Alias Hook (17 page)

“It’s a great and solemn honor to be sworn in,” I went on, raising my right hand. Pan was fond of ceremony. “But first you must sign the Articles, my bully, and we shall be in business.”

He leaned his elbows on the barrel, squinting down the paper, then up at me. “Do I get to sign in blood?” he asked eagerly.

I inclined my head, swallowing a smile. “If you like.” I produced a sharpened quill from my other pocket, gingerly testing its point against my forefinger. He returned his gaze to the paper, scowling in perplexity. And it occurred to me that my calligraphic efforts had been wasted; the boy could not read. Small wonder he needed the Wendys to tell him stories. “There,” I added helpfully, placing the nib of the quill upon the empty space.

“Is that where it says Captain Pan?”

“Captain Pan?” I gaped at him.

His gaze darted up to me. “I get to be the captain,” he barked. “I’m the one who always wins.”

“But my boy,” I struggled to recompose myself, “there is a world of ships to plunder out there. You may captain any one you—”

“Out there?” he cried, eyes widening at me. “You mean to trick me, Hook! You want to go out there! You want to run away! It’s a foul trick!” he bellowed, and a cloud of Lost Boys swarmed up over the wales and flew to us, brandishing their weapons. My men had been sent below so as not to alarm the boy, and that is how I came to be surrounded by angry swords and buck knives with only a quill clutched in my sword hand.

There must have been a dozen of them, devilling and poking at me. I swatted at them like insects, but they were much bigger and heavier, and they were armed. Half of them fell on my flailing arm as I roared for my men. Pan had a grip on my other hand; he’d shaken out the quill and was waving my hand like a prize.

“By this hand you would have sworn falsely to me!” he cried. “You would have tricked me out there, made me grow big, made me grow up! But I will never live in the grown-up world.” He drew a raspy breath, and I saw more malice in his glittering eyes than I’d ever seen in any pirate. “And neither will you! Never ever! And this is so you won’t forget!”

Three of the little beggars pinned my hand to the barrelhead, while another who’d been flitting all over the deck brought something back to the Pan. I couldn’t see what it was, for all the boys shrieking in my ears and cuffing me about the face as I tried to duck and bob. It wasn’t until he brandished it over his head that I recognized one of our boarding axes.

It took both his hands to manage it. I saw the downward course of the heavy blade and I struggled desperately, lunging and writhing, but my limbs were sandbagged with squirming bodies, and I could not twist away.

The pain was exquisite, a perfection of white-hot agony so consuming, I couldn’t hear my own shriek for the thundering in my head. The children were all shrieking too, giddy in their triumph and whooping as the ax came down again. Of course, he couldn’t do it all at once. Flesh and bone are more resistant than you think; the blade was old, and he was not experienced. It took several good whacks to break down the skin and pulp and sever the bone within.

There was no need to restrain me after that. I’ve heard of Blackbeard fighting on and on with blades and pistol balls twisting in his vitals, but it was not like that for me. I sank to my knees, stupid with pain, clinging to the barrel for support, watching red blood spurting out of my pulpy wrist like wine out of a spigot, as the boys jeered gaily all round me. My fingers were still clutching wildly, I could feel them, but the hand to which they were attached was already gone. Pan flew to the side with it, dripping blood across the deck, and held it aloft like a trophy. At the rail, he paused and whistled. I shall never forget it. He whistled, and the crocodile came splashing up under the hull for its treat.

Pan lighted upon the rail, still grasping his grisly prize, and turned back to me. “I win again, Hook!” he cried. “I’m the true captain of the Neverland!” He dropped my bloody hand over the side, and the boys all cheered, yet for all their din, I heard the greedy snap of reptilian jaws.

It was like an afterword in a tedious book by the time my men mustered themselves on deck to chase off the boys with Long Tom. I don’t remember much about it. I was slumped against a pile of cordage, my arm cradled in my lap, watching blood soak through my breeches and into the deck, until blessed oblivion gaped open before me like a great black welcoming sea.

The shock of it was not so much that I had been overmatched by little boys. I have seen green youths scarcely older than the Pan battle ferociously for their lives on the bloody deck of a prize ship. No, it was the glee with which they did it, the jeering, jabbering Lost Boys. We were not in a battle. No lives were at stake. They mutilated me for the sport of it. For the fun.

