by Anna Katmore
My voice flat, I don’t bother about whispering. “I need a drink.” My nerves are on edge. Whatever happened a few minutes ago can’t be undone, so who cares if my parents hear me or not? This is bigger than secretly having a boy in my room after midnight.
Down in the kitchen, I fetch the milk from the fridge and, for once in my life, drink straight from the carton. Only when my nerves relax a little, I give Peter the chance to explain it all. “Spill. What’s the deal with you, this guy, the ship? Why do you flitter around in my world and not in a fantasy book? And why, of all people, does Captain Hook want to kidnap me?”
Peter hesitates a moment. “Because he knows you matter to me.”
I do? That keeps me stunned, the milk carton inches from my lips.
“When you fell from the sky to Neverland last time, I caught you and saved you. You stayed with me and my friends for a while.” He gives me a bashful smile, and it’s so out of character for him, that a laugh rattles up my throat. “We had fun…” he adds. “You and I.”
“Fun?”
He moves around the kitchen isle in the center and takes the carton out of my hand. “Actually more than fun.”
Why did his voice soften all of a sudden? Uneasiness grows in me when he lifts his hand to my face and strokes my cheek. “Are you trying to tell me that we were—” Yeah, what exactly? “—together then?”
His lips shifted sweetly to one side, he cocks his head briefly and shrugs. “I guess you could call it that.”
Peter is a gorgeous man. Only two days ago in the park, I could have imagined developing a small crush on him. But that was before I met Jamie earlier tonight. That man was pure godliness, no matter how hard Peter tries to make me believe he’s dangerous. And there was just something about him that drew me, besides the fact he knew things about me. Things that I never told no one. I clear my throat. “Where does Captain Hook fit into this story?”
Peter’s hand drops from my cheek. He takes a step back and leans against the cooking isle, folding his arms over his chest. “Hook stole you from me. He brought you to his ship, hoping that he could get to me through you.”
“Why would he do that?” Now I’m wondering how much of the original Peter Pan story is true. “Did he want to kill you?”
“Probably. But most of all, he wanted to get to the treasure that the Lost Boys and I keep hidden from him. He’s a greedy man, that pirate. Cares about nothing and no one, only about what he can steal from others.”
I want to slap myself for even asking, “How did that end? Did he trade me for the treasure?”
“No. He wouldn’t let you go, even if we gave him what he wanted.”
“How did I get free then?”
Now Peter smirks like a teenage boy up to something. “I saved you.”
“Ah.” So I was the real Wendy in his tale. That would have been so romantic…if it wasn’t completely insane. “How did I get back to London?”
“I taught you to fly.”
“How?” No, wait! I know it, I know it! “With a happy thought and some pixie dust?”
“Exactly.” His grin turns into a frown. “But that wasn’t the right way to send you home. You had to fall again, the same way you fell into Neverland.”
“Oh. Weird.” I put more volume into my voice next. “But why are you here now?”
“I missed you, so I followed you. And Hook must have followed me. He sure thinks if he can steal you again, he’ll get the treasure eventually.”
“So I’m just a pawn in this battle of yours?”
“To him you are. To me”—he takes my hand and squeezes it—“you’re more.”
Does he think I’m his girlfriend? I can’t be! I don’t know him at all. Gosh, this is crazy. “So, what do you want me to do now?”
“Stay inside until I took care of Hook.”
I laugh. “That’s definitely not going to happen. I have school tomorrow, and then there’s the ball in the evening.” My friends and I were looking forward to it for most of this year. It’s my last high school dance. Nothing will stop me from going.
“It’s too dangerous with Hook in this world.”
I take a moment to recap the situation. Peter can fly, so he most probably is the real Pan. If he’s the real Pan, then Jamie might be the real Hook. And I read the story often enough to know just how cruel Captain Hook is. But it doesn’t apply to the gentle guy who tried to coax a kiss from me less than an hour ago. He didn’t look anything like the pirate captain from the movies or book. Heck, he even had both of his hands—and I would know since they were on me when he leaned in to kiss me.
