And then she sprints off, prancing up a log like a gazelle, and right as she dives off it, she yells for Peter, and he swoops down and catches her, and it’s all done with a spectacular and rehearsed ease. One must wonder after seeing a thing like that how many times he’s caught and touched that body to catch it now so mindlessly and well— Rye glances over at me. “She’s territorial.”
I give him a look. “No kidding.”
He gives me a little shrug as he eyes me up and down. “Not like you didn’t come out swinging in that—” He nods his chin at what I’m wearing.
“Do you like it?” I ask him proudly.
He gives me one very exaggerated nod.
“Do you think she’ll like me?” I ask, staring at his sister in Peter’s arms, winding above us through the air.
“Probably not.” He shrugs. “But can you blame her?”
I sigh.
“How old is she?” I ask, watching her.
“Same as me.” Rye shrugs. “Sixteen. Seventeen next week.”
“You’re twins?”
He nods. I knew some twins at primary school, actually. They were strange. Their connection to one another always seemed beyond the realm of regular understanding.
“I’m seventeen,” I tell him with a smile. “But I’m eighteen rather soon.” I frown a bit, thinking about what that means. I’ve never frowned at the thought of getting older before—at being an adult—but the longer I’m here, the more it begins to feel as though ageing might be more of an imposition than I’d hitherto realised, except in the context of Jamison. I have a quiet suspicion that growing up might be the opposite of an imposition when it comes to him.
“Peter was thirteen the last time you saw him?” I look over at Rye.
He nods.
“And was he thirteen for a long time?” I ask.
Rye nods again, thinking it through. “A few hundred years at least.” Rye shrugs as he adds, “Or so I’m told.”
“And now?” I look up at Peter, still soaring above us—all the angles of a Greek god, with the sun behind his hair making him all golden and bronze and light.
Rye watches him, squinting. “Eighteen? Nineteen, maybe?”
I purse my mouth. Not too long till I’ll be too old for him too then.
“Say—” Rye eyes me with a smirk. “How old’s Hook these days?”
I say nothing for a moment as I stare straight ahead before I give him a demure shrug.
“I’m not sure.” And then I glance at him from the corner of my eye. “And I’m quite sure I’ve no idea why you even mentioned him.”
He gives me an amused look. “Yeah, okay.”
Now, Skull Rock is not at all the way that you might imagine it to be. The mere name of it conjures up images of dark skies, clapping thunder, and crashing waves, but those images are wrong.
Is the standalone rock strikingly similar to a skull? Yes.
Are there legends about whether the rock is actually the skull of an ancient giant? Also yes.
But there’s nothing macabre about it.
The submerged part of it is alive with coral and inhabited by the most glorious fish you could ever even imagine. Rainbow fish, shimmering fish, fish whose scales change colour as they swim. The way they move under the water, they sparkle like jewels, and I can’t help but frown as Peter casts out his fishing line.
“But they’re so pretty,” I pout.
He shrugs, indifferent. “You can kill pretty things.”
My face falters. “You mean eat pretty things.”
“Right.” He nods, sitting down on the rock, yawning.
Calla’s and my eyes catch. Funny isn’t it, the camaraderie women can find in the darker places we sometimes find ourselves in, which isn’t now! I’m nowhere dark. In fact, it’s impossibly light! And wonderful. I just—I suppose both of us each were the slightest bit silently uncomfortable with what Peter may have just inadvertently and probably accidentally implied and our minds will bury soon anyway.
Rye drops a crabbing net into the water and then goes and sits next to Peter, glancing over at him, equal parts confused and curious.
“I’ve got to ask, Pan.” He grimaces for a second. “How did you do it?”
Peter frowns. “Do what?”
Rye gestures to his form vaguely. “Grow…up?”
I shake my head at him. “Isn’t that the wrong question?”
They all look over at me.
“I mean—” I shrug. “The question really is how on earth did he stay young?”