Page 56 of Caging Darling

“You think the Lost Boys know how to get off this island?” I ask.

Tink shrugs, like it’s worth a shot. We’re meeting in a cave deep in the forest. There are stalagmites that grow up from the floor and reach the ceiling, forming a cage on the far side of the cave.

The cage is too perfect to have happened naturally. Then again, the Sister did weave this realm into existence. And she knew just who she’d need to trap here.

“I feel like if Victor knew, he’d have left by now,” I say. “But the others—they’re still devoted to Peter. If they knew, I don’t think they’d leave. I don’t know how they’d know though, except wandering around, which you’ve done plenty of, and you haven’t found a way.”

Tink shakes her head. “NO. NOT FIND EASY.”

“At this point, does it have to be easy?” I ask.

Tink shrugs again, conceding the point.

“I still don’t understand why you can’t produce faerie dust for us to fly away.”

Tink flits her hand, waving me off. She’s attempted to explain this countless times, but her current tiles aren’t adequate to describe it. We’ve tried guessing games, making more tiles for her, but so far all we’ve accomplished is the two of us becoming cranky.

Michael makes train noises on the other side of the cave, pushing the wooden toy back and forth across the ground. I glance across my shoulder and smile at him.

“He never used to do that,” I say. “It was all lining them up and sorting them by size, which he still loves to do, by the way. But he never used to play like that.”

We sit in silence for a moment, me pondering the irony of watching my brother progress in a place like Neverland, when the same realm has taken everything from me and John.

“JOHN LOVE MICHAEL,” Tink says, watching my brother closely.

“Yeah,” I say, a faint smile playing on my lips. If I let myself get sleepy enough, I could imagine John crouching beside Michael, telling him about how the faerie dust powers the engine.

Tink presses tiles into my hand. When I uncurl my fist, I find, “JOHN LOVE WENDY TOO.”

Tears spring up in my eyes, but I blink them closed. I haven’t seen John’s wraith since that first night. I’m not even sure if I would want to. It was one thing, communing with Astor’s wraith. Astor, who’s still alive out there somewhere.

It’s another trying to talk to my dead brother.

“Do you talk to him?” I ask. “His wraith, I mean?”

Tink shakes her head. “NOT JOHN.”

I swallow, because I understand. “You loved John, too, didn’t you?”

Tink squirms, but she doesn’t go for the tiles. Instead, she reaches for a leather-bound notebook. When she opens it, she flips through an assortment of pages. Some contain script, characters I don’t recognize from a language that’s foreign to me. Others include sketches, drawn by a careful hand, too delicate to smudge the ink. When she finds the correct page, Tink folds the journal back around itself, then hands it to me.

It’s a sketch of John, but not. He’s older, his jaw chiseled by age, and he’s standing in a lab, tinkering with metal cogs and wheels. As much as he loved research, he loved tinkering even more. The thought has me thinking of Charlie, how well they would have gotten along.

But then I remember Charlie hasn’t come for me either, and the memory of my friend turns sour. Though, that’s probably not fair. She’d heard from my lips that I was going with Peter. The last choice I was free to make.

“That’s always what he wanted to do the most in the world,” I say, handing the journal back to her. “I guess he talked to you about it.”

Tink nods, then strokes the paper, right at John’s forehead. I wonder if there are more sketches in that notebook she’s not showing me. Futures involving her.

“Did you know?” I ask. “That Peter killed him?”

Tink shakes her head. “BUT THINK.”

I nod pensively. “I don’t understand how it didn’t occur to me before. John even left me a clue. Peter’s name on a tile in his pocket.”

Tink wrinkles her brow. “NOT GOOD.”

I laugh. “Not a good clue?”

---