By the time I was ten, my childhood on the mainland felt like a distant dream, a blur of fading memories. I couldn't remember my mother's face, or the warmth of my grandparents' home—but the boy who saved me? Him, I could never forget. My memories might have been lost to the winds, but the first time I saw Neverland remained as clear as the sun-drenched days that stretched out on the island.
If I closed my eyes at night and reached far enough back, I could still picture my father—Captain Hook, the man everyone feared—pouring that strange golden dust all over the ship. Pixie Dust, he called it, his voice gruff as he explained its rare power. It seeped into the wooden planks of the Jolly Roger, turning them from a reddish brown to a shimmering gold, the color of treasure. My father had obtained it through a fairy named Zarina, long before she betrayed him. What I remember most vividly was the moment the ship began to creak and groan, the very air around us trembling as the vessel lifted from the inky sea and rose into the deep navy sky. There, far from any land, the line between sea and sky blurred until nothing separated the two.
We sailed toward the brightest star in the night sky, and when we drew near, the star burst into a kaleidoscope of color—like the opening of a new world, as if we had crossed the threshold of reality into a living fairytale. Beyond that explosion of color, the island appeared. I had heard of it many times from the crew, but seeing it with my own eyes? Neverland was alive with vibrancy, far beyond anything I could have ever dreamed.
That first glimpse became the first of many days in the cove. Days turned into weeks, months, and then years. Life aboard the Jolly Roger wasn't easy at first, not for a child, and certainly not for a girl. For the first few weeks, I kept asking my father when we'd go back to see my mother and grandparents. His silence was answer enough, and eventually, I stopped asking. There was no point in trying to break through the barrier he had put up. All I could do was adapt, and that's exactly what I did.
Mr. Smee helped soften the transition. Kind, gentle Mr. Smee. He was nothing like the other pirates, with their harsh words and rough ways. He made my new life bearable, at least in those early days when I was learning how to navigate this new world. I kept out of the crew's way as much as I could, staying quiet and busy. I learned to sew, first mending torn clothes, then sails battered by storms and the island menace. I repaired the ship's deck when it leaked, hammered planks into place, and scrubbed the deck clean until it gleamed under the hot sun.
The only conversations my father seemed willing to have with me were about Neverland. Over time, I came to know the island's mysteries as well as anyone on board. He told me about the strange inhabitants: the mermaids with their technicolor scales, fairies with their shimmering wings, and beasts from myths that prowled the island's wild spaces. The mermaids were shy, fearful of pirates, content to collect shells in their lagoon. The fairies, elusive as they were, could sometimes be spotted as tiny glowing dots, scanning the shoreline under the cover of darkness. And the beasts—well, the less said about them, the better. Some were friendly, others vicious, but none could be trusted.
Of all the inhabitants, the ones that fascinated me the most were the Native People. Pirates believed the island had created them, lonely as it was, to populate its lands. No one knew for sure, though. What was strange—what unsettled me—was that unlike us, unlike the pirates, the Native People aged. They had elders, children who grew up into adults. It didn't make sense, not in a place where time seemingly stood still.
The island itself was a mystery, one that my father obsessed over. He believed he had found the fabled Fountain of Youth, except it wasn't a fountain at all—it was the entire island. No one who lived there aged beyond eighteen unless they had already crossed that threshold, and even then, time slowed to a crawl. It was the reason my father looked the same as he had since I could remember. Immortality, he called it. And I had plenty of time before I would reach the age where aging would stop for me.
But Neverland was also home to a darker force, the one my father called "The Island Menace." Peter Pan. He was the island's "protector", or so my father believed, created by the island itself to stop us from claiming its power. He was ruthless, a shadow that appeared when we least expected him, and he never came alone. His Lost Boys followed him like a pack of wild dogs, ready to do his bidding.
Legend has it, the day the Pirates entered Neverland was the day everything changed; the day Neverland awoke again. The Pirates began to scour the island for Pixie Hollow, to find the source of the pixie dust and claim it for their own. With it's power and Neverland as a pirate base, they would be unstoppable gods in the mainland. There are many versions of the story, but I would always remember the version Father told me… The day he met the Island Menace, who appeared practically out of thin air. Some say that he, the island menace, had always been there in the shadows, studying them, learning their intentions and calculating his attacks; a demon sent to destroy them… But Father thought different. He believed that the island created the menace to protect itself; no other being could harness such power, yet have such an undying passion to protect the island. Allied with the Native People and Fairies, the Flying Menace drove out the Pirates and sent them crawling back to the Jolly Roger, where they remained. The menace made it difficult to tread to the island, but over the years, before my time, they had learned the menace's routine, and worked around that to obtain resources. By the time I arrived to Neverland for the first time, before I was even born, this had all been established on the island.
