Morgan le Fay laughed.
“You would disgrace us?” the mermaid screeched. She beat at the rock with her fist.
“Just engaging in fair trade,” I said mockingly. “You want the men to stay and they want food and comfort, both of which you seem capable of offering.”
The mermaid considered it for some time. “No interference,” she said. She then pulled the latched shell from under the water and released the glowing blue orb. It spun in the air for an instant and she gently blew on it, scattering it into nothing along with the light fog that had settled behind my eyes.
“Good,” I said. “Now I get one more as well.”
“That is not the deal!” the mermaid screamed.
“The deal is whatever I say it is as long as I can leave whenever I please,” I told her. “You are fortunate that I am so generous. Mind you, I will take it all with me when we go, but I still have business to conduct here, so you have time to prepare your market.”
“You are a bottom-feeder and you are not fit for my waters,” the mermaid spat. “Who is your other?”
I pointed to Billy Jukes. “You’re looking at him.”
“I don’t want it,” Jukes said.
My heart dropped into my stomach. Jukes didn’t look at me. He didn’t even look up. “What do you mean?” I asked.
“Just what I said.” The large man stared at the ink on his forearm. “Looking at these tattoos used to hurt. Now they don’t, not as much anyway.” I waited for a longer explanation to come, but none did.
“Do you see?” Yara sneered. “You put your men through such pain.”
I waved her words away. “William, think about what you are giving up.”
“I thought about it all the way back from the waterfall,” Jukes said. The large man sat for some time just shaking his head. He then smiled and looked up at me. “It is nearly time to get back to the crew, Captain. Seventeen verses left.”
“Wait!” Yara screeched. “You are staying?”
“Yes,” I said. “A deal is a deal.”
“Then who is your one more?”
I gave her a name and Billy Jukes laughed from the root of his soul. “He’s going to be pissed.”
Yara retrieved the second blue orb and released it as she did before. She glared at me angrily then dove into the water with a huff.
I turned to Morgan le Fay. “When should I be back for you?”
She smiled. “You are used to women who need you to return for them. You’ll see me when you are needed and not a moment sooner.” Her brusk tone struck in me something I had thought was long dead. I started to say something back, but instead just looked at her. She looked back at me and, in those few seconds, we understood each other completely. She pointed to an opening in the rocky dome and I bowed to her.
Billy Jukes and I walked through the narrow passage for several yards until it came to a dead end. Tangled root covered the dirt walls and, just twenty feet above our heads, light shone through. We climbed the root and punched through the dirt to discover that it wasn’t dirt at all. It was sand. We crawled out onto the sandy patch alongside the now-sated plant. I gave one last thought to Bertilak, then led Jukes back to the bay.
Chapter Twenty
We got to the bay just as Max Kasey and Robert Mullins loaded the first barrel from Bertilak’s castle. Only one cutter was tied down. The other sailed towards us with Smee at the bow, searching the beach. His eyes settled on me and narrowed. His face flushed red and Smee yelled across the water, “You miserable bastard!”
“Good luck with this one,” Jukes said, then went to help Alf Mason load another barrel.
Smee docked the cutter and jumped onto the beach without once taking his eyes off of me. He didn’t give any orders and none of the men paid his anger much attention, maybe because it wasn’t directed at them. He marched over to me with his fists balled.
“So, get this, Captain. I’m on the ship loading Long Tom back onto the main deck, which was a bitch of a job thank you, and all of a sudden I see flashes of my father being shot and my mother running me through. Isn’t that the strangest thing, Captain? It plays over and over again in my head. Why is that? I asked myself. Why am I remembering things I clearly said I didn’t want to remember? Do you know why, Captain?”
“I need you on point at all times, Smee.”
“I don’t want to be on point,” Smee said. “I told you that.”
“The Forgetting settles in on the men as long as we’re here on the island. We’ll have to take them through the falls every couple of days.”
“Even Jukes?”
“He won’t want to go,” I said. “That was his choice.”
“And I don't get a choice?” Smee said, seething.
“No, I chose for you.”
