by Anna Katmore
Time must definitely work different. And suddenly, in all my anger and fear of being trapped on a pirate ship, I let out the first breath of tiny relief. If five nights here were no more than a couple of minutes there, my family might not worry I’d gone missing. I could be back before they even notice.
And I will be back, because I certainly don’t intend to give this idiot captain out on deck what he wants and surrender. No way. But a little more time might come in handy. I mean, come on, I’m in Neverland. The land of the infamous Peter Pan. Who wouldn’t want to know what’s going on in my place? And with all those freaking déjà vu things happening around me, I might be on to something here. Something big. Some only-once-in-your-life thing. Okay, apparently it’s twice for me, but still.
Little later, we’re back outside, Jack Smee carrying my food and water for the journey. As we reach the place where I have to climb down into the rowboat, I hesitate.
“What is it?” he demands innocently enough, but I’m pretty sure I’m reacting totally according to his plan.
“Can you make sure none of the pirates eats my lunch?” I ask him. “I want to check something before I go. Only a few minutes.”
Smee presses his lips together, not very subtly trying to hold back another smirk. “Of course.”
Casting a wary glance up to the bridge to see if the captain of this ship is still in his former position, I’m not being disappointed. He stands with his back to me, talking to someone. As if he can feel my gaze on him, he glances over his shoulder then turns halfway to me. His look intensifies as does mine and he tilts his head.
It’s really like we’re communicating across the distance, even though there are no answers given to the silent questions we both throw at each other. The only thing it does to me is quicken my heartbeat, but that happened pretty much every time I looked at him since the moment he slipped the little note into my hand in the street in front of my house.
I slowly walk away from Smee. But instead of going back to my quarters, I’m headed for Hook’s.
Chapter 10
ANGEL IS WALKING my way. There’s so much determination in her eyes that I wonder if she’ll come up to the sterncastle and confront me with whatever is on her mind. Am I finally in for round six of her cursing me?
The ugly feeling when my chest tightens with uncertainty of what to expect turns into something totally different the moment she stops on the quarter deck, slides one last, shy look up to me and then disappears in my quarters. My. Freakin’. Quarters.
And what was that look? Did she challenge me to follow her? Well, I sure will, but first I need to talk to Smee and find out what the two of them spoke about during the past goddamned half-hour.
There’s no chance my first mate misses the tick in my jaw when he catches my eyes, but he shrugs it off with a grin as he comes to seek me out by the helm. He has the gall to mock me with an innocent expression. “Cap’n?”
“Don’t you cap’n me, Smee. What were you and Angel talking about? Why did you take her under deck? And why the hell were you helping her to unfasten the dinghy?”
“Calm down, James.” He laughs. “I was doing you a favor.”
“By helping her escape from the ship? She wouldn’t row the boat two miles before she slumps over, beaten and drained of strength.”
“Yeah, that’s why we got her some lunch too.” He lifts a small leather bag that smells of roast pork and cheese.
“Are you shitting me?”
“Absolutely not. But your temper with the lass before wasn’t quite helpful now was it?” He frowns at me. “And having the crew backing off when she starts to remember isn’t your best bet either.”
My eyes widen. “She remembers them?”
A casual shrug rolls of his shoulders. “Can’t tell for sure, but she might have recognized Potato Ralph. Or maybe just his name, I don’t know. She certainly reacted to it in surprise.”
My heart stutters, which always is a bad sign because, from past experience, it proves that I can’t think straight when I’m getting excited…especially about something that Angel did or said. “So what are we going to do now?”
“We,” Smee says and emphasizes the word overly dramatic, “are doing nothing. You on the other hand should go down to your quarters now and fast. Because the girl you’re crazy about is in there for whatever harebrained reason and you’ll never get a better chance to talk to her.”
He’s right. What am I waiting for? With a curt nod, I dump the command of the ship in his hands and climb down the stairs to the quarterdeck.
