Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
Cookson swims even better than he cooks. I learn this as he pulls me to the surface and drags me onto the upper deck.
Hook is already there to grab my hand and pull me the rest of the way up, as if he was about to come get me, and knowing him—he definitely was.
“Are you hurt?” He swipes the water from my face.
His shirt has blotches of purple blood on it, and there’s angry red marks at his throat with an imprint of small circles.
“No. But I shot a cannon.” I grin.
“I told you to stay put.” He gives me a rough kiss, then turns and yells, “Smee, beach her! Straight ahead, but steady as she goes.”
“Are we careening, Captain?” Smee calls, his voice a fearful warble.
“It’s either that or sink!” Hook sits beside me and pulls me into his lap. “Are you certain you weren’t hurt?” He inspects my cheek.
Cookson tosses Shiner onto the deck beside me, then disappears into the dark water again. She coughs and takes a deep breath.
“Lass, eyes on me.” Hook keeps searching me for injuries and focuses on my cheek.
“I’m fine. It’s just a scratch from when a cannonball went sailing past my face. Did you say we’re ‘careening’? Does that mean something in sailor-talk?”
“Aye, lass. Luckily, it’s high tide. We can beach the Jolly Roger, fix her up with some scrap timber that will soon be available—” He glances at Anne’s destroyed ship. “Once we’ve got it patched and pitched, we can set sail.”
“How long will that take?”
“Two moonrises.” He tries not to glower.
That’s when I realize he’s putting on a brave face. He’s worried about the ship or me. Maybe both.
“Will the Jolly Roger be all right?” I can’t imagine all the water filling the lower decks is a good thing. In fact, I don’t know why we haven’t sunk yet. I’m not going to ask him that, though. Things are bleak enough already.
“This is a temporary fix. Once we’re out of this mess with the island, I can dry dock her at Blackbeard’s Cay and give her the attention she deserves.
” He pushes my wet hair from my forehead and looks into my eyes.
“We have to make some quick repairs and get back to sea, lass. The sooner we get you to the Spinner, the sooner I’ll be able to breathe. ”
He’s not concerned about the ship he’s devoted his entire life to.
It’s me he’s worried about. It strikes a chord deep within me, one that sings out with a passionate note.
I kiss him, just a soft press of my lips to his.
Because he’s mine. Because I’m his. Because I’ve finally found someone who feels like home.
“Shiner?” Skylights appears from the water that’s filling the lower deck. “You okay?”
“I’m good.” She gives him a ‘fuck off’ look.
“Guess the pill worked?” He sounds cocky. Interesting. Sky’s never struck me as the cocky sort, but I see Shiner brings out a different side in him. A feisty side.
“Don’t cream yourself over it.” Shiner stands and stalks away to the front of the ship, probably secretly happy that we’re about to be on land again.
“Is there anyone else below?” I sit up. “Cecco?”
“I’m here, Miss Moira.” He’s turning a large crank that seems to be dropping the biggest sail.
“All my crew can swim as well as any mermaid. You don’t need to worry about them.”
“Mermaids.” I shiver.
“My pirates bite just as much, too.” He squeezes me.
“We’re almost aground!” Starkey yells from his spot in the crow’s nest, and I’m surprised he’s still hanging on up there.
“Hand me a line!” Hook yells.
Widow runs up with a coil of rope in her hands. “Captain.”
Hook scoots back until he’s against the smaller mast, then straps the rope around both of us. “Lower the mainsail!” He yells his order, and the crew moves into action, all of them pulling and hauling to do exactly what Hook wants.
The ship slows even more, the island looming large ahead of us.
“Hold tight, all!” Smee calls from his place at the wheel.
The pirates hunker down, and Hook grips me more tightly as the ship shudders, then continues gliding forward until it comes to a stop.
“Not bad at all.” I suppose I’m used to far more violent maneuvers at this point.
“We’re aground lads! Throw out the lines and get ready to heave until your backs give out.” Hook unties the rope around us, then rises with me in his arms.
“Back on the island.” I stare out at the low cliffs that overhang this section of shoreline.
“The good news is, this is a decent spot to set up camp.” Hook strides to the front of the ship as his crew tosses ropes out into the water. “The stone walls will keep us sheltered from the land, and the narrow shore should give us a good vantage point.”
“So what’s the bad news?”
Several sailors have already jumped into the water and are swimming toward the shore, taking the rope with them.
“Surely, they can’t pull this entire ship?”
“They can, and they will, lass.” He sets me inside the rowboat and pulls on the pulley overhead to lift it over the side.
Once it’s in the water, he climbs down the rope ladder and jumps in.
“Once we’ve got it good and beached, we’ll wait for the tide to go out.
Then we can repair the hull and the keel, depending on where she’s damaged.
