I wonder now where the Lost Boys are. Tink and Michael made it out of Neverland safely, but what happened to Victor, Benjamin, Smalls, and the Twins? I wonder if I’ll ever know. Sometimes I have nightmares that, while Tink and Michael were deposited on land, the Lost Boys were deposited out at sea, their ramshackle boat unable to withstand the waves.
When I wake up drenched in sweat, I know this nightmare is unreasonable. I’m sure they were deposited wherever Tink and Michael ended up. But I never got the chance to ask Tink if she saw them after crossing the warping. Part of me can’t believe that Victor would not have stayed behind and waited for the restof us to emerge. Unease swirls in my belly when I think about what could have prevented him and the other Lost Boys from being there when Tink arrived.
I’m so lost in thought that it takes a few minutes for me to remember what I’m out here searching for until I stumble across a stall stacked with vials, all full to the brim. Most are sparkling, but some look to be filled with tar. I imagine those are either poison or the cure for some unpleasant disease. The two tend to taste about the same, in my experience.
There’s no one in line, so I walk straight up to the vendor. I can’t tell much about her—there’s a cowl covering her hair and the lower half of her face—but she has light-colored skin and beautiful blue eyes that watch me carefully.
“What can I help you with today?” she asks, her voice sweet and comforting.
“I’m looking for a contraceptive,” I say somewhat quietly. I’m fully aware there’s no one around to hear me, but I still feel heat brush my cheeks. I blame my aristocratic breeding.
Wrinkles on an otherwise perfectly smooth face form around the woman’s eyes as she smiles. She’s likely my age, perhaps a little older. She turns from me toward her apothecary bench at the back of the stall. After a few moments of twiddling with the different vials, she creates a potion the same color and odor of the one Charlie gave me on my wedding night. The woman hands it to me, telling me the price. I hand over the coin Charlie gave me before I left, thanking her.
As I turn to walk away, the woman’s voice rings out.
“Are you in town for long?”
I turn around, shaking my head. “We’re actually just leaving.”
“What a shame,” she says. “There’s plenty to see and discover around here. There’s even a storytelling festival tomorrow night.”
“Is that so?”
“Do you like stories?” she asks.
“Does anyone not?” I reply.
She laughs, then leans over the desk conspiratorially. “Since you’re not going to be in town, I can tell you one if you wish.”
Instantly, my hand freezes up. It’s probably my mother’s training, her insistence that anytime a vendor offers you something, it’s never for free. But this woman is kind—or at least has kind eyes. Even if she demands payment afterward, I’m not sure I’ll mind if the story is good.
Again, there’s something enchanting about this marketplace. Having a vendor tell me what feels like a forbidden story only adds to the fulfillment of my childhood dream.
“Did you know there’s an island close to here?” she asks. “It’s bare. Nothing grows on it—or so it seems, to the naked eye.”
I swallow, but if she notices my discomfort, she doesn’t show it. Instead, she continues.
“They say that if you offer a blood sacrifice, an ancient tree will spring forth, its roots covering the entire island. But the tree isn’t what’s fascinating. It’s what’s underneath it, within its roots. They say there are huge caverns where an archaic library lives.”
I nod, her eyes sparkling as she continues, “Yes, it’s said that the library itself is sentient, infused with a soul long ago—one that not only craves but hoards knowledge.”
“Sounds pleasant,” I say.
“Aren’t legends always?” she asks. “But the library is not quite as innocent as one might think. It doesn’t just love knowledge, but the people who tend the books. It’s said it traps souls down there, stretching time so that the visitors have no idea how much time has passed. Not until their lives on the outside have slipped away. Most of them fall into despair andnever leave, realizing they have nothing left for them in the world above.”
I get the sense I should turn away, but my feet remain firmly in place when she says, “Of course, some have escaped—thieves who have been wise to the ways of the library and wished to reap its knowledge without paying with their lives.”
“You mean they’ve escaped with stolen books?” To me, I sound as though I’m lying through my teeth, even with the question. But if the woman notices my deception, she doesn’t indicate it.
“Yes, but thieves are not quite as clever as they think,” she says. “Even if they manage to escape, no one truly escapes the clutches of the library.”
My blood runs cold, the hairs standing up on my arm. “What do you mean?” I ask, thinking of the serpent and his warning that thieves would be cursed.
That’s why I’ve stayed listening, I think. I shouldn’t, I should walk away. Give myself the peace of ignorance. I could live out my entire life never knowing what the curse is. Or, at least when it comes upon me, I won’t have spent my life dreading it. But still, with the answer so close, on the lips of this woman, obscured as they are by her cowl, I stay, my ears perked for her answer.
“They say,” she says, “that those who steal from the library are cursed to live out the fates of the characters in the books they stole.”
Again, my blood runs cold. “What if there are no characters?” I ask, suddenly feeling as if the world is pressing in around me.
