Hook & Jill (The Hook & Jill Saga) (17 page)

“Peter is only a boy,” she said, “and Hook laid his trap very cunningly. We all walked right into it, starting with the sailing of the
Roger
, and the Indians breaking camp. I should have seen it.” She wished she could consider Hook in the rational way she had considered Peter, but doing so was impossible. The closeness of their encounter made her thinking unruly. Her pulse still beat unnaturally fast.

“But Wendy, he was so angry!”

“Oh, no, I never saw a man so horrifyingly calm.”

“I meant Peter. He nearly slit your throat!”

“Oh.… Yes! But John, I won’t be afraid any more. I’ll explain to him, and you know how he is. By tomorrow he’ll probably think it was all a grand adventure. I only hope he doesn’t rush into revenge tonight.” The next moment, she tensed. “What if he’s already stormed the ship searching for us?”

“He and the boys might be at it again!”

John and Wendy looked at each other, faces white as the moonlight.

“Wake Michael quickly, we have to go.” She stood and collected herself for her youngest brother’s sake, and for her own, but her heartbeats refused to slow.

With a gentle nudge, John roused Michael. “It’s time to go home, Michael. Can you fly?”

“To the nursery? I was dreaming of a nightlight.” He blinked at the little moving stars. “It must have been the fairies.”

Wendy took his hand to pull him up. “Not the nursery tonight. But maybe, if the window’s open, you’ll go back there soon.”

“Are there fairies there?”

“If a fairy loves you, Michael, it will follow you anywhere.”

“Wendy, you love Peter like Tinker Bell does, don’t you? That’s why you were so brave.”

Her smile came through again. “You were brave, too, you and John. You saved my life.”

John stood very tall and faced his sister. He had to look down to her by now; adventure after adventure had taught him lessons he’d have never learned in London. He shook his head. “No, Wendy. Captain Hook saved your life.”

She hadn’t thought of it that way. She thought of it now.

“Right after he nearly lost it for me!”

The fairy stars continued to orbit their budding planets as the two Darlings and their sister skimmed away over the dark, drowsing treetops toward the only shelter the Island afforded, the home that had formed and nurtured them. Peter Pan’s secret hideout under the ground.

* * *

All alone and injured, Peter presided over the evening ritual. One by one, the Lost Boys had swallowed their medicine, and now, with the nightlight burning, they slept in the one big bed. Their solitary chief reigned from his willow chair, surrounded by its leafy blades and trying not to coddle his wound. A grubby bandage wrapped around the slash. Jewel perched on his hand, which was far too still to be a part of Peter. But it hadn’t been cut off. Its stillness was just a measure of his pain.

Jewel, too, was still and in pain, yet she was sure her part in the play would work out for the best. Her heart was too small to master the grand plan, but that didn’t mean the plan wasn’t at work. She had faith. The discomfort wouldn’t last, and Time would arrange everything. Time and—

She and Peter swiveled toward the sounds only one of them hoped to hear. Three swishes in the tree trunk, and Michael, John, and Wendy were back. Wendy?

Wendy! Peter leapt up grinning, ignoring the fire of his arm. Jewel fluttered, confused, to alight on the back of his chair.

“You came back!”

Wendy beheld the bright green eyes almost covered by his golden hair, and the dagger, silver once more and, she was relieved to see, at his belt. Just like the first time she’d ever seen him. “We’re back. Are the children all right?”

“Of course,” he said, and gripped his elbow. “How did you get away?”

“We flew away right after you did.” Wendy noted the bandaging. His wound was haphazardly wrapped in a cloth none too clean.

“Why didn’t you come home? The boys and I tried to rescue you but we couldn’t find the ship. Hook must be hiding from me.”

“It will be back in the bay by morning, I’m sure of it. He—” But with chilling clarity, Hook had indicated his goal was to kill Peter. Why had he missed two opportunities in one day? Wendy shivered at the question; today’s experience hinted how unfathomably deep Hook’s motivations might plunge.

Then, with an effort, she stirred herself toward her duties. Touching each of her brothers on the shoulder she said, “John, Michael. Please go to bed.” She remembered how, to a child, bed seemed the safest place to be. As of tonight, she envied that feeling, and those who could believe in the shelter of the covers.

But John, no longer quite a child, threw Peter a distrustful look. “Wake me if you want, Wendy.” He didn’t hang up his knife tonight, but kept it with him.

