throwing things all over the place as was their usual custom.
What a mess.
She had escaped her boring, dismal life in London only to enter an even more dismal one in Never Land! Where were the wishes? Where were the palm trees? Where were the adventures on savage shores?
What to do?
She could see one terrible possible future: one in which she remained with the pirates and became a little hard like them, praising some and castigating others, wrapping them all around her finger until they did her bidding like good little boys. Maybe even to the point of rebelling against their father.
Er, Hook.
There was of course a far more immediate and pressing concern than her eventual career aboard the Jolly Roger: the fate of Never Land itself. Hook had definitely implied its—and Peter’s—destruction at his hand. Somehow she didn’t believe that “rather permanent” meant the decision of never docking on its shores again.
Despite some sly questioning of the newly friendly crew, Wendy received no answers about Hook’s plans: the pirates didn’t know, nor did they care. They were sick of Never Land and eager to get on with their privateering on other seas. That was all they cared about.
(Which of course begged the question: What other seas? She’d never really thought about the rest of this world, beyond the island where Peter and the Lost Boys lived.)
And somehow her handing Peter’s shadow to Hook helped him with his plot.
She had to escape, to find help—to find Peter Pan. There was nothing else for it.
But how?
As she carried the basket of clothes toward the hatch that led belowdecks to the crew’s quarters, Hook swooshed by her, all ruffles and coat and double cigars in their fancy golden holder.
“How goes it this morning with you, Mother?” he asked, a sly smile on his face.
Wendy felt a twist of violence in her stomach. It had been bad enough when John and Michael joked about how rarely they saw their own mother and how Wendy had taken her place. It was of course worse when these murderous hooligans called her Mother. But there was something specifically, especially nasty about Hook’s use of the word. The way a quarrelsome old husband might say it to his old wife. Not that there was anything untoward about it; the captain wasn’t at all suggesting anything inappropriate in their relationship.
It was just…wrong.
“This morning is going most terribly, Captain Hook. I will organize, fold, and mend the crew’s clean clothes. But I will not do the washing. I have my limits,” she said firmly.
“Ohh, whatever. We can have that done ashore if we must,” he said, rolling his eyes as if she were silly for even mentioning it.
“And how are you doing this morning?” Wendy asked coldly. “Or, shall I ask, what are you doing?”
“Just the usual captainy, piratey things,” he said, whirling his hand in the air. “Trying to figure out the proper route to take…with a little spectral help.…And then we shall set sail.”
Wendy didn’t like the sound of that at all. “A little spectral help? Do you mean Peter Pan’s shadow? What are you doing with it?”
“Miss Darling.” He leaned forward and grinned eerily into her face. “If you were so worried about its fate, perhaps you shouldn’t have traded it away in a deal with the devil?”
And with that, he spun and strode off, obviously pleased with his answer.
Wendy felt what remaining energy she had drain out through her feet, slide along the planks, and spill overboard.
She sank to the deck, resting her head on the pile of clean clothes, and began to weep.
What had she done?
She knew it was wrong. She knew it. No good would ever come of trading Pan’s shadow. Any arrangement made with Hook and his pirates could never end happily. She had known that in her heart, and still she had done it, desperate to escape to Never Land.
And now it seemed like all of Never Land was going to pay for her rash decision.
“Pirate’s life got ye down, love?”
Wendy looked up, wiping her tears. Standing there in a swaybacked, repugnantly self-assured slouch was Zane.
“I thought I was coming here to have adventures,” she said disgustedly, wiping her tears. “Not to be a slave to pirates for the rest of my life while Never Land is utterly destroyed. I have to get out of here.”
“Ah, so many of us look for adventure and wind up as slaves, one way or another,” the pirate said philosophically. “When you’re young, you think the