bunk your junk. Shops and living quarters jumbled together in a mix of old wood and garish paint, like ragged cats in a litter, like a junkyard's discarded remains.
And there were pirates at every turn. They swaggered down boardwalks. They hung from doors and windows, calling out boldly. They clung to buxom women and hoisted glasses. They clung to each other. They carried pistols and swords, daggers and cutlasses. They wore tricorne hats and bandanas about their long hair, rings from their ears and on their fingers and through their noses, sashes of fine silk and boots of tough leather, greatcoats and striped shirts and pants as baggy as laundry sacks.
Peter stared, trying to figure it all out.
Then abruptly he did.
Mickey and Minnie!
It was almost more than he could stand. He groped for his cellular, but it wasn't there, of course. He looked down at himself. He was wearing the remains of his tuxedo-his pants, shirt, waistcoat, and bow tie. From last night, he remembered, the tribute to Wendy, the kidnapping, that confounded faerie…
He took a deep breath, righted himself, worked free of the remains of Maggie's parachute (he recognized it now), and staggered to his feet. He was only minimally surprised to find himself standing on a building ledge.
"What are you doing?" he heard the faerie call angrily. "Get back here!"
Peter paid no attention to her. Enough was enough. The crocodile stared over at him, its jaws frozen about the clock, its closest eye fastened on Peter. Peter blinked and shook his head to clear it. He took a couple of tentative steps and almost fell, catching himself at the last moment.
"I've got to get some Advil," he muttered to himself. "Maybe some V-8. Then find a pay phone."
Steadying himself, ignoring the cries of warning from the faerie, he moved toward a ladder leaning against the ledge, climbed carefully down, and stumbled away toward the door of the closest building-another wrecked ship, the back end, called the aft or something, wasn't it? He drew strength from the smell of food cooking and the sound of voices. Pirates wandered past him, a few turning to stare. He didn't notice.
He went through the door of the wreck. Inside, it was dark and smoky and implacably grim. Whoever had decorated it must have spent long hours reading Edgar Allan Poe. Kettles of stew or soup were suspended over open hearths. Pieces of meat and potatoes sat on long wooden tables cluttered with cooking implements. Pots and pans hung from racks. Candles set in sconces and crude chandeliers gave what light there was to the hazy den. Peter blinked. He must have wandered into some sort of low-end kitchen.
He became aware then that a handful of pirates had stopped what they were doing and were staring at him, their tasks forgotten. They did not look friendly. They looked annoyed.
"You don't happen to have… is there any kind of, uh…?" he began, and trailed off.
A ratty toothless pirate came limping across the floor to face him, eyes squinting in a hard glint. Chewing tobacco formed a stain at the corners of his tight mouth, leaking out as his jaws worked diligently. Without a word, he reached up and tore off Peter's bow tie, eyeing it thoughtfully.
"Here, now!" Peter objected.
The pirate's eyes shifted back again. "I fancy them shiny shoes as well, mate."
Peter bristled. "Just a minute!"
Another pirate appeared from the haze and shoved the first aside. This one wore an eye patch and looked twice as mean. He grabbed Peter by his shirt and threw him against the wall. Peter careened into a collection of pots and pans, sent them flying in every direction, and ended up in the grasp of a barrel-chested pirate cook. The cook shoved him away. The pirate who had assaulted him first (Peter had already decided to press charges) came at him again, knocked him flat, reached down, and began pulling off his pants.
Peter kicked and yelled to no avail.
Then suddenly a familiar flash of light appeared, darting out of nowhere to snatch a candle from its sconce, whisk it to where Peter struggled, and shove it down the front of the attacking pirate's baggy trousers. The pirate reared back with a howl, beating at his pants. The light darted instantly to his eye patch, yanked it away from his grizzled face like a bowstring, then let go. The eye patch snapped back into place with a whap and the pirate went tumbling backward into a wall rack of cookware that released on top of him with a crash. He shuddered once and lay still.
Peter scrambled back to his feet, searching for a way out of this madhouse, but now the huge pirate cook was coming at him, wielding a battered butcher's knife. Peter moaned in dismay, backing against the wall. But the light zipped past once more and landed sharply on the curved end of a ladle sticking out of a soup pot. Out flipped the ladle, sending a spray of hot soup into the pirate cook's weathered face. The cook howled and staggered back, clawing at his eyes, then rushed forward blindly, lurched into the pot, knocked it askew, and brought the rest of the soup pouring down atop his head.
The kitchen was in chaos by now. The remaining pirates came at Peter, shouting and cursing, cutlasses drawn. Peter scrambled for the door, still reasonably convinced that he was dreaming, or if not, that this was some sort of movie stunt, but no longer willing to risk being wrong. He stumbled, and the pirates were almost on him. The light flashed by, cutting through a rope that secured the side of ribs curing overhead, and the ribs dropped squarely atop the pirates, knocking them cold.
Peter stood alone amid the debris, gasping for breath, groping for some measure of sanity. Down swept the light, landing on a wall strut inches from Peter's eyes. The light flared and dimmed, and the faerie from last night reappeared.
Peter laughed, certain he was crazy now. "Wow! You're fantastic, little bug! I can't believe my subconscious. I thought it would go for the demure type." He laughed giddily.
The faerie glowered at him dangerously. "Stop it, Peter! Stop it right now!"
She darted at him. He caught a glimpse of the tiny dagger's blade as she swept past his hand. He felt a sharp pain, and suddenly he was cut. He stared in disbelief at the back of his hand, watching the blood flow in a red ribbon from the wound.
His eyes went wide. "I can't believe you did that! I'm bleeding! Look at me! What do… what is this…"He shuddered, the truth of what the pain and the blood meant sinking in. "Oh, my God," he whispered.
The faerie landed again on the strut, emerging hastily from the light. "Are you okay?" There was genuine concern in her voice. "Peter, are you all right?"
Peter Banning lifted his eyes to stare at her, no longer seeing a light or an image or some figment of his imagination. Gone in an instant's time was the misconception that he was in dreamland or anywhere else imaginary. Gone was the dizziness, the belief that he would wake from dreaming when his head cleared, the certainty that the world was as it had always been, as he had always known it to be.
He stared at the tiny faerie and knew that she was real.
He tried to breathe, and his chest constricted.
The faerie's face was pretty and bright with youth beneath the frown lines that etched her smooth forehead and the corners of her mouth. "Do you know where we are?" she whispered to him.
He swallowed, then nodded. He couldn't speak.
"Who am I, Peter?"
He froze. If he said it, if he admitted it…
"Say it, Peter. You have to say it."
He managed to shake his head. "I can't," he breathed.
She bent close. "Why?"
"Because if I say it, if I…"He swallowed. "If I say it, it will be…"
"What?"
"Real."
The lines disappeared, and there was a strange new light in her pixie eyes. "Please," she whispered. "Peter, please. Say it."
His face softened. The name was a feather on the wind. "Tinkerbell," he said.
"And I live in…?"
"Neverland."
He gasped at the enormity of what he had just admitted, jerked away, and ran to the window of the deserted kitchen to stare out into the pirate town. The crocodile tower loomed before him, facing out through the wrecks of the pirate ships toward the harbor beyond. Pirates jostled and shouted as they crossed the square and swaggered in and out of the buildings.