Never Never

by Brianna Shrum

  “Because every time I look at you wrong, you flinch! Ugly old pirate. A braver man would have swung his sword at me by now.”

  James’s fingers twitched against his sword. “And a smarter child would know enough to keep his mouth shut and not taunt his elders so.”

  The proud look on Peter’s face was what baited the captain, and he could not stop himself from lunging at him. Peter’s wild eyebrows raised and he smiled brightly and met James’s sword with his smaller blade. James pressed on, throwing his body weight behind the sword, and breathed into Peter’s face.

  “I could kill you now, Pan.”

  “Do it, then,” Peter hissed, and he pushed James off him. Then, the duo was back to circling one another.

  “I could do this for ages,” Pan boasted.

  “I already have.”

  Peter lunged at James, who easily parried the strike, and again, with the same result. Then, he darted upward, knife in his mouth, and plunged to the deck behind him, kicking him in the back. James tumbled over, slipping on a pool of blood, he didn’t know whose, and landed on his hands and knees on the worn wood. He flipped around quickly, brandishing his sword, unhappy to be on the ground but decidedly more comfortable facing Peter than having him at his back.

  Peter was above him then, knocking into him, pushing the breath from him. He was strong, for a boy. They grappled for a minute on the ground. It was all very undignified, kicking him in the groin, being bitten in the shoulder, grabbing him by the throat.

  And then, with his right hand clasped around Peter’s windpipe, James stopped. His ears perked up as he heard a strange tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, the one that had accompanied that crocodile a short time earlier. Without intending to remove himself from the fight, he turned his head instinctively to find the direction from whence the phantom sound was coming.

  Without warning, there was a searing pain just above his wrist, as though someone had taken a sledgehammer to it. Tick-tocking forgotten entirely, he turned and cried out. Where he’d once had a hand, there was nothing but mutilated flesh. Bone, muscle, vein, everything splintered.

  Pan smiled devilishly and floated up and away from him, holding James’s severed hand in his own. James paled and gasped for breath, yelling out with every bit of oxygen he had left. He was certain that the real pain hadn’t yet set in, and nor had the realization. He could not truly believe, even if he’d wanted to, that the hand in the child’s fingers was his own.

  James sat, dumbstruck, clutching his stump of an arm, as crimson blood soaked his jacket and dripped onto the floor. He looked up, somehow both horrified and numb, as Peter flung the hand over the ship’s edge. Despite his handicap, James scrambled, crawling, one-armed, to the end of the boat, and stared, wide-eyed, as his hand landed in the open jaws of the crocodile.

  The croc’s eyes looked the same as Peter’s—heartless, cold, and indecently, unusually satisfied with the taste of his blood. Pan spun into the air, twirling over and over, and crowed as he always did. The Lost Boys and pirates stopped their fighting, and every person on the boat turned to look at James.

  James met, for only an instant, Bibble’s eyes. They were large and dark and sad and horrified, and James’s chest was a playground for all sorts of terrible emotions. The chief one was stabbing and aching all at once—betrayal.

  He turned his face away from Bibble, his friend, struggling to breathe, and knelt on the floor, blood soaking the knees of his pants. He turned his attention to the nothing at the end of his arm, still in shock.

  When the battling was over and there was only silence and Peter’s whooping in the air, that was when the pain set in. James breathed in and out shortly for several seconds, then let out a scream that was different than any sound he’d ever heard or made. It was pure anguish and rage. He screamed for several breaths until he was lying on the floor, and the corners of his eyes started to go dim, and everyone was gone but he and his pirate crew.

  There was a great deal of chatter then, and a furious amount of activity around him, but James barely paid heed to any of it. He was nearly delirious from pain and loss of blood. He made out a few words here and there.

  “He be bleedin’ out, lads. He’ll be dead in a moment.”

  “His entire hand. His hand! And did you see the crocodile?”

  “Wait, I’ve got it. The coals! Pick him up; bring him to my cooking pit.”

