The Navigator

by Sky, Erin Michelle; Brown, Steven;

  “Stop that,” the strange creature growled, but he was talking to Tinker Bell. He still had no idea he was being watched. “You love fishing.”

  The innisfay’s hair turned an even angrier shade of red, and she pulled several times against her captor. The thin silver chain stretched to its limit each time, but the tiny silver cuff at the end was clamped firmly around her wrist, and the chain refused to break.

  “That was good! Keep going!” The stone thing laughed—an ominous, gravelly sort of laugh that didn’t seem possible from anything so small. “I’m sure you can get free if you try hard enough!”

  How cruel, Wendy thought. Tinker Bell had not been kind to Wendy, to say the least, but Wendy still hated cruelty in any form.

  The innisfay chimed indignantly at the end of the chain.

  “That’s fine by me,” the stone pirate replied. “Don’t do me any favors. Don’t glow any brighter. It’s not as though I’m hungry. Whatever you do, don’t attract any fish. I hate catching fish. Miserable thing, breakfast. Nobody likes it.”

  The innisfay stopped trying to jerk against the chain and her hair shifted from an angry red into a sort of reluctant gold, glowing more brightly by the moment.

  “You’re a terrible fisherman,” the pirate complained. “You’ll never catch anything.”

  Tinker Bell flitted toward the water, but before she could even touch the surface, a fish leaped explosively out of the lake to snap at her. Its scales flashed in the sunlight, reflecting it straight into Wendy’s eyes.

  “No!” Wendy yelled. “Tinker Bell!” She leaped out of hiding and sprinted for the pirate, hoping she wasn’t too late.

  “What?” the pirate exclaimed. He turned to see a strange woman sprinting toward him—a woman several times his size—so he did the only natural thing under the circumstances.

  He ran.

  He had a decent head start over Wendy, and he darted straight for the trees, obviously hoping to lose her in the forest.

  “No!” Wendy yelled again. But if he hadn’t listened to her the first time, he was hardly about to listen to her now.

  Even John and Michael, who were both much faster than Wendy in a full-on sprint, weren’t sure they were going to catch up to him before he could duck into the underbrush and disappear. He was surprisingly quick for having such short legs.

  Fortunately, Nana was faster still.

  She raced past all of them and pounced on the pirate’s back, knocking him face first onto the ground. Then she snatched the back of his waistband and a bit of his shirt in her jaws and picked him up, trotting proudly toward Wendy with her prize.

  The pirate dangled from her mouth by his clothing, screaming incoherently. He tried as hard as he could to twist around and free himself, but hanging upside down was making things difficult. Besides, Nana had a firm grip. She wasn’t about to let go.

  All the while, the tiny innisfay trailed behind them in the air. She had not, thankfully, been eaten by the fish, but she hadn’t been freed either. She was still attached to the delicate silver chain, which was secured at the other end to a loop at the top of the pirate’s right boot.

  “Oh, good girl!” Wendy exclaimed. “Good girl, Nana!”

  Nana wagged her tail. Chasing pirates had turned out to be even more fun than chasing seashells.

  But as Nana drew closer, Wendy finally noticed several things that she had failed to notice at a distance, innisfay being as small as they are.

  First, the innisfay was flying by some kind of magic, because she was missing her wings.

  Second, she wasn’t a “she.” This innisfay was distinctly male. His hair was flame red at the moment, and his chiseled jaw was set in an angry scowl.

  Which meant that, third, he wasn’t Tinker Bell at all.

  “Why, who are you?” Wendy exclaimed.

  She was clearly speaking to the innisfay, so he drew himself up to his full height and answered her with pride, his hair flashing into gold.

  Unfortunately, Wendy couldn’t understand a word of it. He spoke in the delicate jingle chimes of the innisfay language, pronouncing his full name in the most beautiful set of runs and trills Wendy thought she had ever heard—and which she had no hope at all of repeating.

  “Do you know Peter Pan?” she asked the tiny creature. But whatever he said in reply, she didn’t understand that, either.

  The knee-high pirate scowled and said nothing.

