“Again, apparently,” Calum drawled under his breath, rolling his piercing blue eyes to the wooden deck beneath his feet.
Nick held up his hands, as though he hoped to hold their incessant questioning at bay. “Might I make an observation?” he asked in a controlled voice. He opened one of his eyes in order to look at his crew, fiddling with the lace around his wrist. When he felt it was safe, he opened the other one. They were silent, but Nick could see the expectation clearly written in their eyes, waiting for him to speak. “I cannot possibly answer all of your questions at once.” He dropped his hands but his body was still tense, his eyes moving from one person to the other, trying to keep an eye on them all at one time. “Where would you like me to begin?”
“The beginning,” Edward deadpanned.
“The very beginning,” Calum added. “How she got here the first time. And why.”
Nick sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. He didn’t actually like talking about his first encounter with Remy Cutler. It had made him feel a slew of emotions; some he never wanted to feel again, and some he refused to acknowledge. Any mention of her caused him to clamp his mouth shut in fear that he might say something damning. Adele and Edward knew of her only because they had been here for her first visit but Giselle and Calum had not yet been a part of his crew. He had hoped he would never have to tell either of them of her appearance and subsequent disappearance, but with Remy’s sudden reappearance – thanks to him, of course – he supposed he could hide it no longer.
But where to start?
“Remy Cutler died on the fifth of April, two years ago, Earth time,” Nick said, letting his hand fall back down to his side. “It was evening time, a good deal into the night. She had been climbing out her second-story bedroom window and fell so that her neck broke. I found her waiting at the Alley and decided to bring her aboard in hopes that she might consider joining the crew. Mind you, only Adele and Edward were with me, and as you remember, that wasn’t a sufficient number of people to man a ship as grand as this.”
“Tell Calum what made you notice Remy in the first place, Nick,” Adele said in a mocking voice, narrowing her brown eyes at her captain.
Nick glared at the red headed woman. “I do not think that that is a pertinent part of the story, Adele,” he returned in a warning tone.
“He was astounded by her beauty,” she said, turning her head to look at Calum. Though she had been with him the longest – a little over fifty years at that – she still didn’t seem to be able to take order when she had been so used to giving them while living. “He believed that if he wooed her away from her final resting place, he might be able to woo her into his bedroom. Of course, if that were to have happened, he would have tired of her and avoided her and she would have been left heartbroken and inconsolable, as many of the women he meets are.”
“There is a method to his madness, it would seem,” Edward added bitterly. “He tends to prefer bedding whores because both companies know entering into the temporary relationship that nothing will come of it and as such, no one will be hurt, no one will feel guilty. He can come and go as he pleases.” Of course, Edward was well-aware of wenches that sold their bodies for whatever a man was willing to pay. His father, a general, took Edward to a brothel once he turned thirteen and bought him a night with the best looking girl there. That was not actually saying much, but Edward did become a man that night. He also found out that instead of the unwavering devotion he believed his father had to his mother, found that that was not the case. As such, he refused to be with a whore for the rest of his days, and that resolve stayed with him to death.
“Can we get back to the matter at hand?” Nick asked. He knew his lifestyle wasn’t exactly proper decorum, but he could do without the judgmental tone laced in Edward’s sardonic voice. “I really do not appreciate you criticizing my character so thoroughly.”
Both Adele and Edward closed their mouths. They said nothing but Nick knew they were all waiting for him to carry on.
“As I was saying, I hoped to get her to join my crew so I had her board my ship,” he continued. Once the souls were collected and following the ship, I explained to her that she had died. I couldn’t get anything else out of my mouth before she ran below deck. I’m not sure if the Third Door was the first door she tried, or if she tried the others before, but she managed to choose the correct one. I grabbed her and only succeeded in snagging a piece of her nightgown before she disappeared.”
“That was supposed to be the end of her,” Edward said, crossing his hands over his chest. “Nobody knew what happened to the girl, but we knew she had escaped Death’s clutches by leaving by the Third Door.”
“Nick got a good yelling at by the Magistrate,” Adele continued. “We all did, actually.” She pushed her eyebrows together at the memory. Adele was not afraid of much, thanks to her entitled upbringing and her new lifestyle, but for some reason The Magistrate cracked her cool resolve. “The Magistrate condemned us to even more time aboard this ship, whether we learn our lesson or not.”
“I thought the only person who could reprimand the occupants of the Underworld was the Creator,” Calum said. His long fingers rubbed his chin, smoothing over the rough whiskers that seemed like a permanent fixture on his face. The gesture, Nick knew, revealed that the physician was deep in thought.
“Well, apparently not,” Nick said dryly. “I never thought I would see the girl again until she lived her life and died. Again. But…” Here, Nick hesitated. He didn’t like to admit certain things because it would clash with the intimidating reputation he hoped to emit and uphold.
“But,” Adele pushed, looking at him expectantly.
“But,” Nick bit out, his dark eyes flashing at her, “I kept an eye on her. With the Glass. I wanted to make sure she was, indeed, all right, that she had returned to Earth and to her rightful home. I have been doing this for nearly one hundred years and I have not heard of anybody, let alone a little girl, escaping Death when their time is up.”
