by Terry Brooks
Hook walked across to the opposite railing and stared downward at the docks. In a shaft of moonlight, he could see Maggie Banning seated on the floor of his prison.
Far distant, walking alone along a limb of the Nevertree where he could watch the last of the sun's color spread away into the water and the moonglow take its place, Peter Banning came to an uncertain stop. Below, silhouetted against the dark backdrop of the island's cliffs by a shimmer of twinkling lights, sat Hook's pirate town and the Jolly Roger. The air was so clear that he could see the movement of tiny figures on the wharf and streets amid the jumbled ship hulls. It was so still that he could hear their footsteps.
But what he heard now, suddenly, improbably, was the sound of someone singing a soft, sweet lullaby.
I know that song, he thought in surprise.
He had finished his meal in something of a fog. Lost Boys crowded about, all of them talking a mile a minute, asking this, asking that, anxious to be close to him. He had smiled at them, nodded cheerfully, and given pithy answers to their questions-all the while trying to figure out what had happened with that sword and those coconuts. For a moment there, for just a moment, he had been… transformed. It was a ridiculous thing to say, but it was the only description that fit. He shouldn't have been able to do that-to split those coconuts-not even if they had been lying on the table, let alone flying through the air. It was such an incredible piece of luck, such a fluke.
And yet, for just a moment…
He had watched Tink's flash of light as she darted down in front of a glum Rufio. "Did you see?" he had heard her ask. "He's in there, Rufio. Help me get him out. Teach him to fight so he can stand up to Hook. Look in his eyes-he's there!" And she had yanked on his gold earring for emphasis.
But Rufio had simply swatted at her in response and growled, "Tink, you Neverbug! Let go!" so that she had flown indignantly away.
I know that song.
He stared transfixed at the lights of the pirate town, straining to hear the words. As he did so Thud Butt appeared beside him. For a moment neither spoke, listening together to the sound of the music.
"I was thinking, Peter," said Thud Butt when a little time had passed. His round face lifted and his dark eyes gleamed. "When you were like us, there was a Lost Boy named Tootles. Do you remember Tootles?"
Peter nodded wordlessly.
Thud Butt reached up and removed a bag from around his neck. "Hold out your hands, Peter."
Peter did, and Thud Butt emptied the contents of the bag into his cupped palms. Peter stared down. He was holding a handful of marbles.
"These are his happy thoughts," said Thud Butt solemnly. "He lost them a long time ago. I kept them, but they don't work for me." He smiled. "Maybe they'll work for you."
The smile was sad and hopeful all at once. He handed Peter the bag. Peter dumped the marbles back into it, tucked it inside his shirt, and reached over to give Thud Butt a hug.
Thud Butt hugged him back, saying, "My happy thought is my mum, Peter. I can't remember her, though. Do you remember your mum?"
Peter broke away gently and shook his head no.
Thud Butt started to speak, but Peter silenced him with a finger to his lips. "Wait. Listen."
Maggie's lullaby wafted on the night air, rising up like the scent of flowers carried on the wind.
Thud Butt's chubby face beamed in the moonlight. "It sounds like Wendy, Peter," he said softly. "She was our mother once." He paused and glanced over hesitantly. "Do you think she's ever coming back?"
In the pirate prison of the Lost Boys, everyone was drifting off to sleep. Maggie sang more softly now, lower, watching eyes close and heads nod and breathing slow to a whisper. She finished the lullaby but continued to hum the tune, staring off into the darkened corners, thinking of home.
A slight rustle at the barred window caused her to shift her gaze. There sat Captain Hook, cross-legged before the sill, eyes glittering in the moonlight, angular face lowered into shadow, the silhouette of his wig and tricorne unmistakable against the brightened sky.
Maggie quit humming, hesitated a second, then gently moved the heads nestled in her lap. She rose and crossed to stand before him. Hook's eyes had a distant, dreamy look, and his hands were clasped childlike before him.
"Who puts you to sleep, Captain Hook?" Maggie asked quietly.
Hook's smile curled like the ends of his mustaches. "Child, I alone hold the pirates of Neverland together. No one puts Captain James Hook to sleep. I put myself to sleep."
