Hook's Revenge Read online

  I rarely wear white myself. Bloodstains are too difficult to remove.

  Jocelyn had never seen anything lovelier than the miniature queen. She could not tear her eyes away. The little man on her shoulder had to pinch her ear in order to regain the girl’s attention. Jocelyn looked up in time to see more fairies, soldiers dressed in red leaf jackets, flying in formation. They advanced upon the girl, holly-leaf lancets pointed directly at her face. The fairy man shot crookedly up from her shoulder, bells ringing furiously. The soldiers halted in midair and bowed.

  Jocelyn glanced back at the queen. Their eyes met. Thankfully, the girl remembered her manners and exhibited a curtsy so deep that even Miss Eliza would have been impressed. The fairy queen nodded her favor, beckoning Jocelyn forward. The diminutive sovereign clapped her hands three times and her golden lily grew, rising upon its delicate stem until the ruler and girl were eye to eye.

  Jocelyn determined not to blink at the queen’s searching stare. Her Majesty’s black eyes, no larger than the head of a pin, appeared to hold the answers to all of life’s mysteries: Who are we? Why are we here? What is the meaning of life? Why isn’t cake considered a breakfast food? After what seemed a very long time, the fairy looked away. Jocelyn sighed with relief. She had begun to feel restless.

  The queen pulled a delicate silver bell from within the folds of her robes and rang it. Echoes of its sweet peals hung on the air, but instead of dying out, the sound grew stronger. The orchestra stopped playing. Jocelyn expected the dancing to cease as well, but a new dance began with the bell’s one-note song growing louder in the air.

  The fairies arranged themselves into a ring and performed a series of complicated steps. In the center of the circle, soft earth bulged upward until it split open. A trickle of water burbled out. The dancers’ speed increased and the spray grew larger, fountaining into the air. The fairies now moved so fast that they seemed a blur. Jocelyn heard a loud crack like the sound of walking on the frozen surface of a late-winter pond.

  The bell’s sound died out. The dancers stood still. The fountain had vanished. In its place stood a delicate crystal goblet, large enough for a human to use, filled to the brim with a rich amber liquid. Three large fairies with dragonfly wings carefully lifted it, flew over, and placed it on the ground in front of Jocelyn.

  The queen nodded again and motioned toward the drink. Gingerly, the girl picked it up. She wondered if she should drink. Many fairy tales spoke about those who foolishly consumed fairy food or drink and became trapped, prisoners forever in the queen’s realm.

  Jocelyn had always scoffed at such nonsense. If everyone who drank became captive, who would be left to tell the stories? Still, it was one thing to laugh away a tale safely ensconced between the pages of a book. It was quite another thing to consider such information while holding a goblet of fairy ambrosia in the middle of an enchanted wood.

  Jocelyn lifted the cup to her nose and inhaled. It smelled like an August night, ripe and sweet. Moonlight glinted off the glass, causing the liquid inside to sparkle. She suddenly felt very thirsty. Perhaps one tiny sip wouldn’t hurt. Just enough to moisten her lips.

  As soon as she brought the goblet to her mouth, Jocelyn’s thirst took over. She drank deeply until the glass, now empty, slipped from her fingers and smashed on the ground below.

  The girl barely had time to think, What have I done? before the earth tilted sharply. A thousand points of light danced before her eyes. She feebly reached out to swat at them, but they were too quick for her. Her hand felt nothing but empty air. They swirled about, making her dizzy. She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate.

  Jocelyn breathed in and tasted the cool night air. It carried away some of the overpowering sweetness that the drink had left on her tongue. As her head cleared, the girl realized that she was lying on the ground, cool dew soaking into her dress.

  Jocelyn cracked open her eyes and saw that the swirling lights had only been the starry night sky, thankfully now still, staring down at her. The North Star gave an impertinent wink.

  “Are you quite well, child? I do apologize for being unable to prepare you for the effects of fairy nectar. I understand that this can be rather startling for humans.”

