Hook & Jill (The Hook & Jill Saga) (24 page)

The floor moved with the sea. Wendy adjusted her stance and peeled her hands from the desk. With the first point agreed, she paused to discipline her emotions.

“I want you to release Nibs and Tootles. They can go to London as well, or with the Twins, or Slightly. Wherever they choose, except back to Peter.”

No reaction, only one raised eyebrow.

In the face of his silence, Wendy continued. “You will soon have your way, with all of us. You’ve made good your threat. There will be no more boys for me to mother.”

“No, no more boys, and no girl. Only men, and their women. Mothers, partners… and paramours.”

Why couldn’t she keep her balance? “Clearly, your end game has changed,” she said. “You could have killed Peter, or maimed him. But what you want now is to keep me away from him.”

Hook nodded slowly, assessing her. “I see you have begun to perceive the more subtle shadings.”

“I see that you meant to frighten me yesterday. But I believe you do intend to end your pursuit of the blood feud, after all.”

“I do intend to have my vengeance. The decision as to what form it will take rests with you.”

“Then I choose mercy. I choose to leave Peter. Will that satisfy you?”

“You will find I am not easily satisfied.” Hook appraised her again, hungrily, then settled his gaze on her face, approving all he had observed. “I’d not have troubled with you, however, if I didn’t believe you capable.”

“You are watching me betray him, just as you anticipated. You were right. It’s much sweeter this way, isn’t it? You needn’t bother to kill me to make Peter alone.”

Hook’s smile was icy. He took his time, tasting the words. “My best revenge. Not only will Pan be deprived of your company, he will be completely deserted. The boys will have flown, all his family will have grown up, and, one way or another, his worst enemy will hold his treasure, his Wendy. Pan will know without doubt that you, all of you, were not forced to leave him, but
wanted
to leave him… utterly alone.” He paused, savoring it. “Exquisite torture.”

Wendy stared. So that was his purpose! She had guessed its direction, but not its depth. She faltered, astonished. She hesitated. Then she had to ask. “But… what of Tinker Bell?”

His smile warmed by degrees. Pointedly, he reached for a crystal vial on his desk. Its contents glowed golden in his hand. He tilted his head. “You are referring, I believe, to my Jewel?”

Wendy exhaled. She stood, rocking with the sea, taking it all in. The scheme was even more ingenious than she had divined, with a neat twist of the knife. It made her lip curl. She looked at Smee, by the door. He wore a look of pride.

She turned back to Hook. He set the vial down with a deliberate chink. He waited. The ship lurched, groaning. This time, Wendy remained steady. As ever, it had only been waiting for an excuse to appear: her face relaxed, and slowly, irresistibly, her lips accepted the smile, and when it finally assumed its proper shape, it matched his own. “Exquisite.”

All her boys were safe. She had been right to trust that. “Exactly how I needed you to do it.… You
have
been protecting me, on several levels.” Her feet dragged on the rug as they drew her toward him. “You could have destroyed us all, but you chose a more civilized course.”

He closed the gap between them and looked down into her eyes. “I chose the course that led most directly and most deliciously to my desires.” His fingertips brushed her cheek. “I could so easily have taken a more ruthless route. That was the original plan. And I was attached to it. Passionately.” His passion lingered in his look.

“What changed you?”

He took one step back, and swept a gaze from her feet to her face. “An eagle, and a mermaid.”

Something, not the waves, tested her balance again. “You’ll have to tell me the story… one night.”

“I shall be charmed to tell it, but it will have to wait for morning light. Shall we consider it another article of your terms?”

“Yes, I insist.” The mention of terms recalled her, however vaguely, to business. Struggling to remember the reason for this interview, she managed to think one last time of the boy. “We have only to determine Peter’s fate now.”

“That’s done.” His voice was velvet. “We have only to determine your own, Beauty.”

“Yes.” She was in shreds again.

“Don’t forget to breathe, love.” He was smiling at her, gratified. But he considered her, and his expression intensified, like that of a starving man beholding a banquet. Eagerly, he drew closer. “What is your conclusion, then? How will the storyteller give me what I want, so I can live happily ever after?”

