Captain James Hook and the Curse of Peter Pan (20 page)

“Point in fact,” Hook continues, “it was my telling of you to my parents that got me put on this ship in the first place.”
 
In an instant, the intended life of James Hoodkins unfolds before Captain Hook’s eyes.
 
If not for Peter Pan, his father and mother would have lived to see him become a scholar at Eton.
 
He would have had a quiet life in London with Emily by his side.
 
There would be children, grandchildren, and holiday dinners.
 
None of that is to happen now.

Peter, increasingly certain that there is no fun to be found here, carries himself towards the stars until, quite unexpectedly, a hand clasps his ankle.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Hook says.

“Let go of me!” Peter shouts.

“Not until you learn that there are consequences for your actions,” Hook says.
 
Peter looks down into Hook’s eyes and smiles.
 
With his free foot, Pan kicks himself free.
 
He loops in the air and draws his short sword.

“Let’s play pirates,” Pan says.
 
“What a game that would be!”

“You’ve said that before, as well,” Hook says.

“I did?”

“It was on this ship, back when I told you of Jesse Labette.”

“Wow,” Peter says.
 
“And now you’re here.”
 
He pauses for a moment and puffs his chest. “I’m so clever.”

“Indeed you are, boy,” Hook says.
 
“Seize him!” All but Bill Jukes hesitate a second too long.
 
Even so, he misses Peter by a hair.
 
One by one, the men grasp for the boy only to tumble over each other stupidly.

“You’ll never catch me,” Pan says.

“Of course not,” Hook admits. “You’ve made fools of men for far too long.”

Captain Hook starts sending the pirates at Peter in calculated waves.
 
Peter gracefully ducks and dodges the men, but is unwittingly drawn closer to the center of the ship with each pass.
 
He circles around several times, until finally, Peter is met with the tip of Captain Hook’s sword.
 
Pan parries with his sword and turns to counter.

Captain Hook is there to meet him. Steel clashes as the two begin exchanging attacks.

“Tell me again about the children you take in the night,” Hook says. He slashes at the air where Peter once stood.
 
“Tell me about Donald Sotheby.”

“Who?” Peter asks, jabbing at Hook and catching nothing.

“Curly,” Hook says.
 
He thrusts twice before looking into Pan’s clueless eyes.
 
“The Lost Boys!” he shouts.
 
“Do they mean nothing to you?”

“The Lost Boys are great!” Peter says.
 
Pan blocks two more swipes before adding, “as long as they do as I say and don’t get too old.”

“And if they do grow too old or disobey you?” Hook asks.
 
Pan pushes away from Captain Hook and pauses for a moment before answering.

“I thin them out,” he says.
 
It is such a curious answer that Hook can’t resist probing further.

“Thin them out?”
 

“Some go back.”

“After how long?” Hook asks. “Years? Decades? Do they even recognize the world you return them to?” Hook seethes for several seconds before collecting his thoughts. But when his mind clears, one question pushes its way forward.
 
“You said that some go back. What about the others?”

“They get killed,” Pan says.
 
“Like this.” Peter makes several short stabbing motions in the air.

Captain Hook will admit to a great many evil deeds, not the least of which is murder, theft, and piracy.
 
But the sight of Peter Pan calmly describing the slaying of his own Lost Boys chills him to his core.

“I will end you, Peter Pan.” With his left hand, the pirate draws a boarding hook from within his coat.
 
Captain Hook attacks and Peter rushes to meet him.
 
Hook slashes crossways and thrusts low.
 
Pan darts left and tries to fly above, but is cut off.
 
Hook thrusts and swipes high, forcing Peter closer to the deck.
 
“You are through robbing parents of their families and robbing children of their futures.”

“We play games,” Peter says.
 
Hook kicks two barrels out from under Peter’s footing, forcing the boy to catch himself before falling.

“Enough with your games.”
 
Captain Hook slashes and swipes until finally the guard of his sword cracks against Peter's teeth.
 
The crew watches, jaws agape, as the flying boy slams against the mast and slumps limply to the deck.

Captain Hook advances on the heap of skin and bone on his deck, his sword and hook at the ready for any attack.
 
But when Pan sits himself upright and begins to sob at his bloodied face, Hook pauses.
 

Mother was right all those years ago
, Hook realizes.
 
Peter Pan may command a sorcery that I don’t yet understand, but no matter what evil or magic makes him act as he does, he’s still just a boy, nothing more.
 
Peter Pan can be hurt.
 
Peter Pan can be killed.

“You are a curse, Peter Pan,” Hook says, drawing nearer.
 
Peter is fully crying now, his hands covered with blood from his nose and teeth.
 
Captain Hook draws still closer.
 
“Your carelessness has ruined countless lives.
 
Everything you touch turns to madness and that madness must end.”

Captain Hook measures the distance and raises his blade for the killing blow. He shifts his weight, steps hard with the lead foot, and is met with a bright flash in his eyes.
 
The sting sends his aim off.
 
The sword drives hard into the mast, missing Peter by inches.

Tinkerbell rings loudly in Hook’s ear.
 
She stings him again and darts around behind him.
 
Hook turns and swats her with the back of an open hand.
 
She tumbles head over feet across the length of the ship, spilling fairy dust over Captain Hook and many of his crew.
 

Hook turns back to pull the sword from the mast.
 
But as he grips it, Pan lifts himself up high, swings his sword down hard, and cleaves Hook’s right hand off at the wrist.
   

James howls as thick blood oozes out onto the deck.
 
Peter catches the hand before it falls and carries it over to the starboard railing.
 
Filled with too much rage to be stopped by pain, James pulls his mother’s old cloth off of the hilt of his father’s sword and ties it taut on the wound to stop it from bleeding.
 