The door to my bedroom stands open. It might be an invitation. Or it could also be Angel’s way of making sure she had a fast escape route if need be. When I catch the first glimpse of her, my heart comes to a total standstill. She’s kneeling on the floor in front of my bed, staring at the door that, after all this time, is still out of its hinges.
It’s impossible to say what she sees there, but she looks lost in yet another world. I approach with caution. Reluctance overcomes me in the doorway and I stop, leaning one shoulder against the frame.
Angel doesn’t pay me any notice, so I just stand here and watch her. The nostalgia that comes with the memories of her in my room constricts my chest. I want to close the door behind me and lock the both of us in here forever. Of course, this isn’t an option.
Now that she’s back in Neverland, I really don’t know what to do with her. She must hate me. She must want to go back home. And eventually I’ll have to give in to that. But for now I’m just happy I can look at her.
After some time, she heaves a sigh, and I knock gently against the wooden frame. Her gaze flickers briefly to me, then back to where it had lingered for the past few minutes. Her silence is driving me insane.
“Why are you in my cabin?” I ask with a soft voice.
There’s a tick in her jaw that makes me wonder if she’s angry or just trying to close off from me, but when she speaks, she only sounds as lost as she looked before. “I was hoping I could put a puzzle together.”
“Any success with that?” When she shakes her head, I offer, “Maybe I can help.”
She slowly blinks her eyes but gives me no answer.
“Mind if I come in?”
“It’s your room,” she says no louder than I had.
I accept the invitation that probably wasn’t really one and step into my quarters. Instead of walking all the way to her, I stop after a couple of steps and lower to my knees, sitting on my haunches, facing her. Avoiding my gaze, she falls back to maddening silence. It makes me want to grab her shoulders and shake the words right out of her mouth.
Patience has never been my strength, but since time seems to be the one thing Angel needs right now, I do my best. And she certainly exploits it. After some minutes, I start to grind my teeth to keep myself from saying whatever shit is forming in my mind.
“What’s with that door?” Her tender voice shocks me out of my struggle.
I hesitate a second with my answer and try to keep my tone equally soft when I tell her, “I broke it.”
“I know you did.” She slowly turns her head my way. “And I was here when it happened. Wasn’t I?”
Her last question settles like a pile of glowing coals in my chest. So insecure but at the same time full of hope. It’s almost like she wants me to say yes.
I smile and nod.
“I thought so.” She nods too, as if she needs the gesture to assure herself before her gaze drifts back to the broken door. “But I can’t recall it all.”
Luckily, the memory is still as vivid in my mind as if all the fighting and shouting happened only this morning. With my head tilted and my hands braced on my thighs, I wait for her to look at me again. “We had a fight. You came after me with a dagger that I’d carelessly left in this room. When you pointed it at my throat I wanted to kiss you so bad it hurt.”
The need in my voice surprises the both of us. Dammit, maybe it helps to show her just how serious I am about thi
s. “Later that morning, when we had another argument and you were wrenching the word sorry from me, you slammed the door closed on my face. I got mad and kicked it open. I thought you had locked it.” I grimace. “But you hadn’t.”
Angel takes a deep breath. Her gaze doesn't waver from mine, but I can see how much the words that want to come out next trouble her. Hands clasped in her lap, she swallows then asks with a small voice, “When did we kiss for the first time?”
Stunned, I stare so hard at her that a beguiling blush creeps to her cheeks.
She can’t hold my gaze very long and lowers her head, obviously feeling the need to explain. “Evidently the kiss down in my garden wasn’t our first. I could tell by the way you went on about it.” Her blush deepens as she cuts a quick glance back at me. Her voice is barely a whisper now. “So intimate.”
Her shyness makes me smile, while my heart knocks in a triumphant flourish. “You’re right. I kissed you before, on that very same day of our argument. It was late at night and we were pretty much the only ones on deck.” When the memory of Smee interrupting the best moment of my life returns, I huff, “With a few disturbances that is.”
