Unhooked

by Lisa Maxwell

  “Pray you never need to use it,” he says, offering it again.

  I take it finally, weighing its solid body in my hands. It’s lighter than Pan’s dagger, and in the morning sun, its blade glints silvery instead of the strange dark glow of Pan’s. I tuck it into the waistband of my pants and hope I don’t skewer myself before I need to use it.

  “Ready?” he asks, his expression as sharp and guarded as I’ve ever seen it.

  “Not even a little bit.”

  When we step into the lush green of the jungle, the sound of the sea fades away, but the trees aren’t silent. As soon as we enter the teeming canopy, I can feel the trees pulse around me in warning.

  This is nothing like the dark forest of my childhood. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen—even flying through the canopy of trees with Pan didn’t prepare me for the experience of being inside of it. The vegetation around us is wild and unearthly, colored every shade of green imaginable. Some of the plants have leaves as large as my arms stretched wide. Others are spindly, with needlelike outgrowths that look as sharp as razors.

  Strangely enough, even though the air is close here—almost claustrophobic—I don’t feel afraid. Or I suppose I should say that I feel uneasy but not unwelcome. Like the garden within Pan’s fortress, the plants of Neverland’s jungle twist away as we walk to reveal a winding path through the dense undergrowth. The island itself seems to be directing us, and I can’t tell if Neverland is guiding us to the Queen because it wants to be freed or if this is just another one of its traps. I should be terrified of how very alive it all feels, but after all I’ve been through—and after everything I’ve done—fear seems like a luxury I can’t afford.

  With each step I take following Rowan up the steep incline toward the very center of the island, my confidence falters, though. We climb and climb through the jungle, but we never seem to get anywhere. All I can do is follow him, step after step, mile after mile, making one twisting turn after another.

  Once or twice, fairy lights appear, dodging in and around us as we make our way. Rowan ignores them, but they make me nervous. I don’t trust Fiona’s loyalty as much as he seems to, and I can’t help but think the lights are probably watching us, maybe even reporting to Pan. I almost expect him to be waiting for us around every turn, but he never is.

  Eventually we come to a clearing where the path we’re on divides into three different trails. The one to our right leads into the undergrowth. To our left, another snakes away through a grove of enormous trees. Ahead, a third, identical path leads in an equally unclear direction.

  As Rowan considers which to take, I ease back against the smooth trunk of a tree and let myself slide to the ground. My feet ache from the rocky and uneven climb, and I need a break, even though we can’t afford to take one.

  Behind my back, the tree I’m propped against moves, rippling into some new shape. All around me the other trees shift and settle, re-forming themselves into new trees and other configurations. The paths disappear as enormous plants sprout up and cover them, and other paths emerge.

  Rowan curses at the sight of it. “Bloody stupid—” But he never finishes.

  The jungle has gone suddenly and deathly still. His eyes meet mine, the question in them echoing my own.

  “What is it?” I ask. All around us, it feels as though Neverland itself is holding its breath, waiting. But it’s not an easy silence.

  “Come on, lass.” Rowan holds out his hand to pull me up, but before I’m even on my feet, a faint rustling fills the air around us.

  The dark undersides of the leaves begin to shift as the shade beneath them starts to move, creeping along the thick green stems like a swarm of ants, collecting and gathering on the loamy jungle floor. The earthy humidity that has been our companion all morning seems to drain from the air as the coolness of night filters into the clearing. And as the chill brushes against my skin, the green-gold scent of the jungle is overwhelmed with a familiar odor that speaks of the sweetness of rot and the dustiness of memory.

  The shadows creep along the ground, encircling us like a giant serpent eating its own tail. Then they begin to billow and grow, until we are penned in by them. Until the darkness begins to block our view of the jungle beyond.

  When the shadows begin to lick at our feet and ankles, I’m assaulted again by the images from my past. The forest reaching for me. Calling to me.

  I try to shove the images away, but the shadows continue to gather and grow, slowly shaping themselves into the winged creatures built from nightmares. Already I can make out their massive shoulders, the claw-tipped nails of their skeletal fingers.

