Chapter Text
Harry knew the names of trees of Neverland without knowing how.
Gil imagined that CJ would too--some odd power shared between the Hook siblings--but she wasn’t with them and so there was no way to check.
CJ had, for the most part, stayed in her room since Skull Island, ducking out occasionally to eat or settle into the crow’s nest when she knew her path wouldn’t cross Harry’s. It came as no surprise, then, that as the main island of Neverland came into view and Uma made orders to dock, CJ made her own plans to sneak away from them.
And when Harry hadn’t appeared to care, Uma continued into the woods with he and Gil at her back, the rest of the crew left to watch the ship. Still, she and Gil cast worried looks at Harry in turns. If he was concerned about his sister’s wellbeing he was hiding it admirably, or else otherwise distracted by the sea grape, the genip, and the sugar apple.
“Mangrove,” he pointed ahead. “We have to follow that.”
“To what?” Uma had long ago let her wrist fall, sword hanging limply by her side.
“That door, there.” Harry thrust his hook out farther, Gil’s eyeline following the motion.
“I don’t see anything,” Gil said, because he truly hadn’t. Harry made a soft, frustrated sound and looked to Uma, who shrugged as if to say, What do you want me to do?
Harry looked between them, and back towards the treeline. “Here.”
Harry took three steps and disappeared.
“...Harry?” Gil managed, after a moment.
Uma stared, wide-eyed, at the place where Harry had been, sword returning to its loftier height. “Harry if this is another one of your useless powers—!” She cut herself off, kicking the tree beside her and biting back a soft gasp. Gil took a tentative step towards her.
“Harry?” he tried, slightly louder and increasingly more desperate. He tacked a laugh on the end, in case this was a sudden joke at their expense.
“Harry!” Uma stalked towards the line of mangroves ahead of them. “Har—”
HARRY
The inside of the tree was big and filled with a soft, orange light. Harry knew at once he was inside the tree the same way he’d known he was on Neverland and that the first tree they’d encountered was Annona squamosa: something in his brain itched to tell him so.
He was standing in what looked like a foyer decorated with a metal kitchenette and kettle and two squat stools carved of wood; almost everything was wood, which he found increasingly morbid the longer he looked at it. A small light, brighter white than the muted colours of the home, flickered in a nook to his left. He tilted his head, trying his best to stare straight at it. It didn’t hurt, but it did feel...familiar.
“...Mom?”
The light stilled and floated from the nook in a wavy arc, like a bee unbalanced by a strong wind. Then Harry did have to avert his gaze as the light shone around him into something that engulfed the small room, and through it came a small shout of: “Oh!”
Harry lowered his hand and found himself captured by two small arms before he could take in anything beyond dark green. This must be her, he thought shakily, the feel of leather against his cheek and the smell of...coal?
He had so many questions, but the one that seemed the most pressing kept floating to the bow of his lips until it finally escaped. “Mom, do you know who I am?”
She pulled back, hands on his shoulders and it was the most unsettling feeling he’d ever had, staring into the soot-covered, crying, and wholly unfamiliar face of someone he was supposed to know so well.
“Harry,” she said, and his breath caught in his throat. “Harry, of course I do.”
GIL
Uma paced the line of trees in a pattern that reminded Gil of the cuckoo clock in Mother Gothel's classroom. Twenty steps forward, twenty back, deep breath, raise her sword to violently slash a line through the tree at the end of her circuit. Forty more steps. For every cycle she completed Gil cut a small slice of his own beside his thigh into the log where he had sat some paces ago. Their own ways of keeping time.
“It has to do with his powers,” she reasoned after another circuit. “Something’s happened he can’t figure out.”
Gil swallowed, rearranging the sentence carefully in his mind before he spoke, because even he knew the thought he had now was a dangerous one to have in front of Uma. “Should we call Mal?”
“How?” Uma whipped around, only ten steps away. “I mean no, absolutely not.”
“Sorry, Uma, I don’t know anyone else with magic. Not,” he motioned to the forest around them. “Not magic like this.”
Uma stopped walking, shoulders drawn back like she’d been beat across the chest. “Yes you do.” Gil slid his knife back into his boot, standing up to meet her. “I’m going to find CJ. If Harry says he saw a door, I believe he saw a door. Which means she can see a door.”
Her stance was confident, but her tone said, Probably. Hopefully. Gil was getting better at reading behind the bravado.
“Stay here,” she ordered, before he could pick up his crossbow. Uma glanced over her shoulder at the path she'd worn in the dirt. “In case he comes back.”
Gil wanted to argue. He was the better tracker, and this wasn’t the Isle. CJ couldn’t be far but, in a way, she could be anywhere. There was no way Uma would stay behind, and he thought about Harry coming out of the trees and finding no one at all.
He bent down, scooped up his crossbow and held it to his chest. “Roger.”
UMA
Either Uma had picked up enough tips from Gil through their years together or CJ hadn’t made herself difficult to find. There were only two easy paths from the place the ship was docked and, considering the trash along the other trail, CJ had clearly taken it. As someone who’d thrown vast amounts of slop into the ocean, Uma was the last person to judge.
When she found the girl, she was peeking out from behind a large boulder, hat covering her days unwashed hair and shoulders held up and tense. She reminded Uma of a stray cat, and was as likely to bite if she approached without care. Uma kept her sword drawn, just in case.
“Harry’s disappeared,” she said first, as this was the most vital piece of information to get across.
