“I ken.” He nods and pulls back, looking at her, confused. “No, say that again, slower now. Oh. Oh, I will, aye.” He nods. “I swear. No, I d?nnae like him either.”
I frown over at them, and Jem flicks me a smug look as Rune moves away from him.
“Perhaps ye could fashion her up a wee coat fer the mountains too?” he asks her pleasantly, but that absolutely sends her bouncing between us like an enraged pinball.
“He didn’t mean it!” I shake my head.
“It’s fine!” Hook shakes his head quickly, panicked almost. “She can hae mine. If she’s cold, she can hae mine.”
That placates her a bit, and the fairy flies right in his face, tinkering and waving a scolding finger at him before flying away at the speed of light.
Jamison looks over at me, eyebrows up.
“All right, d?nnae ask a fairy for a coat. Now we know.”
I breathe out a laugh, and we start walking into the rain forest the town blends into.
He stares over at me for a little while before I say anything.
“What?” I ask defensively.
“The fae”—he squints—“d?nnae often take to people.”
I purse my lips, not really knowing what to say, but he keeps staring in a strange kind of awe.
Jamison shakes his head a bit. “And never do they do them magic.”
“Well.” I shrug, giving a tall look for no reason in particular. “I’m very charming.”
He catches my eyes and nods to himself. “Aye, I s’pose y’are.”
That disarms me a bit, enough for all the fuel I had to be argumentative and cross at him for no reason to be immediately drained from my tank.
Jem shakes his head, still thinking on it. “Ye d?nnae see a lot o’ fairies about these days. Good at hiding.”
I nod once. “And for good reason.”
“Ah.” He gives me an impressed look. “So ye’ve been doing some reading…”
I look over at him, pleased. “I have.”
“Come and take my books anytime ye want them,” he tells me, which although I don’t think he meant to be a sexy thing to say, it was absolutely a sexy thing to say.
Rye told me that it would really only take you a couple of days to walk around the entire island and that from the tree house to Neverpeak Mountain, it would take half a day. Less so from Zomertierra.
We’re in the part of the rainforest where it starts bleeding into a regular forest, which I can see up ahead begins to turn to autumn.
Jem and I walk for a bit in silence, and it is the best kind of silence. Peter doesn’t offer much of it; to him, silence is boring, silence is to be filled, and he fills it, constantly. Stories of himself, crowing, laughing, kisses sometimes—not exclusively with me alone, it would appear.
But here with Jem, it’s just a stillness I’ve not really been afforded much yet in life.
I can hear birds and the sound of the air moving through the trees around us and not much else.
But silence has a downfall. Silence is when the thoughts come.
Accidental thoughts, ones you’re not even trying to think of but there they are, growling away all the same from deep inside your monster of a conscience, ones you’ve been ignoring all day because if you don’t ignore them—if you were, perhaps, to ponder such things—the very fabric of everything as we know it might pull and fray, and then what?
But that is the question, isn’t it?
And then what? And actually, really, and then even what?
For all I know, the pirate is dating that girl, and he’s just a wonderful (terrible) flirt.*
Then he breathes out this big almost sigh.
“Just say it,” Jamison says, watching my face.
I look over at him. “What?”
“Whatever it is yer thinkin’ about. Just say it or ask it or—”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, and it’s out of my mouth like a horse at the gate.
It sounds more like a demand than a question.
He stops walking.
I stare over at him and conclude quite quickly that we’re going to have another fight. It feels like a nice place for it—scenic… Every red and orange and yellow on the colour wheel is smeared across where we stand.
It’s raining leaves and smells like smoldering logs and cinnamon, and Jamison Hook blends right in because something about him feels like when you’ve walked inside after being caught in the rain and a fire’s already lit.
“Ye never asked—”
“So?” I shrug, impatient.
He gives me a look. “So for why would I tell ye?”
“Because—”
“’Acause why?” he asks, eyebrows up, and I just glare at him, angry and rearmed, ready to fight him for no reason.
“Do you often buy clothes for wayward souls?” I put my hands on my hips. “Lull them into a false sense of trust?”
“What?” he asks loudly.
“Bathe them.”
“I d?dnae bathe ye. My house fae ran ye a bath, and ye go’ into it, unassisted.”
“And then—”
“And then!” He cuts me off. “Ye left. Went back thonder to yer fucking house in a tree with the wee man and stayed there till he daen the next fucked-up thing to ye.” Jamison shakes his head, angry. “Daen ye think I’m over here waiting for ye?”
My head pulls back, offended. “No.”*
“Good.” He gives me a look. “’Acause I’m no’.”
“Yes, I know. I saw that.”
He scoffs. “Aye, yer head is cut.”
“What?” I blink.
“Yer angry at me for laying with someone else when yer thonner sleeping with him every night.”
“I’m not angry at you,” I tell him, sidestepping the very big hole in the conclusion he just made.
“Aye, y’are. Ye dae this thing with yer eyes when yer angry, where yer nose pinches but yer mouth goes heavy at the bottom, like yer frowning but yer no’.”
I blink at him a few times; my cheeks go hot. “How do you know that?”
“Because I see ye, Daphne!” he yells. “Yer annoying and yer thran? and yer a pain in the fucking arse. Ye think you ken everything, but actually ye d?nnae know a single thing, and yer fucking daft ’acause ye spend all yer heart’s time thinking about some flying man-child who I ken, for a fact, daesnae give a fuck about you.”
I glare at him, shaking my head a bit, worried it’s all true. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Aye, Bow, I do, because I give a fuck about ye.” His eyes settle on me, steady, and his jaw tightens as he says this. “And y’are all-consuming.”
He stares at me for a couple of seconds, then brushes past me, trekking up the steepening mountain.
A couple of minutes pass, and it’s a different kind of silence now. One where I know he’s angry at me, and I don’t know how to fix it, which is a feeling I don’t love.
He’s about twenty paces ahead of me when I jog after him.
“I don’t sleep with him.” I call. “Not that way.”
Jem stops walking for a second, goes still in his tracks, then he keeps going. “How then?” he asks without looking back.
“Just sleeping,” I call, and he pauses. “Asleep. I sleep next to him.” I keep going with a shrug.
Jamison looks back at me, and I give him a look.
“I’m certainly not bending him over tables.”
He squashes a smile and shakes his head. “A’m sorry ye saw that.”
“Why?” I ask, feeling a bit sad about it all over again.
He shrugs. “Just am.”