The Curse: The Island: Book One

By Xenanique Clarke

Zylan Cain has been living on the same island for 543 years, with a boy everyone believes is Peter Pan. She believes he killed her parents the night he brought her to the island, so she avoided him as much as she could. Recently though, she and the girls decided to get even with the boys. In doing so, she is forced to spend more time with Pan. The more she does, the more she starts to doubt her memories. To get to the truth, she leaves the island. Meanwhile, the real killer attacks her home in an effort to break his curse.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 21, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984518835

Book preview

Prologue

August 14th, 1468

A young woman sat at the table with her mother. Her father had just returned home from a rough month at sea. Tired and wary he went straight to bed—even though sunlight was still pouring into the house.

The sound of a knock made Mother look at the door with fear in her eyes. Get Father up, she said.

The young woman hesitated but did as her mother asked. She moved down the hallway slowly as she passed her room, then her sister’s old room—which would have been her brother’s room if he lived long enough to make the move to their new home.

She found herself wishing her siblings were still alive. It was her birthday today, and the only thing she wanted was for her family to be back together.

She knocked on her parents’ door and pushed it open slightly. Father, someone knocked at the door. Mother looked… she trailed off, wondering the best way to describe her mother’s feeling. She just told me to come get you.

Her father jumped out of bed. When?

Not but thirty seconds ago.

He ran down the hall, his daughter following slower, trying to figure out why everyone was acting so strange because of a knock. When they returned to the front of the house, the door was wide open and Mother was gone.

Father turned to his daughter, put his hands on her shoulders, and bent down slightly so he was looking right into her eyes. Zylan, go to my room, lock the door and hide under the bed. Do not open the door for anyone. Your Mother and I are the only ones with a key. Do you understand? he ordered.

Zylan had a habit of ignoring orders from her parents. However—knowing this could be a pirate attack—she felt she needed to listen this time. She nodded... back to her parents’ room she headed.

Her family lived right on the sea, making their home a popular destination among pirates. They mostly stuck to the taverns and only ever attacked the lower end of town, closer to the dock. She couldn’t think of any reason they would come to her house—especially while it was still light out—but knew it was certainly possible.

She locked the door like Father asked but didn’t go under the bed. She kept her ear pressed to the door, trying to hear anything that would give her a clue about what was going on. After a minute, she gave up, instead turning to look around the room. She was almost never allowed in, so she thought this would be a great time to do some poking around.

There was a large bed in the centre of the right wall with one nightstand on each side of it. They had a small, doorless closet in the back, right corner. There was a dresser in the centre of the left wall with a large mirror mounted on the back and Mother’s cosmetics scattered all over it.

As Zylan made her way around the bed to the closet, she heard footsteps coming down the hall. She slid under the bed, just as the lock clicked and door swung open.

It okay to— her mother was cut off with the loud bang of a gunshot. She didn’t scream, nor even flinch, Zylan just laid there and watched her mother bleed out in front of her, tears spilling silently out of her eyes, her mother’s blank.

A few seconds later, black boots stormed in and around the bed to the closet. The large black boots paused right before there was the squeaking of hangers being pushed. When they saw nothing, the boots turned to face the bed. Zylan was certain she was going to die. She imagined the savage pirate leaning down, looking under the bed, and blowing her away.

She took a silent, deep breath as a right hand came into view. It definitely belonged to a man. It was big, with two large rings—one on his forefinger, the other on his ring finger.

Right before he would have seen Zylan, he stood up straight and scurried out the door. Something must have called his attention away. All that Zylan could think about was Mother lying dead on the ground.

She managed to slide herself out from under the bed and over to her. With trembling hands, she rolled her mother onto her lap and brushed the hair out of her face, her blood staining Zylan’s white nightgown.

I’m so sorry, Momma, she whispered as more tears started pouring out of her eyes. I love you, Momma. Please don’t be gone.

There was nothing but silence. She sat there for a few minutes, hunched over, trembling, crying into her mother’s shoulder.

