Before Hook could answer, there came a flurry of shouts and cries from the men below. Hook’s gaze raked over them and zeroed in on the pirates who stood at the forecastle. Those men were leaning over the wooden railing, yelling something inaudible, their fingers pointing to the sea below.
Hook felt it then. And when he did, he needed no further explanation for his men’s behavior. As the front end of the ship slowly lifted up and out of the water, and the pirates aboard began to hug whatever secure hold they could grab onto, Hook smiled.
“No port necessary, Smee,” he called out to his first mate. The Jolly Roger’s hull rose like a breaching whale, water cascading down its sides like waterfalls. Within a few short moments, the massive pirate ship was riding high above the waves and climbing the night sky. As the first wisps of clouds began to fog the ship’s deck, Captain James Hook threw back his head and laughed long and loud.
*****
When Peter and John pulled up on Peter’s motorcycle in front of the Darling house, it was to find all of the windows dark.
“Is anyone home?” Peter asked as they dismounted.
It took John a moment to answer as he was still stunned at Peter’s actions concerning Dr. Coffer’s house. He said, “Wendy and Michael. My parents are gone for the evening.”
Peter glanced at John and saw that he was still very pale.
Peter brushed past him to stand on the front steps of the Darling home. He glanced up. Though there was a second and even a third floor to this home, as there had been in the old Darling house, it was not painted white as the other one had been. And there was no nursery.
At that thought, memories flooded Peter. Story time. Shadows run amuck. A little girl with storm-gray eyes in a billowing white nightgown…
The thing is, for a boy who had never planned on growing up, having memories at all was a very strange thing. It meant that there were things that had once been – and were no more. It meant that time had passed and he’d caught the tail end of it like a kite and ridden it into tomorrow. Which meant that there was a yesterday. . . . And yesterdays were older days. If you got enough of them behind you, it meant you were old too.
Peter blinked and turned to John, who was walking up the steps to the front door. “Which window belongs to Wendy’s room?” he asked.
John shot him a weary look. “Let’s just use the door, Peter. I’ve had enough of flying for the night.” He turned back to the door and produced a key on a string around his neck. He slid the key into the lock and turned it. The door opened.
“Come in,” he told Peter. But he didn’t have to, for Peter was already pushing past him and striding into the home as if he owned it. “After you,” John muttered under his breath. Tinkerbell, in her tiny pixie form, flitted in behind Peter and John shut and bolted the door.
The house was dark and quiet.
Well, almost quiet. John cocked his head to one side and listened. Where there should have been the sound of two voices and, perhaps, a noisy video game involving drums or a sportsman-like banter about a board game, there was, instead - a sobbing.
John darted up the stairs at precisely the same time that Peter arced through the air and literally flew to the second floor. They reached the door to Wendy’s bedroom as one, John slightly out of breath, Peter simply wide-eyed. Tinkerbell landed on his shoulder.
Michael sat beside the bed on which a still Wendy laid, her eyes closed, her long lashes laying against the pale flesh of her cheek. Michael looked up from where he’d had his face in his hands. His own cheeks were wet and his eyes were red and puffy. He shook his head at the group in the doorway.
His voice shook as he spoke. “You’re too late, Peter.” He hiccupped and turned to the girl on the bed. He took her cold hand and held it fiercely in his own. “You’re too late. She won’t wake up. Wendy won’t wake up.” His voice cracked. “I think she’s dead.”
Chapter Seven
It took a moment for Michael’s words to register. But, when they did, both boys rushed toward the bed. Michael didn’t want to leave Wendy’s side, but instinctively, as children can, he sensed that he needed to move out of the way – that if anyone in any world could save Wendy, it would be Peter Pan.
Peter stared down at the still figure before him. As he had expected, she was breathtakingly beautiful. But she was not the very young girl of his imagination. She had grown, as he had. There was a beguiling shimmer to her hair and a certain alluring curve of her chin and mouth that only women possessed.
He bent very close and listened. Nothing.
He waited.
Still, nothing.
Then, ever so faintly, he felt her breath upon his cheek.