Alias Hook (3 page)

“It means we must stop and consider who our true enemies are,” I tell them smoothy. “Ignore them at your peril. A double watch tonight and a sharp lookout for war canoes, men. Jesse and Burley, for’ard,” and Jesse nods and limps for the ladder with my square-rigged bos’un, a fisherman by trade who actually knows something about boats. “Flax, astern with—” I peer back again at Dodge, his eye near swollen shut. “Needles!” I hail the sailmaker I spy lingering in the hatchway. “See if this man requires stitches.”

A certain cure for malingering in my day, this has the desired effect, as Dodge mutters his, “Aye, Cap’n,” and hurries off to pair with Flax and move astern.

“Nutter, you have the Long Tom.” And the big redhead clambers eagerly up the ladder for our swivel gun in the starboard bows.

“It’s been long years since the redskins were foolhardy enough to attack this ship,” I begin again.

“I say let ’em come!” howls Nutter from his gun, with the absolute ferocity of one who has never had to grapple in the mud and blood and gore for his life.

“But if it’s Hell they crave so much, we’ll give ’em a taste!” I agree, and the men burst into cheers.

It’s all theater here, illusion and flash-powder, from the moment they first set foot upon this cruel stage until their tawdry exit. Let them think I’ve engineered this event for their benefit. Anything but let them see I’ve no idea what the damned drums mean.

It begins with a bell. A rustling in the leaves that startles me.

Don’t be afraid.

Who speaks thus to the terrible Hook? I can’t tell; it’s gone dusky in the garden while I tend my irises. A new bloom of heartbreaking loveliness has just opened, its upper bonnet lavendar, its lower petals deep indigo purple. A pale moon is already visible above the island, peering down on the curly cabbage leaves and ferny tops of parsnips and carrots, but the shadows have grown so long, I can’t see whose voice it is that speaks to me from the surrounding shrubbery.

May I help?

No one else ever labors willingly in this garden. And I need not say in words there is no other way to help Hook in this place.

The stranger remains hidden from my view, but, as if speaking to my thoughts, the voice draws nearer.
There is always a way.

It’s as if one of my bearded flowers were granted the gift of speech. These are my most constant companions, these bulbs that regenerate themselves year after year after year; they know my thoughts better than anyone. They are my only refuge from the boy.

Peter doesn’t know everything
.

I sit back on my heels, chilled; even stray thoughts about the boy can have dire consequences here, let alone unchecked words.

There is always a way,
the voice tells me again, quite nearby now.
We can find it together.

And I begin to percieve some subtle shift, some change in the very atmosphere, almost as if the attention of the Neverland were slowly turning aside, as if I am in the presence of some greater power. Greater than the boy.

I reach tentatively into the shadows. “Take my hand.”

The faintest grazing of skin on skin; another tinkling of a tiny bell; a fleeting impression of warmth and something more. Connection. Alliance. And for an instant, all of my senses respond to a weird lessening of the tension that always oppresses me here, borne off like a storm cloud on a freshening breeze.

And I am no longer kneeling in the earth, but standing on board the deck of a ship. Too trim and responsive for the
Rouge,
no, it’s a fleet little craft under such a press of sail she seems to take flight, soaring up into the sky above a dark sea that sparkles like stars, bearing me aloft into the night. And my weary spirit soars as well, toward an uncanny moon gone as red as a sunrise, glowing like an ember in the night sky, lighting the way. Outward bound at last, it must be, deliverance at last, freed at long last from this awful place!

And thus I come awake, aching for the rapture of release that never comes, to find myself still here, sprawled across my bed in my cabin on board the
Rouge,
still trapped in the Neverland, the nightmare that never ends.

Who is it that haunts my dreams in this manner? Which of the hundreds of men I have led and lost in this place over time can it be?

Or is it Death I dream of with such ardor? Who else can it be, this stranger with the power to end my misery? There is nothing else I crave so much.

