“I’m so sorry.”
She rolls her eyes. “Come out!”
I shake my head. “What?”
“I said come out!”
A flash of gold appears beside me, and then I see the Spinner, her eyes sad as she surveys Tinker Bell.
“There you are.” Tinker Bell. “Decided to finally stop hiding?”
“You know very well why I hide.” The Spinner shows her fangs.
“Yes, I know what I did.” Tinker Bell’s voice goes soft. “I know what I’ve done.”
“Then why have you called me? You cannot ask me for forgiveness. I will not grant it.”
“Keep your forgiveness.” Tinker Bell kicks her chin up. “I have no need of it. But I do ask one favor.”
The Spinner’s eyebrows rise, but she doesn’t say anything.
“Take my life in exchange for healing this dummy.”
“Dummy?”
Tinker Bell cuts her eyes at me. “You know the one.”
“Tink, you don’t have to?—”
“Let the grown-ups talk,” she snaps.
Hook growls but doesn’t intercede.
“This won’t change what you’ve done.” The Spinner sits on the ground beside us. “You realize this will do nothing for you?”
“I know.” Tinker Bell looks at me. “But you’re the only one who can stop him. I give my life freely for you, but you have to promise me, Moira. Promise me you will stop Peter.” Her grip grows surprisingly strong on my hand. “Swear it, or all this will have been for nothing.” She sighs, her lashes fluttering as even more color leaches from her.
“I swear it on my mother.” A flash of heat moves between our palms, burning the promise into both of us.
“Good.” She closes her eyes. “Spinner. Do it.”
The Spinner nods and puts her hand over Tinker Bell’s chest, then puts her other over mine.
I look at Hook, his eyes full of worry as he watches me. “It’ll be okay.”
The Spinner begins chanting, and the trees seem to echo her lilting words back to her. Like a song in a foreign language, itmelds into a beautiful melody. I close my eyes and drift away. The song turns into words I understand. A story.
One about an island where anything is possible. Both unsurpassed good and malignant evil can rule the island, but only in equal measure. It was just so for a long, long time. Until something changed. No,someonechanged. A heart that knew no mercy or kindness was forged anew, into one that felt regret, pain, and longed for love. It upset the balance.Heupset the balance. Hook. The villain had evolved, become something different, something the island had never encountered. So it adjusted. It gave and it took, it filled this cup and drained the other. It had to reach balance again, no matter the cost.
But the cost was great indeed. The island wept, its heart torn in two by good and evil, and dreamed of the sun that would one day return.
When balance was restored.
The story crosses oceans of time and miles of memories, worlds and galaxies, an entire universe nestled inside others like a Russian doll. The Spinner tells it to me, her voice winding around me. Spinning me backwards into the past. Some into the future. And showing me so much—the ancient fae, Hook when he committed villainy on the high seas, Peter when he was a boy with a brave heart and pure soul, Wendy as she doted on the Lost Boys, and my mother. All of us are woven into the Spinner’s tapestry, though there is no end to it. No way to know what will happen.
When her voice begins to fade, the story drawing to a close, I hear the song of the sea, the rolling waves.
I wake and am born anew, burning and screaming into existence with fresh life in my veins.
