Alias Hook

by Lisa Jensen

  “A shooting star,” she murmurs. “How lovely.”

  We are ripe for Morpheus at last.

  There is naught but a little glowing pile of embers to see by when I am suddenly awake. Most of the stars have sunk out of sight in the hole of black above us; it’s the eerie dark before dawn. I hear only a fading cacophony of night insects and the sirens’ muted song, yet something compels me out of our warm nest. Untangling myself from Stella, who sleeps blissfully on, I creep off the bearskin, open the tent flap and peep out, but my eyes discern only blackness and a distant bruise of moonglow behind clouds. I gather my courage and step outside to see what the matter is.

  I don’t see him at first, might have never done but for a sudden incandescence of white moonlight spilling from between ragged clouds. He stands immobile, not the length of a tops’l yard away from me, his bow drawn, the arrow nocked and pointing at my heart, a larger target now than once it was, and far more vulnerable.

  3

  I say nothing, do nothing, only gaze into the flinty eyes of the young chief above the eagle feather drawn back against his cheek. I wear neither clothing nor hook, having come directly from Stella’s arms. And with the absurd vanity of our species, I am glad for a fleeting instant that I’ve never grown a paunch, despite the other deformities of my body, for Eagle Heart is scarcely any more clothed than I, stripped down to a breechclout, as chiseled as a Greek, painted not for war but for stealth.

  Such are the lofty ruminations of my last moments of life. But the young chief does not shoot.

  “Captain,” he says quietly.

  “Chief,” I respond.

  We regard each other for another long, silent moment. Stella murmurs in her sleep behind me; the mat rustles beneath her. For a blink, Eagle Heart’s gaze shifts to the open flap, then back to me, standing before him, naked in the predawn chill, reeking of Stella.

  “We meant no disrespect to this place,” I offer.

  “Our women will perform the cleansing ceremony after you are gone.” Slowly, without the slightest thrum of string or creak of wood, he lessens the tension in his weapon and lowers bow and arrow. “This is a sacred place,” he goes on. “Our young ones come here to begin the journey out of childhood. The maidens bleed. The youths have their first dream vision, to honor the ancestor whose dream brought us to the Dreaming Place.”

  He pauses as sweet-acrid smoke wafts out of the structure.

  “We didn’t mean to steal,” I apologize.

  “The fruits of the earth are free to all,” Eagle Heart replies. “A gift from the Great Spirit.”

  Stella’s voice comes softly from behind me, addressing the chief, and his black eyes shift toward her. She’s wrapped herself in my coat before venturing out to crouch beneath the tent flap.

  The young chief’s expression is as impassive as ever, but his eyes move back to me. “Our elders have rendered their judgment.”

  I’m shaking. Stella rises to stand beside me, steadying me.

  “You offend me and dishonor yourself when you break your oath,” he tells me gravely. “But the consequence of your action was this life,” and he nods at Stella. “Honor your oath and we will have no further quarrel with you. In our judgment it is now your destiny to leave the Dreaming Place.”

  Stella’s fingers close round the stump of my phantom hand, and my good hand crosses over to cover hers. “But—”

  “Our shaman watches the stars,” says the young chief. “Destiny is like the wind. He tells us yours now blows another way.”

  “Your shaman,” Stella murmurs to the chief. “How does he say we are to leave this place?”

  “You must ask the Spirit Queen.”

  “Is there no other way?” I ask petulantly.

  Eagle Heart reproves me with his stony gaze. “The Little Chief will come,” he tells me. “He will hunt you and your woman. Our shaman says you must leave by the next moonrise, or the Great Spirits who cradle the Dreaming Place in their hands will no longer let you pass. Twice before have the spirit elements stood ready for your journey, but never before were you ready to go. This is your last chance, Captain.”

  I nod. “What must I do?”

  “You must go the Spirit Place. Give the queen what she asks for and she will guide you.”

  What will Queen BellaAeola ask of me? My heart? My soul? My sanity? What price will she set on my freedom? Mine and Stella’s together, what might she not demand?

  “How are we to find her?” I ask.

