And that might have been the end of it. Should have been the end of it, by rights. Playing the game by its proper rules, Capt. Jas. Hook, late of the Jolly Roger, should have resigned himself to simply being "the late Capt. Jas. Hook". He had, in fact, given up the metaphorical ghost; felt the sweet becalming flowing through his body and warming his soul as he waited for death to claim him.

  The change, when it came, was like a hard, cold smack in the teeth; an electric jolt that shot through him from noggin to nethers and he gasped as if the very breath had been blown out of him. His eyes shot open wide - Not that there was anything to see. It tends toward the dark inside a crocodile. Noisome, yes, and noisy, what with the random bestial grunting and belching and squirting of bodily juices all about and the endless, intolerable, wholly damnable ticking! - But, dark.

  What had suddenly altered everything, he didn't know. But, it was as if he'd awakened all at once from a deep slumber to discover his house afire and that he'd chained himself to the bedpost.

  "Hook, you dog... what are you doing?" he thought. And when the answer came back, "Nothing at present, actually. You?" he screamed (well, the best he could under rather constricting circumstances) and lashed out with his one trusty weapon: his razor-sharp namesake, at the reptile's vulnerable insides. They were somewhat dainty slashes at first, since he hadn't much room to manoeuvre in. But they were enough to set the behemoth to roaring and flailing and twisting in the waters like a top.

  "Ah, 'tis a pity when one's dinner disagrees, is't not?" Hook growled, as he raked at his fleshy prison like a man possessed, now kicking with his feet as well and tearing with his fingers.

  The death throes of the giant were terrible as it rolled and spun and screamed. It was morbidly fascinating, actually, that a beast so vast and, well, heavily laden could turn itself with such acrobatic agility and speed. By and by, a cloud of mortality began drawing over its eyes as clouds of blood began wafting out its mouth. Within, Hook found himself in danger of drowning in the sanguine muck and so, with a final, mad, mighty swing, he cleaved the belly of the 'dile in twain.

  The gash was nearly four feet long and from it spilled a tangled julienne of entrails and one desperate, near-spent pirate. The shock of freezing water almost numbed him to immobility. It was only the agony of his lungs aching for air that drove his protesting body surfaceward. Up he went, away from the reeking reptilian corpse, following the light, reaching for open sky, closer and closer to emergence. But at the last moment, instead of breaking the surface, he came smack up against a cruel, translucent roof: A sheet of ice that was thickening even as he gazed in horror at it, imprisoning him under the water, mocking him as he drowned.

  In a panic, he hacked at the ice; clawing, cleaving, carving, raking. Yet, only grudgingly did it give way to his relentless steel. His lungs were near to bursting for want of air and his arms began to tire, the one from cutting, the other from holding fast to a chiseled edge to thwart the current. He could sense his strength leaving him and the light beginning to dim. Then at last, a gap broke open. It was only fist-sized, but enough that Hook could press his mouth against it and suck in the precious draught.

  Renewed, he sunk back under the frigid waters and slashed manfully at the ice again and again and again until a final, explosive blow rent a hole big enough for him to fit through. Launching himself upward like some sort of exotic seal, he threw his head back and gasped convulsively. His long mane flew in a wild arc, sending a shower of salty droplets cascading through the air, the smallest freezing mid-flight and shattering back on the ice like shards of glass. Before he could fall back under the brine, he flailed out with his silvery talon and dug it hard into the floe, holding himself to the water's edge.

  He stayed that way for a time, breathing heavily, then slowly, labouriously pulled himself the rest of the way out of the drink and collapsed on his back by the opening. He couldn't move any further. Not now, at any rate. Of course, he realised that, soaking wet as he was in a foetid mix of sea water and croc gore, he risked freezing solid to the surface, but he couldn't help it. He was exhausted and cold to the point of paralysis.

  Pan had gone. Obviously. He raised his head to look around and noted the absence of something else as well: His ship. The insidious imp had hoisted it with him! The galling wretchedness of knowing that the youth could up and take the Jolly Roger from the waters of Neverland, just like that, clawed at his insides like a tiny... him.

  "Smee!" he cried, at last. But, no one answered.

  "SMEE!!!" he bellowed louder still. And though he waited for some minutes, he was met with nought but near-deafening silence. He was alive and alone and Neverland was freezing over.

  "Odds, bobs..." he murmured to no one at all as he lay on the ice sheet staring up at the little vapourous clouds his breath formed. His gaze refocused then to much larger, higher clouds that were encroaching upon the starry sky and its wondrous full moon, gradually shading them from view. And by and by, a gentle snow began to fall.

  A flash of hook and cutlass backed the threat with admirable emphasis and sent the crew scurrying across the deck with a fervor. None dared cross the Captain at the best of times, but in the midst of one of his rages, he was to be steered as far clear of as a Krakan's pantry. Still unsatisfied with the speed of his men's labours and suspecting he hadn't quite filled them with a sufficient degree of soul-shrivelling terror, the Captain sheathed his cutlass, drew his flintlock pistol from out his wrapped, silken belt and fired. The booming report froze the lot of them in place, even as the lead ball buried itself in the side of the main mast - inches from the bosun's head.

"Peter! Stop it!"

  Incensed, the commander whirled 'round to face his challenger and levelled his now-spent weapon at the nighty-clad adversary standing before him.

  "What?!" he cried, aghast, "Who dares lock horns with the infamous Captain Hook?! Scourge of the Seven Seas! Blackbeard's bosun! The only man ever feared by Barbecu -!"

  "You're not Hook," the young girl intoned reproachfully, brushing the pistol aside with one hand and a good deal of annoyance. "You're Peter Pan, and you're acting an awful brute with these wretched guns and swords."

  From their various perches about the ship's deck and rigging, the "crew" all silently, and somewhat covertly, nodded. The way back from Neverland was taking a considerably longer time than the way to. Peter had apparently found some sort of transcendental scenic route for the sake of playing one last game with Wendy, her brothers and the lost boys before depositing them, as promised, in the loving clutches of the parents Darling.

  It had been great fun at first, this pirate pretend. They crossed swords, monkeyed with cannons and generally distinguished themselves as the most wretched of scurvy villains as the Jolly Roger flew through a dizzying, fantastical cosmos fueled by nought but fairy magic. Thousands of the little creatures along the masts and sails and all about the hull kept the ship speeding aloft on a glimmering river of incandescent dust. It was a marvelous voyage. Or it seemed so - at the start.

  But the more they played, the more seriously Peter took his role. All knew he could imitate the old pirate's voice to frightening perfection. But, when he emerged from out the blackguard's cabin bedecked in a mad assemblage of his gaudiest finery, a wicked hook clutched in his right hand, the fearful aspect began to extend far beyond the vocal.

  "A pirate has to have guns and swords, Wendy!" Peter said, letting his voice lilt back to its normal child's register. "Or else, he's no proper pirate at all!" And as he spoke, he re-positioned himself, so that the hand grappling one of the Captain's hooks now hove out before him threateningly. Though the effect was somewhat mitigated by the splishes and splashes of fairy dust that fell from his head, as Tinkerbell had taken up semi-permanent residence amidst the plumes of his hat.

  "But, I thought you hated pirates! Hook most of all! Didn't you yourself say he was a bounder and a fiend?" Wendy asked.

  "Oh, um, no. That was me, actually."

  Wendy and Peter looked up to the starboard rigging to see Slightly waving down at them with a sheepish grin. Wild though they may have been, the lost boys were all true English lads and therefore honourable, even to distraction.

  "And me... the 'fiend' bit, that is," John added helpfully, if awkwardly, as he clung to the yardarm. "Sorry... Do carry on."

  And Peter did, by reaching out and poking Wendy mischievously on the shoulder with the dull side of his hook. She jumped reflexively at the icy touch, her heart skipping a beat and a fountain of fairy dust leapt up from Peter's hat as peals of bell-like laughter rang the air. After the initial shock, the young Miss Darling glowered at the boy in an imperious way that would have done any mother proud.

  "That isn't the least amusing," she intoned.

  Peter's smile fell. "Oh, Wendy!" he cried, exasperated. "It was just in fun! Don't spoil everything!"

  "You may think it's fun, Peter," Wendy replied, evenly. "but, you're scaring everyone."

  "I am NOT!" Peter howled, whirling back on her, brandishing his hook. She didn't flinch this time, though, merely stood her ground and regarded the weapon's business end with something like grand distaste. The boys all around the ship, however, were not nearly so composed and gasped in alarm. Pausing suddenly, as if remembering where he was, Peter pulled the offending appendage away and crooked it casually behind his back.

  "Tootles!" he called out then, clearly looking for a distraction and validation in one. He flew over to the benighted bosun (still quivering from his close-shave with the pistol shot) and set down with his hook-hand 'round the boy's shoulder.

  "I'm not scaring you... am I." There was a great smile on Peter's face as he said this, but it never travelled up to his eyes and the words weren't posed as a question.

  "N-n-no, Pet-" Tootles stopped as he saw his leader's expression darken, "...um, I mean, Captain."

  "Well, you're scaring me," Wendy insisted. "And I want you to stop."

  "But it's just a game..."

  "It's a dreadful game!"

  "It's only pretend. That's all. Just make-believe!"

  "Please, Peter!" Wendy begged, at last, "Please say you'll stop... For me... For the children."

  Silence descended on the vessel; none of the boys dared say a word. Only Mother, they knew, could ever intervene on their behalf when Father was in one of his moods. As for Wendy, she could very nearly see the gears turning in Peter's head as he shifted mindset from piratical to parental. The only question was whether or not he'd really be willing to change the game. At last, his eyes danced with warmth again and he tossed the hook to the deck with a shrug.

  "All right." he said with amused resignation. Sighs of relief were breathed all over, save for Tink. She was not pleased and was even less so when Peter thoughtlessly flung his hat off, sending her shrieking with it nearly over the port side.

