“While I thank you for your story, you still have not answered my question. How does one defeat the Shadow?”
The queen watched her, her clear eyes of glass flitting back and forth over Wendy’s face.
“Oh, child. You must know that I can’t let you leave here. Your blood is too precious, and my girls are hungry. The seas need the nourishment. A noble sacrifice for Neverland! You should feel lucky to have such an honor.”
Wendy pushed herself upwards onto her knees, trying desperately to keep conscious as she her head spun.
“Tell me,” she sputtered, “how is it defeated?”
The queen laughed.
“I thought it was obvious from my story. I apologize. It’s all inside of the song. First, you must pull the Shadow from Peter. It must be unbound from him in the exact same way it was bound to him.”
“And the song?”
“There are only two who know it. The one who bears it, and the one who fears it.”
“Don’t speak to me in riddles!” snapped Wendy, her patience short. The queen blinked.
“I do not know of riddles. I speak only the answers of the sea.” Her time here was growing short. Wendy could feel the tension rising in the air.
“And once we call it? Once the song is sung exactly as it once was?”
The queen rose up off the rock, slithering her body so that her face was level with Wendy’s.
“Then it will be freed from Peter, which might be even more dangerous, for no one will have control over it. The Shadow must be freed and then immediately destroyed.”
Wendy shook her head.
“How does one kill a Shadow? How would you kill death?”
The mermaid grimaced.
“With an act of pure light. Only pure light will rend the darkness.”
“And what might that be?”
The mermaid queen shook her head.
“I am unfortunately at the end of my knowledge about the Shadow. I have told you everything you have asked, true to my word.”
She cupped one of her hands gently around Wendy’s face.
“Now, let me sing you into a soft slumber, and you will pass peacefully from this world to the next, knowing your blood will feed our seas for a hundred years.”
Wendy’s stomach heaved, and she leaned forward, hands on her knees to avoid a wave of nausea.
“No. No! We had a deal.”
Her legs crumpled like ribbons when she tried to climb to her feet. Crawling, Wendy began making her way slowly towards the edge of the mossy rocks, panic rising in her chest.
“I’m sorry, my dear. But this is just how it has to be. A crab that wanders into an octopus den does not leave alive.”
Wendy’s heart beat slowly. Red continued to drip from her wrist, her own blood mingling with Peter’s dried blood. She had to think of something. Something, anything. Think. Think. Wendy gasped and lifted her head, forcing her voice to remain strong, not filled with the fear that was swallowing her whole.
“You will let me walk out of here.”
“Why would I do that? It’s nothing personal, dear. You are a gift I intend to keep.”
Why? Why? Wendy closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them with a gasp.
“You will let me go, because the Sudden Night sits just off your shore.”
“The Sudden Night cannot touch us. We have no fear of the pirates.” She laughed. “They are just human men.”
“They are just men, it’s true. Filthy, disgusting, treacherous men. But they are also men with cannons.”
“Their cannons cannot touch us here, in this lagoon, nor under the seas.”
“No. They cannot.” Wendy’s eyes widened and a trace of a smile turned up her lip.
“But their cannons can reach Sybella, which is what they are aimed at, as they wait for me.”
The queen’s eyes flared and the lagoon began to shake with the desperate cries of the mermaids below.
“No. You lie.”
Wendy raised her chin.
“Do you honestly think I would come here, without some insurance?”
The queen’s face distorted, her eyebrows arching. “You lie!”
Indeed, she would.
“I do not. The Sudden Night is my home here in Neverland, and her cannons will take down Sybella in as few as three shots. If I am not on their ship by nightfall, they will turn your precious rock into dust.”
The queen snarled at Wendy before bringing her hand down across her face, her neck snapping harshly to the side. Wendy turned back to her, unfazed.
“That’s not even the first time I’ve been slapped this week!” This was Neverland, after all.
“You, you …,” the queen was snarling now.
Wendy stared back at her. “My Queen, not even you can stop a cannon once fired.” The mermaids howled.
“Quiet! She lies!”
