Page 62 of The Last Lost Girl

I grabbed a pillow to hug and waited… Her eyes shifted like they did when she had something to say but didn’t know how to say it.

“He said he loves you.” Belle waited for me to answer her.

“Of course he does. He’s my friend.” My only friend besides you, I didn’t add.

She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “He won’t fall in love with you, though,” she said, as if it was an impossibility.

Looking back now, I wonder if she used her powers of persuasion to dissuade any such feelings from ever blooming between us. Not that I wanted that kind of relationship with him. I didn’t tell her about our tepid, terrible kiss. Then again, maybe she had intercepted previous calls I didn’t know about and caused it to be lackluster.

I wasn’t sure how far her power of suggestion reached – whether it was tied to her voice or her proximity to the one she targeted. And I didn’t ask, because I knew well enough that she would give me an evasive non-answer and the whole evening would be ruined. She’d lock herself in her room and I’d be alone.

I remember the darkened corner where I found her cowering the night she brought us here.

Looking at the map’s features and knowing the paper didn’t properly convey the dangers and topography I was about to face, I hold my hair back with one hand and blow out a long breath. “Belle is not afraid of being alone, but she wouldn’t hide or shrink away. She’d spy and watch and learn.”

That’s definitely what Belle would do. She never stole unless she knew without a doubt she wouldn’t get caught. The problem is that unless something has changed since she left me on the shore and took off into the jungle, Belle isn’t Belle. If Pan rules the shadows she bears, they might draw her to him like they brought her to Neverland against her logic and will.

Hudson is quiet as he studies the map.

I glance at him. “You’ve noted a lot of things on the map, but do you remember Neverland and all its dangers?”

His head swings toward me. “We go ashore as often as we go to town – so we don’t forget.” He pauses to study his notes. “Not that Pan won’t have set traps we haven’t found and noted yet.”

Comforting.

“Does Belle like water?” he asks.

I shrug. “She likes the beach at night.”

“So dark places wouldn’t scare her.” He seems to focus on a mountain, a cliff – no, a cave within the rock.

“No. She wouldn’t be afraid,” I answer. I bet she’d be more comfortable in the dark and her shadows would, too.

He reaches into his pocket and withdraws a small golden pocket watch, no larger than a fifty-cent piece. It sags from a length of sturdy golden chain. He flips open the case, skims the face, then snaps it shut again. “It’s charmed so that Pan can’t detect you when you go ashore.”

Another valuable weapon in their arsenal. I’d bet the Second Star that Belle was the one who ‘charmed’ it. And the skiff. And the salve.

“May I?”

He hooks the chain and stretches one side out, then slips it on when I duck my head.

There is an engraving on the case. I turn it over to see it better. Carved into the watch’s case is a ship that sails through the sky, close to the Second Star. Clouds are beveled into the surface, as is the face of a cratered moon. Written on banners that curve up and over the image are the words: sans toi, je suis perdu.

It’s French, but I don’t understand the phrase.

“What does it mean?”

Hudson stares at me. “The words aren’t important. The watch is charmed. As long as you wear it, Pan won’t be able to sense you while you’re on the island.”

The gold is smooth and metallic, but there is a glittering sheen to it that reminds me of the golden salve that saved my ankle, and of my sister’s eyes. I flip open the case and hold it to my ear. Its steady ticking rhythm is soothing, but when I lower the time piece, my lips peel apart. “It ticks backward?”

Is it supposed to do that? It’s almost like it’s counting down, but to what?

“What do you mean?” he asks, his brows meeting.

I hold it out so he can see.

His breathing pauses. He reaches for the watch and pulls me closer as he inspects it. His irises flinch with every backward tick of the second hand. “This makes no sense,” he says.

---