Hook & Jill (The Hook & Jill Saga) (12 page)

None of the children required a nightlight any longer, but Wendy kept right on lighting it so as not to call Peter’s attention to their maturity. It was more difficult to conceal the status of their baby teeth. She didn’t want to ask what became of them when they disappeared from Peter’s pouch. Some shuddering impulse made her hide several of Michael’s and John’s teeth and wonder again if the nursery window was still open. In these moments, concern for her brothers’ futures would fill her heart. Perhaps they were too unfamiliar now to be admitted through the window. Perhaps the old nightlight, weary of watching, had burnt itself out.

Still confident that she belonged in the Neverland, Wendy herself was changing, and she now wore a garment of her own design. She had found her nightdress becoming short and skimpy, and ragged from her many adventures. In her new gown she felt beautiful, and much more at ease with her person.

Peter had proposed a sneak incursion aboard the pirate vessel, where he supposed must be hoarded trunks of fine dresses and linens, stolen once and ripe for looting again. Nibs and Tootles seconded the idea, eager to seize any opportunity to board the ship. But Wendy of course would not allow Peter to endanger himself or her boys for the sake of mere clothing, and had applied her mind to finding other, less risky, solutions.

It was Tinker Bell who gave her the answer. Wendy admired the appointments within the fairy’s niche. Tink enjoyed the finest furniture in the hideout, handcrafted to order by the Twins. Her best piece was the mirror they had carved. Wendy used to wonder how the mermaids fashioned their many mirrors. She now knew that like Tink’s, the glass was water drawn from the Lagoon, left to harden under a full moon. But Tinker Bell’s curtain, bed hangings, gowns and tapestries were made of some lovely fairy stuff, and Wendy had asked Peter to discover the source.

Wendy’s new dress was loose and flowing, made of layers of various shades of gauze, ranging from the fresh green of new leaves to the emerald of the twilight forest. Peter had commissioned the fabric from the Fairy Glade. The patches of material woven by fairy looms bore a faint fragrance of ginger, and were so small Wendy had to piece the swatches together. Then she hemmed it and draped it, and cinched it at her waist with a girdle of softest doe skin.

The fabric was airy as gossamer, and the least bit sticky, so that it clung more lightly than cobwebs. And like a cobweb, it was hardy, resistant to the snags and snares of the woodlands. Although her needle pierced it readily, Wendy found the material unyielding even to Peter’s knife, which she borrowed in an unsuccessful effort to trim the stuff. The fabric was deceptive. Light as it was, it simply could not be cut.

She looked more and more like the enchanted queen of her story-time, with her hair plaited into numerous braids and her cheeks grown slender. If not for the kiss waiting in the corner of the royal smile, Wendy’s mother might scarcely have recognized her now, although her father would have known her at any time. Mr. Darling had often told Wendy she was enchanted.

Peter did not object to the changes in Wendy as he did to the changes in his boys. He felt she looked more like a mother was supposed to look. And he liked her new dress so well he went out to gather vines of ivy, like his own, to twine about her, complementing its shades of green. The wind sometimes tugged at the vines until they bound her too tightly, and when Peter wasn’t looking, she would loosen them. If Peter noticed later on, he would bring fresh tendrils and twine them again to his satisfaction. Wendy thrilled to his attention and his touch but, for the sake of comfort, she became skilled at the art of discreet rearrangement, for although Peter could be distracted from the boys’ changes, his sharp eyes detected every detail of Wendy’s.

Now, as the children prepared for their outing, a soft glow lit up the tree trunk. It descended to glide into the hideout and become… Jewel. She remained suspended in the air, calm amid the chaos, waiting to be noticed. Tootles saw her first. “Tinker Bell! She’s back!” Everyone greeted her, but she didn’t answer. She just hovered with a secretive smile.

But this serenity wasn’t the only change. Surveying the fairy, John said, “Look, she’s different. Her hair’s down.”

Curly tried not to gawk. “I never knew her hair was curly, like mine!”

“Tinker Bell, you’re looking lovely.” Wendy studied her with the discretion she had learned to apply wherever her rival was concerned. “But the boys are right. You aren’t quite the same somehow.”