  “Follow the stream to the wood, and ask your spirit guide.” Eagle Heart gestures toward the sound of lapping water out beyond the trees. “Your boat is waiting. Our warriors will not stop you.”

  Stella thanks him, and the chief evaporates back into the jungle as silently as the smoke slithered out the hole in our refuge of hides. As his form is swallowed in shadows, the full moon emerges from the clouds once more, as red as blood in the predawn blackness. Stella sees it too, regrips my arm, and we exchange a long, silent look. Her expression is as pregnant as the shimmering crimson moon. It’s time to face our destiny, whichever way it now blows.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  SUITE: THE QUEEN’S PRICE

  1

  “Drugged? Are you sure?”

  “Black drops, irresistible oblivion. I have tasted it before.”

  I am trying to explain to Stella why I was so late returning to her on the day we quarreled. We have breakfasted on bits of raw-looking fish and sinister strings of sea grass, washed down with spring water from a jug of iridescent stone. We found them in my skiff, tied up outside. My French cutlass and my knife were in the bottom, by which we know the loreleis came in the night. Now we are in the skiff heading northward again, retracing the route the braves canoed me down yesterday evening.

  “Why?” Stella asks. “To keep us apart?”

  “None of them knew about you.” I frown, trying to think if I ever slipped up in my charade among the men.

  “I thought you must have gone back to them for good,” she says. “I thought if I could just get to the Fairy Dell and find the way out, maybe I could change your mind about me.”

  I grimace to think how readily I lapped up the boy’s evil lies.

  “But you were still gone the next day when I came back to Le Reve,” Stella concludes.

  “Yesterday morning? Le Reve was still there?” I ask, and she nods. “Well, she’s gone, now,” I sigh.

  “Gone?” Stella stares at me. “What do you mean, gone?”

  “Sunk, broken up, magicked away, I don’t know, just gone,” I mutter, hauling on the oars. “He must have done it right after he captured you. His master stroke.”

  “Oh no, James!” Stella looks aghast.

  “It doesn’t matter, Parrish. You are all that matters to me.”

  * * *

  The Terraces rise up on either side as we row up the channel, their steep rockfaces striated with blue, bronze, coral, and purple in the morning light. High above, a ribbon of Neverland sky mirrors the snaky progress of our river. We glide along an obliging current, gazing up at gaudily painted foothills sheering up to ever higher plateaus, crowned at first with verdant succulents and ferns, then a frosting of dark green pines as we progress northward. A pair of hawks circle on air currents high above; an eagle swoops from one terrace across the ravine to another.

  “I hope we can find the place,” Stella worries.

  Spying a familiar bundle stowed under the after thwart, I nod at Stella to haul it out and open it.

  “Well,” I smile, as she unwraps one of the crystal goblets, “suppose we consult my spirit guide.”

  I might as well have conjured merry Charles Stuart himself out of the thin air, or her precious Blackbeard, Stella is so astounded when the fairy Piper appears.

  “Sandpiper,” the little thing introduces herself formally to Stella.

  “We met aboard the Rouge,” Stella marvels.

  “You did me a kindness,” the fairy recalls, too gracious to mention
my part in their first encounter. Then she adds gently, “Do not judge us all by my sister, Kestrel.”

  “Your sister is Peter’s fairy?” Stella gapes.

  “Yes, and an insufferable little tart she is about it, too,” Piper huffs. “Peter always likes the sassy ones. Makes him feel important, to think he commands them.”

  Stella glances wide-eyed at me, then back again to Piper. “Peter’s had other fairies?”

  “It’s so exhausting, looking after the boys,” Piper concedes, with a fluttering of commiseration. “Most recently, our cousin Tinker had that honor, but she is in retirement. It took a hundred years off her life, she swears it.”

  Stella can’t stop grinning as Piper turns again to me.

  “Has the love you bear this woman cooled, that you break the pledge you made by it so easily?” the imp chirps.

  Stella’s grin collapses, and I swallow a throb of alarm. “I love her more than ever,” I tell the fairy.

  “He saved my life,” Stella protests. “Surely he did that boy no more damage than your sister making them deaf.”

