Chapter Fourteen

THE FALLEN

I awake to daylight, stiff-jointed and sore where I’ve slumped in sleep over my voiceless harpsichord. A sullen drumbeat in my temples reminds me of my last fruitless interview with Parrish. Even if she were once a Wendy, she has no memory of it. Would that I were so fortunate; my memories have come back with alarming clarity, and I go above, eager to purge their bitter taste from my mind.

It was foolish to believe that Parrish would ever lead me to the boys, even if she knew the way. She is not so easily maneuvered as my men, and I dare not lose her confidence again: whatever called her here in defiance of the boy’s wishes is a power to be reckoned with. Surely it is well within my best interests to keep her under my protection, until whatever it is that wants her can claim her.

Yesterday’s high foolery has given way to a more apprehensive atmosphere on deck. The men must have heard Parrish and myself cackling away in our cups last night. I set them to scrubbing away the gore from yesterday’s skinning and plucking session, and cheer them up with the order to sand all the decks for action. Up on the fo’c’sle deck, I find that some of the timber we cut from those dead trees in the wood has proven too dry and brittle in the intensity of the Neverland sun, cracking round the nails and splitting from the barricade frames. Sticks had to rip out several useless pieces yesterday and replace them, and today he’s got Flax helping him to nail crosspieces across the vertical timbers to better hold the contrivance in place before it can be removed to the quarterdeck.

After a fortifying tankard of my steward’s black death, I plunge into the bowels of the hold with Nutter and Jesse to see sufficient quantities of grapeshot and powder tamped into breeches to be ready for Long Tom. Peering about in the gloom for other useful occupations to put them to, I spy in the deepest shadows an ancient, cobwebby trunk taken from a lady passenger of quality on one of our last voyages back in the world. It strikes me this might amuse Parrish, and I order Filcher to have taken in to her cabin. I expect the effects of last night’s conviviality will keep her below this morning, but it’s best to keep her occupied and out of the way today, while I decide what use can be made of her.

But there she reclines on her bunk in her usual shirt and trousers when I look in on her at midday, poring over a small, leather-bound volume.

“Captain,” she smiles, sitting up. “Thank you for last night. It was lovely—I think.” she makes a wry mouth. “I hope I didn’t embarrass myself too badly.”

“Not that I should have noticed,” I remind her, and her mouth tilts up again. Her hair is unpinned this morning, her feet bare under rolled-up trouser cuffs. “Did you not receive the gift I sent you?” I go on, as if the old trunk were not standing open on a crate at the foot of her bunk.

“I did indeed, Captain,” she says eagerly. “Such beautiful antiques! How thoughtful of you to show them to me! The historian in me thanks you.”

“But not the woman?” Her bright smile wavers. “Damnation, Parrish, I never thought I’d have to explain to a woman what clothing is for.”

“Stella,” she laughs.

“What?”

“My name. I was only ‘Parrish’ in service. My name is Stella.”

I gaze at her. “A fallen star.”

Her mouth tilts up again. “You remember your Latin, Captain.”

“I ought to, it was pummeled into me soundly enough.”

“But they are much too fine for me to wear,” she goes on, nodding toward the trunk. “Besides, gowns of that fashion require, ah, certain undergarments and a battalion of ladies’ maids to get into them.”

“Well, do what you will with them,” I say airily, “they are of no use to me.” I nod at the book she’s put aside, gilded letters etched upon a wine-dark cover: Paradise Lost. “That is not one of mine.”

“I found it in there,” she replies, nodding again to the trunk.

“No doubt it was thought an improving tract for a young lady on the voyage home,” I observe.

“It would certainly improve me,” Parrish laughs. “This book would be worth a fortune in my world, among the antiquarians.”

“I regret my hospitality is so poor you must resort to Milton.”

“Oh, no, I’m enjoying it!” she grins again. “I haven’t read it since school. It’s quite the heroic ballad.”

I frown. “Unless I misrecall, the topic is the Fall of Mankind.”

