Page 115 of Losing Wendy
I’m the last to arrive at the reaping tree, which I suppose Michael chose as his clock tower substitute. Peter’s got him in his lap as together they perch on a coiling branch high above us. Smalls races around the base of the tree, wound up by the competition. John is at the base of the tree, hands on his knees, heaving. I assume a similar posture, my heart pounding with exertion.
Peter thuds next to me, setting a humming Michael on the ground next to him.
Breathing becomes easier when Michael waltzes up to me, grabbing my hands and spinning us in circles, singing “First one is dead meat,” cheerfully.
I take that to mean that he won.
“You’re shaking tonight.More than usual. You were last night, too.”
“I’m surprised you care enough to bring it up,” I tell the captain, mostly because I’d prefer to avoid discussing the fact that my body is not handling my daily dose of faerie dust well. Not after the quantity I took the day of Joel’s murder. I’ve been jittery ever since racing after Michael today.
“I care inasmuch as it causes you to slosh stew all over my beard. Bits of meat don’t simply evaporate, you know, especially in a humid climate like this one. Unless you’d like to help groom it, ofcourse.” Captain Astor’s eyes glitter as he says it, and I turn away, not wishing to think about my hands on his face. Not wishing to think about how his prickly stubble has grown out into a short black beard that complements his jawline perfectly.
I’ve been liberal with my rushweed doses lately, meaning I still have to spoon-feed the captain like I’m his nurse. I’d like to think he’s humiliated by the experience, but as with everything else, he seems to consider it an opportunity open for exploitation.
My mind is still on Joel. On what John said about the possibility of it being one of the Lost Boys who killed him. Of the possibility that it’s Tink stalking me, and picking off the Lost Boys instead.
Or that it’s someone else entirely.
Someone on this island we’ve yet to meet.
Peter’s been on the lookout for Tink. He agreed with John that she’s the most likely suspect, but Peter has made it clear he will never believe it’s one of the Lost Boys who killed their own.
“Wendy Darling, you’re off in your own little world again.”
I blink, and when my gaze focuses back on the captain’s, I find his expression to be curious rather than cruel. “Where do you go,” he asks, “when you’re not here with me?”
My heart snags on those last two words. The foot of a rabbit, only just too slow to escape a snare. The loose thread of a sweater on a nail someone forgot to hammer all the way into the wooden boards of the countertop.
With me.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s not somewhere you’d like to follow, I’m sure,” I say. “It’s rather dark,” I add, hastily.
“Being in a dark place with you?” the captain muses. “You’re right, I can’t think why I might enjoy that.”
My tongue might have loosened around the captain in the time I’ve spent trying to pluck information out of him about my parents, but becoming used to his brazen demeanor has done nothing to keep my cheeks from heating in his presence.
This time, his smirk as he catches my embarrassment incites me rather than silences me. “I can think of a reason,” I say brightly.
He cocks his head, though it’s a rather sloppy movement given his lack of muscular control at the moment.
“Because you couldn’t possibly be interested in a—what was it?—Oh yes, ‘a spoiled heiress who looks as if she’s hardly been weaned.’”
The captain curdles his lips in concession. “Can’t argue with that. I appreciate you for reminding me though. All these days with you being the only woman in sight must have gone to my head.”
I shouldn’t pocket the fact that he’s stopped calling me a girl and started calling me a woman.
I shouldn’t, but I do.
“Girl, remember?” I say. “Or was it child?”
“Is that not what I said?”
I bite my lip, fighting the urge to remind him that I’m twenty, well into womanhood by human standards. I figure reminding someone that I’m not a child will only make me sound more like one.
Besides, I’m not sure what I’m hoping to gain by convincing him.
We spend the next few minutes in silence as I pack up the utensils. Without the captain’s conversation to drown it out, the spoon rattles against the bowl as I maneuver both into my satchel.