CJ’s eyes flicked towards her, shoulders relaxing while her fingernails gripped harder to the stone. “Not my problem.”
Uma might cut her. “Not your—!”
“Ssh!” CJ spun to cover Uma’s mouth, pressing the sword between their chests. The girl had no caution. Uma heard it, then. Low, happy giggles. She pushed CJ’s hand away from her mouth and CJ further away from her to catch sight of what she'd been looking at.
“While you all were wasting your time I was doing something useful,” CJ said behind her.
“Mermaids.” Uma’s mouth flickered into a smile. “What did they tell you?”
CJ slid against the boulder with her arms crossed, hat falling on her face, not quite covering her disappointed huff. “They have a secret.”
“And?”
“And in no universe will they tell a Hook.” She pitched her voice to a higher registered, moving her hands to form claws, clearly mocking. “He stole from us! Even from another island, my old man’s screwing me over.”
Uma watched the sea women in their lagoon, lounging on the rocks and dipping beneath the water in turns. She felt a pang of envy from someplace she didn’t recognize existed. Beside her, CJ sat up and jostled her shoulder.
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Well, sea witch,” CJ said, less spiteful than Uma was used to hearing. “If you ask don’t they have to tell you?”
Uma wasn’t sure it worked that way, especially considering her family’s track record regarding mermaids. But it was much more fun to hurl CJ’s earlier declaration back at her. “Not my problem.”
CJ took this with as much grace as Uma imagined she would (that is to say none at all), spluttering until she fell into a contemplative silence. She chewed on her lips until Uma considered leading her back to the mangroves by sword point. “You help me,” CJ said, finally, “and I’ll go back and help you find Harry. Promise.”
Uma’s mouth twisted into a grin. She strolled towards the lagoon.
HARRY
Tinker Bell--his mother--was clumsily making her way around the kitchen like it was something alien to her. Harry raised a hand, a half-hearted attempt to stop her. Gil and Uma were...somewhere. He didn’t have time to drink tea. But the look on her face silenced whatever he was going to say. He didn’t have a word to describe it; a mix of pleading and anxious expectancy.
“I don’t like sugar,” he lied, and the whole air around her brightened.
“That doesn’t surprise me. Your father didn’t.” She waited until the water was boiling to speak again. “What about your sisters? How do they feel?” She shifted from foot to foot. “About sugar?”
“I don’t know,” he said, mildly irritated, and more irritated that he felt the need to hide such irritation. She handed him a cup, light blue, chipped at the handle, and filled with a light brown liquid. He took a small sip from the cup of the drink and didn’t hide his distaste, felt angry at himself for not trying to school his face into something like a smile, and there again came the irritation.
I don’t want her to leave again. He thought and then, just as quickly. She can’t leave. This is her house. His hands gripped the sides of the wooden stool he sat on. She can make you leave. His mind seemed to spiral somewhat, making him dizzy. Had there been something in his tea? He was too trusting; he didn’t really know her.
I waited for almost twenty years. Try to make me leave without answers.
Through all of this the petite woman sat across from him looking curious and vaguely inhuman in a way Harry couldn’t put his finger on. Something around the eyes.
“Calista came with me,” he admitted, a little soothed despite himself. “Harriet is...at Auradon Prep.”
“Is she?”
“Mom,” he said, and paused to ground himself. The word made him feel unmoored.
“Take your time,” she turned her cup in her hands. “You must have so many questions. I know I do. How did you come to be here, for one.”
“I came with my friends.” He looked over his shoulder. “My friends, I should…”
“In a minute, please,” she sounded desperate enough to draw his attention back. “I’d like to meet them, I just—”
“I’m sure you did, back on the Isle. Probably don’t remember.” Harry set his drink aside. “Couldn’t you have...?”
She chuckled, her eyebrows drawing together in a small crease of confused fondness. “Couldn’t I have what?”
It took a considerable amount of effort to meet her eyes after that.
“Couldn't you have come back to the Isle?”
Back to an inescapable prison, back to a land of no stars.
“I could have...reintroduced you to my friends.”
To Harriet, to Calista. To me.
The longer the silence stretched the more Tinker Bell’s expression shifted into something wary and defensive, her eyes flicking off to the side and her arms folded to protect herself.
Harry picked his drink back up, finishing the disgusting thing in one quick gulp. “Or Auradon, wherever you wanted.”
Her mouth quirked into a smirk that reminded Harry, disturbingly, of Uma. “It doesn’t work that way.”
“Work what way?” Harry scoffed. “The King’s proclamation was Relocated to Neverland for good behavior, wasn’t it? What? Haven’t you been good?”
“I can’t just leave!” she hissed, her cheeks heating in the picture of childish indignance. But these emotions--fighting, tension, anxiety--Harry was more used to, and he felt his shoulders relax as he settled on his stool.
“You can fly!” he accused her, years of this argument playing out in his head before he said anything. “It’s not like they can keep you here.”
“You mean,” she laughed again, a more defeated sound, her arms and her expression falling. “Like they weren’t able to keep all of us on the Isle?”
“They couldn’t. Not if you wanted it bad enough.” Harry puffed his chest out proudly. “I’m here aren’t I?”
She reached out and placed a hand on his hook, as though to assure herself he was, in fact, there, but too afraid to give him more. Their earlier hug seemed years ago. “You are. You still haven’t told me how.”
