I think about Owen and how confused he was when I asked where his parents were, and I wonder if it’s possible to forget that completely. Could I really become like the boys on this ship, all thinking that Neverland—or whatever this strange world might be—is the only home I’ve ever known?
“I won’t forget Olivia again—I won’t forget any of it,” I say, determined. Even as I struggle to hold on to the wisps of memory I’ve managed to grab hold of.
“As you’ll soon learn, Gwendolyn, everything about this world inspires forgetting. If you survive long enough, Neverland will tempt you to abandon the life you knew before, to betray everything you believed you were.”
“Is that what happened to you?” I wonder.
But his expression goes stony, and he turns away, dismissing the question and me all at once.
“Wait! What about the girl—Olivia?”
He turns back. “What about her?”
“Can you help me find her?”
He shakes his head slightly. “I’m afraid not, lass. I won’t risk any more of my lads. We’re heading out to sea, beyond the range of more attacks.”
“But Fiona said—”
“The game has changed,” he says simply. “Pan has never risked such a brazen attack before. And if he has your friend, as Fiona believes, she’s already lost.” His words are so blunt, so absolute, I have no doubt they are final.
“Pan?” I ask, and I cannot stop myself from looking at what remains of the battle’s carnage. Dark spots still stain the decks. Boys still trickle blood from seeping wounds or peer out of swollen eyes. “But in the story—”
“I did try to warn you that you’re not in any bloody story,” he snaps. Then he takes me by the arm and steers me back away from the railing of the upper deck, back from the hungry eyes of the boys below.
I pull away from him. “You told me I’m in Neverland. You said there are fairies, and now you’re telling me Peter Pan attacked your ship. That sounds an awful lot like the story to me.”
His temper is a living thing, but he keeps ahold of its leash. “All of that may be true enough, but whatever you might know of Mr. Barrie’s tale, you’d best forget it, lass,” he says, his eyes as sharp as his voice. “In this world, the story belongs not to Mr. Barrie, but to Pan. The stories you may know have very little bearing on what happens here. Perhaps Mr. Barrie had some way of knowing of this land. Perhaps this world is where his stories came from. But whatever the case, the stories in your world are nothing compared to the truth of this one. Here, Pan uses the tale for his own purposes.”
“Like you haven’t.” I can’t help but think of the boys who bled and died for him today. I think of the boy he killed to save me. To keep me, I realize with a start.
He blinks at me, as though he didn’t expect that reply, but his expression goes flat, unreadable. “As you said yourself, Gwendolyn, I’m the villain.”
Before I can say anything else, the Captain is gone, his long strides taking him across the upper deck and down the steps toward the main mast of the ship. When I go to follow, my two guards pull me back.
“Bring the prisoners forward,” the Captain calls.
All around the deck, the boys shuffle, agitated, like something is about to begin. The Captain turns the frayed collar of his coat up against the wind and watches a few of the older boys lead the group of captives forward on the deck below. Each of the prisoners has his hands bound behind his back. Most of them are sporting blackened and swollen eyes or noses crusted with dried blood.
I can’t get over how young they look beneath their bruised faces. Or how terrified.
Not that I blame them. The Captain’s already severe face seems somehow even more fierce as he looks them over. Many of the swollen eyes follow him as he stalks across the deck, watching his every move, like dogs who have been kicked too many times by their master.
“I’ll give you the same choice I give any taken aboard my ship,” he says loudly enough for all on the ship to hear him. This, I understand implicitly, is a display meant for his crew as well as for the prisoners. “You can join us and pledge your loyalty, and I’ll swear on my life and honor to protect you as my own.” He pauses, eyeing them each and letting his words settle. “Or you can walk the plank.”
Walk the plank? He can’t possibly be serious.
But no one else seems to find what he’s saying funny.
“You, there.” The Captain points his blade at one of the older boys who’s making a point not to pay attention—a stocky guy who’s tall enough and broad enough to play linebacker. He’s the largest and cockiest of the captives, and he doesn’t seem to realize he should be hiding his disdain. The dark-skinned boy with the thick braids pushes the boy forward until he stands in the no-man’s-land in front of the line.
“What shall it be, mate?” the Captain asks. “Will you join us?”