The Wendy

by Sky, Erin Michelle; Brown, Steven;

  “Thank you, sir,” the boy said, eyeing the plates of roasted quail and fresh-baked rolls. “I am hungry, I don’t mind admitting.”

  “Michael? Wendy?” John waved the boy toward the serving platters with one hand and held up the sealed note with the other. “If you would both join me, I have no doubt this reply will impact us all.”

  “Well? What does it say?” Wendy demanded as soon as John had shut the office door behind them.

  “Why, I don’t know, of course. I have to read it first,” he said.

  John had always been an extremely literal sort of man. If you had said to him, for example, “Isn’t it about time for supper?” hoping that he would take your meaning and offer you a bite to eat, he would instead have opened his watch to see whether you were correct. It was not that he wanted to deprive you of your meal if you were wrong. He was just trying to answer honestly.

  Proceeding to the business at hand, he cracked open the wax seal and began to read, holding the expensive paper with a care that bordered on reverence, his eyes silently scanning the page while Wendy and Michael watched him intently.

  At long last (which was in truth only a few brief moments but which felt like forever to Wendy) John looked up from the sheet, his expression carefully neutral. He glanced back and forth from Wendy to Michael, saying nothing.

  “And?” Wendy demanded.

  “It looks like we’re going to London,” John said.

  “I knew it!” Wendy exclaimed. “What’s gotten into you, John? This is wonderful news! We’re being called to London to report directly to Sir William! Perhaps even to meet with Captain Hook, himself! Why aren’t you smiling?”

  But John didn’t answer, sharing a look with Michael instead.

  “Because we aren’t all going,” Michael finally told her, tilting his head and looking at Wendy with a small grin of resignation.

  “What?” Wendy demanded. “Don’t be silly, Michael. Of course we’re all going.”

  “He’s right, I’m afraid,” John confirmed. “I wrote the report, and you are the eyewitness. They want us both in London—to answer their questions, I’m sure. But Michael …” John trailed off, unwilling to say the words aloud.

  “With John in London, someone has to lead the men here,” Michael explained, his voice gentle. “I’m the platoon sergeant, so that job falls to me. It’s just how things are. Especially now.”

  No one had slept easily after the attack. (No one except Nana, that is, who had just now stayed behind in the barracks mess, hoping the newcomer might be a dependable source of table scraps.) John had posted watches all through that night and the next, and Wendy had remained keenly aware of every new scent in the sea-touched air. Although there had been no sign yet of their enemy’s return, the entire platoon remained on edge.

  Michael was right, Wendy realized. Someone had to stay behind to lead the men. But it didn’t make the news any easier to bear.

  “It isn’t fair,” she protested.

  “Fairness has nothing to do with it,” Michael assured her. “Only one of us can go. If I were the one heading to London, then it would be John staying here, and I wouldn’t like that any better.”

  “But you’ll miss the whole adventure!” she cried, and she pouted so prettily on his behalf that Michael thought he would have forgone a dozen grand adventures just to see her look at him that way each time.

  “Nonsense,” he said kindly. “I’ll have you to tell me everything just as soon as you return. And if I know you at all, Wendy Darling, hearing about it will be a hundred times better than being there. You’ve always told the best stories. All the men say so.”

  “They do? Do you mean it?” Wendy asked, resting one hand lightly on his arm and staring up at him in the most fetching way.

  “They most assuredly do say so, and I most assuredly do mean it,” he confessed, looking down at her fondly. “But I shall miss you while you are away, and I mean that, too. So you must promise to think of me the whole time you are in London.”

  Hearing him say so, Wendy realized immediately that she would miss him very much as well. So even though it was far from proper, she threw her arms around him and hugged him with all her might.

  “There, you see? It’s worth staying behind already,” Michael murmured in her ear, and Wendy couldn’t help but blush a little.

  “Besides,” he said, as she finally stepped away, “you won’t be gone more than a few days, and then we’ll have all the time in the world. It’s not as though you’ll be traveling to London once a fortnight.”

  “I’m quite sure you’re right,” John grumbled. “With my luck, I’ll never leave Dover again after today. We’ll all be stuck here until we retire.”

  “Well then you should try to enjoy the one trip you’re going to get,” Michael said, grinning wryly. “Godspeed, John. Take care of her, won’t you?”

  “You may count on it,” John promised.

  But Wendy had no intention of being stuck in Dover forever. One trip is all I will need, she vowed to herself. One chance to impress Captain Hook—to convince him that I don’t belong in Dover. I know I can do it.

  Which is the problem, of course, with the magic of intention. One must always be specific.

  ondon!

  Wendy and John reached the outskirts of the city late in the evening, more than twenty-four hours after the arrival of their orders (travel being what it was.)

  “Does it feel good to be home?” John asked, as the carriage forged its way through London’s bustling streets.

  “Home?” Wendy echoed. Her words were soft, more murmured than spoken, almost lost in the clamor of the evening’s final passersby, the clanking of the street peddlers packing up their wares, and the rickety clatter of the carriage itself. “I don’t suppose I know where that is, but it isn’t here.”

