When it became clear he wasn’t going to introduce them, Jae held her hand out to the other man. “I’m Jae Darlington.”
He took her small hand in his meaty one and pumped it up and down. “Smiegel,” he said. “Please, call me Smee, if it please you.” Then, to James, “Did you get the orb, Captain?”
“If I had the orb, would I also have the Darlington girl?”
Jae grimaced, though she didn’t know why she should be hurt by his words. He obviously only brought her along because he needed her, not for her company.
Mr. Smiegel—Smee—looked back forth between the two of them until something clicked and his mouth formed a small O shape. “Oh. I see, yes, I see. He brought you so that—”
“Mr. Smee,” the captain barked, interrupting his unnecessary explanation. “Get her on board, please. Prepare for departure. I don’t want to be here any longer than necessary.”
Mr. Smee placed a wooden plank between the shore and the back of the boat where it sat lowest in the water. He tested it first, and when it did not fall, he held his hand out to Jae. She looked down at the water and back up at him.
“It’s safe, it is.”
She doubted that. Nothing was safe in the water, not really. But she didn’t want to show them how scared she truly was, and so she took his hand and forced herself to put one foot in front of the other. The board wobbled and bucked beneath her but she made it across, gripping the boat’s railing as she stepped down onto the deck.
Mr. Smee followed, dragging the board back and stowing it away. He bade her follow him and they descended a small, narrow set of stairs and passed through a door into a cabin. It was sparsely furnished with barely enough head room to stand.
“You should stay here, you should,” Mr. Smee said.
She nodded, glad that she didn’t have to be above where she would watch them make their perilous way across the water. He left, shutting the door behind him, and she heard the turn of a key in the lock. So, staying here wasn’t an option. He’d only made it seem that way, but she was new to this whole decision-making thing anyway, so she gave herself some leeway. Next time she would know better.
Her stomach rolled and churned with the boat as it made its way up the creek and into the open ocean. She could see a bit through the small, round windows set high in the cabin walls, but only if she dragged her chair over and stood in it. Her balance was precarious at best, though, so she only tried a couple times before giving up and curling up on one of the cots, her knees tucked nearly to her chin. She found that when she closed her eyes, the nausea crept back up on her, so she did her best to keep her eyes open, staring at the sliver of sky through the window.
The day passed like that, in solitude, just like most of her days. There was very little difference, then, between being on this boat and being in Starlake, except that she knew her dark captain was only a few yards away, barking orders and leveling his smoldering gaze on Mr. Smee instead of on her. She still found him unbearably attractive in spite of herself, and in spite of the fact that he had not been particularly kind to her. He had seemed to regard her with reluctant amusement, but otherwise, it seemed to be mostly a business transaction to him. A lot of that probably had to do with her sister, not with her, which wasn’t fair. But pirates were rarely fair, as she’d learned over these last few years.
It wasn’t until the window grew dark that she heard footsteps on the stairs and someone knocked at her door. She assumed it was Mr. Smee, maybe with some dinner for her since she hadn’t eaten all day.
“Come in,” she said, sitting up on the edge of the cot.
The door opened to reveal not the small, bumbling bosun, but the captain. He did have a bag of something dangling off his hook. “Were you sleeping?” he asked.
“No,” she answered shortly.
He came in the rest of the way, letting the door close behind him. The small room made them feel closer even than they’d been in the library, when he’d held her hand. He offered her the bag and she took it, opening it to find a block of cheese, some dried meat, and a loaf of hard bread.
“Is there water?” she asked.
He pulled a flask from inside his jacket and handed it to her.
She looked at it dubiously, raising one eyebrow at the captain.
He chuckled lightly, a low rumble in his throat. “It’s water, you have my word.”
“What good is the word of a pirate?” But she took it anyway. A long swig of the liquid inside revealed that he’d been telling the truth.
She ate carefully, not wanting to upset her stomach, taking small bites. He sat in the chair across the room and watched her.
“What’s the island like since my sister left?” she asked. She knew that Wren had left it in chaos—the Lost Boys fighting the pirates, Captain Hook locked in a cell in Dreamer’s Keep, Pan’s right-hand man swimming with the fishes.
“Much as you would expect,” he answered. “The island is in shambles. Some of my men have left me, since she released their dreams and kept mine. Others spend all day in one tavern or another, drinking away their days since we’ve nowhere to go and no ship to sail. The fairies wage war against the Lost Boys. Pan and I are at constant odds.”
Jae had stopped eating to listen, and now forced herself to eat another bite of the stale bread.
“But if I can get my dreams back, I can recruit another crew, rebuild my life and my empire. Take back the island.”
“Why do you want the island?” Jae asked. “What’s so great about it?”
He smiled, and it changed his whole face from dark and brooding to young and handsome. “Spoken in the way of one who has never been there.”
“The way you described it, though, it sounds like a terrible place. A place of nightmares.”
“Maybe it is now, but it hasn’t always been.”
Jae dropped the nearly empty bag of food to the floor and tucked her legs up beneath her on the cot. “Tell me about it—from before.”
