No More Neverland

In the heart of Neverland, where time swirled like a whirlpool and reality shaped itself with ageless magic, a fierce melee raged. Peter Pan, the fearless and forever-young leader of the Lost Boys, clashed blades with his nemesis, the cunning and relentless Captain Hook. The clangor of steel echoed through the air, mingling with the erratic roars of cannon fire from Hook’s pirate crew.

“Hold, Pan! We need to talk!” Hook’s voice rang out above the chaos, his blade locked with Pan’s. “There’s something you need to know!”

Pan’s eyes narrowed suspiciously as he twisted free from Hook’s cutlass. “Talk, Hook? Hmm, and since when do you want to talk during our … engagements?”

Hook’s voice held a note of desperation. “This isn’t just another skirmish, Pan. There’s more to our feud than you realize. You must listen to me! Please!” He bellowed, reaching out his hooked hand.

Pan swiped out with his knife and connected.

“Ah! Damn it!” Hook screamed, whipping his arm back to his chest. A wet trail of crimson ran down the sleeve of his matching red coat to drip on the polished wooden deck of his vessel.

“I’m serious, Pan. Please!” He pleaded, tossing his sword to slide and clatter atop the ship’s main deck. “Just give me a moment to explain,” he bargained as he stepped closer to Pan, the hardwood creaking beneath his crisp, black boots.

Leaping into the air, Pan evaded Hook’s unarmed lunge with effortless grace. “Please?” he said mockingly, punctuating the word with a mirthless chuckle.

“Please yourself, Hook.” He looked down at the hunched captain in his red tricorn hat, his shoulders rising and lowering from the exertion of a battle lost. The wearied old man couldn’t keep up with him. Not anymore, at least.

“Until next time, Hook!” He bellowed from his vantage before shifting weightlessly and gliding off into the distant horizon.

“Pan, no! Wait! Peter!”

As he soared above the treetops, Pan contemplated Hook’s words. They hadn’t exchanged more than taunts and threats in years. So, why this sudden desire for communication? What could possibly be so important to tell him that Hook was willing to bleed to impart?

* * * * * * * * *

Meanwhile, Hook’s thoughts raced as he sought a way to reach Pan. To reveal his hidden truth. He knew that Tinkerbell, Pan’s loyal fairy companion, could be the bridge between them. If only he could convince her to carry a message. But before any of that, he’d have to find a way to get her to meet with him in the first place.

He’d had the Jolly Roger moored to a wharf of rotting timber in the aptly named Cannibal Cove. Some far-off thought tickled at the back of his mind. Some memory trying to scratch and inch its way to the surface of his mind but failing miserably.

The sprint past the hungry tribe folk, with their fangs and red-stained faces, put an extra huff in his breathing that Hook couldn’t shake. His breath wheezed in his lungs long after the vicious jungle men had given up their chase. Even still, he did not slow his pace.

The trek inland had been laborious. Hook crested the hill, putting Peg Leg Point to his left before hiking up the low-grassed trail. His legs were already stiffening, his thighs burning, his heart drumming against his chest.

With every step, his knee joints creaked and cracked like snapped twigs. And still, he did not slow his pace. Hook knew they were running out of time. Knew that he must do whatever he could in what short time they had left.

He stumbled up the switchbacking cliffside to a place he seldom thought of anymore yet couldn’t truly expunge from his mind. His old memories were tattered like a war-torn sailcloth, holed by cannon balls and fraying at the ends. But they still held. Still caught wind from time to time. Blind Man’s Bluff loomed down at him even as he continued to climb.

Hours later—with the mountain finally at his back—Hook emerged into a secluded, cricket-quiet glen. The night had fully settled. A dark, twinkling blanket spread across the sky. Under the soft, warm glow of fireflies, Hook sat upon the roots at the base of the great oak tree and managed, eventually, to summon Tinkerbell.

The fairy appeared out of thin air, a flickering halo of golden light that twisted and unfurled into a tiny female figure no taller than a man’s skull. Golden-winged Tinkerbell hovered at the end of his long, crooked nose with a dirty look scrawled on her face.

Her wings buzzed with agitation as she stared at him. “What do you want, Hook? More tricks?”

“No tricks this time, Little Miss,” Hook said earnestly, his eyes growing wide with desperation. “I need your help. To make Pan understand.”

Tinkerbell’s skeptical expression softened, but only slightly. “You expect me to believe you? Now? After all the schemes you’ve pulled? The messes you’ve made? All the hurt you’ve caused?”

Hook’s eyes bore into hers. The earliest sign of tears dewed at the corners of his eyes, threatening to emasculate him, but he didn’t care. He didn’t have time for wasted thoughts on vanity anymore. It was now or never.

“This is different, Little Miss … Tinkerbell. It’s about why we’re trapped in this never-ending cycle. This eternal contest. We are bound. Pan and I. Bound closer than you or he could ever understand. You must deliver him a message from me. Please.”