Wendy trembled weakly, her face pressed up against this mermaid whose breath smelled of blood and fish.
“I do not. And what’s more than that, don’t you wish the Shadow to be defeated? So that you may not live in fear of the day when it wakes?”
The mermaids went silent.
“I know Peter, better than you. I know that he grows more unhinged every day, and that keeping this secret from Tink will one day not be enough for him. He WILL unleash the Shadow again. It is not a matter of if, it is a matter of when. He will lose control, and when he does, it won’t be the fairies that pay the cost. It will be the Lost Boys, the pirates, the Pilvinuvo … and you. You have everything to lose.”
The queen shook her head.
“What you cease to understand is that I will not believe that a polite little girl from another world—one who knows nothing of Neverland—could ever defeat something like the Shadow. Our fate is the same as it was before I gave you any answers.”
The queen leaned in. “If the Night hurts Sybella, my clan will tear that ship apart, splinter by splinter, and I will personally spread their sorry bones in the coral garden.”
“Perhaps. But not before they bring Sybella to the ground, and all the magic within her will spill onto dry rocks. What will the seas say to you then?”
The lagoon was frothing now with activity. To Wendy’s horror, the mermaids had begun climbing out of the water, scaling the vertical walls like lizards, their tails holding them aloft as their fingers clawed jagged fissures in the rock walls of the lagoon. Dozens of them were rising up on the walls, rainbow hair and tails streaming water, all of them hissing at Wendy, their beautiful faces marred with rage. Their voices rose up.
“You wouldn’t! We can’t risk Sybella! Let her go!”
A mermaid with pale-green hair the color of grass ringed with a crown of seaweed pushed herself up on the same rock as Wendy. She had one arm; the other one was a marbled stump, cut clean at the shoulder.
Wendy swallowed. Peter had done that. This was the mermaid that had tried to drown her. She lurched backwards, as the mermaid’s eyes met her own.
“I say kill her anyway.” The mutilated mermaid licked her lips. “I will tear her apart piece by piece. Think of the blood.”
Queen Eryne held out her hand, now protective. Wendy’s heart thundered. She tried to focus, but her dizziness made it impossible. The lagoon swam before her eyes, everything a blur.
“Cassandra. Do not interfere in this. Your anger sways your judgement.”
“But she …”
A loud chorus of mermaid voices drowned her out. “You cannot kill her! Never! Without Sybella we will die. Send her on her way! She cannot fall, lest we fall!”
The queen’s voice thundered over the cacophony.
“My clan speaks. We will not risk Sybella.”
Harmonic voices gave a sigh, the mermaids on the walls sagging in relief. The queen snapped at Wendy.
“You’ve made a fool of me, girl. Do you really believe you can change our fate?”
“Perhaps.” Wendy raised her hands, trying to ignore the fact that her
legs were trembling and weak, her skin stretched like a husk. “You have to let us try.”
The queen stared at Wendy for a long moment before raising her hand.
“Fine. Cassandra, back away from her.”
“No.”
At her defiance, a sudden silence filled the lagoon. All the mermaids jerked their heads towards Cassandra, who hovered close to Wendy. Too close.
The queen bared her teeth.
“I will not tell you again, Cassandra. Release the girl or defy your queen’s orders.”
Wendy took a step backwards, and Cassandra, triggered by her movement, threw her single arm around Wendy’s torso. She tightened it, and Wendy gasped—it was like being embraced by stone. Blood pumped in her ears, and she felt finally like she was waking up, like her body was understanding that she, Wendy Darling, was about to die. The mermaids in the lagoon watched silently as this act of defiance played out. They were alert, aroused.
Cassandra hissed at the queen.
“You are weak. You have led us down this path by your fickle heart, turned by a bright-haired boy. You are not fit to be queen.”
The mermaids gasped, the scales on their fins rippling with excitement.
“You challenge my reign then? Openly?”
The queen’s eyes were flashing now, her marble skin pulsing with radiant energy.
“Do you wish to be queen, Cassandra, of Clan Nautilus?”
