Page 58 of The Last Lost Girl

Hindsight is a vivid, vicious beast that gorges itself with the regrets of those to whom he chooses to reveal himself.

“Is everyone aboard and accounted for?” Hudson rasps.

I look around at the faces I’ve only begun to learn and those I’ve spent slightly more time with. At Hudson and Smee, Paris, Kenya, Surat and Seoul, Rio, Milan, Kingston, and Juneau. Dublin stands near Kauai now, keeping a steady hand on his friend’s shoulder as it quakes. Even Sydney has emerged from below deck, although he still stands off to the side by himself.

Affirmations echo from all the men.

Smee clears his throat. “Most of the provisions have already been delivered. What hasn’t can wait,” he says.

There are crates, barrels, and bags of things piled on the deck that weren’t there when we left.

Hudson nods. “We leave for Evermist. Make ready.”

The sailors peel away from their fallen friend and do as their captain ordered, preparing to sail. I step closer to Cairo, not wanting him to be left alone.

In a fury of focused action, the anchor is raised, the ship’s mooring lines are loosed and then neatly coiled as they’re brought back aboard, and the ramp is brought in. When the ship is free, Hudson maneuvers the vessel out of the port and away from town, where the sails are let down. The wind fills them and drags us over the churning sea.

When we are cutting through the water, tasks finished for now and things have settled into a quiet sadness, Smee drifts over. “Thank you for staying at his side.”

I’m not sure what to say other than, “I’m sorry.”

He gives a nod of acknowledgement and clears his throat. “Evermist is a small island that isn’t too far from Neverland. It’s where we bury our dead.”

Their dead. How many have they lost since they escaped Peter Pan and Neverland?

In this intimate setting, I feel like I shouldn’t bear witness to their pain. Like Belle said a thousand times, I don’t belong here.

“Hudson said that you know his name now,” Smee says, rocking back on his heels with his hands stuffed in his pant pockets.

My voice is rusty when I answer. “I do.”

“I’m glad. It was hard trying not to say it.” He gives the ghost of a smile. “Mine isn’t exactly right, but I was young when I was brought to Neverland. I couldn’t spell well, and the mistake stuck.” He holds his arm out for me to see. “Smee rolls off the tongue easier than Kissimmee anyway, I guess.” He rubs at his shaven head before glancing back to make sure his captain is still at the quarter deck. “He told me the mermaid returned my hammer.”

I slide my eyes to him. What is he trying to ask?

“He said she had changed. That the salve worked on her.”

“She did. Smee, what corrupted them?”

He takes in a long, weary breath. “Pan. Though we don’t know how he did it.”

“It looks like a shadow has been lifted from her,” I tell him, trying not to say too much or too little. Especially since I intimately know what the darkness can do to a person.

“Did it?” For a moment, he seems miles away.

“Smee?” His unfocused eyes, pointed at his friend’s shrouded form, sharpen and lock on mine as his head turns. “What else has he corrupted?”

He bares his teeth for a moment. “The better question is, what hasn’t he?”

twenty-one

The ship is anchored as close to the shore of Evermist as possible. Like its namesake, fine tendrils of fog curl over the small, barren island. Hudson calls for his magical sunken skiff. He and Smee ferry Cairo’s body to the island first, then send it back to shuttle the rest of the crew and me onto the sand.

My previous unspoken question of how many they had lost since escaping Pan is soon answered. Four graves are marked with large pieces of driftwood on the small island that is no more than a glistening mound of pale sand covered in sparse grass and tangled vines.

Into the pale, naked wood, their names are carved: Madrid, Athens, Lisbon, and Jericho.

As Milan and Seoul take the first shift shoveling sand, the sun peeks above the yearning, pastel sky. Strings of thin clouds band the pale blue as the sun’s brilliant golden light bathes us in its warmth.

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