Straight On Till Morning

by Liz Braswell

  Wendy knew from stories that this was the time when women screamed and screamed and screamed—and sometimes men, too. But she was just happy to be able to breathe freely again and to have the monster off of her. She felt little of anything except relief.

  Hook stood on the deck posed either heroically or demonically, depending on how you read the scene. He had his pistol out and aimed in case the foul miscreant rose again and a curious golden two-cigar holder balanced in his hook. Smoke rose from both cigars as well as the muzzle of his gun.

  The rest of the crew appeared as silently as rats (and just as curious) from all parts of the ship, including the crow’s nest.

  “Miss Darling, are you hurt?” Captain Hook asked, his tone soft and flat.

  “No, I don’t…I’m a little…” She touched her mouth and throat, wiping away the grease from the dead man’s fingers. Then she began to shake. “I’m…physically, I’m all fine.”

  “Mr. Smee, have the crew remove this…filth at once,” Hook said with a curl of his lip, the gun and cigars still held steady. “And someone bring Miss Darling a draught of something to restore her spirits.”

  “Oh, I don’t…” Wendy began. But then again, maybe a drop of something might not be such a bad idea. The shaking had spread to her feet and parts of her body untouched by the villain, and she was having a hard time reining in all the ants she felt crawling on her skin.

  Three pirates came forward—none of them named Mr. Smee, Wendy was fairly certain—and unceremoniously dumped the body overboard. A fourth brought a mop and duly began scrubbing the blood and brains away. Two more rushed to her side, one holding a silver-and-crystal decanter and the other a matching cup, both of which looked like they were from Captain Hook’s personal stash. Someone held her upright and someone else poured a few drops of a liquid, thick and amber, into the glass. She downed it in one gulp, feeling all eyes on her.

  It burned just as she’d imagined it would. Her eyes felt like they were spinning in their sockets.

  “Begging your pardon, Cap’n,” she heard someone say as she staggered a bit, still trying to collect herself. “But we’re back in our proper seas now, Cap’n. And on course for Never Land.”

  “Thank you, but right now we have more serious things to clear up here,” Hook growled. He looked over the crew, into each and every man’s eyes. The muzzle of his gun followed closely.

  “This is how you treat her?” he demanded, his voice carrying across the deck although he didn’t shout. “I bring you someone to be your mother, and this is how you treat her?”

  “Oh,” Wendy said, apologies coming to her lips far too easily, the deadly niceties of social convention, the stupidity of being raised by the Darlings. Or maybe it was just the drink. “Most of them were gentlemen. They didn’t all treat me badly. It was just that one fellow and—I’m sorry, what?”

  She blinked as his words caught up with her brain.

  Captain Hook put his arm protectively around her shoulders, careful not to burn her with the cigars. He addressed the men with a tone of great disappointment.

  “I bring you a lady and a gentlewoman to take care of all of you, and this is what you do?”

  “We would never!” one pirate called out piteously.

  “Valentine is a villain, everyone knowed it, he’s the worst!” another called out.

  “We wuz nice to her! I gave her me own bowl for lunch!”

  “She fixed my pants up real good—I’d never harm a hair on her head!”

  “WELL, YOU ALMOST LET THIS HAPPEN!” Hook roared, firing his pistol in the air.

  Wendy winced at the repetition of the loud sound, the ringing in her ears. But it didn’t stop her from speaking.

  “Excuse me? I’m sorry, I don’t believe I quite understand what you’re saying,” she pressed. “I’m glad to have helped out here and there while aboard, but as someone just said—we’re not far from Never Land now. My journey aboard your lovely ship is nearly over. It will soon be time to disembark. I’m not here to be a mother to anyone. I’m here to have adventures.”

  “And adventures you shall have,” Hook promised. “After we leave these cursed waters of Never Land, we shall travel the high seas, plundering and looting along the way, and you shall fix our pants, do our laundry, mend our wounds, and generally take care of us. And probably do a much better job than Mr. Smee.”

