Chapter 26
Tink
Okay, he’s right. It was weird that Lily was on the Shrouded Isles of all places.
On the beach near the bearded man, near a fire that she wasn’t trying to hide.
.. And a mermaid telling her? It didn’t feel right.
But it was her. She’d seen her face every day for pretty much her whole life.
Tink knew that voice, the way her eyes crinkled, the shade of her wings, her smell.
It was all too real to be an illusion. Her story checked out too, much as it hurt to believe it.
Captain Blackbeard and his men hadn’t hurt her, not physically, but they weren’t the kind she’d have gone off with on her own—no way.
They were the epitome of wretched pirates.
Why would Lily go with them? And without telling her?
She couldn’t ask. For some reason, the words just stuck in her throat.
A heavy feeling in her chest told her she wouldn’t like the answer. But this was Lily. Her Lily.
She shook her head. Later. They’d get the scale, then figure it out.
“Where are we supposed to find this trident anyway?” Tink gestured to the heavy-laden palms leaning overhead.
Her hand swiped some of the strange moss, and she shivered.
Wiping her hand on her breeches wasn’t enough to totally remove the lingering soiled feeling.
They were supposed to find a wooden trident on an island made of trees covered in this terrible stuff?
It could be anywhere. Any size. Any wood.
Probably hidden behind more of…whatever the horrid stuff was.
The witch had not been specific, not at all.
The bearded man was totally different than she expected, so it stood to reason the trident would be too.
“Aye, that bloody witch wasn’t worth the gold we paid her.”
No, the bitch wasn’t. Tink sighed. Yet another person who wanted her dust. Sunlight slanted through the palm fronds casting dancing shadows across James’s strong jaw.
Funny, the one person who inspired her dust told her to keep it for herself.
She’d offered it to him on the journey to the Isles—compensation for the jewel she’d stolen.
He’d just laughed and said he’d stolen a better treasure instead.
Her cheeks flushed, and she turned away. Oh, the effect he had on her. “Yes, well, that trident. Where in all the—” She blinked, stunned into silence.
“Love?” James was at her side in a heartbeat.
Just down the beach, an odd palm split into three about two feet off the ground. It couldn’t be seen from the beach, not with the angle of the trunks, but from where they stood it was visible between its brethren and the mossy drapery. “Look at that.” She pointed to it. “Do you think…?”
She hurried down the beach, as fast as one could in the mix of grainy sand, small rocks, and old fronds that littered the ground. James ran a few steps ahead of her.
“There’s a path!”
Could it be? Her wings fluttered, nearly lifting her off the ground.
Sure enough, there it was: the barest hint of a trail winding up into the foggy mountainside about fifty feet from the trident.
A few branches hung low over it. Ropes of mossy vines zigzagged it, nearly hiding it from view, and a whole tree lay across the path just before it bent, but it was there.
“You think we should…?” She glanced at James.
The storm clouds that darkened his face when they’d discussed Lily vanished. Instead, he beamed with hope and pride.
“Only one way to find out.”
James called over the crew, and they hacked their way to the path.
They were careful at first, stepping in each other’s footprints, trying not to leave much of a trail for anyone to follow.
But after the bend the path narrowed considerably, until it was nothing more than a vague trail skinny as her.
Each step took forever as they cleared limbs and debris out of the way.
The witch’s vision hadn’t included a route back, so if everything went well, they’d be coming back through there again. If it didn’t…well, it wouldn’t matter.
Rocky sand gave way to soil strewn with old leaves and thorny bushes.
Palms grew sparse, yielding to a variety of thicker trees, many laden with leaves.
Some even held fruits that she had no name for.
The vegetation was unlike any that grew in her homeland, and that blasted moss liked it just as much as the plants near the shore.
Fog hung heavy ahead. Its tendrils crept down the hill to wrap around their boots and disguise much of the ground.
“The fog,” Tink whispered. It was the next clue.
James sheathed his blade and took her hand in his. “Stay close.”
“It’s like this all over,” Lily said, just behind her. “The slope near my camp too. I wouldn’t go in it. It just felt…wrong.”