Because of The Island Menace, came the night that changed everything for me.
The ship groaned beneath the weight of the waves, the sea choppier than usual under the light of a full moon. I was sound asleep in my hammock, swaying gently in my father's cabin. He didn't trust the crew to keep me safe and hidden, so I always slept near him. Across the room, Father laid in a cot that was nailed to the floor so it would not shift with the waves of the ship. But that night, a scream split the air, followed by a violent splash. I bolted upright as my father leapt from his cot, grabbing his sword and ordering me to stay put before he rushed out the door. His command, as always, was absolute.
But something was wrong. Peter Pan never attacked this late.
From the tales that I had been told, I had learned to fear the Menace. He would steal resources from the men, rip sails that I would eventually have to mend, throw men overboard and more; but up until that night, I had never seen him cause physical harm to another being, which admittedly brought me comfort, what little I had. A loud slam against the door sent me bolting up from the hammock, onto my bare feet, which had been calloused over the years of walking barefoot across the hot deck. A feeling of bravery washed over me, knowing that I needed to bolt the door the remain safe and hidden away. If the menace of his rag-tag team of runaway boys discovered me, who knows what they would have done. Before I could fully comprehend why I was doing what I was doing, my feet carried me over to the door, my hands springing to bolt it, just before the handle jiggled. I didn't have time to think, only act, a virtue I supposed I got from my Father.
"It's locked!" A voice muffled from the booming sounds of the fight outside called to another, a voice that sounded older than I, but younger than the rest of the crewmen; it was not one I was familiar with at the time, which confirmed my suspicions that it was indeed one of the menace's boys. "Get away from there!" I could hear my father call out before metal clanked against one another. "Got something to hide, Captain?" I heard the snarky voice from beyond the door, one I had backed away from incase a sword decided to impale it.
I moved to the window, peeking through the once closed curtains just in time to see the chaos erupt on deck. Men scrambled, swords clashing, and there—among the crew—was one of the Lost Boys, who I would come to learn as Rufio. His blood red cape, made from a curtain he had stolen from us, billowed behind him.
My eyes were drawn to sparks flying from swords clashing in the dark, my father and Rufio, battling it out. From the way Father fought him with such valor, I assumed that Rufio had been the one pounding on the door to get inside. I watched as Father's attack was blocked by Rufio's sword, which he had stolen from another pirate.
Rufio's defense was impeccable, but his attack was noticeably more weak than Father's. The chaos around them brought my eyes to wander, searching through the crowd to familiarize myself with the faces of the lost boys, but one figure in particular caught my eyes, one that was moving in the shadows along the upper mast. His feet gliding along the mast as he looked down to the chaos as if he were a passive onlooker like me. He could barely be seen, but the subtle moves he made when he walked made it apparent that he was there to someone who may know he was there. Unlike the other boys, this one didn't fight, or yell… This one was eerily calm, yet the gleam of the dagger in his hand gave away that he was ready for a fight if he encountered one.
"Blasted!" I heard Father yell, which brought my attention back to him. Father gripped the wrist of his opponent as he knocked the sword from Rufio's hand. "This is the last of you, boy!" he bellowed as he raised his own sword to strike Rufio, who did something that caught me off guard. It would have been normal if he growed or tried to pull away, but no. He smiled. It seemed like the end for the young man, and I could tell that he knew it too, but it was as if he didn't care. Moving in the shadows, in the blink of an eye the figure that had been passively watching was closer to her father. "Papa! Look out!" I tried to call out through the chaos; but it all happened so fast, her voice silenced by the chaos.
A dagger flashed in the moonlight, and my father screamed, clutching his arm where his hand had been. It lay on the deck, still gripping his sword.
I backed away from the window, sinking to the floor, my body trembling as tears burned down my cheeks. My father's screams filled the air, but all I could feel was a burning feeling, deep and consuming. I could feel this emotion stronger than any other one she had felt before, something that had started as a speck the day I came to Neverland, slowly growing over her years with every ripped sail I patched, every piece of clothing sewn, every hole nailed…Peter Pan had taken everything from me.
"Come on," I could hear Rufio say after what seemed like eternity. "Come on!" He said more forcefully this time. Soon after his words, I could hear the quick, jaunting footsteps of the few boys before they left the ship. A small splash was heard, as if something small was thrown into the ocean during their escape.
This emotion was something so profound, I felt it in her bones. No longer would I remain passive in the shadows… I would have my revenge. I would see his end… See all of their ends.
From the clarity, I could hear the pained shouting of my father. "I'll get you for this, Peter Pan! If it's the last thing I do!"