  “No indeed,” Piper agrees, fluttering placidly between us. “No permanent harm was done in either case, and as the First Tribes have forgiven you, Queen BellaAeola will hear your claim.”

  “Your queen has a very distinguished name,” Stella ventures, as I dare to resume breathing. “Do fairies study Greek mythology?”

  “Mythology,” Piper scoffs. “Mortals want credit for everything. In those days, we were honored as gods. Aeolus was a fairy artisan who taught mortals the art of sailmaking, so they too might use the gift of wind. The Queen of the Bells always takes his name, which means Wind Rider.” She flits about, wings abuzz, eager to expound on the arcana of fairy lore. “Those of us in the Sisterhood adopt the names of our totem creatures in the natural world. Private fairy names cannot be spoken to mortals.”

  “Sandpiper,” muses Stella. “A creature who dwells where land and water meet, as well as in the sky.”

  “Oh, excellent!” Piper cries.

  I need not ask how the predatory Kestrel came by her name.

  “You have a special affinity for all three elements?” Stella goes on.

  “I do indeed,” the imp chirps on. “Oh, I knew it was right to bring you here!”

  Stella gapes. “It was your doing?”

  “No, yours,” the little creature replies. “You wanted it so badly, renounced the grown-up world so completely, you were in a state of innocence reborn. Certain beyond all mortal reasoning that this place exists.”

  “But I saw it in my dreams,” Stella rejoins, eyeing me.

  “Yes, yes, yes,” the imp chants happily, also beaming at me. “Your dreaming called out to her.”

  “But—my thoughts were all of death,” I stammer.

  “What we think and what we dream are not always the same thing, Captain,” Piper rebukes me gently. “You grew a dream the Neverland could no longer contain. It stretched beyond our borders. A dream of longing for something you could never find here. Perhaps your two dreams collided in the realm of the mortal heart, where the Sisterhood has no power. We know only mortal children who are heartless until they lose their innocence.” She turns again to Stella. “Your dream was so powerful, even Peter felt it. That is how they found you, Peter and my sister. We couldn’t let him leave you behind in the nursery, Kes and I. Boys can be so thoughtless sometimes.”

  “You can’t mean Kestrel defied the boy to bring her here!” I exclaim.

  “My sister’s magic merely opened the dreampath for you to claim your dream,” the fairy tells Stella. “Never before has a grown-up woman come to the Neverland. But I—we knew, Kes and I, that if the spell were to break, Captain, you would have to share someone else’s dreampath to get out. You could not leave the same way you came.” She turns again to Stella. “It was no great matter for Kes to glimmersail you here while Peter was distracted elsewhere.”

  It’s difficult to imagine the wanton Kestrel, singing madly for my blood just hours ago, showing such concern for my welfare. But the imps’ taste for gaming is legendary.

  “Where did it come from, this prophecy of signs?” Stella asks.

  “From the earth, from the sea, from the sky,” Piper replies. “This is a magical place. The natural world, the spirit world, the life of dreams, all are connected here.”

  “And how long have you known about them?” Stella continues.

  “Far longer than anyone else has been alive on this island, except for the Captain, Peter, and we fairies. To the merwives and the First Tribes, it is ancient times since the prophecy first appeared in their lore.”

  I marvel at Proserpina’s craft, to seed her spell so completely into the fabric of this place.

  “A few words sifted into the dreams of the shaman and the mer-bard, simple enough to do,” Piper goes on. “If the time had come to break your spell at last, Captain, we wanted to speed you along to claim your reward.”

  “But why speak in so many riddles?” Stella asks. “If you fairies knew about the signs and the dreampath, couldn’t you simply … tell him?”

  Piper turns again to me. “You never asked for our help,” she says sadly. “And the only way to break your spell was to change what was in your heart. No one else could do that for you.”

  2

  The channel ends at the inland falls, which mark the trail back up into the wood. Piper told us the Fairy Dell will open for us, but we must make the rest of our journey on foot.