The sound of someone running into the room made her look up. In front of her, stood a boy who couldn’t have been older than 18. He wore strange clothes—like nothing Zylan had ever seen before. His shirt was black with long sleeves, but it wasn’t loose, it clung to him, highlighting every muscle along his arms and down his chest. Zylan thought he must be a blacksmith with muscle definition like that. His pants were dark blue and tight to his legs. Before she noticed the black boots on his feet, Zylan thought to herself that the young man was very handsome. But once she realized he had the same boots as the killer she looked back at her mother and said, Just kill me and get it over with.

The boy said nothing. He just reached down and grabbed her arm, pulling her up and away from her mother. Her body rolled away into a position she didn’t think a human body could make. Tears poured out of her eyes as the boy led her out of her house.

She looked over at the boy holding her and wondered how he could kill her mother, but not be able to look at her now. That’s when she noticed the boy’s hand wasn’t the same one she saw from under the bed. His hands were far too small, and was bare of rings. He couldn’t have been the one to kill her mother, but then... who was he?

Chapter 1

It’s been 552 years since that night. Nine years since I learned the truth behind what really happened that night. And two years since my story ended. I figure now is as good a time as any to write my adventures with a little bit of help from some friends. Our tale is one of magic, evil, twisted romance, and death. But first, I must warn you there’s no happy ending and not everyone makes it out alive. Because, in the real world, the good guys don’t always win and if they do, it costs everything.

September 20th 2011

I hadn’t had a dream in 543 years. Ever since that monster Peter Pan brought me to this god forsaken island. But of course, the first dream I had was of him. And it had to have been a dream, because that wasn’t how I remember that night. The knock? Yes. Hiding under the bed? Yes. Mother being shot? Unfortunately. A hand reaching under the bed? No. Thinking Pan was attractive? Slightly guilty. Thinking Pan didn’t kill my mother? Absolutely not. In fact, the only thing I’ve been 100 percent sure of, in my whole life, is that Pan killed my mom and probably my dad too.

But, as I opened my eyes to the sunlight pouring into my camp, I felt doubt.

For my first ten years here, it was only me and Pan. I was so terrified of him that I spent all of my time training. I taught myself how to use a bow and arrow and the magic that flows through The Island, all while using trees as punching bags. I thought that if Pan ever came looking for me I could kick his butt and leave.

The only problem was I couldn’t leave. I tried to escape hundreds of times, each time I was turned around and ended right back where I started. After the 252nd time, I gave up, but I kept training to keep myself busy, anything to keep myself from thinking about where I was and who I was with.

After 10 years and a bit, I wandered into a boy that definitely wasn’t Pan, his name was Ace. Our first couple of encounters were… not good. Totally my bad. It wasn’t until 1486 that we actually started talking. From then on, I had someone to keep me busy, especially when Clover came two years later.

For 543 years I’ve been pushing the thought of that night out of my head, so why was it coming back now? And why was it different? Was this Pan’s idea of a game?

I sat up and stretched, very careful not to flip my hammock. The girls and I had been living in the trees for over 50 years now. The boys kept pulling stupid pranks on us, so we decided to move our camp up, instead of constantly having to move around, we’d had almost 100 different camp sites over the years.

We made our hammocks from leaves that we strung together so we blended in with the trees just in case the boys came looking for us. It was hilarious when they came running in here, convinced this is our camp but stopped dead in their tracks when they couldn’t find any of our stuff. We even started taunting them with giant fires and loud music. But as soon as they tripped our alarm, I made everything disappear and we hid out in the trees. It was priceless.

I looked around, finding the rest of the hammocks empty. Judging by the sun, it was almost the afternoon. Why did no one wake me?

Finally! It’s like noon, since when do you sleep in? Clover asked from the ground.

Clover and I had been best friends for 523 years. Pan brought her to The Island in 1488, she was beaten up and scratched all over. It looked like she was attacked by some kind of animal, but she never actually told me what happened and I never asked because I figured she was like me and wanted to forget.

I don’t know, there’s a first time for everything. What’s going on?

Nothing, we were just worried you were in a coma or something, Elena said coming up from behind Clover.

Elena was also my best friend. She came in 1508. Her boyfriend had just proposed to her on the docks when pirates attacked. She thought they killed him, turns out they just wanted a new crew member, but that’s a story for later.

Nope, all good, just tired apparently.

Great. She’s up guys! Clover called over to the rest of the girls who were scattered around camp doing different things in their little groups.

