Captain James Hook and the Siege of Neverland (26 page)

“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?”