Peter reached out to tug the flaxen hair. “Tink, where’ve you been? We missed you last night.” The fairy favored Peter with her regard, then swept by him, touching his cheek with her passing fingertips and continuing toward her niche.

Wendy was suddenly reminded of her father again. Wasn’t that a trace of tobacco hanging in the air? As Jewel alighted, she turned to face Wendy, giving her an almost pleasant stare. Wendy had never seen that expression on the creature before. It was sort of assessing, sort of envious, but altogether unconcerned. The curtain slid closed.

Wendy turned back to the gaping boys. “Well, I’m glad she’s home safe, anyhow. I wonder where she’s been?” She mused for a moment, then said, “Remind me to tell you the story of the changeling this evening.”

She watched Peter and the boys slither up the tunnel toward adventure. John was last, and he turned to her with one hand on his dagger and one foot in the tree. “Come on, Wendy, we— What’s wrong?”

Wendy blinked. “I’ve just had an idea.” Even the fairy might be growing up! “I think my story tonight will have to be a new one, after all. About the strange things that are happening today.” Then she laughed, snatched up her basket, and flew up the tree trunk to greet whatever adventure lay ahead.

* * *

The young brave rolled up his blanket and prepared to end his journeying. The night had been another full one. He was glad. It was why he had come here.

He breathed deeply of the abundant air, turned his face to the morning light, and recalled his dream. He fixed it in his mind, along with its brothers, born of other nights, so that he could relate it to the Old Ones. They would interpret his night visions, and determine his name and his future. He wouldn’t question their wisdom. They were the ancestors.

His mother had called him Rowan. She was a wisewoman who had had dreams of her own, and in them she had seen her little son circle the rowan tree. He circled the tree until there were two of him, and then his twin flew up into the high branches. She had teased him as he grew, checking under his blanket every sun-up, and scanning the treetops, seeking the other Rowan. Rowan, the Life-Giver.

Rowan turned his back to the sacred rock, but it, too, was fixed in his mind. He would remember the breeze wailing in the forest on his left, and the wind’s fingers stirring the kettle of the sea on his right. He would remember the stars sleeping above him and the earth waking below him, and his tomahawk for company, its oaken handle in his fist. He would remember his dream of the good air being sucked from his lungs and an evil presence lurking in the darkness. The sacred place had granted a foretelling, and he honored it.

Rowan took the first step. He was going home to discover his place among men. He knew only that he had no place among women. His mother and his baby sister were gone.

Rowan took many steps, and when his feet began to ascend the slope to the plateau and he was in sight of the smoke from his village campfires, his dreamquest should have been at an end. But here he read the signs, learning that it was destined to go on.

Something was wrong.

Chapter 12

Camp Meeting

Peter led his band over the trees, across the Island, and into the territory of the Indians. Arrived at their destination, he signaled for all to fly low and dropped crouching into the wood that fringed the near side of the encampment. He listened, he watched, then he sprang into the air, launching himself end over end and touching down at the top of the totem pole. After a sweeping look around, he crowed the all-clear. The boys crept from the forest to gather in the center of the camp. Enemy territory.

“My totem is a crocodile!” Posing, Peter pressed his palms together to snap his fingers like jaws, hissing horribly. “Who’ll give us a hand?” Then he laughed and jumped backward to slide down the pole. “Take a look around, but any booty belongs to the captain, to divide up later.”

Wendy had performed her own ceremony, making an additional survey of the village, flying all around it to assure herself it was safe. She now called from the top of the pole, where the wind lashed her skirts. “Take only loose things left on the ground, boys, and no peeking in the tepees!” She tossed the basket down, leapt to the side, and caught the pole, her fingers bouncing on its bumps as she spiraled all the way. “Put everything you find in the basket— unless it’s breathing, of course.” Feeling a film coating her fingers, Wendy looked down, surprised to find them darkened with char. Observing the pole more closely, she saw that it was black in places, as if singed in some ritual of fire.

The band prowled about the camp, listening to its echoes, exploring mostly, but picking up feathers, beads, and bones where they lay abandoned here and there. Nibs found the tom-tom and was ready to awaken it with a fist when Wendy spread her hand on its smooth, stretched top. “No, Nibs. We’d best not call attention to ourselves. Let’s just pretend.” But she danced as wildly as the rest with their painted faces around the totem pole, Peter playing his pipes and the children drumming with their voices, leaping over the dead ashes in the pit and almost catching fire in spite of them.

