The Navigator

by Sky, Erin Michelle; Brown, Steven;

  “We’re on a ship,” Michael reminded him. “Where else would you suggest we go?”

  John paused for a long moment. “Right,” he finally agreed, and he nodded a little, mostly to reassure himself. “You’re right, of course.”

  Wendy ushered them in and secured the door behind them, sitting on the bunk with Nana while the men stood awkwardly near the door.

  “Well?” she said finally. She felt a bit guilty about hiding her intentions, and she had to work hard not to look at the sea chest.

  “Right,” John said again. “We’re here by Hook’s orders. He knows you’re planning to visit the island tonight, and he’s sent us to accompany you. To …” He glanced at Michael, who nodded his agreement. “To help you,” John finished.

  In fact, Hook had ordered them to protect her. He hadn’t said anything about helping. Has she ever rowed a boat in her life? the captain had demanded. She’ll be swept out to sea! Or eaten by something the moment she lands! She’s a woman, for God’s sake. Impulsive. And unpredictable. If I don’t let her go, she’ll sneak off and do it anyway, and then I’ll be forced to punish her. Just to maintain discipline on my own ship! I am trying, gentlemen, to avoid that situation.

  John and Michael had both seen the look in Hook’s eye when he spoke of punishing Wendy, and they hadn’t liked it one bit. On a ship, that usually meant flogging, but they had no intention of finding out.

  Still, the moment they left the captain’s quarters, they had both agreed that offering their help with whatever Wendy was planning would be far more effective than offering to protect her.

  “But …” Wendy said. “But how did he know?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea,” John told her, and Michael shrugged. That much, at least, was the complete truth.

  “Well, I suppose I’m glad for it,” Wendy admitted. “Even if I am surprised that he knew. Nana and I will both be grateful to have you with us.”

  “Not that it matters,” Michael chimed in, “but to have us with you for what, exactly?”

  “Hook didn’t tell you?”

  “No,” both men replied in the exact same moment.

  “Of course not,” Wendy muttered. “Why would the great Captain Hook bother to tell anyone anything?”

  If it occurred to John or Michael that she hadn’t planned to tell them what she was doing either, they were smart enough to keep it to themselves.

  “What we’re doing …” Wendy announced, but then she paused and stood up from her bunk. She opened the sea chest and retrieved her gear, lifted her pack onto her shoulder, and then stared both men in the eyes, one after the other.

  “… is going to save Nicholas.”

  endy sat in the back of the rowboat, watching the island inch closer, with Nana curled at her feet. John perched in the bow, looking out for rocks or other dangers that might lie ahead. The water was calm, and the moonlit waves made hardly any sound against the distant shore. In the still of the night, Michael was doing his best to row quietly.

  He sat facing Wendy, moving in a slow rhythm. Dip the oars without a splash. Pull. Lift the oars, being careful not to rattle the oarlocks, and cycle them back to the beginning. This last part caused him to lean forward, and about every third or fourth cycle he caught Wendy’s eye and grinned.

  But Wendy just rolled her eyes, smiled ever so slightly (because they were friends), and turned her attention back to the island.

  Now that they were on their way, Wendy wasn’t at all sure that she and Nana could have made it this far on their own. The boat was heavy, and it had taken both men, working together, to lower it safely into the sea. Even if she had managed to accomplish that much, she would not have been able to row and watch for dangers at the same time. So although she might have gotten this far without John and Michael, she found herself more grateful than ever to have them along.

  But why had Hook sent them to help her?

  The thought made her uneasy. No matter how hard she tried to lock it away, the question kept slipping through her grasp, scampering off to wander through the passageways of her mind, opening doors and peering here and there, searching for answers.

  She wanted to believe he was just trying to help Nicholas. After all, Hook couldn’t seek Pan out for himself. Even if he were willing to try (and Wendy doubted very much that he was), the two were enemies through and through. They would attempt to kill each other on sight, and there would be no help for Nicholas no matter what came of it.

  And that, Wendy realized, was her answer. Hook would hate the fact that she was the only one on the ship who had a chance of saving Nicholas. He didn’t tell John and Michael what they were doing because he never would have admitted the truth of it out loud. Not to anyone.

  Feeling much better, Wendy grinned back at Michael the next time he winked at her. Her grin had nothing to do with the wink, of course, but it made them both happy nonetheless, albeit for entirely different reasons.

  Calm waters meant gentle waves, and even the ones breaking against the shore posed no real threat to the boat. The company had no trouble riding the last ones in, with some well-timed help from Michael, and soon enough the little hull surged forward one last time, scraping against the sand.

  Michael yanked both oars into the boat, and then he and John leaped out into the light surf, each grabbing a side of the vessel and hauling it up the beach with Wendy still in it, John to port and Michael to starboard. (This was how Wendy still thought of the left and the right, even though the boat was very small.)

  John held out his hand to her while Michael retrieved her pack, but Wendy was more than a bit annoyed. The two men had beached the boat without her and were now treating her more like a lady than a sailor, as though having sand beneath their feet had magically transformed her from the one into the other.

