Page 116 of Freeing Hook

“Funny,” Tink scoffs. “You didn’t mention how pivotal I was in this process. When you said you needed me, I thought you were being romantic. My mistake.”

A moment passes, then sounds of a struggle. I can’t help but inch closer, trying to get a look through the trees. My heart shouldn’t go out to protect her. Not when in some way she’s been colluding with Peter this entire time. Not when she probably made up the story about Captain Astor taking Wendy to throw me off the truth—whatever that may be.

Was Tink’s attack on Wendy part of a ruse too? One to give Wendy a reason to be patched up by Peter? To grow to trust him? But why would Tink push Wendy toward her lover? And why can’t I help but want to save her from whatever horror is about to befall her?

“Let go of me!” she screams, and it’s like her voice is clawing against my chest.

“Tink. Tink, just calm down. I promise it’ll be over soon.”

I hear her spit on him. “Don’t ever promise me anything again.”

The Sister laughs. “I wouldn’t waste my breath trying to repair your relationship, Peter. But don’t fret. You don’t have to lose her. I’ve crafted this island with a special place you can keep her if she gets to be too much of a problem.”

“Please, you have to understand,” Peter begs Tink, ignoring the Sister’s council. “I had to save them. The boys…”

“Were your initial motivation, yes,” says the Sister. “Despite my warnings that they are not the best place to place your affections. But Tink, may I tell you the truth? Between us girls?”

The Sister must lean in to whisper it in Tink’s ear, because I don’t hear what she says next.

After several moments, Tink’s ragged breaths devolve into sobs. “No, please. Please, Peter. You can’t. How could you?”

My heart breaks. I scramble through my pockets, trying to find anything to attack Peter with. But I’m human, and he’s fae, and he has a Fate behind him. There’s nothing I can do to fight against him. No strength I can muster. And just like with Wendy, there’s no amount of knowledge in the world that I can use in place of strength to protect her.

Yet again, I’ve failed someone I care for by not being strong enough.

But maybe I can distract them. Just long enough for Tink to get away.

It’s stupid and foolish and rather short-sighted, but I’m about to lunge from the brush, readying my lungs to yell.

I don’t get the chance. Because Tink screams, and it rattles me to my very core. It’s the scream of nightmares. The scream of shadows. The kind that haunts you in the middle of the night when you’ve locked yourself in your room, sure that no one can get to you.

Tink screams, and then the sound is cut off. There’s nothing but silence left behind.

I make myself look, dread convincing me that she’s dead, but when I peer around the corner, sure Peter and the Sister will see me, there’s nothing there.

Well, that’s not entirely true. There’s nothing of substance there.

Where I thought Tink, Peter, and the Sister were gathered congregate three shadows, and not like the one Peter takes in his shadow form. Wraiths, I realize. Shadows that have taken on the pain of their environment, soaked it up and come alive. Telling a story of pain that lanced the past with such precision, it can still be seen, heard in the present.

That’s what Wendy and Simon had been seeing.

Wraiths.

When Wendy had visited the storehouse to try to steal faerie dust to get us out of Neverland that first time, she’d almost collapsed after hearing the shadows screaming.

After hearing a woman screaming.

She’d been hearing Tink.

The wraith in the shape of Tink is on the ground, clutching her own throat, convulsing soundlessly.

“They took your voice,” I say, my own croaking. “To bind Neverland.” My mind whirls, searching for an explanation for how this could possibly work, but my parents’ library never contained as much information as I would have liked on magic. It was mostly science, and what wasn’t science was mostly human speculation. We didn’t have many texts written by the fae.

I don’t understand the process behind it, why Tink’s voice is special to them. All I know is that they took it. And that makes me want to scream.

Her wraith weeps silently, knees in the dirt. When Peter kneels to stroke her face, to comfort her, she swats him away. I don’t have to see the missing color in her eyes to know the blaze in them, the accusation in the stare she offers her lover.

“He lured her here and took her voice,” I whisper again, startled by my own realization.

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