“I don’t think so.”
She said no, and yet when he reached out his hand, Wendy tenderly stepped onto it. He practically threw her up on the platform, her feet slipping on the wet wood.
“Here ya go!”
The blind pirate quickly looped the rope around her waist, pulling it tight through the iron rung before looping it again around her legs, binding her to the pole. He quickly tied a knot and pulled the rope tight. Wendy’s back was pressed up against the thick oak of the mast. She took a deep breath in, not wanting to open her eyes. Her voice quavered.
“This seems … like a terrible way to die!”
Owl laughed. “Aye, it would be, though if the ship was going down, we would all die, so better there than trapped below deck, wouldn’t you say?”
The pirate opened his arms wide.
“From here, you can see and feel everything.” Wendy took a nervous breath as the sea opened its jaws around the Sudden Night.
Hook’s voice carried up from below, where he was battling with the wheel. A wave crashed over him, but when it settled, he was still standing, from Wendy’s perspective like a tall, proud speck of white and fire.
“What do you think, Miss Darling?” he yelled up. Wendy shook the hair and water out of her eyes.
Owl touched her foot, his voice quiet and reassuring.
“Don’t look. Close your eyes and feel. See the storm.”
The lightning flashed above her—terrifyingly close—and she felt the hairs on her arms and head rise. It should have scared her, but instead, she closed her eyes.
The first sound she heard was the waves, beating the Sudden Night to death, the harsh collision of wood and water, waves that cut and pounded like stone, each one a threat to the Night, each one burst open by her power. She heard the rain splattering the deck, sloshing from side to side, its pattern no longer as random as it seemed before. She could feel it pouring down her face, a holy baptism of salt and sea, dousing her, drowning out any thoughts of home, of Michael, of Peter and Booth.
Thunder rustled quietly once above her, as if it was clearing its throat before releasing a numbing clap of sound and power that vibrated up her spine and into her jaw. It rumbled again, its loud voice drowning out the rain and the creaking wooden heaves of the ship. She heard the labored shrieks of the rudder as it pressed against the great waters of the deep, a song as old as creation; man battling against nature, a man like Hook, who would try and many times fail to bring it to heel. But not tonight. The ship dipped violently downwards, enabling Wendy to feel each pitch and incline much more than she had on deck. She heard the cries of the crew below her, and Hook’s voice rising above the waves. The sails flapped above her, the hard crack of fabric stretched to its breaking point echoing through her ears. Wendy shook her head, trying to sort her tumbling emotions. The feeling rising up inside of her was foreign, something she hadn’t felt for a long time, a feeling that had been buried underneath layers of fear and protectiveness, under longing and the desperate instinct to survive. It tingled through her fingertips and up through her chest, nudging her heart as it went, a reminder that she had once felt it, that it had once lived inside of her.
Wendy opened her eyes in time to see the ship pitching downwards still, down a gigantic wave that roared at them with a white, frothy mouth. The ship plunged forward, down, down into the depths of death and water … and then spun starboard, and the wave crashed violently besides them, pushing the ship sideward before she vaulted up and over the wave.
“Yes! Take that you feisty beast!” Wendy let the feeling—that forgotten pleasure: joy— overtake her. The weight of sorrow that she had carried since leaving Pan Island was blown off of her shoulders as she stared into the green, penetrating eye of the storm, the maelstrom looking straight at her, seeing right into the insides of her timid heart. Then it called her by name, and she reached out for it. The storm, the danger, the waves, and the water ignited a spark in her chest that reached her face, where it broke into an insane, unfiltered smile. She felt wild and unchained.
Free.
Wendy Darling lifted her arms above her and crowed, her body rocking wildly on the edge of the crow’s nest, feeling like she was flying over the chaos below, the line between life and death dangerously close.
Free.
