Chapter 17
Chapter
Seventeen
“Hook!” I scramble toward the side of the ship.
Smee wraps his arm around my waist and drags me back from the railing.
“Let go!” I scream and try to look over the side. He has to be there somewhere, maybe swimming or hanging onto one of the ropes.
“No! You’ll go over too!” Smee yanks me back to the wheel, then grabs hold of it.
The ship evens out, and I throw my elbow into him, hitting him in the ribs. He lets me go with a grunt, and I rush back to the railing.
“Hook!” I scream, but the rain still pours, and thunder dims my cries. I can’t see him. I can’t see anything except foamy black water that roils and seethes.
“We have to go back!” I yell at Smee.
“There’s no going back!”
“Help! Someone help!” I scream. But no one hears me. The crew is hunkered down below, and my voice doesn’t carry in the vicious wind.
I grip the railing and stare at the water behind us as we hit the top of a wave, the splash almost knocking me from the deck. I hang on and will Hook to rise from the water, to swim to the ship, to do anything except die in this unforgiving sea.
“Please.” The water begins to calm, the wind dying down even more as the Jolly Roger gets to the edge of the Neverstorm. “Please, James. Please.” I wipe the water from my eyes and keep looking for any sign of him.
The rain stops. The wind, too. Only the rumble of thunder remains as we sail into smooth waters, the calm unnerving in its suddenness.
“We have to go back!” I hurry to the wheel and start turning it, though I don’t know if that’s how it even works. I assume it’s just like a car. I yank on it.
“We can’t go back.” Smee grabs the wheel and shoves me away.
“He’s out there!” I grab the wheel again. “We can’t leave him!”
“We have to.”
“No!” I scream as the crew begins to emerge. “We have to go back for him! Go back!” I grab the wheel again.
“We can’t go back for him! He’s gone, Moira!” His voice breaks, but he stands resolute. “He wouldn’t want us to go back into the storm. It would kill us all.”
“I don’t care about that! I care about him!”
“I care about him too!” Smee bellows.
I rush the wheel again, but Widow runs up and grabs me around the middle.
“Moira!” She pulls me away.
“We have to find him, please!” I scream, tears burning in my eyes and mixing with the rain on my face.
“Moira, we can’t go back.” Widow spins me around and puts her hands on my shoulders. “Hook navigated us through the storm and made it seem easy. It’s anything but. Only a skilled captain can make it through there alive. If we go back in, we all die.”
“But we can’t just leave him.” My voice cracks on a sob.
“We have to.” She pulls me in tight, her arms wrapping around me. “We have to go on.”
“He could be alive.” I cry and hold onto Widow. “He could be all right.”
She just holds me as I stare at the vicious water just beyond the rear of the ship, rain pelting the surface as lightning strikes in a curtain, as if daring us to pass through it.
“He’s strong.” My knees turn to jelly, and I sink down.
Widow follows, her arms still around me.
“He’s brave.” I stare at the water and will him to appear. He has to be there, maybe just beyond the edge of the calm water. “He’s so brave. He can make it.”
Widow shushes me, and I lay my head on her shoulder, my eyes still on the roiling ocean.
I don’t know how long we sail for after that.
Even as the stormy water recedes and the moon glows serenely on the glassy ocean, I look for him.
For his strong arms bending the water to his will as he swims toward me.
I refuse to believe he’s … An image of Anne’s knife in his back flashes through my head.
“No.” I clench my eyes shut. “No. He’s okay.
” He’s survived worse. The scars on his body are a testament to that fact.
And I would know. I would know if he were gone.
I’d feel it. Wouldn’t I? Or is there someone else out there feeling his loss but not knowing how or why?
His true love, mourning a man she’s never met.
“Moira.” Widow strokes my hair. “We have to go ashore.”
“What?” I look up and see a rowboat already on the beach.
“We have to go. The Crystal Caves are just ahead. Through them you can get to the heart of the island.”
My gaze travels up, and I see huge crystalline structures, like uncut diamonds all stacked in rows, rising into the night sky. The very top ones are so high they’re shrouded in misty clouds.