He opened his mouth as if to answer but then snapped it closed, pursing his lips. “You sure do ask a lot of me.”
She smiled, used to his gruffness already, seeing it for what it was—his defense mechanism. “Do I?”
“You know you do.” But he settled in, leaning back in the chair and crossing his hands over his flat stomach. “The island was a place of dreams. Anything your grandmother or Pan or I could imagine, she would bring to life.”
“Like what?”
He paused, thoughtful. “Like mermaids. Fairies. Giant crocodiles.”
“Why did you and Pan become enemies?”
He sighed. “It all comes back to love of the same woman, I guess.”
“My grandmother.”
“Yes. Wendy was . . . spectacular. But she wasn’t mine. I have a hard time, sometimes, accepting that some things don’t belong to me.”
“Is that why you became a pirate?”
“What do you mean?”
“To pillage and steal. To take things that didn’t belong to you. Like my sister.” She watched his face carefully for any sign that she was going too far. “Like me.”
His response was nearly a whisper. “You came willingly.”
Silence fell between them for a long moment, and it was charged with something unfamiliar to Jae. Something electric. She wanted to tell him that he was wrong—he had stolen her, only it was a long time ago without him even knowing.
They chatted on and off about things, taking the quiet moment to enjoy each other’s company. When he left some time later, she didn’t feel sick anymore, and was finally able to fall into a restful sleep, lulled now by the gentle rocking waves.
The boat jerked and rocked, tossing her from the cot and sending her to the floor, a rude awakening that she had not expected. It took her a few seconds while she lay facedown on the floor to remember where she was. She was not on Never Island, wrapped in James’ arms beneath a green canopy of leaves that sparkled with fairy dust. Her face flushed and she glanced over to
the chair where he’d been when she fell asleep. It was empty, tossed sideways to the floor, much as she was.
Jae pushed herself to her feet and righted the chair, but another blast sounded and she was down again, her back knocking painfully against the corner of the table. The door burst open of its own accord—whether it had been locked or not she didn’t know.
“Ow,” she whimpered, crawling toward the door. The floor bucked and heaved beneath her, tossing her against the doorjamb before she made her way up the short staircase on all fours.
When she peeked her head above deck level, she saw James at the wheel, shouting orders she couldn’t hear to Mr. Smee, who was manning a gun off the bow of the ship. The sky was still dark but thick with clouds. The full moon was high overhead, casting an eerie white light over the whole scene.
Jae turned her attention to the horizon. A dark shadow loomed in the distance—Never Island. She knew without having to ask; she felt it in her bones. Home, they said to her. She tore her eyes away from the island and turned instead to see what Mr. Smee was aiming the gun at on the opposite side. There, silhouetted against the black sea and the shimmering stars, was a ship that she would know anywhere.
The Jolly Roger rose out of the water like a magnificent, otherworldly beast. Wren had come for her too soon.
Jae pushed herself onto the deck and stood waving her arms and shouting. “Stop! Stop!”
But of course no one heard her. Someone called her name and she turned, reaching for James’ outstretched hand. But he was too far away. There was a flash of orange from the Jolly Roger, a loud boom, and the sailboat, once so solid and safe, disappeared from beneath Jae’s feet.
Chapter 4
She was flying.
Falling.
Floating.
Drowning.
There was nothing but pain and darkness. It consumed her—it was her. Jae was dying, that much she knew. It was a familiar feeling, but this time, Wren would not come for her. She tried to take a breath, but her lungs would not fill. The water around her turned red from her blood. Fire lit the surface of the water overhead, orange and hot, but she would not be able to reach it. She had no strength. Her limbs were weightless and useless, and she wanted nothing more than to close her eyes.
She sank slowly, like her body was reluctant to give in, though it had obviously known all along what her fate would be. Her lifelong fear of the water, her inability to breathe, made a terrible sense now. Her dress floated up, ethereal around her waist, the cloth stained red from more of her blood. She didn’t know where it was coming from—her head, most likely, where the throbbing was the worst, only rivaled by the iron band tightening around her chest.
A sound tore through the silence, a sad wailing. Emerging from the darkness all around her were beautiful, terrifying creatures. They were almost human in shape, but they had thick, scaly fins of varying colors instead of legs, and their skin was tinged blue. Their faces were gaunt, thin skin stretched over bone, and their eyes were wide and dark. Angry red gashes slit their sides like claw marks, as if each of them had faced down some terrible animal and been left wounded. Their mouths gaped open to reveal rows of sharp fangs, but it was from them that the sound came, a melancholy lamenting that Jae felt stir something deep inside of her.
As they sang, the pain subsided, and she wondered if they were there to accompany her into death, like reapers of the deep. They circled her as she descended, and then one with a white tail approached, wrapping her fin around Jae’s useless legs. She reached up with one clawed hand and touched something on Jae’s head. The hair comb she had hastily used to pull her hair back when she’d gone to meet the captain—she’d nearly forgotten about it.
The creature pulled Jae closer as if to embrace her, but then scraped her claws along Jae’s ribs, opening up the same terrible gashes that the others had. The creatures raised their voices even louder to drown out the sound of Jae’s scream as the pain seared through her, blinding her. Then, the creature put her mouth over Jae’s and blew a breath into her flooded, useless lungs. Jae gasped, coughed, and was surprised to find she could draw a breath even as her head throbbed and her sides burned.
