Page 61 of The Last Lost Girl

twenty-three

Neverland, in morning’s soft light, looks like any other island. Swaying palm fronds wave a false, friendly greeting. The sand sparkles in the sunlight as brilliantly as the facets of the sea surrounding it. Water that at first glance doesn’t appear to harbor crocodiles.

I lean over the rail to watch the water slapping at the ship’s hull.

“Ava,” Hudson says from the doorway of his quarters, startling me. He waits while I make my way over to him.

I follow him inside and blink at the sight of his normally tidy room left in shreds. The bookshelf’s glass doors are shattered and half-torn from their hinges. Pages of books litter the floors, their bindings broken as they lay prone. There are divots driven into the top of his desk, and the sheets and blanket have been torn off the bed. His down pillow is eviscerated; candles and their iron holders spill dried wax down the sides of the desk and onto the floor.

A loose candle rolls across the floor as I walk by. I step over it before the ship rocks and sends it rolling back.

Scattered, delicate feathers pirouette as we disturb the air in passing.

His arms are crossed and he swivels when I enter, looking at me strangely. “You’re looking at the room like you’ve never seen it before.”

“I haven’t seen it like this.”

“You did last night. You slept here.”

My brows kiss. “I…” I remember how they buried Cairo, then we returned to the ship and Smee said we would anchor near Neverland’s western edge and rest for the night. But I don’t remember anything else until a few moments ago when I was gazing at the shore and the water rocking the ship.

“It looks different in the light,” I try to shrug off his concern.

He doesn’t buy it. But he also doesn’t push.

“Did you write anything down in the journal I gave you last night?”

Journal?

He points to the banquette where a small, red leather book sits.

My lips part. My fingers flex like they need to know if I recorded anything important in the pages. How did I forget what happened last night? How did I forget my journal?

“Come here,” he says. It’s not a request.

The map displayed behind his desk is among the few things left unmarred, and that is where Hudson leads me. I don’t tell him I’ve studied it, or that I have a picture of it stored in my phone. Whether he would consider it a betrayal or a careful move by a girl who merely wants to find her sister, help her distribute the shadows, and get the hell out of here… I’m not sure.

Belle brought me here when I had no shadow. I believe she’ll find a way for me to leave.

I believe in my sister.

My eyes flick to the journal again.

Hook scrubs his hand over his mouth and points to the map in an area seemingly far from Pan’s jungle refuge. “You know Tinkerbell better than anyone,” he says in a low, gravelly voice, the words as tense as his shoulders. “Would Belle seclude herself or seek the source of her power?”

It’s hard to say now that she’s Overshadowed. Her life changed dramatically when she took them on. But Belle lived her life secluded. An island of a girl.

She used to go to the library, the bookstores in town, to get take-out… but Belle had no friends and rarely spoke to anyone but me.

She answered my phone a few weeks ago when Devin called when I was in the shower. She was laughing with him when I got out and heard his voice. I didn’t know she had him on speaker. I completely panicked, assuming he’d made an impromptu visit. Horrified, I hurriedly dried my skin and threw on clothes, racking my brain for how to explain the strange décor in our apartment, or how I could explain her peculiarities.

The relief was instant when I saw her on the couch holding my phone in the air with a smile on her lips. But she hung up on him abruptly and looked guilty when I walked over to sit beside her. She cleared her throat and handed the phone to me. “He wanted to make sure you were okay after what happened with the little boy.”

During my lifeguard shift, I saw the boy struggling in the water. Saw him go under. Dove in and pulled him up. He coughed and sputtered, but otherwise seemed to be okay. While his parents were grateful and the boy was fine, my hands were still shaking when Devin and I left the Aquatic Center hours after the incident.

“That was nice of him,” I said. “You didn’t have to end the call.”

“Yes, I did,” she insisted.

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