“I didn’t fly.” Harry flipped his hook and she pulled her hand away. Pan’s words at the racetrack came back to him as they had more times than he’d care to admit since that day.
I thought if she was going to go off and make herself all boring by having you that she would have at least taught you how to fly. No? Not even a speck of dust in there?
He held out his cup in a silent request for more and whatever little tension remained slid from her face as she tripped over herself to fetch it.
“Dad gave us maps; Calista, Harriet, and me.” He thumbed over his shoulder, tapping the bone there. “Inked them so we wouldn’t get lost, separated them so anyone who’d want to get here would need all of us. But we were always missing a piece.”
She slowly eased herself to the floor in front of her stool, cross legged, seemingly forgetting to hand him back his drink. “Mine.”
“We lost a race against Pan and he took something important from my friend for it.” Harry fought to keep the snarl from his voice and mostly succeeded. “And for the map he took something important from me.” She stared at him, hard and unblinking, until he answered her unspoken question. “My hook.”
“Those damned races,” Tinker Bell pursed her lips. Harry swallowed to wet his suddenly dry throat. His father cursed, and often; but the image of his mother was...decidedly different. She was good, after all. Good enough to get out. “And that?”
Her gaze was on his current hook. He had spent hours studying it. It wasn’t the same as his, though he hadn’t the heart to tell Gil as much. It was a slightly darker metal, flicks of lighter material on the inside that he could now tell were nickel; one of his new talents, he imagined. “A gift.”
The smile on Tinker Bell’s face was inscrutable. She dipped her head so her bangs shielded her inhuman eyes in shadow. “Don’t believe a word he says. Peter.”
“I thought he saved you. Got you off of the Isle.”
“Peter was more than happy to see me banished, as well as James. Not a single person to try and tell him how to act on his island. But once his supply of Dust ran out...?” She waved a hand through the air, a trail of silver floating to the ground from the tips of her fingers.
Harry stared at the particles, shades of purple and blue like the hottest flames before they lay on the ground, a dull gray. He caught a few on his fingers and felt them burn and itch their way under the skin there.
Tinker Bell was watching every movement. “Harry, how much did your father tell you about me?”
“He didn’t have to tell us anything.” Harry pressed his fingertips together, chasing that phantom sensation. “You saw a chance to get off the Isle, you took it. We understood.”
Her expression said what he was thinking: Liar. Out loud she said: “Give me your hands.”
Harry began to obey without consideration, years of his hindbrain following Uma without (much) question. Hands halfway raised, he stopped. “What for?”
“I’m going to show you why I left.”
Harry’s hands slid into hers and his first thought was, Small. They were tiny and calloused, even more so than his own. Her fingernails were black around the cuticles and under the nails--
And that was the last thought he had before something in Harry’s brain--his whole body--seemed to pull inward. He saw himself looking around the hollow of the tree, much bigger than he now, and it was dark, save the spaces where old metal pressed itself into the shape of a kettle, a hook, a knife, and the lifeline of the tree pushed up through the ground towards its branches.
Then the pain started, worming its way from his navel and spreading to the tips of his fingers. He clasped his hands over his belly, feeling as though all of his insides were being crushed up and trying to get back out.
“Come back, Harry.”
When he pulled his hands away from hers it was to trip over his stool, fully-grown once more. His chest heaved and his throat constricted. This hurts, he thought, and then the slowly forming, more forbidden: Oh no, I’m going to cry.
“What was it like?” she asked, quietly, bracing.
“Horrible!” Harry finally let a few tears fall, though he wasn’t sure he had a choice in the matter. He could still feel pain radiating out from his stomach.
“I thought--hoped--it'd be easier for you.” She finally handed Harry his cup of tea with a wounded look. The drink tasted different this time, Harry noticed, as his mother’s fingers flitted from his hairline to the tip of his ear. She seemed to have no idea what to do with a distressed son. “The first time it happened to me, I was trapped on the Isle. All of my skin felt stretched out, my insides laid open. It got better, like breaking in new boots, but the itch to change back was still there. Even keeping this shape now is...unnatural.”
“And this is worth it to you?” He looked around her small home, the once comforting orange now oppressively bleak in the light of this new information.
“I don’t know,” she admitted, smile a touch rueful. She reached across the space to touch his hand. “I’m glad you’re here.”
GIL
There was someone on the log beside him.
Gil could sense them before he jumped and turned, bow drawn. Several things happened next, in such quick succession that Gil had the passing thought he may have fallen asleep: Whatever had been on the log, an animal or a falling leaf perhaps, was gone now. All that Gil could see was his own shadow, which wouldn't be a cause for concern, except that it started to move on its own, specifically towards him at an alarming rate.
As the cables of his bow stretched back, there became two shadows; his, the standard amorphous cast of himself, and this...thing, a mirror image of himself in a black so unsettling he felt as though he was looking into the void. As the darkness stretched out, and Gil lowered his weapon, the shadow became one he was acquainted with, and not a human-shape he was overly fond of.
“Pan?” Gil said at the same time as four pairs of voices shouted variations on stop and wait.
The shadow floated, two feet off of the ground, bent at the waist and toward him to shake his hand, tossing his bow about roughly in the process. It shouldn’t have done anything, Gil thought with wide-eyed wonder. His hands were gripping air, nothing but the absence of light.