  "Thank you," Wendy murmured sweetly.

  "Anything for you, Wendy," Peter returned.

  He assumed this would please her. Yet, oddly, Wendy seemed upset by this as well, and she looked at him with grave import, "But it's not just for me, is it?... That you won't play this game again, I mean. Promise me, Peter. Promise me you won't."

  For the life of him, he couldn't understand why this was so important to her. It was just another game, after all; like any other, no different. For that very reason, it wasn't worth fighting about.

  "Of course I won't." And he smiled that blithe, devil's smile that told Wendy he actually believed his own lie.

  It was the very same smile whose glow she stood entranced with only a small while later as she lingered at her nursery window. Her newly-extended family: Mother, Father, John, Michael, Nana, Aunt Millicent and a clutch of soon-to-be adopted brothers cavorted behind her, oblivious, as she called to the wild boy floating outside in the cold, night air.

  "You won't forget me, will you?" she asked.

  "Me? Forget?... Never!" He beamed, eyes wide and glinting with complete sincerity.

  And Wendy knew. She was terribly brave about it, of course. Mrs. Darling had raised a lady and though this was, indeed, a tender age to face so harsh a truth, she bore it majestically and with all proper grace. She gazed at him before going on, as if trying to hold the moment. Knowing that the next question was a silly one and would surely break the spell at last. Even so, the words came tumbling out of their own accord.

  "You will come back?" she heard herself query, plaintively.

  At this, his smile broke wide enough to reveal little pearl teeth, "To hear stories," he replied. "About me!" And then he turned away and was gone. Only a brief, glinting trail of fairy dust from his ever-present companion marked his passing.

  Wendy looked up into the starry night waiting for nothing at all. She never let her sweet smile drop until long after she'd closed the window and turned away. Anyone who might have looked would have seen a change in her now. The hidden kiss that once played in the corner of her lips was gone, given away to another. In its place was something new that she would carry forever: A hidden wisdom.

  The boy would forget her as he forgot all else in his world; good or bad, great or small. He would go on to new adventures and new lost boys and perhaps, even new "Wendies" and he would never return. Remembering would have to be left to her. To the one who would - could - grow up and so doing, have a past to recollect.

  And with a gasp, his eyes flew open and he was awake again. Awake enough to realise that it wasn't ticking he'd been hearing. The sound had been too soft, its repetition too rapid. No, it was chattering - of his own teeth. He was freezing to death right there on the ice. Staring up at the snow, Hook had managed to gradually lose consciousness. He had given in to the exhaustion and the numbness and the bitter, bitter cold and simply drifted away. A certain one-way journey, had his life not been ironically saved by a friendly faux.

  Deciding it was high time to be on his way, he tried raising himself up on his arms - only to make the bothersome discovery that he could no longer actually feel them. Or his legs, for that matter, or his torso, or his head, or any other random body part that his mind idly reflected upon.

  "B-b-b-b-brims-s-st-t-tone a-a-and g-g-gall!" he shivered, every syllable sending bits of ice splintering off his face (which, by now, was beginning to turn a rather unhealthy shade of forget-me-not blue). He tried looking about and realised he was not only quite thoroughly frost-bound, but also covered in a thin blanket of snow. Well, this simply would not do. He hadn't hacked his way out of a man-eating crocodile and escaped death by drowning only to have a fit of ennui reduce him to an unbaked Alaska.

  So, with the greatest concentration, he focused on his arms again, willing them to obey his commands. The scurviest sea dog never dared defy him, he'd be damned if his own limbs would attempt a mutiny. Little by little he began to feel them bend - back, forth, up, down - loosening the grip that held him in icy thrall. His long, tangled locks were similarly stuck fast and a flurry of frantic little kinaesthetics drew out of him the most amazing collection of noises (some quite outside the range of his usual sonorous baritone) as his individual hairs painfully yanked and twisted free - mostly from the ice.

  Quickly joining these efforts came similar bursts of energy directed at trunk and trotters, and as Hook fought, tufts of snow flung up madly on all sides in an arctic mockery of fairy dust. He rocked and tore evermore maniacally until, with a final heave and a ferocious roar, he flung himself loose of his frosty bonds. The force sent him sliding across the floe, spinning a few yards before he could stop and get his knees under him. The feet were a considerably trickier bit of business and involved several less-than-dignified attempts he was rather glad to have lacked an audience for.

  When he was finally righted and turned 'round again, slipping and staggering in his fashionably intimidating, but hopelessly un-iceworthy boots, he was greeted by a most curious sight: His jacket; still frozen to the surface of the sea, poised where he had only just vacated it, holding perfectly the shape and attitude of its former wearer as if he lay invisible within.

  He stared at it a moment in appalled fascination, shivering in his very dank waistcoat and shirtsleeves, then hurled himself at it with a yelp, sliding heedlessly back to retrieve the wayward and outright cheeky garment. He pulled it, he yanked it, he chipped at it with his hook and he kicked it with his boot, the latter move only serving to send him sprawling on his aft. At last, he gave up, observing that the coat was lost. Pity. It had been one of his favorites, that splendid red frock with all the charming little gold skulls n' bones. He'd donned it especially for what he'd assumed would be his hour of victory. He cringed inwardly at that painful, pitiable thought; it would be a victory now if he even managed to survive the night.

  Tottering back up to his feet, the Captain took a last perusal of his coat and realised that his sword baldric was missing. He recalled wearing it when he plunged to his intended doom. Somewhere between belly and breakwater it had fallen off. A fortunate thing too, he noted, as had he been wearing it when he laid down, he'd still be pinned, belted in for good and all - or, at least, until Pan returned to find him stuck there. A humiliation that death by digestion would have paled against.

  A thought occurred to him then, and before turning away, he bent down and let his fingers dance inquisitively along the inside of one of the cuffs. He seemed to find what he was searching for because a sly smile finally crept upon his features. He used his claw to pry the hidden prize free of its icy seal and then slipped it into a tiny pocket in his waistcoat.

  There was only one thing he could do now, one place he could go. But as wet and ice-laced as he was, exposed to the bitter chill, could he make it? Turning toward land and hugging his arms tightly to himself in a vain effort to retain some small measure of warmth, he began wobbling his way to the shadowy shore, knowing he had no choice but to try.

"Well, t-t-t-try agin! If'n ye d-d-d-don' get the b-b-b-blasted thing lit, w-we'll all f-f-f-f-fre-fre-freeze!"

  From his position hunched over on the frosty ground with his little sticks of wood in hand, Bill Jukes felt terribly picked on. He didn't know why it fell to him to start the fire. It wasn't as if he'd volunteered for the job or had any special skill for it. But he was smaller and slighter than any of his three companions - fellow refugees of the Jolly Roger all - so the pecking order, as natural to pirates as to wolf packs and school playgrounds, had its merciless way with him.

  Miserably, he went back to his Sisyphean task, rubbing one stick frantically between his heavily tattooed hands, trying to get its pointy end to ignite against a flat wooden board. Hovering over him, like some eccentric, achromatic scout master was Albino Jack, his fish-belly pale, near transparent skin practically luminous in the dim moonlight, the unrelieved black of his clothes making his hairless head and hands look nearly disembodied in the dark. Truthfully, Jukes preferred to have his attention kept on something other than his melanin-challenged associate. The Albino's dark spectacles, perched ubiquitously upon his nose during daylight hours, were absent now, revealing the weird, rat pink orbs that lay beneath. No matter how many tattoos Bill Jukes might cover himself with, he knew he'd never look half as disturbing as Jack looked the way Nature intended.

  "Ahoy, mateys!" a voice called out of the woods. It was almost instantly followed by the dank, shambling and ungainly form of Cookson, his ropey hands gripping a canvas sack slung over his left shoulder, long face and goggle eyes staring out from under a battered, triple cross-gilded bicorn. A generally easy-tempered, if dim-witted sort, it took Cookson a moment to realise that Jack and Jukes had pulled their pistols on him and were aiming with deadly intent.

  "W-w-whoa, dere! 'Tis m-me, Cookson! Yer pal!" he blurted out in a panic, stopping dead in his tracks. "A-an' Fifi, along wid'um!"

  As if on cue, another figure stepped out into the clearing right behind the shaken swab. A massive, towering figure in a torn and badly blood-stained shirt that was only partially covered by his banded and beribboned, waist-length dreadlocks. Thousands of almond-sized bumps formed elaborate patterns across his ebony skin and the sash at his waist held two huge scimitars, leaving his hands free to grapple a flintlock and a blunderbuss, respectively. So stood expert swordsman and human battering ram, Fifi Njanu.

  Relaxing instantly, Bill and the Albino belted their pistols, the former kneeling to go back to his labours, while the latter folded his arms in tightly to fend off the chill seeping through his seawater-drenched togs.

  "We went back an' scoured de beach like ye say," Fifi snarled. His deep, Caribbean-inflected voice unsettlingly even, despite the cold.

  "Just t-t-takin' c-care, 'at's all." Jack muttered through chattering teeth, then turning to Cookson, said, "I th-thought I t-t-tol' ye to whistle as a caution a'fore ye c-c-came into camp?"

  "A-aye, ye did," Cookson replied with a nod and a smile.

  "S-so, why didn' ye?" Jack asked, in annoyance.

  "D-don' know 'ow," came the casual response.

  Jack just stared for a moment, at a loss. "So, why d-didn' ye say so?"

  Cookson shuffled from side to side, then shrugged.

   "Didn' ask."

