Pan's Revenge (4 page)

“Yeah, I actually do wash myself. Sorry.”

Not in the least stung by my sarcasm, she
slaps her fist into her open palm. “Too bad.”

Too bad for me, because I won’t get more
answers, or too bad for her, because I failed to make this potion
taste more of a man?

“Is there a chance to open the gates of
Neverland?” I ask to bring her back to my problems and away from
hers.

“Of course there is.” She cocks her head,
giving me an eerily long once-over. From the vegetable patch beside
her, she picks a lettuce leaf next and rubs it hard and fast over
my forearm. My skin turns red and starts itching soon, but in
expectation of help I hold still. Bre’Shun sniffs the leaf after
half a minute, then rubs it some more on my arm, and finally dumps
it into the soup. “You have to make Peter break the spell,” she
says matter-of-factly and tries a mouthful of the soup once more,
obviously pleased about the result. “Or kill him,” she adds then
with not the least bit of remorse in her voice, and turns to smile
at me. “Your call.”

I suck in a
sharp breath. The fairies are a little special and sometimes just
don’t act as one would expect them to, but this was hardcore, even
for Bre’Shun. “I’m not going to kill my little brother.”

“Why not? You were after his life for most of
the time you remember.”

“Yes, but—”

“But what?” She lifts a brow at me.

“Things have changed.”

“Have they? Or have you, James Hook?” Her
laugh sounds like dripping water in a jungle. She skims some of the
cooking potion and pours it into a watering can that’s already half
full with water. Picking the can up, she loops her other arm
through mine and leads me away from the steaming cauldron.

On our walk
through her garden, the small tags on twigs that are stuck into the
ground at each vegetable patch catch my attention.
Beckon beans. Pleasure berries.
Carrots of terror.
Apart from having
answers to every possible question, the fairy sisters are also
known for their crazy potions and wondrous fruits. So here’s where
they grow it all.

Bre’Shun walks with me to the back of the
light suffused place, where a young tree grows in the shadows of
others. It reaches to my belly button and only bears three juicy
leaves.

“This is the tree of wishes.” She waters its
roots from the can she brought. Instantly, the tiny tree shoots up
a couple of feet and then another.

“Sink me, what was that?”

Bre
beams. “You have some very healthy spittle,
James Hook.”

“I did that?”

“
Oh yes.” She
brushes my arm. “Trees grow best when they have a man to rule
them.”

I don’t understand one word, but I don’t want
to either. What intrigues me more is what this tree can do. “Tree
of wishes, you said? Is that a random name you gave it, or is there
a deeper meaning?”

Putting down
the watering can, Bre stems her fists to her slim waist and tilts
her head. “What do you think, James? That I take a sip of
creativity juice every morning and then give common plants exotic
names?”

Obviously, that’s not what she’s doing. At
her wry look, I gulp and shake my head.

“This little fellow here will soon carry
fruits. With the potion you just helped me to hone, it might happen
within the next month…instead of the usual ten years we have to
wait on a new tree.” She turns and starts to walk back. “Bring the
can,” she tells me over her shoulder. I hurry to follow her and
hear more about the tree. “Once the fruits are ripe and a person
eats one, they can make a wish. But beware, wishes are tricky.
Remona ate a fruit a hundred and ten years ago. She wished she
wouldn’t have to work around the house and help me in the garden
for a decade.”

“Did she get that wish fulfilled?”

“
Oh yes, she
did.”
Her face scrunches up. “She caught
a nasty disease that bound her to bed for the entire time. Good
thing she didn’t wish for a century…”

This is totally weird but, heck, so awesome.
I’m thinking about the wish I would make if I had the chance to. I
sure would word it right, avoiding possible side-effects.

“It won’t help you find Angel,” Bre states
dryly, dashing all my hopes in a millisecond. “I told you what you
have to do first. And then bring me a rainbow. You shall be able to
find her then.”

Taking off my hat, I rake my hand through my
hair. “This is impossible. How should I ever catch a rainbow?”

