Unhooked

by Lisa Maxwell

  He considers me a moment longer, and for a second I think he knows everything—how close I came to accepting, how much part of me still wants to. But he smiles, pleasant as ever, and I think maybe I was wrong.

  “Of course,” he says, standing and offering me his hand.

  A minute later we are aloft again, soaring over the tops of the trees, the falls passing beneath us as we make our way farther into the island. Up we fly, toward the craggy center of the mountains, until we come to a place where there is no jungle. He lands in a clearing where there is only the smooth face of a cliff and the barren rock beneath our feet. Behind us, a gaping chasm in the ground separates us from the rest of the island.

  “Where are we?” I wrap my arms around myself. The air isn’t any colder here, but the bleak landscape sends a chill through me just the same.

  “Home,” he says simply, a smile teasing at his lips. “This is where I live. Where I keep my boys.”

  “Here?” I ask, looking around. There isn’t anything here but the flinty face of the rock rising up around on one side of us, and the gaping tear in the earth on the other. My stomach sinks. “Where’s Olivia?”

  “Inside,” he says, gesturing grandly to the sheer cliff.

  I don’t know what he’s talking about—there is no door or portal or split in the rock that could be an entrance to a cave. “There’s nothing there.”

  “Isn’t there?” he asks wryly.

  I look again at the rock, and just as I’m about to tell him, No, there isn’t, the earth beneath my feet begins to tremble. I grab for Pan’s arm as the entire wall of rock begins to move. With a thunderous grinding, the cliff shifts backward slowly, rearranging itself and revealing the silhouette of jagged spires and towers.

  When the land finally goes silent, I’m standing in the shadow of an enormous structure. A castle. Or maybe a fortress would be a better description, because it’s too massive, too violent-looking to be anything as romantic as a castle. It towers at least six stories above us, hewn from the red-gold rock of the cliff that bore it.

  Its walls are solid rock, and its windows are narrow slits high up from the ground. The only opening at all is a deep, dark tunnel that leads straight into the mountain itself. Even without the chasm that cuts it off from the rest of the island, even without the steep bluffs that pen it in safely on all sides, this is not the sort of place anyone could attack easily.

  Pan’s eyes are dancing, his mouth twitching in amusement as he glances at the grip I have on his bicep. “Ready, my dear?”

  I try to pull away, but he stops me by placing his hand over mine and tucking my arm more securely against his body. He smiles then—a truly breathtaking sort of smile—and the look in his eyes is enough to make my cheeks flush with warmth.

  I glance away, uncomfortable. There’s something about the way he looks at me that makes me think he sees something in me that no one else ever has. Like I am something whole and strong and important. Being looked at like that—being seen—is something completely new and absolutely intoxicating.

  And I don’t trust it one bit.

  But I’ve made my choice. Before us, the towering fortress waits. The Captain and his ship feel very far away. London feels even farther. With the warmth of Pan’s body next to mine, the scent of him, wild and free as a winter night, surrounding me, and the promise of finding my friend ahead of me, I take one last look at the open sky above and walk on.

  The boy had grown ever more sure he might never see his brother again, so he did not hesitate to grasp him in a tight hug once he realized it was no apparition before him. His brother smiled, flashing the crooked tooth in his worn-out grin. “Volunteered to come up to the front,” he told the boy. “Couldn’t leave you to have all the fun.” But the boy knew, from the worry darkening his brother’s eyes, that wasn’t it at all. . . .

  Chapter 18

  THE ENTRYWAY OF THE FORTRESS is lit by the same floating phosphorescent blobs that Pan had with him on the ship. They hover around us, guiding us through the dark tunnel as we make our way deeper into the mountain. I reach up to touch one that comes close to my face, but Pan snatches my hand away before my fingers can brush against it.

  “Fairy lights,” he tells me. “Never can tell how they’ll react.”

  From the other side of the tunnel, I can make out the sounds of voices. As the light gets closer, the sounds grow, and the glowing orbs peel off, leaving us. When we reach the end, the tunnel flares open into a great hall with a ceiling that soars stories above. Two sullen-looking boys snap to attention, blades drawn, but when they see Pan, they scuttle to their posts against the wall and avert their eyes.

