The Navigator

by Sky, Erin Michelle; Brown, Steven;

  “Aye, sir,” Jukes barked, and he disappeared down the hatch in a flash, sliding down the rails without even touching the steps.

  Then Hook knelt by Nicholas’ side. He brushed Wendy’s hands away and took hold of the boy’s shirt where the bullet had punctured it. Thrusting his fingers through the hole in the fabric, he tore at it, ripping the front of the bloody shirt in two. Then he shrugged off his blue captain’s jacket and tugged his own shirt off over his head. He balled it into a wad and thrust it at Wendy.

  “Use this,” he told her. “Keep pressure on it.”

  “Aye, sir,” Wendy mumbled. She reached for the crumpled shirt without even looking at him, feeling too guilty to meet his gaze.

  Hook stood and turned his attention back to the crew.

  “Who did this?” he shouted.

  He didn’t bother to retrieve his jacket. He stood bare-chested under the sun, ramrod straight, his dark locks tied back at the nape of his neck, and he glared at each man in turn, one after another. Most of them looked down at their feet, but Cecco, the handsome Italian, stretched out a perfectly sculpted arm and pointed accusingly at Smee.

  “It wasn’t my fault!” Smee blurted out. “It was her!” He looked around for Tinker Bell, but the tiny innisfay had already flown away. Unfortunately, that left only one female to whom Smee might be referring, which was exactly the conclusion Hook reached.

  “If Miss Darling shot the boy, then why did Mr. Cecco point to you, Mr. Smee?” Hook’s voice was a quiet growl, rough and menacing.

  “She didn’t shoot him,” Smee admitted. “She was in the way.” He squared his shoulders and thrust his jaw forward. “I was shooting at the enemy, sir.”

  “I was not in the way,” Wendy finally snapped, the streaks of her tears still glistening across her face. “I was in your line of fire, which is not the same thing! You were shooting at a tiny fairy, without even looking to see who might be standing behind her! Nicholas took that bullet to save my life!”

  Her voice caught in her throat, and she turned back to the boy, sobbing quietly as she pressed Hook’s shirt to his side.

  Just then, Thomas appeared in the hatch. He stepped forward and knelt next to Wendy. “Let me see it,” he said. Wendy moved Hook’s shirt aside, and Thomas sucked in his breath.

  “Can you help him?” Hook asked.

  “I don’t know,” Thomas replied, “but I can try. Help me get him to the infirmary.”

  “Wait!” Wendy said, and she placed a protective hand on the boy’s chest.

  “Why? What is it?” Hook demanded.

  Only then did Wendy stop to consider what she had been about to say—that Nicholas should remain on deck, in case Peter came to save him. But, of course, that was impossible. If Peter showed up at all, Hook’s crew would kill him long before he could help the boy. Her hands trembled at the thought of it. She could only hope that her foolish outburst wouldn’t end in another tragedy.

  “Nothing,” she said quietly. “Just … be careful with him.” She pulled her hands into her lap and said nothing more.

  Hook thrust his chin at Cecco, who moved in immediately to pick the boy up and ease his way through the hatch, with Thomas hard on his heels.

  Then Hook turned to glare for a long moment at Wendy, and she waited for him to say what she was thinking herself. That if she hadn’t been on the ship, Nicholas wouldn’t have had to save her. That if she had been paying attention, she could have spared them both. That this was all her fault.

  But Hook didn’t say anything at all. He just turned on his heel and stalked toward Smee in quick, terrible strides, snatching the pistol from his hand.

  “As for you, Mr. Smee,” he snarled, “you shall no longer carry arms until I declare otherwise. Your recklessness is inexcusable. That you would even consider firing your weapon toward any member of this crew …”

  Whatever Hook had been about to say, he trailed off into silence. But you can imagine for yourself what he was thinking.

  And, of course, so could Smee.

  As for what Smee was thinking, well, he had no way of knowing how much he now had in common with that horrible little fairy, but they agreed with each other on several points, nonetheless.

  One. They both hated the Wendy.

  Two. They both blamed her for everything that had just happened.