“So all of this you said about a man’s choice was nothing,” Smee growled. “Just talk.”
“I’m not doing this alone.”
At that, Smee paused. He looked at me, then at the water, then back at me. “Why me, then? Why not Starkey?”
“I need someone to question me who also remembers me before I became this.”
“Became what? A salty old bastard?”
I smirked. “I mean back when we were younger.”
“Aye, back when I used to stomp the snot out of ya.”
“Yes,” I said. “That’s exactly right. Memento mori.”
“What?”
“Respica te, hominem te memento,” I said. “It means ‘look behind you, remember you are only a man.’ Slaves used to say this to Roman Emperors after a victory.”
“Is that what I am now? A slave?”
“No, not at all,” I said. “You are a measure to keep me humble. Grounded. You’re going to keep us alive.”
“I should cut you from neck to nuts.”
“But you’re not going to, are you?”
The man’s face turned red, then purple. He screamed and looked to the shore. “You’re down three men,” he said finally.
“We lost Michael Fast,” I told him. “Doherty and Collazo tried to kill me.”
“I can’t imagine why,” Smee snarled.
“Enough, Smee,” I said. “There’s work to do. Jukes will take one load to the Jolly Roger. We’ll leave three men to guard the other cutter here on the beach while you and I take a group and finish emptying the stores out of the castle. Got it?”
The man rocked on his heels for a breath, then grumbled “Aye, Captain” and relayed my orders to the crew. Smee chose Alf Mason, Ed Teynte, Noodler, Skylights, and Max Kasey to come with us. Starkey, Thomas Mather, and Robert Mullins stayed behind.
The trip to the castle felt shorter this time than the last few. The path rose and fell the same as before. The mountain lorded over us, dark and grey, as before. The changes in the weather, once so disorienting and violent, seemed subtle now. Almost not worth noticing.
The first wave of my crew left the gate and door open for us, so we made short work of accessing the remaining supplies. We broke every lock in the courtyard. We beat down each door inside the keep. Clothes. Food. Weapons. Water. Chains. Rope. Sheets. Furs. Syrup. Yeast. Wine. Bertilak worked so hard to maintain these things for centuries and we tore through it all in under an hour.
Smee took Max Kasey to the stable and they tied two horses to a large cart. We loaded it and rode out.
Nearly twelve yards towards the forest, a wheel came off of the cart and the supplies spilled everywhere. Two barrels broke. One rolled thirty feet. I walked over to the barrel and righted it when a crack sounded in the distance. I quieted the men’s grumbling and motioned to Smee.
He spat orders at the men and crept over to me. “What now?”
“Quiet, Smee,” I told him. “Listen.” A second crack echoed through the trees, followed by angry voices.
“Getting yourself killed already, Captain? Isn’t this the part where I’m supposed to discourage you from doing something stupid?”
“Which is why we’re just going to have a look,�
� I said. “Nothing more.”
“Right,” he said, checking his pistol.
Our footsteps were light and fast, so as not to drown out the rustling up ahead. I parted the branches of a thin fir and looked into the pathway.
Peter Pan floated in the air, several feet above the heads of his Lost Boys. His wild eyes lit up with a familiar fury. He dove down and a voice screamed between smacks and dull thuds. I tried to look over the branch, but as I lowered it, it began to snap, so I held my pose and listened.
“What happened to you?” Peter screamed. His hoarse voice cracked as he pulled at his filthy blond hair. “You changed! How?”
“I don’t know,” the voice said.
“Tell me how!” Tears welled in Peter’s eyes.
Peter reached down and lifted his victim into our view.
It was the boy, but at the same time it wasn’t. There was a weight to his shoulders and arms that he didn’t have the last time I saw him. His jaw was set wider and his brow was darker. I found myself asking the same question as Peter Pan: How had this boy managed to grow older?
Smee breathed his recognition and I hissed at him to remain silent.
The boy clawed at the hands around his throat, but couldn’t pry Peter’s fingers loose in spite of his new strength. He swung wild fists at Pan, but Peter elbowed them away and threw the boy down against the rising root of a nearby birch.
