“But Wraith loves?—”
Widow puts her hand on my arm. “You have to let her choose, Moira,” she says quietly. “Love isn’t love unless someone chooses it for themselves.”
I take a breath. She’s right. It’s the same way I chose Hook. But I never gave him a chance to truly choose me. He thought I was his without needing any proof. My eyes water as I turn to the ocean, toward the storm that forever churns just past the horizon. He’s there. He has to be. He’s too strong to die, to drown, to do anything except stomp out of that ocean and kiss me so hard I have no doubt of his devotion.
But the waves keep lapping, the surf low and gentle as the wind barely creates breakers out beyond the sand bar. He isn’t there.
“Girl?” Ari asks.
I turn back to her and wipe the tears from my cheeks.
She glances at the ocean, and she doesn’t say anything, but somehow, I know she knows.
“He’s gone, isn’t he?” I don’t know why I ask her. Perhaps because her heart is already broken. Maybe she can shatter mine with the least amount of pain. Maybe she knows how to more than anyone else ever could.
“The ocean never gives up her secrets.” She gazes at the water. “Or her dead.”
I close my eyes, more tears seeping from them as I try to hold myself together. She did what I wanted—broke me into a million pieces with the softest touch. But somehow it doesn’t hurt any less. My knees give way, and I sink to the sand. How can I survive this? I don’t think I can. “I don’t know what to do.” Ispeak to the sand, the sea, the air. I speak to Hook, who can no longer hear me. “What do I do?” I whisper through my tears.
Ari drops to the sand in front of me. “You go on.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.” She swipes the sand between us, making a flat surface, then drags her index finger through it in serpentine lines. “I’ve wandered this island for what must be eons. I wanted to die a thousand times. I wanted to kill that faithless man who stole everything from me. I wanted to burn the island to the ground. I wanted so many things. None of them good.” Her finger still makes the serpentine tracks. “But all those steps led me nowhere. Led me right back to where I started. Until I let go. Until I let myself feel the heartbreak and the betrayal. Until I realized my destiny wasmine. Wraith’s love didn’t force me to make that deal. I chose it the same way I chose him. And now I choose freedom.” Her finger stops. “I won’t go another step on this island. I won’t be held hostage by a bad bargain or by a path laid out for me by someone else.” She points at me. “You shouldn’t either. No matter whose boon you are.” She sits back and folds her shriveled hands in her lap.
I try to think through everything she said, but I can’t focus. Not on her or her path. My mind, like my heart, is with Hook. I shake my head. “Ari, I want to help you, but I don’t know how.”
“Of course you do.” She presses her fingertip to my forehead. “It’s all up here, girl. All the magic you need.”
“I don’t feel very magical.”
She looks at me, her eyes sharp despite the milky haze over them. “Tell me a story.”
“Will that drain you?” Widow sits beside me, her cutlass at the ready. She clearly doesn’t trust Ari. Smart move.
“I don’t know. I think when Peter did it, he was taking without my permission. Nessie seemed to think that’s why it hurt me so badly. Well, that and the fact I didn’t have my full fae strength.” I wiggle my wings.
Widow narrows her eyes at Ari. “She can tell you a story, but the moment I see anything fishy, we’re done here.”
“I want the only fishy thing to be me.” Ari holds out her hands. “Please.”
“You’re certain that’s what you want? To go back to the sea?”
She nods. “I know who I am, girl. I know what I choose.”
I take her hands. They’re so light, and I try to ignore how thin and skeletal she seems. She’s suffered so much for love. I suppose it makes sense she wants to run—or swim—as far away from it as she can.
What story should I tell? I close my eyes and try to feel magical. Maybe I’ll sparkle, or float, or do something particularly fairylike. Nothing happens.
“Go on,” Ari encourages.
I take a deep breath and settle, rooting myself to the sand, to the magic of Neverland. At least that’s what I think I’m doing.
“Once upon a time, a girl wanted free food from the Greek organizations. Now, those organizations are routinely filled to the brim with a wide variety of fuckboys. However, on this occasion, the girl was hungry enough to deal with that aspect in order to snag some hot dogs. While there, she ran into ahandsome man. He was older and had a strange way about him, so much so that the girl was intrigued. But the girl was wary and returned to her home to study and work. That night, she was kidnapped, swept away to a land of never and night where Lost Boys roam and pirates lurk …” I get lost in my own tale of betrayal, love, and loss. My words spill from me, warming me inside and out as I weave the tale of my time in Neverland. When I get to the part where Hook saves my life, I seem to heat even more, my body humming with some unknown song as I tell about how brave and fierce he is, how his heart beats only for me.
When I reach the Neverstorm, I still burn, still ache to tell what happened. As if somehow the story of it could mend my soul. But it doesn’t, and the hum and my voice fade away as I retell how Hook saved his crew from the storm but lost his life to revenge.
“A sad ending is fitting for me.” It’s Ari’s voice but somehow sweet and melodic. “Perfect, actually.”
