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

walls settled not quite where they were before.   This happened for long hours, or what seemed like hours, until I gave up the idea of sleep.   I threw the fur off of me and grabbed my coat.   The damp and cold fabric clung to my arms.  
    I stepped over Smee, who snored on the stone floor, and walked to the window with as much care as I could gather.   The Jolly Roger was in danger again and her captain was no where to be found.   A tenseness settled in my chest, but I knew that the ship was in good hands.   Billy Jukes was as fine a sailor as he was a friend.  
    I stared out over the courtyard and beyond the walls that guarded the castle.   Darkness blanketed the trees and blotted out the great ocean that surrounded Neverland.   I squinted, trying to make out any form in the Crescent Wood.   Trees shook and snapped in the torrent.   Their trunks bent in all directions, but always with the wind.   All except for a single line of parting branches moving away from the castle.   They bent and fell at the feet of whatever it was that pushed through them.   I looked past what was possible and saw the outline of a figure, green and larger than any man could be.   My mind flooded with impossible images.   Had I known a man like this in my past?   I closed my eyes and thought back through my life.   My memories stretched until all I saw was a cracked mirror of faces and dreams.   The harder I concentrated, the fainter the lines between the two became.   The figure disappeared into the forest and my shoulders dropped with the weight of a man who had grown accustomed to not having answers.  
    The wind changed and rain poured over me.   I stepped back from the window and brushed the water off of my coat.   Just then, a movement caught my eye.  
    Lady Gabriel stood further down the corridor, staring as a woman does when she is trying not to look like she is staring at all.   I smiled at my hostess and greeted her with a bow.   She curtsied and we stood in silence for a few heartbeats.
    “Trouble sleeping, kind sir?” Gabriel asked.  
    “I have slept on a ship every night for twenty years, my lady,” I said.   “Dry land takes some getting used to.”
    She looked at me and I felt her judgement drip from the expression.   Judgement and something else.   “I have seen comelier knights before.”  
    I looked down at my wet coat and muddy boots.   “No doubt, I’m sure.”  
    “And far more courteous as well,” scoffed Gabriel.  
    “Have I done something to offend you, my lady?”
    “What you did to that boy was a cruelty.”  
    “Your husband would have done worse.”  
    “He did,” said the lady.   “The act of kindness would have been to let the boy die.   But if this is all ever going to end, some kindnesses may need to be shed.”   She looked me over again.   “It seems to me a strange thing that a man of your breeding should not know the conventions of good society.”  
    “Pray tell me, what have I forgotten?”
    “When a countenance is known, every knight who practices courtesy must claim a kiss.”  
    A gust of wind tore through the room.   The men stirred, but none woke.   I pulled my wet coat tighter around me.   “Kissing another man’s wife means something different in my time.”  
    “No,” the lady said, “It doesn’t.   Unless you have pledged your faith firmly to someone?”
    I turned my eyes to the window and stared out into the blackness.   Deep in the folds of my mind, the name Emily was etched clearly in my script, but her face was a blur of golden hair and fair skin.   “Not anymore.”  
    Gabriel leaned in and gave me a kiss.   I stepped back and Gabriel’s jade eyes ripped through my chest.  
    “You’re as cold as he is,” Gabriel said.   “Every day is a fine day to take advantage of a love that is close by.”
    “I hardly know you and every day is a fine day to not be stabbed by a jealous husband,” I said.   “If you were to