Peter eyed him, then glanced at his own injured arm. “I got a scratch today. It was glorious, wasn’t it?”

Wendy bit her lip, but found herself approaching Peter with less caution than had been her habit. Her instinct informed her now that he wouldn’t startle any more. Tangling at the point of Peter’s knife this afternoon, they had been too intimate to be shy. Still, she was glad to have business to tend, and she pushed Peter toward his chair. “I’ve brought you an herbal poultice from the Fairy Glade. Let me put it on.” Jewel jumped to his shoulder, and with delicate motions, Wendy lifted his wrist to lay his arm on that of the chair. As she removed the red wrappings, he merely winced, and although she touched him, his demeanor continued bold.

He shrugged, boasting, “This is nothing. It won’t slow me down.”

Diplomacy had gotten her nowhere with Peter, and Wendy had had enough of it. “I’m tired of mopping blood off you boys. I’d like to draw some myself for once!” Like Jill, she thought. On any other day, the comparison might have startled her.

Peter brooded as he watched her hands. “I would have drawn blood. I would have killed him.” Wendy straightened, her fingers hovering near the ruby line at her throat. Had he forgotten the blood he’d drawn, already? Loath to remind him, she didn’t answer.

“I gave him the hook he used against me.” He said it proudly.

Wendy saw the irony. She’d seen it all day. It had been intended that she should see it. “You do seem to have gotten back a bit of your own. But you still don’t understand. Everything that happened is because of what you did to him. Everything that is still happening.”

Peter looked mischievous. “He’d have done the same to me.”

Wendy paused to get used to him again. With reluctance, she smiled. She shook her head and bent over his arm to dress the wound. It was not as deep as she had feared, but it would leave a scar, no doubt of that. How much uglier was the scar Peter had left on Captain Hook? That was a more difficult thought to get used to, and she shuddered, and shoved it from her mind.

“Maybe, Peter. But today he had the perfect chance to do the same to you. He could have taken your hand, and he refused it. Why?” One thing she knew now. Hook had reasons for everything he did, or didn’t do.

“Why did you give your kiss to him?”

Wendy looked up, surprised. “He wanted it.” And she was even more surprised by her answer. Her eyes were drawn to the fairy, who glowed with a warm light that spilled onto Peter’s wound. “I didn’t think you could see my kiss.”

“I can’t. Tink told me.” His face grew stern. “But I saw you giving it to him.”

Wendy was wary. She kept her eyes on him. Jewel watched Wendy with her wings shut tight.

“What did he give you for it?”

“Give me?” Her insides lurched. “For a kiss?”

For her kiss, he had given her… his own.

Wendy caught up to her beating heart. “It really doesn’t concern you, Peter. I’m sorry you happened to see it. You should never have known.” But his knowing had been intended, as well.

“We should know everything about each other, Wendy. We’re a family.”

With a pitying look, Wendy studied Peter. He really was innocent. His wonderful belief in himself made her feel oddly sorry for him. Today’s incidents had shaken Wendy, but granted her in exchange a valuable lesson. Peter, on the other hand, seemed unscathed even by his injury, and at the Fairy Glade Wendy came to understand that as long as his experience never changed his outlook, he could sustain his confidence. A naïve kind of Paradise, to be sure, but one in which, at least up to now, Peter made his home.

A peculiar silence attracted Wendy’s attention, and the girl looked to his fairy, so close to him, whose downcast head gave evidence that this member of the family might have her own secrets to conceal. Wendy wondered if she’d gained an ally on this front. But the sprite remained quiet, and Wendy renewed her effort with Peter. Clinging to patience, she adopted a guiding tone. “People do keep some things secret as they grow up, even from those they love.”

Peter winced again. At her words, or at the pain? “Another reason not to grow up. I don’t want you to keep secrets from me.”

Exasperated, she sighed. “Well, I seem to have none now!” Jewel released a grace note. Wendy sat on the hearth and threw the bandage in the fire. It burned with an acrid cloud that quickly dissipated, like a genie emerging from its bottle.

A genie of truth. Wendy did have secrets, as innocent as baby teeth. She had withheld the truth instinctively, loosening Peter’s vines to be comfortable in her clothing, hiding evidence of the boys’ growth to protect them. Yet those secret parts of her that she had tried to reveal to Peter— her love, her kiss— he hadn’t accepted.

