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explanation, the blade folded innocently into its black horn handle with metal findings. I do not ask if it came from the dead man’s things or his corpse; all my men are scavengers. I examine the mechanism, revolve it in my hand with a care for my fingers, and press the button. The thin stiletto flicks out with a rasp of steel. I shove the blade back in with the curve of my hook, and drop it absently into my own coat pocket, my mind on other things.
     
     
    We are six in the boat, not counting the dead man: Burley, my bo’sun, at the helm beside me in the stern, Nutter and young Flax, with his upswept bristle brush of fair hair, at the oars facing us. Jesse and lean, weathered Swab, my jack of all work, sit at the oars behind them. They are dainty with their feet so as not to tread upon the lifeless thing stowed in the bottom, and I order a northwesterly heading according to the sun.
    “Stay clear of the fog bank,” I remind them.
    There’s witchcraft in it, the low fog that encircles the bay and prevents escape. Only Pan knows the way through, and none of the Lost Boys he’s guided out of the Neverland ever remembers the way out when they come back to me as men. Of course, none of the Wendys ever come back.
    When we are far enough out in the bay, we put a drag over the side and muster the corpse out of the bottom.
    “Receive this, our good shipmate, er, Hopkins,” I intone. “May he ever find a fair berth, strong drink, welcome companions, and eternal peace in the kingdom beyond.”
    To whom do I address these remarks? The sea, perhaps? My men have little interest in spiritual matters, but I always mention drink and companions in my makeshift service, things they will understand. Eternal peace I cite for myself.
    My crews never expect to die here. They are young men still; Burley, who cannot be much above five and thirty, is senior among them at the moment, Flax scarcely twenty. Could I but lop off a score of years from my own vast eternity for each man, perhaps we could grow into a kind of companionship over time, or at least I might content myself with their prolonged company. But their lives here are brief. I teach them to trim the ship and defend her against the boy and his allies, school them in hunting, fishing, swordfighting, curing meat, working the garden we keep at the mouth of Kidd Creek. Such men as prove apt, I drill in artisan skills—gunnery, carpentry, sailmaking—all in hopes of extending their brief lives a fraction longer. But I can’t defend them forever, nor send them home again. All I can do is try to see that each man dies well, without suffering, without fear. For Dodge’s sake, I pray he hit the deck before his muddled wits could comprehend his fate. Another pointless loss in the game that never ends.
    Why do so many come back here? Cast out of the Neverland as boys when they begin to grow up, they find themselves at odds with the other world; the dream of Neverland, however faded, haunts them still. Some dormant part of themselves beyond the grasp of memory must cry out in sleep for the tribal society of a childhood they can’t even remember and the comfortable tyranny of a leader. With the willfulness of the children they were, they dream of this place with such ferocity that Pan brings them back; perhaps he senses something familiar in the tremor of their dreaming that he has known before. But they are no longer boys and have forgotten how to fly. Pan soon chases them off to wander the Neverland as homeless outcasts, which leads them to me. Where else can they go? They were half-pirate anyway as boys, with the Pan directing their blades to any target he chose.
    Are they sorry to call Pan their enemy? Certainly not. None of them remembers exactly that they were ever his creatures. They’ve simply been bred to follow a leader, and any leader will do, so long as their thinking is done for them.
    We send the shrouded figure over the side, weighted down with a length of chain so no