“
Nothing is
impossible, James Hook. You only have to
do
it.” Bre’Shun leads me
through the high hall in the tiny house to the front again. Before
we exit together, I glimpse a fluffy brown rabbit in the corner
with hanging ears and a trembling little tail. A fox is lying on
the stony windowsill. The tea? I’ll never get used to this place.
But it’s always a pleasure to come here and be
surprised.

By the gate at the fence, the fairy squeezes
my hand as she says goodbye. Another ice-cold shiver zooms through
my limbs. I lick my lips that feel cold and numb. They must have
turned blue from what I can tell. Slipping my hand out of hers, I
turn and start to walk away.

Bre’Shun’s voice follows me. “Make him break
the spell, Jamie, and you are free to go.”

If only it was so simple. I slide a glance
over my shoulder. Her gaze is on me, friendly, but intense.
Mystical. It raises a bad feeling inside me. “There’s more, isn’t
there?” I say in a low voice as I stop.

Bre inclines her head and rubs her arms as if
she’s feeling the cold she emits for the first time herself. “Dear
boy, there’s always more.”

SNEAKING THROUGH THE underbrush of the
jungle, I place my forefinger to my lips and then signal Loney and
Skippy behind me that the enemy is just in front. Loney pulls at
the ears of his fox hat in return, showing he understood. Skippy
wiggles his own big ears.

The others are merely steps away. If we
attack at the right moment, we win this game, and Toby, Sparky,
Stan and Tami have to cook us dinner tonight.

I chew a handful of clover, spit it in my
hand and form a lump of it, which I shove into the reed
blowtube—the only weapon allowed in this game. Gliding up a tree, I
land hunkering on a massive branch. If I can surprise them from
above, victory is under our belt. Without a sound, I crawl forward
on the branch then reach out to flatten a nest of leaves in my
way.

Bad mistake.

Behind the leaves, I find a sneering pixie
with sparkling green eyes and pointy ears sticking out of her
golden locks. She has a blowpipe at her mouth and, fluttering
excitedly with her gossamer wings, she spits a lump of slimy greens
dead center at my forehead.

“
Oh no! Shot
through the skull!” Dropping my weapon, I fake death and plummet
ten feet to the ground, where a nest of ivy breaks my fall. Tameeka
and the guys come out of their hidings and start howling and
dancing around me like Indians around a bonfire. My team stands
aside, making disappointed faces.

Great. Now I have to catch a boar that we can
skin and roast over the fire tonight. The glowing orange sun stands
low already. Better hurry.

Wrestling free from the ivy tendrils, I glide
up and shout back to the Lost Boys, “Start the fire! I shall be
back in an hour.”

Neverland is silent beneath me. There’s no
rustling, no cries, nothing that gives away the hideout of dinner.
My stomach rumbles. Hunting hungry is no fun. Sinking until only a
couple of meters are between the tops of the trees and me, I glide
to the borders of the jungle. Wild boars are known to come out at
twilight and gather at the bottom of the volcano, but the only boar
I find there is Hook. And his first, second, and third mate.

With a grin
on my face, I land next to them, stealing my brother’s hat as I
keep pace with him. “Where are we going?”

James pulls the hat off my head and shoves me
hard against my shoulder, growling. I tip sideways. “Nice seeing
you too,” I reply.

“If you want to hang out with pirates, get
your own hat. Ever touch mine again and I’ll cut off your hand.”
Now he turns to me and smiles. “We’re going to the volcano.”

“Yeah, I figured that from your determined
stride. What’s up? Have you talked to fairies today?”

“Yes, to one of them.”

“And what did she say?”

“
She said,
bring me a fucking rainbow.”

“Oh.” I scratch my head. “That’s bitter.”

“You wouldn’t know where by any luck…” Giving
me a sidelong glance he shakes his head and mumbles, “No, you
wouldn’t.”

“Know how to catch a rainbow?” I ask. He’s
right. I have no freaking idea. “What does she need one for
anyway?”

James shrugs
and starts to climb the steeper part of the volcano side. The men
and I follow him. “She didn’t say. Only wants me to bring her one
or, as it seems, I won’t see Angel again.”