I turned to the distant image of my crew, still fixing the cart’s wheel and reloading the freight. Smee caught my eyes and shook his head. The men were too far to call over, not without being heard. I nodded my agreement and we turned back to watch the beating continue.
The boy scrambled to his feet. Peter shouldered him into the tree and leaned his forearm across his neck. He drew back his fist and slammed it against the boy’s head. The boy fell to his stomach in the dirt. He crawled and Peter stepped down on his back. Peter’s eyes hardened. He turned to the others. “Lost Boys. A rule has been broken. You know the rules.”
A chorus erupted from the children. “Never disobey. Never grow up.”
“And now Foggerty has grown up,” Peter said to a rumble of disapproval from the Lost Boys. “He is acting and looking like an adult.” The rumble became a boil of spitting and cursing.
A figure stepped into view, pudgy and pale. I recognized him immediately from my youth. Donald Sotheby, or Curly as he was known here, began chanting a three-beat melody. I strained to hear the words he was saying, but soon others joined in and the words became clear. “Thin him out. Thin him out. Thin him out.”
There were two pistols on my belt and I still had my father’s sword and a knife. But these were all weapons that required hands and I only had one left. I counted the moments it would take to fire one, drop it, pull the second, fire it, drop it, and draw my sword. Even if I could get both shots off and Smee could fire his, my crew would never get here before Pan was on top of us. There was an emptiness where my hand should have been and, for the first time, I felt crippled.
My heart sank as I came to grips with the idea that Peter Pan was going to kill one of his own. These children trusted him. They fought and died at his word. Did this Foggerty have a home? Was he a beggar? Someone must have loved him. Even if not, a life on the street was favorable to servitude and abuse at the hands of a monster without remorse or conscience. At least on the street one could find opportunity, a chance. Here there was only death.
Over my thoughts, the chant rose to a shout of small voices. The Lost Boys banged their sticks and short swords together in time with the beat. “Thin him out. Thin him out. Thin him out.”
Peter seized the boy and dragged him up to his knees. Foggerty wiped a tear from his dirt-stained cheek and quieted his breaths. Peter flew around him once in a tight circle and stopped, seeming to soak in the other boys’ chanting as though it were sunlight.
Peter looked around the path until his eyes settled on a fallen tree trunk. He then said, “Grab him.”
Two of the boys lifted Foggerty at the wrists. They then pulled him over the downed tree and held his arms and legs, hanging his head over the one side. They braced themselves to hold him still.
Peter unsheathed his short sword and made several downward swipes in the air. He turned to Foggerty and held the sword high over his head.
A torrent of rage boiled in me and I burst into a shout. “No!”
Several things happened in this one instant. All of the children stared in shock at the woods. Peter lowered his sword. Smee cursed. I pulled one of my pistols, aimed it through the branches, and squeezed the trigger.
The gunshot thundered and Peter Pan fell to the dirt. The very sight of it stunned me in disbelief. To watch him fall was the singularly most satisfying sight of my lifetime, yet even that moment was ruined. He did it with such grace.
I drew my second pistol and ran into the path before the echo faded in the distance.
The two boys who held Foggerty were now unconscious at his feet. Another Lost Boy charged Foggerty, but he was no longer like them, taller and broader now than even seconds before. He drove a fist, heavy with the strength of age, into his attacker’s face and the child crumbled to the ground.
Smee stepped through with his pistol drawn and aimed it at one of the children. I pushed his arm to the ground and yelled, “Stop.”
Foggerty met my eyes and unclenched his fists. Smee relaxed.
The remaining Lost Boys regrouped in a circle around the prone body of Peter Pan, their weapons at the ready. Fear and rage mixed in their eyes. What I saw most was confusion, but not in Foggerty. Certainty grew in him with each passing moment.
He reached behind him and untied an object wrapped in an old cloth. He handed it to me and smiled. I knew it instantly. I tucked my pistol away and unwrapped the folds of the cloth, revealing my iron hook.
“I went back for it,” Foggerty said in his accent. “When I became stronger, the climb was easier.”