She took his advice, breathing before she plunged. “I swear to join your crew as you requested, in whatever capacity you command.… Swear to me you’ll free Nibs and Tootles.”

“No.” Geniality vanished. Hook lowered his chin, his eyes narrowing as they bored into hers. “I take no martyrs aboard the
Roger
, to suffer virtuously. No one joins my crew to be
noble
.” A hint of anger.

Wendy struggled through her shock. “But what more do you ask? I’m right where you wanted me. Aren’t I? Isn’t everyone?”

“And are you where
you
want to be?”

“I am where I have to be! Where you demand that I be!”

“I can read your heart, remember? What I ask, what I demand, is the truth that is reflected in your eyes.”

“But you—”

Swiftly, he hoisted his claw, snarling. Wendy’s frightened eyes followed it, caught it flaring above her in the candlelight.

“Come to me honestly, or leave me alone!” On that hated word, he swung toward the desk and with a savage stab, splintered its top. The contents trembled; Wendy flinched, blinking.

He leaned toward her. His voice came low and forceful now, through clenched teeth. “Come to me to satisfy the pirate in
you
.” He ascended to his full height, warning. “Otherwise, stay away!” He freed the hook with a violent yank, then strode to the door. Smee hastened to open it and Hook swept from the cabin, into the familiar Darkness of night. Smee followed, sending Wendy a regretful look before closing the door behind him, leaving her alone.

She stared after them, then turned to the desk, trying to see sense in the contrast between the hideous gash and the fine polished wood. Needing to understand, as if it was her own wound gouged by that stark metal claw, she lifted her hand to touch the splinters, feeling them prick her fingertips. Courage draining away, she pulled herself back, ebbing into the chair.

Hook was not going to make it easy for her. He wanted something she hadn’t prepared herself to offer. He wanted her absolutely— not just a willing sacrifice to gain her own ends, but committed to his. She must become a real pirate, like Hook. Like Jill. She must never look back. It was a decision to be made for herself only, not for Nibs or Tootles, or any of the boys. Her time of protecting them was over. Whatever her choice, she would have to choose it completely, with no guarantees, and for herself alone.

But she wouldn’t be alone, if she chose piracy. She would be with Hook. He would make her his woman in every sense. He had made it very clear; her own reaction to him affirmed it. They both knew. She didn’t want to be alone any more than he did. And his terms were simple, he demanded only one thing. The most potent part of any creature. He had even cut it free for her so that she could give it to him. Her heart.

What options were left to her? To go home with the boys, narrowing her life, hacking at it until it fit into her parents’ conventional world. To hover with Peter, yearning and afraid on the edge of completion, never knowing who would be safe. Or sail rough seas with the crew of the
Roger
, throwing care to the four winds and unfurling the colors of her own barbarity— as Red-Handed Jill. She raised her pale palm and stared at it.

She wasn’t fit for any of these choices. One look in the mirror this afternoon told her she could never go home. One look in Peter’s eyes told her she would never be free. One look at Hook, just one more, and—

“I’m to see you off, Miss.” Mr. Smee towered over her, apologetic. “The captain sends his regrets.”

Seeing her sinking, he offered his hand to help her up. “Oh, and he says you’re to have this back, if you’re wanting it.” He retreated to the table and picked up a humble object that had been sitting there all the time, overshadowed by a plush green pillow. Smee put her basket into her hands. Wendy looked down at it, her heart aching and her suspicions confirmed; knowing her weaknesses, Hook had been thorough, ensuring she would come to him. In the basket she recognized the baby teeth she had missed that morning. To each little pearl, a few grains of sugar still clung. She had forgotten to ask for them.

“Someone had a sweet tooth, eh, Miss?” Smee peered over his spectacles at her and smiled.

“Yes, Mr. Smee. Thank you. My parents will be happy to have these tomorrow.”

“Begging your pardon, Miss, but you’re fair breaking my heart with that long face!”

“Aye, Smee. Begging
your
pardon.”

“Will it cheer you a bit, if I tell you?” He bent down to share a significant look. “The boys are both happy in their boots.”

The floor finally dropped away. “You mean— all this was for nothing!”