  But when a branch cracks out in the jungle, somewhere to our right, the Dark Ones go still, as though listening for what made the sound. Rowan raises his blade, his eyes narrowed in alertness as he shifts uneasily, watching both the swirling shadows and the jungle beyond.

  After a moment, the Dark Ones begin to billow and grow once more. Back to back, we track them as they circle us. I grip the dagger tightly in my sweat-damp fist and take shallow, anxious breaths as I watch the shadows finally begin to coalesce into dark, broad creatures.

  Another crack sounds in the jungle—this time from the left.

  Rowan glances at me, and the look on his face tells me what I’ve already realized—it would be impossible for a single creature to have moved that far so quickly. The Dark Ones seem to sense it too. Half-formed, they go still, and their metallic rustling changes—grows sharper. Then, without warning, the Dark Ones shrink, melting onto the ground and flowing like dark water back to the shadowy undersides of the leaves.

  Rowan’s expression mirrors my thoughts exactly—neither of us wants to meet whatever it is that can chase away the Dark Ones.

  Without a word, Rowan takes me by the hand and picks a new path at random. Behind us, around us, the jungle crackles with life, but the sound isn’t the steady pulse of before. The trees rustle more erratically and urgently as we break into a run. Behind us, the crackling rush of a tree falling pushes us to move faster.

  At first I think we’re putting distance between us and whatever’s out there. But when the path empties out into a small clearing, I see we’ve reached a dead end. In front of us, a rocky precipice rises straight and sheer, blocking our path. Around us, the jungle shudders as the path we’ve just come down closes.

  Rowan’s eyes meet mine. His expression is tight with the knowledge I’ve already comprehended—whatever’s out there wasn’t chasing us. It was herding us.

  “What do we do?” I whisper.

  “You still have the dagger I gave you, aye?”

  I glance over at him. “Yeah.”

  “Keep it out.”

  The jungle shudders again. Another crackling rush of trees falling just beyond out view. And then the foliage at the edge of the clearing shakes.

  “Steady, lass,” he tells me as two enormous creatures emerge from the still-silent jungle.

  Of all the things I’ve seen since I’ve come to this world, of all the horrors I’ve witnessed, these creatures are the most horrible, the most terrifying yet. These beasts are more than twice as tall as any man, and they are like nothing I could have imagined.

  Their long, claw-tipped arms and legs are corded with sinewy muscle that ripples and shifts as they move. Bloodred eyes set into their massive shoulders watch us as the beasts lumber into the clearing on long, powerfully muscled legs. Their leathery skin is drawn tight over their misshapen bodies, and their whole torso seems to be nothing but a huge, gaping mouth ringed with rows of teeth. Those horrible jaws are already open in anticipation, cavernous voids built to consume. To devour.

  And the smell of them. They make the entire clearing reek with the stomach-turning stench of bloated, rotten corpses and the bitterness of despair.

  The beasts close in slowly, taking their time, as though they know we have no chance of retreat, nowhere to run. Next to me, Rowan shifts, balancing his attention on both of the monsters. I raise the dagger
I’m holding too. Not that I have any hope of actually injuring one of these creatures, much less killing one, but if I’m going to die here, I won’t die without a fight.

  “Gwendolyn.” Rowan’s voice is tight, urgent. “If there is any sort of Fey magic you might consider working, now would be the time to be doing it.” He glances at me, taking his attention away from the beasts only for a second. “A rescue, perhaps?”

  A rescue? I look up at the sheer cliff face behind me—I doubt I can make something that big disappear. There’s no way to climb it, and no way to get around these creatures. No way to escape.

  Rowan sends me another impatient look, his sword at the ready as one of the beasts gnashes its horrible teeth and lets out a growl that sounds like the grinding of bones. Its long arms are tipped with massive clawed hands that swipe at him.

  He swings his sword savagely to fend off the blow, but the tip of the monster’s claw catches his arm and shreds the sleeve of his coat. The rods of his arm glint beneath the gaping tear. “Anytime now, lass,” he says, turning to ward off the second beast before it can lunge.

