Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Vera
Ithought I was being smooth. Everything is more romantic in lantern light.
That was my reasoning.
In retrospect, I kind of hate my reasoning. For one, I was correct.
It was still dusk when I left the castle to find James, but now as we make our way back up into town, I notice that the sun has long disappeared. The night is not dark, however. No, of course it isn’t.
Because it is the merchant’s festival.
Lights hang over our heads, strung between balconies of the upper stories.
The lanterns are shaped like little fish, they bob up and down in the cool sea breeze, their light flickering to the street below.
I wish the fish would make me think about a nasty smell, like it usually would. But they actually look pretty cute.
Merchants line the streets, hawking their wares and making the space extremely narrow.
To make matters worse, it seems as though everyone in town has gathered to see the wares and admire the lanterns. This leaves very little room for us to make our way through.
I grit my teeth, cursing the romantic mood I had been in when I wrote this scene.
I turn around to see James has already fallen behind and now there are several people between us.
His eyes are locked on the fish lanterns.
I shove past a young lady who appears to be ogling James and grab him by the end of the cloak.
She sulks when she sees that he is already claimed.
Not that he is claimed per say but… uh, I don’t need to justify myself to my own thoughts.
“It’s busy,” he says mildly as he turns back at me. As if we aren’t in a setting that is a time bomb for falling in love.
“You need to keep up,” I say, tugging him toward me.
In this crowd it will be easy to lose each other in the press.
I bite on my tongue, already regretting what I’m about to do.
I reach for his hand but pause just short of grabbing it.
Instead, I reach across it and snag his hook.
It seems the safer bet, but I can still keep ahold of him.
I tighten my fingers around the metal and begin walking forward again, dragging James along behind me.
The merchant’s festival can try its best, but we aren’t here to sightsee.
As soon as I have that thought, I am yanked to a stop and almost lose my hold of James’s hook. I turn to see that he has stopped and is half turned to a table.
He picks up a miniature glass figure, turning it over. It’s a lady in a dress with flowing hair that is stained red. He turns to me grinning as he holds it up. “Look, it’s you.”
“More like this is me,” I grumble, pointing to the figure next to it. On it is a siren sitting on a rock with waves rolling up around her. Her hair is blowing in the wind. She is entirely transparent. A bit like how I feel right now picking out glass miniatures of myself with James.
I clear my throat, scooting back.
“We should get them,” he says holding it up and turning it over in his hand. “They can be souvenirs to remind us of the crazy time we had.”
“James, we don’t even know if we can get ourselves back home let alone glass miniatures.” Even if we could transport something back with us, I doubt the glass figures would survive the journey. And even if they did survive the journey, they wouldn’t survive my cat.
James sulks. “Killjoy.”
“I will be as cheery as ever once we’re home,” I say, tugging on his hook. “Come on. Stop lollygagging.”
He holds back, still sulking a bit. “Why do we have to rush so much?”
“We have somewhere to be.”
James grimaces and runs a hand down his coat. “But the plot isn’t going anywhere, is it? We can sightsee and then return to our quest to beat the plot.”
I arch my brow. “Sightsee? Are you really interested in anything in this world?”
“I’m a bit curious, yes.” He raises his arm to gesture. “I mean it’s very different from Idaho, and it certainly isn’t California. Why not explore a bit first? Aren’t you the least bit fascinated.”
I nibble on my lip. I didn’t even think to be fascinated.
Before me is a large problem, the fact that I’m far from home and I want to get back.
Everything I’ve done is to get back. I haven’t even stopped to give myself time to process what has happened.
I just have my focus doggedly on the task at hand and everything else doesn’t exist.
It’s like when I’m in deadline mode, except I’ll be dead at the end of this.
He scoots closer, nudging my shoulder with his. “This is the closest thing to a vacation I have had in a very long time.”
“Book yourself a trip when we get back.”
He turns his pleading gaze to me. “I just want to be able to enjoy my last few hours before I’m forever burdened by crippling guilt. Come on, Vera, can we please enjoy the night at least a little bit?”
I suppose the plot won’t just skip ahead to where we die. There’s still so much that needs to happen first, so we have time to stop and breathe. Still, it feels as though it goes against my very nature to do this.
I can’t even think of the last time I took time to do something fun. It has only been working toward my goal, first of writing my scripts, then of getting an agent, then of getting picked up by a film company. I always said that rest would come after my dreams came true.
But all that happened was that my dreams dissolved into a multi-step path and I lost my passion.
And now I’m trapped in the world of my script.
That would probably be most writer’s dream, but not me because I had to be edgy and kill my main character.
And James thinks that now is the time to take that long needed break and rest?
All because my producer wants to shop for souvenirs?
But then a part of me goes, why not?
It isn’t as if we are in a hurry, the assassination attempt doesn’t happen till midnight anyway since I thought that was a fitting fairytale element to work into my script. I guess there is no harm in sightseeing.
After all, what writer wouldn’t love to see their world come alive? I just always thought I would get that chance when it went to the big screen.
I release a sigh as I tug on James’s hook. “Okay, but don’t get anything glass. That will be impossible to keep from getting broken.”
He presses his lips together and nods as he begins sauntering down the line of market stalls.
I will admit, there is something infectious about the energy of the night.
Everywhere I look, I see people smiling and enjoying themselves.
Merchants hawk their brightly colored wares, and above the lanternlight keeps the streets well-lit and whimsical looking.
“A trinket for the lady?” James and I both turn at the new voice.
A short middle-aged woman with dark hair wrapped in a bandana behind a market stall seems to be the person who addressed us.
