Page 34 of The First Lost Boy (The Shadows of Neverland Duet #2)

Hudson

One week later…

I gave her my journals last night. All of them. And she’s been reading ever since, shooting furtive glances at times, grinning at others, and even crying occasionally. She’s been pacing, sitting with her back against tall palms, biting her nails.

And she’s been thinking. I can see her trying to process it all.

I worry that she’ll think I made it all up. That she won’t believe any of this in the end. Some days it’s hard to believe myself, but at the end of the day, though I’m a great many things, I am not a liar.

Two weeks later…

She’s finished all the journals. She’s asked me questions, some of which I can’t answer because like her, I can’t recall.

She’s rereading parts of them. Talking to Belle. Asking her difficult questions. Surprisingly, Belle doesn’t balk. She answers every last one.

Her sister takes us both to what everyone has started calling the Never Tree. The broad trunk is scarred with our true names, even if some are damaged. Those are hard to look at.

Ava cries when she gets to the part in the journals that explains why we cut names into our skin, and again when she learns about Wraith and how he came to hate her. She doesn’t remember any of it. I know that because neither do I. But something inside recognizes the truth even if it seems impossible, and Ava’s digested a lot of truth lately.

She and I walk the beach. We take our meals together. I introduce her to the others who’ve found their way back. Kingston, Smee, Sydney, and surprisingly, Milan.

Together, we learn the island and the water surrounding it, the beauty and dangers. We avoid dangerous plants that Allette warned us to watch out for, have a harrowing run-in with a Neverbird, skirt around sunning crocs during some of our shoreline walks, but we don’t see a single siren despite spending time at the seashell laden Cove. We even explore a cave system we might have missed if Smee hadn’t found its entrance beneath a curtain of draping, leafy vines.

Belle’s family and our friends help us build a hut of our own and when it’s finished and our muscles are sore and Ava’s skin lightly burned from too many hours in the sun, we settle into it.

We fill it with laughter and flirtation, and she holds onto my hand and drapes her legs over mine when we’re relaxing at night. She cuddles into my side when we watch the stars. And we hold each other when we sleep.

Belle says I’m different than I was before, and for the most part, I think she approves of me and her sister growing closer. But once in a while, she scowls at me and I can’t help but laugh.

AVA

Hudson and his former crew are working to clean and make some repairs to the ship they called home all these years. I offered to help but then rescinded when Belle said she needed some sister time.

We work in her hut for the better part of an hour in companionable silence before I ask if I can visit Nyin. Surprised, she drops the hammer she was using to fix a chair, grabs my hand, and drags me outside. We walk along a path that leads to The Cove, carefully avoiding the little briars that curl into the sandy trail.

“Almost there!” Belle chirps. “Do you want to call her?”

“How?” The path spills us onto my favorite shore. No mermaids perch on the skull-shaped rock despite the hot midday sun.

“I’ll show you,” she answers. Belle jogs ahead into the shells and picks up a huge conch shell, then breaks the top off on a nearby rock. “Blow into it.”

I take the heavy shell from her and try not to smile at how bad this is likely to sound. It takes a few tries to get more than a sputter out of it, but then a long, rich note pours out.

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve spent time asking Belle questions based on the things I read in Hudson’s journals. She’s been so patient, explaining stories I can’t quite grasp from her perspective.

“Are you still okay staying with Hudson?” she asks out of nowhere.

“Yeah. Why do you ask?”

She shrugs. “Just making sure.” She glances at me and smiles. “I hated it when I realized there was a spark between you. I threatened him and told him to stay away from you. Of course, the stubborn pirate refused.” She turns to fully face me with a hand on her hip. “Do you know he actually told me to mind my own business?”

Belle rolls her eyes.

That part, I knew. I read about it in his journals.

A lot of things in those pages are still hard for me to wrap my head around. Like the fact that the kids taken to Neverland aged slower here. Hudson was the first Lost Boy brought to these shores, and he arrived carrying the only gift he received for Christmas in his pocket – the only thing he’d asked Santa Claus to bring him – a 1914 Babe Ruth rookie card.

I felt sick when I told him that somehow, I was in possession of that card when I made it back to the mainland after this ordeal, and that it had been auctioned. I had no way to get it back and return it to him.

He just continued combing my hair and told me the card, the money, however it came to me… none of it mattered anymore.

“I guess that means I’m in one of those fantasy paranormal age gap romances you like to cringe at!” I laugh, knocking her elbow with mine.

Belle groans. “Don’t remind me of that, please.”

“Do you still hate him?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t hate him. I never have. I just pictured you with a hot, blond trust fund baby with khaki shorts and a half-unbuttoned dress shirt with sensible boat shoes.”

I quirk a brow. “That is oddly specific, Belle.”

She swats me. “I didn’t picture you with Hook, that’s all. He’s not a terrible person, but he did some terrible things here to survive.”

“So did I,” I tell her, looking pointedly at her. I was the one who sawed off Hudson’s hand.

She blows out a long breath. “We all have. I’m just thankful it’s over.”

The waves ripple before a mermaid with varying shades of coral scales from face to tail cruises into the shallows and crawls onto the shore.

“Nyin?” I breathe. When she begins to talk, I can’t understand her, so I look to Belle for help.

“She wants to know if you remember her.”

I crouch down so that Nyin and I are face to face. “My mind doesn’t. But something in here does.” I press a palm against my chest.

She mimics the motion and says something to Belle.

“She’s glad you’re home.”

Tears well in my eyes and my throat tightens at the word. “Me too.”

She leans onto her side and opens one of her arms, and I throw my arms around her and squeeze her tightly, thanking her for what she did for me. What she did for us all.

She speaks again and Belle translates. “She wants to know if I told you everything. I did, Nyin. And she’s read the journals Hudson kept while stranded here.”

The mermaid snaps her teeth at the sound of his name. She chatters something low under her breath.

“I love him,” I tell them both. The pixie and mermaid still, then stare at one another before returning their startled gazes back to me. “I know you don’t like him. And I know it sounds insane because I’ve only remembered him for such a short time. But it’s a feeling in my chest. Like the one that immediately blossomed when I saw you just now, Nyin, and knew you as a friend. And how I know you’re my sister, Belle. I sensed the depth and breadth of how much of my heart you owned before I read Hudson’s confirmation of it. Just like you, he has a piece of my heart, too.”

“Have you told him that?” Belle demands, cocking a hip out.

I snort. “No. He’d probably sail back to the mainland.”

She sighs and sits down next to where I’m crouching, dragging me onto the sand with her. “I don’t think he would.”

Nyin gives a nod of agreement.

“He loves you too, you idiot. Now, come here.” Belle pulls me in for a side hug, which I drag Nyin into and the three of us laugh.

We spend the day playing in the shallows. After I collect some pretty shells, we head back home.