Angel takes a couple of minutes to process this new bit of information. She falls so still that I want to help her breathe. Suddenly she croaks, “You took something from me. Something small.” Closing her eyes, she obviously struggles to remember. “It looks like a piece of paper.”
“The travelcard,” I tell her and laugh. If she remembers that little thing, we can’t be far from discovering the rest for her. Pumped with joy, I crawl toward her on the floor, but she backs away like a spider. I stop, trying to hide my disappointment. “Sorry, I didn’t—don’t want to scare you. It’s just…you do remember, right?”
Angel looks only half convinced. “It’s all so vague. Almost like I was a witness at this scene but can only see it through a haze now. It doesn’t feel like I was really there but the pictures are in my mind.” Her shoulders sink and she tilts her head, looking forlorn and puzzled. “How can this be?”
There are about six feet separating us. Far too much distance. I want to reach out and pull her into my lap, hold her and whisper everything into her ear until she remembers exactly who I am. But this is hardly the right way to make her trust me. It would ruin everything, and we’ve already come so far.
“Why don’t we try to get to your memory from a different angle?” I suggest. “Maybe it helps if you tell me everything you can see in those pictures in your mind, and I can explain where they come from.”
She sighs, but it’s not one of those sounds that make you feel frustrated. It’s a sigh full of surrender. A wonderful sound. And then she starts to talk. “I see you and me, but you look different.” Her gaze drops to the foreign pants I’m wearing on the fairy’s advice then shifts back up to my face. “The only thing I can see clearly is your eyes. I remember their vibrant blue. The rest is…covered?” She makes such a hopeful face that it’s hard for me to stay where I am and not touch her. “Sorry, I know it doesn’t really make sense.”
“Oh, it might make more sense than you’d believe. I used to wear a hat back then, but you didn’t like it.”
“How do you know I didn’t?”
I chuckle, rubbing the back of my neck. “You told me so on a couple occasions.”
She stares at me for a long moment. Then her eyes narrow. “You scared me,” she breathes.
My stomach drops. Why, of all things, does she have to remember this first? I let go of a long sigh. “Yes, I did. I wasn’t very nice to you at the beginning. That’s why you came after me with the dagger, actually.”
Her gaze bores into mine. Suddenly a small smile plays on her lips. “And you brushed it off like it was nothing.”
The air freezes in my lungs. “What did you just say?”
Angelina
I DON’T KNOW what it was exactly that managed to lift the fog in my mind, but once I start to remember, it all comes back like an avalanche. Even though it’s rather my feelings for James Hook that come back than the memories of entire situations.
“We were sitting on the wooden boxes on deck when you kissed me first, weren’t we? And I was wearing your cape.”
His face lights up as he nods.
“I wanted you to kiss me, right?”
“I’ve never forced myself on a woman,” he growls through a smirk.
That’s something I can easily believe. Ever since the first moment our eyes met in the street in front of my house I wanted him to kiss me. I even let him shortly before he kidnapped me. And nothing ever felt so right before. But there’s so much more to discover. So many things still don’t make sense. Most of all the fact that I remember Peter as a boy and not the man that he is now. “How much time has passed since I left Neverland last time?”
“About three months.”
That’s exactly the time that passed since my fall from the balcony. But if back then five days in Neverland equaled five minutes in London, something must have changed. My theory about me getting back to my world at the moment when I left starts to crumble.
“It still hasn’t fully returned, has it?”
“Hm?” Hook’s question startles me out of my musing as much as the fact that he suddenly kneels in front of me, far closer than before. “What do you mean?”
“Your memory. You’re struggling with something. And I know that look of yours.” He smiles and lifts my chin with his finger. “I lost you.”
