I swallow heavily.
“And what do ye want to be when ye grow up?” he asks.* “Or are ye not planning on growing up anymore?”
I give him an unimpressed look. “I’m going to be a geologist.”
“Oh.” He laughs, almost as though he’s confused. “That’s…specific.”
“Actually.” I sit up straighter. “It’s not. Geology’s terribly broad.”
He nods, swallowing, amused. “My mistake.”
“Mineralogy,” I tell him, even though he didn’t ask for the specifics. “I like rocks. And stones and earth. I love the earth.”
“Is that why ye left it?” he asks, eyebrow up.
I frown a little, thinking on what he’s implying. “I don’t know why I left it—a pull away, I guess?” I shrug. “Like fate? But that doesn’t mean I don’t love it.”
He nods a couple of times. “So why do ye like Earth so much?”
“I don’t know.” I breathe out in the comfort of the question. “I think I find it grounding? I like my bare feet on the earth—the feel of it.”
He nods, watching me and letting me prattle on.
“I suppose I’ve always just liked it. Rocks and nature and volcanos, the history of things, how they form. It’s all just fascinating to me. I like how stones feel in your hand, how they feel on your skin. I like how a specific chemical formula and time underground, in the dark, where no one is looking, makes these.” I flash him my earrings again, and he smiles a little bit. I shrug, feeling now like I’ve talked for too long. “I like how rocks tell stories. I suppose I like Earth because it’s really just one big rock.”
Jamison’s watching me, eyebrows bending in the middle like he’s almost frowning, but it’s not a bad frown. Neither is it entirely confused. More like he’s just fascinated.
I squirm a little, embarrassed to have his gaze so intensely on me but also a little bit pleased.
I clear my throat to keep things moving. “Is this a planet?”
“Neverland?” He blinks. “Aye, o’ course it’s a planet. What dae you think yer wee feet are standing on here?”
I roll my eyes.
“Neverland’s no’ the planet. It’s an isle that’s a part o’ a realm. The planet itself is called Little St?rj.” He stands up and walks to a bookshelf that’s organised with no rhyme or reason, other than each book is bound in leather. He grabs one with a navy spine and gold foiling and places it in front of me. “’Twas founded around 1300 BC your time.”
“By whom?” I ask him, chin in my hand.
He flips open the book and rifles through a few pages to a black-and-white photo of five people. Three women, two men.
I marvel at them for a few seconds. “What were they?” I ask as I stare at them.
“I think the politically correct term is star travellers.” He smiles as he glances at the photo.
“They’re aliens?” I blink up at him, surprised.
He points at me. “Politically incorrect.”
“Sorry!” I flash him a smile. “So it’s true then, we’re not all alone in the universe?”
Jamison shrugs and looks over his shoulder at the harbor behind us, filled idyllically with fisherman and boats. “Evidently not.” His eyes soften a tiny bit around the edges. “Did ye feel ye were?”
Less so by the second, actually, I think as I stare over at him and swallow heavy, ignoring the feeling of all the threads pulling inside me and stepping around one of about a million potholes that exist in my mind about pirates.
“Her bath is ready,” Briggs calls and pokes his head from around the divider.
“Thank you, Briggs.” Jamison nods at him, and I offer him back the book.
He shakes his head. “Keep it.” He wraps his hands around mine and gives the book back to me. Our eyes catch. “Ye need it more than me, thonner with the wee man. I cannae imagine he’s that grand a conversationalist.”
I stifle a laugh and drop his gaze because his eyes feel too good to hold. He gestures towards the bath.
I give him a quick but grateful smile and slip behind the screen.
I pull my clothes off me and leave them by the foot of the clawed bath.
“I’ll leave ye be,” Jamison calls from the other side.
“You don’t have to!” I say maybe too quickly, and there’s a clunky pause from him.
“What?” he says after a few seconds.