  At that, he upended the sack he was carrying, emptying its contents onto the snowy ground and gestured to it. "D-dere 'tis, laddies," he announced with a sniff, wiping his nose aggressively with his moth-eaten sleeve. A frustrating action, since the garment was wet through. "All 'at's left from da 'Roger. Me n' Fifi went back ta Cutfroat's Beach, like ye tol' us. B-but, all's we found was 'is sorry lil' jollyboat s-s-stuck 'ard in da water. Nuffin' else. Not fer m-miles 'at we could see. We took wot was innit wot looked werf t-t-takin'."

  "T'ain't much, is't?" Jack murmured, mainly to himself, as he looked through the haul.

  "J-jus' a lantern, bucket, rope, shovel, s-s-some candles..." Cookson noted.

  "No matches?"

  "N-nary a one." Then the spindly, gray haired sailor grinned, showing a mouth full of singularly appalling teeth. "But, I founds us a b-bit more powder. That'll give a cheer ta ye, I'd 'spect." So saying, he pulled a tiny leather pouch out of his waistcoat pocket and dangled it before Jack's face.

  "That it?" Jack queried, grabbing the little gunpowder bag. "No shot? Nothin' to fire?" He narrowed his rodent eyes as he scrutinized his comrade. "Yer not the sort to be holdin' out on yer chums, now, eh?"

  Insulted and actually hurt, Cookson's smile fell. "Me? Me?!... Arr, ye be a 'ard man ta please, ye know dat, Jack?" he said, his long face screwing up in a pout. "Nay, dat were all."

  Disappointed, but satisfied that Cookson was too dim to lie - or at least too dim to lie convincingly - Jack shrugged and tossed the bag into the bailing bucket. "'Ere," he said, pointing, "...put s-s-somethin' o'er 'at to keep it dry. Jus' in case it starts bloody snowin' again."

  Dutifully, if dourly, Cookson complied, tossing the lantern and candles into the bucket atop the powder pouch and then covering the whole with the tightly wadded up sack, just for good measure.

  Observing this exchange was Fifi, who absently slipped his guns into his sash, expertly leaving the two huge blades already tucked there entirely undisturbed. He then cast his eyes about their make-shift encampment. It wasn't much. Merely a pile of miscellaneous wood that had yet to become a fire sitting in the centre of a clearing, a few odds and ends in a bucket that he and Cookson had just salvaged; some rope, a shovel - and them. And they had precious little to call their own. Only the clothes on their backs and the weapons they'd carried when, each in their turn, they were forced off, had escaped from or been blown clean out of the Jolly Roger.

  He winced for a moment as he adjusted his armaments. They rested only inches below a most impressive stab wound that went straight from front to back. A trauma that would have (and, in fact, had) killed a lesser man.

  "Oh, aye!"

  Fifi's attention was finally drawn back by the sound of Jukes whining to Jack in a low tone, "They get to heave off an' play on the beach, whilst' I be 'ere doin' all the work. Well, t'ain't right, Jack!"

  "Work?" Fifi said. "Ye call twirlin' a lil' bitty stick, 'work'?"

  Jukes was most aggrieved. "I be makin' a fire!" He snapped, holding his stick and board aloft as a rather poor example.

  "Oh, a' course ye be!" Cookson joined in, gleefully. "I can f-f-feel it warmin' me bones from 'ere!"

  Little Jukes was appalled, aghast and utterly undone. He hadn't asked to start the fire. Didn't want to start the fire. Had almost no idea how to start the fire and was now being criticised for failing to start the fire. So, it was only natural that he now began to passionately defend his professionally irreproachable ability to start the fire.

  "I...! Ye...!... I know what I be doin'!" he bawled, throwing the wood down on the ground in a pique. Then, trying to look a bit more qualified, he sniffed, adjusted his little tricorn hat and went on, "The problem... the problem be... the location. We oughts ta be on the beach. Not in the woods wif all this... this..."

  "Wood?" Fifi deadpanned.

  "Aye. Ye can start a fire much better wif sand. Ev'ryone know 'at!" Cookson added, dissolving into gales of laughter as Jukes slumped back to the ground and fixed a glower on his ink-etched face that was positively Herculean in its petulance.

  It happened then that Fifi turned directly toward Jukes just as the timing and sense-bereft little fellow took a sideways glance in his direction and hissed, "Wot ye know, ye lazy, flirt-gilled girlie?"

  In a motion so fast as to be a blur, Fifi had both his guns drawn, cocked and aimed straight at Jukes's head. "Wot ye call me, lil' man?" he rumbled.

  "Noffin'!" Jukes squeaked, stricken with mortal terror. "I ain't c-c-called ye noffin'!"

  Fifi sneered, but eventually belted his two firearms again and began turning around, reasonably satisfied, if not with the answer, then with the cringing fear behind it.

  "...'Cept 'lazy, flirt-gilled girlie'," Jukes whispered to himself. Though, clearly, not only to himself, as an enraged Fifi whirled back on him, this time unsheathing one of his scimitars and twirling it in his hand with a purpose. Seeing this, Jukes leapt up and drew his pistol in defense.

  "'At be de end, boy...!" Fifi thundered, as he raised his blade to strike.

  Terrified, Jukes pointed and pulled the trigger - and nothing happened. Realising this, Fifi cackled victoriously and swung his blade. With a shriek, Jukes ducked and ran, fidgeting frantically with the snaphaunce and trying to avoid being hacked in two as Fifi chased him around the clearing.

  "It won't fire! The vexy thing won't fire!" he wailed as he sprinted and scampered and pranced about, and in his distraction he failed to take note of the shovel lying on the ground. With a yelp, he tripped right over it and went sprawling face-first onto the dirty snow.

  Jack and Cookson looked on in dread as Fifi advanced on Jukes like a siege engine over a sand castle. Seeing the shadow of the giant descending over him, the little cobweb tatted brigand shrank down in sudden submission, certain that this was the end. It was then that Jack, very gingerly, stepped in between them.

  "Now, lads," Jack said, arms out to separate the two. "We be mates 'ere, ain't we? 'Sides..." He turned to Fifi conspiratorially, "...y'know Bill. Always be given full sail to 'is gob whilst 'is brain's laid up in port." He smiled and cocked his head, "C'mon, then, Fifi. 'Bout ship... 'Nother day, eh?"

  Fifi took a moment to scowl at Jack. A most impressive scowl of considered and contained rage. Then, slowly, he glanced past him to the cowering Jukes, narrowing his gaze as if refocusing the sights on a Gatling gun. After a moment, he snorted. "Not worf dullin' me blade on." And scornfully, he slipped the weapon back into his sash.

  "Nay, I'm not! I'm really not!" Jukes affirmed enthusiastically.

  Jack just gazed down at him and shook his head. "Ye don't get back to startin' that fire, ye'll be worth dullin' me blade on."

  "Aye-aye, Jack!" Bill replied, scrambling awkwardly to his feet. "Don' ye worry none. I be gettin' 'at fire a'roarin' up in no time. Ye wait an' see. Jus' like that!"

  And just like that, the pistol went off, sending a single searing shot right into the side of the bailing bucket, which instantly exploded in a ball of smoke and flame. The men were thrown backward by the blast as scalding chips of wood rocketed out in all directions and missed impaling them by hairsbreadths.

  After a moment, Cookson dared to look up to survey the mess. "Well, s-so much fer da powder."

  "Fire!" Jack shouted, pointing to the bucket bits still burning on the ground.

  With a start, Cookson began patting out the one closest to him.

  "No! Don' put it out, ye feather-headed ninny! It's fire! Fer the... fire!!!" Flustered, Jack pointed to the burning wood and then to their stack of decidedly not-burning material still sitting in a cold, useless heap.

  Realisation dawning upon them, the men all leapt to their feet and began gathering up the still-smouldering shards. The air was graced with little "Ow's" and "Oooh's" and "Eeee's" and "Yaahh's" and assorted colourful unprintables as their fingers came a bit too close to flame. Juggling hand-to-hand, they eventually managed to get enough of the pieces into the wood pile to get the bonfire going, fanning the flames and blowing on the embers, just to give it encouragement.

  "Dere!" Jukes proudly announced, when the fire was at last roaring away cheerfully. "I tol' ye I'd get the campfire started!"

  Some time later, after the warmth of the flames had driven away the worst of the chill and most all the sogginess from their clothes, the four exiles found themselves embroiled in an impassioned conversation about a topic always near and dear to any pirate's heart, however nonsensical and pointless circumstances may have currently rendered it: Treasure - and how one finds it.

  "I tell ye, they be all o'er the isle!" said Jack, with an illustrative sweep of his arms. "Dozens o' 'em! Maybe hundreds!"

  "Hun'reds?!" cooed Jukes in a dreamy echo, his eyes near blind with the honey glaze of sweet avarice. "Oooh, hun'reds o' treasure chests jus' waitin' ta be dug up! T'ousands o' doubloons! Endless strands o' pearls! Gem stones big as walnuts all callin' out our names...!"

  "An' we might as well be deaf," sneered Fifi. "For de Cap'n be gone an' we got no scrap o' map 'twixt us."

  Fifi was a master at bringing a mood down and this last contribution to the general discourse was no exception. A pall fell over the group for a moment or so, before Jukes suddenly sprang back to life again, apparently invigorated by something akin to an idea.

  "I know!" he said, with a painfully clichéd snap of his fingers. "The maps must be on the ship. Cap'n's cabin, most like. We could wait 'till the brats come back, sneak aboard in the dark o' night an' ccccchhhhhkkkkkk!!!!!!" He gurgled grotesquely, drawing his hand knife-like across his throat.

  Fifi and Cookson nodded approvingly and joined with Jukes in a good chuckle over that. But Jack regarded them with an arched... well, it would have been a brow, had he any hair there. "Oh, aye. That's a grand plan. The devil whelp an' 'is lot almost done us all in last time. An' 'at was when the Cap'n was 'ere and the whole rest o' the crew besides. What chance ye think we got, now it be just us alone?"