A sigh escapes me. “Being in Neverland—again—doesn’t make sense on either end.” I wonder if it ever will. “There are flashes of you, pirates on deck, strange women.” My brows knit together at the image of a girl with long dark hair and a fishtail. “Did I ever talk to a mermaid?”
When he chuckles, I cross my arms over my chest and glare at him. “It’s nice that my confusion amuses you, but I’d rather get some answers.”
The chuckle turns into a laugh. I like that sound. As he rises from the floor, my gaze follows him until he towers over me and holds out one hand. “Come on, Miss London. You’re in for a story.”
Reluctantly, I slide my hand in his and he gently closes his fingers around mine. Then he pulls me to my feet.
Way too close, I’m suddenly standing flush to his body. His hand placed at the small of my back, he makes sure there’s no space between us. I shape my palms to his firm chest, because the nearness startles me, but it’s not uncomfortable. And then his forehead dips to mine.
“I’ve been dreaming of this for so many nights,” he whispers. “You don’t know what you did to me when you left.”
Being in the arms of James Hook feels more than just right. It feels perfect. But the shiver his touch sends along my spine makes me aware that I know nothing about him yet. “You promised me a story,” I tease in a shy voice.
He strokes my hair away from the side of my face and brushes it behind my ear. His fingers there make my skin tingle. Everything points at him going to ignore my weak protest, but a few heartbeats later, one corner of his mouth tilts up in a lovely, taunting way. “And a story you shall get.”
Not letting go of my hand, he sits down on the edge of his bed and pulls me closer. I don’t know what to do, because for a moment the urge to lower onto his lap overcomes me. But that would be too awkward, even if there might have been a time when I did this and liked it.
“It all started with an apple. I sort of stole it from you.” James Hook tilts his head and, with a sheepish look, starts to stroke his thumb back and forth over my knuckles. “Under pretence of helping you find your way back home, I later lured you on board of this ship.”
For a while, I just stand in front of him and listen to each detail of the cruel beginnings of our supposed friendship. That guy clearly has a ruthless streak. But when he explains how he saved me from the deathly trap in the jungle and how later on he gradually fell in love with me, and apparently I with him, my grimness toward him starts to crack.
While James Hook k
eeps talking, I wander about in his room and try to hunt for objects in here that might help me remember more of the us-thing. Nothing really stands out, so I sneak a glance into the room behind the broken door.
There’s a huge desk by the window wall. Ambling toward it, I notice a black hat with an impressive feather waiting to be picked up. I don’t dare touch it, but it stirs awake another blurred memory—images of James slumped forward in his chair and sleeping like an exhausted child with his arms folded on the desktop. The hat lay at the exact same place back then. Tracing my finger along the edge the desk, I slowly skirt it then sit in the captain’s chair for a moment.
“Apart from Smee, no one was ever allowed in this room.”
I look up and find James leaning against the doorframe, arms casually crossed over his chest. He watches me like I’m his favorite TV show. One side of his mouth tilts up. “But as soon as you came on board my ship, you developed a habit of storming in an out of my quarters as if you owned them.”
“I’m sorry.” I grimace and stand, though I don’t know if this was even the right thing to say. “Would you rather I didn’t come in here again?”
James pushes himself away from the doorframe and crosses the room to me. He leans back against the desk, gripping the edge with both hands. The sun shining through the windows and falling on his face makes him look so much younger. “In fact, I’d rather you never again left my quarters,” he tells me in a soft voice.
I can feel how part of me once wanted that too. Exploring that part is easy. It starts to rise and tries to take over, but I’m not willing to give in to this need. “You know that’s impossible, Captain. You’ll have to take me back at some point.”
“Do I?” A shiver rakes over my body at the mischievous tilt of one of his eyebrows. His hand sneaks up to my waist and, with a gentle pull, he makes me stand between his spread legs. He lowers his chin with a small smile so he’s staring directly into my eyes. “I thought, maybe if somehow I found a way to keep you happy, you’d agree to stay this time.”