She saw Hook look up at her with a devilish smile. He then lifted his head and crowed as well, facing the waves with a determined stare as water washed over him. The Sudden Night heaved her breast forward once again, and Wendy and Captain James Hook continued crowing at the waves, feeling a joy that not even the Shadow could take from them.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The next morning, her eyes bloodshot as a result of the salt water, Wendy watched as two crew members struggled to throw the enormous anchor, covered with barnacles, overboard. The tired Sudden Night finally took her rest, rocking softly on the waves that had battered her through the night. The storm had churned the sea, but now it was a perfectly clear turquoise. It sparkled like a gem under a cloudy sky. Hook had docked the ship at the northernmost beach on the west side of the mainland. High overhead, jagged peaks of green blew in the wind. Wendy’s eyes rested on the canopied valleys below, at the overgrown path that twisted like a snake through the humid jungle. Her hands shaking a bit, Wendy pulled the burlap knapsack tight over her shoulders.
“Are you sure you don’t want to change?” Hook looked skeptically at her blue nightgown. “That doesn’t seem practical.”
“I will wear what I am comfortable wearing.” Her voice dropped. “This is my dress from home. My mother mended it.” She pointed to a crooked blue stitch just over her heart.
“Here.”
Hook nodded once before making his way to the longboat tethered at the port side. Smith climbed in beside the captain, helping Wendy down into the boat. When she looked back at the Night, the entire crew had gathered on deck to watch her departure. It was unnerving, and Wendy felt a tear prick her eye as they removed their hats, holding them solemnly against their chests as the longboat began its descent. It was the same gesture they had given Keme.
This was not reassuring, she thought with a grimace, wondering for the hundredth time if she was being led like a lamb to the slaughter.
A pressing sadness folded around her. The Night was the only true home she had known here in Neverland, and she was sad to see it pull farther and farther away from her. Hook was speaking, but she didn’t hear what he was saying, his voice rolling over her like a fog. The longboat hit the water, and they moved swiftly towards shore.
Wendy turned to Hook.
“I’m sorry. What were you saying?”
His face clouded over with anger.
“Am I bothering you, Miss Darling? Perhaps distracting you from thoughts of iced cakes and warm bedsheets?”
Wendy’s narrow eyes met his.
“More like, am I marching towards my death so that you can win a longstanding feud with a sixteen-year-old boy?”
His face flushed with fury.
“I don’t need to tell you what you already know. The Shadow is real. Its name was spoken by you, not me. Any decision you make after hearing that truth was your own.”
Wendy turned away from him, preferring to watch the Sudden Night grow smaller in the distance. The captain sighed before sitting by her, cautiously taking her hand in his own.
“I need to know that you are listening.” His voice was soft now, concerned. She remembered all he had at stake, of the weight he carried and what he stood to lose, and she softened her tone as well.
“I am listening.”
Hook raised his eyes to the island, so close now that Wendy could see a group of small striped monkeys scurrying off the beach as their boat grew near.
“Smith will take you as far in as he can, up and over the foothills to where the Gray Shore begins. From there, take the path down the rocky side of the mountain into Miath. It’s not far, but you need to move quickly, because you’ll be out of my protecti
on for the first time and above the tree line …,” Hook raised his eyes, “you’ll be vulnerable to the sky.”
Wendy swallowed the terror that rose up inside of her. She knew exactly what he meant.
“Peter.”
“Yes. Quickly make your way down the rocky shore. Once you pass through Sybella, the great glass rock, you will be in Miath, and under their protection. The mermaids will then deem it appropriate to speak with you. Listen, only speak with Queen Eryne—no one else, do you hear me? They are evil creatures, untrustworthy.”
Wendy let a small smile trace over her lips.
“I would have once said the same about pirates.”
She thought she heard Smith sniffle as he leapt out into the water, pulling the boat onto the rocky sand. Hook’s face didn’t falter from its intense expression.
“Get to Sybella. You’ll know it when you see it. Nothing will touch you once you pass through its arch, but Wendy—get there quickly.”
“I understand.”
“And once you are in Miath …”
“Captain, I know what I need to do,” snapped Wendy. She turned to Hook. “I’m sorry, I’m just …”
Hook’s gray eyes lingered on hers. “I know. Get the answers, and get out. Play to Eryne’s pride. Smith will meet you off the shore in the longboat when you are finished. I hope …,” he trailed off.
“What?”