  The Great Hall of the fortress is a mad playground. Everywhere I look there are children, most much younger than the ones on the Captain’s ship. A group of small boys nearly runs me over as they chase after an even smaller one. They’re all screaming all sorts of inventive curses and brandishing swords that look too sharp to be safe for any game. Other boys, who couldn’t be any older than nine or ten, lounge around the edges of the great space, smoking thin, sweet-smelling cigars on thick piles of furs.

  “Where did they all come from?” I wonder, struck by the number of them.

  “The Dark Ones steal them from your world,” Pan tells me. “I bring them here and give them a home,” he says, throwing his arms wide.

  Rows of torches lining the walls throw their flickering light over the scene before me. They give the whole space an otherworldly quality. But even with the high ceiling, the air in the fortress is dank and stale.

  “This all belonged to my mother.” He takes a step into the chaos. “When I was a small boy, the Queen and her people filled these halls with light and merriment, and every day was an adventure. Now these walls offer me and my boys protection—from the Dark Ones, from the pirate, often from the other creatures of this land.”

  “Where’s the Queen now?” I ask, moving closer to Pan to avoid being hit by a boy careening after a friend.

  “The Dark Ones rose up and overthrew her some time ago,” he says, his voice dark and his jaw tight. I wait for him to say more, but he doesn’t. “Come. I’ll take you to Olivia.”

  Pan doesn’t seem to notice the disorder around us as he leads me through the hall, still holding my hand firmly in the crook of his arm. He deftly sidesteps the piles of broken weapons and an unconscious boy as we make our way to the far wall. Without warning, he scoops me into his arms again, and then we’re rising through the air toward a door nearly three stories up that I hadn’t noticed before. He gives it a brisk knock before pushing it open and setting me gently inside.

  This space is brighter than the Great Hall below, and the air is fresher and smells overpoweringly of the hundreds of flowers that tumble out of vases and across the surfaces of the room—wildly colorful blooms, some as large as my head, others barely the size of my smallest finger, all bunched in bright bouquets and strung up in long garlands.

  I’d thought we were inside of a mountain, but there is a window on the back wall, covered with brightly colored silks that rustle in a breeze. With the draping fabrics and the soft furs that cover the floor in a patchwork of color, the whole room reminds me of a sultan’s tent. In the center of the space stands an ornately carved canopy bed draped with silky white curtains. And in the center of the bed, half obscured by the diaphanous fabric, is a familiar figure.

  “Olivia,” I whisper, afraid to move. I have the sudden feeling if I say her name too loudly, the spell will be broken and this will all disappear like a dream.

  But it doesn’t disappear. She’s real.

  The second I see Olivia, alive and whole, I can almost believe I might be able to find a way back to our world, because I don’t have to find it by myself anymore. I don’t have to be alone in this strange place. The one person who has ever come closest to understanding me is here, and we’ll find a way back together.

  Olivia doesn’t see me at first—her attention is focused on stringing daisylik
e flowers together into a long garland that’s already trailing up over the canopy of the bed and halfway across the floor. I’ve never seen her do anything half so crafty before, and she looks absolutely absurd doing it now.

  “Olivia, dear,” Pan says smoothly from behind me. “I’ve brought Gwendolyn to you.”

  Olivia’s hands go still when she hears Pan’s voice, and when she sees him standing in the doorway, her whole face softens and her eyes brighten with delight. There is no fear in her expression, no worry.

  Then she sees me standing next to him, and her expression darkens. “Gwendolyn?” she asks, her voice as unsure as the look on her face. I can tell she doesn’t recognize me.

  If I hadn’t been looking for her, if I hadn’t seen the picture in the Captain’s quarters, I don’t think I’d have recognized her, either. She’s wearing a soft, flowing gown of the palest pink, something Olivia would never be caught dead in. Her long blond hair falls in its usual waves around her face, but her eyes aren’t right. Their pale green is too glassy, too distant.

