Mar 21, 2024
Dearest Lost Boys and Fairies,
I can hardly believe that it's been a whole year since "The Legacy of Villains" was officially published! 365 days (well, 366 since it was a Leap year!) since I took the plunge, asked the world whether there was room for yet another Peter Pan retelling, and finally set Jolie Hook free from my brain.
I've had the most fun year of my life. Not only did Legacy outdo all of my expectations but I got to meet so many wonderful readers and fellow authors along the way.
I also took a long time off of writing to give birth to my wonderful son Elijah --- so if you've been itching for the sequel to "The Legacy of Villains" just blame the adorable 8 month old who has had my hands quite full!
But I'm happy to say that I'm back in the swing of things (mostly) and as a special treat on this illustrious first anniversary I'm sharing with you the first chapter from the sequel "THE RUIN OF STARLIGHT".*
Cheers to more Neverland, Peter, and Jolie in 2024.
Juliet Lockwood
*Current draft may not be fully reflective of the final product upon publication.
The Ruin of Starlight
Chapter 1
“Breaking: Famed pirate crew of the Jolly Roger seek to re-open Star Portals. Captain Jolie Hook not available for comment, but a close source reveals she is “working on it”.”
The Neverland Star newspaper, Edition CCXIII
Jolie
Jolie Hook had dodged six traps and two ambushes and it wasn’t even noon yet. She pressed her ear to the wooden door that stood between her and her assailants and strained for confirmation that they had marched past her hiding spot unaware.
When the stomping of boot clad feet finally faded away and she could hear her drumming heart once more, she cracked the door open.
Nothing but the familiar hallway of her home looked back at her, though she swore the sconces were lit more dimly than usual—more shadows for her to slip between.
“Thanks, girl,” she whispered, patting the wooden beams of the ship walls as she slunk back out into the hall. She didn’t bother to close the door, knowing that it would disappear once she turned around, popping back up only if and when she needed it.
Her ship would protect her, if nothing else could.
“Peter what have you gotten me into,” she sighed, tossing her braided hair behind her back and wiping sweat from her brow. She could say that this was all his fault, but really it was her own. If she had just kept her big mouth shut…
From somewhere close—too close—she heard raised voices. They were angry that they couldn’t find her. If she was just able to get to the lifeboats she could slip away unseen—dust, at this point she’d swim to shore if she needed to. They’d anchored only a few miles away from the nearest village. She’d done harder swims before, and in worse shape.
She rounded a corner and jumped as a tumultuous roar resounded around her, the ship groaning its discontent in return. The neverains had started. There was no way she could get off the ship now—who knew what manner of ill the rains were today? Yesterday they had been sticky blobs of something corrosive, the day before tiny shards of glass.
Jolie could have almost sworn they were longer, too, than the 61 minutes they’d been her entire life. But that was probably just her paranoia talking—the feeling had grown louder and louder since she’d taken up the mantle as Captain of the Jolly Roger. From a thin, reedy whisper, to a cacophonous shriek that she’d been trying unsuccessfully to shove into a chest and toss into the raging waters of the sea.
It always said the same thing: something was wrong.
Her steps faded as she pressed a hand to her chest, feeling for the steady thump of her heart.
One. Two. …Three.
She didn’t need a voice to tell her that something was wrong. She could feel it.
Something. Was. Wrong.
“Gotcha!”
The voice came out of nowhere, as did the rough fingers that grabbed at her arm and yanked her backward. Jolie’s elbow snapped back, aiming for the enemy’s sternum, but whoever it was moved out of the way and used her distraction to slap a black piece of fabric over her eyes. A blindfold.
“Let me go!” she growled, tearing at hands that now encircled her wrists behind her back like iron handcuffs.
“Nu-uh, I’ve got my orders. Let’s go.” He sounded positively gleeful as Jo stumbled, her feet trying to match his brusque pace. “We’re late, but I hear the fun’s just gettin’ started.”
She tried a different tactic. “I am CAPTAIN of this ship and if you don’t unhand me—”
There was a chuckle but the hands around hers didn’t budge. “He said you’d say that. And what was I meant to say in return?” He paused, searching for the right words. “This is for your own good.”
A memory rose unbidden as she was forced to follow. Six weeks ago her father had sent men to kidnap her from her own room, tie her with ropes, and toss her off the side of the ship.
She’d passed that test but hadn’t known that her biggest one had been just around the corner.
Peter Pan.
Her father as his hostage.