Maggie's clear blue eyes fixed him. "Well, then, that's why you're so sad. You have no mother."
Hook seemed taken aback. For a moment it appeared he was about to protest, that he was about to deny the fact, that somewhere in the dim recesses of his memory lay the fragments of a time when Maggie's assertion had not been true.
But then he just shrugged. "No. I'm sad because I have no war."
Maggie shook her head slowly. "All day long, giving orders, being in charge, making people do things. No one takes care of you. A mother would take care of you. You need a mother very badly. Very, very badly."
Hook stared at her, his face thoughtful. His eyes wandered to the children she had sung to sleep, and for just an instant his face softened.
Then the iron crept back and the softness disappeared. He rose wordlessly and stalked away.
The Tick Tock Museum
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
The sound was pervasive, insistent, and terrifying. Even in his sleep, Hook could not escape it. It followed after him relentlessly. It invaded his dreams, a ghost out of his past wearing a face that was all too familiar.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
The crocodile slithered from the depths of Davy Jones's locker, crawling from the netherworld to which Hook had dispatched it, seeking its revenge in the form of a further taste, of a bigger bite. His hand had not been enough to satisfy it. His hand had only given it a craving for more of him. Up the side of the Jolly Roger the crocodile crawled, jaws opening and closing eagerly, eyes bright. Hook tried to run from it, of course. He tried to flee. But he found that he couldn't move. His boots were nailed to the deck. When he tried to escape them, he found that his socks were glued inside. Wrenching and groaning in terror, he fought to break free, prepared to rip the skin from the soles of his feet if need be.
Laughter assailed him in his misery. Nearby stood Peter Pan, head thrown back in merriment, a hammer and nails in one hand, a pot of glue in the other.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Hook lay curled in a ball in his bed, his blankets hauled up about his chin, the side of his face twitching in time to the ticking sound so that his mustaches and eyebrows jumped like the inner workings of the clock that pursued him.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Finally he awoke, and a bloodshot eye flicked open abruptly, one brow still twitching above, one mustache below. The eye stared wildly at nothing, mirroring both terror and rage. Hook flung off his covers and leaped from his bed, nightshirt billowing about him like sailcloth. His claw gleamed wickedly in the early-morning light as he glanced about frantically, trying to locate the hideous sound. He looked right and left. He looked high and low. He rose on tiptoes to scan the top of the bureau. He dropped to his knees and peered under the bed. He rushed to the latticed windows aft and peered down to the waterline and up to the railing.
Nothing!
Flushed with anger, his eyes gone to slits, he charged through the cabin door and out onto the quarterdeck.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
He wheeled about, following the sound up the side stairs to the aft deck and Long Tom, his entire body twitching rhythmically now.
It couldn't be back, could it? Not after he'd finally done it in? Not after he'd stuffed and mounted it in the square?
Hook's eyes scanned the empty deck wildly, then settled at last on the hammock where Jack Banning lay asleep.
Slowly, cautiously, Hook approached, hearing the ticking grow louder
with every step. He stopped when he reached the boy, shaking as if he were caught naked in a blizzard. His claw stretched out in tiny jerks, closer to the boy, closer, and then deep into his pocket.
When it reappeared, the pocket watch Peter Banning had given to his son was snagged on its tip.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
The steady, monotonous, horrid sound built inside Hook's head. The second hand jerked and stopped, jerked and stopped. Hook held the watch up between his finger and thumb, regarding it as he might a poisonous snake. His entire body was shaking and his eyes had gone as red as fire. Hook's face changed from something merely frightening to something hideous. He moved forward as if in a trance, and his shadow fell over the sleeping Jack. Slowly, deliberately, he raised the hook.
In that instant Jack awoke. His eyes opened, still heavy with sleep, and through the yawn that squinched his eyes almost shut, he saw the terrible, menacing form that towered over him. His eyes snapped open, caught sight of Hook's face and claw, and went shut again instantly. Cowering beneath his covers, he cringed, expecting…
"No, Cap'n! Keep yer powder dry, sir!" Smee's hand deftly closed over the watch, muffling the ticking sound to near silence. "Cap'n," he pleaded hurriedly, "the lit'le imp di'n know any better."