  I return Stella’s moccasins to her, and we climb the trail through dust and weeds and brush and bristlecone. I give her my knife to cut a length of trailing ivy to girdle up her shift, and she tucks it into her sash like a lady buccaneer in a comic opera. At last we reach a plateau alive with shrubbery, pine, oak, and fir, whose increasing intensity of greens signals the way to the Dell. Following a vibrato of fiddle music and jingling laughter through greening trees and violet mists, we come to a green clearing in the forest.

  Stella’s hand is warm in mine as we enter the greensward, the bustle of the imps going about their morning tasks so different from their lurid nighttime revels. A party of young males breezes past us, sweeping windfall leaves into piles for their beguiling charms. A few shimmering females trail their sparkle over beds of buttercups and bluebells that obediently raise their heads, while others flutter up into the trees for acorns and moss and mold and berries for their potions. One imp tries to bedevil a fledgling in a nest until an indignant mother sparrow drives her off. In an alcove at the base of another tree, in which depend improbable tools of rock and honed gemstones, an elderly imp in silvery mustachios lingers over a bowl while one idle finger commands a chair of twigs to build itself.

  All of them, sweepers, gatherers, artisans and thieves, cobweb-draped females huddling over a stone cauldron, a cotillion of young bloods and girls tamping down a dancing ring round a favored mushroom, all of them are roused to their tasks by a quartet of fiddlers perched on a mossy rock sawing a lively laboring tune. In the center of all rises a dark green mound shimmering with eerie silver light; it looks like an ordinary burrow by daylight, not a blazing palace, although reeking still of fairy glamor as dreadful as it is difficult to resist.

  We are not Goliaths among the fairies; they appear of normal size to our eyes, until we see one in proportion to a bird or a bluebell. Yet neither does it feel as if we’ve shrunk. It’s another way to disorient us, this feeling of being both large and small, alien to the fairies and akin to them, reminding us that the supposed advantage of our size, much less the reliability of our wits, has no meaning here.

  The bubbling hum of talk grows more intense all round us as we enter into the heart of the Dell. Some watch us covertly, others make a grand, haughty business of paying us no mind whatever, while others simply stand in their tracks and stare, their cunning expressions impossible to read. I grip Stella’s hand more firmly.

  “Hold on to me, ma coeur,” I whisper.

  “Remembe
r who you are, James,” she murmurs back, and squeezes my hand. A path of polished moonstones gleams in the grass, pointing the way to the glimmering mound where Queen BellaAeola keeps her court.

  The portals of her palace resolve themselves more sensibly this time as we approach, but our quest is different now, Stella no longer the repulsed mother seeking the boy, nor myself the spy. We climb the steps, pass between the flowering white pillars and into the Great Hall, with its polished floor and bewitching mirrors. No shades of the dead shimmer here this time, only reflections of ourselves, none true and all skewed to provoke. I see myself a beggar in the world, thin and gaunt, a bowl of ashes in my hand, with Stella worn and wretched trailing behind me, the spark gone from her eyes. I see myself in horns beside a cruelly laughing Stella painted like a voluptuary. I don’t know what Stella sees, perhaps a vision of herself cowed and weeping and myself a raging tyrant. Much is risked in love, there are so many uncertainties, and our savage hostess knows how to play upon them all. But we don’t let go of each other, Stella and I, and the false reflections finally dance away.

  All but the last, which we see together: ourselves as grizzled elders, our faces sunk in wrinkles, myself bald, stiff, bent, crabbing along on a cane, Stella sagging in her shapeless gown, frail, haggard, and weary. Such is the fate of all things out beyond the glamor of the Neverland. Age, an enemy as pitiless as the boy, who can never be vanquished, from whom there will be no refuge once we are back in the world; it can’t be shrugged off like the other shades, and the wavering image grows steadier, taunting us.

  A shudder passes through Stella’s living body pressed to mine, and I wrap my arm round her, hugging her closer. “To age again, I crave it above all things,” I say defiantly. “It’s the fondest desire of my heart.”

  “I will grow old and ugly.” Stella’s voice is small and wavering.

  “Not to me, my Stella Rose,” I promise her. “Never to me.”

  “Then you will be blind,” Stella sniffs, although she straightens a little in my embrace. “In addition to your other infirmities.”