Hook’s Revenge The Pirate Code

Jocelyn looked up. The outline of something huge and dark blocked the stars. It wheeled, sinking low enough for the ship’s lanterns to give it form: a great black bird with a wingspan as long as the height of a man.

Jocelyn smiled in spite of herself, happy to see Edgar Allan the courier crow once more. It had been a long time since he brought her to the Neverland. He landed on the deck in front of her with a little hop.

“Hello again, young Jocelyn Hook.” He nodded politely to Roger, still in the crow’s nest, to Starkey, and to Evie, who merely stared in return (quite rudely, I might add; her finishing-school training must have abandoned her at that moment, though her frustration at the interruption is understandable). Roger nodded back.

“I am doing my job. Delivering letters.” He removed a packet of letters tied to his leg. “Please sign here.”

Jocelyn signed a delivery receipt, her heart pounding. The last letter he had brought her had been from her father. Could he have arranged for another delivery before he died? Perhaps she would find the key after all, though what good it would do her at this point, she didn’t know. The great bird shuffled through his papers and then placed a parchment in her hand. She unfolded it with trembling fingers.

The message was short, scrawled across the page in a reddish-brown ink—or was it blood?

Jocelyn Hook,

The ice and snow only served to freeze my resolve. Hook’s gold will be mine. I have taken that pompous fool Sir Charles Hopewell. Such a shame that I will have to torture him into madness before I kill him. Bring me Hook’s map, with all its secrets revealed, and I will deliver him into your care. I’m at execution dock—I believe you know the place—in your very own When, waiting, but not patiently. Come alone. Do not cross me again.

—Captain M. Krueger

The blood drained from her face. How had Krueger survived? And how could he have traveled to her When?

Roger climbed down the rigging from his perch in the crow’s nest. He took the letter from Jocelyn’s hand.

Starkey grew interested, despite himself, “Who is this Sir Charles person?” he asked.

The two girls looked at each other, and Jocelyn could see understanding dawn on Evie’s face.

“It’s not possible,” the older girl said, then sat hard on the deck. “I’m…I’m your…”

Family reunions can be uncomfortable even under the best circumstances. There’s that cousin who’s younger and more beloved, the brother who is more skilled at thievery, and the cheek-pinching maiden aunt (no doubt testing to see if one is plump enough for roasting). Still, I doubt there has ever been a reunion as awkward as this one.

Roger stepped in to explain. “People come to the Neverland from many different Whens. You came from your time—or at least the time when you are this age. Jocelyn came from hers, about twenty years later.”

“Twenty years from now I’ll have a thirteen-year-old daughter? But I’ll be so old.” She touched her face as if testing to see if wrinkles had already begun to scrawl across her skin.

“But that means I must marry that dashing Captain Hook! Won’t my father be scandalized?” She beamed at the very idea. “What kind of mother am I? Are we friends then, like we are now? I hardly remember my own mother, so I only have a vague idea of how it works.”

Jocelyn allowed a tear or two to fall. “You are one of the best friends I’ve ever had.”

“I suppose that won’t be terrible then, even if I am ever so old.” She was obviously warming to the idea, becoming excited, even.

Jocelyn nodded and led Evie into her cabin. It was time to tell her the whole truth. “I can’t leave without you, because outside the Neverland I don’t exist. That is, if you never go home, I am never born.”

“Oh.” Evie deflated. “Well, I’ll go home, then. I’d rather go on a treasure hunt—can you believe it was below my school all along? But at any rate, that’s your adventure, not mine.” She blushed ever so slightly. “Besides, it sounds like I have some adventures of my own coming up. I’d better get ready for them.”

Jocelyn sat on her bed, her fingers picking at the coverlet. “But that’s the thing. You can’t go now. I don’t want to lose you.”

Evie sat next to her. “You won’t lose me. You’ll just have me in a different way. I’ll be your mother.” She giggled. “I’m going to dress you in the frilliest pink dresses, just to get back at you for some of your peevishness.”

“Of course I can. Who will stop me from doing whatever I like? You’ll be a baby and subject to my whims.” She nudged Jocelyn with an elbow. “Right now my whims are telling me that you will want to wear giant hair bows.”

Evie looked about for a handkerchief to give her, but finding none readily available, she tore off the edge of her own hem. “Look at the example you have set for me.” She laughed. “But I’ll have my turn in the end.”

“All right, all right,” Evie said. “You don’t like hair bows. I’m only teasing. It’s nothing to get so upset over.”

Jocelyn wadded the fabric scrap in her hands. “I’m not. I mean, I’m not upset about hair bows. I wish you would have a chance to put them in my hair, and dress me in the frilliest, ugliest, pinkest dresses you like, but you didn’t. You don’t.”

“If you go home, yes, you marry Captain Hook, my father, and you have me, but…” Jocelyn hesitated.

