Pan's Revenge by Anna Katmore Read Free Book Online

hand and close my
fingers around them so tightly, my palm begins to sweat. “You mean,
if I eat them, I’ll just know which course to take, right?”
    “Right. It’s enough to eat one at a time,
though. The effect will wear off after a day.”
    “Then why did Bre send me three?”
    “Prevision.” She snaps the word like it’s the
most obvious thing in the world and like, in her eyes, I’m an
idiot. Then her voice takes on a tired edge. “Don’t forget about
the rainbow, Captain.” After that, she brushes past me and clumsily
climbs onto the railing. With an excited squeal, she takes a
dauntless jump and drops butt-first.
    As I hurry forward to look down at the sea,
there is no sign of the crazy woman anywhere. She just disappeared,
and even before any splash was to be heard. I shake my head.
    The three
beans are still in my palm. I examine the tiny white things for a
minute, then I pick one and pop it in my mouth. It’s time to put
the fairy’s present to test. Ready to set a new course, this little
bean might just show me which.
    Eyes closed, I hold my breath until Angel’s
image comes up bright and clear in my mind. In that vision, my
fingers slide through her silky black hair. I kiss her tender
heart-shaped mouth. Then I swallow.
    The bean gets stuck in my throat, chocking
me. I cough it up and spit it into my hand. What the hell—
    “Maybe you have to chew it first.”
    I look up and find Smee standing a couple
feet away, leaning backward on the railing and rolling up the
sleeves of his black shirt. Too absorbed with the fairy’s visit, I
didn’t notice him standing there all along. “Maybe you’re
right.”
    With a new surge of hope swamping me, I put
the bean between my teeth and bite down, thinking of Angel.
Immediately, a sour apple taste explodes in my mouth. I have the
feeling, if I open my lips, a gush of reddened saliva might come
out. Tiny bubbles burst everywhere, on my tongue, against the roof
of my mouth, at the top of my throat. It’s hard to swallow the
tingling mash.
    When it goes
down, I wait for something to happen. For miraculously iterating
the right course to set and to reach a city called London in a
different world. But the only feeling that overcomes me, is a
quenching thirst. Hurrying to the rum storage under deck, I gulp
down half a bottle. The thirst stays. Maybe rum wasn’t the right
liquid. I try a jar of water next, but the burning feeling in my
throat doesn’t go away. Instead it spreads to my chest and upper
gut, the strange heat of it nearly killing me.
    Breaking out in a sweat, I return on deck and
peel my shirt of in the light of the rising sun. The crew stares as
if a curse has come over me. Maybe that’s just what happened. I
need something to cool me down. Water. Or wind. Yes, wind should be
fine. Glancing wildly around, I find the place that pulls me in.
The highest mast on deck.
    Swift and practiced steps up the net take me
to the very top. My lungs expand with a deep breath. But I’m still
not where I long to be. Lifting my gaze to the sky, I make out the
fading moon, opposite the sunrise. Naturally, it’s impossible to
fly to the moon—for a pirate anyway—but the brewing storm inside my
chest urges me to let go of the net and just try. My fingers ease
off the rope.
    “James!”
    Smee’s sharp
voice sucks my attention out of the sky and down to the main deck.
His face is horrorstruck. Hands cupped around his mouth, he shouts,
“What in the world are you doing, Cap’n?”
    My gaze switches back and forth between him
and the waning moon that so eerily pulls me in. My grip tightens
around the ropes once more. Blow me down, what rode me to think I
could fly like Pan?
    Warily, I make my way back down the mast.
Jack Smee puts his hands on my shoulders the moment my feet are
back on the floorboards. “Scuttle me bones, James. What the hell
was that?”
    I have no answer for him, only a shake of my
head and a shrug.
    “Did the bean do that to