  Jocelyn turned her head to the source of the voice. It was the fairy queen who had spoken, but something was off about her. She was too close, too large. It looked as if Jocelyn were viewing her from the wrong end of her spyglass.

  “Meriwether, perhaps you could assist the girl?”

  Warm hands gently pulled Jocelyn to her feet. She swayed, leaning in to the one who had aided her. It was a boy who didn’t appear to be much older than Jocelyn, though he was rather taller. She had to tilt her head to see his face. His features were surprising. It was not his deep black eyes, his long, straight nose, nor his laughing mouth. No, what surprised Jocelyn most was his faintly glowing skin.

  It was blue.

  If Jocelyn had been the kind of girl who was prone to fainting, the sight of a pair of wings, one somewhat crumpled, growing out of the boy’s back would have surely been cause for the smelling salts. As it was, Jocelyn merely sat back down on the ground and stared.

  He bowed. “Thank you for saving me. I am in your debt.”

  The boy was the fairy she had rescued.

  Jocelyn had been changed, reduced down to the size of the fairies. The girl’s folly crashed over her.

  She had drunk their nectar and could never go back.

  “My son is quite taken with you, child.”

  Jocelyn sat upon a soft chair in Queen Mab’s private chambers, high in an old oak tree. The queen felt that a bit of solitude might help Jocelyn overcome the disorienting effects of such a drastic size change. Therefore Her Majesty had commanded that only twelve fairies-in-waiting attend to her and the girl.

  Attend they did. They washed and rinsed Jocelyn’s tangled curls and scrubbed the dirt from her face and hands. Jocelyn didn’t exactly enjoy the attention, but she had far greater problems to worry about—and at least they were gentler maidservants than Gerta. She didn’t even resist (much) when they dressed her in a new gown. Thankfully, fairies had no use for corsets, or there would have been a good sight more difficulty.

  “There, now. Look at yourself, my dear. You are absolutely stunning,” Queen Mab said, handing her a dewdrop mirror. The fairies had done their work well, but Jocelyn much preferred the way she had looked that afternoon: hair wild and dirt on her face, dress stained and wrinkled with one of its buttons broken, another missing, and a bit of flowering weed tucked in the otherwise unoccupied buttonhole.

  Though her reflection didn’t show it, Jocelyn still felt a bit disoriented. She only half listened as the queen continued: “My son has always been attracted to adventure, and you practically exude it through your very pores. Something tells me you two could be quite a pair. That is, of course, should you select to stay with us.”

  Jocelyn’s head cleared. She waved off a fairy-in-waiting who was trying to smooth her rough nails. “Are you saying that if I want to I can return to my normal size and leave?”

  “Of course, child. Did you think we would bestow the gift of immortality upon you without your consent?”

  “I had read stories—”

  “Silly fairy tales, no doubt. At sunrise, should you desire to accept our gift and dwell here forever, you will sprout wings and become my ward, a fairy princess. If you choose to return to the human world, I will grant you another wish in its stead, to express my gratitude for Meriwether’s life. At dawn you will tell me your choice.” The queen gave a regal yawn. “I grow weary of this discussion; let us return to the ball.”

  A young fruit bat carried Jocelyn down from the tree. The prince stepped up to greet her and bowed a second time. “We haven’t been formally introduced. I am Meriwether Pennyroyal. Thank you again for saving my life.”

  “Oh. Well. Thank you for
not dying.”

  He dropped his formal demeanor and asked eagerly, “Have you decided to stay?”

  “I’m not sure, though I am glad to have a choice. I don’t like to be forced to do things.”

  “If you do, you will be a princess—that means no one could make you do anything you don’t like. Think how much fun we could have.”

  Jocelyn had to admit the thought was tempting. She looked over at the fairies dancing in the moonlight and imagined herself as one of them. What would her wings look like? A butterfly? A dragonfly? Hopefully not like that dreadful man standing off to the side with his cockroach wings folded about him.

  She tried to picture herself flying along beside the fairy boy and having adventures, but couldn’t get the image right. In her head, Meriwether had curly hair and brown skin instead of blue.