“So you cannot go back. If you stay here, you can grow old. We can grow old together. Maybe not like mother and daughter, but like sisters.” Jocelyn’s vision swam with unshed tears.

Evie clasped her hands together quietly in her lap. She stared down at them. “We will grow older, but not really grow up. We’ll be like your pirate crew, like grown-up children, is that right?”

“I’m not sure now if that’s what I want. You wanted me to go home before—what changed your mind?”

Jocelyn felt sick with shame. “I thought having you go back was simply setting things right. Putting them back the way they were supposed to be. I didn’t really like it, but I thought it was the only way. I wanted to be able to go home someday. But having you in my life is more important.”

Evie caught Jocelyn’s gaze and held it. She spoke quietly, but her words were heavy. Each fell upon Jocelyn with the weight of the world. “If you cannot leave, who will save my father?”

Jocelyn’s tears fell freely now. Things had not always been easy between her and her grandfather, but she loved him. She had no answer.

Evie continued to look her in the eye. Jocelyn watched a series of emotions play across her face. The older girl took a deep breath and seemed to steel herself. “Jocelyn, you must go. My father—your grandfather—he needs you. You can’t leave this to anyone else, not even Roger.”

“Are you sure you don’t still have some of that borrowed courage clinging to you, making you say this?”

“If I don’t, he will. And you will never get to properly grow up.” Evie straightened, some of her usual excitement returning to her voice. “The thing is, I won’t die right away. I’ll get to really live first. I’ll get to do a lot of things with my life between here and there. Growing up will be a great adventure. Besides…” She nudged Jocelyn again, prompting the girl to lift her eyes to her face. Evie raised an eyebrow, a mischievous grin on her face. “Captain Hook is in my future, and he is wickedly handsome.”

Evie hugged her back. “I know. But this is right and good. We do hard things for our family, sometimes even tell them good-bye, if we know we should.” She let go and stood quickly then, her mind made up. “That bird that brought the letter, can he take me home?”

“It’s time,” Evie said. She kissed the younger girl on the cheek. “Until we meet again.”

“Good-bye,” Jocelyn said, choking back her tears. She walked Evie to the deck and made the necessary arrangements with Edgar, paying him with some of the gold Evie had pilfered from Krueger.

Evie took that moment to say her good-byes. “I’m going home now, Roger. Take care of Jocelyn for me.” She gave him a hug. “And yourself, too.”

“And you,” she said to Starkey, “if you sail with Hook in the future—my future, at least—I’ll likely see you then…though I suppose that has already happened for you.” She shook her head. “My, how the Neverland is confusing!”

She settled herself into the hammocklike sling Edgar would use to carry her back to her own time—the very sling that had first brought Jocelyn to the Neverland. “Are you ready?” the great crow asked.

She dug the logbook and lead pencil Jocelyn had given her earlier from her pocket, and quickly scribbled a note inside. She closed the book and handed it to Jocelyn. “I hope this works,” she muttered. “Good-bye, Jocelyn.”

Edgar rose swiftly, his shadow blocking the moon and the stars. Evie was gone. Jocelyn missed her already.

Look closely at your locket. Best of luck!

Love, Evie

Jocelyn untied the ribbon holding the locket round her neck. She stepped closer to the light of one of the ship’s lanterns. Her heart pounded, and her hands felt so slick with sweat she thought she might drop the pendant. She ran her fingers over the serpent on the front, feeling for the jewel that stuck out a bit farther than the rest. She pressed it, and the locket sprang open. She examined it, inside and out. It appeared no different from before.

She looked closer. Was that a hairline crack between the tiny portrait of Captain Hook and the back of the pendant? She pressed her fingernail into it and it came apart, ever so slightly. She pressed harder, but it didn’t budge. Jocelyn looked back at the sea serpent. She would force the necklace open if necessary, though she didn’t want to break it. “Come on, open up,” she commanded, poking the jeweled monster right in its ruby-red eye. The back of the locket swung open, revealing a second compartment. A tightly folded piece of paper fell to the deck. Jocelyn snatched it up and carefully smoothed its folds.

It was a page torn from a book of fairy tales—the story of Cinderella, to be precise. On one side, in Jocelyn’s own hand, was written:

Dear Mother,

Whatever happens, I will be fine.

Love from your daughter, Jocelyn

She had written that very note to Evelina just after she defeated the crocodile. Jocelyn turned the page over.

Dear Jocelyn,

Better than fine. You will be great. Now go rescue Sir Charles and get the treasure!

Love, Evie (Your Someday Mother)

Jocelyn slipped the note into her pocket and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She brought the locket close and looked in the new compartment. In tiny writing, painted on the back of the portrait, Jocelyn found at last the key to breaking her father’s code.