With that he spread his wings and lifted off into the sky. The action dislodged Tinker Bell, who had remained on his shoulder looking blue ever since he had forced her to apologize. She hovered in midair, waiting until she was sure Peter wasn’t looking, and then she glanced back at Wendy, her hair flashing from blue into red into a calculating bronze before she took off after him.
commission!
Wendy could hardly believe it. She was an officer in the Royal Navy. A real officer, just like the ones at Bartholomew Fair—the ones who had laughed at her all those years ago. And not any officer, but the navigator of England’s only flying ship! The gentle wind caressed her hair as she looked out across the unexplored mysteries of Neverland. The living green scent of magic filled her senses—even better, she thought, than the rich tang of the sea.
It didn’t seem possible.
Wait, it wasn’t possible.
The thought brought her up short. Hook might be willing to pay the price of her commission, but that didn’t mean it would be permitted. Women weren’t even allowed to be sailors in the Royal Navy, let alone officers.
But the captain wouldn’t lie to her, would he?
No, she refused to believe it. He was a man of his word. A man of honor. He might not fully appreciate her. He might not even like her. But he would not make her a solemn promise without the intention of carrying it through. He would find a way to accomplish it, one way or another, once they returned to England.
Still, she resolved to requisition a blue officer’s coat from the quartermaster just as soon as they were able to land the ship. If they ever landed.
Neverland was not the sort of small, deserted island one reads about in stories of shipwrecked sailors. Wendy understood that now. It was an island in the same way that Britain was an island—a vast and diverse landscape that spread out beneath her as far as the eye could see.
In fact, she only knew it was an island because Peter had said that it was.
They had been flying toward the mountains for what felt like forever. The fields that had started out as a patchwork quilt in varying shades of green had given way to more exotic colors. What sort of vegetable could possibly reflect the sun in this silver sheen? Or that sparkling amethyst? Was it some exotic blood vine glistening scarlet in the field below? Or were they merely poppies in full, eternal bloom, stretching unbroken from one perfect corner to the other?
This, of course, made Wendy think of Poppy, her companion dog at Hook’s estate, which reminded her of her young friend, Colin, and how much he would have loved it here. But that, in turn, made her think of Nicholas. He had died, she suddenly realized, only yesterday. She had worked through the night to prepare The Pegasus—they all had—and then Blackheart had appeared, forcing them to leave Nicholas with The Tiger. There had been no time for a funeral. Her skeleton crew would bury him at sea on the way back home.
For all Wendy knew, they were doing that very thing right this instant, his body slipping forever beneath the waves instead of standing here beside her where he belonged, gasping and pointing, while she smiled and wondered about poppies.
The full force of Wendy’s grief slammed into her chest, stealing her breath away, and it was all she could do to remain standing, let alone keep the ship in the air.
She had never lost anyone before, and although she had read many books and understood death as an idea, she hadn’t expected grief to feel like a living thing. Like a tiger that lies in wait, stalking you, so that one moment you’re smiling, thinking about poppies, and in the very next moment, without any warning, you’re reliving that terrible loss, fresh and raw, as it shreds your heart all over again.
Her eyes brimmed with tears, and she closed them tightly against the memory. She wished they had taken him aboard The Pegasus, so they could have laid his body and soul to rest here in this magical earth instead of relinquishing him to the deep.
But then she thought, No, he would not be safe here. None of us is safe here.
She shivered. Where had the thought come from? And what did it mean? She didn’t know, but she felt the truth of it, as sure as she felt the grief in her chest and the throb in her temples.
She took a deep breath and steadied herself. She was the navigator now. She was responsible for her crew, and she would not let another man die on this journey. Not if she could help it. She straightened her back, squared her shoulders, wiped the tears from her cheeks, and turned her eyes toward the mountains.
All the while, Hook stood behind Wendy near the helm, silently watching her. The tears in her eyes. The determined set of her shoulders. He understood it all too well. Hook had lost his share of men to England’s enemies, and every one of them was a burden on his heart.