  She ignored John’s hand, vaulted over the side, and landed gracefully on the shore, proving by her actions that although port had just become left, decks had become floors, and passageways had become corridors, she herself was still the Wendy, and no amount of sand in the world was about to change that.

  As for Nana, sand was not about to change her either. She caught a glimpse of a shell being carried along by the thin edge of the waves that licked the beach, and she threw herself merrily into the shallow water to try to fetch it.

  “Nana, heel,” Wendy ordered. Nana stopped where she was and looked up at her mistress, then looked back toward the small treasure, weighing her options.

  “Heel,” Wendy said again, even more firmly.

  The dog abandoned the chase, shook herself off, and returned to sit at Wendy’s side, filing the game away for later.

  Wendy took her pack from Michael and then stood still. She listened to the night creatures calling to each other, rustling here and there throughout the vast canopy. She felt the sand beneath her boots—not quite as fine as she had expected, salted with larger grains of rock and shell. She watched for any flickering of light, but the island was just as dark as it had appeared from the ship, with only the clear moonlight to guide them, painting the beach in soft hues of gray. And the jungle, darker still—shadows within shadows.

  But mostly she breathed. Quietly and deeply. Now that she stood upon the shore, the scent of magic filled her senses. It came from everywhere and nowhere at once. Neverland, Wendy thought, despite the fact that it was not what she had expected. If Peter was here, the scent of the island itself was hiding him.

  She reached into her pack and retrieved the compass he had given her. It glowed when she opened it, as it always did, but she could see now that it wasn’t pointing toward the exact center of the island. Instead, it hovered a bit toward the right, indicating a rocky spire that loomed in the distance.

  “We’re heading for that peak,” Wendy told the men.

  “We can’t hack our way through the jungle at night,” John pronounced. “We’ll have to wait until dawn.”

  “No, of course we can’t,” Wendy assured him, even though she didn
’t fully appreciate his tone. “But we could get closer by walking along the shore.”

  “I still don’t like it. We should stay right here with the boat and wait for first light.” John set his jaw stubbornly, and he made no move to go anywhere.

  “Well, we can’t light a fire and give ourselves away,” Wendy pointed out. “So it’s either sit here in the dark, exposed, knowing we can’t see a thing in there …” She swept one hand toward the jungle. “Or keep going, and try to find Peter before anyone else finds us.”

  John glanced at Michael. He wasn’t thrilled with Wendy’s plan to begin with. If they were going to face Pan again, even to ask for help, he would have preferred to do it in the daylight.

  But Michael only shrugged. Now that Wendy was the ship’s navigator, he thought she might outrank him, and he wasn’t about to take sides. Especially when he already suspected which of them was going to get her way.

  “It’s only about an hour until dawn,” Wendy added gently. “By the time we’ve hidden the boat, we won’t have terribly long before first light. We might as well keep moving.”

  John sighed. He stepped back into position next to the boat and nodded to Michael, who did the same. The two men dragged it up the beach, with Wendy pushing from behind, and all the while they scanned the jungle as best they could, trying to keep an eye out for trouble.

  Which explains why none of them saw the second boat emerge from the edge of the fog behind them, or the silhouette of a man with a hook in the place of his right hand.

  hey dragged the boat up the beach, shoved it into the undergrowth, covered it with fronds, and then swept away the trail they had made in the sand. It wasn’t exactly invisible, but no one would notice it without looking closely. (And, hopefully, no one would have reason to look.)

  They had landed on the northeastern shore of the island, and by the time the first hint of sunlight began to pale the sky behind them, they had trudged perhaps a mile or so along the northern beach toward the west. It was slow going, and they had been awake all night, but Wendy didn’t feel tired. On the contrary, she thought she had never been so alert in all her life.

  In fact, it reminded her very much of that night in Dover—the first night she had ever smelled the scent of magic.

  She stopped in her tracks.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” (John was always alert for trouble, even when they were not exploring magical enemy beaches.)

  Wendy sniffed the air. It felt a bit like standing in a kitchen, surrounded by the wonderful aroma of dinner on the way, when the cook suddenly opens the oven. Everything smells the same as before, but somehow more, too. Richer, and with the subtlest hint of direction.

  Nana had noticed the same thing, and she growled low in the back of her throat, staring toward the jungle.

  The men drew their pistols.

  Wendy did not, but she thought later that she should have. There is a time for curiosity, and a time for caution. But whenever Wendy’s curiosity was piqued, she forgot all about the latter.

  Nana lowered her head and stalked toward the foliage, but she had taken only two steps before Wendy called her back.

  “Nana,” Wendy hissed. “Come. Let me go first.”

  “Absolutely not.” John kept his voice low, but his tone was exceedingly firm. “That is a direct order.”

  Wendy stared at him, and her eyebrow drew itself up to its full height, clearly indignant. But John’s manner did not change in the slightest.

  “I will go first,” he insisted. “The two of you will stay behind me.” John turned to Michael and continued. “If anything happens, her safety is your first priority. Get her back to The Tiger at any cost.”

  Michael nodded.

  Wendy, on the other hand, thought she had never been so angry in all her life. For John to treat her this way, now, after all they had been through together, just because she was a woman—

  But John saw it coming. With three long strides, he stood directly in front of her, and his next words interrupted the tirade she had been about to unleash.

