Unhooked(26)

“Where d’you think?” The Captain looks out over the deck, his expression grim. His hair has tumbled free and hangs listlessly over his brow. I’d been wrong—his hair like that doesn’t soften his appearance at all. If anything, it makes him look even more dangerous. “Burn their boats. Then we’ll deal with those who remain.”

“But why, Cap’n?” another of the boys ask. “Himself’s never attacked like that before, not in broad daylight and not in the middle of the sea.”

He glances at Will and then he looks at me, those dark eyes of his as cold and dark as the waiting sea. “That is the question, lads,” he says as he scratches at his chin absently with the edge of his knife, but from the way he’s focused on me, I’m afraid he already has his answer.





After the attack, when only a pale gray light filtered over the empty land, nothing moved there. Nothing seemed even to breathe. The boy wished that someone had warned him fear tasted of mustard gas—of lilacs and horseradish. . . .





Chapter 14


HEAVY CLOUDS HAVE ROLLED IN, and the air snaps with a new chill now that we are under sail. The island, once no more than a speck on the horizon, has disappeared in the distance. I’ve been given new clothes to replace the ones that were splattered with the boy’s blood, but they aren’t as warm as the heavy sweater I’d been wearing before, and I can’t quite keep myself from shivering.

Or maybe it’s more than cold that has me shaking. When I changed my clothes, I found the crumpled picture of Olivia and was reminded again about how easily I’d forgotten her. How easy it still is to let the idea of her, and the memory of who I was, slip away.

The Captain is standing close to me, watching the progress his crew is making in scrubbing the blood from the deck and setting his ship to rights. He’s exchanged his bloodstained clothing for a clean military-style jacket with a double row of large pockets across the front. It must have faded to that grayish, drab green long ago from the looks of it. Its elbows are worn and patched, and the right epaulet—which has long since lost the button that once held it in place—flops listlessly over his shoulder in the gusty wind.

I pull the folded sheet of paper from my pocket. “Is this the girl you were talking about with Fiona?” I ask, watching for his reaction.

He stiffens when he glances down at the drawing, but then he turns to me after a moment. “You were looking through my effects?”

“You left me alone in your quarters. What did you think I was going to do?”

His mouth goes tight, but he doesn’t say anything. He just keeps glaring at me with that indecipherable expression of his.

“Her name’s Olivia,” I tell him, concentrating on the way the word feels on my tongue, the way it sounds before it’s carried off by the breeze. “She was in London with me, when I was taken. What are you doing with her picture?”

He scratches absently at the dark scruff on his jawline. “This Olivia,” he asks, ignoring my question. “You say she’s from your world?”

I nod.

“You’re sure about this—you remember it?”

I clench my fists. “I didn’t at first. The picture helped.”

His brows draw together, and his dark eyes study me for a long moment before he responds. “I’m surprised you remembered at all, lass. Most of the boys don’t remember anything at all of your world—no matter how many tales I tell them of it.” He narrows his eyes at me, but I’m getting so used to his half-threatening looks that it’s fairly easy to ignore this one.

“They’re all from my world?”

The Captain’s mouth goes tight as he gives a terse nod and confirms my fears. “Not that it’s anything more than a story to them now. All they are is who they’ve become.”

I think about Owen and how confused he was when I asked where his parents were, and I wonder if it’s possible to forget that completely. Could I really become like the boys on this ship, all thinking that Neverland—or whatever this strange world might be—is the only home I’ve ever known?

“I won’t forget Olivia again—I won’t forget any of it,” I say, determined. Even as I struggle to hold on to the wisps of memory I’ve managed to grab hold of.

“As you’ll soon learn, Gwendolyn, everything about this world inspires forgetting. If you survive long enough, Neverland will tempt you to abandon the life you knew before, to betray everything you believed you were.”

“Is that what happened to you?” I wonder.

But his expression goes stony, and he turns away, dismissing the question and me all at once.

“Wait! What about the girl—Olivia?”

He turns back. “What about her?”

“Can you help me find her?”

He shakes his head slightly. “I’m afraid not, lass. I won’t risk any more of my lads. We’re heading out to sea, beyond the range of more attacks.”

“But Fiona said—”

“The game has changed,” he says simply. “Pan has never risked such a brazen attack before. And if he has your friend, as Fiona believes, she’s already lost.” His words are so blunt, so absolute, I have no doubt they are final.

“Pan?” I ask, and I cannot stop myself from looking at what remains of the battle’s carnage. Dark spots still stain the decks. Boys still trickle blood from seeping wounds or peer out of swollen eyes. “But in the story—”