My stern cabin window tells me it is still dark night. I hear the tread of men on watch above, a mumbling of idle voices, the hollow cloppping of dice in a cup, but the redskins’ drumming has slacked off. The sirens’ nightly wailing, however, is already at full throttle. I reach for my bottle to moisten my lips, but find it already drained and let it sink to the deck; then I roll over and grope about for a pillow to cover my ears and drown out the mermaids’ infernal noise. But in that moment, a renagade draft of air whispers overhead, trailing a mineral scent of sulfur and allspice across my bedthings. And piping along with it, another disembodied voice, feathery light,

Seize your chance.

What mockery is this? I haul myself up by the nearest bedpost, fumble out a flint at my little side table, strike a spark off my hook to light the lamp, peer about in the gloom. But my cabin is empty, of course. I sigh and rake back my hair, swing my legs over the side. I’ve had enough of dreaming.

The twin keyboards of my harpsichord grin up at me like rows of teeth in the flickering lamplight. The low, rolling pitch of the loreleis’ song adds extra menace to the night. I long to drown it out with the contrapuntal clarity of my instrument, voiceless, impotent, yearning for so long. The fingers of my left hand strike the first notes of a bright
arpeggio.
But the urge to sound a richer harmonic on the lower manual clashes iron against the wooden key, and the unpleasant thunk of the jack under my clumsy hook ruins all.

“Play for your life.” That’s what she said. What mockery. My pointless life rattles along unabated, a runaway cart down a long and rutted road, two centuries and more since the boy chopped off my hand. Magic heals my interior wounds, but I’m no reptile; I can’t regenerate a missing limb. With a sigh, I edge my hook off the keyboard. Now I am only fit for playing games.

I spiral up off the bench and pace round my cabin, lamplight glistening on polished wood, shimmering silks, far more lavish appointments than I ever kept at sea. Comfort matters to me now, a refuge from the world outside. But there’s scant comfort in the image I glimpse in my oval glass, even with my gruesome stump buckled out of sight in the leather cuff that holds my hook. Even now, I can scarcely bear to look at the stunted thing my hook conceals. Dead it may be, yet it sends me phantom feelings: the urge to grasp a hilt, or a joint of meat, or strike a chord, which can never be satisfied; a maddening itch where there’s nothing left to scratch. The scorching pain where he hacked my hand away tortures me often in the dark of night, beyond all soothing. Sometimes, when wine warms my belly and fouls my wits, I fancy there’s another withered stump, a twin to this one, inside my chest, that beats out of habit alone with only phantom feeling.

Still I gaze, like a yokel gawping at a fire or a hanging or some other grim spectacle. Hard to believe I was reckoned quite the blade, once, tall, lithe, muscular, sky-blue eyes to make women swoon. Even now, I’m scarcely an hour older, physically, than the forty-odd years I’d accumulated on the day I sailed away from that blasted island in the Caribbees, when the obeah woman cursed me to this place. It’s a matter of sheer, stubborn pride that I carry my tall frame without stooping; he will never see me cowed. The contours of my body have been pared down to hard muscle over time, but my flesh is battle-scarred, my long, dark hair a travesty of the fashionable wig I once wore. The eyes peering back at me from the glass have lost none of their vivid blue, but they have seen too much.

The muddled voices of my men waft down from above, a thin, indignant protest, a low gurgle of laughter, but nothing that sounds as if it might erupt again into violence or any kind of alarm. I sigh and turn away at last. My men.

What is the spell of eternal childhood that they cannot resist? Women, music, theater, fruitful labor, the lure of the sea, the comforts of home and family, the delights of a garden, are there no such diversions in their world that might have rooted them in that place, where they belong? A dry internal laugh is my only response, from that irritating voice in my head that I can never quell of late.

Might not the same be said of me?

Chapter Three

LONDON, 1702: YOUNG BLOOD

A luscious display of womanflesh, ripe for the plucking, greeted us at Mrs. Ralston’s that evening. Most of the girls lounged in chemises, straps falling off plump shoulders, hems hiked thighward. One or two wore silken dressing gowns; haughty Marie arranged herself artfully on the divan in a plum-colored velvet overdress with no underdress beneath. In their arms, my friends and I would be received like conquerers, no matter what deficiencies wine had wrought on our prowess after a raucous afternoon at the playhouse in Drury Lane. Not all the finest acting in London was done upon the stage.

Mrs. Ralston glided up to greet us, garbed in rich but sober midnight blue. “Lord Spendler, an honor,” she hailed my friend with a demure nod.