That is what it is to be a boy.

Chapter Fourteen

THE FALLEN

I awake to daylight, stiff-jointed and sore where I’ve slumped in sleep over my voiceless harpsichord. A sullen drumbeat in my temples reminds me of my last fruitless interview with Parrish. Even if she were once a Wendy, she has no memory of it. Would that
I
were so fortunate; my memories have come back with alarming clarity, and I go above, eager to purge their bitter taste from my mind.

It was foolish to believe that Parrish would ever lead me to the boys, even if she knew the way. She is not so easily maneuvered as my men, and I dare not lose her confidence again: whatever called her here in defiance of the boy’s wishes is a power to be reckoned with. Surely it is well within my best interests to keep her under my protection, until whatever it is that wants her can claim her.

Yesterday’s high foolery has given way to a more apprehensive atmosphere on deck. The men must have heard Parrish and myself cackling away in our cups last night. I set them to scrubbing away the gore from yesterday’s skinning and plucking session, and cheer them up with the order to sand all the decks for action. Up on the fo’c’sle deck, I find that some of the timber we cut from those dead trees in the wood has proven too dry and brittle in the intensity of the Neverland sun, cracking round the nails and splitting from the barricade frames. Sticks had to rip out several useless pieces yesterday and replace them, and today he’s got Flax helping him to nail crosspieces across the vertical timbers to better hold the contrivance in place before it can be removed to the quarterdeck.

After a fortifying tankard of my steward’s black death, I plunge into the bowels of the hold with Nutter and Jesse to see sufficient quantities of grapeshot and powder tamped into breeches to be ready for Long Tom. Peering about in the gloom for other useful occupations to put them to, I spy in the deepest shadows an ancient, cobwebby trunk taken from a lady passenger of quality on one of our last voyages back in the world. It strikes me this might amuse Parrish, and I order Filcher to have taken in to her cabin. I expect the effects of last night’s conviviality will keep her below this morning, but it’s best to keep her occupied and out of the way today, while I decide what use can be made of her.

But there she reclines on her bunk in her usual shirt and trousers when I look in on her at midday, poring over a small, leather-bound volume.

“Captain,” she smiles, sitting up. “Thank you for last night. It was lovely—I think.” she makes a wry mouth. “I hope I didn’t embarrass myself too badly.”

“Not that I should have noticed,” I remind her, and her mouth tilts up again. Her hair is unpinned this morning, her feet bare under rolled-up trouser cuffs. “Did you not receive the gift I sent you?” I go on, as if the old trunk were not standing open on a crate at the foot of her bunk.

“I did indeed, Captain,” she says eagerly. “Such beautiful antiques! How thoughtful of you to show them to me! The historian in me thanks you.”

“But not the woman?” Her bright smile wavers. “Damnation, Parrish, I never thought I’d have to explain to a woman what clothing is for.”

“Stella,” she laughs.

“What?”

“My name. I was only ‘Parrish’ in service. My name is Stella.”

I gaze at her. “A fallen star.”

Her mouth tilts up again. “You remember your Latin, Captain.”

“I ought to, it was pummeled into me soundly enough.”

“But they are much too fine for me to wear,” she goes on, nodding toward the trunk. “Besides, gowns of that fashion require, ah, certain undergarments and a battalion of ladies’ maids to get into them.”

“Well, do what you will with them,” I say airily, “they are of no use to me.” I nod at the book she’s put aside, gilded letters etched upon a wine-dark cover:
Paradise Lost
. “That is not one of mine.”

“I found it in there,” she replies, nodding again to the trunk.

“No doubt it was thought an improving tract for a young lady on the voyage home,” I observe.

“It would certainly improve me,” Parrish laughs. “This book would be worth a fortune in my world, among the antiquarians.”

“I regret my hospitality is so poor you must resort to Milton.”

“Oh, no, I’m enjoying it!” she grins again. “I haven’t read it since school. It’s quite the heroic ballad.”

I frown. “Unless I misrecall, the topic is the Fall of Mankind.”

“Well, yes. But, he’s made Satan a rather a dashing figure, witty and resourceful. In my world we’d call him a hero with a tragic flaw.”

“Well, he
is
Satan,” I point out.

“He was an angel once,” Parrish rejoins stoutly.