  And three. They had both decided, once and for all, that the world would be a better place without her.

  hen Hook went below, Wendy followed. He snapped up his captain’s jacket without a word and dropped through the hatch, thrusting his bare arms through the sleeves as he charged along the passageway toward the infirmary. Wendy couldn’t help but notice the forceful set of his shoulders. The angry clench of his jaw. He hadn’t invited her to come along, but at least he didn’t try to stop her—a fact for which she felt humbly grateful under the circumstances.

  They arrived to find Nicholas lying on a bunk, still out cold. Thomas hovered over him, holding Hook’s bloody shirt tightly to the boy’s side with one hand, while Cecco stood before a tall wooden cabinet with row upon row of cubbyholes and drawers, all individually latched against the fickle moods of the sea.

  “My ligature kit,” Thomas was saying. “It’s in the blue tin. Third row, second drawer from the left. Yes, that one. Good. Now find me some fresh egg yolks.”

  “Egg yolks?” Cecco asked.

  “That’s right. At least two. Preferably three.”

  “But … just the yolks?”

  Hook interrupted before Thomas could launch into an explanation. “Go to the chicken coop and find us three eggs, Mr. Cecco,” he ordered. “I don’t care if you have to lay them yourself.”

  “Aye, Captain!” the Italian barked. He ducked through the door and took off running.

  Hook glanced at Nicholas and then turned to Thomas. “How bad is it?”

  “Well, it could be worse.” Thomas ran his free hand through his unruly hair and then abandoned the gesture halfway through, as though he had forgotten all about it. His palm rested on his head as he spoke, his fingers still entwined in his own locks, his elbow jutting out at an awkward angle. “The bullet passed through him, far enough to the side that it hit muscle. No vital organs. He lost a piece of a rib, but he can live without it. I’m more concerned about the loss of blood and the possibility of gangrene.”

  Hook nodded soberly. “What else do you need?”

  “I should have the rest here in my medical supplies,” Thomas replied. “Rose oil. Turpentine. I’ll pack the wound and stop the bleeding. Bandage it against miasmas, but there are no guarantees. And he’ll be in terrible pain when he wakes up.”

  “He’ll have my rum for that, at least,” Hook promised.

  Thomas nodded and finally let his hand fall to his side.

  “I’d like to help,” Wendy said quietly.

  The two men turned to look at her. Hook’s forget-me-not eyes pierced her very soul with unspoken accusation, the muscles of his jaw clenching in protest, but Thomas nodded distractedly.

  “A surgeon’s mate would be most welcome,” he said. “I could use an extra pair of hands.”

  Hook darted a suspicious glance in his direction, but the young man’s face remained as guileless as ever. After a long moment, Hook relented. “So be it. Miss Darling shall assist you for the duration. And the quartermaster shall have standing orders to give you anything you need. I’ll see to it myself.”

  Just then, Cecco returned with the eggs, gently cradled in his hands.

  “Excellent,” Thomas proclaimed.

  “You want only the yolks, correct?” Wendy asked.

  “Yes, that’s right,” Thomas agreed. “Just the yolks.”

  “I can separate them. Do you have any cups? Or small bowls?”

  “Top row, far left,” Thomas said, thrusting his chin toward the cabinet.

  Hook dismissed the Italian and was about to leave as well when he turned back toward Wendy from the doorway.

  “Save him, Miss
Darling,” he told her. And as he closed the door behind him, she heard him add, muttering under his breath, “It’s the least you can do.”

  For Wendy, time passed in a blur of fear and exhaustion.

  It took three days to complete the transfer of men and supplies to The Tiger. The ship was lovely. Fast and proud. Her decks gleamed in the sunlight, so shapely and new one might almost have called her elegant. But Wendy barely noticed. She cared only that it was small, making it easier for her to memorize the route from her tiny quarters, where she slept, to the infirmary where Nicholas fought for his life.

  He had developed a fever, so Wendy fetched fresh buckets of seawater to cool him every day, ignoring the hard glances and dark mutterings of the crew.

  “Shouldn’t be here.”

  “No place for a woman.”

  “Only leads to trouble.”

