He takes a bite from his half, and his eyebrows lift in pleasant surprise.
“Were you born here?” I ask as I watch him.
He nods.
“And you’ve been here forever?”
He shakes his head. “My da went to Eton, so I went no’ to Eton.” He laughs to himself. “I went and boarded in Armagh. The Royal School.”
I stare over at him, shocked. “You lived in Ireland?”
He smiles a little. “Aye. Well, back and forth atween here and there.”
“Is that where your mother’s from?”
He shakes his head, smiling cryptically.
“Is that why your accent’s so strange?”
Jamison chuckles.
“My accent…is a mess o’ accents that I picked up atween my parents and my nannies and my school. English, Irish, Scottish—I’m a fecking mess.”
“Why, exactly?”
“Well, my da, he’s from England. London, originally. And me marm—she’s an out-of-towner, I suppose ye’d say? I had an Irish nurse, a Scottish nurse, Irish teachers and friends. I s’pose I sound like them all.” He gives me a little look. “We are great products of the folk who raise us.”
I frown a little. “Do you think that’s really true?”
He nods a bit solemnly. “Unfortunately.”
And my mind wanders to Peter… Who raised him? The land.
I purse my lips, then look back up at Jamison.
“Is it unfortunate because of your dad?”
His face goes rather serious all of a sudden. “A’m no’ like him.”
I give him a gentle smile. “Are you like her then?”
His mouth pulls as he thinks about it. “I hope so.”
“Where is she now?”
“Mum?” Jamison shrugs, wide-eyed. “God knows.”
And I wonder what he means by that, but it feels rude to inquire. Mothers and fathers can be such touchy subjects, and knowing where one is isn’t necessarily a measuring stick for anything. Parents come with invisible strings and ties that pull them and fasten them to things besides their children. Sometimes they let you see them. Sometimes they don’t.
“May I ask you something?” I purse my lips, and he nods. “And I’m terribly sorry if this is rude and I’m overstepping, but were you close with your father?”
He stares over at me for a few seconds, then shakes his head. “Not really. Sometimes?” He shrugs, then flashes me a quick smile. “He wusnae all bad.”
I try to imagine it—the fearsome, loathsome, infamous Captain Hook…not all bad?
“Ye have siblings?”
I shake my head.
“Just ye at home then?” he asks, nodding his chin at me.
I take a bite of the bun, and—oh my god—it’s divine.
I give Jamison a nod. “And my grandmothers.”
“Where’s yer mother?”
“Oh.” I take another bite. “Somewhere in Central America on a dig.”
He tilts his head, confused.
“She’s an archaeologist.”
He nods, impressed, and a smile dances over his face. He reaches over and wipes his thumb over my bottom lip, and my heart stops in its tracks. He looks at the cream he just wiped from my mouth, then sucks it from his thumb mindlessly.
I swallow heavily.
“And what do ye want to be when ye grow up?” he asks.* “Or are ye not planning on growing up anymore?”
I give him an unimpressed look. “I’m going to be a geologist.”
“Oh.” He laughs, almost as though he’s confused. “That’s…specific.”
“Actually.” I sit up straighter. “It’s not. Geology’s terribly broad.”
He nods, swallowing, amused. “My mistake.”
“Mineralogy,” I tell him, even though he didn’t ask for the specifics. “I like rocks. And stones and earth. I love the earth.”
“Is that why ye left it?” he asks, eyebrow up.
I frown a little, thinking on what he’s implying. “I don’t know why I left it—a pull away, I guess?” I shrug. “Like fate? But that doesn’t mean I don’t love it.”
He nods a couple of times. “So why do ye like Earth so much?”
“I don’t know.” I breathe out in the comfort of the question. “I think I find it grounding? I like my bare feet on the earth—the feel of it.”
He nods, watching me and letting me prattle on.
“I suppose I’ve always just liked it. Rocks and nature and volcanos, the history of things, how they form. It’s all just fascinating to me. I like how stones feel in your hand, how they feel on your skin. I like how a specific chemical formula and time underground, in the dark, where no one is looking, makes these.” I flash him my earrings again, and he smiles a little bit. I shrug, feeling now like I’ve talked for too long. “I like how rocks tell stories. I suppose I like Earth because it’s really just one big rock.”
Jamison’s watching me, eyebrows bending in the middle like he’s almost frowning, but it’s not a bad frown. Neither is it entirely confused. More like he’s just fascinated.
I squirm a little, embarrassed to have his gaze so intensely on me but also a little bit pleased.
I clear my throat to keep things moving. “Is this a planet?”
“Neverland?” He blinks. “Aye, o’ course it’s a planet. What dae you think yer wee feet are standing on here?”
I roll my eyes.
“Neverland’s no’ the planet. It’s an isle that’s a part o’ a realm. The planet itself is called Little St?rj.” He stands up and walks to a bookshelf that’s organised with no rhyme or reason, other than each book is bound in leather. He grabs one with a navy spine and gold foiling and places it in front of me. “’Twas founded around 1300 BC your time.”
“By whom?” I ask him, chin in my hand.
He flips open the book and rifles through a few pages to a black-and-white photo of five people. Three women, two men.
I marvel at them for a few seconds. “What were they?” I ask as I stare at them.
“I think the politically correct term is star travellers.” He smiles as he glances at the photo.
“They’re aliens?” I blink up at him, surprised.
He points at me. “Politically incorrect.”
“Sorry!” I flash him a smile. “So it’s true then, we’re not all alone in the universe?”
Jamison shrugs and looks over his shoulder at the harbor behind us, filled idyllically with fisherman and boats. “Evidently not.” His eyes soften a tiny bit around the edges. “Did ye feel ye were?”
Less so by the second, actually, I think as I stare over at him and swallow heavy, ignoring the feeling of all the threads pulling inside me and stepping around one of about a million potholes that exist in my mind about pirates.
“Her bath is ready,” Briggs calls and pokes his head from around the divider.
“Thank you, Briggs.” Jamison nods at him, and I offer him back the book.
He shakes his head. “Keep it.” He wraps his hands around mine and gives the book back to me. Our eyes catch. “Ye need it more than me, thonner with the wee man. I cannae imagine he’s that grand a conversationalist.”
I stifle a laugh and drop his gaze because his eyes feel too good to hold. He gestures towards the bath.
I give him a quick but grateful smile and slip behind the screen.
I pull my clothes off me and leave them by the foot of the clawed bath.
“I’ll leave ye be,” Jamison calls from the other side.
“You don’t have to!” I say maybe too quickly, and there’s a clunky pause from him.