Neverland (6 page)

Though everyone still gives me strange sideways glances as they pass me, none of them back away. I fluff up my hair and paste on a friendly smile, then I walk up to a young woman carrying a fruit basket. Her naked feet are smudgy and she might have cooties, but she looks friendly when she hands a pea to a small boy at the side of the street.

“Excuse me, ma’am.” I stop right in front of her and tilt my head a little.

“Aye,” she says, eyeing me from head to toe.

“Do you know how I can get off this island?”

“With a boat, I’d say.” Her gaze glides up to my face and she starts to smile, too, although hers seems skeptical. “But where would you be going, lass? There’s nothing but deep, blue sea out there.” Holding the basket with one arm, she sweeps the other to the right toward the waves sloshing against the port.

My spirit sinks at her answer, and uncertainty creeps into my voice. “I need to get to London.”

“London? Sorry lass, ain’t never heard of a place called that.” She purses her lips. “Per chance you mean the Indian camp at the east side of the isle?”

Pinching my eyes shut, I release a pained breath. I definitely don’t mean an Indian camp. “No, but thanks anyway.”

The girl nods, but before she walks off, I grab her arm and ask, “Can I buy an apple?” It must be early afternoon already, I’m starving.

She rubs her palm clean on her simple gray gown, then holds out a deep red apple to me. “That’s half a doubloon.”

I have no idea what a doubloon is, but I always carry some change in my pockets. I fish out two one-pound coins and seventy-five pence.

“What is this?” the young woman demands, pulling back the fruit.

“We use this to pay for goods in London.”

“Your coins have no value here.”

Wringing my hands, I shift my weight uncomfortably from one leg to the other. “I’m sorry, I don’t have anything else to give you.” Of course, there’s a fat ruby sitting in my pocket, but that’d be a ridiculously high price for an apple.

The girl puckers her lips again. Her gaze wanders down to the sweater tied around my waist. “You can have two, if you give me that,” she offers.

Ugh.
“I don’t think you’d be happy with it,” I whine.

She shrugs one shoulder and places the apple back into her basket. “My sister needs something new to wear. Take it or leave it. Your choice.”

My stomach hurts from hunger. I don’t really have much of a choice here. “Fine.” Loosening the knot of the sleeves, I sigh and pray that she won’t freak out when she sees the pirate image on the front. But all my praying is in vain. As soon as I hold the sweater out to her, she gives a shriek, nearly splitting my eardrums, and dashes away in the opposite direction, taking her food basket with her.

Luckily for me, the shiny red apple falls out from her basket and rolls down the street. I don’t pay attention to her or anyone else at this moment but race after the fruit. If I can’t catch it within the next few seconds, it’ll drop into the waves. And then I’m screwed.

People complain and skip out of my way as I chase the rolling red ball. Bending over, I almost reach it. But still, I’m too slow. Someone beats me there.

A black boot stops my apple and traps it under the toe, squishing all my hope in a heartbeat. Moaning, I drop to my knees right in front of that boot. My disappointed expression reflects in the furbished silver buckle.

A hand moves into my vision and claims my meal. I look up into the face of a young man. When he straightens again, I straighten with him. With a couple of feet between us, he gives me an unsettling once-over, surely because of my unusual clothes. According to his dark purple brocade coat and clean black leather pants, and no less because of the demeaning look he gives me, I rate him upper-class.

Sharp blue eyes stare at me from under his over-long, bright blond hair that looks as if the wind had ruffled it. His jaw and upper lip sport a dusting of stubble in the same sun-kissed shade. His brows come together in a frown. Maybe because he’s used to lower-class people backing away from him. Well, I don’t.

“That is
my
apple,” I state with the steadiest voice I can manage when his glare actually causes the little hairs at the back of my neck to stand on end. I hold out my hand, palm up.

The young man purses his lips as though he doesn’t believe his ears. Then one side of his mouth slowly tilts up as he slides the apple into the wide pocket of his coat. He looks straight into my eyes for another intense second, then he starts laughing, turns on the heels of his well-worn boots and walks away.