  “I shall do nothing of the sort!” Wendy protested, almost stamping her foot. “We had a deal. I bought passage to Never Land for Peter’s shadow.”

  “Yes. And here we are, almost arrived.” Captain Hook said this politely, but a nasty grin stretched across his face. He indicated the horizon with his gun: far off in the distance was indeed a pale bright line, a glowing golden beach. “That was what you bargained for—and that was all you bargained for.

  “I never promised to put you ashore.”

  The way to London was not unknown to fairies; it was just rarely used anymore. Smog was bad for wings and the new machines made for strange dreams in children; fewer and fewer were of the sunny meadows and hidden vales that once captured their imagination.

  When Tink appeared in the sky above, it was as if a shy star had worked up the courage to appear among its brighter cousins. She glimmered golden and faint at first…and then brighter and nearer…but never any larger.

  The sound she made as she descended, however, was not the music of the spheres or anything so celestial. It fell somewhere between angry hornet and angry percussionist shaking a rack of bells for the worst ever Christmas concert.

  Below her all of London was gray and rolling and endless and eternally the same. If she squinted, the little fairy could almost pretend that, instead of houses, the streets were lined with the hives of meerrabbits. Maybe from the wrong side of the savanna, but friendly nonetheless.

  The thing was…Tinker Bell never actually paid attention when Peter took her on these jaunts. She loved hearing about Peter’s babyhood; she loved revisiting his lost home. But she hated going to Ugly Wendy’s house. She had no idea how Peter had even found the girl and her stupid, snotty little brothers. Somehow the stories that Wendy told of his exploits ad nauseam had reached his pixie ears in a way that was just quintessentially Pan-ish.

  It was near Kensington Gardens, wasn’t it?

  She flew the way she vaguely remembered they used to go, following the Thames and keeping an eye out for pockets of green among the gray, brown, and black.

  Aha—at last, something familiar! She recognized the updraft that suddenly lifted her high into the sky and made it difficult for someone as light as she to land anywhere. Peter never had any trouble. Once in a great while she clung to his collar while he dove through gusts, and these were the best moments of all.

  The sky was just beginning to lighten as Tinker Bell touched down delicately inside a park. She felt some fairy familiarity; magic had not entirely deserted this ancient place. But these fey folk were of earthly origin and she had no time for such riffraff. She was Never Land empyreal—and she had work to do.

  As she peeped around the garden gate and up the street, she realized that things looked very different when you were down among the ugly buildings and not high above them. At least it was early and she had the city mostly to herself while she explored. There were only a few humans around this time of the morning.

  A solitary girl hurried along, looking over her shoulder every few steps. She was large and ugly—was it Wendy?

  Tinker Bell approached her eagerly.

  But no, up close it was obvious the girl’s dress was shabby and poor and her eyes darted about in fear; they didn’t hold steady in dreams.

  Toward this not-Wendy girl a pair of men strode broadly. Their voices were loud and their dress obviously fine even to a forest pixie’s eyes: great silk and wool capes, shiny top hats slightly askew, walking canes with glittering knobs. Much like foxes and wolves they had obviously been out all night hunting for whatever rarefied things these humans craved—eyeglasses
, taxes, creampuffs.

  “EGADS, is that the dancer from the Moulin Rouge? The one you liked so much?” one of the men said, guffawing, pointing at the human girl.

  “Good evening, sirs,” she said, pulling her collar close and trying to hurry past them.

  The other man put out his hand and stopped her, then looked her up and down.

  “No, she’s a bad copy. Still…”

  “Please, sirs, let me go. I’m just on my way home.”

  “From what nefarious activities, I should like to know,” the first man said with a snort. “Would anyone even miss you? At ‘home’? All the decent girls have been in bed and asleep for hours now. They’re not out wandering the streets at night, looking for trouble.”

  “I ain’t looking for trouble. Just let me go,” she pleaded.

  Tinker Bell’s eyes widened as she watched the man reach out to touch the girl’s cheek.