She holds up a delicate bracelet made of interlocking seashells centered around a mother of pearl charm that glistens in the lantern light.
I can’t help but reach for it, turning it in the light. I don’t wear a ton of jewelry, but I’ve always loved mother of pearl. I rub my thumb over the gleaming shell.
She smiles slyly. “Do you like it? A pretty lady deserves a pretty piece like this one.” She turns to James. “Buy it for your wife.”
I distinctly remember, this is a scene in the script, a pivotal moment between Hook and Moira where he insists on buying it for her “since it would complete her dress and he won’t have his date dressed poorly for the ball”.
Instead, James just freezes, his eyes rounding like a deer caught in the headlights. I realize that I’m still holding his hook. I drop it like I’ve been burned. “Oh no, I’m not his—”
“She is not my anything,” James states adamantly, cutting me off.
I press my lips together and glance at him out of the corner of my eye. Well, he didn’t need to say it like that. Like the very thought of us being a couple is repugnant to him.
I guess I don’t see why that surprises me.
After all, we are just casual acquaintances.
We never truly got along; we certainly never hit it off.
I’m not even sure if we could rightly be considered friends.
All we are is trapped in this world together.
Accomplices in a plan to assassinate a prince. Nothing more.
And we will certainly not be anything more when we get back home.
The fate of Hook and Moira to fall in love, is not shared by us.
“Exactly,” I mutter as I put the bracelet down on the table. I continue down the way. Never mind that crazy old lady. She’s out of her mind to assume we are a couple just because we were holding hands. Lots of people do that to avoid losing each other in a crowd.
Never mind that it’s a predestined act that I technically made her do since I wrote it into the script. I choose to take offense at this.
I wrap my arms around my middle as I continue down the stalls. A minute later, James comes jogging up. He gives me a funny look out of the corner of his eye before he holds something out to me, dangling from his fingertips. I stare at it a long moment as I begin to process that it’s the bracelet.
“James—” I begin, but he cuts me off by sliding his hook around my wrist and lifting my hand up. He presses the bracelet into my hand.
“Here, I happened to find some coins jangling in my coat pocket, probably left there by the real Captain Hook and you looked like you really liked it.”
I stare at the glistening shells now resting against the palm of my hand. James’s fingers seem to linger against my skin as he presses my fingers shut around it.
“Keep it as your souvenir.”
I lift my gaze slowly to lock onto his blue ones. I’m not sure when the last time someone gave me a gift was. Even on my birthday, I’m lucky to get a phone call since I moved so far away from my family and barely kept in contact lately. “What about you, do you get a souvenir?”
He shrugs. “Does the crippling anxiety I’m developing count? Because I have a feeling that is going to stick with me for a while.”
I open my mouth as I try to formulate a response but then suddenly James’s eyes land on something behind me. “Ooh, sweets!”
And just like that the moment is past and James is digging in his pocket looking for more change. Apparently, Hook has a hefty coin purse, although that probably shouldn’t surprise me since he is a pirate, because it isn’t long before James and I are both snacking on caramelized apples.
Ahead, a canal cuts through the street with an ornate bridge crossing over it. James starts across it but then stops and leans over the railing, seeming to think that this is the perfect place to finish his caramelized apple.
“It’s on a night like this where you can almost forget all your worries,” he says dreamily as he looks out over the sparkling waters of the canal.
I glance at him out of the corner of my eye.
“I definitely admire your ability to compartmentalize.” Everywhere I look I’m reminded of just how wrong this all is.
I should not be able to see this or look at that.
I should not be eating a caramelized apple on a bridge over a canal in a beautiful world lit by lanterns and filled with melodious laughter.
Because this world shouldn’t exist, but I’m trapped in it anyway and heading at a breakneck pace toward an early and untimely death.
James moves his hand; it takes me a moment to realize that he is moving it in the shape of a square. “As long as everything can stay in its boxes life is manageable.”
“And what happens if those boxes spill over?”
“They don’t,” James says his eyes too serious for us to be having a conversation about made up boxes. “I manage every aspect of my life to make sure that everything stays in its box.”
I press my lips together as I turn back to the water. Am I in a box? James’s correspondence to me had the ability to completely ruin my day, but what if he never spared me a second thought except for when he was doing work with the script?
It seems a bit wrong, a bit callous, but I don’t know why I should feel this mad. I shouldn’t take it personally. James is a control freak. That’s all.
“So, you having to kill the prince later…”
“It’s in the box,” he says tersely. “I kindly ask you to leave it there while I enjoy my evening.”
“Another box?”
He nods. “Precisely. Now you’re getting it.”
So that’s two boxes I’m in then. And when this is all over, what? He shuts the box completely? He is the only person I will ever be able to talk about this whole situation with, what will I do if he does that?
But then I realize it’s ridiculous of me. I’m assigning more importance to him in my life than he clearly gives to me.
“Maybe people don’t appreciate being stuck in boxes, James,” I grumble as I push away from the railing. I turn but draw up short when I find myself looking into a pair of furious, stormy blue eyes.
It’s the pirate lady from earlier. Someone who must be none other than Wendy Darling, former lost girl and now first mate on Captain Hook’s ship. Also, the broken angle of a love triangle since she has canonically loved Hook since she set eyes on him. Back when they were both just lost kids.
And probably not a person who would appreciate me informing her that the man she loves has been replaced by my producer.
“What exactly is this, James?” Wendy demands, her eyes narrowing. “I thought you said you would deal with the siren, not take her out to get treats.”