“Captain Hook could play anything,” he continued. “Natural talent, ‘e ‘ad. 'Til the day. . . .” His voice trailed off and he looked up, locking eyes with Wendy once more. He sighed and his sad smile spoke volumes. “Well, I’m sure you know. It’s the one thing ‘e don’t talk about.”
Smee shook his head and looked away again. He shrugged. “Still has a wonderful singing voice, though.” He nodded and patted his hands on his lap, indicating finality. Then he stood and absently felt his pockets.
Wendy snatched the opportunity, her heartrate kicking up a notch as she asked the one question, in all the thousands of existing questions, that she knew Hook, himself, would never – ever – entertain.
“What happened that day, Smee?” She asked, hurriedly. At once, he turned to pin her with a surprised expression and she glanced around, nervously wondering whether anyone else could have heard.
In a quieter voice, she leaned forward on the bed. “What. . . .” She chewed on her lip, cleared her throat, and tried again. He waited. “What happened with. . . you know. With his hand?” She had always assumed that Peter Pan had cut it off during a sword fight. But it was such a traumatic event. . . . The writer in her had always wondered about the details.
That was where the devil lived. That was where she always wanted to go.
Smee stared down at her for some time before he so much as moved.
And then, as if remembering himself, he straightened, looked over his shoulder toward the door, and nodded. He took a shaky breath and sat himself back down on the bed. He’d come to a decision.
Wendy stilled her breathing. It had quickened. Her heart was hammering. She didn’t know why, but for some reason, she felt this was monumental. A secret, perhaps. Untold to anyone.
“Captain James Hook,” Smee began, his accent seemingly diminished, “has always been Captain James Hook,” he said. “Even when he had a hand.” He raised his right hand and wiggled his fingers. Then he lowered it again and went on. “Long ago, Neverland drew us into its world. This place. . . .” He looked overhead as if he could see through the wooden beams of the captain’s cabin, to the sky and the clouds and the stars beyond.
“It picks and chooses, see? A fairy here. A native there. A boy next. And a pirate.”
He paused, blinking as he lowered his gaze once more to stare at the nothingness straight ahead and the memories that lay beyond. “An’ Captain Hook – ‘e was the best of them. The leader of the pirate council of the thirteen states. A man of intellect, ‘e was. And accomplishment.” He nodded, to himself, and Wendy watched as he reached beneath the lenses of his spectacles and rubbed his eyes.
Once he’d re-adjusted his glasses, he lowered his hand again and sighed another heavy, heart-felt sigh. “Boys care nothing of the hardships of man, Miss Darling. To Peter Pan, the Captain’s name was no more than a game.” He spoke slowly, and with feeling. “One day, after we had been here for weeks, Pan came to the Jolly Roger and shouted down at the captain.”
“He told him that, with a name like ‘Hook,’ he should have one. In the fight that ensued, Pan took the captain’s right hand.” His voice was now a mere hair’s breadth above a whisper. “It was a bloody battle, indeed. The wound healed unnaturally quickly, however. And it left the captain. . . .” He paused here, searching for the right words.
Wendy’s body was strung as tightly as the instruments in Hook’s cabin. She could not believe what she was hearing. Smee’s tale had her on pins and needles, held captive to the horror of what it revealed.
“Well, it left him less of the man ‘e was, that it did.” Smee finally concluded, speaking so softly now that Wendy could scarcely hear him over her own ragged breathing. “The next day – as days go in Neverland – Pan threw a hook onto the deck of the ship. Bright and shiny, it was. Silver. An’ ‘e told the captain it suited ‘im.”
Smee straightened again, then, realizing that he’d progressively slouched during the telling of his story. His accent was back and heavy, as if living in the past had taken him temporarily from his role as the ship’s first mate and turned him into something else. But he was back now. And in full costume.
He patted his lap and stood. “And, well, I guess it did suit ‘im right nice enough.”
Chapter Fifteen
The star didn’t disappear this time. And that bewildered Peter.
It was remarkable enough for him to be in the air again, heading back home after five years in his birth world. But deep down inside, he had an itch of an inkling that if it weren’t for Tinkerbell’s extra pixie dust this time around, his thoughts wouldn’t be happy enough to get him to where he was going.