  Before she knew what she was doing, the little fairy was suddenly zooming in between the two, pelting pixie dust into the man’s eyes.

  The reaction was immediate: he howled and clawed at his face like a madman.

  His friend drew back in surprise.

  The girl saw her chance and ran off, mouthing silent thanks to her mysterious savior. The ball of light now zooming away brightened visibly—thanks to a new believer in fairy magic.

  “I can see!” the man moaned, falling to his knees. “I see too much! The world…as it really is…the great god Pan…”

  But Tink was already whisking down the street, that adventure over and forgotten.

  There were plenty of helpful street signs in this London—if only she could read. She remembered a big tree at the house; that’s how Peter always found it. A big tree in a tiny yard with an unused doghouse below. The windows to the nursery were on level with the highest branches of that tree, so they could perch there and listen. If Peter was especially enamored of the story they would glide silently over to the roof and lie on the slate shingles, half listening, half dreaming.

  Some of the street trees were indeed large, grand, and imposing—and sadly penned in, surrounded by cobbles and flagstones. None were in a yard.

  Human movement increased as the sun rose. Lamps were doused and people came out; they were sweeping the streets, hurrying into shops, unlocking doors with big keys. Tinker Bell buzzed unseen over everyone’s heads, looking out for young women of a certain height.

  Aha! There!

  A young woman in a very familiar blue dress entered a bookstore and coughed to get the bookseller’s attention. How perfectly Wendy!

  Tinker Bell zoomed down to see if she was indeed her; this girl definitely seemed more likely than the first one. All right, her skin looked darker, and her hair, too, but who could tell? Humans were strange. Maybe they changed now and then.

  “I have a question about a book. Please,” the girl spoke softly.

  No, that was definitely not Ugly Wendy. Ugly Wendy wasn’t shy when she spoke. She was loud. And to the fairy’s ears, strident and pushy.

  “My wares are far more refined and intellectual than what will satisfy the likes of you,” the shop owner snapped without looking up from his own book. “I doubt you can even read. Where are you from?”

  “My parents are from Barbados, sir. I was born in England and am a citizen.”

  “Hardly. Please leave my premises at once.”

  “But—”

  “Get out. Now. Or I shall summon the constable. Your kind is not welcome here.”

  The girl sighed, shook her head, and left.

  Tinker Bell also buzzed off, confused and full of unquiet thoughts. She paused to catch her breath and sort things out—and also to suggest to a couple of nearby mice that they would probably very much enjoy comfy nests made exclusively out of a shop’s worth of shredded books. They agreed and scampered off, summoning dozens of their friends.

  Wendy was a big ugly girl. That was just the truth of the matter. And she took Peter’s attention away from Tink, despite being big and ugly.

  But…

  Was this the world she lived in?

  Where random men might try to hurt her?

  Where even if a girl was polite, people…ignored her? Yelled at her? Made fun of her?

  Was this why Ugly Wendy stayed inside all the time telling stories to her brothers?

  Because it was safe?

  Because she could be whatever she wanted?

  Maybe her brothers were also ugly, but at least they treated her with respect.…

  Tinker Bell shook her head, trying to physically beat the thoughts out. They were complicated and negative and felt strangely similar to the ones she had about Peter and convincing him that his shadow wasn’t in London. There was something…icky about them. Like the bad-smelling graklemud you could never completely get off. You always thought you had, but there would be just a tiny bit somewhere and you wouldn’t be able to find it and you would stink embarrassingly for days.

  She rose into the air to fly her mind clean. She skimmed along the roofs and chimneys and spires of London, spiraling out wider and wider, expanding her search.

  Sometime mid-morning, when the tired sun crawled into its work clothes of smoke and mist, Tinker Bell finally found the attic gable she remembered from years before.

  But unlike every other time when she and Peter had come to hear stories, the windows were shut and fastened tight.

  Tinker Bell frowned and whizzed back and forth. She rapped on the glass angrily with her tiny knuckles.

  No one was there.

  She zoomed into the garden and up to the kitchen door and knocked, trying to stick her head into the too-small keyhole. She jingled furiously when she got stuck there for a moment.