A shiver raced down her spine. No kidding.
The temperature had dropped. They still couldn’t hear any birdcalls, and even the hum of insects had faded to the occasional, annoying buzz.
The land near the shore had been wrong enough—cursed, maybe.
The looming fog was even worse, as if it had a ghastly life all its own that even the mosquitos were wise enough to avoid.
“Captain…” Smee paled as he pointed into the fog.
Tink followed the angle of his arm. There, among the trees, a small flame glowed. Gooseflesh raced across her skin. Fog swirled around the flame, but she couldn’t see the handle of a torch or anything hanging from the trees. It floated on its own, an eerie specter.
“Another one,” Sage said, pointing off to the right, the opposite direction the path wove.
“Might be a third there too.” James gestured to the left, just off the pathway ahead.
Light in front. To the left. Right is right. The witch’s words echoed in her head.
James looked down the line at each of them. “We go right.”
“Right!” Lily screeched, causing Tink to jump. “But the path goes left. We can’t go into the fog.”
“Care to go back?” James asked.
James… She silently reprimanded him, but he ignored her pointed look. He wasn’t wrong. It was either go back or follow the witch’s words, not that Lily knew.
“We’re with you.” Smee laid a heavy hand on Lily’s shoulder, causing her to stiffen. “Right?” He grinned at the double entendre.
“I just don’t think…” Lily protested.
“We’re going.” Tink squeezed James’s hand as she stared Lily down. She couldn’t blame her cousin. Every bit of her wanted to run back down the path to the shore, but they couldn’t give up now.
Lily sighed, then nodded.
Tink held her breath as James led them into the fog. Not that she could hold it all that long.
Whispers teased her ears, turning her skin clammy and causing her hair to stand on end.
It isn’t them, can’t be them. But oh, by Holy Flora, it sounds so real—like her parents might step out from behind a tree at any moment the way Lily had. Everything in her urged her to run into the dense mist. Go to them. They wait for you!
“Tink?” her mother called. “Are you there, darling?”
Mom! She bit her lip, holding in her cry.
Her heart crumbled in her chest, leaving her aching, lonely, and longing for home.
It was just like that time she got lost in the woods as a youngling.
She’d gotten turned around somehow. Injured her wings and couldn’t fly.
Tears had streamed down her face as she called for help in the fading light of day.
It was her forest, her home. She was safe there, or safer than out in the world, but her young mind hadn’t understood that yet.
Hook’s hand tightened on hers, almost painfully so. Their connection brought her back to her senses. Not them. It isn’t them.
Tink stared up at the solid man in front of her. His shoulders were stiff, jaw set hard. Other voices called for him, no doubt. His mother too?
A glance back down the line confirmed the others fared just as poorly—spooked looks, jumpiness, hands clasped together for dear life.
Anne bodily jerked Davies back onto the path despite her slighter stature.
Lily whimpered. Limbs of the trees and thorn-laden bushes pulled at their clothes as fiercely as the voices calling to them.
“The fog confuses. Don’t listen.”
Ahead of them, the floating flame still flickered in the fog. Though they’d trekked for minutes, it was no closer than it had been, as if it moved with them or they’d gone nowhere at all. There was no path, no markers, only a hazy cocoon encasing them within the nearby trees and underbrush.
Worry slid around her middle, making her chest grow tight.
Another tendril grabbed at her throat and squeezed.
They were trapped here. No matter how they walked, where they went, they’d never get out.
Other voices whispered to her now, ones she didn’t know.
Unlike her parent’s reassuring words, these were mocking, teasing, jeering.
A branch scratched her cheek, another seemed to reach for her.
Tink tugged her hand, tried to pull it away from James to slam her palms over her ears. A scream rose to the tip of her tongue.
“It clears ahead,” James said. “Almost there.”
Light cut through the mist, slicing a path ahead of them. The underbrush seemed to pull back, creating a path of packed dirt. Her whole body tingled with the desire to run. Her wings fluttered behind her, stirring up the last traces of fog. The whispers faded away completely.
James sighed, his grip loosening on hers.
