Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
“What are you doing, you idiot?” A shrill voice like a broken bell stings in my ear, and the shadow releases me.
Tinker Bell flutters around it, then moves faster and faster, encircling the shadow in golden light.
I throw my arm up to ward off the intensity of it, but I can still see when the shadow begins to break apart.
It screeches and morphs into Peter’s form, his hands clawing at his throat as bits of the shadow lift and float away like ashes from a roaring fire.
I kick away, scooting back as Tinker Bell continues her circuit, creating heat and light where the shadow cannot hide. It screeches again, a dying wail as it completely disintegrates and floats into the sky and toward the Silver Mountains.
The golden glow ends suddenly, and Tinker Bell stands in front of me, her hands on her hips as she gasps in air. Her own golden glow has dulled, her eyes no longer sparkling.
“Are you okay?” I get up.
“I’m great, dummy.” She straightens, but wobbles on her feet.
I catch her under her arm. She’s so light I think I could carry her.
She leans on me, and it’s no heavier than a fluffy scarf. “That took a lot,” she admits. “Too much.” She groans and wipes her forearm along her forehead. Golden sweat comes off, and she shivers.
“I’ve got you.” I grip her waist.
“I always hated that shadow.” She makes a face. “Nasty piece of dark magic.”
“Thank you. You saved my life. Again.”
“The one thing I don’t want to make a habit of, and here we are.” She groans and takes a step back toward the village but sways against me.
“You’re still rude, so don’t worry. I won’t assign any warm feelings to you for saving my life.”
“Small miracles.” She coughs. “Come on. We have to get to the beach.”
“Are you sure you should—”
She gives me a death glare.
“All right. Here we go.” I half carry her down through the village, under the arch, past the houses and toward the sounds of the fight. The ground is stained with blood in places, but I haven’t seen any bodies, though I was careful not to look at poor Nibs as we passed.
“There were children here, Moira.” She looks at a particular house on the right.
“Beautiful children with the rainbow in their eyes. He killed them.” She brandishes her little fangs.
“He drained them and left their bodies to rot. That was the only time I managed to break his hold over me and fight back. Just enough for him to give me this.” She drags her finger down the dark scar on her cheek.
“He called it a little lesson in obedience.” She points ahead.
“Go. We’re almost to him. I can feel him like oil on my skin. ”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to rip his throat out.” She tongues one of her fangs. “That’s the fae justice he deserves.”
“Tink, I don’t think you’re in any shape—”
“Tink?” She scoffs. “Are we friends now, emptyheaded Darling?”
“Maybe in a ‘Mean Girls’ sort of way, I guess?”
“I’m not mean.” She looks at me, a golden sparkle reigniting in her eyes.
“If you say so.”
“You think I’m mean?” Her broken bell voice grows stronger.
“You’re probably the meanest person—fae or otherwise—I’ve ever met. Even meaner than the mermaids who wanted to eat me. That’s how mean you are.”
“Lies.” She wrinkles her perfect nose. “You’re a liar on top of being stupid. Worst combination.”
“Now you’re just flirting with me,” I crack.
She giggles. “I might’ve liked you if you’d shown up before that dumdum Wendy. Before everything went to shit.”
“I doubt it. You don’t like stupid mainlanders.”
“Good point.” She peers ahead of us. “There they are.”
I don’t see anything, but her vision is fixed on a point, so I steer us toward it. My knees are weak, my back aching, but if Tinker Bell thinks she can end Peter, I’m here for it.
“Moira!” Widow appears from the trees to our right and runs up. The moment she sees Tinker Bell, she hisses like a cat.
“No! Widow. She’s okay. She’s helping.”
“Helping?” Widow approaches, her cutlass bloody and at the ready. “She’s with Peter.”
“No, she just saved me from his godforsaken shadow, okay? She’s good.” I shake my head. “Not good. I mean, she’s still a huge jerk, but she’s on our side.”
Widow doesn’t look convinced, but she doesn’t have time to argue when a shadow with red eyes rises from the ground behind her and lunges for her.
She dodges it and runs to my side, wrapping her arm around my waist and dragging both Tinker Bell and me toward the beach.
“We can’t kill the shadows. One of them hurt Cecco bad, raked the skin off his back, but most of them have been going after Lost Boys.
They drag them down into the dirt with them. ”
That explains the bloody marks on the ground but no bodies.
“Horrible.” I shudder.
The terrain finally changes from moss to sand, and Widow pulls us onto the beach where only a few Lost Boys are left.
Two are in the water trying to swim away from a pair of fae shadows.
One is dueling with Starkey, though I can tell Starkey is only playing with him at this point like a cat with a mouse.
Then I see Hook and Peter. Tinker Bell jets away from my side, flashes into the golden orb, and flies away toward them.
“What is she doing?” Widow turns that direction and starts moving even faster, pulling me along.
“She’s trying to kill him.”
“Hook?”
“Peter.” I sag, my legs finally giving out.
“Come on.” She hoists me over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes and runs across the sand.
“What’s happening?” I can’t see anything except Bill Jukes running along behind me, a huge axe in his hands and blood on his face.