  "Well, t'ain't fair!" Jukes protested. "Bad enough they got the 'Roger! What the stupid squirts want wif all our treasure, too, eh? All them maps aboard rightly belong to the crew and 'at be us..." he paused abruptly to count, "four."

  "Dere be no maps," Cookson drawled, bringing the other three to a stunned stop. "Not to any of 'em. Da Cap'n kept da spots alllllll up 'ere." Smiling, he proceeded to rap a knotty finger at his temple to emphasize his meaning.

  "'Ow d' ye know?" asked Jukes, suspiciously.

  "I kep' a rekerd. 'At's how." Cookson replied, then took off his battered excuse for a bicorn hat and proceeded to root around inside it, opening up the inner band and pulling out a filthy wad of papers - that is to say, some actual paper, some bits of parchment and some ends of rags - all heavily scrawled on in blotchy, childlike script. Squinting in the flickering firelight, he thumbed through the "pages" and at last found what he was looking for.

  "'Ere!" he said, with a triumphant smile. "It says..."

  "Ye can read n' write?" Jukes interrupted. "Where in spotty blazes did'ja pick up 'at?!"

  "'Ow do I know?! Same place ye picked up all 'em! " he spat back in annoyance, pointing to Bill's tattoos. "Ye fink I has me a better route down mem'ry lane n' thee? Why else would I makes me dese scribbles n' keep 'em under me lid?"

  It was true and Jukes knew it. There was not a man amongst them who stood immune from the curse of Neverland. Not one who could remember a thing in their lives beyond a year or two at the utmost. They retained skills, of course. Particularly those they used frequently. Though, every once in a while, an odd, unexplained ability would suddenly rear up out of the blue. And on occasion, a sight or sound, a smell or taste or touch would conjure up a random, disconnected memory, usually gone as quickly as it would appear, leaving the reminisceur with a strange feeling of loss and a taste of ashes. And beyond that there was nothing. A great void. Entire lifetimes like empty attic boxes veiled in cobwebs and dust.

  A hack and a spit cut through Jukes's and Cookson's confrontation. "Pox on where he picked it up!" Fifi growled, wiping his mouth with the back of his left hand, "I wanna know what it say!"

  "G'on, Cookson," said Albino Jack, cocking his head in affirmation.

  With a smirk at Jukes, Cookson gave a ludicrously self-important little shrug to straighten out his rag of a waistcoat, briefly setting a-jingle its forest of talismanic crosses, and turned his attention back to his papers. It took him a moment to focus his chicken scratchings the correct distance from his big, bleary eyes and once he did, he cleared his throat in grand oratorical style.

  "We... berryd... it. Cappin gat... angree... agin... Berryd... Won Iyd Dik an Spannysh Bobb wif it."

  This was cause for great hilarity indeed amongst the four pirates and Cookson's narration was deferred for a hearty laugh. Not one of them could remember the incident in the slightest, of course, nor either of their two slaughtered comrades. But, then, that likely added to the humour of the moment. Ah, yes... good times!

  "No... mappe... agin." Cookson went on at last, "Wye... no mappe?... Wont bak too shippe... Dubbyl rayshuns... o rum... awll...rownd... Gat... well... be'slubberd."

  Cookson paused for a moment, then folded up the paper, stuffed it back in his hat and looked up at his companions, clearly finished. The others looked back at him for a stunned moment before Jukes exploded again.

  "'At's it?! Ye bilge brained moron! If'n ye could write that, why'd ye not write where the treasure be buried?! We'd 'ave the riches in our grasp!"

  "An' if I were caught an' me papers discovered?" Cookson whined, "E'en dis were dangerous. But, if da Cap'n t'ought I 'ad a map or any udder way to da treasures, he'd a' filet-ed me fer sure!"

  "It makes no sense! I can't fathom it!" Jack paced about the fire, one hand perched on his waist, the other rubbing the back of his head. "If there be no map at all to any of the treasures, how was the Cap'n plannin' to recover 'em? E'en he - " With a sharp intake of breath, Jack stopped himself and froze. Glancing about as if expecting to be pounced upon at the slightest false move, he dropped his voice down to a whisper, "E'en he... couldn't remember everything."

  A moment's silence followed this, before Fifi spoke up. His deep voice a well of solemnity, "Aye, 'tis true. That great brain o' his... t'weren't perfect."

  The men nodded furtively and grunted in agreement. Their circumspection, while perhaps excessive, was not without genesis. Turn the clock back but a few hours that same day and any one of them could have been gutted for so much as suggesting this. For, although they knew the Captain could recall things far better than any of them, he too, had his limits; limits he had no intention of acknowledging or suffering revelation of. Questions regarding the past were strictly forbidden. Even in those rare moments when Hook would wax nostalgic out loud, one didn't pursue his musings with a follow-up query. Not if one cared to live long enough to hear another reverie.

  Still, questions there were. They persisted and gnawed like worms in a wound. The great mystery of how they all had come to Neverland in the first place weighed particularly heavily on each man's mind. None could recall even the slightest hint of it any longer. Yet, any tar foolish enough to ask this of the Captain quickly found it to be the very last thing he would ever ask of anyone.

  "E'en so..." Jack began again, after some consideration. "He could'a made a map i' secret later on."

  "Jack's right," averred Jukes. "he could'a done it. The Cap'n was smart 'at way, he was. Sharp as the point of 'is claw."

  Cookson nodded. "'He be a clever one, da Cap'n... Was a clever one," he corrected himself, with a bit of an emotional catch in his voice.

  "Aye, that be true enough," said Jack. Then putting a hand to his heart, he proclaimed to his fellows, "A mastermind went down to Davy Jones this day, me boys. A loss fer bad'uns everywhere." So saying, he doffed his hat in tribute to their fallen commander and the others instantly followed suit.

  Even at this moment of brigandish sacrament, it didn't take Jukes long to get fidgety. "Are ye sure..." he stammered into the silence, his wide, blue eyes cast up to Jack's eerie pink ones. "Really sure the Cap'n's a goner?"

  Jack tried his best to suppress the "not this again" expression that was threatening to bloom upon his pasty features. "I'm tellin' ye, I sawr 'im go down," he replied, as evenly as he could.

  "Aye, we bofe did," agreed Cookson. "An' such a sight I 'oped ne'er to see."

  "Tragic it was," Jack continued, as the others stood in rapt attention. "Straightaway he went, from topsail-heights one moment, soarin' proud like a eagle, to the belly o' the beast the next."

  "Tragic..." Cookson shook his head and wiped a bitter tear.

  "But, I tells ye, lads," said Jack, propping one foot upon a rock and leaning forward, his voice gaining strength and passion. "He went like a true corsair, the Cap'n did! Never let the brats best 'im, ye can lay to that. At the last, he folded his arms 'cross 'is breast, makin' peace with 'is cremator, an' head held high, dropped proud an' defiant-like down into the monster's maw!"

  "An 'den 'e were gone." Cookson finished, wretchedly.

  "Gone..." Jack echoed. Then his face screwed up in a grimace of pure loathing. "An' the Pan lives." The name escaped from his lips with little difference from a spit.

  "So, we be stuck on this floatin' patch o' hell ferever!" Jukes wailed, suddenly beside himself with the dawning realisation of just how bad things really were.

  "Not forever." Fifi intoned slowly, and waited until all had turned to look at him. "Only 'till we die."

  The four survivors sat in silence for quite a while after that, hovering close to the fire, shivering in the growing cold. Each lost in his own, private thoughts - or whatever passed for that sort of thing. Finally, Jukes - as it would have to be Jukes, since he was incapable of remaining either quiet or still for any real length of time - spoke up.

  "Anybody seen Mr. Smee?" he asked casually, as if they'd all just met for tea and cake in the clearing. Six puzzled eyes just stared at him. He shifted uncomfortably, but went on, "I, I don' recall seein' 'im on the pointy end of a frog-sticker a'fore we all's got scuppered... is all."

  "I did," said Fifi. "Not run froo. But, cast o'erboard by one a' them dirty sprouts."

  Jack snorted. "If we ain't come upon him by now, I'd wager it's because he ended up an appetizer for the crocs."

  "Poor Mr. Smee," Jukes tutted. "Always was a pitiful sort."

  "Still..." Cookson shrugged. "One less to share da treasure wit'."

  He gave a wink and the lot of them burst into peals of laughter, clapping their hands and slapping each other on the back. It was all quite creepily convivial, until Jukes slapped Cookson a little too hard and spat, "If we e'er find it!"

  Cookson leapt up and spun on Jukes, pulling his knife out of his belt, "If ye e'er lay hand on me agin, so 'elp me, bucko...!"

  "Ye'll wot? Wot?! Write a note 'bout it and put it in yer hat?!"

  "That's enough!" Jack bellowed, trying to get between the two without risking getting sliced, himself.

  "'Ow'd ye likes me to take me blade n' tattoo me next note right on yer arse?!"

  Pistols drawn, Jukes glared up at his gangly opponent, "Well, I gots a lil' message o' me own fer ye, Cookson, an' I don' need no quill n' ink to get it through yer head!"

  The shouting match was off and running and escalating quickly. Fifi wasn't about to be left sitting, twiddling his thumbs, with pistols and knives drawn all around him. So, he was soon up and snarling with blunderbuss raised and at the ready. And Jack's screaming for order was only adding to the general cacophony. It all looked to be heading for another thinning of the crew, when suddenly a noise came out of the forest, freezing the men in their tracks.

  "Wot's 'at?" Jukes hissed, his eyes darting around madly.

  Pausing only a moment to look at each other, the pirates spun about, positioning themselves in a circle around the campfire, weapons facing outward into the darkness. Tensed and ready in the attitude of attack, they still couldn't conceal that they were all utterly terrified.