“What about Hook? We should wait for him.” I wipe my face, my hand coming away wet. “We can’t—”
“I’ll stay here.” Smee’s voice sounds a million miles away. “I’ll wait for him.”
How can I leave the ship when this is where he’ll be headed? I can’t.
“Moira.” Widow pulls away and forces me to look her in the eye. “You have to get up.”
“I don’t think I can.” I shake my head.
“You must. For the island. For all of us. You must be brave.”
They’re his words. He told me to be brave once. But I’ve never been like him, not stalwart and strong. I’m just me.
“Moira!” Widow shakes me. “You have to remember why he brought you here. Do you think he’d want you to sit here and fall apart when you could finally set Neverland right again?”
I blink, her words sinking in slowly.
“He brought you to the heart of the island. This is where you’re meant to be. You have to finish what you started. That’s what he would want.”
She’s right. I know she’s right. But that doesn’t do anything to plug the gaping hole in my heart where Hook used to live. He should be here.
“How did she get out?” I ask. “Anne.”
“She worried one of the bolts out of the floor and used it to pick the lock.” Her gaze drops for a moment. “She cut Alf Mason from ear to ear when he stumbled on her making her escape.”
More blood on my hands. I prevented Hook from killing Anne. I’m the reason she was able to escape. “Corey. He lived in the dorm room next to mine. He was there to protect me. Hook sent him.” I feel dazed, unsure of everything around me. “He’s dead?”
“Yes, but you aren’t, Moira. You’re alive, and you’re right here where you need to be to fix this. All of it.”
A fresh wave of tears roll down my cheeks. “Will it bring him back?” I ask quietly.
She sighs, her eyes sad. “James Hook belongs to the sea. Always has.” She grips my shoulder and pulls me closer until our foreheads are touching. “If he could be here with you, he would. You know that.”
I do know that. Hook would’ve done anything to keep me out of harm’s way.
“Come on,” she whispers. “Let’s get this done. For Hook. For all the ones we’ve lost.”
I refuse to believe I’ve lost him. My heart can’t go there. Not now. Maybe not ever. But she’s right. I have to finish this.
I sniff and wipe my cheeks again. “I’m ready.”
She gets to her feet, then offers me her hand.
When she pulls me up, I find the entire crew on the deck, all of them watching us with somber faces.
Their grief is just as keen as mine, the pain in their eyes like a mirror.
My soul hangs in tatters, ripped to shreds by loss, and I feel the same echo in them.
Cookson weeps quietly and mops his cheeks with his kerchief.
Shiner follows us solemnly to the rowboat where Starkey lowers it to the sea.
I climb down with numb hands and an even number heart. The boat rocks, but I can’t feel the motion of it. All I can do is stare at the now-distant storm that swirls and rages, feasting on the lifeblood of the only man I’ll ever love.
We make camp at the mouth of the caves. They form a labyrinth, the crystal structures hiding pitfalls and dead ends as they rise and dip. But the mouth is easy to spot. It gapes into the night, darker than the clear stone around it, as if it eats what little light shines from the moon.
“You need ter eat.” Cookson puts a bowl of stew in my hand.
I’ve lost track of time again and hadn’t realized he was on the beach yet, much less that he’d cooked an entire meal.
“Thank you.” I take it from him, my movement mechanical.
“Everything will be all right.” He gives me a kindly smile as he lies to me.
We both know nothing is all right. But I nod, pretending right along with him.
He pats my shoulder then limps back to the fire. The others give me a wide berth, all except Shiner and Widow. They sit nearby and whisper to each other, giving me concerned looks every so often.
I hold my bowl of hot stew until it’s cold and muddy. My gaze remains on the sea, on the hope that I’ll see Hook splashing to shore. Exhausted, hurt, but still breathing and daring this world to kill him.
“At least drink some water.” Shiner sits beside me and offers me her water skin.
“I’m good.” I let her take my bowl from me.
“No. Drink.” She shoves it into my hand.
