“Oh my god.” I blink.
She nods. “The fairies found him, raised him.”
My mouth gapes.
“What the fuck, Mum?” Jamison pulls back. “How long have ye been sitting on thon one for?”
Itheelia’s mouth pinches. “A while.”
Jamison’s on his feet now, shaking his head, pacing. “Why d?dnae y’take him in?”
“I didn’t want a child.” She shrugs, then adds quickly as an afterthought, “At the time! That and I didn’t think the legend was true.” She lifts her shoulders like she’s innocent. “And then Peter grew a little, and I began to become afraid that it was.” She looks over at me. “You know how the land behaves around him.”
“Is it true,” I start, and I feel guilty as I do, as though the question I’m about to ask is a sign of me doubting him, “that he doesn’t age because of the fountain of youth?”
Itheelia nods. “It was the fairies at first; they used to give him water from it. They thought if they kept him small, they could control him more easily.”
I frown. “Could they?”
“Well.” Itheelia gives me a delicate, albeit long look. “He’s not a normal boy.”
“Does he ken?” Hook asks, looking from me to his mum.
I shake my head, and Itheelia gives me a pointed look.
“Nor should he.”
I shake my head at her a bit. “He has no idea where he’s come from.”
She nods. “For good reason.”
“He thinks his mother abandoned him—that no one wants him—”
Jamison shifts uncomfortably on his feet, but my mind is reeling, and I think you can see it on my face because Itheelia looks at me and then at the clock on her wall. “Time to go, I think.” She gives me a look—maternal, eyebrows up. “You won’t tell him?”
I swallow and sigh. “Do you not think that—”
“More than think, I know,” she says, eyes firm, “that the boy knowing would bring no good. Not to him, not to you, not to the land.” She pauses, lets it all hang there heavy. “You mustn’t tell him, Daphne.”
“Okay,” I say, eyes on the floor, voice quiet. I thank her for telling me her stories and for my tea, and when I try to give her back the coat, she insists she bought it for me without knowing she bought it for me.
Jem kisses his mother on the cheek and gives her a hug that makes me a tiny bit jealous, because I think I should quite like it if he were to hug me like that. Or even in any way at all.
Itheelia seals herself in the cave as soon as we’re outside it, and the snow’s picked up quite a lot.
Jamison stops in front of me and tugs my jacket closed, fastening it, staring at me as he does it.
A part of me feels crushed. I don’t know why.
It was a heavy story, I suppose, that involves someone I care a great deal about.
Jem’s eyes are zeroed in on me. “Ye okay?” he asks.
I nod without saying anything.
He pulls my hood up over my head, and then he turns, starting to walk down the mountain.
“Are ye going to tell him?” he says, looking back at me.
“That you’re related?” I stare over at him like he’s mad. “I should think not. Peter is so temporarily focused. He’s interested in exclusively shooting the messenger.”
Jamison snorts a laugh—or maybe it was a scoff?
“Do you think it’s bad to not tell him?” I ask. “Is it dishonest?”
He considers this in an actual way. “Maybe.”
“What if he’s the heir?” I say quietly.
“He might be.” He shrugs. “Is thon why ye like him then?”
I give him a cross look and stop walking. “I didn’t know he might have been it until today!”
He pauses. “Then what is it then?”
That question puts me on the spot, and my cheeks go so hot that as soon as the snow hits them, they melt.
“I don’t know.” Then I say in a stupid voice, “Fate or something?” I think. I roll my eyes like I think it’s silly.
Jamison’s eyes pinch. “Says who?”
“Everyone.” I shrug like it’s beyond me. “All my family, all my life—”
Jem’s mouth pulls tight as he nods once. “Aye, the Darling girl family legacy o’ loving the same boy. That is well fucked.”
I cross my arms over my chest defensively. “To be fair to me, he’s more of a man-child now.”
“Sexy.” Hook tosses me a look. He walks down the mountain a bit more, his pace picking up. “Ye could buck it, ye ken?” he calls back, not turning around. “Love someone else.”
I stop walking. “You, do you mean?”
“No,” he says quickly, and then he stops walking. He turns around. “Maybe.”
I stare over at him, my breathing quickening as my mouth falls open a bit. I don’t even know what to say. I don’t even—I— I shake my head ever so slightly. “But we’re not in the stars.”
Jem rolls his eyes, annoyed. “Aye, and who gives a fuck about stars.”
I stare over at him again, feeling lost. “Well, they’ve brought me this far.”
“I s’pose they have.” He nods coolly. “Ye ken there’s more to yer family’s story than riding the wind and loving the Pan.”
I roll my eyes at him, like he knows what he’s talking about. “And what’s that then?”
“They all left here broke,” he says, and he speaks the truth.
It is the truth, I know it. I can see it in everyone’s eyes; they just don’t want to talk about it. Some families pass on red hair, some families pass on a cancer gene. Mine—we’re generationally brokenhearted.
Jamison catches my eye and holds it to deliver this next part. “But, Bow, you d?nnae have to.”
Something akin to a small little hope, like a budded-up rose, begins to bloom in me. “Do you really think that?”
He nods. “I ken y’are fully capable of fucking the stars and forging a new path.”
“With you?” I ask softly.
He shrugs a shy shrug as he moves towards me, tugging me in again by the coat. “Would it be so bad?”
I think for a moment that maybe he’s going to kiss me, or at the very least, I’ll finally get that bloody hug from him, and then before I know it, I’m yanked backwards and away from him.
“Daphne!” Peter yells and hurls me behind him into some snow. He lands on his feet, positioning himself between Jem and me. “Get back! You stay away from her, you filthy pirate!”
Peter’s eyes are wild and afraid. I’ve not seen him afraid before—? This is new.
I jump back to my feet and run over. “Peter, stop!”
Peter shakes his head, eyes locked on his enemy. But me, I’m staring over at Jem, my eyes all wide, already filled with sorry’s that I don’t know why but I feel sure I’m about to owe him. And then I feel that stupid kite heart of mine blow all the way over into a tree, rattling around, twisting, and getting tangled on itself.
“Girl, stay there,” Peter signals me. “He’s not safe.”
“Peter.” I shake my head at him, impatient. “I’m fine!”
“He took you from me.” Peter shakes his head, and I shake mine back.
“No, he didn’t.”
Peter turns to face me. “But don’t worry. You’re safe now.”
Jamison’s jaw goes tight. “She wusnae unsafe before.”
I stare over at Jem, my eyes heavy but not as heavy as his.