  “At least you know who Peter is,” Wendy surmised.

  “No, I don’t,” the pirate barked.

  “Then why would you frown when I said his name?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “You most certainly did.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  Wendy could see this was going nowhere, so she decided to try a different approach.

  “And what sort of creature are you, then?”

  “I’m a seagull,” he said, crossing his arms in defiance, even though he was still dangling from Nana’s mouth. “I’m an innisfay. I’m a rabbit. I’m a human, just like you.”

  “You’re clearly not any of those things,” Wendy said, frowning.

  “I am,” he insisted.

  Wendy narrowed her eyes and began drumming the fingers of her right hand against her thigh. One-two-three-four. One-two-three-four. One-two-three-four.

  “Come now, what are you, really?” she asked.

  “I’m really all those things!”

  “Are you a goblin?” she tried, and he nodded.

  “Yes, that’s it. That’s the one. I’m a goblin. You guessed it!” He turned his head and smiled at her, but that only made Wendy suspicious.

  “Are you an ogre?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said, but he didn’t sound nearly so happy now. “I’m an ogre. That’s right.”

  Wendy narrowed her eyes even more. “Are you a dragon?” she demanded.

  The pirate cast his eyes to the ground. “Yes, I’m a dragon. You guessed it again.”

  “Wendy?” John asked.

  “He’s lying, obviously,” Wendy said, staring intently at the small creature.

  “To say the least,” Michael agreed. “I don’t think he’s said one honest word yet!” And he couldn’t help but chuckle.

  But that gave Wendy (who was a dedicated student of logic, remember) an interesting idea. She thought back on everything they had overheard him say to the innisfay, and her lips formed into a smile. She cocked her head to one side and addressed the pirate again.

  “Is the sky green?”

  “Of course the sky is green,” he replied quickly. “It’s always green.”

  “What about orange? Right now, I mean. Is the sky orange right now?”

  “It is. Clearly orange. Anyone can see that for himself.”

  “And what color is the sky not?” she asked. She pronounced each word slowly, carefully, and the pirate scowled, even more deeply than before.

  “It’s not blue,” he said, and he spat on the ground beneath him, hanging dejectedly from Nana’s mouth, looking as miserable as any creature Wendy thought she had ever seen in all her days.

  h, you poor thing,” Wendy said, her heart going out to the creature at once. “Put him down, Nana.”

  “No!” John and Michael both exclaimed, but it was already done. Nana opened her mouth, and the creature dropped to the ground, scrambled to his feet, and took off running, with the innisfay trailing behind like a tiny, furious kite.

  “Nana, fetch!” John ordered.

  Nana didn’t have to be asked twice. She tore after him and caught him before he had made it even ten yards. This time, she brought the creature back to John, and she dropped him immediately, which was the whole point of fetching. (Besides which, she had now discovered that letting him go might start the chase up again.)

  But John saw it coming, dropped to one knee, and grabbed him before he could run off. He brought both of the creature’s small wrists together behind his back, trapping them in one hand, and then grabbed the back
of his neck with the other, careful to make sure his own hands were in no danger of being bitten.

  “Sorry,” Wendy said, sounding genuinely repentant. “He just looked so pathetic.”

  John looked up at her from the corner of his eye and said nothing. Nana flopped to the ground in a huff, laying her head on her paws, clearly disappointed that the game was already over.

  “The sky is not blue,” Michael prompted, with a merry twinkle in his eye.

  “Right!” Wendy exclaimed. “I think he only lies! How peculiar!”

  “That’s not true!” the pirate protested. “I never lie! Never! Sometimes I even tell the truth!”

  “Then tell the truth about this,” Wendy suggested. “What kind of creature are you not?”

  “I’m not an imp!” he shrieked. “I’m not! I swear it!”

  “There! You see? He’s an imp!” Wendy declared.

  “I don’t see how we can be certain of anything,” John protested. “What if it only lies sometimes? Or even most of the time? That doesn’t mean it lies all the time.”

