Shadow
Page 11
Something about the way she says those words makes me wince.
Still, I’m surprised when Connor merely nods. His spear dissolves into water again and splashes to the ground. The icy blades in Peter’s chest dissolve as well, except for a few small bits of ice that skim over the slender wounds, stopping the blood flow.
Paige glares down at Peter Pan, arms crossed over her chest. “You really should give us what we want, or I will tell everyone here what you did. Including your precious Claire—and if she knew, you’d lose her forever. And if somehow you didn’t, I’d throw her off that cliff, and you’d lose her just the same.”
The threat hangs in the air like the tang of poison, but Peter just stares at her blankly. “Do I know you?”
Her eyes go wide—fractured and human for that single moment—and then she slaps him across the face. “Don’t play games! I know that the island used to withhold things—but not this. Y-you have to remember this.” Her voice strains, a thread of desperation.
He rubs at the stinging red spot. “’Ey? Sorry, but I don’t . . .” He squeezes his eyes shut, fingertips at his temple, as if trying hard to resurrect some forlorn knowledge. I hold my breath. He just shakes his head, lifting those vibrant green eyes to meet her dull, wild ones. “I really have no idea who you are.”
Paige’s angry shriek rends through the air.
“No!” She shoves Peter over and over bringing them both dangerously close to the edge of the bluff. She kicks and pulls at his hair. Paige is frantic and fraying. Hook looks like he wants to jump in, but Connor shakes his head at the pirate.
Peter raises his hands to protect his face, but Paige’s sharp nails claw his arms. “You don’t get to just forget me!” Her voice is ragged, thick. “Not like everything else. Like you forgot Mother.”
Peter’s hands drop, and he stares at her, freckled features painted with perplexed shock and a wash of guilt. Paige leaves a nasty scratch on his cheek, and then with a wild gasp, she runs her thin hands through her mane of pale reddish hair and turns around.
She comes at me, grim, frantic determination in her eyes. “Well, maybe this will make you remember.”
“No—Claire!” Despite the blood and pain, Peter rushes toward me. But Paige is already ripping at the vines anchoring me to the cliff and pushing me toward the edge of the bluff. I kick at her as one foot comes free but am aware if I fight too hard, I could wrench the rest of the vines for her.
I teeter, feeling the vines around my ankles beginning to snap one by one. I stare into the desperate eyes of this woman who claims to be Peter’s sister.
She glances over her shoulder at Peter as he races for us, Connor and Hook just watching hollowly. Her lips curl. “Let’s see if you remember her drowning.”
Paige shoves me. The last vine snaps.
I tumble over the side of the cliff.
But my dust pours from my skin, a pale gold haze, catching me just in time. I soar away from the spray of white water, and for a second, I consider leaving. Just turning and flying as far away as I can.
But Peter is still up there. Stabbed and bleeding from trying to rescue me from my own brother.
That invisible tether of guilt or duty or whatever it is pulls me back toward the bluff.
My feet alight on the ground, and I stand opposite Peter. The wind tosses my pixie dust across Paige’s weathered features, igniting her pale skin and green eyes and giving life to her wet hair.
And in that moment, with the shine of magic bringing a bit of warmth into her desperate expression, she almost looks a bit like the boy she claims is her brother.
My attention shoots to Peter, and I find him staring openmouthed at Paige. The relief that flooded his features when he saw me fly shifts into something else as he stares at her. A spark of something long lost, buried deep in those beautiful green eyes.
And then Peter screams. He crumples to the ground, writhing, in more pain than he’d even been in only minutes ago when Connor had stabbed him. He’s clutching at his head, thrashing against the mottled ground.
“What’s happening?” I run forward and drop to my knees beside him. I try to hold him still so he won’t hurt himself further. “Someone help him!” But if this is anything like the strange headache attacks he’d get in London . . . I’m not sure anyone can.
Connor and Hook stand silent as the wind shrieks along with Peter. Pan’s cries convulse the island. Peter and Neverland rock and shudder and howl.
“What is happening to him?” I gasp again, pleading with Peter’s sister as his body wrenches so violently I can’t even hold him down.
Paige is deathly still, her thin lips tipped up in that sickening smile.
“He’s remembering.”
Neverland
My head splits apart.
At first, darkness pools into my vision like the storm clouds Connor conjured, blocking everyone from view. I writhe against the ground as the pain carves out my temples. But then fractured images and scraps of moments appear through the blackness. Each memory burns into my mind like a comet, and the pain sends shockwaves throughout me.
I can’t stop it. I can’t hold it back anymore.
Just scream and tear at the coarse ground as memories sweep me backward into a black hole of things I’d never wanted to confront again. Places I never wanted to be.
But I’m back there again. In my own room, as a young child, curled in a corner next to my bed. Crying because Father was yelling again. But then, she’s there. Mother. A young woman with soft red hair and vibrant blue eyes—and something almost magical about her. As magical as the stories she told me when she tucked me into bed, her lyrical voice whispering of whimsical, distant places. Of a world where shining sprites could peer through window frames, and where a pixie once fell in love with a human man. Where that pixie traded her wings to be with him, letting go of her pixie dust to instead eventually hold a little child in her arms. And tuck him into bed.
