Unhooked (14 page)

The view from this height is so vast, the feeling of the air rushing across my skin so exhilarating, an overwhelming sensation of freedom rushes through me as Pan glides effortlessly over the water. It's like when I run, when I push myself enough to quiet the worries and the insecurities until I can only feel. Only this feeling is so much bigger, so much more intense. So much more tempting.

The Captain and his ship are nowhere to be seen, but the island is there before us, rising up from the sea like an angry fist.

Pan leans into the wind and makes a course for those strange shores. We're close enough now that I don't need a spyglass to see the wreath of jagged rocks that protect the island. Their dark surfaces rise sharply from the water, like some long-submerged creature trying to claw the sky with its craggy fingers. No wonder the Captain stays so far out to sea—the waters around the island would be deadly to a ship as large as his.

But navigating these dangers is easy for Pan, who glides easily around the peaks that rise unevenly from the water below. I can't help but think he's showing off a little with how easily he sails through the island's gauntlet. He follows the shoreline to where the sea cuts up through a rocky beach and then follows the water farther, through a narrow pass that leads deep into the island's interior.

I am sure now that I hadn't been imagining what I saw through the spyglass on the Captain's ship. Up close, it's clear the island is moving as though it's alive. Sharp corners of rose-colored rocks flatten to smooth planes as it continues to move and transform itself.

But even as surreal as it all seems, the beauty of the island overwhelms—the staggering heights of the pink cliffs shot through with silvery veins of glittering crystal, the jeweled green of the jungle growth clinging to the rocky land. The flowers dotting the lush green with bright bursts of color are all more vibrant, more breathtaking than anything I've ever seen.

The sheer cliffs of the coastline soon give way to hilltops covered by a thick carpet of impenetrable vegetation. Everywhere below us, the jungle shivers and pulses with life. The broad glossy leaves of the plants ripple in the still morning light, their enormous flowers opening and closing like hungry mouths. But just as unmistakable as the beauty here is a feeling of danger so thick that it stirs in the very air.

Adjusting his course, Pan plunges into the jungle itself. He glides effortlessly along the canopy of trees, and then descends beneath their limbs, continuing along the jungle floor. Branches shift and move, creating a path through the jungle, as though the island is welcoming him home. On and on we fly, until it feels as though there will never be anything more than this green surrounding me, alive and threatening. Eventually, though, the trees ahead begin to thin, and I hear the rushing sound of water.

Pan chuckles at my gasp when we enter a wide clearing anchored by a towering waterfall. He touches down and gently lowers me to my unsteady legs, but he doesn't release me.

Instead he leans in close, like he wants to tell me a secret. “Welcome to Neverland, Gwendolyn.”

How long ago was it that the Captain gave me those same words, not as a gift as Pan offers them, but as a threat, a warning? It feels so much longer than a handful of days. And with my memories of the time before so hazy, it's hard to imagine I even had a life before my captivity on the Captain's ship or before I was brought to this world.

I take a deep breath to steady myself and use the opportunity to look around. We are in the center of a wide, level valley. On one end, across a smooth, clear lake, water glints in the morning light as it cascades from a steep rise of rose-colored rock. And anchoring that rock is a towering waterfall that's like nothing I've ever seen. The falls remind me of the tumbled tiers of a wedding cake and each step throws up clouds of mist that shimmer in the soft light. It's like watching a living prism, the rainbows within the mist shifting and dancing over the many pools.

The Captain had tried to explain that we were no longer in the human world. After all I saw on his ship, after all I experienced, I came to believe him, but now, standing here in this place in the very heart of the island, my heart understands the truth. “This really is Neverland,” I say with a kind of strangled awe. And if this is Neverland, how much more could be true?

Pan takes me by the hand and leads me forward, closer to the edge of the mirrorlike surface of the lake. “Welcome home, Gwendolyn, my dear.”

Home.

