Low laughter spread through the pirates as Peter and the Lost Boys surrounded her. She didn’t need to look into their faces to know they all shared a singular thought:now, we steal it.They weren’t buying one second of negotiating, and as far as Hook’s crew was concerned, neither were they.
Maggie wasn’t one to readily take no for an answer.
6
Maggie
“There must be something you’d want for it.”
Hook laughed without an ounce of humor. He might’ve smiled, might’ve even let a few wrinkles appear along the corner of his eyes, but that was all it was. There was an emptiness behind it, a crudeness that sought no happiness in a laugh. He laughed to mock, to tease, to make fun of, to bother. There weren't any niceties behind it, no matter how many times Maggie tried helplessly to convince herself of otherwise.
“Some things aren’t that simple, my lady,” Hook said. He kept a close hand over the hilt of his sword, his gaze flickering out over Maggie’s head every few seconds. “Now if I were you, I’d leave before I can no longer keep my crew back from attacking.”
Hollers rippled through Hook’s crew as Twitch strutted forward.
“Let ‘em try, Hook,” Twitch snapped, his voice so sharp that it almost punctured the wooden ship deck. “I’d like to see ‘em try to –”
Peter clapped a hand over Twitch’s shoulder, and quickly pulled his loyal follower back into formation. Laughter continued to mock them from the opposite side of the deck, butMaggie was becoming so used to it that it wasn’t hard at all to ignore them. It didn’t look like the pirates carried too many thoughts themselves, anyways. Whatever they heard around them was what they followed – and that was good enough for Maggie to use to her advantage.
Maggie strode up to Hook as he walked toward the mermaid statue, his steps long and lazy. When he turned around, he almost flinched back, his eyes narrowing as he realized that Maggie was lurking behind him.
“You must have more people to bother, my lady,” he muttered.
Maggie nodded her chin to the shelf. “Looks to me like something else once sat on that shelf.”
His eyes snapped to her. “H-How could you possibly know that?”
Her eyes widened, mouth opening as she realized her bluff had actually managed to work for the first time in her long,longlife. She tilted her head, trying to hold back her smirk but hardly able to. “In all honesty,” she murmured, “I didn’t. You just told me, though.”
“You–” Hook pointed at her, eyes wide.
Peter’s presence made her smile as he drifted closer. “Man, Hook,” he said with a low whistle, “you’re losing your touch, aren’t you?”
The pirate’s attention jerked to the King of Neverland, his cheeksactuallybeginning to burn a deep scarlet. “I’m not!” He smacked his forehead, the sound echoing through the deck as the pirates whispered under their breath to each other.
“So the mermaid statue replaces something,” Maggie said.
Hook rolled his eyes. “Yes, my lady. How smart of you.”
“The sarcasm is hardly necessary when I’ve already figured it out.”
“Leash your woman, won’t you!” Hook waved a hand in front of her dismissively.
Peter held his arms up. “I wouldn’t dare.”
Maggie hardly recognized herself these days. It wasn’t at all a bad thing, but more like something that she struggled to still get used to. The girl who had survived off scraps and small moments of good luck in the human lands wouldn’t at all believe that Maggie in Neverland was the very same person. Maggie could barely recognize herself when she looked in the mirror. She dressed in clothes she never would’ve thought would look good on her, but now wore anything she wished to. She faced off against pirate captains who called her ‘my lady.’
Pride beamed across her face, pride that she had never known before.
Realpride.
Maggie crossed her arms firmly. “What would you want for the statue, Hook?”
The captain pinched the bridge of his nose until he was forced to squeeze his eyes shut. “Look,” he forced out between clenched teeth, “everyone knew that the statue had magical properties if it was capable of keeping the Everything Plants alive. Even if it didn’t have magical properties, some would say it waslucky.”
Maggie shrugged. “I-I don’t get it.”
“What originally sat there, my lady, was our good luck charm,” Hook explained. “We lost it rather foolishly in a storm we were caught in. When we managed to get out of it, we realized thatourstatue was lost to us. It fell off the ship and sank to the bottom of the sea.”