And then they were out, standing in a clearing with cloud-dotted skies and sun overhead.
Three mountain peaks speared above the canopy.
Two were flush with vegetation, one brown and rocky.
Colorful birds squawked from the trees. Even the air itself greeted them with a strong perfume of flowers from the red blooms hanging on vines in the trees.
This part of the island was everything the land near the shore wasn’t.
Sage brushed at her clothes. “We’re finding a different way back.”
“That was…something.” Smee shivered.
“Those voices.” Lily paled further.
“The fog confuses,” Smee echoed the witch’s words.
Tink looked back. The fog lingered thick as ever, and there was the eerie flame still floating at the edge of sight. A chill slid down her spine. They’d never passed it, nor had it grown closer. “You think we can follow it back?”
“Told you, we’re going another way,” Sage said. “That—” She pointed back at the fog. “—is one big nope.”
“We may not have a choice.” James rubbed at the scruff on his chin.
A cloud moved to block the sun, leaving them in sudden shade. Not just any cloud, a dark one. Just great. Their curse would choose to rear its head on the Shrouded Isles of all places.
“Of course,” Sage sighed, staring up at the sky.
“Come on,” James said. “We’ve got to beat the storm.”
The path grew wider. Clear, packed dirt and smooth stones guided them up into the mountains.
Someone made this path. Maybe they maintained it even now.
How else would it be clear when so much else wasn’t?
But who? They hadn’t seen a soul. Nor any evidence of a person living here except Lily.
She claimed not to have seen anyone either, and on that score, Tink believed her.
“People avoid the Shrouded Isles for a reason,” Anne said. “Many reasons. But none of the stories I’ve heard mention anyone living here…” She ran her hand along a smooth stone where she knelt on the path. “Making trails like this.”
“Ghosts,” Sage said.
“Maybe.”
Tink swallowed. If skeptical Anne agreed, it might just be true.
Rain pelted the crew by the time they made it up the mountainside path to a clearing.
A rickety, old rope bridge swayed in the wind over a gorge.
If Tink didn’t know better, she’d bet the ground had cracked in two like an egg long ago to form those steep, rocky cliffs.
Too bad she’d seen spiderwebs sturdier than the poor excuse for a bridge holding the sides together.
“Hold your breath as you sway and swing,” Smee said, an echo of the witch’s guidance.
“Nope. Not happening. No way.” Sage threw her hands up in the air.
James rubbed at the stubble on his chin. “What choice do we have?”
Lightning lashed at nearby tree. Tink screeched and crouched on the ground. James was at her side in an instant. Thunder crashed and rumbled, louder than a cannon blast.
“We can’t stay here!”
Tink looked around James to see Lily clinging to Smee. No, they couldn’t stay there, but the bridge… She glanced back at the rotting conundrum.
“I’ll go first,” James said.
“No!” Tink latched on to his hand.
“We’ve got to do something.”
But that bridge…there’s no way they’d all make it.
“Let me go,” Anne said. “I’m lighter than you.”
Tink swallowed. But she was still human, taller and heavier than a pixie. There were two people lighter than Anne, but Tink could never risk Lily, not again. “I’ll do it. I’m the lightest.”
“No.” Now it was James’s turn to step in front of her. “Captain’s orders. It’ll be me, or we turn back right now.”
Rain soaked through her clothes. Her wings and hair were already drenched. Even her boots squished.
“We could make a new bridge,” someone offered.
But that would take time they didn’t have. Blackbeard might already be hunting the Isles for them.
James clapped Smee on the shoulder. “If the worst happens…”
“Aye, Captain.”
Tink swallowed. “James—”
Heads turned toward her. Shit. “Er, Captain…” She looked away, her boots sliding in the mud.
The rain stopped stinging her skin. James loomed over her, his face unreadable. Then all at once, she was in his arms, his lips pressed against hers. Stubble scraped her chin, her boots slipped in the muck, but it didn’t matter. His kiss was all-consuming, passionate, a promise, and a…
Her chest clenched as he pulled away. Tink stumbled, barely keeping her balance as James turned and ran onto the bridge.