  "I don' like this, Jack," Jukes whinged, as he slowly paced his way around the circle, pistols in his outstretched hands. "I tol' ye we should'a camped on the beach. There's redskins still about. Also, the woods is full o' spirits... an' not just fairies, neither. Nasty things. Ghosts an' ghoulies..."

  "Oh, don' be a fool. There ain't no ghosts in these woods. An' we be the nastiest things on this island by far."

  Fifi cast Jack a disapproving glance, "That's... not 'zac'ly true."

  "Nay," continued Jukes. "Not by a long ways. Don'cher remember Skinless Mac?"

  Jack rolled his eyes and hissed with disgust, "I remember the story everyone tells. I don' remember him... and ye don' neither."

  Jukes was on a roll and unperturbed, "The Eilawisp got 'im. Lured 'im in with their witchy song an' then drained 'im dry an' left 'im like a bearded strip o' jerked beef."

  "Ye don' put a cork innit, Bill, I'll be makin' jerked beef out'a thee!"

  A snap and a brief, but disturbing sound, like some sort of cry rent the air.

  "There 'tis, again!" Cookson breathed.

  "Ye think it be savages?" asked Fifi, his fingers nervously twitching against the triggers of his blunderbuss and flintlock.

  "More like than ghosts," answered Jack, with strained calm.

  "Ye... ye know any words o' savage?... Anyone?... Anyone?" queried Jukes.

  "That was Mr. Smee's job, 'at was," Fifi replied.

  "Poor Mr. Smee," added Cookson.

  "Poor us," whimpered Jukes.

  Once more, the woods descended into silence. Even the usual mad symphony of insects had been rendered mute, deadened by the frost. Then, a rustling in the trees and a wild, crazed screech tore through both the calm and the last of the men's nerves. Without another hesitation, they all opened fire and began shooting hysterically into the darkness with all they had - which wasn't much, carrying only single-shot guns and having only the ammunition already loaded in them. But, it proved to be more than enough. Weapons spent, they stared into the blackness and the slowly clearing smoke and after a moment, their dread adversary fell from the branches to the ground before their feet.

  "It's Cap'n Flint!" Cookson yelped, looking in surprise at the ship's parrot. (or rather, what was left of him) "Well,... was."

  "Sweet bleedin' Jesus!" Jack howled. "We just used up all our lead shot on that miserable flyin' rat?!"

  "Oh, noooo," Jukes murmured, gazing down at the mangled lump of scarlet feathers and its peculiar little skyward-pointing peg leg. "Oh, no, no, no, no, no..."

  "'Ere, don' be goin' crazy, Bill," Fifi said, placidly. "There be caches elsewhere. We can get to 'em when day breaks."

  "'At's not it," Jukes cried. "Don'cher unnerstand? We killed Cap'n Flint!"

  "'Bout time, too," spat Jack. "Who the blazes didn't want the lil' buzzard dead, save the Cap'n?"

  "'At's it! He be the Cap'n's bird!"

  "So?"

  "So... Don'cher know no savage lore? They say the spirits o' the dead go into things like birds an' wotnot. Wot if the spirit o' the Cap'n went into 'is bird?"

  Jack stared at Jukes a moment, truly wondering if he should just kill him or not. "That's daft," he snarled, finally.

  "Wot if'n that's why he come to us like he did? Eh? An' we blasted 'im! Wot ye think 'is spirit'll do now... all homeless an' wantin' revenge?"

  "But, it were a accident!" Cookson stammered, "A mistake o' identity!"

  "Oh, aye. De Cap'n's always been an unnerstandin' one 'at way." Fifi drawled.

  "Ye beetle-headed clapwits!" Jack exploded, hardly able to believe where this was going. "This ain't the Cap'n! It be a stupid, worthless... ex-parrot!" For emphasis, he skewered the little carcass on the end of his sword and waved it in his compatriot's horrified faces, sending bits of fluff and feather dancing in the air. "It's a bleedin' squab! Not a pretend o' doom! An' there ain't enough o' it to come back as a case o' indigestion, much less an avengin' spirit!"

  Crack.

  The men nearly snapped their own necks turning to the sound in the dark. Rooted in their places, they listened.

  Crack, crackle, crunch...

  Eyes widening, mouths agape, they realised the sound was deliberate... and coming toward them.

  Crunch, crumple, snick...

  "Wot was tha' ye said about no avengin' spirit?" Jukes whispered, in a rising panic.

  Jack didn't answer, he just stared in the direction of the approaching noise, his still-laden cutlass held out before him. The other men, realising their spent firearms were now useless, dropped them instantly and pulled out their own blades. They hauled in close, shoulder-to-shoulder as the sound drew nearer and nearer, louder and louder. Jukes was visibly trembling and Cookson was near to tears. Fifi stood his ground, but kept nervously twirling his scimitars in circles, an oriental trick he usually did for its intimidation value, but now was just doing to keep from being intimidated. Even Jack, who'd have considered himself a pragmatist if he only knew what it meant, was almost dizzy with a fight-or-flight adrenaline buzz that was quickly reaching the limits of intolerable.

  At last, unable to stand the suspense, Jack called out in a strangled voice, "Who goes there, friend or foe?!"

  The sounds stopped... The pirates' hearts nearly did along with it.

  "Be ye man or spirit," Jack went on, after a nervous pause, "Make yerself known."

  "Jack!" Jukes hissed, Wot ye just do?! Ye just invited it in! Ye never ask a spirit in!"

  "I did not! I just asked it to let us know who it was, 'at's all! 'Sides, what 'in'? We're out in the woods, ye pea brain!"

  It was at that precise moment an icy wind blew right through the clearing, whipping the men's pitiful threads about their bodies, chilling them to the bone and threatening to put out their fragile fire. It had nothing whatever to do with the sound in the woods, of course. Pure coincidence. But, they didn't know that. And nothing on earth could ever have convinced them of it once they turned back to the spot they last heard the noise coming from and were met with the sight that would haunt their nightmares for ages to come.

  "Caaaaap'n!" Cookson breathed, his eyes wide with horror.

  For indeed, the vision that greeted him and his mates was not a comely one. Standing at the clearing's edge, lit from below by the campfire's faltering flames like Satan rising from hell, was Captain James Hook. Not primped and fluffed and dripping with finery as they were used to seeing him. But, filthy and ragged and deathly blue - and covered in a great, white shroud.

  "C-c-c-can't be!" stammered Jack. "Y-ye be dead!" He pointed at Hook with his parrot-skewered sword when he said this and, suddenly realising his potentially fatal faux pas, frantically tossed the weapon away over his shoulder. 'Cutlass? What cutlass?'

  Hook took a step forward and, as if choreographed by Nijinsky, his men took a collective step back. As he moved, little shards of ice splintered off of him in a way that "disconcerting" could not begin to describe.

  Another step forward, another group step back. Swords pointed, hands trembling.

  "Dead? Dead?! I'll show thee how dead I am when I get my claw in your worthless bellies! Now, help me to the fire before I freeze solid, ye maggot-witted scugs!"

  That was what Hook wanted to say. What he tried his very best to say. But what he was far too cold to actually even begin to enunciate. Instead, what issued from his cracked and purplish lips was a long, low, utterly terrifying and much to his credit, impressively loud moan.

  That was it.

  Screaming in a mad frenzy, the crewmen turned tail. The sight of their "late" Captain's raised talon and the keening wail of his sub-verbal rant broke what little courage and resolve they had left in them.

  "Run! Run fer ye lives! Da spirit be after us!!!"

  That was Cookson. But, it could have been any of them, for they were all shrieking wildly. In fact, they were racing to get away with such abandon that they were falling all over each other and kicking dirt and snow into the campfire as they ran. By the time they had cleared off and Hook had finally managed to stagger forward and collapse by the fire's edge, the flames were almost gone to embers. He reached his shivering hand out to the weak glow, his numbed fingers searching for precious warmth and, realising his quest was in vain, buried his head in anguish.

  "Damn," he hissed, and tightly pulled his "shroud" (actually a canvas boat cover from one of the 'Roger's dinghies he'd found frozen in place by the shore) around his shoulders and curled himself into a foetal ball. He pondered the notion that his men thought him a ghost and, realising that he was almost certain to become one soon, wondered just what would be involved in returning as a malevolent spectre, as there were quite a number of deserving people he would very much like to haunt.

  The wind whipped up again in merciless fashion, slicing through Hook like a hundred thousand icy razors. The tarp did virtually nothing to help, since his clothes were wet and frosty underneath and so he cringed in an agony of gradual glaciation. "Devil take me," he sighed with bitter resignation. "...anywhere warm."

  With that, he curled up as much as he could against the chill and deliberately tried to let the mercy of sleep claim him.

  So very many windowpanes, all fogged and frosted over... And it was warm; oh, so very wonderfully warm. He didn't even mind the darkness; it wasn't entirely stygian, after all. There was a bit of light, soft and amber, rising and falling with that curious noise: That low, slow double beat.

  And she was there, he could tell. She was lovely. But then, wasn't she always?... Oh, all right, maybe not. She could be a bloody annoyance at times, actually; an absolute maddening pain. Yet, most of the time, he couldn't imagine being without her. And how good of her to come now, when he'd always been so afraid he'd be all alone.

  The air was becoming hot and heavy and redolent with the sweet scent of oranges. He wished he could taste them. He wished he could see them. But, all he could see were endless windows streaked with dying universes looming in the dimming light.

  The beating slowed and the light pulsed and faded. Universes coursed into oblivion all around him and he began to feel himself drifting beyond any wishing...

  Another beat, and the light dimmed and narrowed to a point. One that seemed to beckon to him and call out to him by a name unheard and thought forgotten an impossibly long time ago...

  Another beat...

  Another...

  ...beat...

  ......another......

  .........beat.........

  ............another............

  ................................................

