Chapter Thirty-three

PAN OR ME

“Oi!” shouts Nutter. He yanks back his charmed sword with an angry shake, as if to dispel the fairy glamor, while I regain breath and balance, scramble to my knees.

“I’ve done what you wanted,” the big fellow howls indignantly at the tiny creature. “Nobody’s touched your bleedin’ rival, just like you said!”

“You bargained with Pan’s fairy?” I gape at him, clawing up to my feet.

“Only to get rid of her,” Nutter glowers, pointing his sword at Stella on the plank behind me. The jealousy of Pan’s fairies toward the Wendys is well-known in the stories. “Who d’you think tipped off the redskins?” Nutter puffs on, and it comes to me in an instant, Nutter’s hand across a gaming table, weeks ago, grasping a silver bell. Bugger me, it was Nutter I heard colluding with Pan’s fairy, right here aboard my own ship. The destruction of my rival. That’s why I was drugged, to force Stella out of hiding, begin the new game. I’ve been too witless to credit what lengths they might go to for a battle, any battle, whatever the cost. How like the boys they are.

“Foolish man!” Kes twitters at Nutter. “She is nothing to me.” Pointing to me, the imp cries, “There is my rival! More powerful, more fascinating than ever! My master cares for nothing but their war and his victories!”

“Then let me finish the job!” Nutter shouts, mustering up his sword again as I leap up on the foot of the plank to ward him off.

“No, no, no!” Kes sparks at him angrily. “Peter must kill him, finally kill him, or he will never forget him. Never, ever!”

So that’s why she was all afire for me to break my spell. Regain my mortality and lose my life to Pan at last. His greatest victory. And now I see them homing in for the rail, Pan and his feral boys, clattering their weapons in glee. The men in the waist are grabbing their weapons and shields as well, all too eager to turn the deck of the Rouge into a slaughterhouse once more.

“Good work, Kes!” Pan crows, flying across the foredeck toward us. At the sound of his voice, Nutter spins about with attempted dash, sword upraised, as if he thinks he might have a chance against the boy, wholly unprepared for the speed and confidence and sheer joyous brio of an opponent who knows absolutely that he can never lose. Laughing, Pan darts and swipes at him playfully for a moment or two, and when the game bores him, one furious blow of his short blade knocks the weapon out of Nutter’s grasp.

“Stand aside, Man!” the boy shouts, and some of Pan’s lieutenants cheerfully buffet the unarmed, but still flailing Nutter back down the ladder with their bows and the hafts of their swords.

“Well, Hook,” Pan sallies at me, hovering a yard or two off. “You’re finally where you’re supposed to be. And she is right where I want her!” he boasts, gesturing at Stella on the plank. “I ordered ’em to build it special, you know, just for her!” He flutters a shade closer to me, his eyes vivid with joy. “You’re no fun when she’s around. So she’s going to die. And you’re going to watch. Then we’ll see who is master here!”

He rises higher in the air, fits two grubby fingers into his mouth, and whistles. Taking my eyes off him for an instant, I glance overboard to see shark fins circling beneath the plank. Clenching my sword, I plant myself at the foot of the plank.

“You’ll have to go through me first,” I tell him quietly.

“I told you we’d have another game,” he smiles.

“This is between you and me, boy,” I agree, my voice still low and terse. “Keep your whelps at bay.”

“And you call off your dogs,” he chirps, happy in our eternal game, the one we’ve played so tediously for so long. But never have the stakes been higher. Rising higher still, so everyone can see him, he cries, “It’s Hook or me, this time!”

His boys in the starboard bows and the men in the waist abide by this fragile truce for now, jeering and rumbling at each other, content for the moment to trade insults instead of blows. Pan’s vanity requires their rapt attention; he doesn’t want any other petty battles distracting away from his triumph over me. The boys carry no torches, flaming arrows, buckets of pitch. That the threat of fire was all part of the elaborate ruse to bring us here speaks to how close Stella and I are to realizing our escape. What did Proserpina say about the fire of rage? A warning against the anger that almost scuttled us twice, when Stella and I quarreled, and in Pan’s den, when I lost control, hurt a boy, exposed myself to Kes’ enchantment. I must not give in to anger again. Yet I never pledged to roll over like an infant and let him murder at will.

Pan alights to the deck before me, prodding, jabbing, and I make a few desultory sweeps of my blade to keep him at his distance. I am scarcely fresh after tangling with Nutter, yet I employ a few provocative maneuvers to expand my zone of safety that stop just shy of offense, hopping up onto the foot of the board to protect Stella from any advance. Kestrel sparkles at Pan’s shoulder, eager for me to forswear myself again and attack, earn the death blow from which there will be no resurrection.

“Two against one,” I point out to Pan, nodding at his fairy accomplice.

