Lacroix kept the landing craft beside the hull of the ship. Starkey could stand, but he kneeled down and took her arms, wrapping her around him. “Just hold onto me, Gwen. Can you do that?”
“Yeah, I think so,” she answered.
He stood, pulling her into a piggyback. Starkey went to the ladder and started up, his climbing slowed by her weight on his back and shoulders. He ascended at a steady pace, and although he couldn't spare the breath to give Gwen assurances, she felt completely safe. She held tight to Starkey and told herself that if he had the strength to carry her up the ladder, she could find the strength to hang on. She closed her eyes and held them shut, trying to block out her fears.
After a minute, they reached the top of the ship where mates helped them aboard. Gwen felt Starkey shrugging her off, and saw as Jimmy Sloat's four-fingered hand reached out and helped her to her feet.
Standing on the boat deck, Gwen slumped against the side of the boat to keep her balance. Jimmy Sloat began giving Starkey a full report of the battle's status—the siege had gone well. The crew was ready to sail up to the naval ship and board it for a proper pillaging.
“No,” Starkey told them. “They've got more manpower than we do and we'll need every man we have aboard the Grammarian if their main ship turns its attention to us. Finish them. Sink them like the first, and gather whatever flotsam the crew makes of itself. Who's at the helm?”
“Hangnail is, Captain,” Jimmy Sloat answered.
“Hurry up with that cannonball!” Madman Mulligan screeched from the other side of the ship.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” Mr. Grouse exclaimed, confused and flustered as he lugged the iron ball over to the four pirates manning one of the cannons. The poor janitor had little experience with sailing, let alone eighteenth-century naval warfare. Twill, on the other hand, seemed in his element. The tiny boy, in an unbuttoned waist coat and pair of dirty trousers, ran over to the cannon with a bristled brush. Shoving it down the cannon's neck, he prepared it for another shot. He looked as sooty as a chimney cleaner, but his smile only stood out brighter for it.
Lacroix climbed aboard, abandoning the raft they'd commandeered as Starkey told Gwen, “You should lie down. If you can sleep, do. I'll check in on you as soon as I can.”
“I can't go to sleep! We're in the middle of a war!” Gwen declared.
“Yes—definitely a war,” Starkey agreed, distracted by everything aboard he needed to attend to. “And in wars there are casualties. Right now, you're one of them. Take it easy before you become a fatality. I'd be a poor teacher if I let one of my best students get killed in this hubbub.”
Fishface Fletcher took her arm, preparing to guide her away from the hectic deck and to quieter quarters. Gwen wouldn't stand for it. “You don't understand!” she exclaimed. “They've got a mermaid leading them to the Never Tree! She cut a deal with the black coats and now she's got legs and is taking them to the Never Tree. I have to find Peter.”
This got their attention, and Gwen felt the urge to take back what she'd just said. This detail engrossed and troubled the pirates.
“The Anomalous Activity Department made a deal with a mermaid?” Starkey asked, as if hoping a clarification would contradict his understanding of the statement.
“That's what she said.”
No one said anything, until Lacroix's blond mustache twitched and he asked, “What's the plan, Captain?”
“Sink that ship, and do it fast,” Starkey told him, his voice steeling with a hardness Gwen had never heard in it before. “I'm afraid we have much less time than we had anticipated. Now get to your posts!”
Lacroix, Jimmy Sloat, and Fishface Fletcher took off. Starkey took hold of Gwen and hurried her along in the other direction, explaining as he did so. “If she's no longer a mermaid we might have a chance, but if she struck that deal while she still had the favor of the stars… Neverland has no hope.”
“But Peter—”
“Even Peter has his limitations, not that he knows them or will heed them when he finds them.”
“What does that mean?” Gwen objected. She felt faint trying to keep pace with Starkey.
“It means we may have to leave very quickly if those do-gooders turn the tables on us.”
“Leave? We can't abandon Neverland!”
“Gwen, if they find the Never Tree, there won't be a Neverland left to abandon.”
They approached the captain's quarters and Starkey pulled out a dark but golden key. Unlocking the door, he ushered Gwen in, and Starkey told her, “If that happens, you can't risk getting caught on the island. The children are one thing—you're practically an adult, Gwendolyn. If the Anomalous Activity Department captures the tree and then finds you, you'll be worse off than any of them.”
The daylight made his quarters bright and charming. If not for the cannon fire punctuating the sound and sway of the sea, it would have been peaceful. Gwen looked back at Starkey, and saw him still standing in the doorway.
“But—they won't find it! Lasiandra was a mermaid. How could mermaids know where on land the Never Tree grows?”
“That,” Starkey announced, “is a story too long to tell, and one that never should have been written in the first place.”
“Then I need to find Peter right now!” she insisted.
“I'm sorry, Gwen,” Starkey announced, key still in his hand, “but you need to stay safe.”
He started to close the door and Gwen screamed, “No!”
She raced back to the door, but Starkey drew it shut faster. The slam had hardly finished reverberating before his key had locked it shut again. Gwen reached the door only in time to slam against it in a fury. Only