  Searing pain; blinding, white-hot, shocking. A lightening bolt of pure, mystic sustenance tore mercilessly through his ice-deadened body, ripping him away from the little amber light and all the blessed peace it had been promising him. He heard and felt the beating start up anew; erratic, struggling and painfully loud.

  Beat...

  Other windows - schoolroom windows - streaked with ordinary rain, vibrated with the sounds of shadows talking.

  "My son's an uncommon clever boy. I want him provided only the best."

  "May I remind you, milord, this is Eton."

  Beat...

  A flash of steel and searing agony, and stained glass windows dappled blood-drenched sheets in a display of gaudy color.

  "Look what he did to me, Smee!!! I swear to thee, I shall kill the demon spawn for this! I shall destroy him even if I do so with my very last breath!"

  Beat... beat...

  The windows of a ship's lantern carried ashore glowed softly in the dark of night. Trying to heal one wound only opened up another. For, in Queen Mab's Glade, the boy was literally dancing on air with his new companion.

  "Oh, evil day... He has found himself a... Wendy?... And Hook is all alone."

  Beat, beat...

  The slanted windows of a ship's cabin. A captain's cabin. And there before them, the captain stood: massive, unkempt, with long, curling locks of fire-red hair and hypnotic eyes as green as the Caspian Sea and...

"C'mon, join me, boy. We be better off the both o' us as allies than as enemies. 'Sides, when ye get down to't, we jus' be two sides o' the same coin, ye and I."

  Beat, beat...

  All windows gone... along with walls, ceiling, floor. And death, with snapping jaws and gnashing teeth awaited below. They all stood on the deck, jeering. Even she, who had such pretense of a heart, mouthed the cruel decree of his damnation, "Old, alone..."

  "Done for."

  Snap!

  Beat, beat... beat, beat... beat, beat... beat, beat...

  She was hovering in the air right in front of him with a terribly concerned expression on her face; her fragile, translucent wings fluttering madly. He stared at her unblinking, wondering if this was just another dream. If it was, he realised, it was a damnably cold one. He inhaled raggedly, allowing a torrent of freezing needles to come racing down into his lungs, then exhaled again, briefly obscuring her from view with the cloud of his breath. Oddly enough, this simple action absolutely delighted the tiny creature and, with a rapturous smile, she spun into the air chiming a series of bell-like noises.

  From his awkward position rigidly curled up on the forest floor, Hook watched the little fairy flit about in an aerial ecstasy of self-congratulation, clearly quite taken with herself for having achieved a feat of some difficulty and importance. Her capering didn't last long, though, and she was soon drifting back down before him, glowing and casting off fairy dust like some strange petal-covered firework. She smiled at him in a manner that suggested anticipation. But, after a few moments of seeing him do nothing save shiver at her, she cocked her head, furrowed her brow and vented a chirp of annoyance.

  "Well, come on! You're alive again! Get up, you lazy thing!" she said, if Hook understood her rightly. And he did, being as well-versed in Fayese as any of the fay, themselves. Mind you, he couldn't actually speak the language. No human had the vocal chords for that, Pan included. But, his comprehension, even of the odd and arcane court argot, was as complete and perfect as it was mysterious. At present, however, he was entirely incapable of replying in any language, as his jaws were frozen stiff and he could no longer feel his own tongue. Alive he might be, but only just.

  She pouted. Here, she'd gone to the great fuss and bother of bringing him back to life and he was just going to lie there and be difficult. Then an idea occurred to her and, very slowly, very carefully, she fluttered close to the prone Captain, reached out and touched her tiny hand to his lips. Like a lighted match upon a pool of oil, he felt the sudden shock of heat ignite and spread in a flash across his face. It chased back the frost, bringing colour and warmth into his flesh and he suddenly realised he could speak again.

  Tilting his head as best he could, he cast his gaze upward at his diminutive deliverer, his glistening azure eyes filled with meaning and said, "Well, don't just flitter at me! I'm frozen solid, ye blasted phosphorescent imbecile! Do something!!!"

  And she did. A look of stunned revulsion was followed by a very unladylike gesture and a spree of Fayese invective, the precise meaning of which no one would require any mystic fluency to understand. Finishing with a toss of her wild mop of red-gold curls, she went sailing off, back toward the woods, her trail of dust shimmering behind her.

  This was not the reaction Hook had intended to get and it sent him into an immediate panic. The creature, vexing as she was, was his lifeline; if she left, he strongly doubted there would be anyone else just happening along to save him again. He'd already cheated death three times in one day and was, according to all known lore, at the maximum legal limit for these things. (Barring feline parentage, which he was reasonably certain he did not possess.) But, he was nothing if not a clever and adaptive fellow. So, if the sprite would not respond to threats and curses like one of his crew, he'd simply take a different tack.

  "No! No, wait!" he cried out to her as she flew up and away. "Don't go!... Please!" She halted her progress at that and hovered, wavering in the air, still quite annoyed.

  "Dear, sweet lady..." he went on, his voice aching with beguilement. "Wondrous nymph... That was unspeakable rude of me-"

  She whirled on him, interrupting with a few choice chimes.

  "And ungrateful, yes. Most ungrateful." Hook agreed, looking quite chastened. "After all you've done for me, I really ought to be ashamed. I, who lie here so entirely at your mercy."

  This brought her fluttering back to him. She wasn't completely won over, mind you. But, he was trying. And there was something about knowing how vulnerable he was without her...

  His face lit up with a smile at her return. It was a cat-that-ate-the-canary smile. But a smile. "Ahhh, that's better. Why don't we begin afresh, shall we? Start with proper introductions? I am James-".

  Again, she interrupted and pointed curtly toward his chest. Shifting his head slightly, Hook could see his tell-tale claw poking out from the folds of the tarp he'd wrapped around himself.

  "Ah... Of course you do. Well, the list of disadvantages you have me at appear to be growing." She looked at him puzzled. "You've yet to favor me with your name, m'lady."

  She regarded him for a moment with a curious expression. Hook wasn't quite sure what to make of it. He'd heard that some fairies were disinclined to tell their names to mortals. Clearly, it was yet another sign of the perversity of fay nature that it was easier to raise a man from the edge of mortality than regale him with a moniker. At last, she cast her head down to the side somewhat shyly and made a soft, trilling noise as she curtsied mid-flight.

  "S p i n n e r s o n g." Hook purred, letting each syllable play upon his tongue like a fine wine at a first tasting. "How lovely! And so unusual!" The former statement was a matter of opinion; the latter was a bald-faced lie, as even Hook knew 'Spinnersong' was something like the fairy equivalent of 'Jane Smith'.

  "Though, I hope you'll forgive me. My poor mortal voice cannot do justice to't."

  She peeped in gentle protest to that.

  "Oh, you're too kind," he returned. Then winced in pain from the awful, cramping chill and with a clenched smile, finished, "Truly."

  Without realising it, she had allowed herself to float quite close to him again. He noticed this and dropped his voice to a near whisper, which only drew her in closer still.

  "And kindness like yours is something I see so little of... especially lately," he sighed pointedly and Spinnersong nodded her complete understanding. "There are few things so merciless as the cruelty of youth. But you!" he breathed, suddenly surfacing from his well of self-pity. "Ah, sweet enchantress! To see such tenderness, talent and beauty mingling in a single, luminous point of perfection, 'tis a joy to give a poor pirate hope in the world again. Why, 'tis almost more than a wretched fellow like m'self can bear!"

  Spinner knew perfectly well that she was being plied with empty flattery. He'd say anything to keep her here to help him. But it didn't matter. He said such pretty things. And his voice was so hypnotically lovely to listen to; so deep and melodious; so sweet and dangerous. As close as she was to him, she could feel the waves of sound vibrating through her, causing her wings to tremble. A delicious sensation. She didn't really care what he said, so long as he didn't stop.

  But, Hook was tiring of this game quickly. Never a man of great patience, even in the best of circumstances, his nerves were once more beginning to splinter and snap under the combined torments of an ice-pinioned body and an oblivious, vain ninny of a nymphet.

  "If you would only..." he ventured, at last. But Spinner wasn't even looking at him. She had her eyes closed as she basked happily in the sensation of being a living harp string. "If you could but..." he tried again, uselessly. And that was when the last of his patience detonated, sending off a spectacular display of vitriolic debris.

  "S'teeth and odds fish, ye shimmering she-louse!!! Will ye look at me??!!" he howled at the staggered and terrified fairy. "I'm frigid as an embalmed abbess, ye wretched insect!!! Unfreeze me at once or I'll...!!"

  Spinner didn't wait to see what the enraged Captain would do. Instead, she winged away from him as fast and as frantically as she could manage.

  Once again, rage gave way to alarm and Hook called after her desperately, "Oh, no! No! No, I'm not going to hurt you, blast it! I just want you to - ! Gaaaaaggghh...!"

  It was finally all too much and he could do nought but wail in misery and frustration, "To what purpose was this mischief, lady?! A fairy sport? A cursed game? Did you bring me back only to torture me for your precious Pan?!"

  At this, Spinnersong whirled around and looked at Hook with an expression so utterly, piteously stricken that it stunned the pirate into silence. Without another instant's hesitation, she swooped back toward him, her glow increasing and turning brilliant white just as she touched her hands to his forehead. Hook gasped as the shock seared through his body like flame across flash paper. An inferno was unleashed within him, blazing through his veins, scorching his flesh, transforming frozen hell into holocaust and he convulsed and felt consumed. Then, just as suddenly, the burning heat calmed to a splendid warmth, melting the murderous ice that held him. Almost involuntarily, he threw the tarp back, his eyes locked onto hers as he lay upon the ground, feeling her magic work its way through his body. Blood flowed, joints cracked, sinew stretched and a form that should have been a corpse grew radiant with borrowed life.

