The Wendy

by Sky, Erin Michelle; Brown, Steven;

  Come away with me.

  Despite his handsome features and athletic form, his chiseled hands and the scent of the forest upon him, it was the ship that had tempted her. To join the crew of a flying ship! To live a life of adventures more magnificent than any she had ever imagined, seeing all the world from above!

  But Peter hadn’t said anything about being a part of his crew. That hadn’t been the offer. If it had (and assuming she had believed him) she thought for just a moment that she might have gone with him. Despite the fact that she was his sworn enemy. Despite the fact that he had chopped off Hook’s right hand. Despite the fact that he and his crew had kidnapped orphans and murdered their caretakers.

  Blood drinkers.

  No. She shook her head, even though there was no one there to see. Not even Poppy, who lay fast asleep on the floor next to her chair. No, she knew she could never join them, no matter how tempting the idea of sailing among the stars.

  If it was even true. If there even was a flying ship.

  A tiny line formed between her brows as she considered it. Was it true? If there was one thing she had already learned about Peter Pan, it was that he had a tendency to exaggerate. But then again, look at poor Reginald. The man had died. Peter had claimed he could fix it, and then he had fixed it, bringing poor Reginald back to life. She never would have believed that claim either if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes. Was a flying ship really so hard to accept?

  Then again, he might be feeding her false information on purpose, expecting her to report it back to Hook. And that thought brought up a whole new problem. Should she report it?

  She could certainly think of several reasons not to.

  First, if Pan were lying just to throw them off his trail—tricking the Home Office into searching the skies while he and his men snuck through the dark alleyways of London right beneath their noses—then reporting the idea of a flying ship to Hook would only be helping the everlost to carry out their plan.

  Second, she risked looking like a fool. Or worse—losing her position with the Home Office. After all, Hook hadn’t believed her report about poor Reginald. That was what had gotten her stuck here in Hertfordshire in the first place. But at least he had thought she was mistaken about poor Reginald, not purposefully lying. If Hook came to believe she was inventing false information, he would dismiss her from the king’s service altogether, and then what would she do?

  Third, she couldn’t report the conversation without admitting she had escaped from her lieutenant chaperones. Even if she didn’t mention Monsieur Dumas (which, of course, she never would, so as not to cause trouble for her friend), it would still be clear that the lieutenants had not been present in the woods when she had found Peter Pan. Hook would question them, and they would be forced to admit that she had evaded them several times now.

  Even if Hook didn’t dismiss her from the Home Office on the spot, her escapades would be over. Hook would send more men. Crueler, more devious men. And Wendy would be Hook’s prisoner after all.

  Wendy sighed deeply. Poppy opened one eye to look up at her, then rolled onto her back, bending her head to one side to watch Wendy from a more quizzical angle. Wendy smiled sadly and brought her feet down to the floor, tucking them under Poppy’s back for warmth.

  “There’s only one reason I can think of to write any sort of report at all about this afternoon,” she told Poppy, “but I’m afraid that one reason is more important than all the reasons against it put together.”

  Poppy wriggled on the floor, scratching her back against Wendy’s feet and making a low, guttural sort of sound that went something like this: “Rauuuauuuwauuu.”

  “That’s right,” Wendy agreed. “Duty. Exactly. As a sworn member of the Home Office, I have a duty to report any encounter with the everlost. I’ll just have to report the entire conversation exactly as it occurred.”

  Of course, Poppy hadn’t been thinking “duty” at all. Instead, she had been thinking, “Oh, it feels so good to scratch one’s back on the floor. You really should try it.” And because Wendy hadn’t understood her, she decided to try again.

  “RauuauuRAUUwauuauu.”

  “Well of course I’m not going to tell him where the conversation happened,” Wendy assured her. “I’ll just say I found Peter in the woods here on the estate. It’s the conversation itself that matters.”