“Thank you, lad,” I said, pulling the straps tight enough around my old wound to make it throb and ache again. It was a presence. A reminder of my resolve. My strength. I stared at it for long moments, noting the strap that ripped earlier as well as the dull coat of grit that weather and earth had given the once shining hook.
Now whole, I looked to the Lost Boys.
“I can help you,” I said to them. “I have a ship with food, clothes, and beds.” The boys looked at each other. The one with the raccoon hat lowered his sharpened stick as a questioning expression washed over his face. Another boy saw his look and softened as well. I added, “You don’t have anything to fear from me.”
“You shot him!” said a boy with a black eye.
“Yes,” I said, savoring the idea for the first time. “I had to. He was going to kill Foggerty.”
“But those are the rules,” one boy said. The two next to him gripped their weapons more tightly. “No one grows up.”
“Why is that a rule?”
“What do you mean?” a boy asked. His brow furrowed with anger.
“Because Peter says it is,” a different boy answered.
“That’s a terrible reason,” I said. “Why is it bad to grow up?”
The boys froze in their positions and puzzled with the question for a few seconds. “Because adults ruin all the fun we have.”
I waved my hand over the path in front of me. “Three of you are hurt, one of you nearly died. That was fun?” The boys softened their stances and an expression close to guilt crept onto their faces. “What about back at the tree or at the castle? Several of you died then. Was that fun as well?” Two of the boys dropped their weapons in the dirt and stood upright.
“Adults were the ones who killed us,” Nibs said and the others formed up behind him. “It is not fair to fight adults.”
“True,” I admitted. The voices of my crewmen grew louder behind me. They must have heard the shot. They’d be here soon. “But it was Peter Pan who set you against them. If you come with me, I can’t promise th
at you’ll never be in danger. What I can promise is that you’ll always know the danger you’re involved in and that you will always have the choice.”
“Choice?” one of the boys asked.
“Oh, yes,” Smee said, bitterly. “The Captain’s big on choice.”
“Pirates vote on everything,” I continued, ignoring my boatswain’s tone. “Every man has a say.”
One of the boys dropped his sword. Then another.
“Good,” I said. “Now, step aside.”
“No,” the one in the raccoon hat said. “You’ll shoot Peter again.”
“Yes, I will,” I told them. “I have to be sure. Step aside.”
The order hung in the air for a moment. The men were getting closer. The boys heard them too, they had to by now.
“No,” said a voice in a low groan. My blood chilled. Over the heads of the children, Peter Pan rose from the dirt. Red splotches stained the green cloth of his shirt. His short sword laid on the ground, split and broken. “You can’t have them.”
The Lost Boys scattered into the trees as soon as the words left Peter’s bloodied mouth. Foggerty lunged for Peter and missed. Pan flew over him and dove at me, kicking Smee aside along the way. Smee’s shot went off as he fell.
For long moments, I felt nothing but hands and feet on me as though Peter Pan were a half dozen men. I drew my pistol to fire, but Pan knocked it away in the flurry. There was a break in the attack as Peter beat on Smee, then Foggerty again.
I tackled Peter Pan to the grass. We rolled and I gripped the boy, but Peter twisted like a cat and bit me. Nails, sharper than they had any right to be, scratched at my face and chest.
“Get him out of here,” I yelled to Smee. The Irishman gathered Foggerty and disappeared into the trees towards the crew.
Peter wriggled loose and kicked me in the chest. I fell backwards over a trunk and tumbled downhill until I came to a swatch of tall trees. I hit one and my thoughts blurred. For an instant, I saw lights dance before my eyes.
My head cleared and I sat upright. Gunshots sounded in the distance, followed by screams. Two lights swayed above me from side to side and pulsed, matching the ringing in my ears. I closed my eyes and rubbed them with my thumb and forefinger, expecting the lights to be gone when I opened them again. Instead, a third and fourth light joined them a little higher up in the trees. They swayed and pulsed as well, although to a different beat.
Captain James Hook and the Siege of Neverland Page 16