  “What do you want me to do?” I ask, my voice rising in panic. The second beast is watching me with those bloodred eyes, but Rowan darts in front of me before it can attack.

  “We both know what you did in the tunnel, Gwendolyn. Try something. Anything,” he demands, his voice tight with more than impatience as he swivels to account for the other beast’s location. “You’re half bloody Fey, aren’t you?”

  “I—” The second beast lunges for me, but I stab at it with the dagger. Surprised, it backs away, shifting uneasily on its strong legs as it considers me with its burning eyes. “I don’t know how.” I clench my hands into tight fists. I’m still not sure what made the rock disappear in the tunnels. I have no idea what I finally did to get him out of that prison.

  “Figure it out,” he snaps, fending off another attack. “I have bet everything on you—my life, my friend. My crew.”

  “I know.” My voice comes out angrier than I intended. “But it’s not like I asked for this. It didn’t come with a set of instructions.”

  “You don’t need a set of bloody instructions, Gwendolyn. It’s what you are. And if you don’t stop running from it, we’re not going to be making it out of this particular mess alive.”

  I take a shuddering breath as the truth of what he’s saying hits me at full force. He’s right. After all the horrors and mistakes, if we die here, at the hands of these monsters, it will be my fault. Because even with all I’ve seen, all I’ve done, there is a part of me that is still afraid to accept what I’ve come to know about myself. Because accepting it means letting go of the brittle belief that I could be a simple girl, a normal girl.

  Because I’m not a normal girl—I’ve never been one. My mom knew that when she uprooted us time and time again. She knew that when she took a knife and sliced into my arm to try to protect me.

  With the gaping, horrible maws of nightmarish beasts open before me and the deadly height of the cliff behind me, I have a choice. I can keep clinging to that fragile story of what I thought I was and I can die, devoured by those terrible mouths. Or I can admit that maybe I’ve always been something else—something more.

  “Gwen,” Rowan says, taking another swipe at the first beast when it gets too close.

  My head snaps around, and my eyes meet his for a moment. It’s the first time he’s ever called me that. All along he’s used the stiff formality of my whole name to keep me at arm’s length. But for the space of a heartbeat, his expression is open and trusting . . . and hopeful.

  “You can do this, lass. Get us out of here.”

  Then the moment is over, and he turns again to lunge at the monstrous Fey that have corralled us.

  The time to be scared, the time to deny is over, unless of course, I want to die. Unless I want him to die with me.

  I turn and press my hands against the rough surface of the cliff rising up behind us, tracing the rock tentatively with one finger, testing it. Nothing happens. Resolved, I lay my palm against it and I focus, just as I did when Pan asked me to. Just as I did when I felt the warmth flare beneath by palms near the edge of the trench. And as I did in the dark tunnel, when I wanted to destroy the bars that kept me from Rowan.

  Closing my eyes, I concentrate on the erratic pulse of the rock beneath my hands. At first nothing happens, but I will not give up. I draw all my attention—everything I am—to the place where my skin presses against Neverland. The beasts growl, inching closer, but I do not let myself think, It’s not working. The idea is there anyway, just below the surface. Taunting me. Threatening me. But I ignore it, and as I’m about to give up, the rock beneath my hand grows warm.

  I force myself to hold steady as the warmth spreads through my fingertips, across my palms, and begins to creep up my arms, heating and burning as it climbs toward my chest. But when it reaches my elbows, the heat begins to sear me from within. I clench my teeth and force myself to ignore the pain, but when the heat reaches my shoulder, the burn flashes even hotter, and I wrench my hands away.

  Immediately, my arms go cold, but the scar on my upper arm tingles and aches as I try to catch my breath. I was so close, but . . . “It’s no good.” Tears burn at my eyes.

  They were wrong about me—all of them were wrong. I don’t have this in me. Or if I do, it’s not enough.

