The Ever After Girls

Chapter One

While most girls wasted their lives away pining over a prince they'd never get their manicured hands on, Ella Perrault spent her days patrolling Nottingham's main pier in search of a deranged pirate.

It had become clockwork--check the docks in the morning, then trudge defeatedly back home in the afternoon. After a month, anyone else would've given up. That was, anyone but Wendy Darling.

"Anything yet?" came an accent-pitched voice through Ella's earpiece. Speak of the devil.

Ella scanned the docks. As always, commoners flocked the pier, scouring for the best deals. Merchants barked at every corner, waving their trinkets in the air. From cheap-looking jewelry to fresh squid, Nottingham's dock had it all--including the rank smell of rotten fish and the occasional pile of unidentified manure. How enchanting.

The roar of lapping waves drew her gaze to the ocean. The tide beat against the wooden docks, sending a soft tremor through the floor under her feet. Three ships had anchored to the pier. Two were overflowing with grumpy merchants, grumbling about their backs as they unloaded goods onto the dock. The third ship seemed abandoned.

Ella sighed. "Sorry, Wendy. No pirates here."

Silence crackled on the other end. Ella's heart sank imagining Wendy's pain-twisted features. After all this time, no progress had been made in finding the Jolly Roger or its possible cargo. Peter Pan remained a lost boy.

A truth pushed against her throat--one that Red had been drilling in her head for weeks now. If we haven't found him yet, we never will.

Ella's knowledge of Neverland and its inhabitants were slim at best. Wendy was the only lens that she had seen the magical realm through, and only by the stories the Neverland girl had told. According to Wendy, finding Peter Pan was of utmost importance to the state of Neverland. Without his youthful magic, the land would die.

They had searched for a month now, yet had found no signs of Peter or the pirate who had taken him--some self-proclaimed asshole named Hook. Honestly, the thought of encountering pirates who had hooks for hands was a pipe dream to Ella. The closest thing to a pirate she had seen in Asteria was the occasional sharp-mouthed merchant.

On the other end of the earpiece, Wendy remained silent. Pacing the deck of Nottingham's shipping dock, Ella wrung her hands. People cast her curious stares; she was an odd sight, a teenage girl with a bright blue bandana bunching her dirty blonde hair, her worn sneakers thudding across the wooden floorboards.

Ella plucked at the hem of her white shirt. Tapping on the earpiece, she cleared her throat. "Um...Wendy?"

Wendy's voice swept through immediately, her tone bolstered with so much hope that it took Ella's breath away. "Did you find something?"

Ella's eyes traced the horizon. The sun's light overhead beamed down on the sturdy figures of the three docked ships. The daylight streamed through the ship sails, giving the fabric a fiery glow. Men bustled up and down between two of the ships, unloading cargo and muttering obscenities as they went.

Her soft sigh was lost in a sea of chattering voices. "Wendy..." Ella repeated. The weight of the words crawled up her throat, thick as syrup. "Maybe it's time to..."

Movement on the furthest ship caught her gaze and spliced her sentence in half. The third boat had been dormant the entire morning, stirred only by the ocean's lapping waves. People often abandoned old ships at the pier; she had dismissed the boat as another outcast.

Squinting, Ella discerned another flicker of motion on the ship's deck. A white feather flitted by, sticking out of a triangular black hat. As quickly as it appeared, the hat bobbed below her view and vanished.