The world came back to Miss Brante in slow waves of heavy pain.

She was dimly aware of someone moving above her, strapping her wrists together and securing her legs together. Sometime later she realized a cloth was in her mouth.

She let out a groan, but the noise made her head ache worse.

Sit up. Fend people off.

The ideas flashed in her mind, but her body wouldn't obey. The pain of her head kept distracting her, and she had to make herself come back to her body repeatedly.

No one else touched her, but that barely allayed her dread of being attacked or molested.

A door shut somewhere, and Miss Brante forced her eyes open to stare at the hotel room.

Roll over, roll over.

After two tries she managed to get on her side, but she winced at the pain of her head.

For the past five years, she had attended self-defense classes on Tuesday nights at her local dojo. Roger, who led most classes, had encouraged her to take up martial arts, but the discipline and effort of learning karate or judo did not appeal to her. She wanted to fend off an attacker, not memorize or perform endless sets of precise movements.

But all the aims of the classes—escaping chokeholds, wounding an aggressor, throwing a grabber—mainly focused on getting away from a bad person. They did not cover chasing someone with a gun and protecting the back of your head while rushing around hotel rooms.

Even with her wrists bound, Miss Brante could reach up and pull the gag out of her mouth. It took a few seconds for her to get her cellphone out of her pocket and even longer to get the screen on from the awkward angle of her bound wrists.

"911. What is your emergency?"

"I've been attacked." The words hurt, and she closed her eyes.

"Ma'am, where are you?"

She gave her location, name, and credentials. She dropped the phone on the bed by her face and tried to focus on the sound of the 911 dispatcher who asked the extent of her injuries.

"Something hit me on the back of the head," Miss Brante tried not to slur, tried not to give into the bliss of darkness that beckoned. She just wanted to sleep.

"Miss Brante, you need to stay awake. You might have concussion. Can you tell me why you were chasing people in the hotel?"

"I was trying to save a boy," Miss Brante closed her eyes. More noises came from the phone, but it was so far away, so long and dark . . .

She woke when someone shone a bright light in her eyes. They freed her limbs, a needle sting on her arm that she hissed at, and then the medication hit her and her heart began to race.

The EMTs asked her short questions as they strapped her to the stretcher cot and rolled it into the hallway, but Miss Brante could barely answer.

She had chased a man down with a gun, acting like some ridiculous action hero, and she had been rendered incapacitated, tied up, and had her gun stolen. There would be police questions, written reports, news bulletins, office interviews.

Any way she spun her story, any excuses she gave, any pleas she might offer – she could not envision a path that did not end with her suspended from her job. No one wanted a social worker who went rogue.

She wished for the mercy of sleep, of calm darkness to escape, but with the medical stimulant pumping through her body so she did not fall unconscious with concussion, she knew escape was not possible.

HR&HR&HR&HR

Hook waited for Peter's answer.

The boy pouted, tried to look away, sniffed sadly a few times, but then all the energy went out of him. Even with his hand pressed between Hook's hands and the sanitizing gauze, he looked older than Hook had ever seen him, almost depressed with the realities of life.

"I don't know," Peter looked up at the ceiling. "I don't know why the island died. I still liked it. But I don't think anyone else did."

"Keep talking," Hook moved to his other hand.

"Every since I got there, I brought other children to enjoy the island. You and your ship were an accident, and when I couldn't get you home, I decided to not bring anymore adults there."

"How did the Indians and mermaids get there?" Hook poured more rubbing alcohol on the gauze and scrubbed at the deeper cuts.

"Ow! Stop! I don't know that either. They never seemed real, you know. They did the same things over and over again, said the same things. You and the other pirates were real, but I'm not sure the Indians or mermaids existed when I wasn't there."

"They were ghosts?" Hook felt a thrill of terror.

"I think they were just part of the magic of the island. But they weren't enough. And then I wasn't enough." With his free arm, Peter pretended to brush away his blond curls from his forehead, but Hook caught the tightness of his face, seconds away from tears.

"Just tell me what happened," Hook said quietly.

"It wasn't fair! I brought children to the island for adventures, but they never wanted to stay. At the end, they always wanted to go home to their parents. Even those horrid Lost Boys who didn't have parents. They kept saying they would find parents."

"They missed their families?"

"I kept hoping they might forget, but it always went the same way. We would fight you and all the pirates and explore with Indians and swim with mermaids and fly for days. I never made them do anything they didn't want to and we never went to bed and we ate anything we wanted. But then I would see them looking towards the sky, whispering to each other about their mothers at night right before bed."

