Unhooked(36)

The tattoos. On the ship, the older boys all had dark, scarlike lines that I’d thought might have been some mark of loyalty or rank, but I see now they weren’t. What just happened to that fish is happening to all of them.

“All humans?” I ask, my voice wavering. I’m not any more of a child than most of the tattooed—no, cracked—boys in the Captain’s crew. Neither is the Captain.

“Well . . . perhaps not all,” Pan concedes. “As you saw in the hold of the ship, your Captain has found a way to avoid such an unfortunate end. When he accepts what the Dark Ones offer, he takes for himself his victim’s innocence and youth. The younger the child, the more power it contains, the more time it buys him.” His cool eyes bore into mine as his expression goes coldly dangerous. A moment before, the valley had felt like a peaceful, welcoming place, but now there is a dangerous tension radiating from Pan.

“But it will never be enough for him. This world will never be a place where he belongs.” Pan’s features soften, and his mouth curls into a slow, satisfied smile. “Not as I belong,” he says, brushing his hand over the soft grassy ground cover between us. Tiny white flowers appear at his touch. “And not as you could belong, Gwendolyn.” His cool eyes meet mine, but he doesn’t speak for a long, uncomfortable moment.

“Me?” I say with a surprised laugh. But a small part of me still wonders at the pull I feel to the island, to Pan. “This isn’t my home. I don’t want to stay here,” I force myself to say. And it’s only partially a lie.

“But it could be,” he says simply as he trails his fingertip along my leg, drawing a line of his blood from my knee down almost to my ankle. I can’t look away from the dark smudge of his blood on my pants, and can’t help but think that he’s basically marked me. But for what? the small voice inside me asks.

Then, as though sharing the best sort of secret, he bends his head toward mine conspiratorially. “In this world, you could do anything. Become anything.” The sky has lit completely now, and the pink from the sunrise has all but melted into the bright blue of day. A blue that can’t compete with the brightness of his eyes. “I can show you, protect you. Just as my mother taught me.”

“So you’re not one of the Fey?” I ask, surprised. Until this moment I hadn’t known for sure.

“No, but the Queen of this world was the only mother I ever knew, and because of my mother’s gifts, I am as close to Fey as any mortal has ever been.” He plucks one of the tiny blossoms, and as he holds it, the petals turn from red to pink and then to blue. “For some, Neverland can be paradise. I can give you that, Gwendolyn.”

As I reach for the flower to accept it, a part of me also wants to accept the promise of his words. My memories are still so hazy, but the one feeling I cannot shake, the feeling that comes through clear and sure, is how out of my control my life had always felt. Even as I held everything together, each move we made was my mom’s choice. Each time I had to start over was because she decided.

What would it mean to choose the beauty and wonder of this place for myself?

“You could belong here, Gwendolyn,” Pan tempts, offering me the flower. “You could belong with me.”

His words stroke at something inside me, something that wants and aches and cannot remember having been satisfied before. I’m not sure what I mean to accept when I reach out to take the flower from him. But I can’t bring myself to care. I just want something, anything, to feel right and real and true.

But as soon as the stem of the tiny flower is between my fingertips, tiny black lines begin to creep along the petals’ surfaces. With a gasp, I let the flower fall to the ground, wilted and gray on the bright emerald of the grass. At the sight of it, the intense wanting that had reared up so suddenly and so strongly crumbles and fades.

I’m not sure if Pan realizes the emotions that have just crashed through me. He doesn’t seem to, because a moment later he takes my hand and gently settles it palm down in the soft, grassy growth. Then he covers it with the broad warmth of his own hand, pressing my palm so firmly into the ground, I can feel the uncomfortably sharp point of a pebble, the dampness of the earth. Beneath my fingertips is the constant and gentle throb of an island always changing.

“Listen to Neverland, Gwendolyn. Can you feel it calling to you?” His voice is soft and urgent, coaxing me again to believe that what he’s saying might be true.

I want to pull my hand away and rub the heat of his skin from mine, but I can’t. Because it would be a lie. The ground does pulse beneath me, like a heartbeat. And there’s more—something warm growing beneath my palms. Something comforting and welcoming.

“You don’t have to be afraid, my dear. You need only ask for what you most desire, and see if Neverland finds favor in you,” he tells me, low and sweet. “You need only call to it, to see if it responds.” Pan’s eyes are clear and bright now, hopeful as they meet mine. “Go on,” he urges. “Try.”

I swallow hard, not sure whether the connection I feel to the land is safe—or even real. Not sure whether I can trust his words. But he’s looking at me so ardently, and I can’t bring myself to disappoint him. I close my eyes, and I do what he asks.

I want to go home, I think because it is what I’m supposed to think.

And once you’re back there? the small voice whispers. What then?