What the dreamers would not recall, however, because the dreamers would not know it, is that the ship’s captain was called James Hook and, at that moment, a very real, very not-dreamed-up Hook, was navigating the skies over their city in search of someone he could now smell upon the wind and feel, as a vibration, in the metal on the end of his arm.
“Smee!” He called, distractedly, his ocean-blue eyes searching the horizon for any sign of his query.
“Yes, Cap’n!” Smee was at his side in a heartbeat.
“What does the map tell us?”
Smee unfolded the small piece of paper his captain had given him and gave it the once-over. “We’re above a canyon, Cap’n,” Smee said as he studied the design carefully. “Now - over a row of houses, it looks like. . . . What in – Cap’n!” Smee suddenly exclaimed, his eyes wide as golf balls. He pointed emphatically at a blood-red spot on the map that literally hadn’t been there a moment ago. “An ‘X’, Cap’n! An ‘X’!” He smiled broadly. “It would be markin’ the spot now, wouldn’t it, Cap’n ? This means there be treasure here, aye?”
Hook glanced at the map and then gestured for Smee to take the wheel. His first mate grabbed hold with both hands and Hook took the map, stepping back. His gaze narrowed as his blue eyes raked the page, expertly scanning its details for hidden clues.
As he watched, the dim outline of words began to appear on the worn, brown sheet of paper, fancy scrolling letters in the faintest of inks. Hook squinted and looked closer, trying to make out what they were. The world around him melted away into slow motion and nothingness as he concentrated on the map.
In a soft whisper, he read, “Who speaks the breath that fills the sails. . . . ” He paused as more words appeared on another line. “Of words like men of seas, their tales. . . . ” Once more, he waited and another phrase became clear. “The pearl, the prize, the precious stone. . . . ” He watched , and then straightened as the last words solidified upon the page. “Bleeds like tears in storms unknown.”
For a few moments more, he gazed at the map in his hands. And then he took a deep breath, in and out through his nose, and looked up. “Smee, head West twenty degrees.”
“Aye, Cap’n.” Smee adjusted their course and the ship sliced through the clouds as it banked right.
In a few seconds, a faint curl of black smoke could be made, rising on the horizon.
“A fire, Cap’n.”
Hook gazed at the curling black. It rose through the sea of clouds like a camp fire in the snow. It grew larger as the ship drew closer and Hook could see that it originated from some point below, on that unfamiliar land beneath the blanket of clouds. He sniffed the air. Now, he could scent the ash on the wind and recognized it as the smell of fire he’d detected in Neverland.
“Smee, bring us below the clouds, but keep us out of sight.”
“Aye, Cap’n.” Smee banked further right and called out a series of orders to the rest of the crew. The men scrambled on deck, dousing lanterns that hung from ropes and hooks in the masts.
When he was done yelling his orders, he turned to his captain. “'Tis the bottom of the ship we’ll have to worry about, Cap’n. It’ll be black against the clouds. So, I’ll take ‘er down there -” He gestured to a break in the clouds, a hole that stretched half a mile in the distance. “An’ it’ll give us ‘nuff time to take a gander.”
Hook nodded and returned his gaze to the billowing smoke. His heartbeat quickened. He could sense something approaching. Something significant. Something, perhaps, more important than anything that had ever happened to him in his very long life. He glanced at the red X, his sea blue eyes flashing, nearly glowing in the twilight.
The Jolly Roger floated across the foggy ocean of sky and then, smoothly, sank through the hole in the clouds.
*****
“Come away with me, Wendy,” Peter said suddenly, whirling around from where he’d been standing by the window, gazing out into the darkness toward the end of the road, where he kept a lookout for a certain pair of headlights.
When Peter had told her that Dr. Coffer was most likely on his way to the Darling mansion, everyone had rushed downstairs to check through all of the front windows in the living room. Now John sat nervously on the piano bench, his hands on his bouncing knees. Michael sat on the couch, his hands thrust tightly into his pockets. Wendy stood alone in front of the fire place, gazing into it distractedly. She held the prescription bottle of pills in her right hand. She was trying to figure out what to do.
But when Peter spoke, she spun around to face him. He rushed forward to take her by her upper arms. She was too shocked by the sudden movement to pull away.