“But that was long ago, before his fall. Now his only choices are infinite wrath and infinite despair. ‘Which way I fly is Hell. My self am Hell,’” I recite from the musty bowels of memory.

“His problem isn’t his badness, it’s his ego,” says Parrish. “Repentance and remorse are weaknesses to him. He doesn’t know how to seek forgiveness. He’s stuck.”

I stand agape at her subversive notions.

“He only embraces Evil because he believes Goodness is denied him,” she persists. “‘Farewell hope, and with hope, farewell fear.’”

“Believes?” I echo. “He is the chiefest villain in Christendom.”

“He made a foolish choice once,” she counters. “Who hasn’t? He could change his mind if he wanted to, but he thinks his time’s run out.”

I stare at her, but it’s Proserpina’s face that suddenly swims before me, the witch’s voice that thrums in my head.
I will give you all the time you need
. That’s what she told me on the day I left her, ages ago. By God’s thorns, for centuries, I’ve blamed Pan for the eternity of my life here. But suppose it was never him at all, but Proserpina keeping me alive all this time, like her spider confederate? But why? For malice alone, or is there some other reason? I thought she was speaking in riddles that day; I didn’t listen. Time for what? What was I meant to do here?

From whom would I beg forgiveness, if I could? There are so many I have wronged, all who ever bled on my sword in the pirate trade, the thousands more I have led and lost in futile battles here.
How many more must die?
Proserpina asked me once. Suppose each death, however good or brave, only lengthens the chain of my crimes. Could I but halt this march of death, somehow, would my exile end at last? Is that the chance they all speak of? Is that what Proserpina meant by going back?

Death is the only release I’ve dreamed of for centuries. Can there be another?

A thundering like a broadside erupts on deck; footfalls pounding, weapons clattering, men shouting. Brassy races into the passage.

“Captain, quick,” he pants. “Boys!”

By God’s bile, not now! If Proserpina, not Pan, prolongs my life here, she must have had a reason, a key, a plan, but there’s no time for pretty theories with the boys on the attack. “Battle stations!” I roar. “Shields up! To your weapons…”

Halfway out the door, I see Parrish on her feet behind me. “Stay out of sight,” I warn her.

“But—”

“I beg you! My men will pay with their lives if you are seen.”

She pales, retreats, and I charge down the passage and up the ladder.

They are just now racing above the treeline over Pirates Beach, a cloud of racketing boys in their furs and foliage, Pan blowing a shrill fanfare on his pipes. My mind is racing too: I must think of some game to turn Pan away from bloodshed. Nutter and Swab have shoved aside the half-built barricade to position Long Tom; Filcher is passing out arms. Jesse, confident and resolute, is readying his flintlocks up on the quarterdeck, where I ordered him to be.

“Stand by there, Nutter!” I shout as the boys veer into range. Chase them back into the sky for another blessed moment; give me time to think! Turning for the ladder, I see Parrish crouched in the hatchway behind me, staring out at the swarm of boys.

“Damn and blast!” I sputter, throwing myself across the opening to block her passage.

“Captain! They’re children!” she cries indignantly.

“I know what they are,” I hiss.

“Fire!” Nutter shrieks, and I spin round to see all the little boys beating higher up into the air to dodge a peppering of grape fired one second too soon, while I was distracted. Laughing and jeering, they swoop in over the starboard bows, above our now harmless cannon. Nutter and Swab fall back into the waist as the boys hover above us, out of range of our hand weapons.

“Where’s that codfish you call a captain?” Pan cries, lighting on a spar on the mainmast, stowing his pipes in his belt of vines. “Show yourself, Hook!”

I stride out amidships, and the men on deck fall in behind me, clutching their swords, axes, pikes. “Well, Pan,” I hail him, “just the fellow I want to see.” Out of desperation, I reach for the brim of my black hat with its fine white plume. “I’ll wager this feather—”

“I make the rules here!” he brays at me. “Whatever’s going on in the Neverland, you know you can never beat me, and I’m here to prove it! You get three chances to try.” He motions down toward our spent Long Tom. “That was one.”

Damnation, I wasn’t quick enough; the game has already begun. I circle beneath him, my sword still sheathed. So long as we are engaged in a parley, he’ll not unleash his boys, but can I hope to win this challenge with words alone? “But surely nothing ever goes wrong in the Neverland,” I parry. “Who would dare defy the great Captain Pan?”