  “Before you even say it,” he told her, “it’s not because you’re a woman. I need you to stop thinking that way and trust me. For once in your life. You’re the ship’s only diviner. And you’re the only one who can get close to Pan. You’re too important to this mission to throw yourself into danger, and as your superior officer, I won’t allow it.”

  Her protests died in her throat, and she stared up at him without a word, entirely dumbfounded. It had never occurred to her that he might be treating her differently out of respect, because she had earned it. Or because he thought she was important.

  (It did occur to her that she was still only attached to the regiment—Hook had made that perfectly clear—which meant John was not technically her superior officer. But this didn’t seem like the time to bring it up.)

  John stared back at her for a long moment, the two of them perfectly still, but when she said nothing else, he finally turned away.

  “Nana,” he ordered. “To me.”

  Nana looked up at Wendy.

  “Go on,” Wendy told her softly. “It’s all right.”

  Nana moved to John’s side. When no one gave her any further orders, she returned to stalking the scent that waited in the jungle.

  Nana’s nose led them to a subtle break in the foliage, which turned out to be a narrow trail. It looked more like a natural thinning of the undergrowth, formed by animals perhaps, than any path made by the habitual trudging of men. (For that matter, Wendy didn’t see why flying creatures would need any sort of trail at all.) Still, there could be no denying that the scent of magic was upon it, and that it headed off in the direction of the western peak.

  In the end, they followed it.

  John led the way, in case of traps, with Wendy some twenty paces behind him. Nana returned to Wendy’s side, and Michael took up the rear of the procession, against the possibility of ambush.

  The lush canopy overhead spanned several layers of foliage, but it wasn’t so thick as to block out the sky entirely. Judging by the sun, Wendy knew they had been walking about two hours, moving slowly but steadily uphill.

  Despite the fact that it wasn’t even midmorning, it was already brutally hot. She was grateful she had chosen a linen blouse and jacket for the venture, but with underclothes beneath and the addition of a vest between—not so much for fashion as for propriety—she was beginning to feel lightheaded. And she had already gone through one of her two water bottles, which didn’t bode well.

  Her enthusiasm for the mission had devolved into the dull but persistent obstinacy of putting one foot in front of the other—which has more to do with all great undertakings than we might care to admit—when Nana’s quiet snarl and a signal from John brought her to a halt.

  And then, standing perfectly still, she heard it. A growly, gravelly baritone, somewhere off the trail to their left, singing quietly.

  We’ll catch as we can

  A fine little man,

  And fry-him-up-here-in-our-pan.

  And we eats him!

  And we eats him!

  He’ll squirm on the line;

  He’ll flash and he’ll shine.

  By-breakfast-he’s-gonna-be-mine.

  And we eats him!

  And we eats him!

  John turned around and placed a finger in front of his lips, as though he thought Wendy might decide to call out to it, whatever it was. Wendy rolled her eyes, then jerked her head toward the singing and raised her eyebrows.

  John raised a silent hand, telling her to wait.

  Wendy frowned but nodded.

  She watched as he moved slowly along the trail, placing each foot cautiously so it wouldn’t snap a twig or scuff against a stone. About thirty yards farther on, he stepped off the trail and disappeared.

  Of course, Wendy couldn’t resist.

  She followed the trail to the point where she had last seen him, and Michael moved forward to join her. There, they discovered
another trail, leading off to the left. John had obviously decided to investigate.

  He was gone for what felt like an excruciatingly long time (but was probably only a minute or two), and Wendy was just about to go in after him when he reappeared around a bend up ahead. He saw them both, shot them a dirty look for not staying where he had left them, and then waved for them to follow nonetheless.

  Wendy crept along the trail, relieved to be moving again, but when they reached the end of the little offshoot path, she stopped dead in her tracks and stared. Ahead of them lay a clearing, and in the middle of the clearing was a huge lake, nestled in a natural basin halfway up the mountain.

  But even though Wendy was surprised to find a lake halfway up the mountain, and even though she was undeniably grateful for a place to refill her water bottles, neither of those thoughts captured her attention until later. Her first thought was for the strange creature squatting at the water’s edge.

  It was small and gray, with skin that looked like stone. It stood about the height of her knee, but it was dressed like a perfect, tiny pirate, with a black linen shirt open all the way to its belly and dark blue leggings tucked into tall black boots. (Well, tall for a creature whose head was no more than eighteen inches off the ground.)

  It held a fishing net in one hand and wore an eyepatch over one eye, but the patch seemed to be just for show because it was currently shoved up over the creature’s left ear—a pointed ear that stuck straight up in the air, while the right one hung forward, folding in the middle.

  But the thing that surprised Wendy the most, the thing that made her catch her breath softly and then clap her hand over her mouth, was a tiny red-haired innisfay, writhing and jerking desperately at the end of a delicate silver chain.

  inker Bell!

  Hope soared in Wendy’s chest. If Tinker Bell was here, Peter couldn’t be far behind. But the little innisfay was clearly in trouble.

  “We have to save her,” Wendy whispered. “She can help us find Peter!”