The mermaid who held Wendy stared long and hard at Queen Eryne before uttering her answer.
“Yes.”
Queen Eryne nodded once, her long fingers smoothing out her hair as she closed her eyes. All the lagoon was still. Cassandra’s arm tightened around Wendy’s chest as her heart hammered and her legs pumped uselessly.
She was so, so tired, literally drained.
“We fight for the crown then.”
Without warning, the queen lunged at Cassandra, forgetting in her fury that Wendy was there as well. Her body hit Cassandra’s, and their collision rippled through Wendy, her bones shaking with the impact. All three of them tumbled off the mossy rocks into the lagoon, narrowly missing an outcropping of orange coral that would have torn them into ribbons. Wendy was suddenly in the water, bodies and fins thrashing around her as she struggled to make her limbs work. Cassandra’s arm was yanked back from Wendy’s waist, and she fell down, in between their tails, frothy water all around. She watched a thin tendril of blood curl out from her wrist, pluming out like a drop of ink. Ink. Booth. The water filled with unholy screeching sounds, so different than the songs of the mermaids, this one now full of pain. It burned her ears. Wendy sunk lower. She had tried, she really had, but she was so tired, so very sleepy, and her muscles weren’t working the way they should.
The flick of a fin sent her crashing against the underside of the mossy rock before she was pulled towards the swirl of tails and hair, sucked in by the undertow created in their violence. The water cleared for a moment, and she saw Queen Eryne wrap her hands around Cassandra’s neck. The smaller mermaid was struggling, her one arm clawing deep scars into the Queen’s torso, but it was no use. With a flick of her tail, the queen sailed behind her would-be usurper and held her head out between her arms. Cassandra’s body flailed uselessly. She heard the mermaid’s cries.
“I’m sorry, forgive me. I was angry! I shouldn’t have …”
The queen had no use for apologies. She turned Cassandra so that her head lined up parallel to a sharp outcropping of bright-pink coral, its fingers razor sharp, thin, and pointed. Tiny blue fish flitted happily in and out of its caverns. Wendy opened her mouth to scream as the queen suddenly plunged forward, Cassandra’s head flying towards the coral, her terrible scream filling up the lagoon as the coral entered through her eyes, face, and mouth before bursting out the back of her head. The water turned blackish red as the cries of mermaids swam in her ears.
She was drowning; water filled her lungs.
Then a hand like stone wrapped around her arm. Instead of sinking lower into the bottomless lagoon, she was yanked upwards and thrown roughly onto the shore. Wendy gasped for air. Someone thumped her chest and flipped her on her stomach. She coughed up water. A mermaid with short plum-black hair was crouched over her. Pale-pink scaled lips, glimmering like pearls opened. Her gold eyes stared straight through Wendy.
“Get out of here. Go! Go and tell the Sudden Night to have mercy on Sybella! Run!”
She had no strength to run. She could barely stand, no blood left in her veins. Her wrist was still bleeding. Her wrist … Wendy’s eyes blinked. The bracelet! Her hand trembled as she lightly ran her fingers over the brown leaves. “I need strength” she whispered. The bracelet began to hum quietly, its brown leaves rustling before pressing themselves hard against her skin. The same golden light that had enveloped Lomasi ran through the bracelet, circling her wrists. The leaves gave a single shake and a surge of energy poured into her muscles, strengthening and hardening them, her body awake and strong. Wendy took a deep breath, feeling her strength return.
The queen emerged from the lagoon, black blood streaming down from cuts on her face and torso. In her hand, she held a tuft of green hair.
“Does anyone else dare challenge the queen?” she roared. The mermaids all bowed their heads reverently before swarming towards her, tending to her wounds.
Wendy scrambled forward, launching herself off the mossy rocks and onto solid ground. She sprinted away from the lagoon, her lungs heaving like a racehorse, her wet feet slipping as she ran, the strength in her muscles propelling her forward without almost any effort on her part. Just before she passed through the ivy curtain, she heard the queen’s voice speaking calmly to her from the lagoon.