  But whenever she tried to face them directly, they turned away, dissolving into a facade of innocence. Just men minding their own business, swabbing the deck or playing games of chance. Wendy couldn’t help but feel as if a terrible storm was brewing in the belly of the ship itself—a hurricane that had awoken and now held its breath, waiting to see what would happen to Nicholas.

  But the most terrifying moment repeated itself three times a day, at dawn, noon, and dusk, when she bent over the boy’s side to sniff at his wound, praying she wouldn’t smell the hint of rot that would signal the beginning of the end. She learned everything she could from Thomas, who had studied anatomy and medicine under the great John Hunter himself, but all she really knew was that gangrene led to death.

  And that there was nothing they could do to stop it once it started.

  Nicholas was so brave it almost broke Wendy’s heart. He smiled at her weakly every morning when she arrived, and he bid her good-night every evening when she left. In between, he did his best to hide his pain, and when she knelt by his bunk to sniff at his side, the only sign of his own fear was the thin line of his lips, pressed together tightly, and the slight dimple of worry between his eyebrows. He would watch her closely, and when she looked back at him and smiled, his head would fall back to the pillow and his eyes would stare up at the ceiling, with just the smallest tear of relief.

  And then, to distract him, Wendy would tell him a story.

  She told him about the orphanage where she and Charlie had grown up, and about her mentor, Olaudah Equiano. She told him about Bartholomew Fair, with its exotic animals and impossible acrobats. She told him about King Arthur and Robin Hood, about Hercules and Odysseus, about Ali Baba and Aladdin and Sinbad the Sailor.

  And every night she would return to her quarters, with its tiny bunk and its tiny desk and its simple hanging lamp, so much like her quarters on The Dragon, but even smaller. (With the addition of a tiny porthole, through which she could see the stars.) She would press her eyelids tightly together, trying not to cry, and she would pray for Nicholas to recover—begging God and all the heavens, over and over until she fell asleep.

  Three weeks passed in this new rhythm—this narrow, worried existence that left room for nothing else—and they were both the shortest and longest weeks of her life. The shortest, because they all ran together, one day into the next, until she had no idea how much time had passed or hadn’t. The longest, because nothing makes time drag its feet like the terrible combination of fear and helplessness.

  It was then, after twenty-one days of fear and exhaustion, that they sailed into the fog.

  t hadn’t been there in the morning.

  Wendy had consulted with Charlie just after first light, as she always did, checking her compass and assuring him they were still on course. The sky was blue. The horizon was bare. And although the compass had given them a new heading twice in the first few days of sailing, the needle hadn’t moved since.

  “Truly?” Charlie muttered. “Another week and we’ll be running aground in South America.”

  “Nothing’s changed, I’m afraid,” Wendy replied quietly. “Nothing at all.”

  Charlie lowered his head and met her worried gaze. “Nicholas?” he asked.

  “The wound isn’t healing as fast as it should,” she admitted.

  Charlie’s eyes fell, and he nodded. They both knew what that could mean, but neither of them wanted to say it. Charlie reached out to hold her hand for just a moment and then let go. It was a small gesture. A quick and simple comfort between friends. But it did not go unnoticed.

  A pair of dark eyes, hovering above a button nose and an unusually wide mouth, stared at them cruelly. Ever since Nicholas had been shot (which, of course, was how Smee thought of it—since Nicholas had been shot, as though the act had been committed by no one in particular, or better yet, since Nicholas had gotten himself shot, implying it was the boy’s own fault), Smee had been watching Wendy like a hawk, hoping she would slip up in some way that might redeem him.

  If only he could catch her in some despicable act, he would gladly report her to the captain and expose her true colors, proving she was unfit to sail the seas among men, and certainly unfit for the crew of the great Captain Hook. But in all that time, she had done nothing wrong whatsoever.

  She had performed her duties as the navigator without fail, and she had tended to the wounded boy with unflagging dedication, hardly even sleeping, as far as Smee could tell. This moment of holding Charlie’s hand was the worst thing she had done, and even Smee could see that Charlie had initiated it.

  Besides, the rest of the crew might not hold hands very often, at least not as far as Smee knew, but it wasn’t expressly forbidden.