Cecco is already working on the bilge pump. ”
“Sounds like you’ve done this before.” I watch as he begins to row, his strong back making easy work of the oars.
“Many a time. We’ve had our fair share of skirmishes, though I haven’t had a run-in with the kraken in ages.” He smiles somewhat wistfully. “Brings back old times.”
“Exactly how long have you been a pirate?”
“No idea.” He turns and yells, “Smee, get a move on!”
“Yes, Captain. Now heave, you scurvy lot!” Smee yells at the crew who all begin to pull the huge ship even farther toward shore.
“You have to have some memory. You said you were at Eton. I don’t know when that school even started. Like the 1700s maybe? You don’t remember what year you were born?”
“No.” He stops rowing. “I wonder about that sometimes.”
“About when you were born?”
“No. More like, I wonder if the island made me do all the forgetting or if I did it myself. I remember my sister, bits and pieces of my mother, and just a feeling when I think of my father. A raw sort of anger. But I can’t recall detail.
I don’t know when I first left the mainland.
Even if I try to recall it, it’s not there anymore.
” He taps his temple. “It could’ve been yesterday or 1,000 years ago—either way, it’s not real to me anymore. ”
“I think that’s it.”
“What’s that, lass?”
“It isn’t real to you. That’s why it slips through your fingertips.
Like when children stop believing in the tooth fairy or Santa or even Neverland—that’s when it’s not real for them.
When it all starts to fade away. Make believe and magic—all gone.
But for you, it was the opposite. The world you knew isn’t your reality anymore.
This world is.” I look up at the moon that’s partly hidden behind fat clouds.
“The one where there is no sun and the kraken lives in the sea and fairies have dust that makes them fly.”
“Perhaps.” He continues rowing. “Perhaps that’s what it is.”
I know that has to be the truth, especially when I can’t remember how long I’ve been here.
How many days or nights? What was so important for me on the mainland?
I don’t know. That realization scares me.
I’m becoming untethered, Neverland drawing me closer with each swirl of a second, dance of a minute, and flourish of an hour.
The rowboat slides into the sand, and Hook helps me from it and onto the shore. We’re both soaked, and the sea breeze sends a chill through me as I rub my arms.
“Skylights, Starkey, gather driftwood!” Hook yells to them. “I want three lookouts at the top of the cliffs! If anyone so much as gets a tickle that there’s a Lost Boy nearby, I want you to send a signal immediately. We take no chances with these cunts!”
“Aye, Captain!” The entire crew chimes in.
Some of them let go of their ropes and splash through the surf before taking off down the beach.
“I’ll have you warmed up in no time, lass.” He wraps his arm around my shoulders and leads me away from the water and to the stone wall. “There.” He points to a slight indentation in the chalky cliffs.
When I stumble, he scoops me up again.
“I can walk.” I kick my legs half-heartedly.
“You can, but I’d rather carry you.” He slides his hand down and squeezes my ass. “Much more enjoyable this way.”
“James!” I squeal, but he only squeezes harder.
“Keep that up, lass, and I’ll have to warm you up the old-fashioned way.” He leans down and bites my ear.
“Didn’t I tell you that you should work on your threats?” I squirm in his hold.
“Not a threat, lass. Never a threat when it comes to you.” He winds his way in between some scraggly bushes then enters the shallow cave. “This’ll do nicely.” Lowering me slowly, he backs me up and sits me on a low ledge of stone. “Stay put.”
“I will.” I wave a hand at him. “Go do your pirate stuff. I’m fine here.”
He shakes his head. “Pirate stuff?”
“You know, yell at your crew and call them land lubbers or something.”
“I’ll get right on that.” He grips the nape of my neck and drops a kiss on my lips. “Don’t move, lass. I mean it. Sky and Starkey will be bringing firewood in two shakes.”
“Okay! I’m not moving.” I cross my arms over my chest.
He gives me a long stare that warms me to my toes despite my wet clothes. “Don’t move.” He backs away, keeping me in view for as long as he can.
When he turns, he immediately starts barking orders about timber, tar, and nails.
I lean back, the stone wall not exactly comfortable but not too bad.
For a shipwrecked, drenched, and all-around worn-out person, I’m doing all right for myself.
I’m still alive, anyway. That’s something.
And I believe we’re going to make it to the Fairy Village.
I have to hold onto that thought, because if I let it go—if I let it go, I’ll realize how I’m in way over my head, how I don’t have the strength to keep going, and how I’m not brave enough to see it through.
So, I keep my happy thoughts and focus on moving forward.
My eyes close as I listen to the sound of the sea that echoes strangely in this little alcove. Hook is still being bossy, and I hear Smee arguing with Cecco about the location of a barrel of nails.
“Well don’t you look like a sloppy cunt after a night of jezebelling?”
I startle at the voice, then freeze when I see a woman in a tricorn hat pointing a gun at my face.