A pair of boys Gil recognized came tumbling through the bushes, followed by two boys he did not. The shadow scrambled around Gil to plant itself firmly behind him. “Finally!”
“If he’s gonna be the leader every time,” one of them spoke. “I’m never leaving the tree again.”
“Thanks for catching him, Mister.” One of the two Gil recognized as the boy who’d given Peter the flyer in the Underworld. “We’d get in real trouble with Peter if he wasn’t with us when he got home.”
“No problem.” Gil kept his back to the copse of trees Harry had disappeared into. There had been no sign of the other man, but he wanted to draw as little attention to the place as possible. This had the unfortunate side effect of drawing all of their attention to him.
“Hey don’t I know you?”
“Uh,” Gil grappled for something to say. The shadow wound its way back to float beside Gil, transforming, only briefly, to the ridiculous shape that was Hades.
“Right, from the race!” The same boy pointed from the shadow, now Pan once more, then to Gil. “What are you doing all the way out here?”
“He did say he was going to come. We gave him the map, remember?” The slightly taller of the boys pressed forward. “I’m Nibs. You’ve met Cubby, and these are the Twins.”
“You must be here for the stuff you lost.”
Gil thought, once again, about Harry in the trees, and Uma telling him--very pointedly--to stay put. But stuff meant treasure, Uma’s shell. “I...am.”
“Wish we could help.” Nibs made a clucking noise with his tongue. “But rules are rules! Can’t take you anywhere if I’m not the leader. And that dummy got ahead of us and...well, I guess he’s behind you now.”
Gil slung his bow over his shoulder, thumb aimed at his chest. “So, I’m the leader?”
“Hey, he gets it!” The Twins said, as one.
Gil looked around, the boys lining up dutifully behind him, near vibrating with excitement. “Any idea which direction I should go?”
He felt a featherlight push against his shoulders and marched, diagonally, past the trees. “Sure, we know the way!”
Gil imagined treehouses before, but nothing like the towering, spruce before him adorned with many windows. It’d make a good ship, was Gil’s second thought, after the one about ridiculous treehouses, and by the way the door creaked around him, he feared the tree may have read both thoughts and couldn't decide which was more offensive.
The tree opened to a wide room with many branching paths in the literal sense, with tunnels under itself and ladders that curved up into the hollows of branches so large that Gil suspected some magic must be at play. He wove his way across the leaf-strewn floor, careful not to trip over swords both real and wooden and, judging by a telling lack of dried blood, not so much weapons but toys left abandoned after play. There were piles of patchwork blankets and stuffed animals, but these were so caked with dirt that Gil wondered how long it had been since someone had done more than step or sleep on them.
The Twins disappeared up one of the ladders, whooping loudly, while Cubby and Nibs lingered near Gil. The shadow practically skipped over to a chest in the far back, half hidden by a large warp in the wood.
Gil leaned over his...its shoulder. “Is this where you keep all of it? Your treasures?”
“Maybe we should wait for Pan.” For the first time since they’d set off from the forest, Cubby spoke up. He sounded nervous. “None of us know how to get it open.”
The shadow slid between shafts of light, planting itself firmly in front of Gil and pointing to itself proudly.
“You know how?” Gil took a tentative step forward at its vigorous nod. “You really...don’t like him, huh?”
The shadow didn’t have eyes, but Gil imagined, if it did it would be giving him a very long look. Then it turned and led him back towards the chest.
Gil knelt, hands above the series of old fashioned locks, following the motions of the creature beside him a split second after they were drawn through the air. When the chest sprung open Gil understood Cubby’s nervousness, why the two boys had stayed by the door while he worked. Gil could see the places where traps would have shot out at him. An arrow here, a folded knife at the back, there, and a vial of purple smoke that looked too noxious to be anything nice.
But there were treasures too.
“Pan won all of this?” Gil couldn’t hide the wonder from his voice. “No wonder he keeps racing.”
The shadow thrust a fist into the pile, forcefully, almost...defiantly. It achieved nothing, but it had some effect on Gil. He felt sorry for the thing.
“It must be a pain,” he said, slowly. “Being bet every time?”
It didn’t move, save to extend a finger from its still curled fist. By its blurred tip, Gil could make out the familiar, translucent sheen of Uma’s shell.
“Well,” said a voice too wicked to be acknowledged and too familiar to be ignored. “This is unexpected.”
Pan sat on a blanket, cross legged, his expression placid as the ocean those damned becalmed days. Sunbright hair and sea bright eyes, and a power that swallowed up the weak, the overwhelmed, and the otherwise unawares. But Gil could forgive the hurricane for what it had done, the ocean and the winds. He had been on hunts with torrential downpours, and the Isle had lost their fair share of food to bad routes. Nature had no idea how it consumed them, shaped their lives.
People, though; they knew. They chose. Uma taught him that.
Cubby and Nibs had slunk off to some hollowed part of the tree, and more power to them that they had done as much so silently. The shadow and Gil were cornered by the chest, defenseless save Gil’s bow. Pan was still curled around the dirtied toy on his lap. Gil knew Pan had magic here--strong magic--but he thought, if he aimed very quickly, he might be able to shoot him and escape.
He’d never shot anybody before.
“Not that I blame you for coming. It’s awful over there.” Pan stretched out one leg, then the other, and stood. Gil breathed between each movement, his entire frame relaxing into the intimate stillness of the hunt. “Here, everything is so much brighter. The sky, the trees—,”
“The birds,” Gil interrupted without much meaning to.