“I hope that the Queen’s guilt is enough. Anyway, here.”
Hook pulled a small present out of his coat. It was wrapped in a rich purple scarf. Wendy unraveled the scarf, gasping when something she had long forgotten fell out of it—a small white dagger, intricately carved and adorned with a tear-shaped blue gemstone.
“I thought that I lost this in the sea, the day you pulled Michael and me out!”
Hook rubbed the stubble on his face.
“I lifted it off your person right after that, as they were taking you below deck.”
Wendy cradled the dagger in her palm, remembering its perfect weight. Hook leaned over her. “I have it on good authority from a nameless princess that there is some lingering fairy magic in this gem.” His fingers brushed over the sapphire. “Use it if you have to.”
“I hope to never use it.”
Wendy tucked it into the blue ribbon that cinched her dress before standing.
The captain reached out with his hook, and Wendy took it gently in her hand, feeling the cold steel in between her fingers as he walked her off the longboat. She stepped daintily onto the sand, feeling her stomach turn queasily as her body adjusted itself: land to sea, sea to land. Wendy raised her eyes and looked straight at Hook. He had one leg up on the rowboat, the other planted firmly behind him. His navy military coat flapped in the warm breeze. He looked at the mountainous jungle behind her, his face hardening in concern before turning back to this girl, once his prisoner, now—dare she think it—a friend.
An ally.
His eyes met hers.
“Wendy Darling.”
“Captain.”
“Come back to my boat. That’s an order.”
“I sincerely plan on it, sir.”
Hook gave a single nod.
“Godspeed, then.”
There was nothing more to say then, so Wendy turned away from the longboat and followed Smith down the beach and into the thick swatch of trees. He said nothing to her, and so she quietly walked behind him as he slashed at the trees in front of them with a machete, hacking down fruit trees and green tangles of vines with a ferocity that alarmed her.
“Godforsaken jungle,” he muttered, mutilating a bright-emerald-green tree—the color of Peter’s eyes, almost exactly—with singular strikes. A dragonfly as big as Wendy’s hand landed on his shoulder. Its translucent blue wings reminded Wendy of Tink for a moment before Smith reached out and crushed it in between his fingers. Wendy looked at him with alarm. He shook his head and flung the crumpled insect into the jungle behind him. Wendy heard the pitter-patter of a dozen tiny feet rushing to find their newest meal.
“Pretty buggers. They’ll bite you first, and then give you a hell of a rash.” He chuckled. “Kind of like the girls at Harlot’s Grove.”
Wendy rolled her eyes as she pushed back an enormous leaf, its surface veined with mint rivulets. They walked in silence for a few minutes, the only sounds Smith’s grunts as he blazed a jagged path through the dense vegetation that surrounded them. Wendy could see the remnants of the sandy path that had once snaked its way through this jungle.
“No one has walked this way in a long time.”
“Why would they? Who the hell would be out here? Men can’t pass the boundary to Miath without dying, not to mention declaring open war on Queen Eryne, and trust me, if you’re a pirate, the last thing you want is the mermaids to be mad at you. They can tear your ship out from under you.”
Smith swung the machete upwards, slicing a vine clean at the tip. The vine fell from the tree onto Smith. He barely had time to curse before she saw it shudder before wrapping itself defensively around Smith’s arm like a snake. “Godforsaken lancehead vine! Scourge of the damn jungle …” He uttered a string of curses as he tore at the vine. Wendy reached out to help him.
“Don’t touch me!” he snapped. “It’ll move to you!”
The angels and demons that decorated his arms rippled as Smith flexed them hard, one hand ripping at the vine, the other struggling to hack at it without slicing off his arm. Finally, Smith got his hand underneath it and gave a quick, hard, yank. The vine uncurled with an audible hiss, leaving a smear of blood around his forearm. Wendy uncorked her canteen and gently poured water over the wound. Steam rose from his pores as Smith gave a sigh.
“That’s nice. Thank you, girl.” He raised his eyes to hers, and Wendy was shocked to see that they weren’t the black she had previously thought, but rather a deep brown with hints of golden flecks in the irises.
