Captain James Hook and the Siege of Neverland by Jeremiah Kleckner, Jeremy Marshall

that I no longer had my bag.   Panic gripped me.   I searched the beach for it and found it washed up some yards away.   I reached into it and my fingers slipped out the bottom.   I turned it inside out and found nothing.  
    “Stop looking,” the mermaid laughed.   She reached behind her and held up the thin stems and leaves.   “This is what you want?”
    “Yes,” I said.   “How do you know?”  
    “It is what the men of this world always come for,” she smiled.   “In Neverland a man can live forever as long as he doesn’t die.”
    “That sounds ridiculous.”
    “It is as ridiculous as it is true,” she said.   She handed me the herbs with a grin.
    “And you want nothing in return?”
    “You’ve already given me so much,” she said.   “You don’t feel it?”  
    “The Forgetting ,” I said.   “I’ve seen it in my crew.   They lose themselves.   Their memories.”
    “Oh, but you’ve given just as much.”   She examined me for a moment.   “Maybe more.”
    “How is that possible?”
    “Currency is currency,” she said.   “We hear that you men trade in pretty rocks and metals.”  
    “Again, why me?”
    “The others squabble over the children,” she said.   “But I have first rights to the men of my choice.”
    “I’m honored,” I said, mockingly.
    “You should be.   I am royal blood and you are a prize.   You have worked so hard for what you have that a day of your story is worth a dozen common lifetimes.”  
    “I’d trade it all to have never known him.”
    “No you wouldn’t,” she said.   “And that’s the most valued secret I’ll take from you.   Your hatred is so beautiful.   You cherish it.   You nurture it as you would a child.   I’ll have it.   All of it, in time.   Then you can die.   Not a day sooner.”   She smiled her needle teeth at me and disappeared into the water.  
    I stood at the banks for several silent moments.  
    I knelt down to my reflection and collected my memories, mouthing every word carefully.  
    “My name is Captain Hook.   I was born James Hoodkins to Jonathan and Elizabeth.   My father was the captain of the Jolly Roger back when it was called the Britannia .   William Jukes is my oldest friend.   He and I grew up together in Port Royal.   His father was Harrison Jukes, a great man who served as first officer to my father.   Emily Jukes was his sister and the only woman who had ever truly seen me and still chose to love me.   Save for William, they are all dead because Peter Pan came into our lives through me.”
    I concentrated on their faces as I spoke their names.   I stared hard into my reflection’s eyes and recited my memories again, this time with greater certainty in the wording.  
    “Captain!” a voice called out from behind the trees.  
    I took one more look at myself in the water.  
    “Captain!” the voice called again.   “Where are you?”
    I filled my wineskin with water, stood, and walked to my crewmen.   They had not moved far from when I left.   First they rolled from side to side, then their legs and arms jerked.   Soon, they flexed their fingers and lifted their heads.   I showed them the herbs.  
    “Well, then, I guess this be a success,” Cecco said, rubbing his neck.  
    We walked to the castle on unsteady legs.   The road dipped and crested, but the men stayed in tight formation, occasionally leaning on one another for support.  
    “And he couldn’t have warned us about that?” Smee asked.
    “He tried,” Noodler said, a few yards behind.   I turned back to watch the man scuttle our tracks.  
    “He doesn’t want us dead,” I said.  
    “Aye, but he doesn’t want us all,” Smee said, burning a hole through me with his eyes.   “He wants you.”  
    “But why?” Cecco asked.  
    “Yeah,” Smee said.   “What makes you so special?”
    “I’ve been asking myself that a lot lately,” I said.   We rounded the corner and the castle came into