  It’s what this place does to people, I remind myself as I try to smile, but my face feels stiff with fear.

  Pan steps forward into the room, toward the large bed. “Olivia, dear,” he says again, his voice soft and soothing. “You remember Gwendolyn, don’t you? You told me she was your dearest friend. You asked me to find her for you. And I have.”

  Olivia’s brows draw together, like she’s not exactly sure she remembers ever asking for such a thing. But her features soften when Pan offers her his hand. She rises slowly and allows him to pull her toward me.

  “Come, Gwendolyn,” he says, never taking his eyes off Olivia.

  “Liv?” I brush my hair back from my face, tentative as I step toward the two of them.

  “Come, Olivia, greet your friend properly.”

  Olivia gives Pan another questioning look. When he inclines his head in the barest nod, she finally releases his hand and steps toward me, her arms out in greeting. The gesture is formal, stiff, and so unlike the girl who would think nothing of looping her arm through mine. The memory of it rises up in my mind, clear and distinct. But before I can hold it tight, the image begins to fade again.

  I step toward her, but her body tenses at my approach, her arms falling to her sides. I’m not sure what I should do or say. I’m not sure how to get my Olivia back. “Did the Dark Ones hurt you?” I ask finally, looking her over for some sign of injury.

  “The Dark Ones?” Confusion shimmers in her eyes.

  “The monsters that took us from London,” I tell her gently, trying to remind her. Even with so many of my memories remaining just out of reach, the horror of being taken from my bed has never completely faded.

  “London?” She says the word like it feels funny in her mouth, and then she glances at Pan for guidance. He has the same almost pleasant expression on his face he’s had all morning, but his eyes are sharp and perceptive.

  “You remember what we’ve talked about, my dear,” Pan says gently.

  Olivia closes her eyes. “I remember waking up,” she says in a stiff voice. “And I remember Pan. He takes care of me.” When her eyes open and look up at him, they are soft with wonder and an emotion that looks dangerously close to love. “He protects us all.”

  “Olivia—” I start to say, but Pan interrupts me.

  “I had no idea the Dark Ones had stolen two from your world. Once Olivia confirmed she had a friend, I discovered the Captain had you. I sent some of my lads to retrieve you, but as I said, they failed.” His jaw hardens and he glances away, his eyes shadowed. “I’m sorry they were not more successful, Gwendolyn,” Pan tells me, the picture of contriteness.

  “None of that matters now,” Olivia tells him in a breathy whisper before she turns to me. “We are safe here, with Pan. You can forget the rest. All that”—she wrinkles her nose in distaste—“unpleasantness.” Then she gives Pan a dazzling smile before settling herself back on the bed to work on her daisy chain again. The determination on her face is so thoroughly Olivia and yet so completely wrong.

  “No,” I tell her, approaching the bed slowly. “We can’t stay here, Liv.” I kneel down on the floor next to her and touch her arm to stop her from stringing another flower. “We have to find a way back,” I tell her. “I need you to remember so you can help me figure this out.”

  “Back?” She goes very still under my hand, her expression tense.

  “This isn’t our home,” I say, pushing down the unease I feel under Pan’s too-watchful gaze. “This isn’t our world.”

  But she’s not listening to me. Her attention is on a point just beyond me—on Pan—and, ignoring me completely, she gives him a slow, private smile.

  I ignore the jealousy that twists uncomfortably inside me when Pan smiles in return.

  So Pan looked at me. So maybe for a second there I had thought . . .

  I don’t even know what I’d thought. Of course Olivia would want Pan. With his dark clothes and the scarlet runes decorating his fair skin, he looks like an elfin prince, and of course he would want her. She would make him the perfect fairy princess.

  None of that matters, though. Like the Captain said, this isn’t a fairy tale. We can’t stay.

  I take her hands and do not let them go, even when I feel her try to pull away.

  Olivia glances at Pan, and I get the sense she doesn’t know what to do.