“Damn wretch,” I mumble and trudge off—not after him but over to a low stone wall surrounding what looks like an abandoned fishing hut with boards nailed across the windows and door. Exhaustion eats at me and my stomach feels like it’s munching on itself in hunger.

One foot placed on the crumbling wall, the other dangling, I sit and lean against a jamb stone behind me. My hair snags on the rough surface as I tilt my head up and I wince. A clear blue sky is the only thing in my vision for a while. If this is all but a dream, I’d do anything to wake myself up. Maybe I should find Melody again and ask her to pull me underwater until I run out of air. One can’t die in a dream, right? It would wake me up for sure. Only there’s the rub: if this isn’t a dream, I’d be screwed.

I sigh and wish I could hug my little sisters. What if I never see them again? Or Mom and Dad and Miss Lynda? Pissing off Peter wasn’t my best bet. He might have eventually helped me figure out what to do. Maybe he’ll stop sulking at some point and come find me. He can’t really be mad because I don’t want to spend the rest of eternity in Neverland.

Realizing there’s something cold in my hand, I look down and find the ruby heart in my palm. I stroke it a few times, then turn it over and over and finally hold it in the air. The warm sunrays break in the many facets and cast a swarm of red dots on my t-shirt. They dance when I tilt the gem back and forth.

My gaze starts to wander out to the waves lashing against the concrete port then back to land and over the finely dressed people busying themselves on this romantic marketplace of a different age. Some buy food or bales of silk, others drink the day away in front of pubs. The throaty laughter of a few men draws my attention. They are seated on small stools around a barrel that serves them as some sort of poker table. I stiffen. In their midst sits the apple-stealing scamp.

He’s not laughing with the others. In fact, I wonder if he even heard what they’re laughing about because, with his elbow propped on the top of the barrel and his fingers steepled under his chin, he seems deeply in thought. And unless he’s interested in the run-down hut behind me, his focus is on me.

I hold his stare for just a moment, my teeth clenched, then I deliberately look away. This guy can go sit on train tracks. He sure has more money than is good for him and still he couldn’t spare me one darn apple.

Continuing to roll the ruby between my fingers, I try to come up with a plan for my departure off this island. Obviously, airplanes aren’t an option, but maybe one of the few ships harboring farther down this promenade will get me back. Although they don’t seem like they’ve been out on the sea in a long time. People walk on and off the decks of those ships, but it looks more like they’ve been converted into shops or pubs rather than transportation.

“You hold a diamond worth more than half of the town, and you’re running after an apple. What’s the deal?”

I tilt my head to the soft male voice. Leaning against the streetlamp a few feet away, the thief in his purple brocade coat gazes at me with an intrigued half-smile. His arms are folded across his broad chest and one of his feet rests on the iron post behind him.

My first reaction is to quickly shove the stone into my jeans pocket and hide it from his view. “I don’t see how that is any of your business,” I snap.

He reaches into his pocket and without warning tosses the apple at me. “Make it my business.”

I catch the fruit with both hands and sort of panic, immediately biting into it before he can reclaim it. Oh dear mother of God, this tastes delicious. The saliva in my mouth mingles with the apple’s juice and I swallow, quickly taking another bite.

“You’re a visitor.”

“What gave me away?” I ask around the piece in my mouth and give him a cynical look.

He comes over and sits down in front of me. He doesn’t bother to dust off the wall with a tissue first, like I expected from someone of his status. So maybe he’s not a haughty little prince after all. Instead of answering my question he counters, “Where do you come from?”

Now that he’s abandoned that demeaning scowl from earlier, he looks a lot less intimidating. And since he seems interested in my story, maybe he’ll help me. Licking the juice off my lip, I study him for another moment, but when he lifts his brows, prompting me to continue, I tell him, “I come from a different island.”

“Really? What’s it called?”

“Ee…ah…” I snap my fingers twice and roll my eyes skyward, struggling to get the name out that’s on the tip of my tongue.
Agh.
Why can’t I remember it all of a sudden? I know I told it to Peter last night. But it’s just like with my own name. The information seems completely eradicated from my memory.

Feeling awkward to the bone, I move my gaze back to the man in front of me and say with a firm voice, “The name of the island doesn’t matter. I live in London, a huge city there.”

