If he had ever kissed her.
Instead, Wendy’s hair was yanked hard, jerking her head back and pulling her harshly from Hook’s grasp. She cried out at the pain and turned to see Tinkerbell making horribly rude gestures at the pirate captain.
Hook had no time to respond to the fairy’s untimely interruption, for Pan was there, his sword arm raised, his blade descending with deadly speed and efficiency.
Hook spun and unsheathed his own weapon, once more meeting the young man in hand to hand combat.
“Wendy!”
Wendy turned to see Michael and John climbing out of a crevice in the rock fifty feet away. She glanced at Hook and Pan, both engrossed in a battle more fierce than any they had ever had. There would be no hope in stopping them.
Instead, she raced to her brothers, helping them up and over the lip of the sharp, craggy stone.
“Are you all right?” she asked Michael. He nodded hurriedly and then grasped hold of her arm.
“Wendy! You can stop this! You can stop all of this!”
“What?” Wendy glanced at Hook and Peter. Her heart was beating so hard and so fast, it was painful in her chest. Could a seventeen-year-old have a heart attack?
“He thinks you can get us out of here with a story!” John told her as he bent to peer through the crevice.
“Is anyone coming after you?” Wendy asked, her first concern the other pirates, natives, and fairies.
“No! They’re all fighting down below!” John said. He rose again and turned to face his sister. “Tink untied us so we could come help you.”
“Wendy!” Michael insisted, yanking on her arm so that she would pay attention to him. Wendy turned to face her little brother. “Remember the story you read about Tootles and the storm?” he asked.
She nodded, her brow furrowed.
“The storm came right after you read that!”
Wendy’s first impulse was to shrug. So what? But something at the edge of his reasoning, and the truth it hinted at, brought her up short. She blinked.
“And down on the gun deck, I pulled out the paper of story you wrote for me a long time ago and I read a line of it out loud!” Michael continued, raising his voice to be heard over the once more encroaching wind and thunder. Lightning slid into the ocean not far from Skull Rock, bringing a sizzling electric buzz to the air that caused Wendy’s fear to ratchet up a few notches.
Michael went on. “I read the part about the Jolly Roger floating over Neverland at night! Remember?”
She remembered. It was her favorite part of any story she’d ever written about Neverland. Because it was James Hook on the deck of his ship, the stars piercingly bright above and around him, the sea dark and calm below. And because, in the story, he was there on the deck with Wendy. Because he was in love with her.
Wendy closed her eyes, finally shedding the tears that had gathered there. “I remember,” she said.
“And then we found Neverland!” Michael hollered. “The pirate in the crow’s nest shouted down that we were above land,” he insisted, giving her arm a shake as if it could help her recall, “and Hook said it was Neverland!”
Wendy didn’t need his help remembering that moment. She’d been sparring with James – with Hook, she mentally corrected herself – and finding that her thoughts kept drifting toward. . . things. And then Smee had raced up to inform Hook that Neverland had been spotted below.
“It doesn’t mean anything!” Wendy shook her head. “It’s coincidence!”
“You don’t believe that!” Michael shot back. “You know it’s true! If you want more proof, then try it! Tell a story!”
She blinked, her eyes wide. “What? Now?”
“Yes! Right now!”
Lightning slammed into the opposite side of Skull Rock, sending shards of black stone sailing through the air. One came dangerously close to hitting Wendy and she found that her chest felt too tight, her throat too constricted.
“Wendy, get us out of here!”
Wendy thought about what Michael said. She turned and watched the figures of her story, locked in eternal battle. She thought about Hook and his hand and the role he was forced to play in this world. She pictured him as he once was, in that place where he used to live, free from the whims of a boy and his fantasy realm.
And she thought of Peter – and the role he was forced to play. As Neverland’s protagonist, forever keeping up the good side of the fight, leading a band of little boys against full-grown pirates.
When he had been no more than a little boy, himself.
And, in that instant, Wendy Darling realized that Peter Pan had not escaped to Neverland in order to keep from growing up. He had “escaped” to Neverland to become a man. Before his time, perhaps. He’d been a father to many children and a warrior against men. Peter wasn’t the boy who never grew up, but the one who grew up much too quickly. And he didn’t even know it.