“It was your fault for leaving the Third Door unlocked,” Edward said. He leveled his eyes at his captain.
“The Third Door had always been left unlocked in my entire time on the ship!” Nick exclaimed. “It was unlocked before I inherited the position, and it will no doubt be unlocked when I am gone.”
“If the Magistrate lets you move on after this mishap,” Adele retorted.
“Why would the Third Door be left unlocked in the first place?” Calum asked, shifting his weight as he regarded both Nick and Edward. “Especially since the use of it by anyone is strictly forbidden.”
“It is not forbidden, per se,” Nick said, wincing slightly. “I use it to go to Earth and come back. It’s how I transport from one world to the other.”
“And how he managed to rescue our new guest,” Edward said, his teeth clenched.
“But not how he brought her back,” Adele finished.
“Why did you leave to go and fetch her in the first place?” Calum inquired with a slight tilt of his head.
“She was in a bit of a spot,” Nick began.
“So you’ve been keeping your eye on her for the past two years?” This was interesting to Calum. Coming from a family of scholars – even his mother was well-educated for her sex – logic ruled his mind. He didn’t quite understand how one girl could affect one man, especially since Nick barely knew her.
“Earth years,” Nick corrected. “Which would total to twenty years here. But yes, I have. The Magistrate told me to. She wanted to make sure that Remy kept her mouth shut about the Underworld and everything she saw down here. If she didn’t, I was supposed to visit her and warn her that she had to or else there would be dire consequences. Interestingly enough, the girl said nothing about her after-death experience, she assumed that it had been a very bad dream. Her fall did cause her to fear heights and death, other than that though, she was still the same girl.”
“So what spot was she in that you felt
you had to go against the rules and grab her?” Edward asked.
“Technically, there’s not a rule against what I did,” Nick pointed out.
“That’s because what you did wasn’t thought to be possible!” Adele exclaimed. Nick didn’t fully understand why the red heaf sounded so bitter He knew she had been absolutely furious when she found out about her untimely death but he assumed she had moved on. However, with her unreasonable anger about Remy’s presence rather than Nick’s supposed rule-breaking, he realized that that was not exactly the case.
“Yes, but still,” Nick said. “If there was no rule, I did not break anything. And anyways, her life was at stake.”
“Which means that had you not interfered, she’d have ended up at The Alley naturally,” Adele snapped. “It is not your responsibility to go gallivanting off and save people from Death. People die whether they like it or not. It doesn’t ask you what you want. It doesn’t matter what you want. That is simply how the world works and it’s not going to change.” When she spoke as fast as she was now, hints of her former French accent began to touch her voice.
“I admit, I did not think everything out as thoroughly as I should have,” Nick admitted. “But that is what happened and that is where we stand now. She is here, alive in the truest sense of the word.”
“Can you not just unlock the Third Door and deposit her back to earth?” Calum asked.
“If only it were that simple,” Nick replied. His hand reached up and cupped the back of his neck.
“Nick is the only one who possesses the power to move through both worlds,” Adele explained, her voice softening as she regarded Calum. “I cannot do it, Edward cannot, no soul can travel through the Door. Nick is technically still alive which is why he, James Hook, and The Magistrate can all travel through the Door. They never actually died.”
“Yes, but this girl is still alive too,” Calum said in a tight voice. Nick could tell his physician was losing his patience. “Why can’t she go back through the Door?”
“Because unlike the girl, Nick, the Magistrate, and James were all cursed or offered their current position,” Edward explained. “With their power comes the ability to travel to Earth but only through Black Star’s Third Door. Nick cannot actually bring people or objects or even clothes to and from Earth. Only he can go by himself. And when I say cannot, I literally mean he is unable to do so, not that it is against the rules. We tried it once – he attempted to wear a new set of clothes he snagged from Earth back to the Other World and he came back completely in the nude.”
“A sight I would dreadfully like to forget,” Adele muttered.
Nick scoffed.
“We have no idea, to this day, where those clothes went, but they have yet to return,” Edward continued. “If we tried having Remy go through the Door, we won’t know what would happen to her.”
“She’s been through it once though,” Calum pointed out. “Can she not go through it again?”
“We’re not taking that risk,” Nick said firmly.
“Then why did you go grab her in the first place?” Edward burst out. His normally controlled demeanor rarely fell apart but apparently, he was at his wit’s end. “If you aren’t willing to take the risk?”
“I can’t explain how it happened, all right?” Nick growled. He had lost the ability to keep hold over his patience and was ready to put the matter to bed once and for all. His fingers idly fiddled with the off-white lace wrapped around his right wrist. “All I remember was watching her fall asleep and that man came down to where she was, and I was there, in front of the Third Door. I didn’t even really go through it, so to speak, I just reached out and grabbed her before locking the door back up and leading her up to the deck. That’s when she realized where she was, by the way.”
“You just think of where you want to be and the Third Door takes you to that specific destination?” Calum asked, astounded. This in itself was surprising, for not much anything astounded the physician.