  “Do you dance?” Meriwether asked, sounding very much like the someone else she had been thinking of. She pushed the memory from her head and allowed the prince to escort her to the circle of dancers. His hand was warm and dry, unlike those of the sweaty boys Jocelyn had been forced to pair with at Miss Eliza’s Christmas ball. To her surprise, she did not find dancing with the fairy at all unpleasant. Meriwether led Jocelyn through the steps, and she matched them, feeling like quite a different sort of person than she was before.

  After some time, the prince released her hand and tapped her necklace. “What is this talisman you are wearing?”

  “Oh, that. It’s a locket.” She opened it to reveal the portrait of her father.

  Her father.

  If she stayed with the fairies, she’d no longer have to worry about his request and the crocodile. The thought filled her with relief, disappointment, and an unexpected twinge of sadness. Jocelyn did want to succeed, but it was so much harder than she’d imagined it would be.

  And what about her crew? No matter what she chose, she couldn’t just abandon them. If she decided to remain human, she could wish for the kind of strength that would enable her to both save them and defeat the crocodile. That would surely make her the greatest pirate ever to live—no one would doubt that.

  But was becoming the world’s greatest pirate what she really wanted? Or was it only another way of dancing to someone else’s music?

  If she were a fairy princess, couldn’t she find a way to free her crew anyway? After that she could forget all about the crocodile and just do fairy things, whatever they might be.

  Lost as Jocelyn had been in her thoughts and the ball, she did not notice the sky steadily growing lighter. When she saw the faint gray of predawn, she panicked. The sun would be up any moment, but she didn’t know what she wanted. To become a fairy princess or to avenge her father?

  The first rays of the sun peeked over the horizon. Queen Mab stood before her, compelling her to make her choice.

  But which one? Pirate or princess?

  Meriwether looked imploringly at her.

  Princess or pirate?

  Jocelyn didn’t know who to be. She wanted someone to help her sort it out, but there was no time left.

  “You must decide, my child. What do you desire?”

  “I—”

  What did she want?

  “I want my mother!”

  The earth tilted again. Jocelyn sank into oblivion.

  Jocelyn rubbed her eyes, taking in the green forest around her. She sat with her back to a tree, nestled in soft ferns. Filtered rays of the sun paraded up and down on the girl’s comfortably ruined dress. She touched the wilted flower in her buttonhole.

  What am I doing here?

  Waking in an unfamiliar place can be rather disorienting, or so I’ve been told. It can also be quite entertaining—if you do not happen to be the one experiencing it. My old aunt Sophia was afflicted with bouts of narcolepsy: falling asleep without warning and at the most inopportune times. One minute she’d be chatting away about dress fashions or gunpowder prices; the next she was slumped over, unconscious.

  My cousins and I made a bit of sport with the old lady. She would wake to find herself picnicking in a field of flowers, propped up at the tea table entertaining the vicar and his wife, or tucked into a long box, buried six feet under the ground, with only a coffin bell for her amusement—any number of delightful situations. She always had a good laugh, once she finished weeping.

  Being of sterner stuff than my aunt Sophia, Jocelyn did not cry out in tearful horror, but she did blink her eyes and wonder. Like a half-forgotten dream, images from the night before surfaced in her mind: the fairy nectar, the dancing…her wish.

  She looked around in hopeful anticipation, but Jocelyn was utterly alone.

  Stupid fairies, she thought as she stood and kicked the gnarled tree trunk she had rested against. Didn’t I know better than to trust a wish?

  The girl got to her feet, looking for some landmark to tell her which way to go. Standing alone in the stillness of the forest, she got a strange feeling. Something was different. There was a scent in the air, familiar to the child but foreign to the Neverland. She closed her eyes and breathed in, trying to remember where she knew it from.