A feeling of joy crashes through me, and for a moment I can't help but accept the absolute rightness of his words. A longing wells inside me so startling, so complete, it shocks me.

Because this place
isn't
my home. And I can't let Neverland become my home. But there is something about the land around me that pulls at me. Calls to me in a way I cannot remember ever having felt before.

Covering my reaction the best I can, I gently pull my hand away from his grip and touch the stones at my wrist, forcing myself to remember my life from before. But the memories that surface are hazy and indistinct. And they aren't easy or comforting.

I can't seem to envision any of the places I've lived, but I
can
remember the overwhelming feeling of rootlessness, of being unsettled and out of place time and again. Of knowing that each move we made was only a stop—a pause that let me settle just long enough to almost get comfortable before I'd be uprooted again. But I don't remember any of those stops ever really feeling like a home.

Even through the murkiness of my memory, I know I've never had a place that truly felt like my own. But as I open my eyes again and take in the beauty around me, Pan's words of welcome echoing in my head, there is a traitorous part of me that wonders whether this
could
be the home I've been looking for. With all this beauty around me and the almost comforting pulse of the island beneath my feet, a voice deep inside me whispers,
Would it really be so bad?

I step back from Pan, unsettled by how easily I almost let myself give in. The Captain had warned me about this—he'd told me Neverland would tempt me to betray everything I once knew. I hadn't understood . . . not really. But maybe now I'm starting to.

I
can't
forget who I am and where I need to get back to. I won't let myself be taken in by this world again.

“Gwendolyn?” Pan asks, his voice filled with concern. When I don't answer, he lifts my chin gently. “Are you well?”

I give a slight nod. “I'm fine,” I tell him, finally forcing myself to meet his eyes.

Safe on the ground and with the morning sun finally lighting the world, I take my first real look at him. He certainly doesn't seem like any Peter Pan I've ever seen. He's no child, for one. He's taller than the Captain, but he looks about the same age—Pan, too, is maybe a couple of years older than I am. Though the barest hint of light stubble lines his jaw, his face is missing the worn, exhausted quality I now realize was the Captain's defining feature.

His white-blond hair stands on end in an artful disarray that gives the impression he's constantly in flight, like the wind itself can't keep its greedy fingers out of those unruly locks. Just as I'd suspected back on the ship, he's beautiful. But I see now that he has a hint of darkness to him, a suggestion of danger that doesn't so much warn you away as make you want to lean closer, to learn his secrets.

He's wearing the same tight, jaggedly stitched pants as Fiona and a high-necked vest that exposes the well-defined muscles in his bare arms and chest. The pale skin over his collarbone and around each bicep and wrist is adorned with bloodred tattoos that remind me of something.

It takes a second for the memory to bubble up, murky and indistinct as all the others, and then I realize where I've seen markings like Pan's tattoos before—they're similar to the rune stones my mom has always made and collected.

That recognition helps me remember her a little more clearly—every time we moved, she would take her collection of small, smooth pebbles and line our new windowsills with them. In every new place we went, she found another stone and painstakingly carved a crooked symbol into its surface. She'd wrap each stone carefully and keep them with her until she could set them out on the next window. My mom always said the runes she used were old Celtic symbols for protection—

I reach out without thinking, and touch one of the red markings that adorns the skin below Pan's collarbone. The red lines aren't smooth like a tattoo should be. They're raised, ever so slightly. They're not just tattoos, I realize. They're scars. Someone
carved
these symbols into his skin.

The warmth of his skin beneath my fingertips brings me back to myself and, embarrassed, I pull my hand away like I've been burned. My cheeks are hot with the awareness of how strangely forward it was to touch him like that, but even in my embarrassment, something makes me want to reach out again, something pulls me toward him.

I clench my hands into fists at my sides instead. “What are they?” I ask.

“They were a gift from my mother,” he replies with a small smile.

“Your
mother
did that to you?” I say, horrified.