Tinkerbell, the Neverwoods, the Lost Boys, Wendy…
The fight against the darkness that had tried to warp Peter’s mind, tried to kill them all, tried to upend Neverland.
Had it really only been six weeks ago? She wanted to laugh—her life had turned itself inside out and her sense of self had gone rogue.
For one, she could now properly claim that she was Captain of the Jolly Roger, her father having readily handed over the reins after the battle at Peter’s castle. Her lips twisted thinking about him, sitting on his new beach hut near Mermaid Lagoon and having no idea that his daughter was being frog marched to her doom. He’d probably be disappointed that she’d let his ship fall into such disarray so fast.
For another she was now friends with those she’d called her enemies for a decade. The Lost Boys—bless their work ethic as they toiled tirelessly to clean up the parts of Neverland that had been affected by battle—Tinkerbell, though the grumpy fairy still wasn’t too keen on pirates overall, and Peter.
Well, count that one as something more than friends.
Though right now she was about ready to wring his freckled neck. This was all his dust forsaken fault. Her hands had grown numb as they headed down a ramp and stopped abruptly.
There was the sudden sound of her captor banging his hand on a door, then a creak and she was pushed forward, her blindfold ripped off in the same moment.
She got in one good blink of shock at the ship’s mess hall before chaos descended.
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!”
It was worse than if a neverbeast burst up through the planks of her deck and started chucking people offboard.
It was garish yellow paper ribbons and blue hearts strung up along banners. It was a table full of hastily iced cupcakes and kabobs of soulfruit stacked with sticky honey bread cubes. It was her entire crew wearing ridiculous tassel party hats and popping off streamers into the air.
It was everything she’d been hoping to avoid for the umpteenth year in a row.
The person who’d brought her there clapped her on the shoulder—it was just Carl, one of her men—and gave her a toothy smile. “Happy birthday Cap’n.”
Jolie grunted, swiping her hand down her face and turning her sour mood into a facsimile of a happy one. It wasn’t the crew’s fault, and they all looked so happy to have something to celebrate—already she could see mugs of ale being passed between hands as someone started to strike up a tune with a fiddle. She looked around the room. “Thanks, cheers to another year,” was the most she could muster, raising her hand in a lazy salute. “Now go party, I know you’ve been waiting all day.”
Uproarious cheers met her words and, for a small moment, Jolie wondered if she’d be able to slip back out to her rooms unnoticed until a familiarly large body slipped his arm around hers.
“I tried to stop it.”
“I know,” Jo sighed, turning to Damien. “You’ve kept my birthday out of their minds for what…eight, nine years now?”
He tugged her close and she rested her weary head on his broad shoulders. Damien had always been chasing muscles but lately he’d been working even harder—hauling ropes, pushing full barrels clear across the deck, wrestling with sea lions and tigers—and it showed. Her second in command was a brick house.
“We’ll just have to come up with a new secret for me to keep,” he laughed. “Got anything juicy bubbling away under those layers of yours?”
He was joking. Of course he was, there was no way for him to know…
And yet her throat tightened all the same, goose pimples sparking their way along her arms like wildfire. She coughed to cover up her discomfort.
If Damien noticed he didn’t comment. Instead, he swiped a mug of frothing amber liquid and shoved it into Jo’s hands. “Plus, this isn’t the only thing we’re celebrating today.”
She blinked. “It’s not?”
“We’re trying again aren’t we? To open the star portals?”
Jolie’s shoulders sank a fraction as a bitter, waxy taste bloomed across her tongue. She drowned the feeling in the sweetened ale. “It didn’t work last time. Or the two times before that.” Despite meticulous preparation and reading over the research they’d uncovered from Peter’s nearly destroyed library, they had nothing to show. Not even a spark of magic or wisp of stardust.
“It’ll work.” He sounded so confident that she wanted to bottle up that feeling and sip on it any time she needed a boost. Beneath his facade, though, Jolie knew his resolve was faltering. There was another reason he wanted—needed—the star portals open, more so than any of them.
“How’s your–”
“He’s fine.”
Jo nodded her head, unwilling to push the conversation. Damine’s father had been sent to shore the week prior to live in what might have once been called a jail, but now was merely a small, single roomed stone hut with two guards posted around the clock. It was the best they could do, for now. Damien had read about proper systems, places for rehabilitation and community service that existed off world, and had become obsessed with the idea of getting Smee into one of them to properly atone for his mistake of murdering her mother, trying to murder her father, and trying to murder her.
Her lips twisted every time her best friend called it a mistake, and Damien’s face hardened every time she tried to put a stop to his idealistic goals, so they’d all but stopped talking about it. If they got the star portals open…they could make that decision then.