  When she opened her eyes, Jocelyn found herself somewhere else entirely. The forest had gone, replaced by a bedroom suite dressed in weathered gold-and-ivory wallpaper. Rich, dark furnishings adorned the space, conveying warmth, wealth, and yet a feeling distinctly feminine. Jocelyn found herself seated upon a stool facing a beautifully carved dressing table. A copy of Gulliver’s Travels lay at the table’s edge. She spied her own eyes in the large mirror before her. They were wide, unbelieving, for she knew this room: it had been her mother’s.

  Sir Charles had expressly forbidden Jocelyn from entering Evelina’s old room, so naturally it had become her favorite childhood play place. Oh, how she had loved looking at and trying on the jewels found in the dressing table’s right-hand drawer, imagining them to be stolen treasure. (Of course, as they were gifts to her mother from her father, she was likely correct about that.) She opened the drawer and was delighted to find all her favorites still there. Her fingertips lingered over their glimmering surfaces, though she did not try them on. Instead she turned her attention to the items cluttering the top of the table. In addition to the book, she spied her mother’s heavy silver hairbrush and combs, a billowy powder puff, and several dainty bottles filled with expensive perfumes. Under the girl’s touch each item felt heavy, burdened with stories Jocelyn would never be a part of.

  She lifted her favorite bottle, stirring up the dust lying thick upon the cut crystal. Undoing its stopper, Jocelyn recognized the scent she had been unable to place in the forest. She glanced at the mirror and beheld an image of her much younger self trying on the perfume. She watched herself, remembering. She had thought of her mother as she played with her things—wondering what it would be like if Evelina had lived, wondering why she had died, leaving her child behind.

  The memory surrounded her, poking at the empty place in her heart. Jocelyn’s eyes stung. She gripped the bottle tightly, the pattern on the crystal biting into her hand. The young girl in the mirror looked up, her eyes shining. She slowly vanished, changing into a reflection of Jocelyn’s current self—older, but still alone.

  It was so unfair!

  Jocelyn hurled the perfume bottle with all her might, smashing both it and the mirror into a thousand shards. She threw another, and another. In a matter of moments the tabletop was transformed, its once beautiful bottles reduced to shattered glass and pooling liquid. She held the last unbroken one in her fist, her energy drained away. The scent rising from the ruin was too sweet, too strong, and it burned the girl’s throat. Tears threatened, but Jocelyn refused to give in. Instead she let out an angry, frustrated scream. “Why did you leave me behind?” she cried. “I would have gone with you! Why did you leave me alone?” It is a sad fact that the child, though thinking of her mother, could have been addressing either p
arent.

  A cool hand on her shoulder startled the girl. She turned and saw the calm face of a lovely lady. Something about the curve of her cheek and the slight upturn of her nose echoed Jocelyn’s own features. “Mother?” the girl whispered. There was no one else it could have been.

  The woman smiled softly down. “Could this be my baby, grown so big at last?”

  Things rarely come to pass in the way you imagine them. Jocelyn had often dreamed about what it might be like to meet her mother. Now, given the opportunity, she did not feel at all how she’d thought she would.

  “If you hadn’t died, you would know who I am.” She frowned. “You wouldn’t have to ask.”

  “Oh, Jocelyn,” her mother said. “Please know that I didn’t want to leave. It was simply my time.”

  “I don’t care. You have no idea what it was like growing up with only my grandfather—knowing that no matter what I did, I’d never be as perfect or lovely as you were.” Jocelyn squeezed the bottle in her hand, tempted to hurl it as she had the rest.

  “I understand quite a lot more than you think. Remember, your grandfather is my father. I learned to look forward to my own future with nothing more than polite boredom. Without consulting me, he bought a ridiculous ship and sent me out for a pleasure cruise, in order to attract ‘the right sort’ of attention. The only attention it attracted was your father’s. When I saw James for the first time, I knew my future would be something quite different from what my father had planned. I could choose for myself.”

  “But you left him, too. That’s what you do. You leave.”

  “With your father, life was an adventure, but he was not a benevolent man. He committed many terrible acts in his life—so many, in fact, that wickedness poisoned his very blood. As much as I loved him, it was not easy to live each day under his dark shadow. I didn’t want to leave, but in the end we both agreed it was best.”