A little boy whose blood was mostly human, but with a trickle of magic still there.
When she was with him, all was right with the world. And then she became sick. Sunny smiles and whispered secrets and adventures in parks were traded for long hours at her bedside. The worse Mother grew, the darker the house became. Especially for the man she had traded her wings for.
The father who turned to a bottle and a harsh voice to cover his grief. Who screamed at his son for playing, for not just growing up.
I moan, curling into a tight ball, just thinking of it. Thinking of the day I snuck into her room to find her bed empty. She was gone.
She took all the light with her.
The time between is a blur. A blur of broken glass and even sharper words and tears and hours huddled in a dark corner of my room. With all the magic gone too.
Until one night when a spark of light perched on the windowsill. Peeked in at that little boy and began to tell him stories so very much like his mother’s. Little voice tinkling of a place he could go if he wanted it. If he only wanted it—needed it enough. Needed an escape.
And I did. I was so desperate for an escape from that blasted world. I’d spent so much time lost in my own imagination, making up stories of being abandoned as a baby in a park or living with a flock of birds—but I could only lose myself in my own mind for so long. Until the angry footsteps and the scent of alcohol would thunder into my room and rip me back to the gray world I existed in.
And so one day, when I’d forgotten to finish a chore and my father had become so angry, so volatile that he had beaten that young Peter . . .
I was done.
So I waited for that pixie, that little Tinkerbell, to arrive at my window again. A pixie with magic that existed well outside of any worlds I could create. This time I told her I was ready to go. I opened the window, climbed up on the sill, my boyish heart beating fast as she drizzled me in pixie dust—and I flew. That sensation stirring up the whisper of magic in my blood. The whisper that said I was different. Special.
For an instant, that moment captures me so completely that the pain in my temples fades. I can see it—that first night when I flew away. Soaring over the rooftops of old London, past the chimney smoke and the ships docked on the Thames. Aiming for a certain star to the right and feeling closer to my mother than I had in ever so long.
But then, something skips. Something jars in my brain, and the pain comes flooding back in, as the memory sharpens into focus. My whole body seizes as I realize something I’d been missing . . .
As the memory of the night I escaped to Neverland fills into the hollows and secreted parts of my mind, I realize that I wasn’t flying alone that night.
I can see that small reflection of myself, that young Peter rolling and laughing in the air as he soars higher and higher.
And then he looks behind him and reaches out to grab the hand of the girl flying at his heels. The moment I picture him reach for her hand, watch their eyes meet, both the same ivy shade of green . . . it all clicks into place.
Memories start to rearrange like a puzzle putting itself together.
I wasn’t the only one in that house who cried themselves to sleep. I wasn’t the only child who grieved the loss of a mother.
Our mother.
My sister. Four years older than me.
Paige.
She helped create Neverland too.
The knowledge skims through me like a jolt of electricity—and then swells back, bowling me over like a clap of thunder.
And the world tilts and shifts on its axis, and suddenly everything is cast in a new shade of raw color that changes the foundations I’ve stood on for so long.
How did I forget my own sister?
The headache starts to fade, to settle in, and slowly my vision clears. As my eyes refocus and I pull myself up to sit and look past Claire hovering, worried, to the slip of a woman standing a few feet away. Her arms are crossed over her chest, green eyes dull and worn but regarding me carefully.
This time I recognize her.
She’s a frail, faded version of my older sister, but it’s undeniably Paige.
Which should be impossible.
I try to keep the tremble from my voice “Paige? But . . . how are you here?”
My sister’s eyes flash. “That is the question, isn’t it? Maybe I’m not really here. Maybe I never really came back.”
A chill snakes over my arms. “How long have you been here? We were just children the last time I saw you . . .”
Paige glances at Hook.
“I found her,” the pirate captain says. “I found her about two years ago.”
“And then she found me.” Connor twitches as he says it, those hollow, dark eyes lightening for a fraction of a second. “It turns out Paige and I have a lot in common.”
I press a hand against the stinging wounds as I turn to Hook. “Where did you find her?”
“It’s not important,” Paige snaps. “What’s important is what needs to happen next. You have to give Connor your connection to the island so we can undo everything you’ve done and fix this whole mess.”
My brow creases. “But how will that shift what . . .” I’m not sure how to say it. “How will that fix what happened to you?”
Long, oily strands of pale hair fall across her eyes. “I will finally be able to leave this cursed island once and for all.”
“Heh? Now, just ’ow does that work?”
Paige’s expression has closed off again. “It doesn’t matter. Just give him what he wants.”
Yeah, not so fond of that plan.
I suddenly realize I haven’t seen Glimmer since I came to. Hopefully she did the smart thing and got out of here. The burn of the cuts on my chest grows worse, but I tense my jaw and try to ignore it.
But Claire notices. “You’re bleeding again, Peter.”