I take a sip.
She glares at me.
I take a bigger swallow, then hand it back.
She stows it on her hip and settles beside me, her eyes also on the sea.
We sit for a long while, the lapping ocean waves and occasional subdued conversation from the crew the only sounds.
The island is quiet now. No wild things braying for blood.
I suppose they must’ve gotten their fill at the full moon a few nights ago.
Now, bellies full and madness lessened, they hunker down and rest until it’s time to claw and rip and tear again.
Skylights strides up, his demeanor dampened, face drawn. “How are you holding up?” He drops to his haunches in front of me.
“I’m just waiting for him.” I muster the ghost of a smile.
He glances at Shiner, then back at me. “We’ll enter the cave at moon rise. Best get some rest until then. I’ve already gotten your bedroll situated closer to the fire.” He points. “You’ll be more comfortable there.”
“I’m comfortable here.” I look past him.
He takes my hand. “Moira, please, you need to rest. The caves aren’t an easy journey, and I have no idea what waits for us at the heart of the island.”
“I’ll rest when he gets here.” I squeeze his hand then pull away. “Until then, I’ll keep watch.”
He and Shiner exchange another look, and then he tilts his head toward the fire.
She rises and follows him, the two of them talking quietly as Widow takes Shiner’s spot beside me.
“You going to sleep at all?” she asks.
“I will when he’s here.”
She scoots closer and wraps her arm around my shoulder. “All right.”
I lean on her, grateful for her understanding. We sit like that until the fire is low, most of the pirates asleep with faint snores.
Standing, I stretch.
Widow gets up, too.
“I’m just going down the beach to look for him.”
“I’ll come along.” She rubs her ass. “That log is hell.”
I don’t disagree.
We strike out along the shore, scattering crabs as we go. Seashells by the handfuls wash up here, some of them glinting in the low light. I look past them, toward the lightning that brightens the horizon in almost constant flashes.
“Where do we get the fairy dust from?” I ask.
“What?” Widow kicks at a rotten coconut, sending the husk flying.
“We’re fae, right?” I wiggle my wings, which takes a great effort on my part. “Tinker Bell always had fairy dust. Where did it come from?”
“The Silver Mountains, I think?”
We bypass a large pile of seaweed, and I’m glad when we get upwind of it.
“Do they make it?”
“That’s one of those fae secrets I’ve never been privy to. Maybe if they were still around, I could ask. But I don’t intend to venture into the Silver Mountains anytime soon.”
I wish I still had some. I’d use it to fly out over the ocean and pluck Hook from the waves. But I don’t say that wish out loud. I’m already in enough danger as it is.
We walk for a long way until the crystalline structures bar our path and soar high overhead. I lean against the nearest cubic shoot of rock, then yank my hands back when I feel something like a hum.
“What?” Widow peers at the stone.
“I felt something when I touched it. It was almost like a …” I close my eyes. “Like a song.”
She presses her palm to the crystal. “I hear it, too. It’s the island singing.”
“Is it safe?”
She nods and takes my hand, pressing it to the stone beside hers.
The hum fills me again, like a thousand voices all singing in harmony. The tune is slow, almost mournful. It sends goosebumps shooting across my skin, and it seems to pull my own sorrow around me like a cape.
“It’s … heartbreaking.” I gasp and pull my hand back. “It hurts.” The island’s song seemed to be pulling from my own aching heart, resonating at the same level of pain. I feel it in my marrow, in the deepest parts of my grief. “It’s an open wound.”
Widow slowly backs away from the stone. “We should return to the camp. We can comb the beach at moonrise before we enter the ca—” She whirls and draws her cutlass.
“What is it?” Then I hear it, too. Hesitant footsteps. Someone is picking their way through the crystal maze and is headed right for us.
Somehow, I sense her before I can see her.
“It’s okay.” I put my hand on Widow’s sword arm.
“What is it?”
A weathered old woman appears between two of the stone outcrops and hobbles toward us, her gaze fixed on me.
“Ari. Queen of the Mermaids.”