And then—a flash of shimmering light and the shelf flies off me, flung across to the other side of the room.
A tattered little Rune climbs up my chest and gives me a tired smile.
I sigh, relieved.
She jangles, annoyed.
“He’s fighting the pirates.”
She jangles more.
“Jem and I? No. We’re not—we’re done. I don’t want to. Rune!” I yell, exasperated. “It’s not the time!”
She stomps her foot and flies herself around the mast, moving it vertical again, but as she does, the ship makes a horrible lurch, and I fall through the floor I’m sitting on.
And I expect to be winded the second I hit the ground beneath me, but I don’t hit ground. I hit water.
And then I’m sinking.
I see a dart of light shoot through the water as Rune tugs and heaves at the binds, but they don’t budge. I see flashes of light—her throwing all the magic she has at it—but they never get any looser, and I’m going down with the ship.
She keeps trying, and I don’t know how to tell her that there’s nothing she can do.
I’m swallowing a lot of water, and I can feel my body filling up in places you don’t want it to.
People say that drowning’s not so bad, but actually, I can’t say that I’d highly recommend it.
Then Rune shoots out of the water and away.
I don’t know where she’s going. Maybe she’s saving herself. She should. That doesn’t sound like her, but I hope it’s what she’s doing.
I can’t help but wonder if Peter’s forgotten about me. It feels like something he would do. Bedazzled by the potential victory in front of him rather than his drowning love in the water.
That’s something though, isn’t it? That he loved me? A feather in my hat. How many people can say that about Peter Pan? I might be the only one. The only person in the history of time who Peter Pan has loved, and I will pay the price for it as I lie here dying while he’s off fighting to save me.
At least someone loved me here, I tell myself, trying to distract myself from the pain.
At least Peter loved me, and at least I’ll be dead so I’ll never have to admit to him that he was right all along about Jamison.
This is going through my head as the ship and I hit sand.
We’ve sunk. Hit the seabed floor.
We’re not too far out from the shore, but I suppose that doesn’t matter. You can drown in a few centimetres of water, and I think we can all agree I’m in much more than that.
My ears and my eyes are stabbing from the pressure of the water, and the pain feels almost unbearable. The water has risen also now over the head of my hope that I’ve any chance of being saved.
Hope is a terrible thing, isn’t it? Poking its awful head out in the darkest places. I should be relieved when it’s snuffed out once and for all.
My brain starts to feel floaty and strange.
Strange that the island lives off it, don’t you think?
Maybe mine will leave my body and fill that well up a little bit higher.
Dying is so strange.
An awfully big adventure, that’s what Wendy used to say Peter said.
Maybe he thinks he’s doing me a favor.
Imagine.
I suppose he’s not necessarily wrong. It probably isn’t just eternal blackness and nothingness. There’s probably more. Maybe it will be better.
I’m feeling foggy. Woozy. I feel like I’m drifting away someplace.
They said all children grow up, except one.
But maybe it’s two now. This is it. I’m only eighteen.
Eighteen and I’m drowning. But then, I suppose I’ve been drowning ever since I arrived in Neverland. Literally, since the day I arrived, if you think about it.
But then also, in a worse way. I’d probably take water in my lungs over the feeling I felt when I heard Jem speak about me.
I hate him for that. I hate him more for still being the prevailing thought in my mind as I drift off here now.
His perfect nose, his bud pink lips, how they felt when they dragged over my skin. His accent that I could scarcely understand. How it felt to be held by him, even if it was all pretend, and I know it was. I suppose, at least, I was afforded the chance to love someone before I die.
And then, light.
I suppose this is it then.
Heading towards it and all.
You know the drill…
And that’s when I feel water rushing around me. Something rushing to the surface.
Me?
I’m rushing to the surface. Something’s dragging me there.
It must be Peter.
I’m looking for golden hair or the eyes of summertime.
But I feel confused, because I’m sure all I can see is a water planet.
I think we reach the surface, and I can feel my body shaking and convulsing as I vomit up water. I try to breathe, but I’m choking.
My lungs are aching like my heart is.
And then I black out.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
I jerk awake with a fright, swinging my arms at the person I feel near me.
“Yer okay. Yer fine,” says a voice I used to love, and my eyes spring open. He holds his hands out gently, trying to placate me. “Yer okay. A’m here.” Jamison shakes his head. “It’s just me.”
I sit up quickly, staring around the room. “What am I doing here?” I stare over at him.
“Ye passed out.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “Why did you bring me here?”
His face pulls. “Where else would I hae brought ye?”
I look down at myself, then realise I’m not wearing what I had on before. “Where are my clothes?” I ask the dress I’m wearing, not him.
“Ye were soaked through.” He shrugs. “I changed ye. I just—”
I swallow, glaring over at him. “You took my clothes off my unconscious body and—”
He scoffs, shaking his head. “Bow, I’ve seen ye wi’out clothes on before—”
“Yes, but that was before!” I yell.
“Before what?” He stares at me, and he looks—for whatever reason—genuinely confused.
And then his head drops.
He runs his tongue over his bottom lip and breathes out heavy.
“Ye heard us?” he says, his eyes not meeting mine.
I don’t say anything, just look at him like the traitor he is. My eyes give me away, going all glassy and stupid.
Jamison’s head tilts when he sees it, and he sighs. “He collects the abstract,” he tells me.
I nod once. “Figured that out myself.” I press my lips together. “How did you cut my binds? Rune couldn’t do it. How did y—”
“Blood magic,” he says, chin low. “We’re of the same line.” He swallows. “I can sever them.”
I look down at my wrists that are all cut up and rope-burned from my trying to get out of them myself.
Jem wipes the corner of his eye. He sniffs as he nods over to me. “Ye took off yer necklace.”
I give him a look. “Of course I took the necklace off.”
“Aye, but I told ye to keep it fucking on,” he yells now.
I jump to my feet. “Why would I keep it on?”
“’Acause it made everything ye are invisible t’ him!” he shouts. He breathes in and out a couple of times. He quiets himself. “It was spelled.”
I cross my arms again, chest heavy because I won’t let it cry. “If that’s true, when I took mine off, he should have seen that there’s nothing left of me anyway.”