“Oh, no, Miss. Cap’n never does something for nothing.”

* * *

She dropped the basket in Neverbay as she sailed over it, bound for the hideout. Its pearls were secreted, tied in one end of the gun’s sash. The basket floated for a while, then scuttled itself, like Wendy’s dreams. She didn’t look back to watch it. She would think of it later, derelict at the bottom of the bay, one more wreck of things that might have been.

Why was it that as she swept upward along the cliff and hung poised at the brink, she didn’t feel the wind at her back, she didn’t feel the moisture of the forest, or the grip of her belt or the weight of her weapon? Her only feeling was one of disappointment.

Everything she could do she had done for her family, for herself. She was no longer anchored by any obligation. But she didn’t feel free, even now, for the one thing she considered, the thing she found herself wishing as she glided through the trees and the ground pulled her lower and lower, was that the captain of the
Roger
had returned to his cabin to bid her goodbye. Her single desire was to look into those beautiful eyes. One last time.

Chapter 22

Deliverance

The shadow left the ship and the salt air behind, whipping into the wood and across the Island to a place of peace. It settled upright in the grass, silent as the breeze, reforming into solid boy. He grinned. Healing and joy lived here in the fairy garden, indiscriminating, alongside other more sinister flavors. Free to all, and all were welcome. Peter almost laughed. He drew his knife, never more happy than when hunting.

Not until it had raped the border bush, the wild holly with its soft-edged leaves, did his blade return to its sheath. The leaves looked mild, but like the fruit of the plant, they were potent. He’d gleaned enough to upset the toughest of stomachs, leaving the spills on the ground, the berries, black and deadly. No need for them yet. Let the parrots have them, they needed thinning out anyway. This time he did laugh, and the lights within the fairy ring flickered, then continued their dances, ignorant of the blade.

The boy opened his Wendy-pocket to receive the cuttings. They were sacrificed for her benefit, an offering from the garden, a much better gift than the flowers blooming, scenting and dying around him to no purpose. Flowers were fragile, but these pickings would redeem her from a beast more vile than the one he would unleash this night.

Peter pushed off and upward, his feet forcing the berries down, receiving their stain, returning them to the earth to seed it and spread their poison to a new generation. He and his shadow doubled back to haunt the banks of a chanting stream, slipping past a clearing where burned the embers of outcast fire. They ended their journey at a pool choked with willow and slime, where ghosts of breezes sighed among the branches and the lonesome skeleton tree rattled its leaves.

Pulling his knife again, he parted the boughs and sounded a low whistle. He got down on his knees, listened, and slunk into the grotto. In his pouch he carried golden dust, and deliverance for his ally, the one with fire in its eyes and a ticking god in its belly.

Peter smiled his wicked smile. The creature might never get to Paradise, but it would die trying.

* * *

Dawn awakened the mountain encampment, shrugging off a gray light that muted the colors of Rowan’s blanket. His mother wasn’t there to search beneath it for the twin she had foreseen for him, but even as he regretted her absence, he was satisfied with his companion’s presence. His night and his tepee had not been empty. Now it was time to rise and initiate the quest.

Lightly was ready. He threw open the tepee flap. He’d outgrown the entrance to the hideout, but he had no trouble fitting through the tepee’s opening. It was large enough for two men. “We will act as braves today. Our weapons are waiting to be found.”

“Yes. Old friends, like new, deserve rescue from the tomb.”

As they emerged into the morning, the cooking fires warmed to their work and sleepy children clung to their mothers’ skirts. Old men leaned against the lodge, their blankets snagging on the logs, and peered at the sky. Young boys watched them with sharp eyes, learning. As the sun climbed, the camp took on its color, and its people their purposes, Rowan and Lightly among them. The two young men gathered necessities for their journey, rolling their packs and slinging them on their backs.

The old woman picked her way toward Rowan, her balance no longer in her feet but in her back. She hailed him and he hurried to meet her, to save her steps. Lightly followed, eager to greet again this Old One who had scrutinized him upon his arrival at the camp yesterday evening, laying her papery palm on his forehead and pronouncing him welcome.