Page 56 of The Last Lost Girl

The warm shimmer of a fin breaches the surface several yards into the open water. I jog back down the gangway onto the dock.

“Thank you!” I shout, hoping she can hear me under the waves.

She must, because a moment later, her wide eyes breach the surface. “Thank you,” I say again, holding up the hammer and then holding it to my chest. She rises further, until I see that the hole in her throat is gone. I wonder if the salve healed her voice and freeze, remembering Hook’s warning.

All the places on her body that were wan and hollow are now full and healthy. The fine scales covering her, once the murky color of the sea, now gleam in vivid shades of coral.

Her sharp teeth shine as staccato words flow like music from her lips. The sound is lovely… entrancing. She presses a hand to her chest, mirroring my gesture as my heavy legs carry me several steps closer.

I need to hear her better.

Need to see her.

Touch her.

So slowly it hurts, she sinks into the water.

I teeter and nearly lose my balance. When I look down, I notice the toes of my Chucks hanging off the dock’s edge.

“Ava?” I turn to see Hudson hurrying toward me and my hands tighten on the hammer’s handle. I don’t want to lose it again. “What are you holding?”

“Smee’s hammer,” I rasp.

Realization washes over his features. “She brought it back for you?”

I nod.

“Did she try to lure you in?” Alarm flashes in his eyes.

“No. I mean, her voice was achingly beautiful, but she wasn’t using it against me,” I explain clumsily. “She was talking to me – from a distance. She wasn’t going to hurt me.” I don’t mention the magnetic pull that brought me to the edge of the dock, because I truly don’t believe she meant for me to become enthralled. If she wanted me, there’s no doubt she would have had me.

He scans the water, but the mermaid does not resurface.

“She looked different,” I tell him. “Her throat was healed, and her scales were a beautiful coral color.”

Now that I know what she should look like, it is even clearer how different she looked attached to the ship. What robbed her of her true nature and beauty, turning her sweet song deadly and making her hunger insatiable?

Did Pan corrupt the merfolk so they would hunt those he couldn’t reach anymore? Did he strive to attack those who chose to chance the dangers of a life lived upon the sea rather than be at his mercy and live upon his shores?

A breath leaves Hook in a rush. “I thought they were beyond saving.”

Peering up at the Second Star, my thoughts go to Belle. “I’m glad you were wrong.”

twenty

We board the ship together and stop to lean against the railing, both caught up in the thoughts and possibilities the healed mermaid presents. It’s only been a day since Belle dragged me here, but I feel so alone. Maybe it’s because I know that in this place, like Cairo’s, my memory will soon begin to drift away like wood on the sea. I need to find Belle and at the same time, I’m worried what will happen when we do.

“Is Cairo okay?” I ask.

“He seemed it,” the captain replies, but his features are troubled.

“Are you worried he’ll forget again? You can go and wait for him or bring him back, if you need to. I’ll stay here.”

He stares at the dark water like he wonders if he should. “I think he’ll be fine,” he finally says. “It happens sometimes – the fear that comes with the forgetting. He just needed a reminder, and I gave him that.”

“Has that ever happened to you?”

He flicks a glance at me. “It’s happened to all of us at one point or another.”

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