  “You have to remember, Olivia,” I say, squeezing her hands and failing miserably to keep the urgency out of my voice. “Think about what our parents must be going through right now,” I tell her. By now everyone would know we’re gone. Would there be search parties? Would our faces be on the nightly news? “Think about how scared they must be.”

  “My parents—” She says the second word slowly, drawing it out, but recognition begins to light her eyes. Then her face falls. “My parents are probably too busy to even realize I’m gone.” She looks up at me, sadness and anger clear on her face. Then she sees—really sees me—and the glassiness in her eyes lifts like a fog.

  “Gwen,” she says, and now it’s my Olivia who is speaking. “Are you okay?” she asks. She’s touching my face, squeezing my hand. Her expression is urgent, like she’s suddenly awoken and just realized where we are.

  She slides from the bed and throws herself at me. Her long arms go around me, and for a moment I’m overwhelmed by her hug. For a moment I feel like everything will be okay. “Oh my god. I thought I’d never see you again,” she says, pulling away and looking me over.

  “I know,” I tell her. “Me too. But I’m here. So we’ll figure this out.”

  “See, my dears. A happy ending after all,” Pan says.

  I turn to him, relief barely settling over me. I’m more determined now than ever that we need to get out of this world and back to our own. “Can you help us get back?” I ask him. There has to be a way.

  He frowns. “Only the Fey can truly cross the boundaries between our worlds,” he tells me, regret shadowing his expression. “But I shall do what I can. And until then, you shall be safe under my protection.”

  “Thank you!” Olivia leaps from the bed with her usual burst of energy to embrace Pan. But she lingers longer than a friendly hug usually demands, and she pulls away slowly, reluctantly. Pan gives her hand a courtly kiss, and by the time he releases it, her eyes have gone glassy again.

  My stomach sinks as she smiles dreamily at Pan before turning back to the bed, and her piles of flowers.

  “Olivia?” I ask softly. But she doesn’t answer.

  “I shall leave you to each other, then,” Pan says with a small bow, and with an acrobatic leap from the threshold of the door, he leaves us alone in the flowered opulence of the room.

  Olivia is already focused intently on her daisy chain. For a moment she was there, but it was only for a moment. I watch her work, and when I understand that my Olivia isn’t there anymore, I walk over to the door and look down the sheer drop to the Great Hall below.

&nb
sp; “How do we get down from here?” I ask, watching as boys run and shout and do all sorts of violent things to one another.

  “Why would we want to get down?” she asks dreamily as she settles back in the plush bed again.

  “Why wouldn’t we?”

  “Well, there are the boys, for one. They haven’t had a mother in a very long time, and they’re not very well behaved.” Her voice is hollow and strangely formal, and she never takes her eyes from the flowers in her hand.

  As I watch, a boy who can’t possibly be older than eight tries to skewer another boy on the end of a long, sharp sword. I remember what the Captain told me about how dangerous his boys could be, and I’m suddenly almost okay with not having a ladder.

  “Liv?” I ask, closing the door against the noise that rises up from below. Our flowered room falls into silence.

  “Yes, Gwendolyn?” she asks, saying my name stiffly. She doesn’t bother looking up.

  I settle myself on the bed next to her and watch her work for a moment. The flowers she’s threading have velvety petals and stems spiked with thorns. They’re like everything I’ve encountered so far in this strange world—beautiful and lush with an unaccountable thread of danger. The thumb of her left hand is bleeding from being pricked, but Olivia doesn’t even seem to notice. She’s gone on making her chain, staining the white petals with smears of red.

  “You know we have to find a way out of here, don’t you?” I’m unsettled by how quickly her eyes went glassy again, and I can’t hide the fear in my voice. “We need to find a way back.” Before we can’t remember what we need to get back to.

  She bites her lip, and her brows knit in concentration, like she’s warring with herself over the answer. But she never looks up. She never stops weaving the stem of one flower into another.

  “It’s really not so bad here. Pan is wonderful. This world is magical. I’ve seen such amazing things.” Her eyes are still soft and unfocused with that disturbing glassy sheen.