Page 87 of Freeing Hook

My heart pounds against my chest.

“Would you tell me? Please?”

Tink cocks her head and traces the tile that says please with her finger. A soft, sad smile tugs at her lips.

“What?” I ask.

She shrugs. “JOHN SAY PLEASE.” She frowns, blinking tears away. “JOHN ASK.”

Something swells in my throat. I swallow it away. I want to prod her forward, but something in my instincts tells me it’s better to wait.

Eventually, she points to the “PIRATE” tile, the one I made so she’d have the vocabulary to talk about what happened to Wendy, if that really was the case.

“Peter was telling the truth, then.”

Tink flicks her eyes up to me. There’s something in them that I get the sense can’t be expressed with the tiles.

“WHAT PETER SAY.”

This is the first time I’ve realized I haven’t actually told her.

“He says Captain Astor, the pirate who killed my parents, tracked her down to the island and kidnapped her.”

Tink nods, looking…pensive, I regret to admit…then scans the tiles. “PETER NO SAY ALL.”

“He lied?”

Tink just shrugs, as if I’m asking a philosophical question.

“He at least omitted part of the story, then?”

Tink nods, a bit too eagerly.

“What did he omit?”

Tink stares at the tiles for a long while. After what feels like several minutes pass, she sighs. I watch her, the thoughts racing behind her vibrant blue eyes as she scans the tiles. It kills me not knowing what’s happening inside her mind. That my access to her thoughts is reduced to a set of wooden tiles and slight gestures, subtle changes in her facial expression.

If it tempts me to scream in frustration, I can’t fathom what it’s doing to her. How starved of communication she must be to feel so excited about having a few dozen words to use. When the rest of us have thousands.

Tink crinkles her forehead, rubbing at her temples. When she doesn’t find what she’s looking for in the combination of words, she wilts. But a moment later, the despair is gone, and her back is straight again, fortified with a determination I can’t grasp.

She takes one of the blank tiles and sketches a box wrapped in a bow. “Reminds me of a Solstice gift,” I say, then add, “Do you celebrate Solstice where you’re from?”

She gives me a look that makes it clear that what I’m saying is irrelevant, so I go to scribble the word on the tile. “Gift?” I ask to make sure.

She shakes her head.

I think for a moment. “Give?”

“YES.”

When I’m done, she snatches the tile away, her hand grazing mine as she does. Were we not discussing the fate of my sister, I might linger longer on the way her skin brushed against mine.

Tink takes a handful of tiles, then arranges them on the floor of the cave. When she takes her hands away, the words imprint themselves in my mind.

“PETER GIVE PIRATE WENDY.”

CHAPTER 34

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