Pan had been inching his way towards Gil, and the shadow, and now he stopped. “The birds.”
“On the Isle,” Gil continued, unsure why but knowing there was an end he must reach. “The one patch of hunting ground we have is the Poisonous Forest. Not a great green, but it has animals. I would catch them, and let my brothers or my father do the killing, when I was young anyway. There were birds I could never set the right trap for; poisonous mourning doves. Their wings shine silver, like little knives, and they spit great globs of acid if you get too close to their nests.”
As he dug deeper into the recounting, Pan’s patience seemed to wane. Gil trudged along, unperturbed by his manner. “It’s easier to catch fish, not to mention you get more meat off of them, but my father insisted those birds were a hunter’s true test.”
“Then I met Uma, and she told me I could leave the Isle with her. Hunting birds after that felt...well,” he shrugged. “But my father asked, so I killed the bird. I think about it now and that part was very easy. I think that maybe he just figured out how much time I’d spent thinking about those birds. They could fly. We were trapped but they didn’t have to be. I didn’t want to catch one, so he decided that’s the thing I needed to kill.”
“Do you want to kill me, Gilliflower?” Pan’s smile was calm and dangerous. “Here I was hoping you had come to take me up on my offer.”
“I don’t want to kill you,” Gil admitted.
"That's reassuring to hear," Pan drawled. "You kill me? Chaos. I kill you, and what? Son of a B-List villain dead on Neverland. They'd never look for you and, even if they did, they'd never find you."
"You'd...kill me?"
"Of course not!" Pan made a hissing noise through his teeth. "I'm one of the good guys, remember? Killing tends to make us unpopular with the local authority. That being said, there's a long, winding path from healthy you to, well, picture the opposite of that."
“I don’t want to kill you,” Gil repeated, shoulders loose and pulled back. “So I'm sorry if this does it.”
Gil didn’t think anymore, raising his bow with a last, steadying breath, and shooting in one smooth movement. If his aim were true, the arrow should find its home somewhere by Pan’s underarm, far enough from the heart not to kill, but the broad-tipped arrows would pierce through enough vein to--
Gil’s bow kicked upward, his arms following in a sharp, painful motion. He stared, his vision unable to register for a dizzying moment the arrow that had lodged itself in the space above the door behind Pan, and slightly to the left. Pan turned to stare too, and Gil could see the split second of surprise before he covered it with disappointment. He hadn’t moved a finger and, yet, Gil knew at once magic had been at fault for this. Gil couldn’t move his arms, his crossbow seemingly stuck in the air, holding them firmly in place. Pan turned back to look over Gil’s fixed position, then began to clap.
“I'll admit I'm impressed. That bow of yours is a pretty thing. Ash, is it?” he asked, and Gil felt his jaw tighten in response. “You must have had it for a while, I’m finding it quite hard to control. Still wood is wood.”
In Gil’s hand the crossbow slowly turned towards him. The wood at the handle grew, slowly, around and between his fingers, and Gil watched, horrified, as it spread to his wrist. He was able enough, at least, to pull his body away. Pan pulled the arrow from the wall behind him with a soft grunt, whistling as he made his slow trek towards Gil.
“Now, how do I load this thing—”
The shadow did not cry out when it vaulted over Gil, and it did not bowl Pan over, but the look on the man-child's face when the being passed through his body— ghostly pale and slack-jawed—gave Gil the impression that something deeply unsettling happened, regardless. Pan dropped the arrow and Gil’s crossbow dropped to his side, though it remained rooted to his hand.
Pan shook visibly and looked, for a sickening moment, only his boyish visage and none of his years. Then his lips pulled back in an ugly snarl and the moment passed. He ignored Gil to round on his shadow, a familiar popping noise reverberating around the room. Gil felt his hope plummet; this was the sound of the barrier when one stepped too close, the familiar pumpkin taste of the Fairy Godmother’s magic replaced by the buttery smell of acorns and oaks. The shadow ricocheted around the room, once, and through Pan again, but Pan held his ground, prepared this time. Seeing the distraction for what it was, and sending silent thanks for it, Gil bolted for the door, the weight on his left arm slowing him only slightly.
He reached the door, ears ringing at the outburst of sound that tore from Pan’s throat behind him. Where once there was a doorknob, there was now smooth, light green surface. Gil rammed it with his shoulder and found it did not budge. He sobbed a laugh, feeling somewhat hysterical, head pounding for an entirely different reason now. Behind him it was quieter than it ought to be, but he could hear small sounds of a scuffle. What would it be, he thought, to fight your own shadow, and he turned.
Pan was winning, that much Gil could tell, standing over the shadow with a bag of some silver powder. He had seen pixie dust, at the race, and this wasn’t that. The air smelled metallic as Pan spread a handful at his feet, across the bottom of the shadow while it struggled to get away. What should have been a matter of a second to raise his bow and reload took three times as long with the ash wood winding around his hand. He would still be able to aim, he reasoned, and move his finger enough to shoot.
But before the arrow was fully notched, Pan slammed his foot on the ground with a construct of finality about his face, shadow solidly his once more.
Pan shook out his limbs and looked over his shoulder to the place where his shadow now lay, cooperative. He seemed almost good humored about the whole affair and, where once Gil was relaxed, he now felt his joints locking as he hunched, eyes darting anywhere for a place to escape. He wanted to run, he had nowhere to run. Pan wasn’t coming towards him, though, he was heading in the opposite direction, and it was only when he reached the chest, that Gil understood why.