  “Surely you must have fond memories though,” John suggested gently. He hated to see her look even remotely sad. “Of the city. Of your childhood here.”

  “Of course!” she said immediately, perking up a little. “Of studying under Mr. Equiano. And with Charlie. Navigation and fencing and mathematics. And so many books! But a memory isn’t a home.” Her voice fell away again, so that he almost missed what she said at the last: “You can’t live in your memories.”

  “I suppose not,” he agreed, and the look on her face was so poignant, the secret kiss in the far corner of her mouth so carefully tucked away, that he did not ask her about it again.

  It was surprising, she thought, how much could change in a year. Not that London itself was especially different, but the streets that had once felt familiar now seemed strange … distant. As though she had never truly belonged here at all.

  Which, she supposed, she hadn’t.

  She tried to imagine dropping by the almshouse for a visit. But Charlie was gone, of course. And Mrs. Healey would have new babies to hold. New mouths to feed. Besides, it wasn’t as though Wendy could tell anyone what she had been doing for the past year. Not even Olaudah Equiano, no matter how much she might want to.

  He would have questions. Simple, friendly questions about her life and her journeys in the world. But in asking them, he would introduce a conversation she had no idea how to approach. It wasn’t until that moment that she realized how truly John and Michael and Nana had become her only family—the only people she could be herself with.

  She turned to John and smiled then, for no reason that he could see, which made him blush and drop his head, raising his left thumbnail to examine it intently, turning it this way and that, as though some speck of lint had just now lodged beneath it, in sudden and desperate need of extracting.

  Fortunately, he was saved from further embarrassment by their arrival.

  The headquarters of the Nineteenth Light Dragoons were located in an unassuming building in the heart of London’s bustling trade district, where the comings and goings of its various affiliates would not be considered noteworthy by the general public. The gray stone edifice sq
uatted unobtrusively between a fine boot maker’s establishment and a men’s tailoring shop, looking so unfashionable by contrast as to be held in general disdain by the average passerby, which helped a great deal in deflecting any unwanted attention.

  It was so late by the time the carriage came to a stop, the street now all but deserted for the night, that John and Wendy both expected to be assigned to their respective sleeping quarters and ushered off to bed until morning. But this only shows how little they knew of the illustrious Captain James Hook and the fervor with which he pursued the responsibilities of his command.

  It was not at all uncommon for him to work well into the night in his efforts to track the enemy’s movements, arranging various reported sightings by both place and time, hoping to find some pattern that might lead him to a point of origin, but always to no avail.

  One entire wall of his private office consisted of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, while the other three displayed an overwhelming collection of maps—so many, in fact, that they had all come to overlap each other, making such a jumble of the world’s geography as to place the tigers of India within the deserts of Egypt, or the elephants of Africa within the American plains.

  Only Hook knew anymore what any of it meant, and he wasn’t the sort to share his thoughts with anyone until he was ready.

  This, then, was the scene into which Wendy now entered, with John by her side, to meet the great James Hook for the very first time. She gazed about herself in wonder, feeling as though she must have fallen asleep back in the carriage, quite without realizing it, and had embarked upon one of those impossible dreams in which one walks directly from one’s bedroom into the Taj Mahal, even though one’s real bedroom and the real Taj Mahal are, of course, located nowhere near each other.

  She had barely begun to take in the cartographical chaos when Captain Hook himself rose from his desk to greet them, and in that sudden moment she had eyes for nothing else. He wore his hair loose, as he usually did after the dinner hour had passed, and its soft black cascade provided such a contrast to his chiseled features as to take her breath away.

  “Lieutenant Abbot, I presume,” he said, returning John’s salute with his steel hook.

  “Yes, sir. And I present to you Miss Wendy Darling, diviner of the Fourteenth Platoon of the Nineteenth Light Dragoons. Sir.”

  “Yes, very good, lieutenant. That will be all.” Hook stared at John, clearly waiting for him to leave.

  “I … yes, sir. Of course. I was told you wished to speak with us immediately. My apologies.”

  “Not ‘us,’” Hook said before they could turn to go. “Her.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You said, ‘us.’ Implying both of you. I am correcting that misapprehension. I wish to speak with only one of you immediately. Specifically, Miss Darling. She will stay. You are dismissed.”

  Throughout this conversation, Captain Hook had not so much as glanced in Wendy’s direction, and she found her initial fascination with the man turning quickly to annoyance. She had not imagined that a well-bred gentleman could be so ill-mannered.

  It doesn’t matter, she reminded herself. You need him to like you. You need to impress him. Be polite.

  “Don’t worry, John. I’ll be quite all right,” she said. Her voice remained cheerful, but her eyebrow drew itself up a bit, watching Hook with just the smallest hint of mute disapproval.

  “Yes, well … I’ll be right outside if you need me.”

  “And why would she need you?” Hook demanded sharply. “You have delivered her safely into my care. Your job is done. I am a decorated captain in His Majesty’s military service. Do you imagine me incapable of protecting this woman within my own private office? By all means, speak freely, lieutenant. I’m genuinely curious.”

  His voice, however, was cold and hard and held not an ounce of curiosity within it, so despite Hook’s words, John held his tongue.

