A Neverland Tale - HOOKED (eng)

Chapter 1.9 - Luke

Lukes POV

In fact, none of the 'tests of courage' or 'games' that the boys had suggested had really appealed to her yet. Tests of courage... something like that could only occur to boys. In London it had been no different, even there the gangs and boys had to challenge and measure each other again and again. It was neither strange nor new to her, even if it was beyond her understanding. To her, it was the behavior that might have stuck in any man from his youth, no matter how old they ended up being.

Perhaps that was why she had shaken her head in more or less indulgent amusement. So far... most of the dangers of Neverland had not yet crept under her skin. She had attended a crocodile hunt with a pounding heart- but there they stood at the top of the cliffs of a hillside, throwing spears at the behemoth that another poor boy had had to lure into that cul-de-sac. She could not yet remember all the poisonous berries and plants - but this could be avoided by learning and eating only what the others gave her. That the test for admission among the lost would be more difficult did not come as a surprise. She had expected this after some of the boys, for example, proudly told how they had stolen a feather from the chief of the Native American tribe's precious headdress or a flag from Blackbeard's ship. Others had to bring feathers from a nest of Neverbirds. The giant birds, now more like walking skeletons than the magnificent creatures they had once been, nested near the island on Neverland's cliffs. Reaching the nests alone was dangerous.

THIS, however, was something else. Hook beamed into the room like a part of winter incarnate, flooding it with cold so that there was a palpable feeling of wintry frost on their skin. Luke was almost certain that if she turned her gaze now to an open area, she would have been able to see crystals of ice on it. His nearness made her neck and fingertips tingle icily, pushing every muscle into guardedness and putting restless electricity into her limbs. Nervously, the tip of her tongue darted out and moistened her dry lips as she tried to either irritate Hook with her talk or get him to respond... ANYTHING but that stagnant coldness that sat in his features.

She could feel it. The way the air charged and gained heaviness. She had always had a sense of it.... for the vibration that filled the air - long before the storm rolled in and the first foothills of black clouds appeared on the horizon. Then Luke had closed his eyes, enjoying the ever-increasing wind that carried that very special note. Tales of faraway lands, of freedom, that only the wind possessed and which could make the soul grow wings - while the body remained heavy... until the first drops fell and the world sank into a silence that only the storm had to own. Hook was the same way. The black violence that was there at the door in sight, proclaiming the end.... ominous.

That was the moment when she had to act. She felt it like an electric shock that ran through the synapses inside her and made her hand grasp the shell.... cold metal, probably silver, pressed against her hot fingers. But it was the opportunity she needed.

She could almost hear death laughing as the captain's thrust narrowly missed her. Only a second had separated her from death, one hesitation-and she would have been mauled by the crocodiles in the sea. So the rattling sounded.... and she heard Hook's angry roar that sounded to the pounding waves like that of an angry predator. She clung to the damned rope as if to her manifested life, while her ears rushed louder than the roaring waves. Below her, mist floated above the roiling sea like a breath. As if to embellish the scene, death itself exhaled cold breath. As her body was pulled over the railing, landing dully on the wood, she was about to laugh in relief. It pressed in her chest-an offshoot of the overflowing relief of having escaped death-that a short, hoarse laugh leaped from her lips and her comrades.... first confused, then grinning wryly at the newcomer.