“Well, yes. But, he’s made Satan a rather a dashing figure, witty and resourceful. In my world we’d call him a hero with a tragic flaw.”

“Well, he is Satan,” I point out.

“He was an angel once,” Parrish rejoins stoutly.

“But that was long ago, before his fall. Now his only choices are infinite wrath and infinite despair. ‘Which way I fly is Hell. My self am Hell,’” I recite from the musty bowels of memory.

“His problem isn’t his badness, it’s his ego,” says Parrish. “Repentance and remorse are weaknesses to him. He doesn’t know how to seek forgiveness. He’s stuck.”

I stand agape at her subversive notions.

“He only embraces Evil because he believes Goodness is denied him,” she persists. “‘Farewell hope, and with hope, farewell fear.’”

“Believes?” I echo. “He is the chiefest villain in Christendom.”

“He made a foolish choice once,” she counters. “Who hasn’t? He could change his mind if he wanted to, but he thinks his time’s run out.”

I stare at her, but it’s Proserpina’s face that suddenly swims before me, the witch’s voice that thrums in my head. I will give you all the time you need. That’s what she told me on the day I left her, ages ago. By God’s thorns, for centuries, I’ve blamed Pan for the eternity of my life here. But suppose it was never him at all, but Proserpina keeping me alive all this time, like her spider confederate? But why? For malice alone, or is there some other reason? I thought she was speaking in riddles that day; I didn’t listen. Time for what? What was I meant to do here?

From whom would I beg forgiveness, if I could? There are so many I have wronged, all who ever bled on my sword in the pirate trade, the thousands more I have led and lost in futile battles here. How many more must die? Proserpina asked me once. Suppose each death, however good or brave, only lengthens the chain of my crimes. Could I but halt this march of death, somehow, would my exile end at last? Is that the chance they all speak of? Is that what Proserpina meant by going back?

Death is the only release I’ve dreamed of for centuries. Can there be another?

A thundering like a broadside erupts on deck; footfalls pounding, weapons clattering, men shouting. Brassy races into the passage.

“Captain, quick,” he pants. “Boys!”

By God’s bile, not now! If Proserpina, not Pan, prolongs my life here, she must have had a reason, a key, a plan, but there’s no time for pretty theories with the boys on the attack. “Battle stations!” I roar. “Shields up! To your weapons…”

Halfway out the door, I see Parrish on her feet behind me. “Stay out of sight,” I warn her.

“But—”

“I beg you! My men will pay with their lives if you are seen.”

She pales, retreats, and I charge down the passage and up the ladder.

They are just now racing above the treeline over Pirates Beach, a cloud of racketing boys in their furs and foliage, Pan blowing a shrill fanfare on his pipes. My mind is racing too: I must think of some game to turn Pan away from bloodshed. Nutter and Swab have shoved aside the half-built barricade to position Long Tom; Filcher is passing out arms. Jesse, confident and resolute, is readying his flintlocks up on the quarterdeck, where I ordered him to be.

“Stand by there, Nutter!” I shout as the boys veer into range. Chase them back into the sky for another blessed moment; give me time to think! Turning for the ladder, I see Parrish crouched in the hatchway behind me, staring out at the swarm of boys.

“Damn and blast!” I sputter, throwing myself across the opening to block her passage.

“Captain! They’re children!” she cries indignantly.

“I know what they are,” I hiss.

“Fire!” Nutter shrieks, and I spin round to see all the little boys beating higher up into the air to dodge a peppering of grape fired one second too soon, while I was distracted. Laughing and jeering, they swoop in over the starboard bows, above our now harmless cannon. Nutter and Swab fall back into the waist as the boys hover above us, out of range of our hand weapons.

“Where’s that codfish you call a captain?” Pan cries, lighting on a spar on the mainmast, stowing his pipes in his belt of vines. “Show yourself, Hook!”

