Chapter 18
Chapter
Eighteen
“Clytemnestra told me I’d find you here.” Ari stops right in front of me, her wizened body bent and her eyes whitened with cataracts.
“The witch?” Widow looks around at the stone walls, as if expecting Nessie to pop out.
“Witch?” Ari cackles, raising the hair on the back of my neck. “She’s a god to the likes of you.” She tries to draw herself up to her full height, though she only seems to get slightly less bent. “The same as I am.”
Widow crosses her arms over her chest and leans back, looking her up and down. “You don’t look like a god to me, and if my memory serves, you tried to poison Moira.”
“That wasn’t poison in the deadly sense.” She waves a hand. “Besides, Tinker Bell tricked me.” She squints up at me. “Though I see she’s met her fate for ill or for good.”
“In the end, it was for good.”
Widow is still on guard. “All right, but you still aren’t a god.”
“Not in this form.” Ari stops trying for the regal look and hunches over again, coughing as she goes.
“Wraith told me about you,” I say quietly.
Ari’s gaze snaps to mine. “Telling our secrets, was he?”
“He told me he loved you. He still loves you.”
Her cackle is even louder this time, and the lightning from the Neverstorm lights her face in eerie hues of silver and shadow.
“If he loved me, he’d have let me go. He never would’ve come to the sea all those times, never would have promised to marry me, never would have left me alone to wonder what had become of him.
” The bitterness in her seeps out like dark water in a stream.
“And when I found him … He’d already claimed another. ”
“He made a mistake.”
“And I bore the curse for it!” Her voice snaps like a dry twig.
“He asked me to help you. He made me promise I would try so that you two could be together again.”
“To assuage his own guilt. That’s all.” She uses her gnarled hand to pull back the cloth she wears draped over her head, her gray hair spilling out in a wild tumble. “He never cared for me the way I cared for him.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“Doesn’t matter what you think. None of it matters anymore.”
“Then why are you here?” I ask.
“I want to go home.” She looks past me at the sea. “I want to return to where I belong. Never again do I want to walk this island.”
“But Wraith loves—”
Widow puts her hand on my arm. “You have to let her choose, Moira,” she says quietly. “Love isn’t love unless someone chooses it for themselves.”
I take a breath. She’s right. It’s the same way I chose Hook.
But I never gave him a chance to truly choose me.
He thought I was his without needing any proof.
My eyes water as I turn to the ocean, toward the storm that forever churns just past the horizon.
He’s there. He has to be. He’s too strong to die, to drown, to do anything except stomp out of that ocean and kiss me so hard I have no doubt of his devotion.
But the waves keep lapping, the surf low and gentle as the wind barely creates breakers out beyond the sand bar. He isn’t there.
“Girl?” Ari asks.
I turn back to her and wipe the tears from my cheeks.
She glances at the ocean, and she doesn’t say anything, but somehow, I know she knows.
“He’s gone, isn’t he?” I don’t know why I ask her. Perhaps because her heart is already broken. Maybe she can shatter mine with the least amount of pain. Maybe she knows how to more than anyone else ever could.
“The ocean never gives up her secrets.” She gazes at the water. “Or her dead.”
I close my eyes, more tears seeping from them as I try to hold myself together.
She did what I wanted—broke me into a million pieces with the softest touch.
But somehow it doesn’t hurt any less. My knees give way, and I sink to the sand.
How can I survive this? I don’t think I can.
“I don’t know what to do.” I speak to the sand, the sea, the air.
I speak to Hook, who can no longer hear me.
“What do I do?” I whisper through my tears.
Ari drops to the sand in front of me. “You go on.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.” She swipes the sand between us, making a flat surface, then drags her index finger through it in serpentine lines.
“I’ve wandered this island for what must be eons.
I wanted to die a thousand times. I wanted to kill that faithless man who stole everything from me.
I wanted to burn the island to the ground.
I wanted so many things. None of them good.
” Her finger still makes the serpentine tracks.
“But all those steps led me nowhere. Led me right back to where I started. Until I let go. Until I let myself feel the heartbreak and the betrayal. Until I realized my destiny was mine. Wraith’s love didn’t force me to make that deal.
I chose it the same way I chose him. And now I choose freedom.
” Her finger stops. “I won’t go another step on this island.
I won’t be held hostage by a bad bargain or by a path laid out for me by someone else.
” She points at me. “You shouldn’t either.
No matter whose boon you are.” She sits back and folds her shriveled hands in her lap.
I try to think through everything she said, but I can’t focus. Not on her or her path. My mind, like my heart, is with Hook. I shake my head. “Ari, I want to help you, but I don’t know how.”
“Of course you do.” She presses her fingertip to my forehead. “It’s all up here, girl. All the magic you need.”
“I don’t feel very magical.”
She looks at me, her eyes sharp despite the milky haze over them. “Tell me a story.”
“Will that drain you?” Widow sits beside me, her cutlass at the ready. She clearly doesn’t trust Ari. Smart move.
“I don’t know. I think when Peter did it, he was taking without my permission. Nessie seemed to think that’s why it hurt me so badly. Well, that and the fact I didn’t have my full fae strength.” I wiggle my wings.
Widow narrows her eyes at Ari. “She can tell you a story, but the moment I see anything fishy, we’re done here.”
“I want the only fishy thing to be me.” Ari holds out her hands. “Please.”
“You’re certain that’s what you want? To go back to the sea?”
She nods. “I know who I am, girl. I know what I choose.”