Hook's eyes shifted abruptly and settled on his bosun, causing the other to shrink back in spite of himself. Then the madness faded, and the anger died away. Hook straightened, nodding. His smile was gruesome.
"Yes, Smee, quite right. Penalize our guest for the accidental importation of contraband? Bad form!"
The smile wavered through gritted teeth as he extracted the watch from Smee's uncertain hand. "Only one place for this, Jack, lad," he announced to the boy, whose eyes were still as big as saucers. "To the museum at once!"
He hauled Jack out of the hammock with a thunderous laugh, clasping an arm about the boy so that the wig curls danced on his nose and made him sneeze. They threw on their pirate clothes and off they went, Hook hand in hand with Jack and Smee trailing. Down the gangplank and onto the wharf, down the wharf and through the tunnel, out of the tunnel and onto the pier, along the pier and through the pirate town and crowds of anxiously fawning pirates until at last Hook turned them into a cavernous, dark old hulk that seemed entirely deserted of traffic. As they entered they passed from the clamor of a circus midway into a churchlike silence.
But this was no church. It was a monstrous room filled with clocks of all sizes and shapes. Some were old and some new. Some were large and some small. Some were stately grandfathers and some upstart alarms. Some were for the wrist and some for the pocket. They were made of wood with gold and silver inlaid and of plastic and metal with bright patterns. Some bore the faces of sun and moon, others of mice and men. They hung from the walls and they lay on tables. They stood alone like sentries and they crouched on metal bands like insects. They were everywhere you looked, hundreds of them, perhaps thousands. Jack stared about in wonder at the incredible array.
Then all at once he realized that something was wrong. It took him a moment to realize what it was.
None of the clocks worked.
Hook lifted his arm and swept the room possessively. "My own, personal, wonderful museum. Jack! Isn't it grand! A bounty of broken clocks! Once, each tick-talked, and now-no more. Now all is well. Listen, lad."
Jack looked about doubtfully. "I don't hear anything."
"Exactly! That's just the point!" Hook was euphoric. He charged across the room to a particularly garish old clock with a mix of emeralds and fishes carved into its wood surface. "This was Barbecue's very own bedside clock. Quite the terror of the seven seas was Barbecue. Almost as feared as myself!" Hook's grin was enormous. "I smashed his clock right after I keelhauled him!"
Aside, to Smee, he added, "But a very polite man, Barbecue, right to the very end."
Smee grinned back. "Aye, Cap'n. A right salty old scag for a devil's cut! And his ship made such a pretty bonfire against the water's blue."
The two erupted in laughter, hanging on each other for support. Jack, recovered now from his earlier fright, found himself intrigued anew by this latest wonder. He picked up Barbecue's clock to examine it. As he did so the broken hands clicked suddenly, sharply against each other.
Hook sprang back instantly, disengaging himself from Smee, whirling about wildly, the terror returned to his eyes. "What's that? Smee, what do I hear? No! A ticking! A ticking, Smee!"
Smee had hold of him instantly. "Cap'n, no, there's no ticking here, nothing left to tick, by my bones, all's plainly pulverized…"
But Hook was having none of it. He snatched Barbecue's clock from Jack's hands and smashed it anew. He pounded it with his claw and threw it on the floor. Jack stared in amazement, mouth open.
"Very well!" declared Hook, stepping back, tricorne and wig askew. Primly he straightened them. "This is for the ticking that might have been!" He began jumping up and down on the broken pieces. "And this is for dinner being late last night!"
He stopped suddenly and glanced over at Jack, a sly glint coming into his cold eyes. "Care to join me, my boy?" he asked, and casually tossed Jack his pocket watch. "Go on. You know what to do."
Jack stared at him for a moment, and the fire in Hook's eyes seemed to transfer to his own. He held the watch up, regarded it somberly for just a moment, then dashed it to the floor.
"This is 'cause I always have to be home for dinner!" he cried exuberantly, joining in the game. ' 'If I'm hungry or not!"
Hook laughed merrily and tossed the boy another clock. Jack threw it to the floor and jumped on its face. Hook tossed him another and another. Jack threw them all down, smashing each one anew.
