“To my captain,” he says, looking back over his shoulder at me. “He’ll be wanting to meet you.”
The wind picks up rather suddenly. This huge gust, out of nowhere, leaves swirling around my ankles like shackles, blowing me back towards town.
I pass by a shrub, and it shakes, its twiggy little arms scratching me as I do.
My cue to leave, I suppose.
When nature turns on you or—more aptly—when Peter turns nature on you.
“Will he?” I call over the wind to the man. “Why’s that?”
The man nods his head towards a big black boat. It’s huge. Everything is black except its giant white sails, which are going ballistic in the wind. The island can’t get rid of me fast enough.
The wind blows and the tree I’m passing under bends right over, smacking me in the face with her branches. I look back at it, give the same look I’d give a friend who just hit me.
Wounded, feelings hurt.
The tree does it again.
The man watches it happen and looks at me, confused.
“The weather here’s mad,” he says with a frown, but I shake my head.
“It’s not the weather.” I sigh. “It’s me.”
I untangle myself from all the branches that are for some reason around my chest, throw them off me with the same fever I now wish I’d thrown off Jamison’s hands, and then step out from under it.
“Why will your captain want to meet me?” I ask him again.
“Well,” says another voice from the boat, but I’ve heard it before. The man Jamison was with before appears at the top of the gangway.
Behind him, I see a black flag flying with an upside-down flower.
The man walks towards me with the worst smile I’ve ever seen.
“I’ve just heard so much about you.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
I did try to run, it’s worth saying.
I didn’t board the ship willingly.
There was a chase scene. I was grabbed, taken back aboard—I won’t bore you with the details because they are a bore.
I was taken. That’s the real takeaway.
Honestly, I didn’t put up much of a fight in the end. Perhaps I should have.
I don’t know whether I froze or if I just already sort of felt as though I was dying and decided to roll with the punches.
None of this is the interesting part of the story.
The interesting part takes place in the captain’s quarters where I find myself, and it’s nothing like any captain’s quarters I’ve ever been in before.
Now, granted, I’ve only been in the one, but it felt about what I’d imagined.
This though—it’s a bed and a desk, and then every wall is lined with shelves and jars of things I can’t make out.
Like a specimen library at a university or something.
Some things are glowing, other things pounding, some rattling, some lying limp, flinching occasionally.
One of his men—there are quite a few, all of them with the strange glasses—shoves me towards the captain, who’s sitting on his bed.
He pats next to him, and I don’t move.
The man who brought me in shoves me down.
“That’s quite enough, Ian, thank you.” The captain shoos him away.
The door closes, and he stares over at me.
“Hello.”
“Who are you?” I ask, staring over at him. Then I shake my head at myself because I already know. “I know who you are, but I don’t know what they call you.”
He looks surprised by this. “You don’t?”
“No one would say your name.”
“Ah.” He nods. “Wisdom.”
I stare over at him, waiting.
His eyes are so dark. I think I said that before, but I mean it. Unnaturally dark, and I wonder to myself what a person has to do in order for darkness to fill them so much that it starts colouring their eyes.
“Some call me the Collector.” He gestures around the room. “My friends would call me Charles.”
“And what is it that you want from me, Charles?” I ask.
He peers over his glasses at me and squints, then pushes them up his nose. “There’s so much more to you than I was told.”
I look at him, confused.
“What’s that I smell on ya?” He leans in towards me, breathing me in.
“What?” I pull away. “I’m not…wearing anything.”
He shakes his head. “It’s in you.”
I blink. “Excuse me?”
“Ah.” He sits back, pleased. “That’s a nice broken heart you’ve got there. It’s going to look perfect in my collection.” Then he peers at me, eyes pinched as he leans in again.