Hook bit his tongue to stop himself from pointing out that they did indeed go to bed. He instead started taping up the cuts on Peter's right hand.

But Peter seemed beyond pain as he went on, "Then they would mention things like 'When we get back home' and 'Mother will be amazed at my archery skills,' and I knew it was over. Sometimes I would wait until they demanded to go back, and other times I would just stop the adventures without warning. I took them back and I promised they could come back, but –"

His voice hitched, and he shook his head as his eyes glassed over.

"Other hand?" Hook took his left hand to tape up.

"They grew up! They grew up, but I gave them another chance to come back. Every time, they made excuses about why they couldn't leave, but I knew the truth – they didn't want to come play anymore."

"Adults don't really play."

"What do you do all day then?"

"We keep busy. Why couldn't you find new children to replace the returned ones?"

"You've seen the children out there," Peter threw an indignant bandaged hand towards the window. "They don't want adventures. I created every type of adventure I could imagine including burying treasure so we could dig them up and setting up booby traps that we would have to stop. Children don't want to run around an island. They want to sit staring at boxes while holding smaller boxes."

"It's called playing video games," Hook tried not to smirk at having all the knowledge.

"Those aren't games! Those are boring things."

"Maybe it's exciting for these children. You liked the danger of adventures, but did all children like the danger?"

"We left the scaredy-cats at the Hollow. But the last times, I couldn't get anyone to come back with me. The fairies were going to put on a play for us, but no one would come. Then the island started dying."

"That's what Alivia said," Hook nodded.

"Who's Alivia?"

Hook froze. He realized with surprise that he wasn't ready to tell Peter that she had been his mother. It would mean sharing her, and Hook wasn't ready to share any part of beautiful, angelic Alivia yet.

"She was a fairy that visited me on the island," Hook said.

"You believed in her, right?" Peter's accusatory glare was direct and heated.

"What? Yes, I believed in her. Take off your trousers and I'll tend to your legs."

There were pieces of glass in Peter's leg, but Hook found the tweezers in the medical kit and gently began removing any shards of glass he could find.

"Did Alivia know why the island had to die?" Peter winced but he watched the procedure with morbid curiosity at the tending of his injuries.

"She said something about the island being watered by fountains of youths. But it needed the purity of children and they aren't pure anymore."

"What did Alivia get to decide that? I could have made the children pure again."

"Do you know what purity is?"

"It's when you wash your hands so you aren't dirty at dinner."

"No, purity of mind, purity of heart?"

"I could wash those things too!" Peter looked so stubbornly resilient that Hook wanted to roll his eyes.

"The thing I can't understand is the comparison of time," Hook put aside the tweezer and reached for more rubbing alcohol. "From what I've learned, at least 300 years passed here on earth. We were on the island a long time, but I wouldn't have said 300 years. Maybe a day on the island covered a week here or longer so the time rate was different."

"Time is stupid. Just like the children here."

"Definitely worth studying up on. I will learn more on the computer. This is going to hurt."

He didn't give Peter a chance to object before he poured rubbing alcohol over the scrapes on the boy's leg. Peter lunged forward, but Hook held him down with his free hand.

"You're killing me!"

"I have to get them clean," Hook gave the cuts a rough swipe to dry them—Peter howled—and then he started taping dry gauze over any red or injured skin.

Smee came back with their things, and Hook told Peter to sit still and not play with the bandages while he unpacked all the items they had salvaged from the hotel.

It amounted to all his many papers—scribblings of ideas and new information about everything he had discovered—his computer, some of his clothes and Smee's, two granola bars, a banana, little shampoos and soaps, and several rolls of toilet paper that Smee had snagged from the second hotel room.

"We have water," Hook motioned towards the kitchen. "And Peter can wear one of your shirts until we get him his one."

"But what about grub, Capt'n?" Smee pushed his glasses up on his sweaty face. "We will starve here, waiting for them to come find us."

"We won't starve."

"They'll hang us," Smee shook his head. "Hang us as high as Haman. Watch our ankles dance while we strangle."

"I don't want to be hung," Peter protested. "I can't fly anymore and I'll choke."

"Enough," Hook took the two granola bars and handed one to Smee and the other to Peter. "Eat this and you can split the banana. That will get your through tonight."

"What about you, Capt'n?"

"I'm not hungry," Hook lied. "And I'll go out later to find supplies."

"I can't open mine!" Peter shook the bar with the tips of his bandaged hands.