“Actually, I should finish up the letter I had been writing to him,” Damien said, his eyes clouded over. “Here’s your card though.” He pressed a piece of thick folded cardstock into her free hand and left before she could even get her mouth open to thank him.
“Dust,” she sighed, mentally adding fix growing rift with Damien to her to do list. She flipped open the card and smiled at the crude but perfectly identifiable drawing of the two of them done in sparkly crayon. Underneath, he’d written out “Welcome to adulthood. It sucks, but you’ll love it.”
She chuckled and slid the card into her pocket; she’d have to put it in her chest with all the others he’d gifted her over the years.
Warm hands on her shoulder and the smell of sugared lemons brought her back to reality.
“There’s my darling girl. I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
Jolie turned, her face stuck between annoyance that he’d planned this whole birthday party for her and a smile at just seeing Peter. Being near him felt like sinking into the warmth of a fresh bath. “Clearly I have to work on my hiding skills.”
“Well, this is what happens when you run away from birthday breakfast, birthday hoisting of the sails, and birthday opening of the sacred chests,” Peter murmured.
She shrugged. “It’s just a birthday. No reason to cause so much fuss, not when there’s a thousand things to do.”
When he smiled it made the dimples pop deep into his tanned cheeks. “There will still be a thousand things left for you to conquer after you’ve had some cake.” He leaned in closer, his breath a tickle against her ear. “It’s lemon flavored, your favorite."
“I never should have told you that.” Jolie tried to stifle the blush threatening to cloud her cheeks. She’d always associated the tangy sweet smell with Peter’s magic, but ever since he revealed to her that his magic had disappeared after the fierce battle at his castle…she realized it was just him who smelled so good.
She was pretty sure that she herself smelled of sea water and sweat on her best days, but that wouldn’t make for nearly as nice of a cake.
“Stop keeping secrets,” he pouted, wiggling his fingers in front of her face like he wanted to magic them away to a more private location.
“When’s your birthday? Maybe I’ll surprise you with a giant sea snake in your bed, tied with a pretty green ribbon.” She was only half-joking, part of her very willing to seek revenge for forcing her to acknowledge the day. The exact day, all the Neverland rules said, that she’d start aging too slowly for anyone to meaningfully track anymore.
Peter squinted his eyes at her question, turning the thought over in his mind like a stone. “You know…I’m not sure when my birthday is. But if my magic’s gone…maybe my immorality is too. Perhaps we should start to track that.”
Jo nodded. She had been thinking a lot about his unaging abilities lately. Just a few days prior he had cut his hand while peeling an apple and it hadn’t healed nearly as quickly as it would have before he’d lost his magic. The thought of Peter being vulnerable crushed her heart into a hard part of her chest. I can protect him, she vowed. And since Peter seemed unwilling to play life safe in any sense of the word—jumping from the top of the main sail into the ocean, coaxing venomous flying snakes into his hand for fun—it would only be a matter of time before his confidence became arrogance became something far more deadly.
“It’s a blessing, even,” he continued on. “How could I live forever knowing you only have another two hundred years or so?” He pressed a kiss to her brow. Jo shrunk under the tender act, eyes flicking around the room. None of the crew were paying them any mind—though she suspected it was more of a purposeful ignorance than anything. Some still weren’t completely on board with Peter, though they all were cordial to his face, and most preferred not to look directly at him if they could help it. Though she had been glad to hear that they didn’t have as many qualms with the gaggle of Lost Boys that came to visit whenever they pleased.
“You can't do that in front of everyone,” she said back, sliding an inch away from him.
He’d gotten good at hiding his disappointment whenever she tried to deepen the line that carved her in two: Jolie Hook, the girl, and Jolie Hook, the captain. The Captain of the Jolly Roger couldn't be seen canoodling with anyone, even if that someone was the handsome, charming, boisterous Peter Pan.
Peter didn’t get it. But Jolie had worked so hard to claim the title and she didn’t want to let any possible crack in her image of a responsible captain show. If that meant that all she had with Peter for now were the stolen moments in her cabin or under the canopy of night then so be it. Plus it almost felt like a betrayal spending time with him when she, and only she, knew that their future was murky at best.
She listened for the thump of her heart.
One. Two. …Three.
She knew that, like her birthday, Peter would sniff out all of her secrets eventually. But there was one change, one secret, one inconvenience that she’d kept close to her chest.
Jolie Hook was pretty sure she was dying. And she had no idea why.