For all I know, I should be scared of Jamie—James Hook. But the fascination I hold for him runs deeper than that. I can’t stop to wonder what would have happened if Peter hadn’t interrupted the kiss. But if Jamie is really the ruthless pirate, it’s probably best to be thankful for Peter’s help.
“How can I protect you from him if you’re out there and free for him to approach you?” Peter insists.
A funny thought sneaks into my mind. “Easy. Come with me.”
“To the dance?” Contemplating my offer, he purses his lips.
“So?” I prompt him.
He scratches his chin that by now holds a dusting of stubble again. “It might work.”
At that moment, footsteps carry down from the stairs. Peter and I both jerk around to the door. “It’s my mother,” I hiss.
Lifting his arms in a helpless shrug, he grimaces, definitely out of a solution. Before we get caught, I dash to the window and open it for him. When he just stares at me, I gesture with my arms in sweeping moves. “Outside!” He can fly, so that won’t be a problem. But when he glides past me, I grab his arm and hand him back for one more second. “It’s a spring dance. You can wear whatever you like. Pick me up at eight.”
He nods then zooms off.
Jeez! Peter Pan just freaking flew out of my house.
Quickly closing the window after him, I pivot and grin at my mother’s sleepy face as she stands in the doorway. “I heard noise. What are you doing up this late?” she demands and smothers a yawn with her hand.
I scrunch up my face, chewing the inside of my cheek. “I had a weird craving for milk.” There’s really nothing else I could tell her. I mean, no one will ever believe me that I have a date with the notorious Peter Pan tomorrow.
Peter Pan
NOW THAT DIDN’T go too bad. Hook is gone. His ship is gone. And I have a date with his girl.
After Angel let me out through the kitchen window, I intended to fly back in through her balcony door, but clever me has locked it before we went downstairs. Perched on the chimney on top of the roof once more, I scan the neighborhood. Everything is silent.
Gazing at the black-blue sky, I can’t stop wondering where Smee has steered the ship. Hook himself certainly isn’t in the position to command anything tonight. The impact on the ground has knocked him out cold. It’ll take a while until he comes around, and then with a mean headache for sure.
Seems like Angel bought the lies I told her about him, if not a hundred percent. When he tries to sneak up to her next time, she’ll be a little more alert than she was tonight. I’ll be damned if she lets him kiss her again. A sneer creeps to my lips, though I manage to suppress the rising snicker. Phase one of my plan to take revenge on my brother plays out perfectly so far.
I think Angel even liked it when I touched her. A couple of days ago in the park, she let me carry her. The look on her face then had etched in my mind. Enamored. It actually hadn’t been easy to leave that picture of her and me back in Hook’s cabin. I debated half the night, whether I should keep it to myself. Angel looked adorable in it. I could have stared at it for hours, and then the image doesn’t even come close to the original.
Tonight, when Angel clung to me, recovering from the shock of the incident outside her room, I would have given a lot to be able to keep holding her like that. She feels so soft and fragile, and in the next moment she can
be a sassy little thing. I like that. It makes me want to spend more time with her. Makes me want to make her smile.
All these new thoughts are confusing as hell. I wonder if it all came with me aging. Dammit, I must stop thinking about Angel that way. Beautiful or not, I can’t effort to let her distract me so bad.
In the end, revenge is all that counts.
Chapter 8
“WATER, CAP’N?”
Struggling to open my eyes, I turn my head in the direction of Smee’s worried voice. I swallow and try to move, but my head feels like being weighed down by an elephant’s ass. When a cup touches my lips, I drink in small sips. It takes a while until I can focus on anything. “Care to tell me why I’m in my quarters and need you to cocker me up?” I whine.
“Took a blow to your head.”
Not only to my head, it seems. Pain surges in my side, making me wince at my attempt to sit up. “Explain.”
“As far as I could see through the shield of clouds, you were about to kiss the lass. But then Pan knocked into you and the both of you dropped from the balcony.”