He clawed out item after item, digging in deep to wrap his fingers around something. His body blocked Gil’s view, but Gil had seen the assortment of cursed odds and ends. Gil’s chances weren’t looking good and, when Pan straightened with Uma’s shell, they looked worse.
“Oh well,” Pan tossed the shell from one hand to the other, sounding vaguely disappointed. “This is fun too.”
Gil fell hard. His hands slammed against the floor, the wood around his left wrist cracked but all Gil felt was the distant satisfaction of freedom. His right wrist shattered and, that Gil felt.
Then he felt nothing at all.
UMA
Uma had heard stories of mermaids since she was a child. These weren’t the Atlantians she’d been warned of, which varied in color and size; were solid and powerful. Neverland was home to stream maidens with fair skin and hair cropped short to keep from tangling up in the stray branches and rocks. They gave off a wary energy that felt dangerous the closer Uma stepped.
So she approached with caution, recognizing the water, at once, as the same she and Harry had once used to heal Gil with. He stole from us, indeed. She cleared her throat.
“I am—”
“We know you, Daughter of the Atlantican Witch.” The mermaid closest to her spoke, but did not look at her. From this angle, Uma could see round black eyes and near-translucent skin and, for all the stories and all Uma had seen, she still found it unsettling. “And the girl and boy you sailed here with; Hooks and Bells, both. Tell us what you want.”
“The girl I traveled with tells me you know something. Information that may be helpful to me. I want it.”
“Liar.” A half-seal of a creature with red hair hissed before sliding into the water. Uma didn’t try to hide her immediate reaction, indignation and ire. She took a steeling breath. What was that damn rhyme…
Atlantican maidens, trickery bends.
Arendelle’s selkies, steal their skin.
Ictian merrows, pay them their dues.
Neverland sirens, the truth you must use.
“I want to—,” She stopped herself and thought: The truth, before continuing. “To overthrow Peter Pan and claim ownership of Neverland.”
Finally, the mermaid with the black eyes, who spoke first, turned to face her. The rest followed, eyes shuttering from their various shades to the same black as their de facto leader.
“Then we have a common goal.”
Uma straightened, hand resting lightly on her hip where the hilt of her sword would be. She hadn’t come completely unarmed, but had left any noticeable weaponry behind.
“You cannot claim Neverland,” the mermaid continued. “It has been the boy’s problem for years, and Hook’s before him. But if you wish to rule here, as humans do we will not stop you.”
Uma noted that they said humans with a mix of exasperation and disdain. “How does Pan do it? What would make a difference to you?”
“He loses his temper, gets angry, reshapes the trees, the animals. The environment grows weary of him.” They waved a hand. “A weary environment makes for unclean water. This is the last refuge of our magic.”
Uma looked around. The water was a beautiful blue laced through with streaks of gold. She wondered how far it stretched before it poured out into the sea. She knew, from her mother’s greedy recollection, and her own despondence at the loss of that tingling feeling of magic beneath her skin, it couldn’t stretch far enough. Not nearly.
“Take this.” The mermaid slid a hand under the water's still surface and pulled from it a small leather waterskin. “Use it well.”
“What do you want me to do with it?” Uma reached an arm out to take the slick pouch. “I know it heals but I doubt you want me to use it for that.”
“It does,” they nodded, expression tight, unwilling to acknowledge how Uma may have come across such information. “It will also make Pan’s shadow...whole.”
“Whole?” Uma crossed her arms but the mermaid explained no more. She gave up with an exhaled breath. “What do you want for it?”
The mermaids continued to stare at her, smiles fixed. Eventually the red-haired mermaid bobbed their way to the rocks near Uma’s feet. Uma knelt and they leaned forward on their elbows, far enough to whisper in her ear.
Give us the shell. They said, voice an echo in the far chambers of Uma’s mind. Give us his soul.
Uma stood, turning the waterskin in her hand, and nodded once. She was no stranger to soul trades.
The grove was empty when CJ and Uma found their way back to it.
“I thought I told Gil to wait here.”
“He must have followed Harry when he came out this way.” CJ pointed to an orange tree. “And in there.”
“In there?”
CJ took Uma’s hand, tugging sharply. Around her was suddenly the smell of iron and heat, as she stood in the middle of what was, unmistakably, a blacksmith’s forge. Uma took another step forward, towards the singing of metal against steel, but CJ stopped so abruptly that Uma found herself slamming into the girl’s back.
“CJ, what?”
Something uncoiled in Uma’s stomach when Harry spoke, out of her eyesight but there, nonetheless. “Calista, this is—”
“I know who she is,” CJ’s voice was strangled from the tightness of her jaw. “I don’t care.”
Uma stepped around a visibly shaking CJ to take in Harry who was safe and whole, and she’d be angry about that later, a tiny part of her brain provided, but for now she was...exceedingly happy to see him, showing a quick flash of teeth to say as much. Harry’s shoulders, pulled up to his ears, fell slightly at the sight.
The woman next to him was slight with sooty black marks along her face and arms, her green dress torn and covered in pockets weighed down with metals and tools. Uma was not stupid. She knew at once who this was.