  He sprawled thus in a tangle of boat canvas and sopping, wrecked raiments, panting and staring at Spinner. She was now hovering well out of reach, her fingertips pressed worriedly to her lips as she returned his gaze.

  "Well," he said, at last. "...took you long enough."

  With that, he began the achy, awful, miserable business of pulling himself back up to his feet - which he realised, to his extreme chagrin, he still couldn't actually feel. He tried very, very hard not to think about that as he struggled to right himself. Whatever Spinner had done had improved his condition immensely, but the damage to his body was considerable and he was very far from healed.

  Venting a series of grunts and groans and even a few, small and surreptitious whimpery noises, Hook tried over and over to get his legs under him; yet his efforts only ended in useless flailing. With trepidation, Spinner wafted her way over to him again. She started a moment when he looked up at her, but he didn't yell this time, nor did he make any threatening moves. In fact, he stopped what he was doing entirely and just watched her as she fluttered down and gently touched his knees, one after the other. He closed his eyes and arched his head back in silent relief as cold and pain receded and he heard her chime at him questioningly.

  "Aye, better," he sighed.

  A few moments later he was aright. His legs shaky and painful, much like all the rest of him, but holding steady all the same. Stiffly, he pulled the boat cover up from the ground, shook out the snow and drew it back around himself so that he looked like a very lost desert sheik. Then he looked about at the various weapons and other sundries his former crew had left scattered on the ground in their haste to depart his company.

  "Idiots..." he muttered, as he wandered about the leavings, then noticed one in particular and picked it up for closer inspection.

  "Dogs!" he spat in pouty contempt as he glared at the cutlass-skewered carcass of Capt. Flint. Appalled and enraged, but lacking any suitable victim to vent it on, he merely stared, shaking his head bitterly. Then, using his hook, he pried the little corpse off the blade and flicked it onto the ground with a hissing sigh. He took a moment to compose himself, then once again set about looking through the remains of the campsite, picking up guns, checking for shot, discarding them upon finding them empty.

  Spinnersong had been observing all of this with interest and a degree of concern and finally began chiming at Hook, as she followed him about his wavery perambulations.

  "What?" he grunted, without looking up. Spinner repeated herself. "No, I mean not to tarry long here." Hook found a strip of canvas on the ground. It was burnt and ragged, but it would do for his purposes and he picked it up and proceeded to wind it 'round and 'round his waist. An interesting manoeuvre accomplished with hand, hook and teeth. Meanwhile, Spinner was flittering about him, nattering on and on.

  "Why do you care where I'm going?" Hook demanded at last, punctuating his question with a viciously tightly tied knot. "Why do you care about me at all?"

  If Spinner answered the question, Hook couldn't make any sense of it. What he did get out of her sudden outburst and mad gesticulations was that she wanted him to follow her.

  "That where? Why?"

  She peeped. The answer didn't impress.

  "Ahhh, and I should trust you, of course, because you are my guardian angel, yes?" he purred as he slipped his cadged cutlass into his make-shift sash. She flew back toward him all smiles and nods.

  "Yet,..." he went on, "this could be but some elaborate game of 'Torture The Hook'. After all, I'm evil. Why not?" Spinner gasped, genuinely shocked. "No?" the Captain queried. And as Spinner shook her head in furious negation, he grabbed her right out of the air and held her fast. Not so tightly as to hurt her, but certainly enough to prevent her escape. He then put his talon to his lips and shushed her before her whimpers could escalate into piercing squeaks of fear.

  "If I follow as you ask," he said, his voice entirely soothing and calm, "and it turns out this is just a perverse fairy trick, there are six little words that will bring it all to a halt. You know what they are." Eyes wide, Spinner nodded. "Betray me, even threaten to, and they shall be the last words you ever hear. You understand?" She nodded again and there was a pause before a small smile curled up one corner of Hook's lips. "There's a good girl," he said at length and released his hold.

  Spinner wasted no time removing herself from Hook's palm and indeed well out of reach. She did not attempt to actually flee, however, though she was fast enough to stand a good chance of being safely out of earshot by the time he'd have fully voiced the fatal phrase. Instead, she merely hovered a few feet away looking deeply offended as she made a grand show of primping her hair, stretching her wings and smoothing down the rumples in her delicate petal apparel. Finally, she put her hands on her hips and peeped impatiently at him.

  "Aye, coming..." Hook replied, as he reached down for the skein of rope and looped it over his right shoulder.

  Spinnersong peeped again, this time with a shrug of indifference and proceeded to wing off into the woods.

  "Oh, look!" Hook called out to no one in particular. "I'm all alone! Why, I must have been hallucinating these last several minutes! The rumors are true! There's no such thi-!"

  Two tiny hands smacked up against his mouth and held it shut with all their might. He barely even saw her approach. All he comprehended was a sudden, blinding flash of light speeding toward his face, followed by an impact and a hail of hysterical cheeping. At last she stopped and he regarded her with one raised eyebrow until she finally released her grip on his lips.

  "Shall we...?" he intoned.



  The forest was ominous in its silence. Whenever Peter left the Neverland, it was as if he drew the very life's breath out of it, leaving all as cold and still as a grave until he saw fit to return again. Such was the case at present. The only sounds disturbing the quiescence were the faint chimings and flutterings of Spinnersong as she flew fitfully through the arboreal gloom and the interesting assortment of noises Hook made as he trudged behind her. This last group included the repeated crunching of his boots in the snow, the snapping of twigs he stepped on and the groaning of branches he bent back and pushed past; also, his own grunts, moans, hisses, yelps and curses whenever he'd trip in the snow, get poked by twigs or miss a branch in the dark and whack into it.

  And then there were the leaves. When the seasons abruptly turned, many a deciduous tree had its foliage shrivel and die, yet stay resolutely upon its branches; or, at least, they did until Hook bumped into them. This seemed to signal the tree in question to suddenly dump an avalanche of little paper-like sheaves on his head, burying him almost entirely. This annoyance repeated itself no less than four times, the last because he lost his temper and deliberately attacked a poor, defenseless tree in sheer frustration. One could say it was only responding in botanical self-defense.

  It would not be terribly flattering to say that Spinnersong took a kind of guilty pleasure in observing Hook's series of mishaps. It would also not be inaccurate. She found his rages, so long as they weren't directed at her, to have a peculiar charm. His was the same vain fury she saw in very small, very spoilt children. So, listening to his outbursts or watching him in a flying fit entertained her enormously and reaffirmed her belief that the rather draining and difficult effort of bringing him back had been worth it.

  It seemed to Hook as though an eternity had passed since he and Spinner began their haul through the forest. In fact, the duration had only been slightly over three quarters of an hour. Something the Captain would have known if only he'd been the sort to wear and consult a pocket watch - Which he was not, for reasons having to do with the purely practical and the deeply, disturbingly psychological. Of course, his physical condition (which was frankly wretched) didn't help. Nor did his disposition, which on the merriest of days could hardly be described as a ray of golden sunshine. From his perspective, the long, meandering tramp through snow and dead brush was looking very like a miserable waste of time.

  "Hell-hounds and fleas! Is there an end to this?!" he wailed at Spinner as he slogged along. "I don't know why I agreed to follow you. I must've been out of my wits. Trust a fairy to know what they're doing? Where they're going? Hah! We're lost, aren't we?! I should've gone me own way. The straightaway. Now, I'm going to wander in circles for hours and freeze... again." He uttered this last word in a tone so mournful, Spinner couldn't help but feel a twinge of pity for him. It evaporated the instant he smacked into another branch and started cursing once more. But, it was genuine while it lasted.

  "Godolphin's dropsy! Enough!!!" he howled, holding his hand to his forehead and staggering from the jolt. "There's no point to this, is there?! You've no notion where you're going! You've led me a merry chase for the sport of it! And I told you, did I not?" he growled, darkly. "I warned you what would happen if you abused me thus."

   Desperate, Spinner alternately waved her hands before her and covered her pointed ears while chirruping a frantic glissando. All the while, she was fluttering backward as Hook pressed on, step by awful step.

  "There's... no... such... thiiiiiiiiaaahhhh...!!!!"

  Down he sank for several feet, stunned by the pure suddenness of it all. It took him a moment just to realise he was underwater. Then he realised something else, something vitally and wonderfully important: The water was warm - in fact, it was actually hot. He felt the healing, softly bubbling waters soothing his skin and easing the chill in his poor, abused muscles and, with a broad stroke of his arms, he pulled himself back to the surface.

  Slowly, almost regretfully, he emerged, and only so much as he needed to breathe. He opened his eyes, which glowed like two shards of arctic ice in the eerie reflected moonlight and looked about, trying to see what he could past the curling cattails of mist that rose up from the waters all around him. It was a deep pool, yet not terribly wide and sheltered on all sides by high, forested cliffs. Three waterfalls - only one of real size - fed into it and all, Hook noted, were still flowing freely.

  And there was no snow. Not a flake. The terrible freeze that held the rest of Neverland in thrall was absent from this haven. The towering, buttress rooted trees were festooned with their usual burden of vines, rather than frost and the ground was carpeted in giant ferns, palms, moss, mushrooms and a fantastic array of flowering plants. Some of the last were nocturnal species and their blooms laced the banks with an oblivious loveliness that bordered on the arrogant.

  This was where Spinner had intended to bring him all along; a fairy secret in the Neverland; a place where only they could go and survive the chill whenever Pan so thoughtlessly wandered off. She couldn't tell him exactly where she was taking him and he was certain he wasn't supposed to be here. What she risked in bringing him he couldn't imagine. But, then, he couldn't imagine why she was doing any of the things she'd done on his behalf.