  James’s head lolled around as they picked him up from the deck, and he felt himself fading in and out of consciousness. Then, they thumped him down. He could feel heat rising like soft wool around him and smiled.

  “Someone, grab his arm. No, the other one, idiot. The right one, with the blood all over it.”

  “Sit him up straight.”

  James was dizzy. He wished they would all shut up for a moment so he could go to sleep. Couldn’t they see he was sleepy?

  “I’m terribly sorry, Captain,” said Smee’s gentle voice.

  There was a horrible sizzling and burning at the edge of his arm, and then there was nothing.

  TWENTY

  GONE. MISSING. SEVERED. DETACHED. DEPARTED. There were lots of ways to describe James’s conspicuously absent hand, but none he could wrap his mind around. He could not really convince himself that not only had a rather important piece of him vacated his wrist, but it was likely that it no longer existed at all. It wasn’t waiting somewhere, eager to reattach itself to him; it was somewhere in the belly of a crocodile, being digested.

  He sat in the warm sand at the shore of the Never Sea, nymphs and other small sea creatures flowing in with the tide and back out again, but he paid no attention to them. He flexed his left hand over and over again, marveling at the complexity of the muscles and the veins, checking occasionally to see if somehow the one on his right had reappeared. It felt sometimes as though it had; strangely, he could still feel it doing hand-like things from time to time. But, each time his nerves deceived him, his eyes reminded him of the truth.

  “Captain?” said Starkey, approaching his right side.

  James did not answer.

  “There’s something I’d like you to see.”

  James continued staring at his hand. Starkey sighed. Likely the entire crew was used, by now, to James’s melancholy. Ever since the incident, he hadn’t interacted much with anyone, except to occasionally eat or drink.

  He cocked his head. “Why do you suppose it ticks, Starkey?”

  Starkey jumped at James’s voice. “Beggin’ yer pardon?”

  “Why does it tick? The crocodile?”

  Starkey cleared his throat and furrowed his brow. “Eh, well, I imagine it’s because some time ago, it swallowed a clock. Been tickin’ ever since.”

  “Hm.”

  James’s mind went blank again, and he returned to flexing and stretching his remaining hand.

  “Captain, I hate to force you up from the beach, but I’ve got somethin’ for you. Somethin’ I’ve made. I think it’ll brighten you up,” Starkey said, staring straight into James’s vacant eyes.

  James pursed his lips and rolled his eyes up to Starkey. Starkey was something of a persistent man. He felt a vague current of irritation but rose from the sand anyway and stood on the shore for a moment before finally deciding to walk toward the Main. They boarded the vessel together, and James turned to his crewman, arms folded expectantly.

  “A moment, Captain,” Starkey said, and he walked off down the beach, disappearing into a tiny cave near the shore.

  James stood there, ignoring the open stares of his crewmen, trying not to look at the awful stump at the end of his arm. It had healed nicely and was no longer painful to the touch, but it was peppered with little spots and burn scars, reminders of the terrible coals. After what felt like several minutes, Starkey clopped up onto the ship, cleared his throat, and James turned.

  In Starkey’s hand was a shiny cuff, delicately filigreed with leaves and vines and several other markings James couldn’t quite make out from where he stood. Att
ached to the top of the silvery cuff was a hook. It was perfectly crafted, thick and with a wicked curve, bright and gleaming, and deadly sharp. James’s mouth fell open, and something foreign, murky, but decidedly positive, bloomed in his chest. Something like gratitude.

  “Where did you get this?”

  Starkey looked almost embarrassed. “Made it.”

  James almost smiled. “Made it? How?”

  “Blacksmithin’s somethin’ I’ve always done. I’ve got a little makeshift smithy over there in that cave.” He cocked his head down the beach. “Just seemed right to give ye somethin’ that matched your name. Should fit.” Starkey nodded once, not looking directly at James’s face.

