Page 103 of The Last Lost Girl

I feel a pull toward the two of them that I can’t explain.

Whether it’s me or Pan, I can’t tell, but I can’t just sit here.

When Belle cries out in pain, I rush across the deck.

Smee tries to intercept me. “Ava, I don’t think you should –”

I glower at him and whatever he sees makes him suck in a sharp breath and back away, giving me a wide berth to stomp toward Hook’s cabin.

The shadows Belle carries claw toward those that live beneath my skin before my hands even touch the door handles and turn.

The second I see her and see them, I feel each one she carries. At home, I saw them as one entity. Now that Pan has marked me, I can see every shadow. Their shape. How opaque or translucent they look. I imagine they have different textures, too.

I am vaguely aware of someone saying my name, but I continue to trail slowly toward the shadows flaring around my sister. Some are smooth like velvet. Some are rough like stone. Some are grainy like sand. Every shadow has its own timbre; a low tone, high pitch, or some melancholy vibration in between. The weight of each differs, too. Some heft many memories, while some house only a few from the bearer’s core.

Wind enters Hudson’s room with me. It surges against the back of my knees, stirs the down feathers into mini cyclones, drags papers across the floor, and combs the strands of my hair.

Hudson’s hand is on Belle’s shoulder. He begs her to try again, and she does. She squeezes her eyes closed and her chest heaves. Her eyes bleed black, then seep back to gold. A sheen of sweat beads on her forehead, her upper lip, and her chest as she tries again and again to locate and bring forward the one shadow she seeks and can’t find.

“I can help,” I rasp as I walk into the room.

Smee trails behind me. “Captain,” he says with a hint of warning in his tone. The first mate shakes his head, telling Hudson he shouldn’t allow it.

I narrow my eyes at him over my shoulder. “I would never hurt either of them.”

Smee holds up his hands. “You don’t seem like yourself is all, Ava. I mean you no offense. I just think that with you being ill and the siren’s attack, plus the stress of all you’ve absorbed today, it might be wise to rest.”

“I’m done resting. Done forgetting.”

“Ava,” Hudson says from across the room. He stares at me like I’m a ghost. Or a monster.

No, he’s staring at me like I’m a threat.

I don’t see anything different about me in the warped panes of glass. I twist to look over my shoulder at the shadowy vines, but I don’t need to turn my head at all. From where they’ve creeped onto my chest, I can make out the faint veins of each leaf. They tremble in the breeze still slipping through the open doors.

“I can do it, Belle.”

She shakes her head. “How?”

“I can sense each one. I don’t know how or why, but I can… I can tell each shadow apart. Maybe I can move them, too.”

Hudson curses. “Pan’s mark.”

Belle slowly shakes her head, watching me like I’m a dangerous spider crawling along the wall.

I can already tell they don’t trust me anymore because of Pan and the shadow he gifted me.

“It’s not that we don’t trust you, Ava,” Belle begins. “We just can’t let Pan manipulate –”

“Why not?” I shout. “Why should anyone trust me less than they do you? You are the reason he was able to leave Neverland and kidnap them! You stole their shadows and left before giving them back to everyone you knew would be trapped here!”

Belle looks stricken for a brief moment, but then my sister’s temper flares. Her face turns red and she balls her fists at her side. “I took them from Pan!” she shouts, her wings buzzing and pushing her closer. “Not the people he ripped them from.”

“Then why didn’t you return them before you left?”

Hudson steps between us. “Because I asked her not to.”

I stare at him, mouth agape. “What? Why would you do that?”

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