He then straps the hook tight on the stump and chases after the boy.
 
Peter smiles and tosses the hand overboard.

Hook rushes to the railing and reaches out for his hand, only to find the waiting jaws of the unnaturally large croc from the island.
 
Hungry for revenge, she leaps from the water and snaps her jaws tightly around the severed hand.
 
Her eyes ignite with enjoyment and she circles with anticipation for more.
 
Hook jerks back in shock and his father’s watch jostles free from his coat pocket.
 
It twinkles in the light as it falls to the sea.
 
Eager for another taste of Captain Hook’s unusual blood, the croc swallows the watch whole as well.

“No!” James shouts.
 
He pulls a pistol from Cecco’s belt and fires it at the ancient beast.
 
Shocked more by the sound than the wound, the croc swims away, ticking loudly, back to the island and her cave.

“Better learn to fight left-handed, Captain Hook,” Pan says from high above.
 
He hangs from the crow’s nest, smiling and laughing through bloodied teeth.
 
He then dips between the sails and takes off into the night’s sky.

“Follow that boy!” Captain Hook shouts.
 
In his heart there is the satisfaction of hunting the one boy, the one creature, most responsible for the suffering of an entire lifetime. The exhilaration in his chest ignites the spilled fairy dust. Sparkling gold light wraps around the ship, carrying it up and out of the water.
 
Captain James Hook points the
Jolly Roger
at the second star to the right and chases Peter Pan straight on ‘till morning.

The story continues in
Captain James Hook and the Siege of Neverland
.

Chapter One

August 15
^th
 

The world was darkness, then spun slowly into focus.
 
I reached into my coat pocket with fingers I no longer had for a watch that was no longer there and tore the lining.
 
This iron hook does as much good for me as ill, but in the moments that I forget, I curse its place in my life.
 
It is a trophy of my failure.
 
My weakness.
 
I have no fairies to save me.
 
Just my wits, which now slipped between my fingers like dry sand.

Thick and foul-colored blood pooled on the floorboards, but not from the hook.
 
I didn’t cut myself.
 
Something else happened.
 
My head
.
 
Someone had hit me and now the slick copper taste stuck to my teeth and lips.
 
I worked the hook free of the fabric as my vision righted.
 

Smee and Billy Jukes laughed in the dim candlelight.
 

“Tasted enough of the butt of my sword?” Smee taunted.
 
He thumbed the handle of his weapon and rocked back and forth on stout legs.
 

I spat, pulled the leather straps that held my hook in place tighter, and rose to my feet.
 
“Once more.”

“Again?” Smee asked.
 
He wiped the sweat from his graying brow and looked to Billy Jukes, who scowled.
 

I rose my sword to guard position and used my hook to pull long tendrils of hair away from my face.
 

“Sure,” Jukes said, shifting his herculean frame.
 
“Once more.”

My rehabilitation has been a trial, but Jukes and Smee were kind enough to help.
 
The cabin in the old brigantine is not ideal for this kind of training.
 
Chests cluttered the limited wall space, narrowing an already tight room.
 

The two men advanced.
 

Smee thrust high at the chest.
 
I parried with my sword, but caught an elbow in the teeth.
 
Blood flowed again down my chin as I drove my forehead into the bridge of Smee’s nose.
 
I then slammed the dull side of my hook down onto Smee’s chest and the Irishman collapsed in a heap.
 

Billy Jukes lunged at me, taking only two steps to cover the distance.
 
I rolled underneath his grasp, but with one sweeping movement, Jukes backhanded me and knocked my sword away.
 
He hoisted me high in the air and brought me crashing down onto a pile of books and old maps.
 
He leaned his knee across my chest and made himself heavy.
 

“Are you done?” Jukes asked.

“No,” I breathed, “but you are.”

Billy Jukes chuckled, but his smile faded as a splash of red warmth grew on the front of his shirt.
 
Jukes got up and opened his shirt, revealing three shallow scratches, one just below each ear and another across his midsection.
 

“You’d have gutted me.”

“And slit your throat.”
 
I leaned myself up against the wall and cleaned the blood from my hook.
 
“Twice.”
 

“Didn’t even see you do it that time,” Jukes said.
 
He walked over to a small chest where I keep my private stores of medicines and bandages.
 
He took off his now tattered shirt and added, “You took a hell of a beating, though.”

“I’d take any number of broken bones over disembowelment.”

Billy Jukes nodded and went back to cleaning and dressing his wounds.
 

I stood up and walked over to Smee.
 
“Are you getting up now?”

“Aye, Captain.
 
Just a moment longer.”

I extended my hand and helped Smee to his feet.
 

“Next time, I’ll be armed also,” Jukes said, looking again at his blood-stained shirt.
 
“You’re ready.”

“Aye, Mr. Jukes,” I said.
 
I picked up my sword and practiced drawing it left-handed.
 
My swordsmanship has a long way to go before it will be where it was when I brought Peter Pan to heel.
 
I sheathed the sword and loosened the straps of my hook, shifting the guard to find a comfortable fit.
 
The wound aches constantly, but the right pressure makes it bearable.
 

When finished, I noticed my first officer and boatswain standing oddly stiff.
 
Smee shifted his weight and put his thick hands in two sets of pockets before deciding to let them hang at his sides.
 
Jukes dropped his shoulders and breathed loudly through his nose, a sure sign of bad news.
 

“Anything to report, Mr. Jukes?”

“The men are hungry.”

“Anything more than quarter rations are foolish until we know more.”

“They’re afraid,” Smee snapped.

“They should be,” I said.
 
Smee and Jukes looked at one another and waited for me to say more.
 
I didn’t.