Unhooked(18)

The lush green of the jungle, too, looks unbearably alive. It shakes and shifts with a constant, steady movement. Trees melt into the earth only to be replaced by different types of vegetation as the jungle ruffles and shakes itself into a new tangle of overgrowth. The whole island continually changes, like a great sleeping beast breathing on the horizon.

“What—” My brain isn’t even close to catching up to what my eyes are seeing. I lower the heavy glass and look to the Captain. “Please tell me you see that.” I hesitate. “The way it’s moving, I mean.”

He raises his brows quizzically. “And why wouldn’t I see what’s right in front of me?”

But his words don’t make me feel any better. “Things like that—they don’t . . . It’s not possible,” I tell him.

“Maybe not in the world you were taken from. In this one, though”—he gives a shrug that looks more tired than careless—“I’ve seen more than most would care to, and I learned well enough that nothing’s impossible.”

Unease trickles down my spine. He spoke so casually, that I know I can’t be hearing him right. I take a deep breath, trying to steady myself for the question I can’t believe I’m about to ask.

“What, exactly, is that supposed to mean?” I say slowly.

“I thought I spoke clearly enough.” He glances at me, his eyes dark and unreadable. “Have you seen or heard of many islands, then, that move and dance to their own heartbeat in your world?” He takes a step closer, and I resist the urge to back away. “Have you seen a forest rise and fall with its own will and of its own wanting?”

I swallow hard and, unable to form the words, shake my head. Of course I haven’t, because such things do not exist. They cannot exist.

“And having seen such wonders, is it so hard to believe that you are no longer in the human world? Is it so impossible, after what you’ve seen through that glass, to believe you’ve found yourself somewhere else entirely?” His mouth goes grim once again. “It may look on the surface like the world you know, lass, but don’t let that be fooling you. Though the sky is broad, there is nothing to this world but the sea and that,” he says, pointing to the island. “And there are dangers on those shores you cannot have imagined.”

“There has to be something else,” I said, thinking about how impossible what he’s saying sounds.

“You’d think it, wouldn’t you? But I’ve tried myself to escape. I’ve sailed this ship for weeks on end, until my crew was near starvation, and I thought for sure we’d all die from the icy cold that coats the sea beyond. After weeks of sailing, what do you think appeared on the horizon?” He points toward the island again. “It’s as though this entire world is centered on that one heartless piece of land. All directions lead there.”

“That’s impossible,” I say, wondering how bad of a Captain you have to be to sail in circles like that without realizing it.

“Perhaps in the world you’re from,” he tells me, and his voice is so rough and worn, I almost believe he’s telling me the truth.

“But even if I believe you, even if I accept we are in another world, it can’t just be the sea and that island,” I tell him. “There has to be a way out.”

“There are boundaries between your world and this one, to be sure, but I’ve no idea where they’re hidden. And I’ve no power to breach them.” His dark eyes are serious and steady on mine. “Think of how you came to be here, lass. It wasn’t a ship that brought you, now was it?”

“The monsters,” I whisper, remembering the strange pressure, the dizzying flight.

“Aye,” he said darkly.

I grip the railing so tightly, my fingertips ache, and I close my eyes against the sea and the island and a truth too terrible to accept. “What is this place?” I ask, my voice shaking. When he doesn’t immediately answer, I open my eyes again to find him watching me. “Where am I?”

He studies me for a moment longer, and when he does finally speak, his voice sounds haunted and very, very far away. “That bit of land is known now by only one name, lass. You’ve no doubt heard of it,” he says, his serious eyes turning again to the sea, to the tiny speck of land in the distance. “In the world you came from, they tell tales of this place.”

His voice has gone so grave that I’m almost afraid to ask, but I force myself to release the railing. “They do?”

“Aye, they do.” His dark eyes glitter as he leans in close. “Let me be the first to welcome you to Neverland.”





The ship rolled, angry, on the unsettled sea, bearing them onward toward those fabled shores. The boy knew death was a possibility there, yet he could not help but be tempted. For that land held the promise of living only for the present moment—without care for past or future, for who he might have once been.

There, he could become anything.





Chapter 10


I PULL BACK, MY HEARTBEAT thundering in my ears, and wait for the mocking curve of his mouth to break into a laugh. Because this has to be a joke. A hugely unfunny and terrible one . . . But the Captain’s expression remains impassive, not playful.

A nervous laugh bubbles up in my throat, and I cannot stop it from escaping. The Captain sighs then, a weary exhalation of breath that has me choking back another nervous, completely panicked giggle as he draws away from me.