"Come on, Jack!" Hook encouraged. "That's the lad! Now break a window! Break a window!"
Hook snatched up a clock and hurled it at the closest window, shattering the glass. Without thinking, Jack followed suit, smashing another. Together they threw clocks at windows, at other clocks, and at anything else they could find, reveling in the sound of breaking glass and collapsing works. Smee leaped up and down behind them, urging them on gleefully.
"This is for brushing my teeth!" raged Jack, his hair and eyes wild, his face sweating. "And for combing my hair! And washing my hands! And making less noise! And not talking so much! And for being told to grow up!"
"And for having a fat, old Pan for a Daddy!" howled Hook, hauling down a whole armful of clocks and scattering them every which way.
"Who wouldn't save us!" Jack cried in sudden despair. "Who wouldn't save us!"
"Who wouldn't even try!" hissed Hook, almost in his ear.
Jack dropped to his knees in tears amid the wreckage of the clocks, crying bitterly. "He wouldn't save us. He wouldn't even try. Daddy didn't even… try."
He was sobbing so hard he couldn't speak. Hook glanced at Smee, and they shared a conspiratorial wink and grin. Then quickly Hook knelt at Jack's side, his arm resting comfortingly about the boy's shoulder.
"Oh, well, Jack," he said, his voice smooth as syrup. "He may yet try, you know. He will, in fact, I think, try." He waited for the tear-streaked face to lift and the damp eyes to meet his own. He wore a mask of sad understanding for the boy. "The question is, lad, when that time comes, do you want to be saved? Do you want to go back to… more disappointment? Do you want to go back with… him?"
Hook shook his head quickly. "No, don't answer now. No, no, no. Now's the time for other things. Now's the time for being whatever you want, be it pirate or…"
A twinkle came into his dark eye. Jack hesitated. "Or what?" he asked curiously.
Hook's smile was dazzling. One arm came out from where it had been hidden behind his back. Wedged in the crook of his claw was Jack's baseball.
He held it out to the boy. Jack's eyes went wide, and he reached eagerly to accept it.
"So tell me, Jack," Hook asked softly. "Have I ever made a promise I haven't kept?"
The click of Hook's teeth was like the closing of a trap.
&nb
sp; Hook Throws a Curve
While the nefarious Hook was coming to grips, so to speak, with the ghosts of his past, Peter Banning was in the process of confronting some hard truths about his present. Foremost among these was the continuing and growing belief of the Lost Boys that he was-well, you know who-when he wasn't.
"En garde," hissed Rufio.
He stood toe to toe with Peter in a clearing at the base of the Nevertree, a wary look in his dark eyes. Both wielded swords with varying degrees of confidence. Rufio looked as if he had been bom clasping his. Peter looked as if he wasn't sure which end was pointed.
"Take it easy on me," he pleaded. He was already breathing heavily. "I'm just a beginner, remember."
"Yeah, sure," Rufio growled. "I saw de coconuts. I am watching you, ugly mon."
He went into a crouch, dark limbs crooking smoothly, black eyes intense, red feathery spikes like streaks of fire through his black hair. Peter tried to imitate him without success. This was a bad idea, he thought. This was a terrible idea. As usual, it was Tink's idea. It wasn't enough that he run and jump and be slung about; it was also necessary that he learn to sword-fight. Sword-fight, for heaven's sake! What did he know about sword fighting? He could barely manage to slice a roast at Sunday dinner!
Rufio circled to his left, feinting. Peter circled with him, not knowing what else to do. Rufio can teach you, Tink had insisted. Rufio's the best. He can show you all the tricks. He can help you remember.
Sure, but when all was said and done, would he be alive to say thanks?
Gathered all about, the Lost Boys cheered, some for Peter, most for Rufio. Last night was last night and quickly forgotten. Rufio was still the boss.
Tink flashed down out of the cooling shadows to land on the tip of Peter's sword. "Remember what I told you," she admonished. "Back straight, shoulders relaxed. Step in there to meet him, don't be afraid. Take care of him the way you took care of those coconuts."
Peter shot her an irritated glance. "I told you, I don't know how I did that! It was a reflex!"
