splattered in specks of shouting, accusatory blood.

"That thing…bit them?" Peter asked. "Why?"

The sound that burst from John's mouth was half-way between a scoff and a guffaw. He quirked an eyebrow at Peter.

"Our renegade guest must have been dissatisfied with his delivery of bottled blood and decided to search out the real thing" John said. "He's not the first we've had that problem with, though he proved to be more successful at escaping then the others."

"He drinks blood?"

"Are you actually this obtuse or is that sarcasm?" John said. When he caught the horrified expression on Peter and Mullin's faces, he gave a long-suffering sigh. "Idiots. I am entirely surrounded by idiots. Yes. And no. Yes, Amun here used to drink blood. No, he no longer drinks blood because, if you hadn't noticed, he's dead."

"Why would he drink blood?" Peter asked, horrified by the very thought of it.

John snorted. "We all do. All the Braves and Lost Boys and our Lady's guests. What did you think you put in those bottles day and night?"

"We were told it was milk," Peter said. "Or medicine."

"It is…the milk and medicine that vampires like me require to stay satiated. Some comes in glass bottles and some comes in flesh bottles. Unfortunately, your flesh bottles are not as refillable as the glass variety and you all need your blood even more than we do."

"Have you…ever bit anyone?" Peter asked, his eyes wide and his breath coming fast. He clung to Mullins a little closer and unconsciously stepped away from John. John's grin grew dark and stretched across his face in a manner that only made Peter feel more uncomfortable.

"Of course…but never here. You pathetic lot of Pirates are safe from us. Your scent is too close to our own to be appetizing. Somehow, self-cannibalism isn't appealing to us. Our Lady's provisions are much more to our taste. To Amun, here, however, you must have been delicious."

"Who did he bite? Will they recover?" Peter asked Mullins, who still clung to him with both his quivering hands.

"Smee and Chaz," Mullins said. "I…uh…I don't…will they?" he asked as he turned to John.

John shook his head. "No. It was too late for them, I'm afraid."

Peter's heart sank in his chest as he pictured the faces of the two men who had shared his room and all the spare moments of his time for more years than he had bothered to count. For all intents and purposes, they had become more than his friends. They were his family.

"Where have they taken them? We must sing for them," Peter said.

"Up to the lagoon," John answered, as if that was supposed to make sense to them. It didn't.

"I wish to send them off properly. We have our ways and they must be followed," Peter said, standing straighter and gritting his teeth to try to fight back his own tears. He refused to give John the opportunity to mock his grief, but he would argue his point until John agreed.

"Oh, yes. Your little men's chorus. They are dead. They can't hear you."

"Yes. They can."

"Oh, superstitious now, are we?"

Mullins pulled himself from Peter's arms long enough to sniffle and stare placatingly at John. "Smee was the oldest of us. It's important."

John shrugged. "Fine by me. But only one of you. Mullins, you stink of blood. You had better stay here and change and help clean up this mess. Petey, you come and sing your little song. I'll take you to the lagoon, but we need to be fast. I'm gonna have to carry you."

And that was how Peter got his first glance of "Overland."

In a blur of wind and tunnels, John carried Peter. They moved so rapidly that Peter's eyes closed on their own to block out the stinging air. When he opened them next, he was barraged with so much light that he closed them again in surprise. He pried them open only to gawk at the vast expanse of space around him. There was no cavern ceiling or rock walls. There was no expanse of tunnels or rush of vented air. Instead, there was a dim grey canvas overhead and green carpet below. In the distance, a twinkle of lights dotted an expanse of man-made structures, too far away to make out what they were, only that they were rectangular in shape and contrasted with the asymmetrical jagged rocks that surrounded them on all sides.

"Are those trees?" Peter asked. He had read book after book which talked about worlds and places he could only imagine. Some had illustrations, but those could never fully do justice to what he now saw around him and its myriad of textures, colors, shades, and shadows.

"Date palms," John answered. He placed Peter down under one and pointed beyond them to where the green beneath their feet was interrupted by a pool of water, larger and darker than Peter had ever imagined water could be. The water was not still or clean, as he expected it to be. It was fragrant with mud and algae and the water splashed and churned with movement. Peter stepped back in fear when he caught sight of scales and teeth bursting through the surface, turning the water into a frothy boil.