  Poppy blinked twice at her mistress, waiting to see whether the itch on her back was going to return, but thankfully it did not. Sighing in relief, she rolled onto her belly, curled up into a ball, and fell promptly back asleep.

  ook sat in his London office, turning the pages of Wendy’s latest report over and over in his hands as though there might be some sort of trap waiting for him on the back of the exquisite stationary. Some danger that he hadn’t yet discovered. A tactile poison, perhaps. Or an army of trained insects. Each tiny, cruel heart named after a delicate flower.

  Dandelion. Lavender. Poppy.

  He grimaced.

  There had to be a trick in it somewhere. The woman was devious to her very core. How many times had she managed to evade her guards before Peter Pan had found her? Or before she had found him. Whichever.

  If she had even spoken to him at all.

  Hook eyed the report suspiciously and then dropped it on the desk, opening a drawer to retrieve a long sharpening stone. Staring at her fine handwriting all the while, he slowly drew his hook back and forth across the stone, tilting it first this way and then that, honing it to a cruel point.

  Scree … scree … scree …

  She was toying with him. That much was obvious. Flying ships? Tiny dragons that could sit in the palm of your hand? Did she think him a fool? What game was she playing?

  Scree … scree …

  It occurred to him that she might be trying to look ridiculous on purpose. If the full report was ever discovered by the Home Office, she would be discredited entirely—as would anyone else who associated with her. He would be forced to release her from the Hertfordshire estate. But Wendy Darling didn’t strike him as the kind of girl to play the fool. Not even to get what she wanted. Besides which, she clearly didn’t intend to leave the Home Office in disgrace. If she had wanted as much, she could have simply run away.

  No, the trap was more clever than that. It had to be.

  Scree … scree … scree … scree …

  He would have burned the entire report to ash and returned it to her in a snuff box, just to make a point, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. Tiny dragons. Flying ships. The whole thing was preposterous. A flying man was implausible enough, but a ship? The sheer weight of the thing alone!

  Still, it made a strange kind of sense. A man might be able to swim, but that didn’t mean he could swim all the way to France. And even if he could, that was no way to wage a war. The ships of men carried weapons, ammunition, provisions. The ships of men carried the spoils of battle back home.

  Wouldn’t the everlost want ships to do the same? To carry their stolen goods, their pilfered sheep, their kidnapped orphans? He had always assumed the children were carried away for their blood, to be fed upon later in some terrifying ritual. They were small, relatively helpless. Easy prey. Like lambs taken by wolves.

  But the everlost only came every few weeks. Sometimes even months would go by without any sign of them. Surely they needed more than just a meal or two in all that time. He tried to think only of flour and sheep, but there were too many missing children to ignore. Far too many for the everlost to carry kicking and screaming in their arms across the vast leagues of the sea.

  Scree … scree …. scree … scree … scree …

  A flying ship made sense. But Wendy Darling wanted it to make sense. Or at least she wanted it to seem as though it made sense. Which is why he didn’t trust it.

  Just a few short weeks ago he would have written off the entire thing as the overactive imagination of an uneducated child, but now he wasn’t so sure. She had escaped from his best men�
�not just once but apparently at will (a fact that they had finally been forced to admit)—turning his groundskeeper’s family to her own purposes, resilient in the face of his plans to keep her in Hertfordshire.

  Perhaps that had been a mistake.

  No! That was what she wanted him to think!

  He slammed the sharpening stone down on the desk and ran his good left hand though his hair. He was overthinking the whole thing. He needed a clear perspective. Someone who hadn’t met the woman. Someone who wasn’t engaged in her cat-and-mouse games. Someone who could help him separate fact from fiction.

  He needed Sir William.

  Sir William had barely even opened the door when Hook shoved Wendy’s report toward him across the desk with a look of disgust.

  “Flying ships!” Hook growled.

  Sir William rolled his eyes. “Give it here.”

  Hook handed the pages over and then leaned back in his chair, folding his arms on top of his head, his left hand grasping the stump of his right wrist just below the razor-sharp metal.