  “Chaperones are for parks and parlors, Lieutenant Abbot,” Hook finally continued. “This is a military debriefing. You may wait for us in the hallway, but only because I wish to question you as soon as I am done questioning her. Not because we are, in any way, in need of your oversight. Have I made myself clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then you are dismissed. Again.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  John pivoted on his heel and strode out of the room, shutting the door behind him, leaving Hook to glare suspiciously at Wendy, and leaving Wendy to smile innocently back at Hook, the two of them locked in a battle of wills that already had both the tigers and the elephants running for cover.

  iss Darling,” Hook began, “I have called you to London because I have several questions regarding the details of Lieutenant Abbot’s report. I understand you had the rare opportunity to speak with the everlost directly.”

  He did not return to his chair. Instead, he plucked John’s letter from the desk with his good left hand and held it up, staring at her expectantly, as though his every statement were to be taken as a question until further notice. There was no attempt at civility, no offer of a seat, not even so much as a cup of tea after her long journey. But Wendy was determined to make a good impression, whether he deserved the effort or not.

  “I did,” she affirmed.

  She met his regard with a confident, upward tilt of her chin, and discovered in doing so that his eyes were the exact blue of the forget-me-not. This irked her considerably. It wasn’t right that such an indecent man should have such a memorable gaze. But the very thought of it reminded her of her promise to Michael: to tell him the entire story of her London adventure just as soon as she saw him again. Like it or not, Hook was critical to the tale.

  She scrunched up her mouth, until the secret kiss in the corner was pressed as small as possible, and she set about memorizing the man. His sparkling hair. His handsome countenance. His aristocratic posture. His dashing, knee-high boots. She wanted to be able to describe him accurately. (Or perhaps with just the slightest bit of exaggeration, but only for the purpose of accentuating the truth, which is the hallmark of any good raconteur.)

  “What is it?” Hook demanded.

  “Pardon?” she asked, continuing her examination by scrutinizing the polished steel hook that had taken the place of his right hand.

  “Does it disturb you?” he asked stiffly. “I can remove it if you find it unsettling, but you might find its removal to be even more so.”

  “What? Oh!” she exclaimed, suddenly realizing how rude she herself was being, to stare openly at his disfigurement. “No, of course not! I mean, whichever is your preference, of course. It doesn’t disturb me in the slightest. If anything, it is a badge of honor. A testament to your dedication in His Majesty’s service.”

  She drew herself up straight and looked firmly into his forget-me-not eyes. Remembering at last whom she was speaking to, and remembering his distinguished position (not to mention his ship), she resolved again to overlook his inconsiderate nature.

  “Yes, well,” he said, making an obvious effort to recompose himself, “my intention this evening, Miss Darling, is to walk you step by step through your encounter with the everlost. Although your memory of the event has omitted several critical details while embellishing others—which happens even to men, by the way, under the stress of battle, and is therefore only to be expected in your case—direct questioning should produce a more accurate account.”

  Wendy clenched her jaw. The ship. Remember the ship.

  “Of course,” she finally managed to reply.

  “Very good.” Hook’s eyes fell to the report, scanning the lines of John’s careful penmanship. “Here. Describe for me your initial sense that the everlost were present. What warning, or warnings, made you aware of them?”

  “There was a scent in the air,” Wendy said immediately. “It smelled like green and the taste of pickles.”

  “I’m sorry, it smelled like … green?”

  “Yes. And the taste of pickles. And like a clear
pool of water in the back of a cave on a hot summer day. All of those together. That’s all in the report, by the way. That part is quite accurate, I should think.”

  Hook shifted his jaw to the left and blinked at Wendy twice, watching her suspiciously. She returned his gaze without a word, her feminine smile unimpeachable. Even her eyebrow had agreed to hold its tongue—complicit, at least for the time being, in her show of innocence.

  “So, you knew they were coming because you could smell them,” he finally said.

  “No, I don’t think so. I mean, yes, that’s what they smelled like. Even up close. But I don’t see how I could have been smelling them directly. They were still in the clouds, you see. And the men couldn’t smell it at all. Just Nana and myself.”

  “Nana?” Hook asked, clearly perplexed.

  “Oh, ‘Sheba,’ you would call her. The platoon’s dog. I call her Nana. Because she takes such good care of us. She’s listed in the report as ‘Sheba,’ of course, which is the name on her official papers.”

  “I see,” Hook said, and his lips twitched with just a hint of smugness before he asked his next question, which was this: “And how do you know that the dog could smell this same scent? How do you know she wasn’t just responding to your own unease?”

  “I don’t, of course,” Wendy replied. “Which is why, if I might say so, written reports are always preferable to verbal ones. In a written report, one must consider one’s words very carefully before committing them to paper. My written report only describes the dog’s actions. It does not assume anything about her motivation.”

  Hook furrowed his brow and held up the report again, rereading the pertinent section and then frowning.

  “Well, Miss Darling, your report also suggests that the everlost refused to follow the platoon into Saint Mary due to their sudden infatuation with you. Given the holy nature of Saint Mary in Castro, surely even you can see another, more likely explanation.”