Tinkerbell hesitated, torn between doubt and curiosity. Finally, she agreed to help convey Hook’s words to Pan. She nodded, hovering in the dark, humid air. And then, in a puff of golden light, like sunlight breaking through a cloud, she was gone. And Hook was all alone.

Again.

* * * * * * * * *

Later that night, Tinkerbell fluttered beside Pan as he brooded near the water’s edge. “Peter, there’s something you need to know,” she said tentatively.

She tried to explain the truth, the incredible twist of fate that Hook had detailed. But Pan let his anger flare out of control, drowning out her words with his accusations.

Pan felt his eyebrows contort with anger. “Save it, Tink,” he finally said. “I can’t believe you talked to him! I’m done. I’ve had enough of your games.”

Frustration stormed across Tinkerbell’s tiny face, but she pressed on. “This isn’t a game, Pan. Hook was trying to tell you the truth.”

Pan’s laughter was bitter. “Hook? Telling the truth? That’s a good one.”

“You should have seen him. He was begging me. He was on the verge of tears.”

The tension hung heavy in the summer air as Tinkerbell went on, struggling to relay Hook’s desperate plea. But Pan’s fury only escalated, the steaming kettle in his mind drowning her out once again.

Pan’s voice was laced with anger. Poisoned by it. He cast out warding hands and hissed, “You’re no friend of mine, Tink. Just a liar like the rest of them. Get out of here! Now! Go!”

Tinkerbell’s frown shone hollowly, her glow dimming to less than silver. Her wings trembled as she retreated into the night sky, her trail of golden fairy dust fading away in a snake-like streak of floating glitter.

Two days later, the final confrontation loomed. A battle to end all battles. Pan and Hook faced each other one last time, their clash a whirlwind of emotions and steel. Pan’s red-hot rage fueled his attacks, every swing of his knife a fiery reflection of his inner turmoil.

Amid the chaos, Hook found a moment to speak. “Pan, listen! There’s a reason for all of this!”

Pan’s voice was a snarl. “No more lies, Hook!”

Pan performed a flying thrust, jabbing his knife at the last second, but Hook parried the attack with obvious ease.

Hook took a series of steps forward, testing his ground as Pan watched from above, flying about, stabbing knife wounds into the sails here and there.

And then, a feint from Pan as he swooped down to strike led to an unintended outcome.

Hook’s blade sliced through the air, severing Pan’s left hand at the wrist with an audible THUNK. The moment’s shock halted the battle, and Hook finally had the opening to explain the truth that had haunted him.

Pan stared at the stump of his missing hand, his anger mingling with disbelief. And pain. Horrible, gut-wrenching pain. He gripped his wrist and tried to fly but only managed a hovering altitude a few feet above the deck. “What … have you done, Hook?”

Hook’s voice was urgent. “It was a mistake, Pan! I didn’t mean to hurt you like this. I … damn it! I thought—this wasn’t supposed to happen!—if I could have stopped you before … damn it! Damn it all to hell, boy! Why couldn’t you have just listened, damn you? Cursed, horrible, damnable boy. This is all your fault!”

* * * * * * * * *

Pan’s skin was paling with every second. And it wasn’t all from the scolding. He was losing a lot of blood. He slowly but steadily floated down to the ship’s deck, dropping like he was a slow-falling droplet of blood himself. “I….”

Hook sighed and pushed forward, downing the ship’s stairs to the main deck where Pan had landed, not so calmly. He was clearly not in the head space for expressing “happy thoughts” between his yelping cries of pain.

“You can’t begin to know how sorry I am,” Hook said, approaching the sprawled-out Pan on the hardwood, his green tunic stained dark in several places. Wet with blood. “It’s my fault. It always was. It always will be. I thought I could change it!” He said, wiping tears from his eyes as he began to sob.

“I thought … if I could just get through to you. That maybe, I…. Damn it! That maybe we could’ve stopped this thing. Stopped it so that it never happened anymore. Maybe never even in the first place. No more Neverland. Bye-bye. Finally! Freedom. Escape. Love. Life….”

* * * * * * * * *

As Hook’s words pierced through the chaos, Pan’s guard wavered. He had never seen this kind of remorse in Hook’s eyes before. And for whatever reason, he found himself believing him. Pan nodded up at the captain kneeling beside him. Sweaty from their fight but still dapper in his usual blood-red coat.

There was something about that look in his eyes. Something so familiar to Pan, though he couldn’t put his finger on it. He’d never been so close to Hook before. Never before seen the depths of his eyes so intensely.

With a heavy breath, Hook leaned back and continued, “I am … Peter Pan,” he said with a toothy grimace. “I’m … you. Or, I guess, you’re … me? I’m sorry,” he added with a weak smile. “I’ve still no idea how this all works. Not entirely, at least.”

* * * * * * * * *

Pan looked confused and paler still, but his hand was looking better. He’d end up doing just fine without it. The boy must have realized that by now. He’d come to appreciate the hook eventually. It really could be quite handy.