But the pain was still there, and it was too much for her human heart to bear. As she cast her eyes to the surface for one last glimpse of the full moon, the creature’s arms came around her.
“You will not die this day, daughter of Wendy,” it whispered in Jae’s ear, the voice scratchy and inhuman.
But it was too late. This time, Jae couldn’t obey. She was broken and wounded, and even if she could breathe, she still couldn’t swim. The water would have her. Darkness pulsed around the edges of her vision and then, she knew no more.
Jae blinked awake, squinting her eyes against the bright sun, confused.
That couldn’t be right. She was supposed to be dead somewhere on the bottom of the ocean. Something splashed not far away from her, and she turned her head toward the sound, blinking again. There was clear blue water all around her, but she seemed to be resting on a rock, maybe in some kind of lagoon.
Another splash.
She turned her attention to the shore that was not terribly far away from her rock. There was a group of boys standing there, all staring at her. The one in the middle was tallest, with golden hair and broad shoulders. He seemed a little familiar, as if she’d seen him once before.
“Mermaid, come play with us,” he shouted.
Mermaid? She looked around for this mermaid they hailed and saw no one else.
“Yes, you,” he said again with a laugh that was not wholly kind. One of the other boys launched something—a stone, maybe—into the water, but it fell short of hitting her by several feet.
She squinted at the shore. The only way to get to them would be to swim, and she definitely couldn’t do that. Remembering the blood in the water, she brought a hand to the back of her head, searching for the wound and finding nothing. Then, she noticed her hand, the elongated fingers, the black-tipped nails, the blue-tinged skin.
Mermaid, he’d called her. She put a hand to her side, moving her hair out of the way, and felt the gashes there. But they weren’t gashes, were they? They were gills. She remembered now—breathing under water. Breathing when she never should have been able to catch a breath.
Her eyes landed on her legs.
No, not legs.
A fin.
She moved as if to kick her feet, and the elegant, blue tail flipped once, splashing water onto the already shiny scales.
This had to be a dream. Or some kind of purgatory. Maybe she was dead and this was her punishment for being so afraid of the water in life. Or her reward for enduring the torture of her sickness.
Another pebble splashed into the water nearby. Jae was ready to turn on the boys and ask them to stop when the water surged up beside her and another mermaid burst forth. She had white hair, and on her head she wore a crown of pointed, spiraling seashells. She hissed at the boys and made as if to chase them. All but the tallest turned and fled.
“Hello, Naunet,” he called, inclining his head slightly.
“Pan,” she said by way of greeting, though her tone was not entirely kind.
Jae turned wide eyes on the boy. This was her sister’s Pan? The Dream Thief? Of course, that was where she’d seen him. In her dreams on the day Wren had left the nursery and he’d stolen her dreams instead of her sister’s.
“Tell your boys to leave my mermaids alone.”
“We didn’t touch her,” Pan said insolently.
The mermaid he called Naunet hissed at him again. “Let me catch you in the water someday, boy.”
He wagged a finger at her, smirking. “Never, Naunet.”
The mermaid was already turning away from him, but called back over her shoulder. “Never is an awfully long time.”
Pan turned, still smirking, and stalked off into the trees, disappearing from sight.
Naunet approached the rock and rested her arms on its ledge, smiling up at Jae. S
omehow, she knew it was the same mermaid who had held her the night before, who had cut her gills and given her breath when she’d had none, but she was no longer a monster. She was beautiful, with silver eyes and full lips and pointed ears that poked out from beneath her hair.
“What happened to me?” Jae asked. Her voice was gravelly and high-pitched, a strange, twisted version of her own.
“You died,” Naunet said matter-of-factly.
“You mean, I’m dead?” She pressed a hand to her chest. There was a heartbeat there, no matter what the mermaid said. It picked up speed as she slipped into a familiar panic.
“You were, but now you’re not. Now, you’re mer.”
“Mer?” she choked out. She kept waiting for her lungs to seize, for her throat to close, but the usual symptoms never came.
“A creature of the sea. The moon sent you to us, so we turned you, made you one of us.”
It was laughable, really. Jae, who couldn’t even swim, now a mermaid? The moon must have had a pretty sick sense of humor. But she didn’t want to seem ungrateful, so she simply nodded and flicked her tail again, almost involuntarily. This would definitely take some getting used to. “I should probably tell you something.”
Naunet cocked her head and raised her eyebrows. “Yes?”
“I can’t swim. And I have a breathing sickness.”
There was a moment of silence and then Naunet laughed. “I’m sure you’ll find that this is no longer a problem.”
“What do you mean?”
“You no longer breathe as you did when you were a human. Mermaids do not have breathing sicknesses. And you will certainly be able to swim. Were you able to walk as a human?”
Jae nodded.
“Swimming is to mermaids as walking is to humans. You must swim, and so you will. Do not worry about that.”
Kingdom of Villains and Vengeance Page 38