“You wait back there!” he orders her, and Kes has no choice but to obey, zooming off to the boys in a glittering of irritation. But Pan rebounds on me with more purpose, driving me back along the board to the rail, through which the business end of the plank protrudes out over the shark-infested bay, with Stella on it.

As long as his feet remain on the deck, my strength and swordcraft must prevail; feinting with my hook, I choose my moment and clash my blade against his, checking his advance, pressing him back, buying some room. Coming about, I’ve but a heartbeat to glimpse movement out in the bay. War canoes, half a dozen, perhaps more, gliding silently toward the Rouge from the larboard side. But they make no move to board; there is as yet no battle on deck for them to join. At the center of the lead canoe, Eagle Heart sits erect and silent, watching Pan and me.

Pan fairly yodels at the sight of them, charges me again and I stumble backward along the board. Falling back, I stop a thrust of his blade with my hook and see his gray eyes suddenly go round at something behind me; the board shudders, then lightens under my feet, as if a weight were taken off it.

“Stella!” I shriek, swooping wildly behind me with my hook arm, but feeling only empty air.

“Oh my God, James!”

Her voice! No splash, no scream of terror, but a cry of unmistakable joy. She lives! My heart surges, even as Pan comes charging along the board after me, little teeth bared, something peculiar in his expression. As I dance backward along the board, my vision of him blurs in a hale of sparkling mist; the pitch of the board unbalances me, my boot skips out over empty air, and suddenly there is naught but blue water below me.

But impossibly, the water stays where it belongs, far below, while I remain alongside the shivering plank, scrabbling for a purchase, yet as airborne as a gull. A breeze catches the long tails of my coat; I stretch out my hook and my sword for balance, twist round to see Stella beside me, hands spread wide, feet paddling, dark eyes agleam with delight.

“Look at us!” she cries. “We’re flying!”

I veer toward her in air as buoyant as seawater, my heart soaring. We lean into the next current together, twirling about each other, as nimble as the loreleis in their pool. We needn’t flap our arms, only glide together, leaving the poor old static, stationary world behind. A flash of lavender-blue darts between us, Piper, trailing her magical dust.

“Come away now!” urges the little imp. “Captain, your ship is waiting!”

But twisting about to follow her, my gaze falls to my other ship, my Jolie Rouge; her men huddled together in the waist staring up in bald panic at the witchery they behold, doomed to the misery I endured for centuries, poor fools. Irresistibly, I dive down to perch on the larboard rail.

“Come with us!” I cry to the men. “You can have homes of your own, families, lives, anything you want! But come now!”

They all goggle back at me, angry, fearful, oozing mistrust and reproach, while the little boys jeer at them from the foredeck. None makes any move to break out of the pack, not nervous Filcher, nor melancholy Gato, nor Burley, the most sensible of the lot. Young Flax, who ought to have the whole of life before him, Swab, Sticks, even Brassy, all cleave together in defiance, clutching their weapons. Nutter, who has found another sword, moves to the head of the pack to stare me down.

How long does wisdom take? How much longer will they have to learn it before the boys cut them down? “The world is waiting for you, out there,” I urge them. “All you have to do is grow up!”

But their former captain taught them well. Suspicion and outrage is their only response. Hook has abandoned them, flown off with the fairies, joined the other side.

“Let him go, men!” Nutter yelps, waving his sword. “We don’t need Hook! We can win this war without him!”

And they all cheer, the damned, deluded fools.

“Come on, Maestro,” Stella urges behind me, and I launch myself up off the rail to follow. But Pan is now airborne too, his feral smile back in place, coming after us with murderous intent. Without thinking I swoop to cut him off as Stella flies off after Piper, intent on herding him back to the ship, to cover our retreat. A flourish of my sword, more ornamental than martial, sends him sprawling backward in the air, untouched but all askew, and when he bounces up again, his grin is gone. Paddling out of my reach, veering over the braves in their canoes, he points his sword after Stella. “Chief!” he bawls at Eagle Heart. “Shoot her down!”

But the braves do not stir, except for a single hand raised by their chief. “Not fair, Little Brother,” Eagle Heart calls up to Pan. Lifting his chin toward me, the chief adds, “And that one is yours.”

He will not join the battle against me. Our pact is sound again, so long as I muster the wit to extract myself without harming the boys. But Pan is still hot for my blood. Circling round me now to cut off my own retreat, he gestures again after Stella and shouts to his Lost Boys, “After her, men!”

And the venomous little creatures in their furs and skins scramble up after Stella. Even airborne, I can’t stop them all; the power to call off the pack rests with Pan alone. Trusting the swift pattern of Piper’s sparkling trail against the purpling sky to protect Stella a few moments more, I charge after Pan with so wild a cry, his own boys balk in midflight, hiccupping about in the air in some dismay before they clamor off again.