Nicholas was not the first, nor would he be the last. Hook accepted that. His entire crew accepted that. They understood the price of war. But the first casualty was always the hardest for any new member of the crew. The way they responded was as good as any barometer—the tool that revealed the weather of their character.
Some showed no emotion whatsoever, barely even blinking over the loss of a human soul. These, in Hook’s opinion, had been born without that natural affection that binds one man (or woman) to another. They had no place amidst the camaraderie of a ship’s crew, and he set these ashore at the first opportunity.
Others retreated into rage. They drank and they fought and they railed against the brutality of the enemy. Against the cruelty of fate. These, he suffered gladly, despite the storm. He gave them their drink, or men to fight, or a night in irons when that was what they needed. But he kept them. Because he knew they loved the crew. And they loved England. And they would do whatever was necessary to protect them both.
But the ones who shed their tears and allowed the clouds to pass—the ones who accepted the winds and tides of war, understanding them to be as impersonal as the sea itself—those he groomed and promoted. Those were the men who knew how to walk in the eye of the storm.
And Wendy was one of them.
He saw it in the set of her jaw. In her unflagging focus on the horizon. And he recognized the moment when she set her grief aside to move forward. For the mission. For the men. It was unfortunate that her career would be so limited. If they both survived this cursed island, he would buy her a commission, as he had promised (under an assumed name, of course), and she would retire immediately. She would have an income in return for her service here. He would see to it.
She would certainly deserve it.
Every time they sent a ship back home, he lost more of his best men—the ones he knew he could count on to deliver those ships to London. The Dragon, The Cerberus, and now The Tiger. Charlie was the only man left whom he trusted to that extent. If Wendy were a man … but there was no point in dwelling on it. He found himself in an impossible situation, and like his own heroes of the past, he would adapt. For the mission. And for England.
He would elevate her status as much as he could, but no further. And only because he needed her.
He looked up from his reverie to realize they were finally nearing the mountains. As the ship approached the closest of the peaks, the light suddenly dimmed, as though they had passed all at once from daylight into dusk. Hook glanced uneasily along the ridge line, looking for the flock of jellyfish-sails, but there was no sign of them now. Instead, a small family of monstrous four-legged beasts covered in long, shaggy white hair trudged across the exposed slope. They looked, he thought, like sheepdogs crossed with elephants, and it made him wonder what other strange creatures might be waiting for them on the full night side of the mountains, which seemed to be where they were headed.
The ship passed between two peaks, and now they sailed beneath the light of a full moon, so bright that he could hardly see the stars. As they made their way silently into the valley on the other side, the rock of the left-hand peak began to give way—the start of an avalanche. Hook was about to tell Wendy to lift higher into the air, to make sure they were well clear of the snowy slopes below, when
he realized suddenly that it was not an avalanche at all.
It was a dragon.
Hook stared in shock as the tremendous creature—easily twice as long as The Pegasus from head to tail—raised its spiked snout and swiveled its head toward the incoming ships. It wasn’t any color Hook might have expected of a dragon (not that he would have had any colors in mind for a dragon if you had asked him even five minutes ago.) It was a mottled white and brown, splashed in jagged patches all across its hide, blending perfectly into the rock and ice of the peak upon which it lay. Even its face was white on the top right and dark on the bottom left, split along a rough diagonal line.
The men of The Pegasus were in such a state of shock that not one of them cried out. But the dragon made no move to attack. It lay facing them along the ridge line, and it turned its dark left eye toward Pan’s ship, tilting its chin just a bit and then snorting a puff of smoke into the night air before laying its head back down, apparently satisfied.
A watch-dragon. How had a dim-witted fool like Peter Pan managed to train a watch-dragon?
