Extra Darling

Chapter 8: Escape

"Gone? What do you mean gone? They didn't just disappear." Arthur said.
"See for yourself, Captain."

Arthur pushed passed the trembling pirate in the doorway and stormed out on the deck. I gathered my dress in my hands and followed suit. The pirate in the doorway kept his eyes down as I passed but I barely noticed. I stumbled out a few paces behind Arthur and was greeted by the same sight that left him dead in his tracks.

The deck was empty.

Completely, inarguably, unexplainably, barren.

In the place of the ten tied up children who sat on the deck not moments ago, was a pile of ropes, and among that a pile of wounded pirates.

I put my hand on my stomach and gave a small gasp, unable to process what I saw.

Arthur, enraged at his men, bent down and picked up a pirate on the floor by his neck.
"You." He spat, "Tell me what happened here or I'll make you walk the plank and let the mermaids have their way with you."
"N-No, Cap'n. I'll tell ya."
"Then speak."

The scrawny pirate with blond stringy hair and a scruffy beard on his neck held up his hands in defeat as Arthur so violently grabbed his throat.

"After you took the lass in your cabin, some of the men went below decks to get a drink and celebrate the capture." The pirate explained, "Those of us who stayed up here to guard the prisoners were blindsided when Pan and his children sprung out of their ropes as if they were never there and leapt into the air."
"If that's the case then why were you on the floor? Defenseless?" Arthur demanded.
"We tried to fight back, Cap'n. But the children were quicker than us, flying above our heads, and knocking us down faster then we could get up."

I could see Arthur roll his eyes as he dropped his hold on the man's shirt.
"Absolutely pathetic," He announced to the deck, putting his hands on his hips, "These are mere children. How is it that you lot can never manage to keep them tied up?"

As Arthur walked over to the ropes, I tilted my head to the sky. They actually did it! They got away! I don't know how, but I wasn't about to go waiting for someone to answer my questions. I was uneasy being around Arthur. He frightened me, but he also intrigued me. Sometimes he made my knees weak, and other times it worried me how he did that. I wanted to be away from him as soon as I could.

If everyone had escaped, then they would be close by to swoop down for my rescue. I searched the clouds for any sign of them, but Arthur's voice startled me into looking away. I didn't want him to be expecting anything, that way my escape would be easier.

"Their ropes were cut." He concluded, holding up the end of a rope in his hands as he bent over them.
"But that's impossible." I shook my head, walking over to him, "I doubt any of your loyal dogs freed them, and the boys were rendered weaponless upon our boarding of this ship. I saw it with my own eyes. Nobody had any knifes to cut the rope."
"But that's just the thing, Ophelia." He said, standing up, "It was what you didn't see with your own eyes."
"Beg pardon?"

"It wasn't my men, and it wasn't Pan either. Believe it or not but he is just a boy. I know he likes to claim it, but he cannot do any magic except for flying." Arthur told me.
"But I still don't see how that explains their escape."
"Do you know how Pan learned to fly? Who brought him to Neverland in the first place and who never strays far behind him?"

I scrunched my brow, racking my brain for any stories Wendy told me. She explained once that Peter hadn't always lived on Neverland. She said that he lived in Kensington gardens for a time, when he was just a small babe. But he got to Neverland because of....