Rubbing my forehead and temples, I moan. Slowly, everything comes back at me. I was about to kiss Angel. I almost had her ready to believe me. Damn Peter’s bad timing. That fucking little bastard, I’m going to kill him for ruining that moment for me. “How did I get back on board?”
“Pan left when Wade Dawkins and I lowered on the rope to get to your aid. We brought you up. As soon as you were back on the Jolly Roger, she moved.”
“Moved? Where are we?” There’s not much to see through the windows in my cabin. Outside is black with some faraway dots that might be stars.
“We sailed—or flew—higher up into the sky. If you ask me, we’re somewhere between Angel’s world and Neverland now. You’ve been out cold for almost ten hours.”
“What?” This can’t be. It means I wasted the first night of three snoozing away in my cabin instead of winning Angel over. I throw the blanket aside and jump out of bed, which after a blow to the head is obviously punished with a dizzy spell. Ignoring the black dots taking up most of my vision, I shove Smee aside and stumble to the door, pulling it open. The crew sits on deck, playing cards and drinking the hours away. The ship stands totally still in the sky. Everything around us is a velvety black sea with diamond stars all around.
It’s a wonder my wobbly legs carry me up to the sterncastle. Grasping the wheel, I spin it around, but nothing happens. There’s no wind in the sails to move the ship. “Go, you damn thing!” I kick the helm hard. “Go, go, go!”
“Maybe it’s because she mustn’t be seen down in Angel’s world at daylight hours. You said the fairy insisted only to go down in the shelter of night.”
It’s true. But still—a whole night wasted and being stranded until it gets dark down there again? This isn’t fair!
After some good persuading from Smee’s side, he convinces me to eat a few bites of food and take the time to rest some more, since there’s no chance to change things anyway. My headache ceases after a while and I start pacing the decks for what seems like forever.
Eventually, the sounds of linen catching wind draw my gaze up. The sails billow. The ship sways. Then it starts to sink.
Sink? By Davie Jones’ locker, where is the fairy’s magic dust? Finding the jar with the rainbow sand in my cabin, I use the second third up to dust the Jolly Roger. As soon as the job is done, I dart back to the bridge and grab the wheel. This time, my mere touch is enough to move the ship. We’re heading back to London, the sea of lights coming into view.
Taking the same route as last night, we soon reach the suburb of the town and the peaceful, dark street with Angel’s house. There’s not a minute to waste. “Let me down on the rope, Smee!” I holler as anticipation takes complete control over my heartbeat.
He hands me one end of the rope, but at the same time Bull’s Eye calls out, “Cap’n! There’s someone leaving the house. I think it’s Angel. And she’s with—”
I look up at the crow’s nest, meeting Ravi’s grimace. “Pan,” he finishes.
Finding another spyglass on deck, I take a look myself. Dressed in a floating, dark pink dress that reveals her delectable legs from her knees down, Angel clings to Peter’s arm as they move across her front yard. A black coach without a horse is waiting for them outside the garden fence. Peter let’s her get in first and then stoops to follow. They slam the door and the vehicle moves, first slowly down the street, but then it gains speed, taking off in the direction of the town.
“Follow them!” I shout, making Jack wince as he’s standing next to me.
Wherever Angel goes tonight, I’ll go too. I don’t care if I have to chase her across the globe. This is the second night I have with her, and I’m not going to waste a single minute of it.
Angelina
DURING THE PAST couple days, the gym at my high school has been successfully transformed into the hall of Thousand and One Nights. Kudos to our outstanding ball committee. Lanterns and colorful veils decorate the walls and ceiling, cardboard castles with flame-like tops fill the corners. The air is thick with a distinct musky scent. I’m sitting with five of my best friends at a table with a yellow cloth, a flower bouquet in the center, and then Peter Pan at my side.
Of course, no one knows who he really is. To them, he’s just a friend of mine, a last minute decision who wouldn’t take off his leather jacket in spite of the twenty-five degrees it must be in here. They all seem to like him, even though he casts an uncomfortable look at me every now and then. Of course he would—they are talking about video games and the pros and cons of a stick shift car versus an automatic right now. Things that, as far as I can tell, don’t exist in Neverland.