“Your eyes, they’re quite pretty!”
Smith stared hard at her for a moment before shoving her backwards. Wendy landed hard on her bottom.
“Ow! Why did you do that? I was just trying to give you a compliment! You’re quite rude.” She stood up and brushed off her dress. “Your mood has quite diminished.”
“Sorry,” he grumbled. “It’s the Gray Shore. Gives men the creeps.” Smith picked up his machete. “We’re close. No more talking.”
Wendy stayed silent as they made their way towards the top of the hill. By the time they neared the top, Wendy was drenched in sweat, the back of her dress soaked and sticky. Mosquitoes had landed and died on her skin, and she smelled of the jungle: hot, fetid, and alive. The vegetation around them and the canopy of trees above them began to thin out as they climbed upwards. The verdant green gave way to soft silver and gray flowers, until all green had trailed away, leaving just shades of ash. Gray grasses blew at her feet, white flowers darted their rubbery tongues, and crooked white trees reached for the sky, their branches the texture of curdled milk. When Wendy looked backwards, she could see the lush green of the jungle behind her, so stark in contrast to the lack of color all around her. There were no bird calls here, no sounds of buzzing insects or creatures that slithered on their bellies. All was still and ghostly.
As they reached the top of the mountain, the trees gave way to jagged white rocks that started low and eventually rose up around them like whipped peaks of cream. Bleached white skulls, stacked on top of each other, leered at the travelers from the corners of rock formations, or from atop rounded rocks. Broken pieces of sea glass sat where their eyes had been, the skulls now with dead, glittering irises. Smith seemed intent on keeping his eyes on the ground, whereas Wendy looked up, taking in the growing horror that surrounded them, her pulse quickening with each step.
The path opened up as they reached the peak, becoming a wide, sandy swath. A line of skulls ran alongside their feet, marking the entrance like a wedding aisle. Smith stopped hard.
“Those bloody bitches! This line was much farther down
last time I checked.”
Lying directly across the path was a thick line of human bones and pearly pink seashells. The hazy sun bounced off the beautiful shells nuzzled up close with the remains of what must have been a hundred men. Wendy stopped walking, her breath catching in her throat. Her heart hammered, and she felt weak at the knees.
“Oh no you don’t, girl. Don’t faint. Take a breath.”
Wendy rested her hand on her chest. “I won’t faint. I just need … a minute.”
She closed her eyes and rested her hands on her knees, trying to forget the death that sat all around her. The prying eyes of the skulls had awakened her fear, coaxing it to life, whispering dark unspeakable things. Not wanting to move forward, she called up the image of Michael’s face, of what she had to lose if she didn’t succeed.
It worked.
Wendy opened her eyes to see Smith towering over her, his shadow engulfing her small frame. “This line is the boundary—I cannot go any farther. From here, there is a path down the rocky side of the mountain. It’s not too steep, so you should be able to move quickly.”
Wendy turned to him. “So that’s it, then.”
Smith nodded. He looked at her for a moment before reaching out and awkwardly patting her shoulder.
“I’m … er …,” he struggled, for once, with words. “Good luck, lass.”
Wendy nodded and turned away from him, facing the downward path to the Gray Shore. Her heart pounded in her ears as she walked slowly towards the line of shells and bone. With a small step, she crossed it, scuffing dirt over it as she went. Smith raised his pistol to the sky, his eyes tracing the clouds. He turned in a circle, taking in every inch of the horizon before turning back to her, a single word dropping from his mouth.
“Run.”
Wendy felt her feet move slowly underneath her as she jogged forward, her feet falling faster and faster until she finally was able to pick up speed, sprinting away from the boundary line.
The path down the Gray Shore was a series of escalating switchbacks, followed by a long, flat path. She made her way as quickly as she could down the side of the peak, her feet slipping on the gravel as she went, her hands jagged from grasping rocks to keep her from falling, rounding sharp corner after sharp corner, her feet sending rocks skittering over the perilous edge of the hill. She kept her eyes only in front of her as she ran, names bouncing from her lips with each step, their happiness a reminder why she needed to move swiftly.