“She did it
for
me, Gwendolyn,” he says.

His face is still serene, pleasant even, as he takes my hand and brings it up to his chest again, covering mine with his own. Beneath my fingertips and the raised edges of the carved lines, his heartbeat is slow and steady. His eyes, with their glacial-blue irises ringed by midnight, never leave mine.

“In this world, power requires sacrifice, Gwendolyn. The Queen sacrificed some of her power to bestow these gifts onto me. I accepted the pain, and in return, I received the power they give me. Some allow me to break free from the earth—flight, as you've seen. Others give me the power to speak to the island and compel it to obey,” he says, pointing to a different marking.

Then he takes my hand in his, pulling it away from the marks on his chest, and raises it to his lips. Still holding my gaze, he kisses the underside of my wrist softly before releasing it.

I rub absently at the bit of skin that burns where his lips brushed over it. When he smiles again, my skin practically buzzes with heat where his lips touched me. But there's a memory tugging at me, even through the pleasant haze of his attention. There's something I'm supposed to be doing. . . .

Olivia,
a small voice whispers, reminding me.

I can't seem to look away. “Where's Olivia?” I murmur, the words thick and unwelcome in my mouth.

I think I see impatience crash through his expression, but it's gone so quickly, I wonder if I imagined it. “She's most likely still sleeping. I thought I would show you my favorite part of the island rather than disturb her so early.”

What I want is to see Olivia, but he looks so hopeful—almost shy and boyish—I can't seem to make myself disappoint him. “It's beautiful,” I tell him honestly.

“Come.” He gestures that I should sit at the water's edge before he lowers himself to the ground, his long, leather-clad legs outstretched comfortably.

The clearing is empty and silent except for the soft rush of water from the falls. No one knows where I am.
I
don't even know where I am. Tentatively, I sit, keeping distance between me and the beautiful boy who's brought me to this place.

On nights such as that one, the boy came to understand that the key to not dying was remembering he was alive. For the world around him was strange, and often it felt like he was dreaming, though wide-awake. So he almost did not trust his eyes when he turned and saw his brother, gray and pale as an apparition, in the dim evening light. . . .

S
O THE STORIES ARE TRUE,” I say, watching the dance of the waters. Maybe the tales weren't accurate, exactly, but . . . “Neverland is real.” I glance over at him. “And so are you.”

He grins then, a wickedly charming smile that makes my heart kick up in my chest. “It does appear that way, does it not?” he murmurs, his voice soft, coaxing, and again I feel pulled toward him with an urgency I don't understand.

“It does,” I agree, but I also remember what the Captain told me about stories and the lies they often hide.

Though it's clear now that the Captain's stories held lies of their own.

“What did the Captain do to that boy on the ship?” I ask Pan.

Pan seems to ignore my question as he lets the tips of his fingers trail through the water of the pool, making small eddies ripple across the glassy surface. Tiny brightly colored fish swim over to investigate. They look like jewels glinting just below the surface. One of the braver fish stills and then, darting forward, latches itself on to Pan's finger with an unexpected violence. He doesn't even flinch. He simply lifts his hand from the water, the fish still dangling from his fingertip.

“We each belong somewhere, Gwendolyn,” Pan finally says, examining the fish. “This creature belonged to the water. . . .” The fish's scales are a brilliant sapphire-blue and startling purple, too vibrant and bright to belong in the seas of my own world. But as I watch, the colors fade and tiny black lines begin to snake themselves across the surface of its body. The lines remind me of the cracks that appeared in Davey when the Captain drank in his life.

“But when a creature ventures beyond the safety of its own world, often it can't survive.” Pan flicks the body of the fish from his fingertip, and it falls to the ground, where it crumbles on impact into brittle shards that look like bits of broken glass. Dark blood begins to well from Pan's finger, but he ignores it. “Your Captain doesn't belong in this world, Gwendolyn, and so he depends upon the Dark Ones for his life.”