  A soft, golden light fluttered down from the vine-wound canopy, trailing sparkles and trilling music. She stopped several feet above the pool, not wishing to get her wings soggy from the steam and regarded him with a vaguely bemused smile. This annoyed Hook no end and he lifted himself a bit higher in the water, tilted his head back, curled his lip and inspired a regal sniff of contempt. "Lady," he intoned. "D'you fancy it good form to interrupt a gentleman in his bath?"

  No sooner had he said that, than he heard a 'thwup!', like the unfurling of a sail on a tall mast and both he and Spinner looked upward just in time to see the boat canvas, which had been torn from him in the tumble, come loose from the hanging vines and fall straight down like a heavy coverlet on top of his head.

  Spinner had just enough time to zip out of its path, and as she observed the rectangle of heavy, paraffin-infused cloth floating on the water with an odd, head-shaped lump sticking up in the middle, she was certain she could hear from beneath it, a muffled, "Blast."



  In a lovely little rocky niche close by one of the smaller waterfalls, Hook rested. He lolled in the warm, bubbling water, blissfully shorn of his once-exquisite regalia, now little better than brocaded rags left drying on branches along the pool's bank. Stripped also was he of his harness: The torturous, mediæval device of brasswork and leather that held his claw in place. It lay upon the bank also, set there in the vain hope it would dry out before he would have to consign his twisted stump of a wrist to it again.

  He didn't want to think about that. For the moment, he didn't want to think about much of anything. If he did, he knew he'd go into a rage that would require a violent, screaming fit and he simply didn't have the energy for it. The only thing he felt inclined to do at present was lie back and ease his aching body.

  Letting his head drop indolently backward into the hot liquid, he sighed; his long, lush tangle of dark curls waving medusa-like around him in the current. He idly bent and stretched his lean, muscular limbs, feeling the pain recede by slow degrees and sent down a silent, thankful prayer to Lucifer that he hadn't lost any new part of them to the cold. Then, he let his mind go blank and his attention wander and wound up watching Spinnersong as she flitted around the flowering trees just over his head, apparently after the nectar in the blossoms.

  She really was a pretty creature, he decided. And charming, in her way, which was a vaguely annoying way. But, still... charming. And she was inscrutable, that was certain. What motivated the fay to do anything was a mystery. But Spinner, he was sure, must out-mystify them all. Not that he was an expert. The only fairy he'd ever been on semi-regular speaking terms with before was Pan's companion, Tinkerbell. Periodically, the boy would throw a tantrum and banish her from his company and she would retaliate in the time-honoured manner: Rushing to the adored one's worst enemy to cry and gossip and talk of revenge, then rushing right back to make up again the next morning, pretending as if nothing unusual had happened. Hook always liked Tinkerbell, even though (maybe even because) he knew the feeling wasn't mutual.

  A messy eater, he thought, as he observed Spinner lifting her head up from a large bloom, her face and fingers covered in pollen. It was made all the worse because the colours clashed with her attire, which was, itself, eccentric. Tinkerbell had always favored a classic look: Simple green leaves, a hint of petal for colour, a dash of grape vine. Spinner, on the other hand, was arrayed in loud pink and white petals of night blossoming nymphaea accented by wiry sprongs of blinding yellow naomi protea. She'd cinched in her waist with grape vine, then proceeded to go mad and twine it 'round her shoulders, her wrists and both her ankles. Topping it all was her curly red-gold hair, tied up and adorned with baby's breath - which on her tiny head, looked like giant, stag horn-sprouting chrysanthemums. All in all, it was a fashion that could charitably be described as 'avant garde', but was more likely described behind her back in the fairy court, as 'gauche'.

  It seemed to Hook that she looked tired. Her light was visibly wavering in brightness and he was sure her movements were becoming a bit slow and unsteady as she perched on a twisting vine. She was leaning further and further toward a long, cup-shaped flower with the intent of supping pollen or nectar or whatever nutrient that specimen boasted and simply dropped head and shoulders inside the bloom and fell asleep. Hook could not suppress a smile at that.

  "Ah, lady!" he sighed, gazing with eyes half-mast at her sleeping form. "'Tis a tiring business, isn't it, for such a small thing to bring the damned back to hell?"

  Hook almost turned away then, but it was fortunate that his attention held a bit longer because Spinner's purchase on the vine did not. Deep in sleep, she shifted to one side very slightly and went tumbling right down toward the hot, bubbling pool. The stunning sensation of impacting on something soft and wet woke her with a start and Spinner looked up to find herself once more in the Captain's palm. This time, he held her gently, fingers open, though slightly curved in an attitude of protection and he viewed her with an expression that seemed something like genuine concern.

  "Thou shouldst take greater care, my beauty," he remarked. "I've no magic to raise thee from the dead."

  Spinner shook her head to wring the sleep from it and a halo of dust flew out, then fell in a graceful shower around her. Hook felt the particles tingle and melt as they touched his skin and remembered what it felt like when he'd wrung the dust forcibly from Tinkerbell so he could finally battle Pan in his own element. He could still sense the shiver that ran through him as the happy thought of the boy's evisceration released him from gravity's chains. Yet, surely those could not have been the events of the previous afternoon? It already seemed like a lifetime ago.

  Looking up with a drowsy smile, Spinner peeped at the Captain.

  "Think nothing of it," he replied, casually. Then, after considering a moment, he added, "But if you're going to nap someplace, best to choose a where less suicidal. I dare say, you take greater care for me than you do for yourself." With that, he gingerly deposited her safely on a moss covered rock to his left.

  "Why you stay with me I cannot grasp. Why you've done any of this...?" his voice trailed off and he shook his head in bewilderment. "Wouldn't you be happier amongst your own?" he asked forthrightly. Then puzzled, "Speaking of which, where are 'your own', anyway? I've seen none but you since I hacked my way out of the beast."

  Spinner lowered her head. She seemed embarrassed and Hook barely heard her reply over the sounds of the rushing water.

  "All?!" he responded. Then sank back down in the pool in a grand, dramatic sulk. "Hah! Should've known. Off celebrating 'The Ignominious End of Captain Hook: Terror of the Seven Seas!... Breakfast of Crocodiles!' So,... oughtn't you be with them?" he asked, with an air of offhanded petulance that was nothing less than high art.

  The response to this wasn't anything Hook had imagined. Suddenly enraged and offended, Spinner let loose with a barrage of furious chirps, cheeps, twitters, pipes and squeaks that quite took the pirate's breath away. When she had at last said her peace, she folded her arms with an emphatic nod of her head and plunked herself down cross-legged on the mossy stone. Hook could only glare at her speechless for a moment before an admiring, lopsided grin curled the corners of his mouth.

  "Not a fancier of the exalted Pan, are we?" he queried, leaning close to her. "Ah, well, we have something in common, then."

  Spinner peeped at him sharply and turned her back on him, lowering her head.

  "Oh, shhhh, shhhh, no need," Hook reassured her, backing off. Then, bringing his right arm up, he gazed at its mutilated nether end and muttered darkly, "We all have our reasons."

  Hook heard another peep and turned to see Spinner looking at him over her shoulder, tears streaming down her tiny face.

  "Hurt who?" he asked. There was a pause and then she cooed very softly and suddenly it all made sense.

  "Oh, I see," he breathed. "Yes, I'd heard he's horrible pitiless to those playmates who grow too old to play with." Then he ventured asking the obvious, "One of yours?" He meant, of course, one of the lost boys Spinner had personally found in the outside world and brought to Neverland. She nodded and turned away weeping again.

  "My condolences." And he actually meant it. For Hook had perfect sympathy for anyone who had been wronged by Pan. His torment was that most such victims either did not survive to share their woe or else, they continually gave in to the insipid desire to forgive the brat his every trespass. To find an ally in mutual loathing, particularly in such an unexpected place, was a joy beyond measure.

  Reaching up, he plucked one of the flowers from the branches and pulled off a single petal. He then drew close to Spinner again and with the utmost tenderness and care, began patting her eyes dry with the petal's soft tip.

  "There, there, shhhh... It's all right," he murmured, his voice playing about the low end of the musical scale the way a dolphin might play along a shoal. "No more tears. I understand completely." He let Spinner take the petal from him, then leaned in quite close and smiled quite deliciously as he confided, "And I have the feeling that we shall be great friends, you and I."

  It hadn't been easy, forcing himself to get out of the hot spring. But with great reluctance, he had finally managed the task of banishing himself to dry land again. Wrapped in nothing but the boat tarp, his head propped on a pile of fern and palm leaves as a pillow, he lay upon the soft, mossy shoreline idly munching a mammee-apple. Hook realised that it was the first thing he'd eaten since the previous morning and he let himself luxuriate in its tangy, apricot-like sweetness, paying no heed at all to the juices that ran down his chin, nor to the few drops that passed the guard hedge of his goatee to course down the length of his throat.

  At last, having consumed the flesh, he licked the inside of the fruit thoroughly to be sure he'd taken all it had. Then, with a bored sigh, he tossed the spent rind away. For a few moments, the Captain just stared into space; he knew what the morning would bring and what he would have to do and he didn't want to have to think about it. Exhaustion was pulling at him, dragging him down like a ship in a whirlpool and he had no inclination to fight it anymore. Lying back, he pulled the canvas up and closed his eyes... then heard a fluttering... and felt a tiny pressure.

  Eyes open again, he saw Spinnersong just curling up on her side atop his chest - right pectoral, to be specific. She was turned toward his shoulder and he saw her wings flutter once; a little muscle twitch before she stilled and her light changed from the usual golden glow to a soft blue-white.

  Irritated at first, his hand reached toward her, thumb and middle finger pressed together, ready to flick. But then, he stopped just short of his target and instead pulled the canvas ever so gently up until it reached her shoulders, taking care it didn't lie heavily upon her, since she was such a small and fragile thing. He huffed derisively at himself, wondering why he bothered; then fell asleep dreaming, oddly enough, of endless windows and the scent of oranges.