I press the heel of my palm against the biggest of the cuts and toss her a lopsided smile. “I’ll manage, Pixie-Girl.” Then I look at my sister. “I’m sorry, Paige. I’m awful sorry that I forgot so much. But I’m still not giving you my connection. Torturing me won’t change that.”
Connor frowns at my words, and the churn of poison that seethes from him through the island makes me feel physically ill. But I dig deep, forcing myself to remain sitting upright, to not show them how affected I am.
Paige’s lips purse together. “I knew you’d be this stubborn, which is why it’s not you that we’re concerning ourselves with right now.” Her eyes flick to Claire. “Since Claire has already given up her connection to Connor, we really have no need for her besides using her burning dust for . . . other means.”
Claire pales, and her eyes dart to me and then toward the edge of the bluff. She manages two quick steps toward the edge, but only lifts a few inches off the ground before Connor loops a thick vine once more around her ankle and slams her to the rocky surface. She gasps, wind knocked out of her, on her knees.
Desperation is in the look she gives.
I press an arm around my waist to hold back the pain and leaking wounds, and push myself to my feet. I cross over to Paige, shoving a finger at her. “You wouldn’t dare use her like that. I doubt Connor would let you.”
But Connor just looks away.
My sister’s mouth cracks in a dry, humorless smile. “We already have, little brother.”
Wha . . . ? I turn toward Claire, and at the look on her face, my heat plunges. She darts a telltale glance toward Hook, and then lowers her head. Morbid fascination gets the best of me as I watch the pirate captain roll back the cuff circling his hook. His eyes never leave mine. My mouth opens when I see the burn marks going all the way to his shoulder. The metal around his hook is contorted and digs into marred flesh. The burns marking Hook’s neck and the side of his face now make sense.
“Claire did that?” I ask, incredulous.
Paige shrugs so casually it riles. “You should see the Lost Boys. They’ll be in the infirmary for months.”
Claire whimpers, backing up as close to the edge of Blindman’s Bluff as Connor will let her. There is fear in her eyes, and the way she keeps glancing back over her shoulder at the churning water below her stills my breath.
Her eyes look at me, pleading. “I can’t hurt anyone again.”
I realize the corner they’ve backed her into. Backed both of us into.
My brain scrambles, trying to find a way out. Something. Anything.
Even if I could whisk Claire away, Connor would just find us again eventually. He has this entire island under his thumb. And once Connor found us again—well, I’m not strong enough to stop him. Not alone.
But I can’t leave Claire here. If I leave her with them to use as such a vile weapon, it will break her.
Suddenly, a faint sound begins to echo through the noisy waves below. A hauntingly familiar sound . . .
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
The ticking sound of a large clock, echoing from inside a certain aquatic creature.
Hook curses. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
But the sound just grows louder as the crocodile draws nearer and nearer. Even Paige seems a little unnerved and moves away from the corner of the cliff. Claire is too numb to react. Connor, on the other hand, ambles closer to peer out over the edge of the bluff.
“I thought you said you killed it!” Hook snarls at Connor, who just shrugs.
“I said I tried. But after I struck it, it disappeared for months. I guess Peter’s brought it out again.”
My mouth pinches into a little smirk.
I make my way to the edge of the bluff and look down at the gray water slamming against the sharp rocks rimming the bottom of the cliff. The churning ocean sprays up like foaming fingers. And then I see it. A large, dark shape slicing through the water, drawing closer and closer t
o the bottom of the cliffs. All jagged scales and huge snout. It angles its head toward the top of the bluff, somehow knowing we are here, and its dark green maw snaps at us.
Cor. I’d forgotten how massive that thing is.
I’m not even sure how the ticking clock can be heard as loudly as it is, ricocheting from somewhere deep inside the beast—another Neverland oddity? The croc swallowed the blasted ticker during the same sea battle where I lopped off a certain pirate’s arm, and it’s the only reason why it hasn’t managed to devour the rest of the captain yet. Pity.
The crocodile snorts, swishing its long, mossy tail back and forth in the choppy water.
Claire seems fascinated by the ticking crocodile, but the sense of danger she should have is missing. Her eyes are glassed over. Not good.
I glance at my sister again. A hollow reflection of the girl who’s just beginning to fit into place in my memories. My gaze skims Connor, standing just behind her, and Hook, ever at her side. None of them used to be like this. Well, maybe Hook. But not this dark.
What pushed them so far?
Was I so desperate for things to remain how they were and to not lose this place that I shoved anyone out of the way because of it?
I survey the island sprawling around us. Soak in the overcast sky and the pounding rain and the rocky bluff. I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t know how to undo this.
But there are two things I do know.
My selfish desperation to keep this island is what lost my sister.
And if I give up Neverland, I may be able to save Claire.
If I don’t? If I let them have her?
I’ll lose Claire too. If the look in her eyes means anything, I realize that if Paige tries to turn Claire into any sort of weapon . . .
Claire will take herself out of the equation.
And when I’m faced with that reality, the answer seems simple.
“If I give you my connection will you let Claire go?”
Claire gives a disbelieving snort, but I’m watching each opportunity to shift this tide slipping through my fingers.