Hook stalked over, ripped the bar open, hand it back, and snapped, "Any further whining will be meet with keelhauling."

The clock read only a few minutes past six when he directed Peter up to bed. The boy had been yawning for the last half hour, and considering the trauma of the day, Hook was surprised the boy didn't fall asleep in his chair.

The room upstairs didn't have a made bed, but Hook got Peter to lie on down on the quilt spread over the bed and then found him another blanket to tuck over him.

"I don't want to sleep," Peter scrunched his eyes up in determination. "This might be a dream and I'll be back there with the doctors, tied to the bed."

"No one is going to take you. You're going to sleep, and when you wake, you'll be here in this cabin."

"You won't leave?"

"No, I wont leave. I made a promise to a . . . fairy."

"We all believe in fairies. Close your eyes and dream of flying."

Peter was asleep in seconds, and Hook left the room to go find his bo'sun who was pacing downstairs and peeking out of the windows.

Hook paused in the family room, gathering up his pouch and bits of bills on the table by the window. "I'm going out. You can keep watch until I come back."

Smee swallowed, but it made a strangling choke in his throat, and when Hook glanced at him, the man's face was ashen behind his scuff of a beard. Only once before had Smee made that noise and been that pale before. Oh, yes, the bo'sun liked to scrounge around in his cowardly manner, trying to avoid Hook's wrath, tripping over his own clumsiness. But this was different.

The other time had taken place in the early years of their pirating, back on the old earth with its creaking ships and taunts of hidden gold to lure men into piracy. Smee had been his valet then, a dolt who made ample mistakes and was scorned on the ship for his bumbling ways. Smee hadn't seemed to mind very much, usually willing to take the ribbing and laughter from the crew and still going with them to taverns on leave and having such a good time that he was useless the next morning despite Hook's many threats.

Then Grimes had arrived. A new recruit, somewhere between 30 and 40, missing a several of teeth and sporting lots of scars on his face. He had promised to bring new heights of daring cutthroat robbery to their crew, and while that was often the main objective Hook looked for in a new mate, Grimes had awakened a spark of unease, distrust from the moment he had walked up the gangplank.

The man had boasted of his conquests, but for every tale of a ship robbed, there had been an addendum to the story that had featured a woman onboard that Grimes had, he had laughed, left bruised head to foot and barely alive after he was finished with her. On that journey aboard Hook's ship, several pirates had snuck two harlots below, but after few days, his crew dressed them as cabin boys and put them on a passing pirate ship. Some rumor had circulated about needing to get them away from Grimes.

Grimes had hated Smee for the moment he saw the short, plump man. He had mocked him ruthlessly, the taunts growing crueler in a way that the other pirates had resented. Fun was fun, but at the end of the day, your crew needed the feel the bonds of brotherhood; otherwise, the voyages felt endless and mutiny lingered in the air.

The taunts had turned to trips and shoves, Smee being unable to walk across the deck without Grimes trying to get him to stumble or fall.

Then Hook had awakened one morning to hear a shriek of agony. A second later, Smee had staggered into his quarters, clutching his right hand. Three fingers dangle from their knuckles, the bones clearly broken in each finger.

Normally, bursting into the captain's room without knocking came with a flogging, but Hook had rushed over to the smaller man. "What happened?"

"I don't know. Grimes was tying up the mainstay to the foremast. The rope got caught around my fingers somehow. It snapped away and it broke my fingers."

Hook had stared at him with wide eyes. Safety around ropes was the first thing anyone learned on a ship; a cabin boy of ten could explain to you in great detail why you were always on the lookout for ropes that might be falling, twisting, or snagging in the wind. Despite his usual clumsiness, Smee had been extremely careful around ropes.

Tears had bedded up in Smee's eyes, but he had said, "I'm sorry I can't give you a shave this morning, Capt'n. I couldn't hold the razor right." He had nodded towards the table which held the shaving equipment.

He had made that strangled gasp then, but Hook had remained calm. "Sit down," he had pulled out a chair. He had opened a bottle of rum next. "Drink until the pain stops. Then I'm going to reset your fingers."

Smee had collapsed into the chair and took the bottle in his left hand. He had started gulping down the spirits, and several tears had rolled down his face, but he had blinked them away. When Smee had started to slur words and slump in his chair, Hook had reset each finger, a nasty job of angling the bones straight, finding wood bits to serve as splints, and tying each finger straight with old rags – all while ignoring the drunk cries of pain from Smee.

