literature

Fairie Rings - Chapter 7c

Deviation Actions

Norman891's avatar
By
Published:
148 Views

Literature Text

Wendy sat bolt upright in her bed; she was still shaking from the dream.  What did it mean?  It was still dark outside and when she checked her bedside clock it was 1:47 in the morning.  She sat on the edge of her bed rubbing her temples.  She had purposely tried to keep every thought of Peter Pan from her head since his disturbing visit several nights ago; this was not helping. The curious thing was, she had not dreamed of Peter. Wendy had dreamed of a strange young man with dark hair and hazel eyes that dared her to look away.  He hadn’t tried to harm her; he had barely spoken two words to her in the dream.  Wendy shuddered as the details flooded back.

She had dreamed herself in a long dark passageway with dim light at both ends.   When she turned around she had found the man, though he was not much taller than she, standing behind her as though he’d been waiting on her arrival.  Wendy had opened her mouth to scream - he was dressed so strangely and he bore a dreadful scar on his neck - but he had smiled at her so friendly she somehow knew he meant her no harm. He walked past her, then paused and beckoned her to follow.  When she had hesitated he had spoken to her.

“Come see,” he had said, in his smooth baritone voice.

And Wendy had been unable to resist.  Even though he laid not a finger on her, some how she felt he compelled her to follow; she did so begrudgingly.  As they traveled along the passageway she could see images being played out on the walls.  The stranger stopped and pointed to one series in particular.   Wendy crept closer and watched the strange goings-on.  Before her she saw a small boy of about six or seven.  He was playing on what appeared to be a large uncovered porch, one end of which had been fashioned to resemble the deck of ship, complete with ship’s wheel, cannons - though she was sure they were not real - and a mast from which flew an all too familiar flag to Wendy; a black flag with a skull and crossed swords.

“What a wonderful place to play,” she commented to her guide.  He nodded agreeably and pointed back to the wall.

At first Wendy saw only the boy playing, slashing at thin air with his sword and shooting down towards the ‘sea’ with his guns.  He had quite the imagination, she decided, and she rather fancied him playing at  ‘Peter Pan.’  Then something very odd began to happen, for now Wendy could see the shadow of a person cavorting across the deck with the little boy, and the longer she watched the clearer the image became.  To her great consternation Wendy realized the person who so enchanted the boy was not her beloved Peter, nor was the little boy pretending to be Peter; he was playing gleefully with Captain Hook.  And he was not attacking the pirate either.  Quite the opposite; he was defending Captain Hook, and Wendy found she could hear as well as see the scenes that played out for her.  

She watched as the fierce pirate of her nightmares charmed and delighted the child.  They ‘fired’ the cannons at Indians, lost boys, and even the crocodile which the little boy insisted he killed and pretended to skin so he could make boots for the both of them.   When the Captain claimed to spy Peter in the sky, the boy drew his cap pistols and shot in whichever Hook directed.  Wendy shook her head in disbelief.  There was no mistaking the look the boy’s eyes - pure adoration… for Hook.  It was what Peter had feared the night he came to visit her; the child that loved Hook.

She looked at the man standing next to her, then back to the boy.  “It’s you, isn’t it?” she asked.  The man said nothing; he didn’t have to.  His shy smile and slight duck of his head said all.  “But what about Peter?” she asked.  The man’s pleasant expression suddenly grew dark.  “You’re the one,” Wendy said, “You’re the man Peter told me about, aren’t you?”  

Again he smiled shyly.  Wendy looked back at the flickering images on the wall.  The boy was older now, about ten.  His ‘ship’ had been dismantled and he played in the woods behind his house, but his playmate remained the same and they hunted for indians and lost boys in the forest.  Again she saw the boy, older still, in his late-teens, carrying what appeared to be a strange sort of bow and arrows through autumn woods.  He climbed an oak tree and sat on a huge limb - but he was not alone.  Hook sat next to him as though they were waiting to ambush Peter instead of the deer that came walking by.  He talked to the Cap-tain as though he were an older brother or a favorite uncle, telling Hook all his problems while Hook acknowledged how unfairly they’d both been treated.

Wendy turned to the man, perplexed.  “But… How can you love him?  Why?  Don‘t you know who he is. What he has done?”

The man reached a hand to her shoulder and turned her back to the wall and the strange images.  This time she saw the child with a different man, a man she assumed to be his father, in a barn  He was lecturing the boy about something, shaking his fist in the child’s face while the boy cringed.  She saw the man reach for a whip and she glanced up at her escort;  he was staring at his feet and she would swear she could see him trembling ever so slightly.  

Wendy looked back to the pictures again and this time she saw the teenager arguing with his father, threatening him, yet backing away all the time.  She saw him cowering on his bed as the angry man lunged for him -- then she saw the villain of her stories, the same man who had once tried to feed her to a crocodile and threatened to kill her brothers, slashing at the man, driving him away from the boy.  She watched in disbelief as Hook consoled the boy, comforted him and kept watch over his sleep.

“Ask me again,”  Wendy’s guide said angrily.  “Ask me how and I will ask you what else I could do?”  He looked at Wendy, and she saw where tears had run down his face.  “As a matter of fact, I do know what he has done, things you haven‘t a clue about.  And you dare to ask me how I can love him.”

“I’m sorry,” Wendy apologized in a whisper.  “I didn’t know, I didn’t think he could…” her voice trailed off.  “I was wrong, I’m sorry.”

“Before you judge another, walk a mile in his boots; look from his side of the fence.”  The man started to turn away, but hesitated.  “How?” he said to Wendy.  “Why?  How could I do anything but love him?  It is what it is.”   He nodded his head politely to her and walked off down the corridor, vanishing into the mist.

That was when Wendy had awakened, and she felt every bit as disturbed now she had thought things over as she had then. What did it all mean, she wondered.  Had she been visited by some apparition or was the dream induced by her conversation with Peter weighing heavily on her mind.  She went to the window and stared out at the moon riding low in the clouds to the west.  How many nights she had stood at the nursery window, waiting and hoping for Peter to return and whisk her off for another adventure.  Now he had finally returned, she wished he hadn’t.  

Wendy pulled the curtains again and crawled back into her bed.  She tried to forget the man with the friendly smile and the serious eyes and all his strange visions.  She had an algebra test in the morning and if she was to get high marks she would need a good night’s sleep.  Captain Hook had neglected to mention those amongst the perils of growing up.  The pimples he spoke of had come, and the feelings as well as a few more barbaric inconveniences he’d not listed.

Sometimes Wendy wondered if she had made the right choice when Hook had offered her a chance at piracy.  At the tender age of twelve she had been thinking with her heart, not her mind.  If she had realized then how right the Captain had been, she might be sailing on the high seas, right now, as Red-Handed Jill, free from the cares of Algebra, Latin and physiology.  The reality of the situation, though, was that she had chosen her then gallant Peter and all things right and proper; what a fool she had been.
Hope everyone is enjoying this.  Reviews & comments are always welcome.  
© 2014 - 2024 Norman891
Comments0
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In