James wasn’t born to pirate life. He was raised in London, a rather mundane non-magical realm where he was son to a grand lord and lady, well before the time of Lady Tremaine and Cruella de Vil, but not so dissimilar from their own upbringings. You will notice that the last three entries in this Book of Fairy Tales have worked their way back in time rather than moving forward, but as you will soon learn, time means nothing in the magical realms, and even less so to those who rule the lands where the magic is as dense as the Dead Woods in the Many Kingdoms.

As with most children in aristocratic households, James’s daily care was left in the hands of a nurse, a nanny who attended to the child’s every need. On one of their daily strolls in the park, James’s nurse found her attentions diverted from her charge, and returned to find James had disappeared from his pram (or stroller, depending where in the world you are reading this).

As you can imagine, James’s disappearance sent panic into the hearts of his family. Little James was missing for six days. For his parents, it was six gut-wrenching days. But by all accounts they were the most glorious six days of James’s entire life, and have remained so to this day.

In all our time chronicling fairy tales in this book, one of the most delightful things we’ve learned about London is that for a non-magical realm, it is often touched by other worlds’ magic. For instance, when a boy falls out of his pram in London, he is transported to a place called Never Land. If the child is not claimed by his parents within seven days, that is where he will stay, and thereafter be known as a Lost Boy.