  James took the hook and tested it in his hand. It was heavy and solid. A finely crafted piece, and quite pirately. Then, he looked at Starkey, with something that wasn’t quite a smile, but wasn’t a scowl either. James stared at the contraption for a beat and tossed it up lightly and caught it. Then, he bent his right arm until he was looking straight at the horrible stump, and he fastened the cuff upon it, tightening the little leather straps that hung from it and tucking them beneath the silver. It was a perfect fit.

  He swung his arm in the air several times, enjoying the feeling of something weighty where his hand used to be. It turned out that he rather liked it, more than he let on. He acknowledged Starkey with the grimmest of looks and headed over to his cabin, nodding without humor to the men who smiled at the cruel arm piece as he walked by. Jukes seemed particularly impressed, frowning at the hook and back to his own arm. James wondered for a moment if the man wasn’t considering lopping his own hand off. He chuckled and slipped into his room.

  James stared at himself in his floor-length mirror, as he was wont to do, and swished the hook in front of himself several more times. Then, he brought it across himself, noting with satisfaction just how threatening he looked now with the weapon fixed to him. He was scowling menacingly when he heard a creak behind him. He whirled to find his door cracked just slightly open.

  James frowned, and his gaze darted around the room. “Who’s there?”

  There was no answer.

  He paced to his bed, and again, “Who is there?”

  He grabbed for his sword, rubbing his fingers over the hilt, and his gaze moved to his closet, full of linen shirts and boots and pants that all looked the same. But, one little thing was out of place. There was a small brown ankle peering out at him from beneath the clothes.

  “An assassin then,” he said, forgetting about his hook and his sword. He grinned as he pushed back his clothes and found Tiger Lily standing there, hair cascading down her shoulders in lightly tangled waterfalls.

  “I wanted you to find me,” she said, proud nonchalance in her expression. She stepped out of his closet, little strands of hair still clinging to James’s clothes.

  “Did you?” James raised a brow.

  “Yes, because—”

  She stopped, eyes fixated on something. James followed her stare and was shocked, once again, by the absence of his hand, but only for a moment.

  “Your hand!” Tiger Lily shouted, cupping her hands over her mouth.

  “You don’t prefer the hook?” James asked darkly. “I rather think it suits me.”

  “What happened?” Her face was a mask of concern, and her fingers reached for the metal.

  James shrank back.

  “What happened, James?” Her voice was high and terribly sincere, unusual. She took a step toward him and something fluttered in his chest.

  James took a step back and scowled. He was loath to admit that her boy had bested him in a fight; it was humiliating that the child had not only taken his hand, but he’d fed it as a snack to a crocodile.

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m a pirate; we put ourselves and our hands in constant danger.”

  Tiger Lily bit her lower lip and said, in a voice that barely registered above a whisper, “It was him, wasn’t it?”

  James spun around, face vicious. “Why would you assume it was him? You believe he’d beat me, too?”

  She did not back away from his ferocity, but instead straightened taller. “No, James, and don’t behave like a child. I say it because there’s a look you get only when you’re talking about Peter, and it’s all over your face.”

  James faltered, softening immediately. “I’m sorry.”

  Tiger Lily hesitated. Then, “He cut off your hand?”

  “Yes. And fed it to a crocodile.”

  “Why?”

  A muscle jerked in James’s jaw. “Because the Pan will never fight fair.”

  Tiger Lily looked downward and sat on his bed. James sat with her, allowing himself to get a bit closer than he normally would. She moved just a mite closer to him as well, and James wondered if he’d imagined it. He couldn’t trust his perception of reality; her mere presence intoxicated him.

  But, he looked down at the small space between them and was met with the sight of that wretched hook, a hook that would never hold her or touch her the way a man was meant to touch a woman. Who, after all, would choose the feel of cold metal against her skin when she could have the fingertips of any man she wanted?

  “How long has it been this way?” she asked him.

  “Not long. It happened just after you left. Several Neverdays, I suppose. And I was only just given the hook.”

  “It makes you look ever the pirate,” she said, a slight hoarseness in her soft voice.

  James stared down at the hook. “It does, doesn’t it?”