  “This is ridiculous,” Sir William muttered, his eyes scanning the elegant lines. “Women and dogs. First resurrection and now flying ships? Why haven’t you cut that diviner free and sent her back to Dover already? Never mind, don’t answer that. I know perfectly well why you haven’t.”

  He thrust the report back toward Hook without looking beyond the first page, but Hook made no move to take it.

  Sir William narrowed his eyes. “It’s one thing to indulge a girl in dresses and draperies, Hook. It’s another thing altogether to indulge her ideas. You might as well spray this nonsense with rose water and call it a love letter. She just wants your attention.”

  At this, Hook barked out a laugh. “I assure you, she wants no such thing.”

  “Of course she does. They all do. Attention, social standing, and children. And not necessarily in that order.”

  “Not this one,” Hook said. “At least not from me.”

  Sir William snorted. “You’re a commissioned officer, favored by the king, with an honorable family and overflowing coffers besides. If she acts like she isn’t interested, she’s just a better actress than most. Those, by the way, are the ones to watch out for.”

  Sir William dropped the papers back onto Hook’s desk, but Hook only leaned forward, lowering his hands—or rather, lowering his one hand and his one hook—to slide the first page off the stack and pick up the second.

  “Although he refused to reveal the island’s location,” he read aloud, “Pan admitted that it is too far from London for most of the everlost to reach by flying under their own power.”

  Sir William said nothing, but he pursed his lips in reluctant interest.

  “He boasted several times that he is more than capable of flying the distance himself, but stated that the rest of his ‘crew’ is not. Instead, they traverse the ocean via flying ship, a voyage that takes ‘many moons.’”

  Sir William scowled again, but Hook raised his shining metal appendage in the air, twisting it so it caught the candlelight. The older man held his tongue, in deference to his sacrifice.

  “I presume this was an exaggeration,” Hook continued. “Everything Pan says contains some manner of embellishment, making it difficult to determine the precise truth contained within any of it.”

  “You see? Even she admits that it’s nonsense!” Sir William declared.

  “There are, however, several facts that did not change, no matter how many times I questioned him. These are the following. First, the everlost live together on an island. Second, the island is located far out to sea—a voyage of several days from any known port. Third, they use at least one ship to travel between the island and England, anchoring it offshore as a base of operations for their raids. Fourth, as strange as it sounds, Pan insisted at every turn that this ship can fly.”

  With each number, the captain tilted his hook forward just a touch and then withdrew it again, as though it were a flesh-and-blood hand upon which he was raising imaginary fingers one at a time. When he had finished, he lifted an eyebrow at Sir William, waiting for a response.

  Now, Sir William had never seen Hook make this precise expression before. Nor had he ever seen an eyebrow poised so elegantly and yet so challengingly at the same time. He took half a step backward, despite the safety of the desk that stood between them, and then he stepped forward once again, ready to put the younger man in his place.

  “Let’s pretend, just for a moment, that it’s all true,” he growled. “If anything, it would be the worst possible news! An uncharted island in the middle of the bloody ocean. An enemy with flying ships—”

  “Wait,” Hook interrupted, his eyes flying wide. “It’s not uncharted!”

  “What?” Sir William paused before he could really get going, glancing around at the countless maps plastered over the walls.

  “No, you’re right,” Hook clarified, and he swiped his hook through the air as though clearing the maps away. “We haven’t charted it. But that’s not the same thing as being uncharted.”

  Now Sir William’s lips curled into a triumphant smirk. “Of course! They’ve certainly charted their own island!”

  “Exactly! Steal their ship—” Hook began.

  “Whether or not it flies,” Sir William added.

  “Steal their maps!” Hook finished.

  He didn’t have to find the island after all. He just had to find that ship. Hook grinned at Wendy Darling’s report—a wicked grin that promised vengeance for the king, vengeance for England, and vengeance for his own right hand all at once. Whatever game she thought she was playing, she would be no match for him.

