Page 48 of The Last Lost Girl

His definition of integrity somewhat differs from mine.

“Now,” he says, his eyes dark and shimmering. “If you’re not too hungry, I’d like to take you to meet someone.”

“Who?”

He straightens. “Wendy Darling.”

That’s not what I expected him to say at all.

I nod. “I’d like to meet her.”

“Very well,” the pirate allows. “But a word of forewarning: Pan left his mark on her, and she doesn’t like it when people focus on it instead of her. She has very lovely eyes. Remember to study them instead of Pan’s cruelty. It gives him more power than he’ll ever deserve.”

As we veer away from the shops, I wonder what Pan did to Wendy.

eighteen

The way the hanging bridges dip and rise reminds me of the sea upon which they’re perched. We take countless walkways and stroll past homes that either brim with conversation and laughter or are dark and eerily still. As we work our way far from Hook’s ship, it’s almost impossible to believe this watery town can be so expansive.

Wendy lives in a modest home at the corner farthest from where we docked and entered the town. Inside her window, a wan flame gutters. Trembling yellow light climbs from her window’s ledge and slips into the night, spilling onto the planks nearest her door.

It opens before we get there, and a figure hovers just inside the door’s frame. Brown fingers curl around the wood as the person presses closer. I can’t make out any of her features or even her shape from here.

“It’s Hook,” the captain lets her know.

“I know who you are. Who is she?” Wendy asks. Her voice is slurred and garbled, like she might be drunk.

“A friend.”

Her fingers withdraw a pale cloth from her pocket, then she turns her back to us. A thick, dark braid hangs limply down her back. She drifts inside, leaving the door wide open.

It’s an invitation of sorts, but I get the feeling we are anything but welcome. Or at least, I’m not. Hook fills the frame with his broad shoulders and pauses for a second to watch Wendy. I can’t see around him, but at the taper of his waist, yellow light glows.

Chair legs rake across the floor. As Wendy takes her seat, the piece groans underneath her. “If I refuse her, will you leave her to wait on the walk?” she slurs.

“A refusal of one is a refusal of us both,” he answers in a soft tone.

“Come in, then. Both of you,” she relents. Wendy holds a handkerchief over her mouth like she’s afraid I’ll get her sick.

“She’s safe,” Hook insists. “You don’t have to hide.”

Wendy pauses for a long moment as she looks me over. Her eyes are beautiful. Like blue shards of ice that even the candlelight’s glow is powerless to warm.

The way she glowers, I know that Wendy doesn’t like me; she doesn’t want me in her space. But she wants Hook here.

I’m not sure why, or what his presence might signify to her neighbors. Perhaps it’s a sign that she’s under his protection, invoking the fear he is so passionate to instill and defend.

Hook pulls the only other chair out for me to sit in, then kneels beside me. Like this, we’re the same height.

“She’s new to Neverland,” Hook volunteers carefully.

“That’s impossible,” Wendy grouses.

“It’s not,” he adamantly tells her. But he doesn’t tell her how I came here, or about Belle, thanks to the Second Star.

In the table’s middle, there are two wooden cups and a glass bottle half-full of copper liquid. She keeps the handkerchief over her mouth even as she releases a shaky breath, takes the bottle in her free hand, and pours a little of the liquid into each cup. She scoots one toward us. She doesn’t sip from her glass, but clutches the cup so tightly against her chest, I worry the wood will splinter.

“Why did you bring her here?” she says.

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