"What is that?" Peter asked.

"Captain Hook, our Lady's pet crocodile. She found the little hatchling on a hunting trip some years back. The hatchling was injured and so she brought it back and raised her here. She's quite fond of the awful thing. Now, our Captains takes care of all the Pirates who cross the River Styx rather than stopping to bathe in it to attain their immortality."

Peter watched as the gnarled head of the crocodile emerged, great jaws snapping open and closed with a watery clamor. Peter only just managed to catch a glimpse of a human arm in between those jagged teeth before the beast swallowed and the arm was gone.

"Does she feed us to the crocodile alive?"

John laughed. "Oh, no! Only after you are already dead. She doesn't particularly like getting her hands dirty with that kind of thing. She lets you all die of mostly 'natural' causes and she'd rather Captain Hook eat you first before she has us burn your bones."

Peter decided not to ask how often the crocodile fed like this. Instead, he gasped a lungful of air to embark on the purpose he came to this reptilian burial ground. It was the first time he would have to sing their Pirate dirge alone…and the first time Smee would not be leading it and keeping time with his withered hands. The thought caused unbidden tears to fall down his cheeks to keep time instead.

He had not finished his song before Slightly returned, his arms full of limbs and a discombobulated torso. Slightly placed these on a large, flat rock and threw a match on top. Flames engulfed the limbs with a sickly purple smoke. Peter coughed and covered his mouth from the stench and choked his way through the remainder of his song.

"How did he get out?" A brunette head emerged from the grate hidden beneath the trees. A furious Lady marched towards John and Slightly with her crimson dress trailing behind her like an exclamation point. "If I find it was another 'technical problem' with the door locks, there will be no medicine for any of you for a month!"

"It was Nibs, not us!" Slightly complained. "We didn't have anything to do with it!"

Darling poked a furious finger on his chest until he stepped back, his face marred with pouting petulance.

"It's the third time! I told you both to keep an eye on him and not let it happen again. You will all bear the punishment this time!"

The groans and whines from the disgruntled pair were enough to make Peter wince.

"How many did we lose?" Darling asked.

"Two on the east floor and one in the south wing."

"How many do we have in Kensington?"

"One is nearly ready. The others are…less ready."

Her frown deepened. "Nibs is demoted back to Kensington. John, you will go with Curly to meet the Romanians in Iași and then return to inviting more guests. Slightly, I need you to deliver a note to my contact in Volterra. And we will need a new Captain for the young Pirates."

They both nodded grimly. They would do it, but they made sure Darling knew they wouldn't like it. It was only then that she noticed Peter.

"What is he doing here?"

"Singing," John answered.

"Singing?" she answered, one eyebrow raised in question.

"That's what I said…my Lady," though the latter phrase was added more as an exaggerated afterthought.

"I told you. They aren't allowed up here. Put him back."

"Of course, my Lady," John answered again, speaking her title like it was an insult. He scooped up Peter and soon the wind and the darkness of the tunnels engulfed him again.

ooooo


"You've been promoted," John told him soon after that. John burst into the Storage Rooms where Peter frantically filled the deliveries alone and attempted to keep track of a job that used to be completed by two. His head swung up from his cart of bottles when he heard John's voice, but he did not stop working with his hands.

"Oh, it's you," he said, without any real enthusiasm. "What do you want?"

"Our Lady requires more Pirates and I recommended you for the job of Captain. You are welcome, by the way, though I doubt you are intelligent enough to thank me for it."

"I don't see why this is something I should appreciate you for," Peter answered as he continued sorting. He counted methodically in his head and hoped he hadn't lost count.

"Because it gets you out of this dank, lonely cave and gives you the opportunity to share your great and astounding wisdom with the next generation of Pirates. That should give your idealistic little heart something to crow about. You can put that veritable treasure trove of knowledge I gave you to good use and make me look awesome."

Peter rolled his eyes.

But John wasn't wrong. Arrogant and demeaning, yes, but not wrong. When Peter was ushered into a special bunkroom in Kensington Gardens filled with young Pirates, he did begin to simmer with excitement. Bright green eyes all faced him, eager for his sounds and syllables, stories and songs, and he gladly filled them till they brimmed and overflowed with all he could give them. Each successive generation of Pirates that completed their training set out into the ever-expanding tunnels of Neverland filled with all that Peter thought important, ready to serve their Lady to their utmost abilities.