Hook hated him. He hated him with the burning fire of a thousand circles of hell. But that didn’t mean Pan was the most dangerous enemy they would face here. The more Hook saw of that confounded everlost idiot, the more it made sense that he was just a pawn in a larger game—that someone else was behind the violence that had been perpetrated against England. Absentmindedly, he rubbed the stump of his right wrist with his good left hand, massaging it a bit where it met the steel of his hook. He owed Pan for the loss of his hand, no matter what else came of their time in Neverland.
Hook would use him for now. He would set the ship down in the valley and let his crew get some rest. Then he would meet with this local informant and get as much information as he could. He would formulate a plan to defeat Blackheart. But Pan’s assistance today did not make up for what he had stolen before.
Once Hook didn’t need him, Peter Pan would die.
hen they finally brought the ship in to land, Wendy thought she had never felt so relieved in all her life. She had been concerned at first about how she would manage to set the ship down without doing any more damage than had already been done during the battle, but they had arrived in the shelter of the night valley to discover not one but two giant wooden frameworks, each standing ready to cradle a ship safely off the ground.
Wendy watched as Pan guided his own ship into the first of the two air docks, and then she guided The Pegasus carefully into the second, moving the ship mere inches at a time despite her aching head. The human crew reluctantly threw their mooring lines to the everlost, who came to help as soon as their own ship had landed. The flying men hovered in the air around The Pegasus, gently maneuvering her into position, until finally, with hardly so much as a bump, the ship came to rest and the coin fell still in the palm of Wendy’s hand.
Hook had disappeared early on during this procedure, threatening bodily harm to anyone and everyone if he found even one scratch on England’s only flying ship and muttering something about not being able to watch. He reemerged just in time to see the ship docked safely. The captain nodded to Wendy in silent approval, set the watch command, and then escorted her to her new quarters.
Much to her surprise, it was a significant step up from anywhere she had ever before slept in her life. True to his word, Hook had assigned her a stateroom that befit her new station.
There was a much larger bed to the left and a much larger desk to the right than she had enjoyed in either of her earlier rooms. A table stood in the center, bolted to the floor, with a chair that could be secured to the wall as needed. A small bank of windows was set into the bulkhead, and Wendy realized that they looked out toward the rear of the ship, just like the captain’s own windows did. There was also a small cabinet set into the near wall, and her sea chest was secured next to it.
But she hardly had the energy to appreciate any of it. She had eyes only for Nana, who bounded to Wendy the moment she opened the door, wriggling back and forth in a vain effort to wag her entire body. Wendy chuckled and greeted her, then stumbled to the bed and collapsed onto it without even removing her boots, let alone bothering to notice when Hook left, shutting the door softly behind him.
She had no idea how long she slept because she opened her eyes to the exact same moonlit night, despite the fact that her arms and legs ached as though they had been lying motionless for hours. She turned her head before she had fully awoken, sensing that she was in unfamiliar surroundings, but everything was just as she remembered, right down to the windows that currently looked out onto the dark sky of Neverland.
Neverland!
It all came back in a rush. Blackheart. The chase. The portal. Neverland. The giant jellyfish-sails. The cannon fire. Peter. The mountains. The dragon.
The dragon!
Wendy rushed to the windows. She could see well enough to make out the mountains they had passed through, the moonlight reflecting off the snow-capped peaks. But the ridge line was eerily dim against the dark sky, slumbering in twilight and shadow. If the dragon was there, she could no longer distinguish him from the rock and snow upon which he rested.
Mildly disappointed, she turned her attention to the ground below. There was no mistaking the sounds of men working—shouts and grunts and chopping and hammering, punctuated by an occasional explosive curse, usually followed by a round of laughter. The men were hidden from sight, working almost directly below her, but she had to assume they were repairing the damage to the ship.
Then Nana growled low in her throat, and Wendy spun toward the center of the room. The huge Newfoundland was staring intently at the cabinet, and more precisely at the tiny innisfay who had poked his head out from behind a hanging linen shirt and was now jingling back at Nana in a scolding sort of way.
“Charming!” She turned her attention back to Nana. “No, Nana. Hush now,” she told the dog gently, and Nana stopped growling.