“Look. We’re each other, kid. I’m just an older version. We went through a time vortex, some sort of wormhole, the mermaids called it. It’s how I started my real journey. My journey to grow up. To become a man.” He adjusted his posture, sitting up straighter.

“But Neverland’s got a funny sense of humor when it comes to time-keeping. And so I was sent back. To before now. Back over thirty years ago. Thirty ‘real’ years, mind you.

“I vowed to find you—my younger self—when you first entered the realm, but by then, I was already so tired, worn so low. And I’d already forgotten so much of what I was supposed to remember so dearly.

“And then we became enemies, for I knew naught of you anymore. I had forgotten even my own self. Don’t forget that, kid. Don’t forget me, if you can. But most importantly, don’t forget yourself. We’re trapped in this eternal struggle, but it doesn’t have to be this way. You can end this. You can make it stop. Next time. In your time.”

“This is … this is too much. I … where’s Tink?”

“There’s no more time! You have to go through this portal once it’s fully formed. I’m guessing you have, ah … I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Maybe five more minutes.”

“That’s all?” Pan looked heartbroken.

“There’s no other way to explain it, kid. We’re at the end of the loop,” he said, standing upright. “I saw it. It’s one of the last few things I do still remember.” He held out his good hand to grip Pan’s and hoist him to his feet.

“This place destroys them, Peter. Your memories. Our greatest treasures. This place takes them away from you and destroys them. But some things, some few key things, are impossible to forget.” Hook helped Pan limp over to the taffrail that surrounded the aft deck.

“Look at me now. I know it hurts. But you’ll be all right. Trust me. Now, this is important. In a few minutes, I’ll go into some sort of trance. It can’t be stopped. Don’t touch me or try to wake me. I’ve seen my past older self do it. And unless you can succeed where I couldn’t this time, you’ll end up doing the same.” Hook glared into Pan’s eyes at that as if out of habit.

“Once I enter the trance, the island will start to crumble. The world itself will begin trembling all around you. Or, at least, it’ll feel like it is,” he added quickly. “Though, trust in this: Neverland will be no more. Until it is. Again. And … before. And … after.”

* * * * * * * * *

Pan’s anger ebbed, replaced by a gnawing sense of curiosity. The truth resonated within him, echoing the words Tinkerbell had attempted to convey. He felt the cold, wrought-iron weight of guilt for pushing her away, for not trusting her when she had been the one to hold the most crucial piece of this horrible puzzle.

As the stars danced their patterns across the Neverland sky, Pan found himself changed. The boundaries of his and Hook’s enmity had blurred, and a fragile understanding had blossomed between them. In the distance, a glinting trail of golden fairy dust heralded Tinkerbell’s return. Pan took that as a symbol of hope. And forgiveness.

And beneath it all, the droning crescendo of the sea’s sudden chanting churned and shook the boat.

And the waves.

And the night sky itself.

All of Neverland was vibrating with the Song of the Sea.

Mountain peaks were crumbling. Caves were imploding. Mermaid Lagoon became a sinkhole and then a maelstrom that swallowed up the mainland and the surrounding isles without a single burp. Even the water was being drained away. It was all going. It would all be gone.

Skull Rock was the only thing left in the distance. Things the way they were, that seemed a fitting tombstone for the world of Neverland, as far as Pan claimed to know it. He turned to hear Hook’s instructions, cupping his ears from the sudden howling winds.

“Say again?” He shouted. Even the ship was creaking and yawning louder than usual. He heard a series of boards splinter and snap down on the lower deck. And crewmen barking and bustling about frantically. They really were out of time.

“It really is over, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is. Now. Through the portal, Peter. And this time. Try to do what I couldn’t. Succeed where I failed. Please. Do it for me.” Hook winked as he said it. “But more importantly, do it for you. You can do this, Peter. End it. End this damned nightmare. End it once and for all!”

Hook’s eyes went suddenly white, and his head jerked back, craning his face toward the sky with a violent whipping motion. A guttural chant spilled out of his upturned throat to mingle in chorus with the crooning sea.

The wordless song sent shivers chasing the already existent shivers that crawled up and down Pan’s spine. And all the while, the portal beside him lengthened and stretched to the undulating sound of Hook’s haunting voice.

Pan took one step. Into the shimmering portal. There was light. And then … instant blackness.

He took another step forward. And then another. And another.

There was an … “Always” sort of feeling that overtook him…. Pan couldn’t quite explain the sensation. He’d stepped into it; he could feel it about him, like an invisible fog bank. A feeling of boundless omnipresence … of effortless omniscience. It surged through every fiber of his being. He wondered if he was dead for the briefest of moments. And was surprised to find he was not.

He took another step. And the awesome feeling subsided. But, strangely enough … he didn’t miss it at all. There was only one direction for him to go. And, just then, nothing else seemed to matter very much to him.

Leaving the “Always” behind, Pan took a final, soundless step forward.

And found himself … once again … upon a time….

In Neverland.