“Oh. Okay.” He shrugs. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“Yeah, I thought so. No one here seems to have. Which doesn’t make it any easier for me to go back there.”

“You want to go back?”

“Of course!”

“Then why did you come to Neverland in the first place?” His face is still all innocence and intrigue. He swings one leg over the wall so he sits astride it and braces his hands on the space between us. “Isn’t it irrational to go to a place where there’s no way to leave again if you don’t intend to stay?”

“Hey, it wasn’t my intention to come here. It was an accident.”

He flexes his shoulders. “Ah. I see. Makes all the difference.” He sounds like he doesn’t believe one word. “And now you’re trying to countermand that mistake.”

“Accident.”

“Right.”

“Yes. Sort of. If only I knew whether all this is really
real
,” I whine and finish off the juicy apple then throw the apple core in a high arc into the water. “You know, like whether I’m just dreaming or hallucinating.”

The man fidgets again in his coat then opens the buttons and frowns, pulling uncomfortably on the collar. “To me it seems real enough. Or I wouldn’t feel so compressed in this bloody thing.”

Somehow I get the feeling the dress coat isn’t what he usually wears. Did he only put it on to impress somebody today? Certainly not the booze buddies at the barrel over there. One of them just tipped over and is now snoring on the hard cobblestone street.

“Can you tell me how to get off this island?” I ask him, not intending to waste any more time on chitchatting. I really have to return to my sisters.

He shrugs. “Ship.”

“Do they go out anytime soon?”

Looking over his shoulder, he rubs his neck and drawls, “I don’t think so. But I know of a ship outside town. It should be leaving in an hour. If you hurry up, you can make it.”

I jump to my feet like an excited puppy. “Which way?”

The young man laughs. A soft sound I wouldn’t have expected from him either. “I’ll show you, and you can tell me all about this
London
while we walk.”

Whatever. I’d even give him a piggyback ride if it meant I’d get back home. At my prompting smile he pushes to his feet then reaches down to the other side of the wall and picks up my fallen sweater, which I forgot in my euphoria.

“
Uh
—no!” I shout. But it’s too late. He already shakes it out and of course sees the image of the Caribbean pirate on it. Pursing his lips, he freezes and his eyes go dark. “Really, this is nothing. Just a meaningless image. I swear I’m not a pirate!”

His gaze wanders up over the black fabric and meets mine. Amusement replaces the darkness in his look. One corner of his mouth twitches. “I didn’t think you were.”

A relieved sigh escaped me.

Stepping out of his rigid composure, he smiles at me, places one hand in the small of my back and steers me to the right. When he hands me the sweater, I tie it—image toward my butt—around my waist again.

We leave the town behind us and the cobblestone street gives way to a narrow dirt road. Occasionally, the waves lap against the rocky shore to my left and a faint spray of water catches my arm. The chill feels welcome against the afternoon heat.

There’s nothing in front of us but grassland to one side and the sea to the other. No other port, no ships, not even a boat. I hope we’re going to reach this ship before it takes off, and with it—my only chance to go home.

“So, what’s your name, lass?” he asks me after some time with an odd notch of amusement in his voice, clasping his hands behind his back as we walk.

“Angel…I think.”

“You think?”

I grimace. “It’s complicated.”

From the corner of my eye I see him turn his head my way, so I look at him too and find him smiling. “I’m sure I can cope,” he says.

As we walk so close to each other, I catch a whiff of seawater and leather on him and wonder if he lives close to the ocean. The note of tangerine underneath strokes my senses. He actually smells nice.

“I don’t really know where to start,” I say and scratch my head. “See…I live in the real world—” The young man interrupts me by arching one brow. “You know,” I explain, “where there are big cities…and traffic…and airplanes. And McDonald’s.” His second brow follows suit. Right, I’m on the entirely wrong track here. “Let’s just say it’s a world pretty different from yours, obviously far, far away, if no one here knows of it. I went out on my balcony last night; it was freezing cold. I slipped and fell. Only I never really hit the ground. Instead I was suddenly sky diving to Neverland.”

He silently listens. Maybe he has heard of similar cases before.