I sit up.
“Does nobody wear shirts here?” I ask, sounding cross about it, but I’m using it as a crafty deflection to distract from the fact that I’m overtly staring at his tattooed arms and chest.
He glances down at himself, bare chested and unfortunately chiseled, then back up at me, amused.
“I took it off? ye before I saved yer life.” He gives me a look, and I immediately resent his tone and can’t pick his accent all at once.
Scottish? Irish? Somewhere in the middle. From the Isles for certain.
I fold my arms over my chest and sit up a little straighter still.
“Are ye right though?” he asks, a touch gentler.
“Yes.” I glare.
“Are ye sure?”
“Yes,” I tell him, a bit indignant. I clear my throat. “Who are you anyway?”
“Who am I?” He blinks, throwing a look at the men who’ve appeared behind him. “A’m no’ the one who came hurtling down from abain,§ lass. Who are ye?”
He nods his chin at me as he takes my hand, pulling me up off the ground, and when we touch, it feels as though something gets knocked off of a shelf that I’ve kept very neat and very tidy for my whole entire life. It’s a very organised shelf—colour coordinated and alphabetised—but somewhere inside of me, I hear something shatter, and it frightens me, so I snatch my hand away and fold it uncomfortably across myself.
I raise my eyebrows impatiently as I wait for his answer. “I asked you first.”
He cocks a smile, and the trigger in my heart cocks also.
“I’m Hook.”
I freeze, a little horrified, a lot confused.
“No, you aren’t.” I shake my head.
He looks over his shoulder again at his friends, face all amused. “Aye, sure I am.”
“No.” I shake my head. For one, the person in front of me isn’t that old. Does no one age here? The way my grandmothers described him, Hook was older—a man of at least thirty-five, if not more—and sure, old Perfect Face here has facial hair that other boys his age might be jealous of, but I know without doubt, he couldn’t be close to thirty anything at all.
As well, they told me Hook’s eyes were the colour of forget-me-nots, an eerie sort of light blue, but this person’s eyes are made of the sort of colours you’d see out in the most unexplored parts of the Maldives—
And then, most damning of all, my eyes fall to his hand, the one I’d just been holding, and then I flick my eyes over to his other one…both very much there and very unfed to a crocodile.
I look up at him, suspicious. “Where’s your hook then?”
“Ah.” He nods once, amused. “Yer thinking of my da,*”
I raise my eyebrows as though I’m impatient with him, as though his very presence isn’t a complete and total thrill.
“And you are…？”
His eyes fall down my body, and I remember I’m in my little pyjamas, and I feel self-conscious.?
“Jamison,” he tells me when he eventually drags his eyes back up to mine. “Hook.”
I stare up at him, and on my shoulders, I feel the weight of those stories my grandmothers told me all my life bearing down on me, even though I know I definitely took that off up in the room in the clouds.
“Jam.” A tall, fair Scotsman rounds the corner, walking quickly. He looks early twenties. “There’s a—” He stops talking when he spots me, glances back at Jamison.
Jamison flicks him a look that men may give one another in precarious scenarios. “Give me a minute, mate.” He cocks his head for him to go away. “And go get me a blanket, forbye.? She’s soaked ri’ through.”
The man nods once and walks away.
I shift uncomfortably on my feet. “Aren’t you supposed to be bad?”
“Aye,” he sniffs a laugh. “So yer friends with the wee man then?”
“With Peter?” I clarify.
He nods and smirks.
“Yes?” I shrug. “I suppose you could call us friends.”
“Sure, so where is he?” he asks, and he does this thing with his mouth, this cocky jaw grind that vexes me, and I don’t like his tone, so I frown at him, indignant.
“We were separated in the nosedive down.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Were ye?”
“Yes.” My nose in the air. “In fact, I bet he’s looking for me right now.”
“Probably.” He nods, understanding. “If only ye were in that gaggle of mermaids thonner on that rock.” He points his chin across the water.