But Wendy’s eyes were clear. If he had looked to see the truth in them, he’d have found it. He was too young, he hadn’t the perception. It was no wonder he had been blind to the subtle shadings of this afternoon’s design. Startled by that thought, Wendy stopped to consider her own perception.
Subtle shadings.
… Shades… of black?

Sitting rigidly still, she guarded the fire as if another cloud of candor might issue from it. Like Peter, Wendy desired truth, but found it unsettling. Peter hadn’t seen her variations, but someone else certainly had. Someone with an eye for color and a talent for arranging it. A man. A man had kissed her, awakening something primal within her, and now there were more hidden truths. What else would burst from the genie’s magic bottle? Other richly-colored things, other stuffs and textures she hoarded and fingered but that she herself could not yet see.

The face she had watched so often in the firelight, Peter’s face, was free of shadows now, and questioning.

“Why does Hook want a mother, Wendy?”

The ache began, pulling from inside. She drew breath. “You may never be old enough to understand that, Peter.”

Jewel’s light pulsed again. She sat up straight, tilting her head to one side and arching her back, like a being spellbound and drawn by an irresistible power. Her wings quivered, then blossomed, illuminated in a way Wendy had never before observed. The light of the fire shone right through them. Jewel smiled to herself, half closed her eyes, and drifted above Peter’s shoulder. Then, as if summoned by some mysterious force and compelled to obey, she formed an arc to the hollow tree. Wendy could still see the blue glimmer as the creature swooped up the shaft. It intensified to astonishing brightness.

Jewel let out one ringing note in farewell. It calmed Wendy to hear it, as had the voices in the fairy universe. It encouraged her to say what needed to be said.

“But understand this, Peter. I was afraid of you today.”

Peter sprang from his chair and stood with perfect posture. “It’s all right, Wendy. I forgive you.”

Wendy’s father couldn’t have delivered the declaration better. The boy had to be pretending! “Forgive me?” she exclaimed. “I’ve done nothing wrong!”

“You said you would leave me.”

“Because Hook threatened you!”

Peter grinned, wickedly. “For no better reason than that?”

Her mouth opened in amazement, then she laughed. “My own words! Clever you.” Becoming serious again, she got to her feet. “But you know I was trying to keep our family safe. You nearly destroyed it.”

Peter’s enticing smile stole across his face, the smile that had drawn her from the nursery to the Neverland. “Wendy.” And under the force of that smile, she remembered why she came away with him that night. He took a step forward to stand close to her. “You worry too much about what’s safe.” He leaned toward her, his eyes beguiling her, again. “Let’s just do what’s fun.”

The walls of twisty tree veins seemed to Wendy to bear down, to be burying their roots deeper into the ground. She scented the earthy smell of their growth, and she heard the sleeping breath of the boys curled in the bed. The little cavern was warm, full of repose, full of promise. Did it promise what she wanted?

Peter was so perfect in his imperfection. Wendy admired his handsome face, wondering. She had to be sure, now that the spell was broken. She took his arms in her hands and, gingerly, so as not to hurt his wound, drew them around her waist. Peter’s eyes gleamed with confidence, as if he could give her that something else he promised her when she first trusted him, whatever it was. She felt the vitality of his young body against her own. She felt his wish to keep her near. She wove her arms around his neck, touched her lips to his, and kissed him.

There was passion there. There was, and it moved her. But it moved her backward. It beat in a subtle tempo, like Time. It reminded Wendy of birth, of mortality, and of death. The smell of the cavern turned dank in her nostrils. She drew away. She knew now. She would move forward, or she would die.

Peter looked at her, curious. “Do I have to give you something?”

Released, she moved on to the next adventure. “Yes! I want a weapon. A dagger, or even a sword.” She wouldn’t look back.

“You won’t need it. I’ll protect you.”

“I needed it today! I have to be ready to protect myself. And I’m sure I have the skills, it seems natural to me somehow. I never felt that before today.” Like a lot of other things.

“Don’t worry, Wendy. I’ll kill him! Nibs and Tootles and I have formed a plan of attack. I’ll take Slightly tomorrow and we’ll call a pow-wow with the Indians. We’ll make truce so we can defeat the pirates together. I’ll get you the
Roger
, yet!”