Nana sat down (because she knew Wendy would tell her to if she didn’t), but she did not take her eyes off the tiny innisfay. Surrounded by a vast landscape of magic, Nana had spent her first hour or so in Neverland barking at everything and nothing in particular. When the scent showed no sign of changing—and no one responded to her insistent and constant alarm—she had finally given up. But she still didn’t trust the little flying man who smelled just as suspicious as the big ones, even if everything else now smelled the same way.
“Good morning, Charming,” Wendy said, and then she added, mostly to herself, “if one can call it morning, that is, even if the sky never seems to change. Now, where did you get such a fine shirt-curtain for your quarters?” The linen shirt looked very much like the one that had previously been hanging in the infirmary of The Tiger, and she made a mental note to thank Thomas for his kindness.
Charming jingled a merry greeting.
“Oh!” Wendy exclaimed suddenly. “Why, I suppose you’re home, aren’t you! Does this mean you’ll be leaving us?” She was a bit sad at the idea of losing his company, especially so soon after gaining it in the first place, but Charming shook his head. He accompanied the motion with a long, melodious explanation that Wendy couldn’t understand at all, but at least he didn’t seem to be going anywhere.
Just then, a hesitant knock sounded at her door, so she wandered over and opened it.
Gentleman Starkey stood on the other side, hunching his shoulders a bit and wringing his hands in his shirttail.
“Why, hello, Mr. Starkey,” Wendy said.
“Miss Darling,” he replied. “I hope I didn’t disturb you. The captain said very specifically that you were not to be disturbed. But he also told me to ask you to go see him as soon as you woke up. So I’ve been waiting, you see, trying to hear when you might be awake, but without actually listening in, of course …” His voice trailed off, and he cast his eyes toward the floor.
“Of course, Mr. Starkey. I only just woke, and I was not disturbed in the least. If you’ll show me the way?”
>
“Yes, miss!” he said, looking considerably relieved. “Right away, miss. The captain’s quarters are just one level up.”
Wendy didn’t want Charming to be trapped in her room, so she let him out and then followed Mr. Starkey up to Hook’s own quarters. She let Nana come with her as far as the captain’s door, asking Mr. Starkey if he would be so kind as to take the dog for a bit of a walk outside.
(Mr. Starkey seemed much more eager for this arrangement than Nana did, but she followed him down the passageway nonetheless when it seemed to be what her mistress wanted.)
Wendy took a deep breath and knocked on the door.
“Enter!”
She opened it to find both Hook and Charlie in the captain’s quarters. They stood side by side, staring in puzzlement at some kind of parchment that had been unrolled and placed on the table.
“Miss Darling,” Hook commented. “Good. Come tell me if you can make anything of this nonsense.”
“Sir?” Wendy asked, but Hook just waved his good left hand at the sheet in front of him in a vague gesture of dismissal.
“It’s a map,” Charlie added. “I think.” He frowned a little, and the corner of his mouth twisted to one side in uncertainty.
Wendy approached the table, and Charlie carefully turned the parchment around so she could look at it right side up. Not that it made any difference.
In the bottom right-hand corner was a cartoonish representation of the two ships in their cradles. Beneath these, in a surprisingly elegant hand, was a single word: “Here.” In the top left corner was an elaborate “X.” This was marked with the word “Tiger.” Between the two was a line that curved sporadically along the page, climbing upward and then swooping downward with no apparent rhyme or reason. The turns were not marked in any way. Instead, sparse drawings populated the outer portion of the page.
One at the top was a surprisingly accurate depiction of penguins with an arrow pointing upward, indicating that the penguins were not actually on the map at all but rather somewhere beyond its boundaries. This was labeled, rather unhelpfully, “Penguins.” Another near the bottom caught Wendy’s eye: a drawing of three mermaids sunning themselves on a large rock. This was labeled, “Lagoon.”
The Navigator Page 15