“I...understand.” Tinker Bell set aside her gloves. “But your brother had a lot of questions for me. Are you sure you don’t have a few? I won’t be mad—”
“Fine. Why did you leave?” CJ took a step forward and, before the woman could answer, spoke again, louder. “Do you hate us?”
“No!” Tinker Bell sounded more defensive than upset. She sounded like the worst of Harry’s tantrums in Harriet’s melodic voice.
Uma was an intruder in this, but she hardly knew how CJ had gotten her here, let alone how to get out. Tinker Bell was saying something about ‘love’ and making Uma very uncomfortable as she slid her way around CJ to get to Harry, who was trying to talk between both women though, she noticed, not trying to talk them down from a fight.
“I didn’t hate your father, Calista.” Tinker Bell's anger had given way to exasperation by the time Uma made it to Harry’s side, fingers lightly grasping his elbow. Harry acknowledged her with a small stroke against the knuckles of her fingers. “Hell’s bells, I made him his hook.”
“Liar!”
She wiggled her fingers, attempting for levity. “Tinkerer. Pan was hard to get along with in the end for everyone. Unsurprisingly, Pan and I had a falling out after that little act of rebellion.”
This pulled a smile from Harry at least, though that seemed only to incense CJ.
“Stop laughing with her!” CJ barreled past her mother and straight into her brother, wrapping him in a possessive cling and, effectively pulling Uma away as well. She turned to Tinker Bell, breath heavy and face red. “Stop talking to him!”
“Calista,” Harry shook her shoulder. “She can help us!”
“No!” The red on CJ’s face, Uma noticed, was somewhat...ethereal. Difficult to look at, like the middle point of a fire. “I don’t believe you!”
“Calista,” Uma didn’t have to reach far for her Captain voice. She was tired. “You’re glowing.”
“Wh-what’s…,” CJ looked at Tinker Bell, Harry, and settled on Uma, seemingly unable to hold the gazes of the other two. “What’s happening to me?”
“Untrained magic elevated by an emotional state,” Tinker Bell explained in a short burst of surprisingly level calm. The skin Uma was accustomed to seeing on CJ’s face was reappearing in blotches, but her eyes were wide and frightened.
“Harry,” Uma said, quiet most certainly, but with enough power behind it that Harry immediately straightened. “I need to talk to CJ.”
There was an alcove a fair distance away set up for discarded projects, and Uma’s fingers itched to pick through the sharp weaponry. Later, she thought, forcing her hands to still, pushing the girl onto a stool and standing across from her, waiting.
“We were fine without her.”
Uma shrugged. “You don’t have to tell me that.”
“Then tell Harry!”
“Why do you care about this CJ?” Uma motioned to the forge. “What happened to coming to Neverland, raising an army, forget the rest?”
CJ was quiet for a long moment. “I hate this,” she said through her teeth. “I loved my life without her.”
“No you didn’t.” Uma sighed, thinking of life before Auradon, before Ben and the Isle wall broke. “What does it matter? She’s here now.”
CJ let her eyes wander to the corner of the room where Tinker Bell was doing a poor job at acting disinterested and unconcerned. “What would you do if you met your dad?”
Uma was glad CJ was looking away, as she was able to school her expression into placid stoicism. “I don’t know. My mother was never as forthcoming with details about my parentage as your father was.” CJ stared her down from her place on the stool, eyebrows drawn together in the tight, handsome way she shared with her brother. “I know I wouldn’t turn down the opportunity. What if he’s someone powerful, or rich?”
What Uma didn’t say was, What if he’s good? A horrible secret hope she hardly ever thought as a child, made more real by meeting someone like Ben. Someone who would never abandon a child once he knew she was out there and his. What if her father just...didn’t know?
CJ’s brow slowly rose, and the rest of her followed with a deep sigh. Uma wove her way out of the alcove as CJ dragged herself to face her mother again.
“I hoped you were dead,” she said, so quiet Uma had to strain to hear. “I thought...that would be better. When everything was going wrong, when I was a kid. I thought surely, she has to be dead, or she’d come back to stop this. And you never did. But you’re not. You’re here. Why are you here?”
“CJ…,” Tinker Bell took a step forward, fingers flexing by her side for a moment before she raised her arms to hug the girl. CJ, if anything, went more rigid in the circle of her arms.
“Let’s let them talk.” Uma pulled Harry away by the shoulder and he came, albeit reluctantly. Back out in the grove she pulled the waterskin from her hip, presenting it to Harry like a trophy. “More of that water your father was so proud of. The mermaids here say it’s supposed to help us beat Pan.”
“Good,” Harry let out a breath, eyes still glued to the tree in which they had apparently been.
Magic, Uma thought with some wonder. “You said she could help us. What did you mean?”
“Her forge,” Harry explained, finally giving Uma his full attention and a smile with it. It was good to see. “All magic. Her magic.”
“I did see some weapons. I’m sure Gil had a field day with them.” Uma raised a hand above her eyes as though it was some great help to shield them or would give her a clue as to which way the other boy had gone. “Where did you send him? Back to the ship? Did you need something for the forge?”
Harry’s smile dropped as suddenly as it had come. “He’s not with you,” he said, eyes darting around the grove. She recognized the tone: a realization, not a question.
Uma placed a hand on Harry’s shoulder steadying herself against a fresh wash of mild distress. She shook him twice, forcing him to look at her again. “Harry…,”
Before she could say more, and perhaps this was good because she was uncertain what more she would say, two boys crashed through the lower branches of a nearby orange tree, sending the fruit flying.