“Overwhelmed?” I ask him under my breath as I lean closer to his side.
“A little,” he confesses.
“Now you get an idea of how I felt last night, when you broke the news to me that you’re actually a figure out of my favorite fairytale.”
Peter smirks. “Ah, you can’t fool me. You liked the flying. I could tell by your excited”—he waggles his brows—“screams.”
Screams? Yes. Excited? Not so much. “More hysteric, I’d say.” But I have to give myself credit for handling this weird situation surprisingly well. Okay, I had half a night and an entire day to get used to the thought of Peter Pan being my date tonight. After the spinning of my mind and my questioning my sanity had lessened toward the morning, I even got a couple hours of sleep.
The hardest thing about all this was not telling my little sisters. They would freak out if they knew. And with my parents so not living in a fantasy world, I don’t want anybody to sell me out and earn me a visit with the shrink.
And then there’s still Hook.
I might not have slept much last night, but the little time I was sucked into the land of dreams was enough for his eyes and smile to haunt me all the way down. And not in the bad sort. In fact, I was wondering most of today how a young man as gentle as Jamie could actually run with a pack of pirates. Worse, be their ruthless captain. Maybe it was the lack of the long, curly wig, the wide hat and Disney’s infamous red brocade coat that deceived me, but I just can’t imagine him being capable of kidnapping or murder.
Then again, what do I really know about him? Nothing. It certainly is wise to stop thinking about his lips brushing mine and keeping close to Peter. He’s the good guy after all. Everybody knows that. Even though in my mind he always was a boy of maybe fifteen years with green clothes and a funny hat with a red feather. Definitely not the grown man who sits in the chair next to me now and reads the label of the Red Bull bottle in his hand like he’s never seen a more exotic juice.
He takes a swig—and grimaces. “Eew. Who drinks such nasty stuff?” he whispers in my direction.
I laugh. “Want to get an orange juice or something?” At his nod, I get up, but just as he is about to rise and follow me, Sebastian Wilton turns to him and asks him about his account name on Facebook. I know
it’s mean, but I can’t resist waiting with folded arms and a smirk for his answer.
Peter goes the safe way and slowly shakes his head. “No Phasebook.” That gets Sebastian started on a gush about social media and how it’s unfairly dammed by society when so many possibilities come with it. Peter is a patient listener.
Since they are just starting to warm up to each other, I don’t want to drag him with me. “I’ll get you a cup of OJ,” I mouth and he nods, although he makes a helpless face at me. Sebastian is a nice guy. I trust him to keep Peter in a good mood until I’m back in a few minutes.
Unfortunately, I don’t get far. On the way to the bar through the crowd around the dance floor, I run into Melissa Strathford. She’d been living in my street through half of our high school lives, but a couple of years ago, they moved to Soho, London. I almost didn’t recognize her with her new hairstyle that now is a pixie cut instead of the willowing blond mane she loved so much.
Since we haven’t seen in a while, I don’t get away with a simple hi. I compliment her about her new hair, and she returns them about my halterneck satin dress and the strappy sandals in silvery synthetic leather I wear. Then we catch up on each other’s lives, even though I leave out the most recent events including a pirate and a flying visitor from Neverland.
Once every few minutes, I cut a glance back to our table and check if Peter is still happily entertained. Obviously, Sebastian does a good job. One time, Peter catches my eyes across the room and makes a quirky face, sticking his tongue out at me when no one seems to watch. He looks years younger at that moment. Almost like the boy I imagined Peter Pan to be. The gesture makes me chuckle, and I turn back to Melissa for the umpteenth time during the past ten minutes. Except, this time my gaze gets stuck on a striking set of eyes in the crowd.
Seawater blue.
An invisible chunk of ice slides down my spine.
“Angelina, are you all right?” Melissa touches my elbow and I shoot around to face her.