Michael was the first to sit down and reach for the basket. “I’m going to decorate my bow to look like the Indians’.”

“I’ll show you how to bind the feathers around the handle.” Pulling a skein of leather from his Wendy-pocket, Slightly sat down cross-legged next to him. If one overlooked his light hair, Slightly in his vest and leggings appeared more like a native than any of his brothers, and telling him so was sure to bring contentment to his face.

Peter took the basket from Michael and examined the spoils. “Don’t worry too much about your bow, Michael. You’ll be getting a knife soon. I’ll see to it.” Returning the basket, he smiled like a king doling out largess. As Michael whooped with joy, Peter felt Wendy watching him. “What?” he asked.

Wendy thought fast through the gust of anxiety. Her youngest brother was growing, and Peter had marked it. She brushed her hair from her face. “Oh, it’s just that I’d like a knife of my own.” But she was anxious on this point as well, sure she would be denied; Red-Handed Jill carried a knife.

Cocking his head, Peter grinned, teasing. “You don’t have a proper belt for it, just a doe skin girdle. And I like you that way!”

Michael tugged Wendy’s arm, pulling her down to sit next to him. “I’ll let you use my knife whenever you want, now that I’m big enough to have one.”

Wendy kept her eyes on Peter. “I’d hoped that wouldn’t be for a long time, Michael. But I appreciate the offer.” Peter settled to sit on her other side and blew on her cheek. She shivered and smiled, but soon after, she secretly loosened her vines.

The band set to work, and before long, all their bows were enhanced with beads, bone, and feathers, Peter’s being the handsomest, with the best feathers as well as bits of rabbit fur above and below its grip, which was wrapped in leather. He crowed in high spirits, and shot several arrows swooshing off into the wood. Tootles watched them go, and at a signal from his chief, jumped up and plunged into the forest to retrieve them. As the stoutest boy, Tootles had become nearly fearless, and Peter might need those arrows back, for not even he knew what menace lurked among the trees.

The Twins finished their examinations of the totem pole and the frames of stretched rope the Indians used for drying skins. At present, they were wondering about papooses, having never observed these native children. Island lore maintained that papooses were bound to their mothers’ shoulders, but the mechanics of the theory baffled the Twins. “Wendy, if we were Indians, how would you carry both of us on your back?”

“One fore and one aft!” Nibs employed nautical terms whenever possible.

Wendy laughed, imagining it. “It’s lucky you can fly instead!”

Always respectful, Curly frowned. “But Wendy’s a lady. She would have a pram to push you, Twins, just like the one you fell out of when you came to the Neverland.”

“Only I’d have kept an eye on you in the first place, unlike your silly nurse.”

The Twins started in alarm. “But then we’d never have come here! Indian ladies must be much more fun than nurses. We’d rather be papooses.”

Peter got his new-idea look. “I’ll tote you! John, help out with a Twin.” The two boys slung the Twins onto their backs, John following Peter’s lead. They teetered in a precarious dance all over the camp, thrilling the youngsters as they stumbled in a magnificent pantomime, dodging trees and nearly tipping the Twins into the cold fire, coming to an abrupt halt at the river on the far side of the settlement. Peter’s new-idea look still shone as the ensuing splash resounded.

When the Twins emerged, dripping, they sputtered in excitement. “We’ve found treasure!” Squelching with their toes, they pried it up, and between them dragged forth a muddy lump which, sloshing to shore, they presented to Peter.

He looked at it sideways. “It’s a blob of muck.”

“No…” Taking it in her hands, Wendy examined it. “There’s something else here.” She knelt down on the bank to wash it, rubbing until the murk swirled away. The Twins bent over her.

“What is it, Wendy?”

“It’s pottery, a jar.” She kept scrubbing. “It’s beautiful. Look at the painted figures, crocodiles and hawks, dancing all round it.” It was wide at the bottom, narrow at the neck, red figures on glossy black. She held it out to the Twins. John, Nibs, Curly and Michael swam up for a look. They’d jumped in after the Twins, thinking a splash in the river looked like fun.

“Let me see.” Peter intercepted it. He rinsed the mud out of the inside and poured it over Curly.