  Her hair touched his face when she bent a bit to look at it, and he closed his eyes and breathed deeply, air shaking in his lungs. It always hurt him when she did things like that, but unmet longing was a sweet sort of pain.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Not so much. Not anymore. I can’t feel anything, really.”

  She touched the iron of his hook, then, and he noticed that her hand was trembling.

  “You can’t feel this?”

  “No.” He shook his head.

  “And this?” Tiger Lily moved her hand up to his wrist.

  A frown crossed James’s face for a moment but left quickly. He could feel her pulse pounding in her wrist, hammering in time with his own.

  “Yes,” he said. A rush of nervous energy as her nails brushed over his arm.

  “And here. Can you feel me here?”

  James’s breath started to come quickly and raggedly as Tiger Lily trailed her fingers up to his collarbone. She was breathing strangely too, and he noticed a light flush in her cheeks and the hard pounding of her pulse.

  “Yes,” James whispered.

  “And here?” Tiger Lily stopped when her face was a breath away from his.

  James stared at her eyes. They were large and questioning, and, he knew, terrified.

  Of him? Terrified, somehow, that he would not reciprocate?

  There was total stillness in the room as Tiger Lily froze and James wondered. And then, because he’d been waiting to do it forever, and he could hold himself back no longer, he reached out his hand to grasp the back of her head and pulled her toward him, meeting her mouth in a fiery outpouring of longing and desire.

  She tasted like nectar, and he kissed her so deeply that he could feel it everywhere, in every part of him. Tiger Lily wove her small hand in the curls at the base of his neck and he lost himself in the smell of her hair, the taste of her mouth, the feel of her skin.

  Before he wished it to be over, Tiger Lily suddenly jerked back. He furrowed his brow, desperate to find a way to get her into his arms again. But Tiger Lily cried out and jerked harder.

  “Tiger Lily—”

  James shrank back in horror, then, for he saw a piece of his hook embedded in her shoulder, and blood dripping from the wound. James removed it as quickly as he could and leapt up, tearing a strip from one of his shirts to bandage it. She grabbed at her shoulder, fat red drops falling between her fingers and trickling down over her knuckles, her hand, landing on his bedspread
. He felt it like a punch to the gut when he saw her taking small gasping breaths and trying like the devil not to cry.

  When he pushed the fabric to her shoulder, she winced, and there was another stabbing pain in him. “I’m so sorry, Tiger Lily; I didn’t mean it.”

  “I—I know,” she said in a strangled whisper, teeth clenched.

  “I forgot myself. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  He was beside himself, frantically wiping up the blood from her arm and the floor, wishing furiously, not for the first time, that he’d never had his hand robbed from him. He touched her cheek with his left hand, desperately searching her eyes for a hint of forgiveness. He saw none, only pain, moisture in her eyes and a grimace as she focused on breathing.

  “I didn’t mean it; I swear it.”

  She shook her head, in control of the tears now. “I know.”

  “I’m sorry, Tiger Lily.”

  “James,” she said, putting her hand on his shoulder. He looked up at her, eyes pained and revolted. “I know.”

  She stood up from his bed.

  A stab of panic rushed through him. “You’re going, then?”

  Her voice still shook when she spoke, and the fabric on her arm began to redden. “I need to get this tended to.”

  “Wait. I’ll have Smee take a look at it. Please.”

  “No,” she said with a swift, hard jerk of her head. “I’m going back home. You have no doctor here.”

  “Let me go with you,” he said, reaching for her good arm.

  She jerked back. “I’m fine, James. Just let me go.”

  James dropped his hand to his side. “Yes. All right. Go,” he stammered, his mind a whir of guilt and passion and sorrow.

  Tiger Lily stole out of his room, and James sat brooding on his mattress. She’d kissed him. He’d touched her and tasted her and held her, and he’d fouled it all up. Probably she hated him now. Who wouldn’t hate a man who’d stabbed them for nothing? James jumped up from his bed and pulled at his hair, yelling gruffly. Then, he composed himself, and everything in him ran icy cold.