I stride out amidships, and the men on deck fall in behind me, clutching their swords, axes, pikes. “Well, Pan,” I hail him, “just the fellow I want to see.” Out of desperation, I reach for the brim of my black hat with its fine white plume. “I’ll wager this feather—”

“I make the rules here!” he brays at me. “Whatever’s going on in the Neverland, you know you can never beat me, and I’m here to prove it! You get three chances to try.” He motions down toward our spent Long Tom. “That was one.”

Damnation, I wasn’t quick enough; the game has already begun. I circle beneath him, my sword still sheathed. So long as we are engaged in a parley, he’ll not unleash his boys, but can I hope to win this challenge with words alone? “But surely nothing ever goes wrong in the Neverland,” I parry. “Who would dare defy the great Captain Pan?”

“No one!” He cries down at me. “And noth—”

A crack of shot; iron whistles overhead, but Jesse’s ball only comes close enough to make the boy jump on his spar.

“No, no, no!” I yelp, beside myself, as three or four outraged flying boys shear off toward the quarterdeck, shrieking, brandishing their weapons.

Pan’s feral grin is showing. “No fair!” he trumpets at me.

“A misfire,” I counter desperately. “My weapons are old and unreliable—” But Jesse’s second pistol is already drawn, his intent unmistakable. He raises it, and fairy glitter explodes in his face.

“Liar!” Pan yodels, as his whelps close in on Jesse.

I scarcely know what I cry, feinting back toward the starboard ladder as Filcher and Nutter race up the larboard side. Miraculously, the arc of the poleaxe Nutter whirls over his head with such ferocity checks the advance of the first two flying boys, lunging in with swords drawn. They’re forced to veer aside while Jesse, even blinded, holds his ground, squeezes off a second shot. But Pan has leaped out of range, and as Nutter and Filcher slash at the first two boys, a third darts round them straight for Jesse. Unarmed, I think, until I see what’s clasped in his grubby hand, a weapon that doubles in length before my horrified eyes, a deadly stiletto rasping out of a black case.

“Jess!” I bellow.

Jesse raises his shield arm to ward off a flying assassin he can’t see, and the boy dives in with his wicked blade. He rams it up to the hilt between Jesse’s upper ribs, viciously yanks it out, sparkling gaudy red in the sun, and shoves it in again. All the boys erupt in cheers.

Even I am stunned by the savagery of it, howling impotently at the foot of the ladder until my men finally drive the boys back into the air with their longer blades. Jesse stumbles blindly about, hands outstretched, his twisted foot buckling under him, his expression perplexed. A dark stain begins to spread across his shirt. He staggers toward the rail, misses it, and crumples to the deck, felled by the blade I stupidly put in Pan’s hand.

“That’s two,” Pan smirks at me.

Outrage boils up in my vitals. I turn on the little murderer, drawing my sword. “Come down and face me like a man!” I roar.

He leaps eagerly down to the deck while I wave back my men to make a clearing. The boys will not attack them again unless they try to interfere; Pan likes things fair, after all. We round on each other, weapons drawn, as anguish and wrath consume me. “How soon before your boys learn there’s something in the Neverland you fear?” I goad him.

“I’m not afraid of anything!” He swings his blade angrily at me.

“Then why are you here?”

“To teach you a lesson!” He scuttles sideways, out of my reach, rounds on me fiercely. “How many of your men will it take before you learn it?”

I crash my blade into his, give myself up to bloodrage, slashing and driving. When he loses ground, he rises into the air. I flail after him, stretch to my full height, greedy to injure him, cost him his buoyancy so he might fight me on even terms just this once. But he shoots up out of range, defiance, and exhilaration shining in his eyes, baby teeth bared in a chilling smile. My hook curls round a line, and I claw up the shrouds after him. We battle on, rising above the deck, blades singing, my feet on the ratlines, my hook anchoring me in the shrouds. He darts under the lee of the shrouds, and I lurch round with a vicious slash.

But I thrust at empty air, my body twists out above the deck, and I jerk to the force of his pointed blade through my shirt.

“That’s three!” he crows, as deck planks rush up to meet me, and all is black.