A feeling of
pity for him creeps over me. Considering the torn look on his face,
there must be a tough battle going on inside him. Not bothered with
climbing, I fly to the top and wait for the pirates to join me
there. James wears a strange expression when he faces me again,
even more so does Smee. I wonder what they’ve been talking about on
the climb. I get the feeling I missed something important. Should
this worry me? I grin at Hook’s face. Nah…

“Great. You made it, Captain,” I cheer for
him and the crew. “Only took you half an hour.”

“Shut up and rather help me find a way to
capture one of those bloody rainbows.”

Neverland is tinted in sunset gold, our
shadows expanded to a foreboding length. Obviously, Hook missed
that little fact. I frown at him. “Not that I would know how
exactly to do that, but aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Like what?”

I shrug and roll my eyes. “I don’t know.
Maybe that the show of rainbows won’t start until midnight? Which
means you still have to wait—let me see…” To mock him I pull our
father’s pocket watch from my breast pocket and push the tiny
button that makes it snap open. “Yep. We can have a powwow for five
more hours.”

James’ eyes start to glint. I’ve seen this
look of his before. Slowly pushing the watch closed, I lower my
chin and take a deliberated step back. “What are you up to?”

His expression changes fast. A smile appears.
Not one that looks inviting, but the sudden greed is gone. “Don’t
be stupid, Peter. I’m not going to steal that watch from you.”

“No?” I relax a little. “That’s good
then.”

“I want you to throw it into the
volcano.”

“
What?” I
don’t know what happened to him in the fairy forest today, but it
certainly tampered with his mind. “Why should I do
that?”

James heaves a long sigh and drags his hands
over his face. “Because it’s the only way to open the gates of
Neverland.”

“And that you know from the fairy,
right?”

“Right. So would you please just do it?”

“
No!” It
belonged to my father. I’m not going to toss it into the liquid
core of the island. “Are you crazy?”

“One would think so for even giving you an
option,” he mumbles.

I don’t
understand, but the eerie way his second and third mate come to
flank me all of a sudden gives me the creeps and I decide it’s time
to leave Hook alone in his fight for a rainbow. There’s a boar that
needs to be slain and skinned before it gets dark
anyway.

Turning away,
I lift into the air, but after only a couple feet, something winds
around my ankles and pulls me hard back to the ground. I land on my
knees. Smee, that rat’s ass must have slung a rope around my legs
when I didn’t pay attention. The other end is tightly wrapped
around his fists.

An instant later, the pirate with mermaid
tattoos on both his forearms, who’s called Fin Flannigan by the
other filthy pirates, grabs my shoulders and holds me in place.

“Peter. Please,” Hook says with insistence.
“It’s essential that you throw the watch into the volcano.”

“So? And what if I refuse?” I wrest myself
free from Fin and shove him away. As I turn around, I hear the
click of a trigger and look into the mouth of James Hook’s pistol.
My throat goes dry.

“
I don’t want
to hurt you, Peter,” he pleads behind his outstretched arm. Then
his gaze turns cold under his black hat and he growls, “But I will.
You hold the key to Neverland’s doors. I want to leave and find
Angel, but I can’t until you’re destroying the watch. Now throw
that piece of shit into the volcano or I swear I’m going to toss
your dead body over the edge with it.”

There’s no chance he’s joking about this, and
I wonder how much more time he will give me. Five seconds before he
shoots? Maybe ten? Reluctantly I lift my hand with the pocket watch
and stare at it for a tight moment. My teeth clenched and my
muscles taught, I then toss it to the side, into the hole in the
earth that is Neverland’s middle.

Golden sparks shoot out of the volcano, just
enough to assure the watch is forever lost.

When I look up, Hook has lowered the gun.
“I’m sorry, Peter,” he whispers. It sounds like he doesn’t only
mean threatening me with the pistol. There’s more. But I’d be
damned to stay and question him about it. I’m done with my brother.
And after the strangely good time we had together recently, I want
to slap myself, because deep inside his betrayal hurts.

Pulling my knife from under my belt, I bend
low and slice through the rope around my ankles. No one stops me.
As I straighten again, James takes a step toward me.