  “You’re right, of course,” Wendy agreed. “Still, it’s a good working hypothesis. Otherwise, why bother lying about the color of the sky? Something we can all see for ourselves? There’s no purpose to it.”

  “You have a point,” John admitted. He wanted to rub one hand under his chin, which was how he did his best thinking, but he had to satisfy himself with a nod and a small frown, since both of his hands were occupied.

  “Is Pan on this island, yes or no?” Michael asked it.

  “Oh, I’m sure Pan’s here somewhere,” the imp told them.

  “Which could mean either that Pan isn’t here, or just that the imp isn’t sure whether he is or not,” John pointed out.

  “Right,” Wendy agreed. She eyed the small creature with a thoughtful frown.

  “Where is Pan not?” suggested Michael.

  But the imp just glared back at him.

  “I think he doesn’t know where Pan is,” Wendy mused.

  “I do, too! I know exactly where he is!”

  “Well, there. He definitely doesn’t know, then,” Wendy concluded. She was disappointed, to be sure. But Pan still might be somewhere on the island. She was trying to think how she might communicate with the innisfay when John stepped into the silence.

  “Are you a member of Blackheart’s crew?” John asked.

  “What? No! Never!”

  “That’s a ‘yes,’” Michael said. He lifted his left hand and bent his thumb inward, ready to tick various facts off on his fingers as they learned them.

  “Is Blackheart here on the island?”

  “Yes!” the imp shouted gleefully. “He’ll eat you all for breakfast, he will!”

  “That’s a ‘no,’” Michael declared. He bent his index finger as the imp glared up at him, snarling and baring his teeth.

  “Well, he must be coming back,” John deduced, “if part of his crew is still here. But I doubt he’d leave only one behind. Where are the others?”

  “They’re right here!” the imp announced, and then he laughed. “Don’t you see them?”

  “Where is the rest of the crew not?” Michael interjected.

  “They’re not in our hideout, I promise you!” the imp growled, looking more and more agitated.

  Michael grinned and bent another finger.

  The imp wiggled against John’s grip with more desperation, but it didn’t do him any good. “I’m not on watch,” he blurted out. “I’m not fishing for breakfast, and I’m not supposed to be on duty! I would never disobey the captain’s orders! Never!”

  He gave up struggling and cast his eyes to the ground, adding quietly, “I didn’t steal Jingles out of his cage either, in case anyone asks. Jingles doesn’t mind. He loves fishing.”

  “His cage,” Wendy said quietly, and she turned her gaze to the innisfay, but John was already speaking again.

  “Where is your hideout not?” he demanded, finally getting the hang of it.

  “It’s not in the mountain,” the imp replied glumly. “It doesn’t open onto the sea.”

  John and Michael grinned at each other, and Michael stopped ticking facts off on his fingers. Instead, he asked the imp one more question.

  “And what isn’t the way to get there?”

  They couldn’t let the imp go, and they certainly didn’t trust him to stay tied up. Who knew what strange feats an imp might be capable of? In the end, they gagged him with a stocking and bound his hands behind him with another, letting Nana carry him along. (John hated wet feet and had packed the extra pair of stockings, just in case. He wasn’t happy about using them this way—particularly the bit about shoving one into the imp’s mouth—but it seemed like the best option.)

  As for the innisfay, they couldn’t be sure whose side he was on. So they left him bound to the silver chain, deciding not to remove the tiny cuff that trapped his wrist. But they untied the other end from the imp’s boot and tied it instead to one of the buckles on Wendy’s pack. Then they stuffed him inside the pack to keep him quiet.

  (Innisfay are very small, so the pack was large by comparison. He sat upon one of the leather-wrapped bottles, crossed his arms over his chest, and glared at Wendy like a tiny genie as she closed the top flap and secured it.)

  He chimed in glorious protest for about a minute and a half, and then fell completely silent all at once. Wendy was concerned enough to open the pack, which only started up the symphony all over again. After that, she left him alone, determined to sort out his situation later.

  They found the path to the hideout just where the imp had said it would be (or, rather, just where he had said it wouldn’t be). It was another trail much like the last, and it wound through the undergrowth, leading slightly downward until it finally opened up onto a rocky ledge.

