She reels back, bracing herself against the wall, heart pounding. From this angle, the mirror only reflects the blank wood of the ceiling. She slides a foot forward, edging toward the broken glass. She makes herself look, holding her breath. Nothing. It is only a mirror, and nothing looks back at her save her own reflection.
Even so, her nerves remain strung tight, the haunted feeling clinging to her. She tries to imagine a storm terrible enough to cause this kind of destruction. Had Peter finally tired of endless battles against his old foe and dreamed up a wave big enough to pick up Hook’s entire ship and smash it against the shore?
Wendy glances at the items thrown around the room—empty bottles, some broken, some whole; a glass bauble, cracked and smoky; a few coins. They’re worn, but she can still see the images, stamped on one side with a leering skull, the other with some sort of bird. There’s no mark identifying them as belonging to any country, but then there wouldn’t be, would there? They’re only Peter’s idea of a pirate’s treasure.
Wendy gets down on her hands and knees and peers under the bed. Something glints in the dark space, and Wendy’s breath catches. It might be more mirror glass, and she’s afraid of what she might find looking back at her, but she makes herself lie flat, stretching to pull it free. Captain Hook’s sword.
Wendy rocks back onto her heels, staring at the blade for a moment. It’s just as she remembers it—curved, the hilt wrapped in red leather. She stands, slipping her hand beneath the guard of tarnished, filigreed gold, and tests the grip. When she swings it experimentally, the blade sings a high, whistling note in the air. Wendy rests the pad of her thumb gently against the edge without pressing down. It’s still sharp.
When she extends her arm, the sword balances naturally. It’s like the treasure—not a sword a real pirate would use. It doesn’t matter that she has no experience with weaponry. Any sword in Neverland would be able to be wielded by an untrained child as easily as by a seasoned warrior. Like the ship itself, like the pirates, the sword she holds is a plaything, a boy’s fantasy of what a sword should be. A toy, but one sharp enough for killing, because that’s the kind of boy Peter is.
There’s no scabbard or belt that she can find, so Wendy tightens her shawl around her waist and tucks the sword into it. A moment of vanity seizes her and she glances regretfully at the broken mirror. It’s a silly thing, but she wishes she could see herself. Does she look as fierce and formidable as the captain himself?
She pictures Hook’s sneer, his red velvet coat—like blood, like poppies—flaring as he paced and turned, all wide lapels and gleaming buttons. Even in her terror, she’d wanted to rub that velvet between her thumb and her forefinger to see what it felt like. The air around her shivers, the timbers beneath her feet shaking with absent footsteps. The longer she stands in his cabin, the more it seems she can conjure Hook’s ghost. She sees his regal figure striding the deck, shaking his fist and daring Peter to come claim his prize—Wendy and her brothers. She can even smell the oil worked into the long, heavy curls hanging down Hook’s back, blacker than a raven’s wing.
In the stories Wendy had told Jane of the Tailor and the Little White Bird, she’d turned Hook from a pirate into a prince, a wicked and cursed one. Petals scattered from the hem of his coat every time he turned, and poisoned blossoms sprang up beneath the heels of his polished boots. He’d used their petals to lure the Little White Bird into a deadly sleep, until the Clever Tailor had woven a net out of every color of thread to trap the prince and save the Bird.
Wendy shakes her head. Her stories seem foolish now, and her actual time with the pirates almost seems like one of them. Were they ever truly in danger? At the time, the threat seemed real. She remembers the sour stink of fear, the way Michael had trembled, pressed against her side as Hook tied them to the mast. John, with his chin raised but his eyes owl-wide behind the gleam of his glasses. For all his bluster, though, Hook had never really been cruel to her or her brothers.
He’d lashed them to the mast, but the bonds hadn’t been tight, and hadn’t he made sure they had tea to drink, and biscuits from the ship’s stores? She’d hated him, but only because she was meant to; he was Peter’s enemy, therefore he was her enemy too. She hadn’t seen it clearly then, but now Wendy can picture the slant of Hook’s shoulders, the lackluster movement of his hand and his hook as he’d secured their bindings. They’d been merely bait, but even Hook must have known that when he came for them Peter would inevitably escape. He’d captured Wendy and her brothers knowing he had nothing to gain, only frightening them, fulfilling the one role Peter designed for him to play.
She wonders—is it that Hook couldn’t hurt them, or he chose not to? How easy would it have been for him to turn his sneering posturing into true violence, taking his impotence against Peter out on them instead? They had been in Neverland, but not of it, not yet. Did its rules still apply, or could he truly have fed them to the monster beneath the waves, or even simply snapped their necks?
Wendy shivers at the thought, caught between horror and sympathy for the man she once hated and feared so much. That heady floral