“Hook has the upper hand,” Widow calls. “Peter is falling back toward the trees.”
“Tinker Bell?”
“She’s fucking with Peter, flying in his face and flashing that bright gold.” Widow slows, then puts me down on the sand. “Bill!”
“I’ve got her,” he calls.
“I’m going to help.” Widow blows me a kiss then runs toward Peter and Hook.
I watch helplessly as Hook continues unleashing his fury on Peter, his sword shining and slicing through the air until Peter stumbles backward and falls on his ass, his sword in the sand. Hook is ready to make the killing blow.
Tinker Bell bursts into her full form and lets out a harrowing cry full of pain and rage. A golden blade is in her hand, and she stabs it straight down toward Peter’s heart.
She doesn’t make it.
Peter pulls a second blade from his side and shoves it into her chest. “Traitor!” he yells, and even the water seems to tremble at the force in his cry. “Fucking traitor, I never believed in you!”
Tinker Bell falls, her skin leaching of color.
Peter rises straight into the air, his gaze sweeping the beach and landing on me.
Bill steps in front of me, his axe at the ready. “Come on, you twat,” he growls.
I hold my breath, my entire body taut.
Then Peter takes off toward the mountains, disappearing under the glow of the falling moon.
“Bill.” I reach for him. “Take me to her. Please.”
He scoops me up easily and lumbers over to Tinker Bell.
“Are you all right?” Hook runs to me.
“I’m okay. Tink saved me.”
He takes me from Bill and sits me down next to her.
“Tink?” I take her hand.
“I’m here. And you’re still here too, I see. Dummy,” she says it almost warmly.
“You almost had him.” I squeeze her hand.
“I should’ve known he’d have a trick up his sleeve. He always does.”
“Do you think you can—”
“No.” She sighs, golden blood leaking around the knife in her chest. “I’m done.”
“I’m sorry.” I reach up and stroke her hair.
She lets me.
“I’m so sorry.”
She rolls her eyes. “Come out!”
I shake my head. “What?”
“I said come out!”
A flash of gold appears beside me, and then I see the Spinner, her eyes sad as she surveys Tinker Bell.
“There you are.” Tinker Bell. “Decided to finally stop hiding?”
“You know very well why I hide.” The Spinner shows her fangs.
“Yes, I know what I did.” Tinker Bell’s voice goes soft. “I know what I’ve done.”
“Then why have you called me? You cannot ask me for forgiveness. I will not grant it.”
“Keep your forgiveness.” Tinker Bell kicks her chin up. “I have no need of it. But I do ask one favor.”
The Spinner’s eyebrows rise, but she doesn’t say anything.
“Take my life in exchange for healing this dummy.”
“Dummy?”
Tinker Bell cuts her eyes at me. “You know the one.”
“Tink, you don’t have to—”
“Let the grown-ups talk,” she snaps.
Hook growls but doesn’t intercede.
“This won’t change what you’ve done.” The Spinner sits on the ground beside us. “You realize this will do nothing for you?”
“I know.” Tinker Bell looks at me. “But you’re the only one who can stop him.
I give my life freely for you, but you have to promise me, Moira.
Promise me you will stop Peter.” Her grip grows surprisingly strong on my hand.
“Swear it, or all this will have been for nothing.” She sighs, her lashes fluttering as even more color leaches from her.
“I swear it on my mother.” A flash of heat moves between our palms, burning the promise into both of us.
“Good.” She closes her eyes. “Spinner. Do it.”
The Spinner nods and puts her hand over Tinker Bell’s chest, then puts her other over mine.
I look at Hook, his eyes full of worry as he watches me. “It’ll be okay.”
The Spinner begins chanting, and the trees seem to echo her lilting words back to her. Like a song in a foreign language, it melds into a beautiful melody. I close my eyes and drift away. The song turns into words I understand. A story.
One about an island where anything is possible.
Both unsurpassed good and malignant evil can rule the island, but only in equal measure.
It was just so for a long, long time. Until something changed.
No, someone changed. A heart that knew no mercy or kindness was forged anew, into one that felt regret, pain, and longed for love.
It upset the balance. He upset the balance.
Hook. The villain had evolved, become something different, something the island had never encountered.
So it adjusted. It gave and it took, it filled this cup and drained the other.
It had to reach balance again, no matter the cost.
But the cost was great indeed. The island wept, its heart torn in two by good and evil, and dreamed of the sun that would one day return.
When balance was restored.
The story crosses oceans of time and miles of memories, worlds and galaxies, an entire universe nestled inside others like a Russian doll.
The Spinner tells it to me, her voice winding around me.
Spinning me backwards into the past. Some into the future.
And showing me so much—the ancient fae, Hook when he committed villainy on the high seas, Peter when he was a boy with a brave heart and pure soul, Wendy as she doted on the Lost Boys, and my mother.
All of us are woven into the Spinner’s tapestry, though there is no end to it. No way to know what will happen.
When her voice begins to fade, the story drawing to a close, I hear the song of the sea, the rolling waves.
I wake and am born anew, burning and screaming into existence with fresh life in my veins.