I take her hands. They’re so light, and I try to ignore how thin and skeletal she seems. She’s suffered so much for love. I suppose it makes sense she wants to run—or swim—as far away from it as she can.
What story should I tell? I close my eyes and try to feel magical. Maybe I’ll sparkle, or float, or do something particularly fairylike. Nothing happens.
“Go on,” Ari encourages.
I take a deep breath and settle, rooting myself to the sand, to the magic of Neverland. At least that’s what I think I’m doing.
“Once upon a time, a girl wanted free food from the Greek organizations. Now, those organizations are routinely filled to the brim with a wide variety of fuckboys. However, on this occasion, the girl was hungry enough to deal with that aspect in order to snag some hot dogs. While there, she ran into a handsome man. He was older and had a strange way about him, so much so that the girl was intrigued. But the girl was wary and returned to her home to study and work. That night, she was kidnapped, swept away to a land of never and night where Lost Boys roam and pirates lurk …” I get lost in my own tale of betrayal, love, and loss.
My words spill from me, warming me inside and out as I weave the tale of my time in Neverland.
When I get to the part where Hook saves my life, I seem to heat even more, my body humming with some unknown song as I tell about how brave and fierce he is, how his heart beats only for me.
When I reach the Neverstorm, I still burn, still ache to tell what happened. As if somehow the story of it could mend my soul. But it doesn’t, and the hum and my voice fade away as I retell how Hook saved his crew from the storm but lost his life to revenge.
“A sad ending is fitting for me.” It’s Ari’s voice but somehow sweet and melodic. “Perfect, actually.”
I open my eyes and realize we’re in the water, a golden orb all around us.
“What—”
“You did it.” She smiles, her face beautiful, and her sharp teeth in line with those of her sisters. Her hair falls in golden curls to her waist, and her skin is a pale blue, luminous and bright.
“I did?” I don’t know how. I just … told my story. That was it. “I did.”
“You have more power than you realize.”
“I don’t even know how I did it.” I shake my head, disbelief roaring in my head.
“Your heart knows.” She bows her head. “Thank you.”
“I … you’re welcome.” I don’t know what to say. I hold out my hands to see if they’ve aged. They haven’t. I feel the same. No headache. Nothing. When I glance back at the shore, Widow is standing there, her hands to her mouth as she watches, wide-eyed.
“We’re floating without fairy dust.” I look around at the orb that encircles us.
“It’s your magic. You pull it from the island. It lives inside you.”
“I don’t understand.”
The water splashes beneath us, and two mermaids appear.
“Ari?” Quenith asks, her beautiful face the one that likes to haunt my dreams.
The golden orb begins to flicker, and before I can even try to stop it, it disappears entirely. I fall into the sea, the cold water rushing over me.
I sputter and flail, then realize I can touch the bottom.
Once I’m on my feet I spin around and hold out my hands. “I’m not for eating!” I scream.
Quenith swims around beside me. “You’re even more tender than before.” She snaps her teeth.
“Do not touch her.” Ari’s voice is beautiful yet somehow also terrifying.
Quenith quickly swims to her. “I’m sorry, my queen.”
“She’s brought me back to you, and you want to harm her?” Ari’s fury rises, the water around us growing choppier.
The other mermaid—one I’ve never seen—keeps her head bowed. Wise.
“My apologies. Please, my queen.” Quenith clasps her hands in front of her. “Please forgive me. I-I’m just overcome with seeing you like this. We’ve searched for so long, but you never came back to the water. Why?”
Ari’s anger seems to calm, the water easing back to gentle waves.
“I couldn’t bear it.” She reaches out and runs her fingers down Quenith’s cheek.
“I couldn’t bear for any of you to see me.
But I heard your song. Every evening when the moon kissed the water, I heard you singing for me to come home. ”
Quenith bows even farther and kisses her hand. “We always loved you, my queen. We always will. Come home with us. The deep waits. Your throne has remained untouched. Your crown of pearls and trident as well.”
“What do you want me to tell Wraith?” I ask.
Ari gives me a smile, one that hides a sadness that might never be tapped. “Tell him I’ve gone back to my only true love.”
Burn. I don’t know if I have the requisite cruelty to pass on that message, but I understand why she says it. Some hurts never heal.
“I am ready, my sisters.” Ari lowers into the water.
“Wait!” I step forward and almost fall.
She turns back to me.
“Spinner?” She rises again.
“Could you …” I glance out at the glittering sea and the storm beyond. “Could you search for him? Please?”
She thinks for a moment, then gives me a slow nod. “And when I find his body?”
It’s like a gut punch, like I’m watching him fall over the side of the ship all over again. His body. I sway, my legs trying to give out. For once, I’m glad for the water. It keeps me afloat.
“Bring him to me,” I say as my salty tears slip into the sea. “Please.”
“You have my word.” She reaches below the water and pulls out a pearl, one of the large ones she tried to offer me that day in the town. “This seals it.” She hands it to me. “Keep it on you so I can find you once I have him.”
“All right.” I sniffle.
She pauses, her opal eyes losing a bit of their sparkle. “Remember the ocean is not kind, Moira. It won’t be kind to him either. He won’t be …” She lets the silence finish her words. He won’t be handsome. He won’t be in one piece.
I think of a million gruesome things he will be, but still, I need to see him one last time, no matter how much it hurts.
“I understand.”
She and the other mermaids sink beneath the surface, and it was like they were never there. Not a bubble or a ripple to mark their presence. Only the wide, unforgiving sea.