Peter thrived, and so did his charges. John gloated and preened himself over how clever he was, but Peter ignored him, as he usually did. Peter didn't care what John thought. There was only one opinion which he bothered to care about…and Peter might have crowed on the inside when he caught her favor. His work pleased his Lady so much that she complimented him and offered him a reward of his choosing.

"What is it that you want?" she asked him.

At first, he was tempted to request for a "thimble" but he knew better. After a moment's thought, he knew what it was he truly wanted.

"Books!" he answered. "I wish for books!"

She shook her head, but gave him one of her rare, genuine smiles. The next week, an entire room in the Jolly Roger overflowed with books. Peter would make sure that every Pirate learned to read.

Oooo


Pirates came and went. Young ones grew and learned to walk and talk. Old ones grew withered and grey and went to visit Captain Hook after they failed to wake. Peter noticed his hair grew thicker and his beard darker before, one day, it grew in with a long patch of grey instead of red on one side. He had to squint and find better light to read the tiny letters in his books and one day an ache started in his back that never fully went away again.

Peter's life all changed in a rush of noise one day, many years later. He was resting in his room after a long day of lessons when his door burst open. John, Thomas, Slightly, and their Lady entered without a knock and faced him.

"Is this the one?" she asked.

"Yes," John said. "Unfortunately."

"So, you are certain it has to be this one? Of all the Braves we have made, we must resort to using a Pirate?" she asked, fury undergirding her tone.

"Yes. I'm afraid so. That quarrel in the barracks took out all the others who could have done it. He's an idiot, but he's an intelligent idiot and he will do as he's told," John said with a grimace.

"Why am I surrounded by idiots and ineptitude?" she said in a flurry of temper unlike anything Peter had ever seen from her. "He's nearly an old man now. Look at him. He's three steps from Captain Hook. How long have we had this one?"

"Over thirty years, my Lady."

"Well, it's nothing the transformation won't fix, though he will certainly stand out from among the rest. Bring him."

The three men corralled Peter and ushered him down the maze of halls to the room that Peter barely remembered first waking in. Then, they rolled in a table made of metal with straps covering it and they forced him to lay in it with his hands and feet bound to the table. He looked around in confusion, trying to figure out just what was happening to him.

Then Darling emerged from the shadows, her nostrils flared and her eyes burning. She slowly, slowly leaned over him until her hair covered his face and he couldn't see anything else but her curtain of brown waves. At first, he thought she was going to lay her head on his chest. She didn't. His heart pounded as he felt her lips against his neck. Then it was her teeth that he felt instead and he cried out in pain as fire spread from the wound to the farthest reaches of his body. No matter how he screamed, the burn never lessened. No matter how he cried, no one came to make it go away.

When it finally ended, nothing was the same again.

Nothing.

Oooooo


Author's Notes:

I keep separating this chapter in half…only to have it still get unruly and long and separating it again! We'll stop it here at eight pages instead of letting it go on to twenty...twice over!

Shout out to Amokitty-Captain Hook is all your fault! ;) Hope you enjoyed!

"Overland" is a reference to C.S. Lewis', The Silver Chair.

The River Styx-in Greek mythology, those who were dipped in the river (like Achilles) gained supernatural strength and immortality as opposed to those who crossed the river and joined the dead in the underworld.

I quote J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan throughout. While I do greatly enjoy the writing and layers of symbolism used in J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan, I do not enjoy the representation of the Native Americans he employs. I am intentionally using the term "Braves" as companion to "Pirates" because it is functionally equivalent and so I can avoid the frankly racist and offensive use of "Piccaninnies" that Barrie employs. While a product of the ideas of the time, the ideas of the time are really awful (yeah, try reading academic articles and legislation on Native Americans from this time period. They are even worse sometimes than the fiction.) All that to note, we have no "tribe of redskins" in this version of Neverland (people group caricatured with racial stereotype), but we do an "army of braves" (term for a group of soldiers characterized by adherence to a particular military style).