Pan twirls about to face me, grinning gleefully. But for once I am stronger, faster, cleverer than the boy. I am clumsier in the air, yes, but twice as determined; my reach is longer, my passion fierce. I herd him as far as the main shrouds, spars and rigging more familiar to me than open air, and when he shoots upward out of long habit to evade me, I follow, pressing the advantage of my size. I feint to his left and he rears back his sword arm too fast; his elbow cracks against the spar and the shock of it rattles the hilt out of his grasp. I let loose my sword as well, flatten my hand to his chest, press his back to the mast, raise my hook. All of the Neverland hangs in the balance; we both know it.

He wriggles like an upturned insect as I lash his thin arm to the top yard with the curve of my hook. His boys will be in disarray with their leader in such jeopardy. Stella can elude them as long as my dallying with Pan muddles their wits. Already the sky is glooming over with his fury.

“Codfish!” he sneers, squirming under my grasp, and laughter splutters out of me. That’s all it’s ever been between us, name-calling and baby-talk.

I bend him more firmly to the yard, his arm twisting inside my hook. “I’m not playing this game any more,” I tell him coolly.

“Yes you will!” he chirps, eyes glittering fire, peering over my shoulder, grinning like a little skull. “Now that your lady is gone!”

I glance round, see the swarm of Lost Boys coming for Pan and me. The distant smudge of white in the darkening sky that was Stella has vanished.

“I told you!” crows the boy, growing stronger under my hand, my hook, as I struggle to hold my position. The dust is wearing off, or I’m losing heart. “She doesn’t need you any more, Hook. Good riddance, I say!”

The old bloodrage stirs inside me, and I draw back my hook, aching to slice him open gullet to craw, longing to see at last the shock of defeat in his insolent gray eyes. Yet I read in them not despair, but another kind of triumph, darker, more smug, more perverse than any he has ever won over me before.

“To die will be an awfully big adventure!” he taunts me.

He wants me to do it! He will forfeit his life, his precious Neverland, the dreams of all the world’s children, for the pleasure of seeing me destroy the fragile humanity it’s taken me two centuries to earn. It will be his ultimate victory. If I give in now, I will never be a man. Not even for a moment.

“Life is the adventure, Boy. It’s all in how you play it.”

“Coward!” he spits back at me.

I flourish my hook as the boys come shrieking nearer, but it’s all for show. The response among the Lost Boys in pandemonium; some are faltering in the air, dropping their weapons, colliding with the shrouds, others shrieking straight for me. But I’ll not fail Stella. I’ll keep them from pursuing her, whatever the cost. She’ll not suffer for me. She’ll forget me as soon as she’s free of the Neverland. It takes what’s left of my strength to do this one last thing for her, but my heart is resolved.

Pan’s mean little face suddenly wavers and blurs in a hailstorm of sparkling gossamer stuff raining on me from above. Fairy dust, handfuls of it! I’m sneezing and spitting as arms close round me, dragging me aloft. Shaking the stuff out of my eyes, I see the mast and the yard and the boys some distance below, while Stella hauls me into the sky.

“I’m not leaving without you, James!” she exclaims. “How many times do I have to tell you?”

My heart surges up, and we both rise with it. She leads the way, lacing her fingers tightly through mine as we fly westward, away from the first pale blush of moonlight staining the eastern fogbank.

Then, impossibly, some obstruction catches hold of my foot, jerking me so violently in the air I lose hold of Stella’s hand. Flailing for balance, I look down to see Pan grasping my boot with both hands, Lost Boys stretched out below him like the tail of a kite, each one grasping the foot of the boy above. It’s like the weight of an anchor upon me, the lot of them pulling together. I can’t shake them off. Stella’s hands close again round mine, pulling with all her strength to pry me loose. I feel I’m being rent in two.

“You’re mine, Hook!” the boy shrieks up at me, face crimson, beneath his tawny mop of hair, his savage little teeth bared.

I strive upward, dragging my preposterous anchor of children, but I can’t get free of them. My joints complain, knee, hip, shoulder grinding in their sockets, overstretched muscles aching; I am no longer a young man.

Stella lets go of my hand, and swoops past me toward the boy. He snickers up at her, raising one arm to defend himself, his other still wound tight round my boot. The other boys, united in strength once more behind their leader, are passing a sword up to him, hand over hand, up the chain of their bodies. In a moment his empty hand will hold another weapon. Stella shifts about and I see her knife drawn, the one I gave her to cut vines in the wood. God’s life, she will never kill a child! But she might yet free us both.

She might use her blade on me.

What did the imp queen promise me? The thing I most desire. Death was all I wanted once, and now it lies within Stella’s power. A twist of the blade, as I once did for old Bill Jukes. She won’t let me suffer, I know. To die in the arms of someone who loves me, a better death than I deserve. Pray to all things sacred in this benighted place that she has the courage, the compassion to do it before the boy rearms to have his sport with me. Release me, my fallen angel. Release yourself, and live. And Stella’s free hand darts up to grasp mine as she makes her choice and presses her blade home.