Once finished, Hook had called several pirates to come take Smee to his berth.

They had been anchored off a Caribbean island that night, about a mile away from sight. One or two pirates would row to the island to scout out authorities, and if no one recognized them, they would trade goods or spend the gold they had stolen. But Hook had declared a drinking night, and his crew was on the main deck, whooping and clinking bottles.

He himself had gone to the stern of the ship, standing a floor above his own quarters where he had reset Smee's bones. Instead of a bottle of spirits, Hook had carried a bucket of fish mess, mostly blood and bones from the many grouper fish they had caught earlier in the day, and he had been tossing out cupfuls of it in the moonlight. He could hear the shark chumming in the sea below, swimming restlessly as the blood excited them.

Grimes had wandered up, bottle in one hand. "Captain?" he had sneered. "No revelry for you?"

"No," Hook had guarded his face carefully, "I can't look my best. My valet maimed his hand today, and I was denied a shave."

"That cuckold pus sack?" Grimes had snorted. "You give me the word, Captain, and I'll break his neck, cut him into pieces, and feed him to the crew. You see a bastard like that and you know he needs to be killed … and fast."

"I didn't realize he had affronted you," Hook had put the chum bucket down.

"Him just living does it. But his fear is grand, too, just like a virgin's screams when you catch her alone."

The movement with the razor had been so fast that moonlight hadn't even caught it. Hook had remained stock still, his arm the only movement, so fast and sudden that Grimes didn't realize he had been sliced until blood spurted out over his dirty collar.

Dropping the bottle, Grimes had clutched at his throat, eyes wide and shocked, trying to scream, as he had grabbed at his cut jugular, but Hook had shoved him backwards.

Grimes had toppled over the railing and landed with a splash in the inky-black water below.

Hook had listened to the sharks' frenzy while he had wiped his razor clean and folded it to put it back in his pocket. He had kicked the fallen bottle gently, ensuring that all the spirits had covered the deck.

Then he had gone to look on his valet, but Smee had been snoring softly in his berth.

When asked about Grimes' disappearance the next day, Hook had blinked and replied that he had seen the man stagger up to the stern, drunk off his head. Maybe he had fallen?

No sign of Grimes was ever found, and Smee's hand had healed, and the crew snuck three harlots onboard the next time that were so distracting that Hook had to take them aside and tell them they could only entertain the crew at night or they would all walk the plank. The harlots – giggly lassies from Bristol – had replied that they would much rather entertain him, so there had been some reward for him in the end.

And since those long-forgotten days, Grimes had been the only crewmember Hook had ever killed.

But as he stood in the little rental cabin, watching Smee fall to pieces without a word, Hook thought he would gladly kill numerous pirates just to regain some semblance of normalcy.

"You," he put on his sternest face, "will cease these hysterics immediately and go to bed. If I catch you out bed or hear a peep out of you, I will plunge my hook into you."

"But Capt'n," Smee peered up, slightly less pale, "you don't have a hook anymore."

An improvement, but still too scared.

Hook grabbed a sturdy book—something about fishing in the mountains—off the table and held it up. "One word, and I will thrash you until you can't sit for a week."

Smee was already up the stairs, so loud and clumsy it was a wonder he didn't wake Peter. The other bed door shut, and Hook put down the book.

Really, being captain was too much some days.

He waited about ten minutes before creeping upstairs to check on his two charges. Peter had not moved except to throw one hand out from the covers in an angle that looked stiff and painful. Hook folded his arm back under the covers and then went out.

He peeked in the other door, but Smee was on the bed fast asleep, tucked in a small ball, with his clothes still on. Hook went to the bed, shook out the quilt on the end, and laid it over the sleeping man who gave a soft snore and snuggled into the bed deeper.

Satisfied that they were down for the night, Hook left the cabin and walked in the dark down the road. Fireflies were glowing in the woods, but the soft spring air felt good as he walked.

Two lights shone out the darkness, like the wide eyes of a dragon.

Hook raised his hand to block out the lights, but a truck stopped beside him.

Dale leaned out the driver's open window. "Evening, sir. Out for a stroll."

"Yes," Hook hesitated. "The others went to sleep but I'm in search of food."

"I can give you a lift to Molly's. It's a little bar about a mile from here. Standard bar food, but the wife said I can stop for a spell so I'm going to watch some of the game. Watcha say?"

Hook barely understood a word, but he recognized the offer and went to get in the passenger seat. Once he shut the door, Dale turned the truck down the gravel drive, and they drove into the dark woods.