  Then she heard a scratching on the other side, almost like a response to her knocks. She redoubled her efforts, slamming against the wood feetfirst.

  The door pulled slowly and laboriously inward and she tumbled into the Darling household.

  There were no humans about; only the dog was there. She regarded the fairy with large, woeful eyes. But the little fairy didn’t stop to say hello or thank you. She zoomed like an angry hornet from room to room until she found the stairs and zipped up them—and then a second set of stairs when she realized her destination lay on the next floor.

  The low thudding steps of Nana came up slowly behind her, as well as a doggy sigh or two.

  Here was the terrible room. Where Ugly Wendy told her stories to her brothers while Tink and Peter stayed outside looking, listening in. With all of its stupid, ugly, large human tools and bits and pieces littering the room…though it seemed there was far less clutter than the last time. She flew chaotically back and forth, over lamps and trunks, into the wardrobe and amongst the clothes, causing dust of both the general and pixie varieties to spray about indiscriminately.

  “Woof.”

  Nana had finally made it to the top of the stairs and sat down on her haunches with resignation, knowing it would do little good to try to physically stop the fairy.

  Tinker Bell stopped her buzzing around and hovered in front of the dog, angrily jingling questions.

  “Woof…” Nana said, rolling her eyes toward the bureau.

  Tinker Bell flew into the half-open top drawer so hard she bonked against the back. She might have gotten trapped inside had Nana not put up a massive paw to stop the drawer from closing.

  The fairy looked around frantically, lighting up every corner with her glow. But all of the shadows behaved normally, twisting and shrugging and shrinking and growing with her movements. None were Peter’s.

  She flew out and glared at the dog.

  Nana didn’t respond, hearing something with her giant dog ears that even the pixie couldn’t at first.

  Something horrible was waking. Bones clicked into place as it stretched its feeble limbs…

  And realized it was all alone.

  “Yip! Yipyip yipyip yip!”

  Tinker Bell froze. Another dog? Where were th
e humans? Where were Wendy and her two brothers? What was going on here?

  She hadn’t realized how much she had expected things to be exactly the same as before: three children in the nursery, Nana puttering about, furniture and toys askew. Everything had changed subtly and strangely like a spring after a bad winter, when plants came up where they hadn’t before.

  Fear began to sneak through her anger.

  She jingled tentatively.

  In answer, Nana just jerked her head toward the window. Peter’s shadow—and Wendy—were somewhere behind the clouds. Beyond London.

  Tinker Bell jingled a hesitant question.

  “Woof.”

  Tink’s facility with dog speak wasn’t perfect.

  So there was no way to be certain that Nana had said anything at all about pirates.

  Right?

  Without a second thought Tinker Bell took off as fast as she could, out of the house and into the clouds.

  Some readers might well be curious: was Nana upset at being left home from all these adventures—school, Never Land, doings with pirates and pixies?

  No, she was a dog, with dog dreams. Few things made her happier than the stories in her own head when she was hunkered down in front of a warm fire with a full belly.

  She would have appreciated some gratitude, however, for time well served. Perhaps a nice juicy steak on her birthday and Christmas—and maybe the occasional Tuesday as a welcome surprise.

  “I WILL NOT!”

  Wendy sat with her arms crossed and legs primly together. Before her was a washtub full of hot salt water, suds, pirate clothes, and stink.

  A half dozen half-naked pirates glowered around her, arms also crossed—though some were holding knives in their fists.

  “But you’re the mother of the ship now,” one said—Screaming Byron, whose jacket she had patched. It was only the second or third day and she had already learned most of their names. “The washing’s your responsibility.”

  “Absolutely not!” Wendy snapped, glaring at him so violently he almost fell backward. “I already take issue with the whole idea of being your mother, but being your scullery maid is entirely out of the question! Go find someone else to do your dirty work. My mother’s beautiful hands never scrubbed a nasty pair of pirate unmentionables, and neither shall mine!”