  They were on the western end of the island now, with the ocean directly ahead of them and perhaps twenty yards below. To the right was the jungle. To the left was the base of the rocky spire they had been trying to reach all morning, with a very narrow cave entrance that stood twice as tall as a man—a natural fissure in the ancient stone.

  When the imp saw it, he wriggled and writhed even harder, emitting muffled sounds of fresh distress. John ordered Michael, Wendy, and Nana to stay put, then disappeared into the narrow opening before anyone had time to argue. But he reappeared after only a few minutes with eyes the size of saucers, and he waved Wendy and Michael to follow.

  Wendy set her pack on the ground, checking to make sure it was buckled down tight, and then turned to Nana, who still held the gagged, struggling imp in her mouth.

  “Stay,” Wendy ordered.

  Then she twisted sideways and slipped through the crack.

  The entrance opened out almost immediately, at least to the point where she could walk forward without having to twist. She hesitated a moment, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dark. Once they did, she saw a scattering of stone rubble strewed along the ground.

  She stepped carefully around the loose rock so as not to make any noise, following John farther into the cave, with Michael trailing behind her. Soon they could see a wider ledge with an opening up ahead, and John motioned to them both to wait. He got down on his hands and knees and began crawling, gesturing that they should do the same.

  It was a slow and painful process, and Wendy had to stop several times to reposition after putting a hand or a knee down on a sharp stone. But, finally, after what seemed like ages, they all lay side by side, peeking over the lip of the ledge onto Blackheart’s hidden lair below.

  t seemed to Wendy as though the entire contents of the mountain had exploded into the sea, leaving behind a dark, secret harbor nestled inside the peak. A wide, ragged mouth opened to the west, but the cavern was so deep that the rear wall would have been lost in shadow if it weren’t for the lamps that hung along its length, illuminating a dock of rough wooden planks that had been lashed together.

  But the thing that drew Wendy’s eye
immediately—the thing that kept her from noticing anything else at first—was the three-masted ship tied to the dock at the far end.

  Her sails were furled and she flew no flags, but she was very much the same size and shape as the French ship that Blackheart had escorted away. Or perhaps, Wendy now suspected, the ship he had stolen, as there were no human sailors anywhere to be seen, French or otherwise.

  Instead, at least a dozen everlost crewmen paced back and forth along the length and breadth of the deck. Their wings were ragged and unkempt, and each held a tiny silver chain wrapped around his palm, attached at the other end to an innisfay. Every so often, one of the everlost would snap his wrist, jerking the little fairy and causing a puff of sparkling dust to burst into the air.

  Several imps crawled on their hands and knees between the everlost. (They were all dressed like pirates, looking very much like the one Nana had captured, only without the eye patch.) Each had a sturdy glass jar sitting next to him and a small polishing cloth in his hands. Whenever a new innisfay cloud appeared, the closest imp would scramble to it, wet his cloth with liquid from the jar, and scrub at the deck, rubbing the dust carefully into the timbers where it fell.

  Another everlost, who seemed to be the foreman, watched over these proceedings with a critical eye. He sat cross-legged on the ship’s far railing, his ragged wings fanned out lightly behind him for balance. He had a lean face with a pinched nose and a cruel, angry mouth. His dark eyes observed the others from behind a shaggy veil of dirty-blond hair.

  Without warning, his head snapped up and away from the ship. Wendy sucked in her breath, falling as still as the stone that surrounded her. The foreman’s eyes scanned the dark recesses of the cavern, searching for something, then narrowed, settling on a spot along the back wall.

  Wendy let her breath out slowly and followed his gaze.

  The harbor’s dock floated upon the water, allowing it to rise and fall with the tides. To keep it from drifting away, it was anchored by ropes to huge rings of iron, embedded low along the cavern’s walls. Another line of rings had been set much higher, and from each of these hung a single lamp. It was one of these lamps that had captured the foreman’s attention, only, upon closer inspection, Wendy realized that it wasn’t a lamp at all.