He has yet to address the crew, has assiduously ignored their furtive glances, but on this he is clear: There shall be no changes. He is still Hook, Captain of the Jolly Roger, feared among those who oppose him, respected by those beneath him, loved by ladies in every port—the delightful Miss Swearingen, the voluptuous Madame Pomfrey, the sultry Dame Esmerelda. How they gasped whenever he ran the curve of his hook along their bared throats, how they sighed at the chill. Well. His fingers could be cold too. They are babyish, these new fingers, their nails pearlescent without a sliver of grime. No calluses. They cramped so easily when grasping the great wheel. Twice already he asked old Mr. Smee to take the helm, so he could take on more important matters.

And now he’s retired to his quarters, his charts spread before him. He traces their course with his left forefinger, his only forefinger before that morning, before he awoke not from his usual dream (or usual nightmare: the teeth; the ticking) but from a distant sound of a girl singing, lisping out words to a melody from his youth, or before his youth, when he was no higher than the fierce Captain Barbecue’s wooden leg (God keep his soul). It was a pleasant tune, he remembered that, but all else was forgotten as he went to wipe the sleep from his eyes with his beautiful steel tine, her edge so delicately sharp, but instead almost gouged out his right eye with those clumsy stubs of flesh—five of them—all pink and wriggling like hairless mice. He must have still been dreaming; that Smee must have put something in his tea. He began to bellow out his mate’s name, then clapped a hand—the hand—over his mouth to stifle the cry, but too late. Smee forced his round head into his chamber, the impertinent fool, always poking his nose where it wasn’t wanted, always bobbing his head up and down, grinning and aye-aye-ing. Smee has fat, sausage fingers that look perpetually smeared with bacon grease. So unlike Hook’s aristocratic left hand, weather-burnt but gentlemanly—it could play half a Mozart sonata with such plaintive emotion that even the most hardened buccaneer would be moved to tears—and now this infantile right hand, so obscenely pale and feeble. He tucked it into his night shirt, but too late; blind old Smee had seen the wormy fingers and was already falling to his knees and decrying it a miracle. (Poor stupid Smee.)

Now in his quarters, Hook runs his callused forefinger across chart after chart, but it’s no use. This is a job for his hook, his dearest Rosamund; how would he find his way without her steel surety, better than any compass? She’d never led him wrong, had always plotted a course straight and true through those tangled mists, to those lands of never and back again—but now, now he can barely get his bearings, can hardly tell port from starboard. His mustache twitches, his stomach roils. He closes his eyes and reaches out, not with his left hand, but with where his hook, his Rosamund, should be. He feels the smooth grit of vellum beneath that tingling fingertip, feels where gentle furrows were etched by quill pens, the smudge of ink outlining the murkiest depths: an outline of a sea serpent, of course; the graceful curve of a mermaid, not bad; the sinuous back of a giant crocodile, yes, yes. He opens his eyes, studies where the new forefinger points, to those uncharted islands that always echoed with an ominous tick-tick-tick. How long has he avoided those shores? How long has he kept nervous watch lest harmless flotsam grow teeth and tail? He holds his poor, weak hand to the light and curls his fingers, tilts them just so. At the right angle, if he squints, they cast a shadow of something strong, and proud.

He bellows the coordinates out to Smee. Today we go hunting! he cries.

For what? Smee asks.

For destiny, Hook says. His eyes smolder. His right hand, his hook hand, vibrates with anticipation.