“More like visualizing it,” Nick corrected. He turned back to look at Edward and Adele. “Look, I wasn’t thinking. I was just acting.”
“That’s what you always do, Nick!” Adele exclaimed. Her hands curled into fists by her sides as she stomped her foot. To Nick, she resembled a spoilt child who wasn’t getting her way. “How is it that you are the Transporter and yet still wanted for acts of piracy in the Underworld!? Haven’t you given any thought to the consequences that will surely follow this little act of heroics?”
“Perhaps the Magistrate will actually reward me for bringing the very soul that had escaped us back here,” Nick said, pushing up his dark brows so they disappeared underneath his dark locks. “Have you ever thought about it in those terms, hmm?”
“Except this times she’s alive,” Edward said. He managed to reign in his anger, probably ashamed at his loss of composure in the first place. “Very much so. And her being alive and in the Underworld is just… impossible.”
“Well, it’s obviously not impossible if it’s happening at this very moment.” Nick paused, placing the pad of his index finger on the tip of his chin. “The real question is how to get her back to earth without the Magistrate actually finding out.”
“That’s the real question?” Adele all but shouted, throwing her hands out. She walked towards Nick until she was directly in front of him in order to ensure she had his full attention. Though he was a good deal taller than she was, he actually felt that she was more intimidating in this moment. “That’s the real question? What about what the Magistrate will do to us once she does find out? Because we all know that she will find out if she hasn’t already and once she does, we are all going to be in a world of hurt!”
“The Magistrate’s a female?” Calum asked, his forehead wrinkling in confusion.
“Well, why don’t we keep this between the four of us then, okay?” Nick asked through clamped teeth. He paused. “And Giselle, since I’m certain Calum will inform her of this discussion as soon as he can.” He have his physician a dry look. “No one says anything to anybody until we figure out what we do with her.”
“You’ve already figured out what to do with her. Apparently she’ll be joining the crew without the proper vote, without any form of a consultation between the members of your crew. Which means we will all bear responsibility for the twit.”
“She is not a twit, Adele.”
“You saw the souls’ reactions to her, Nick,” Edward said in a serious voice. His eyes locked firmly with Nick’s, his gaze never wavering. “When she practically hurled herself off the side of the ship, you saw how they reached up to grab her. You aren’t blind. In my time with you, I’ve never seen the souls do that. Not once. Not to you or to me or to anyone. They were conscious in that moment, and for whatever reason, they wanted the girl. You know what would happen if they got a hold of her, don’t you?”
Nick opened his mouth, ready to say something, but decided against it and shut it.
“They’ll take her and her soul will be lost,” Edward continued firmly, hoping his voice would relay the seriousness of the situation they were currently in. “A living soul lost in the Underworld.”
“And how do we know that that’s really what’s going to happen?”
“That’s what we have to assume!” Edward shook his head. Nick was smarter than this. “We all know that if one of us falls into the ocean occupied by the souls, our own soul will be lost forever. Why would Remy’s soul be any different?”
“Because it obviously is different,” Adele snapped. Edward rolled his eyes, used to bickering with her. “She’s here – alive – brought here by Nick who couldn’t transport a pint of rum from Earth if he wanted to. She’s a human. If Edward is right and the girl’s soul really will be lost if these souls get a hold of it, then the Magistrate will be even more furious with us than she already is.”
“Why do you think it is that the souls are so drawn to her?” Calum mused without directing the question at anyone in particula
r.
Nick looked at his physician. The way his piercing blue eyes narrowed at nothing in particular directly in front of him caused the pirate captain to roll his brown eyes. He knew that look when he saw it; Calum had a new mystery he wanted to solve.
“Who cares?” Edward asked, dismissing Calum’s question all-together. “All we should care about is how to explain this to the Magistrate when she confronts us with our impending punishment.”
“I want to know how she’s still alive and still here,” Adele said, looking at Nick with big brown eyes. “It isn’t fair that her heart is beating and mine is not, and yet we’re both in the same place. A place reserved only for those who have died, thank you very much.”
“I take it you like your tea bitter then?” Edward quipped, raising a brow.
“Since I am obviously as in the dark about this as you all are,” Nick said, hoping to diffuse the impending fight, “I’m afraid I cannot answer any of your questions. I just can’t return her to earth without affecting the cosmos or whatever and without possibly causing injury to me or the girl or both of us. I cannot explain why she is here, still alive, while you are not, Adele. I don’t know how she’s even here, how it’s even possible. But it seems that it is and we have to deal with it. Edward, if you are so adamant about worrying about the Magistrate and this punishment you truly think will be distributed to us then, by all means, continue forth with your stress. Do not drag me down with you, mate. I have enough on my plate to worry about and I refuse to concentrate on The Magistrate until she presents herself to me. Calum, I don’t care if you try and figure out why the souls are so infatuated with our Remy Cutler, but by all means, have at it. Just know you may not experiment on her.”
“So that’s it?” Edward asked, frustration evident in his tone. “We have nothing resolved, just going to go with the wind, aye? No plan whatsoever?”
“There’s no point in planning for something we couldn’t predict,” Nick retorted.
The Neverland Trilogy Box Set Page 5