“Tinker Bell! Tinker--you’re not Tink.” The closest one drew up short, accusing glare aimed directly at Uma. She recognized him as one of the boys that accompanied Pan during the race.
“I’m not,” she said, unapologetic.
The other boy, who she didn’t recognize at all, had passed both she and Harry to pound on the tree that served as Tinker Bell’s forge with tiny, relentless fists. Harry pulled him back, rather roughly, by the scruff of his collar leaving his arms waving through empty air.
“What do you want with her?”
“We have to warn her!” The boy in front of her cried. Behind her the tree turned a shade of unnatural orange and green, and CJ stepped through, followed by Tinker Bell. “We have to warn you!”
“Warn us about what?” Tinker Bell sounded every inch a mother in that moment. Especially when she rounded on Harry. “Oh, put Slightly down. Please.”
Harry complied, dropping the boy. Both rushed to Tinker Bell’s side, explaining what had them so upset in the way that children often did; speaking over one another, seeming to find breath more of a hindrance than a necessity. Uma felt her stomach drop when she heard the word, Gil. Looking at Harry’s face, she could see her sentiment reflected back.
Uma dragged the boy from the races back by his shoulder. "What about Gil?"
"Back at the treehouse, he fought Pan--"
"Got knocked silly!"
“And Pan’s coming here, Tink, or he will be!”
“Right after he checks the boat!” Slightly tugged at Tinker Bell’s hand. “He’s awful mad!”
Tinker Bell opened her mouth, finally able to get a word in edgewise, when her attention was diverted skywards, somewhere above the copse of trees.
“All of you,” she hissed. “Get inside and hide.”
"Listen, Lady," Uma took a step towards the woman and found her even shorter than she anticipated. She had a presence that belied her height, made her seem bigger than she actually was. Right now, though, all she was was the woman trying to stop Uma from finding Gil. "Our friend is out there!"
"And you won't be able to help him unless you do as I say! Now!"
"Do as you say?" CJ laughed, pulling her sword from her sheath. "You don't know me at all!"
Tinker Bell's face lit up, until Uma had to look away. Through the brightness Uma heard, "I don't need to know you. You will listen."
Uma felt the sickening pull that had accompanied her last trip into the pixie’s hollow with CJ. When she looked around, she was sprawled out on the floor of the forge, Harry's hand wrapped tightly around her wrist. CJ was not with them. No one was.
“CJ?” Harry stood first and called out, too quiet to be heard through the whole tree. Then, more panicked, “Calista!”
“Harry—”
“Come on. We have to find Calista. Maybe she was sent to the main house.”
“That’s your mother out there,” Uma said, breathing uneven. She found her feet, sea legs shaky after all this magical travel.
“I know,” Harry looked similarly offkeel. “But she's right. We can’t find Gil if...if all of us…,”
“What’s the point of finding him if you let this happen without doing anything?” She could hear the pleading note in her voice. But she knew him. He would regret this. “Open the door, Harry.”
Harry seemed to consider disobeying her, his expression caught between determination and shame before it folded in on itself and he pressed a hand to the wood. It went clear under his palm, that bright magical energy that Uma could barely look at, before the oranges and greens wove their way through. This close she could smell orange and salt and, as ever, the smoke of the forge.
CJ hadn’t made it inside the hollow. She stood between Tinker Bell--diminutive and flitting near her daughter’s shoulder--and Peter Pan. CJ’s leg was poised as though ready to leap at the slightest provocation. Uma couldn’t see her face, but her voice was enough to give away her anger, and the tendril of guarded distrust that lay beneath.
“--only me,” she said. “He and I came alone.”
Pan took a step closer and Uma watched CJ brace, fingernails biting into the skin of her palms.
“Harry,” the word came out as an agitated growl.
“I can’t get through.” Harry pressed his own palm harder against the wood before him. Uma found herself pressing with him. The magic wavered but they could not pass through. Tinker Bell darted around the grove, tugging on the shoulder of Pan’s tunic until he cast a weary look in her direction and flicked her towards the tree where Harry and Uma stood, unable to move and, judging by his lack of reaction, unseen.
This close Uma could see the pixie pull herself to stand all her several inches and stare at them, shaking her head vehemently. Uma drew back in confusion as Tinker Bell made a small motion with her fingers, pulling the tips of her fingers and thumb together once, twice, three times and what small amount of green and orange had been a part of the tree before disappeared completely.
“No…,” Harry slammed a fist against the clear sheen of crackling magic in front of them, too similar to the barrier around the Isle for Uma’s comfort in this moment.
“What did she—” Uma whipped around to stare at him, disbelieving. “What did she do? We can help!”
He ignored her, attention focused fully on his hands and the scene outside, where Pan had stepped so close to CJ she had to fall back slightly. The odious creature inhaled deeply, looking near euphoric and Uma fought down a queasy feeling.
“Well I should say good job, Tink!” he smacked his lips at CJ with a smile. “ There’s more dust on you than your crusty old mom.”
He floated close enough to CJ to wrap an arm over her shoulders, fingers tapping over her hair in a vicious, childlike mockery of a toy soldiers’ march. CJ struggled for a moment, then stared ahead, straight at Uma and Harry, eyebrows drawn down and mouth set in a determined line.
“Let’s go.” Pan snapped his fingers and they disappeared in a cloud of beautiful, pearlescent dust.