She held out her hands and wiggled her fingers with a smirk, but James wasn’t looking at her. He had stilled completely.
The others asked what she was talking about. As she recounted this morning’s adventure, James continued to live in his own head. After the story had been shared and her captain’s heroic efforts had been properly praised, she poked the hand that James had left on the back of the couch.
“Did we break your brain?”
James blinked, then focused on Smee. “Farrah?”
Instant understanding filled Smee’s eyes, and he nodded agreement.
Maaka clapped his hands together. “Farrah. Of course!”
Kalaakaar and Mücahit were only seconds behind in their celebration. Wendy waited for the clamor to die down, but when she opened her mouth to request clarification, Gharza appeared with food. This set off a different kind of fervor, and she forgot to ask by the time it settled.
“Have we figured out how we’re going to utilize the sheeries?” Wendy popped the last bite into her mouth, then pushed it into her cheek to say, “As scouts, of course. But what else?”
James looked like someone had smacked him in the face with a fish. “We haven’t discussed it. I can’t believe I forgot them.”
She set a hand on his arm. “Did you sleep at all last night?” When he shook his head, she added, “You can’t expect your mind to work at full power that way.”
“That’s a fact,” Mücahit agreed. “Go to bed, Cap’n. We’ll start freshin the morning.”
James tried to protest, but the unified agreements from his crew drowned him out. Plates were gathered and the room set to rights by the men, who dragged Wendy out with them. From the glimpse she caught of the captain’s face before the door closed, he, too, had been hoping for a goodnight kiss.
Back in her cell, Wendy studied the bars next to her. Now that she knew where to look, the differences between her space and the next were obvious. The cage designated for Peter was smaller, had more visible iron (including panels on the floor and ceiling), and had a complicated mechanism that prevented the prisoner from accessing the lock. There was no cot or chair, nothing that could become a weapon, and everything in Wendy’s cell, aside from the new curtain, was out of reach. Now that she knew about his magic, she was unable to trust that these measures would be sufficient, but she couldn’t imagine any additional strategies. As she snuggled into bed and bid the already sleeping sheeries goodnight, a thought tickled her mind. The cell she had claimed was likely intended for James. He would never leave Peter unsupervised.
James was a much more pleasant thought to dwell on, and Wendy fell asleep reliving their conversation on the sandbar. Before sleep claimed her, she realized the ship had begun moving again.
*****
After rolling out of bed the next morning, Wendy rushed through her grooming routine, eager to find James. The coolmorning breeze teased the tendrils around her face. Her dashing captain was nowhere to be found, but some of the younger boys were gathered around an open barrel.
Tam and Davi both held cups, while Cooper leaned in as far as his arm could reach. He pulled back and shook his head, then handed Tam another cup.
As she watched, Cooper hefted the entire barrel onto his shoulder and poured out the last dregs into the boys’ cups.
Davi stuck out his tongue. “I hate this part.”
“Why?” Wendy asked.
“ ’Cause the bottom of the barrel tastes funny.”
“And it’s orange,” Tam contributed. “Minerals, or something.”
She tilted her head. “What minerals turn water orange?”
Raghu, who had been walking by, peered into Davi’s cup. “Yeah, that looks like the time I knocked a couple nails into a bucket before bed and didn’t fish ’em out for a week,” he teased.
That sparked some intriguing thoughts in Wendy. “Ironnails?”
“Naturally,” Raghu laughed.
“And this is the water you get from the island?”
“Yeah, the tunnels give access to clean groundwater.” Wendy could see that James or one of the others had passed on the results of yesterday’s meeting when Raghu opened his mouth in an “O.” “You think the iron in the water is why we can sail in and out of Neverland?”
Wendy nodded. “I asked Peter if the streams were safe or if they had a well, and he made an excuse about wells being too hard for little boys to dig. And since it rained every day, the collection barrels were always full.”
Raghu tapped his chin. “That makes a lot of sense. Something to tell Cap’n this morning.”