  So he still had nothing to show for all his hours of stalking Wendy through the passageways and eavesdropping on her conversations whenever he could, but Smee wasn’t one to give up. He would keep watching. He would keep listening. And eventually, when she finally made a mistake, he would be waiting.

  Wendy spent the rest of the morning with Nicholas, but things were looking grim. The boy seemed restless, shifting about in the bunk in fits and starts. The smell of death was not yet upon him, but the skin around his injury was showing new signs of redness, and it was warm to the touch.

  She tried to tell him stories to distract him, as she usually did, but he kept shutting his eyes and drifting off. So she just sat nearby and let him sleep. It was all she could do for him. She was unwilling to leave his side, not even to eat, so Thomas brought her a bowl of thin stew at midday. Nicholas ate a few meager bites but then pushed it away feebly and fell back asleep. After that, Wendy and Thomas finished their meal together in silence.

  Until they felt the ship begin to turn.

  Wendy looked up at Thomas, who raised his eyebrows and shrugged, as if to say, “How should I know why we’re turning?”

  “Go,” is what he said out loud. “I’ll take care of our patient.”

  But Wendy still hesitated.

  “I won’t leave him,” he promised, holding her gaze as he said it.

  Wendy finally nodded, and she headed topside, with Nana in tow.

  When she reached the deck, she could hardly believe her eyes. Where the morning horizon had been crystal clear, now a wide barrier of smoke-thick fog lay ahead of them, dark and heavy. They were turning to go around it.

  When you think of dangers at sea, there are others that might sound more frightening: hurricanes and tidal waves, sirens and krakens. But fog can be just as dangerous as these. Fog near land can ground a ship, or dash it against the rocks of an unseen shore. And a fog as thick as the one ahead, even on the open ocean, could hide an entire flying ship, full of everlost, ready to fire on you from above.

  So Hook and his crew would sail around the fog, just to be safe, returning to their course on the other side.

  Only … they couldn’t.

  As they turned to port, Wendy opened her compass, watching the outline of the island glow as the needle moved. She had expected this: The needle would turn to give them their new direction, pointing always toward the isle of Neverland.

>   But it turned more than it should have. And the farther they sailed around the fog, the more it turned, until it became perfectly obvious that the needle was pointing into the heart of the fog itself.

  “Neverland,” Wendy breathed.

  “What?” Hook’s head snapped toward her. “What about it?”

  “It’s in there,” Wendy said, her voice still quiet. She looked across the starboard rail, gazing at the fog bank in wonder. “No matter how far we sail around it, the needle still points into it.”

  “Let me see that,” he demanded, and he snatched the compass from her with his good left hand, but the moment it left her grasp, it fell dark, as it always did. He scowled and thrust it back at her, coming instead to stand where he could look at it over her shoulder.

  It was, of course, just as she had told him. The compass pointed straight into the fog.

  “We’ve found it,” Wendy said, looking in her excitement at Charlie, who couldn’t help but grin in return. “We’ve actually found it!”

  “We haven’t found anything yet, Miss Darling,” Hook growled, and Charlie wiped the smile from his face before the captain could see it. “We have no idea what’s waiting for us in there. And whatever it is, we won’t see it until we’re right on top of it. Or right below it, for that matter.”

  Wendy frowned. Hook was right. Even if it wasn’t a trap—even if what waited for them was the isle of Neverland itself—the flying ship that had fired on them was still out there somewhere. And who knew what magical creatures might guard the island itself? Naturally, she thought of sirens. And krakens.

  “Mr. Smee!” Hook called out.

  “Aye, Captain!”

  Wendy almost jumped out of her shoes when Smee barked his reply from just behind her other shoulder. Where had he even come from? She could have sworn he was nowhere near the helm.

  Even Hook looked a bit startled, but only for a moment.

  “Prepare the ship,” he ordered. “All hands silent. Slow and steady. We’re going in.”

  hey furled all the sails but one, lashing the rest down tight, but Hook stationed men throughout the rigging, ready to set every sail again at a moment’s notice. The order of “all hands silent” was carried to every corner of the ship, both above deck and below, and a hush fell over the world. On a nod from Hook, Charlie turned the ship into the fog.