Page 119 of Freeing Hook

Over the next few weeks,the pang of Astor’s rejection deepens into a steady ache. Like a wasp sting that’s become infected. The pain is no longer as sharp, but it infiltrates layers of skin, threatening to corrode everything around it.

I can’t decide what’s worse: that Astor doesn’t want me, orwhyhe doesn’t want me.

In a way, it was easier when I believed it was due entirely to his devotion to Iaso. Convinced as I am that this remains the primary reason, it’s not what I hear repeated in my mind as I lie awake in the night.

Because it’s less that he still loves her. What I heard is that I don’t measure up. That there was the potential for Astor to love me, but I’m simply not worthy of it.

His criticisms of me are valid. I think that’s what makes them so agonizing. There wasn’t a single claim he asserted to Maddox that night that hadn’t been true.

I am easily tossed, more easily swayed. In a world of captains, I am a rudder. Surrounded by those infused with the spirit of the wind, I am a sail, made for catching the wind, just not keeping it, the only sign that the wind and I ever brushed hands the fact that I’m no longer where I started. That I’ve been pushed along, stranded somewhere I can only hope is close to the shore. Trusting that the wind cared enough to deposit me within drifting distance of a safe harbor.

I was molded to be desirable. Told I’d never find my Mate, the only person guaranteed to want me, then forced to bend to the whims of greedy hands who always found me wanting.

Wanting. Never wanted.

The more I consider it, the more I recognize why Astor cannot love me.

He asked me once if someone wanted me to be Wendy Darling, could I be her?

But I don’t know who Wendy Darling is. All I know is who she is supposed to be to everyone around her.

I can’t bring myself to hate Astor for stating the truth. He hadn’t known I’d been listening, after all.

But I think I’ve been tricking myself into believing that somehow, Astor has been barreling through the facade of murky mirrors I’ve placed around myself. That with his harsh exterior, his constant insistence that I tell him what I want, that I speak my mind, he was picking through the not-Wendys. I suppose we both assumed that one day, he was going to find, underneath it all, me.

It hits me that he tried. Astor pulled out all the stops. Took a battering ram to the facade made of bricks I’d let others place.

But when the walls came down, there’d been nothing inside.

I think, if Captain Nolan Astor couldn’t manage to find the true Wendy Darling underneath the rubble, that perhaps she was never there. Or if she was, she died a long time ago. Perhaps with Iaso Astor.

It’s probably for the best that Astor discovered the truth before things progressed further between us. I think he’s right. That if he’d kissed me that night in the crow’s nest, I might not recover. I’d convinced myself that I liked the way Astor challenged me. That I need to be prodded to grow.

I thought Astor was the furnace to my iron, that with his intensity he’d fashion me into steel.

But I was a fool to ever believe I was iron in the first place. Must have been disappointing for him too, to believe he’d placed iron into the furnace, only to return to a melted puddle and realize that I was only ever made of tin.

Peter hadn’t seemed to mind that I was made of tin. Perhaps he liked that my substance made me malleable. That’s how Astor would see it.

Astor would find a way to be disgusted at Peter for seeing me for what I am, and liking what he sees. But I have grown weary of trying to fortify what was always intended to bend. I am Peter’s. I have been since Astor traded me away.

Why would I bother to fight what’s already been decided? That’s how I think most of the time. On days when I’m stronger, when the sunshine on the deck feels comforting rather than condemning, my thoughts turn outward. Toward my brothers.

They’ll never truly be safe in Neverland. Not as long as Peter is without his ability to feel pain. Not as long as he has no true reason to fight against the Sister’s wishes. As much as I want to believe that Peter would never hurt them, that hope seems akin to a child hoping a street dog won’t bite them as they poke it in the eye.

I can’t see a way forward for myself, but I can see one for my brothers.

I only have so much strength inside for myself. So much fight. But for John and Michael, I can push a few steps further.

Maybe that’s why,the night Maddox tells me we’ve almost reached the coast of Endor and that Astor and I will infiltrate the cave the following morning, I sneak out of my rooms, and lower a rowboat into the water.

CHAPTER 46

WENDY

The town of Endor is quieter than I anticipated, though I’m not sure what I was expecting from a town situated near a cave rumored to be a place where the dead can reach this world. Where their whispers can reach out and speak to the rest of us.

The village is simple. Thatch roofs on cottages only large enough to house small families, though it’s the type of place I expect most families have far more children than their walls should allow. Perhaps my perception is only the way it is because of my upbringing—me, John, and Michael with a manor to ourselves. Herb gardens sprout from wooden beds tucked into the windowsills. Altogether, it’s a simple, quaint place. Relatively peaceful.

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