“If you defeat the Shadow, this grievance will be forgiven, if not, we shall always lie in wait to finish what was started today.”
Wendy made her way backwards, easily finding the path that led away from the lagoon. She looked up as she passed the towering boulders the shade of bone, and straight ahead as she ran through a screeching Sybella. She did not linger to feel the slight hint of magic that passed softly over her skin, like the kiss of a silk sheet. As she ran, prayers fell from her lips, prayers of thanks that she had lived. She shouldn’t have lived. A clever lie was all that had saved her. She shook her head in disbelief.
Who was this girl, running for her life, covered in blood, her ripped dress hanging in shreds around her legs, hair a mangled tumble of salt and spray? She longed for a moment to be the girl she once was, to curl up on her window seat with a book and a cup of tea, proper. Safe. At the same time, her legs pumping violently beneath her, Wendy was also this girl—someone brave, and fearless. A fighter. Free. She was both. And she could feel her strength not just coming from the bracelet—which was giving off a flickering light, its power rapidly diminishing, but from deep inside her, from the desire to live at all costs.
She would hold Michael again.
Peter could not win. Above all, he could not win.
Her cracked lips smiled when she saw the rocky beach unfold in quiet glory before her, seaweed strewn across shallow pools, rocky crevasses that bubbled with hot springs. Before them stretched the sea, peacefully concealing the wickedly magic beings that no doubt circled beneath their lapping waves of blue. Watching. Smith was waiting for her under an outcropping of rock that hung over the sea. She stumbled out from behind the blindingly bright cluster of boulders, and a happy grin lit up his bitter face. He quickly recovered, his scowl returning, the smile only a memory.
“Hurry up, girl, you’ve kept us waiting long enough!”
Wendy shakily climbed upwards, her legs faltering many times as she climbed up the steep rock face, her feet slipping on the loose shale. Her arms felt useless, and her wrist ached with a dull pain. She made it to the top of the rock and crawled to the edge, looking down. Smith held his arms out, and Wendy paused. He was a murderer, a thief, the kind of man that she would have walked to the other side of a London street to avoid. He was, indeed, t
he scum of the earth. And now she gracefully let herself drop off the rock, falling forward, her dress fluttering around her like the petals of a flower, into his thick, tattooed arms.
“I gotcha girl. You’ll be alright. The captain will be mighty glad to see you.”
Unconsciousness swam behind her eyes, an alluring blackness swirling in her brain. The bells calling her family to Mass were pounding deep inside of her chest. The last thing she remembered was staring at Smith’s tattoos, now pressed against her cheek—a demon with a ram’s face and a man’s body laughing evilly, and above him, a stoic angel wielding a mighty sword, ready to strike. Bright fish swam around them both, the whole scene was tethered to an anchor that wrapped around his wrist. As Smith laid her down in the boat and reached for the oars, and she drifted out to sea in her own mind, surrendering to the lull of the waves, the queen’s words etched hard in her memory.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
When she woke, she saw an ornate canopy of raspberry velvet lined with golden leaves rocking back and forth above her head. She blinked once.
“You’re awake.”
Wendy turned over and tried to push herself up in the bed, her wrist screaming in pain, along with her knee and ankle.
Hook was sitting beside the bed, his face drawn and pale. Hook reached out and helped her sit up, his hook flush against her back.
“Miss Darling, I must admit, I’m glad to see your face. There was a small part of me that was concerned you would never wake. It really was quite small, relatively. I am the captain of a pirate ship after all, and can’t be prone to bouts of womanly emotion. Well, I’m glad to see that my concern was in vain. Here, have a drink.”
A glass of rum was handed to her, and Wendy shook her head.
“Water,” she rasped. “Water.”
Hook shook his head. “Of course.” An unfamiliar shape came out of the darkness bearing a jug of water and a steaming bowl of broth.
“Fermina!”
She sat beside Wendy, who greedily gulped the water, Fermina’s long black tresses falling over a yellow robe, smelling of honey and perfume.
Wendy Darling: Volume 2: Seas Page 24
