Flying would be faster, that’s definitely true, and though I’ve never tried, I really am sure that I couldn’t do it without him—that’s what Peter says anyway—and I don’t know if you can do it when you’re sad, because happy thoughts, that’s what Peter always says, and I have none. I’m not willing to feel like a failure at the same time as I’m busy feeling like an idiot.
I do eventually get nervous by myself out here, because I don’t feel I know it particularly well yet. Whenever we’re out here, it never feels like we take the same path. Whenever Rye takes me somewhere, we walk a travelled path, or if one of the Lost Boys takes me, we go down paths that I think look familiar to me, but when Peter’s there, we’re always going strange ways and taking corners and turns I don’t know we need to be taking. A small part of me wonders whether that’s on purpose. So I have to depend on him, but who could I say that thought to, and how would I prove it anyway? And to what end?
So I run through the jungle till I reach the shore of the crescent, and then I run along the edge of the bay.
I will say, it is rather difficult to navigate your way around an island you already don’t know very well when you’re crying; no one tells you that. It’s rather hazardous, and I nearly might have fallen a few times were it not for a couple of little birds that flew along beside me, guiding me and keeping me right with little pecks and flapping their wings against my face whenever I began heading the wrong way.
They come with me the whole way to the start of the town, those sweethearts. I check my pockets to see if I have anything I could give them, but I don’t. I just give them a sorry wave goodbye, and off they fly.
It’s getting dark now. I don’t know what time it is—as though time matters here. I haven’t yet figured out which sun they attach their time to. It couldn’t be too late in the evening, and now that I’m here, I don’t know why I’ve come.
Even though a bit of me does.
I’m sad, obviously. But why have I come here? That’s a question whose eyes I’ve been avoiding because it doesn’t make sense. I can’t really believe it. Peter’s been doing that with Calla and the mermaids? All those times he’s not with me, is that what he’s been doing?
He doesn’t even do that with me, that kind of kissing. It was a lot of kissing… He’s progressed without me, without even telling me.
I walk, brave as I can, towards the Golden Folly, climbing on board and walking straight to where Jamison took me the other day.
Orson Calhoun stands from the chair he’s reclined in on the bridge.
“’Ello.” He nods.
“Hi.” I wipe my face with my hands and sniff. I know it looks like I’ve been crying. No way to hide that.
“Are y’okay?” He nods at me.
“Is Jamison here?” I look past him to the door to his room.
“Aye.” He nods.
“In there?” I walk towards it.
“Aye, but—” Orson starts but it’s too late.
I swing the door open, and there he is with a girl who I think looks familiar, but I can never remember anything these days. It’s someone. He’s with someone. Bent over a table. She’s fully naked, he’s partially naked, pumping away.
“Oh my god.” I clamp my hand over my mouth, spin around immediately, and cover my eyes too late.
“Bow!” he says, startled.
“Shit. I’m sorry!” I keep walking, quickly as I can, scurrying off the bridge. “I’m—Fuck. Sorry.”
I hear movement after me.
“Thank ye for that,” Hook says to Calhoun as he passes him and jogs after me. “Whoa, whoa!” He grabs my arm and spins me around to face him. “What’s going on? What’re ye doing here?”
I snatch my arm away from him, and his face falters.
“Are ye okay?”
“Fine.” I nod a lot. “I’m fine.” I tell him, except now I’m shaking my head. I’m not sure I am fine. I’m about to not be fine. I need those birds to come back. I’m starting to not be able to see again. I wave my hand vaguely in the direction of his quarters. “Don’t let me keep you from—” I swallow heavy. “Finishing.”
Hook breathes out once, and it’s heavy and he looks down at me with this frown that’s confused and maybe even a bit sad.
“What’s happening?” He looks over his shoulder, bewildered.
“Nothing.” I shrug expressively. “Literally nothing. On all fronts.” I nod to myself. “Clearly.”
He keeps frowning at me. “What?”
I wave back towards the girl who’s now filling the doorway, watching us with a frown. “Enjoy.”
“Aye, sure.” Jamison scoffs, annoyed. “I will.”
I walk backwards away from him and flash him my middle finger before I spin around and walk away.
“I d?nnae ken what that means,” he calls after me.
I spin back around to flash him two.
He throws me an unimpressed look and then walks back to the girl, putting his arm around her, closing the door behind him.
Piano.
I don’t know where to go or what to do. I can’t go back to the tree house. I don’t want to go to the Old Valley. I don’t know how to get home.
I spot a little lizard that’s staring at me from a few metres away. He’s glowing this warm sort of yellowy green, perched at the edge of the dock.
I watch him for a few seconds, and briefly I feel better, distracted by something that’s so strange it demands my full attention, and then the lizard drops off the edge of the dock.
I dart towards it and peer over the edge, but the lizard’s landed in a beached canoe.
He stares up at me, blinks twice. And for some reason, I feel like he’s telling me something.
I look over my shoulder to see if anyone else is seeing this, but there aren’t many people around, and besides, who’s watching a sad, crying girl chase a lizard anyway?
I slip down over the side of the dock and land on the sand.
I stare at the lizard, which stares back at me. “Am I to understand we’re to share this?” I gesture to the canoe.
Quite typically of lizards (and as I suspected), he says nothing in return.
I hold out my hand. “Are you a nice lizard?”
He runs onto my hand and immediately curls up in the palm of my hand.
“Well, at least one of us is set for the night.”
I climb into the canoe, curling into a ball, being careful not to squash my new lizard friend as I do.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe there is no such thing as fate, and maybe I hate it here.
* * *
* Though I’m not so sure that he noticed.
? And knowing him, I doubt he meant it in the way where a girl might throw with focus and precision and a quiet strength that would go over Peter’s head.
* Much.
* I hope.
* How good of him. How very superior to all the other men I know on this island.
CHAPTER
NINE
“Are ye havin’ a sleep with a lizard?” says a deep* voice I don’t particularly want to hear first thing in the morning, all things considered, though were I being honest, I suppose I’m glad to hear it also.
“No.” I keep my eyes closed for a few more seconds. “I believe that was you.”
Jamison snorts a laugh, and I blink my eyes open, staring at my little lizard friend and my little lizard friend only. He’s still all curled up in my palm, I give him a smile, then lift my hand up to the top of the canoe and let him climb off me.
“Look at ye.” Jamison nods his chin at me. “So at one with nature.”
“Look at you.” I glare at him. “So clothed now.”