  Rowan shouts in rage, and I turn in time to see him barely beating back one of the monsters. He’s panting, his shoulders rising and falling with the effort of the fight, and I can see he’s tired. Sweat has begun to bead on his brow, and his muscles are already drawn with the exertion. The beasts are toying with him, wearing him down, and at this rate, he won’t last long.

  He will die because of you—because he chose you and you failed him, a voice deep inside me taunts. And then you will be alone, and you will die as well.

  I have to try again, but as I press my hands to the rock, I know deep down, where you know things without having to think about them, it will be useless.

  Because you know what must be done, the voice whispers. Because you know what your mother did to you.

  “No,” I say, grabbing the scar on my arm, even as the terrible truth settles over me like a shroud.

  What was it my mother told me after they found me in the woods—after she ordered me to forget what had happened out there?

  The clearing, the monsters, even the sound of Rowan’s exertion as he tries to battle the monsters falls away, and I can hear my mom’s words clearly, echoing in the far recesses of my mind. This will never happen again.

  And with them comes the memory of the sharp surprise of her fear and an even sharper pain. An unbelievable pain, because how could my mother have hurt me like that? I was just a child, and even as it was happening—even as the silver blade bit into my skin, I couldn’t believe my mom was capable of hurting me like that. Even as the blood trickled down my numb arm, the younger me couldn’t accept what she did.

  I don’t even need the Dark Ones now—the memories that have lain buried and suppressed for so long rise up like a wave and overtake me. The look on my mother’s face when she collected me from the police station that night wasn’t relief—it was terror. Not for me or for what had happened to me out there in the darkness. No. Even my five-year-old self understood she was afraid of me.

  My breath rushes out of me at the memory of her blue-gray eyes nervous, fearful as the police explained where they’d found me and what I had told them. How long have I tried to forget the memory of that night? How long have I been trying to earn back her love—to earn a place in her life—by being the perfect daughter?

  By doing what she commanded and forgetting. By always doing everything she asked of me.

  Not five feet away, Rowan is being driven back against the rock by one of the beasts, and when it accomplishes its final victory over him, he’ll be gone. And then it will turn on me, and any chance of saving Olivia, of getting back to my world, will be l
ost—all the human children in this world will be lost right along with me. All because I’ve been too afraid to do what needs to be done.

  I remember now what my mother did that night when I was barely five years old, and I know how to fix it.

  In this world, power requires sacrifice, Pan had once told me. The pain of his Queen carving into his skin had given him tremendous power. But my mother had done the opposite.

  Pain. Sacrifice. Power. The words come together to form a terrible truth.

  When we’d come home that night, my mom had started packing, but not before she took me into the kitchen and held ice to my arm. Not before she sharpened the point of a knife and opened my arm so she could place a sliver of metal beneath my skin. A rune, a protective spell against the voice in the darkness that called to me. A defense against what I was. What I am.

  Because she was afraid of me.

  I look at the dagger in my hand and I don’t let myself think about how it will feel. I look at the scar I’ve lived with for so long, and without any more hesitation, I press the sharp tip of the blade into my skin.

  The angel smiled at the boy, her eyes hard and unforgiving. He knew that must mean something, though he could not think what it could be. There was a dull ache behind his eyes. There was something he should be thinking of, remembering. But he couldn’t imagine— “And if I want to go back?” he asked. “There is only forward for you now,” the angel said. She held out her hand again. . . .

  Chapter 33

  I DON’T FEEL THE PAIN at first. Until the blood wells from where the point of the knife has sliced into my skin, I don’t feel anything at all. It’s like a paper cut you don’t notice until it starts to bleed—and sting.

  Rowan says something to me, and I hear the shock in his voice, but I can’t make out his words over the roaring in my ears. It’s too late to turn back now, though. Too late to regret the blood trickling hot and sticky down my arm.

  I grit my teeth against the pain and hope that I am right about what I’m doing. I pray the Dark Ones have not given me false memories and the visions aren’t just another trap as I press the tip of the knife deeper into my arm, poking and prodding at the screaming wound until I think I’ll pass out from the pain. Until the tip of my knife hits something solid that is not bone.