Page 3 of Veiled in Stars and Silver
The place was in shambles. Her brothers' sheets were torn and ripped. Feathers lay on the floor from the lacerated pillows, the bedding strewn over toy swords and spears and little painted soldiers. An icy breeze blew across Wendy’s neck, causing her to turn toward the window.
It was shattered to pieces, small slivers of glass glittered in the carpet. Wendy picked her way, needing to make it to the opening, ignoring the shards that embedded into her feet and left bloody footprints. She gazed out the window into the night, wishing against hope she saw some sign of her brothers. That this was some sort of trick. Some sick game thought up by Peter. How she wanted that to be the case so badly.
The frigid air whipped her hair about her face. She wrapped her arms around her middle and tried to stop the sobs that rose in her throat. They drove her to her knees among the wickedly sharp shattered glass, slicing into her shins. She stared out into the night,one name on her lips, ripping out of her in an uncontrolled cry, like a bestial howl.
“Hook!”
Chapter 1
Wendy
(Seven Years Later)
I made my way through the bustling marketplace of downtown London. The streets were filled with stores and open-air stands, selling everything from watercress and home remedies to exotic spices and fine fashionwear. Hawkers and peddlers moved about the street, and despite the lateness of the evening, a paperboy stood on the corner shouting the latest news of the day. Everyone was hoping to make their last sale before they closed up shop.
I pulled my cloak close, trying to fade into the shadows, and hurried along. Twilight colored the city streets an unusual orange-ish color, and a chill bit the air, announcing the onset of winter. It wasn't particularly late. But even at the age of twenty, it was odd for a woman of my station to move about this time of day, unaccompanied.
And if my uncle were to find out... I frowned. My uncle couldn't find out.
I slipped down a much less busy, narrow side street. Here the stores and stands showcased ever stranger oddities. Instead of themore traditional medicines based in morphine, mercury, or arsenic, the products hawked on this street included remedies from a time long forgotten. Powders from ground-up body parts, potions and cures made from animal dung to solve, as one sign put it, “weak hearts, weak blood, and weak nerves.” There were also various tonics for women's monthly pains and other female complaints.
The people who moved up and down the stands were of a more shady character, with raised hoods and dark looks cast to any person who drew too near. I fingered the skull-handled dagger belted to my waist. A habit of reassurance. If I ever needed a weapon, I preferred to use the throwing knives I'd sewn inside my cloak. When I first came here six years ago, young and untrained, I'd nearly fainted. But this street held the least of the questionable characters that I would engage with tonight.
Seven years I'd been trapped here in London, in this land of non-magic, while my brothers were stuck in Neverland at the mercy of James Hook.
My hands balled into fists.
Halfway down, I paused in front of a large open tent, with a shawled figure selling remedies of a more sensual nature. They no longer elicited a blush when I saw them.
The bent woman with weathered skin and wrinkly hands stared up at me. “Can I help you?”
I took a breath and forced my fists to relax. “I seek for that which the soul yearns,” I recited the passphrase.
The woman peered up and down the alley. Nobody else lingered near the booth. She motioned for me to follow.
“You must give payment.” She lifted a pin and pricked my finger, drawing a spot of red. The old woman pressed a vial against the welling blood. I watched, trying not to think about how she might use mypayment.
When she was done, the old, shawled figure put away the vial in a small box. I trailed her hunched body to the back of the tent. A smile crossed the gnarled old face as she split the fabric of the hidden rear flap. “Hope you find what you are looking for, young lady.”
“Thank you.” I slipped between the folds of fabric, pushing through it until it opened. Behind the inconspicuous front of a remedy stand was another long, narrow alley butting up against a line of old, dilapidated buildings. Rotted wooden stands dotted both sides of the potholed alleyway. Here, the world took on an even darker hue.
There were spells to curse your neighbor with unrecoverable illness. Potions to poison a lover or enemy. Staffs and cauldrons filled with magic. Powders and dusts that could wreak havoc from making one disappear to melting the skin from one's bones.
Most, if not all, were rubbish.
Except for the dagger in my belt. I again ran a finger over its jeweled hilt, two rubies set in the face of a skull. A year ago, I'd come across a man who claimed that the dagger could detect real magic. I'd seen it work only once, when it detected a talisman that made one appear younger. It had been demonstrated on the woman at the sexual remedy tent and had done wonders. Too bad the woman couldn't afford the talisman. Still, the blade hadglowed a brilliant blue, identifying its magic. When I beheld its effectiveness, I had used all my money to purchase the dagger.
I moved past a stand that promised potions that could enact ill will on others. The young lady at the booth shivered in the cold, pulling a thin shawl around thinner shoulders. A reed about to snap. She had that ghostly look on her face. That look that always broke me, despite the knowledge that her merchandise was useless. The haunted, starving desperation that told me this woman was on her last leg.
“I wish to buy a potion,” I said.
“What would you like, miss?” A wan smile stretched across her narrow face. “I carry everything from potions to get yourself a lover, to potions that curse your worst enemy.”
The dark image of the man who had haunted my nightmares for the past seven years crawled into my mind. “I'll take the curse.”
“Ah, good choice, miss. All you have to do is drink it, think of your enemy, and mutter the curse you wish.”
I placed two sovereigns into her hands. “Keep the change.”