  And it was time for him to make his next move.

  wo days later, a letter arrived at the Hertfordshire estate ordering the lieutenants to report back to Hook immediately—seats had been arranged on the afternoon coach from St. Albans. Colin was all too happy to load the two men up in the carriage and drive them off, although the lieutenants themselves did not look happy about it at all.

  It was several hours before Colin returned, but when the carriage finally neared the manor house, it was accompanied by the sound of a very particular bark that had Wendy flying toward the main entrance even before the new arrival could be properly announced.

  And Nana was not the only familiar face to greet her.

  “John! Michael! Nana!” She froze at the door of the manor for just a moment, taken by surprise—both by their sudden appearance and by their military uniforms—but then she raced down the steps to hug all three, in the same order.

  “But … how? And where are the others?” she asked. She had not expected Hook to return her to the platoon so quickly, and she could hardly believe her good fortune.

  “It’s just us,” Michael said.

  “There’s much to tell,” John confirmed. “But we mustn’t keep you from your supper.” He looked over Wendy’s head toward Mrs. Medcalf, who was standing with her arms folded at the top of the stairs, watching the reunion with a distinct air of displeasure.

  “Oh!” Wendy exclaimed. “Oh, Mrs. Medcalf, I’m so sorry. I had no idea they were coming.”

  “It’s not your fault, my dear,” Mrs. Medcalf assured her. “If the captain chooses not to prepare the house for guests, that’s his business. We’ll make do.”

  “Of course,” Huxley agreed. He had appeared out of the shadows of the house without a sound, as good butlers will, sensing that his presence was needed. “Colin, please escort these gentlemen to the west wing.”

  Mrs. Medcalf nodded, looking somewhat mollified. Wendy, of course, was staying in the east wing.

  “We will delay dinner for one hour to give them a chance to settle in and wash up,” Huxley continued. “Mrs. Medcalf, will that be sufficient for the kitchen to make the necessary arrangements?”

  “It will, thank you,” she confirmed.

  “I’m so glad you’re here!” Wendy exclaimed, hugging both men one more time, road dust and all, and th
e look on each of their faces made Mrs. Medcalf scowl all over again.

  As for Poppy, she wasn’t sure how she felt about Nana’s arrival either. She had followed Wendy from the house of course, and she growled just a bit to see Wendy treating the newcomer with obvious affection.

  “Poppy!” Wendy chided. “Poppy, this is Nana. She’s the dog I told you about. The one I had to leave behind in Dover. Nana, this is Poppy. She’s been my lovely companion here in Hertfordshire.”

  Has been? Poppy wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that.

  Lovely companion? Nana wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that.

  The two eyed each other warily, but they said no more about it in Wendy’s presence.

  “When do we leave for Dover?” Wendy asked.

  She was seated at the library table next to Colin, with John and Michael sitting across from her. They had retired there after dinner, and Colin had been sent in by his mother as a trusted chaperone. Poppy and Nana lay at Wendy’s feet—Poppy on her left side, closer to Colin, and Nana claiming the right.

  “We can trust him,” Wendy added, meaning Colin, when neither man answered her. More importantly, she trusted them not to say anything in front of Colin that could compromise their mission. Or their own vows of secrecy. Still, she wanted Colin to understand the depth of her faith in him.

  “Colin,” she said, “what you are about to hear could be of the utmost importance to both king and country. You must swear on your life—and quite possibly on my own as well—not to reveal anything said here tonight to your parents or to anyone else. Not for any reason. Do you swear it?”

  “Yes, ma’am! I swear it on my life! On both our lives! I would never betray you!” Colin agreed, his eyes wide as saucers. John and Michael’s uniforms clearly marked them as military men, a necessary change since they were being offered up as Wendy’s new guardsmen. Unlike the last two, these men clearly had Wendy’s respect, and that had already earned them Colin’s as well.