Spendler gestured back with impressive grandeur, given that his arms were draped round Dartmouth on one side and Harrow on the other as they struggled to bear him up. The young lord was slender enough, but like to have consumed half his weight again in port wine during the course of the day.

“Young Mr. Hookbridge, always a pleasure,” the proprietess smiled at me.

“Kind words indeed, Madam, from such an expert in the field.” I swept off my gaudy hat, letting my dark hair spill free under the warm, flattering light, and made a bow that scarcely wobbled at all.

My father was an importer who had made his fortune in the sugar trade out of Bristol. I came often up to London on his business, where I sought out the company of other preening young males like myself to enjoy all the pleasures the city had to offer. Since school, I had journeyed many times to the Indies as supercargo on my father’s ships. I learned to sail from his most daring captains and found a life to which I was far better suited than the dreary routine of account books and business affairs, haunting quarterdeck and boatyard alike, far from my father’s eyes. Back in town, I fancied myself irresistible in my wine-colored coat and gilded frogs, trim breeches, and bucket-cuff boots. In business, I often affected a wig of fulsome curls in the manner of the late king, merry Charles Stuart, who had restored profit and gaeity to the realm. But I was vain of my own dark curls, which had grown long and luxurious at sea and delighted the ladies.

“Come on, man,” grunted Harrow. He and Dartie were already listing off toward the taproom, with Spendler in tow. The young lord was in disgraceful condition, as usual, yet I suppose we were no worse than any other young bloods of twenty or so with coin to spend and sap rising in our veins.

“Will you play for us this evening?” Mrs. Ralston asked me.

“With the most intense delight,” I said, and I turned to the others. “Raise a glass to the fair sex, gentlemen, and meet me in the parlor.”

“Aye, aye, Hooky!” Spendler agreed, and risked a wave of his hand. “On, on, noblesh Englisss…” he exhorted the others, as the three of them turned again toward the taproom. He was my superior in blood, breeding and fortune, yet he deferred to me. They all did. I was their leader.

Others of our acquaintance were already hailing us from the taproom, calling out jests, greetings, carnal encouragement. We were the envy of every clerk and apprentice in London, and most of their masters. We were dazzling. We were immortal.

An excellent Flemish harpsichord occupied the back corner of Mrs. Ralston’s parlor. Painted in primrose yellow with an abundance of gilding and floral motifs, it featured an edifying scene of pagan nymphs and satyrs afrolic inside the raised lid. I suited my repertoire to the occasion, beginning with “My Lady Has A Pretty Thing,” which delighted what damsels were still downstairs and their prospective gentleman clients.

My father thought music a frivolous pursuit for a man of business and permitted no instruments in his home. Since school, I’d had to take my education where I could find it, most often of late in houses of this nature, where my particular gifts were appreciated. After concluding a spirited account of “A Maid Must Have A Youngman,” my hands flying across the twin keyboards, and most of the house warbling along, I stood at the bench and made an exaggerated bow from the waist to the company, knowing full well how scandalized my father would be to see it. Perhaps I hoped the tales would carry back to him, that he might know me at last for who I was, not who he wanted me to be.

After a deal of careful attention, I finally saw my men disposed among the most forgiving of Mrs. Ralston’s seraphim. Then it was time at last to address the business of the evening. Some of the younger girls were primping hopefully, but I was in no humor to be flattered and chattered at all night after a tumultuous day out and about in town. We’d had words that had nearly come to blows with Lord Mortimer and his men over a singer in the entr’acte at Old Drury. She was a drab and timorous little thing, to be sure, but the lady said “no,” and so we saw our duty to intervene. Although she might just as easily have said “yes” to much the same effect, for it was ever our purpose to oppose Mortimer and his dogs in all things. There would be hell to pay when my father heard about the altercation, of course, a homecoming I intended to delay as long as possible, and so I made my choice.

Flora did not bestir herself with any particular haste on my account, rising calmly, adjusting the drape of her dressing gown. A veteran of the profession, perhaps ten years older than myself, she knew better than to come at me like a spaniel, all nervous quivering and twitchy tail, and I admired her the more for it. We knew each others’ ways, by now.