Since I arrived here, Pan’s brought 54 kids, 27 girls and 27 boys. Since I was first, all the girls look up to me. I showed each and every one of them how to get around, taught them how to fight and use magic, and helped them with any problems they had. I became kind of like an unofficial leader to them.

Pan on the other hand, didn’t show any of the boys around, teach them how use magic, or help them with any problems, but basically crowned himself king of The Island. I hated him.

While us girls were pretty close, we did have smaller groups, people we were closer too. My group was Clover and Elena. Some groups were much bigger, like Luna, Iris, Ivana, Hermione, Trixie, Unique, and Dixie.

I liked having a smaller group, less drama that way. Clover and Elena used to get on each other’s nerves all the time but they hadn’t had a blowout fight for almost 100 years now. Lydia’s group on the other hand, had weekly fights. I hated being in the middle, but I loved hearing about it second hand.

Drama was basically oxygen here, as long as you weren’t involved. Living on a deserted island, the only thing to do was hear about other people’s lives. I did my best to avoid being dragged into the spot light. The only people that knew anything about my personal life were Clover, Elena, Tyler, and Ace. And even then, no one knew everything. Clover and Elena knew I’d been dating Ace for literally ever (well, at the time I thought they both knew, but shortly after this I found out that wasn’t the case) but I never told any of them how I ended up here and what Pan did to my family. They all loved him so much for saving them, I never had the heart to tell them he was a monster. Tyler on the other hand, knew everything about me except that I was seeing Ace.

That hadn’t stopped people from trying to start shit with me though.

When Jasmine first got here, she had this massive crush on Damon, but for some unknown reason he literally worshiped the ground I walked on. So, she started a rumour that I was dating Edward. Obviously, that didn’t go well with Ace. We kind of got into it because he thought that would have been the perfect time to tell people we were together, but I still wasn’t ready to do that, so we worked it out. I traced the rumour back to Jasmine and confronted her. She apologized and that was the last time I was involved in the drama.

I had a good laugh that of all people, she thought Edward was the best person the start a rumour about. If anything, I might have said Tyler. We’d been mistaken for a couple a few times over the course of our friendship, but it was always Ace.

‘Bout time! Ze, I found the boys camp, finally. What do you think about a little prank at their expense this time? Willow asked, turning away from her practice dummy holding two short sticks.

Anyone in particular, you’d like to beat up with those?

Isaac.

I thought he was with—

He was, until he made a move on her, Iris said, answering my question.

Okay. I’m down. Let’s do it.

Three hours later, we were standing outside the boys’ camp with a bucket full of bows, arrows, and rope. We’d been practicing for this for a couple years now. The goal was to scare the crap out of the guys so they’d stop trying to mess with us. I was going into the tree with six of the girls, with our bow and arrows. The rest of the girls were going to tie the guys up while we keep them from running out.

Are we all sure about this? I know that some of you may have a conflict of interest, I asked.

I love Matt, but I’ve been looking forward to shooting him since we came up with this plan, Azalea said with a smile plastered on her face.

Dido, but Klaus. Noel added rubbing her hands together.

I chuckled. Okay. Willow, Iris, Noel, Hope, Olive, Autumn, you’re with me. The rest of you, ready your ropes. You know the signal.

I waved my group to circle around the boys’ camp. I headed right, looking for a tree that I could climb without alerting the boys to my presence. I picked an oak tree that split right down the center. Half of it was standing tall, unfazed, but the other half was fallen over, arched slightly near the base, the rest laid flat on the ground.

I used the split to climb onto the arch so I could jump to the lowest hanging branch, which was about five meters above the ground. It took me a minute to get in a position where I could see the whole camp. I made sure I counted all 27 of the boys—there was no chance Pan would be here, he never was, according to Ace.

Once I counted all the boys and saw all six girls come into view, I gave the signal; an ear-piercing whistle. The boys were on their feet in seconds, swords in hand, ready for battle, but seeing 21 girls running in, threw them off for a second.

That was all it took for us to get the advantage. I shot the first arrow, knocking Ace’s sword right out of his hand. He looked over at me, shaking his head, before smiling. I shrugged, mouthing it’s our turn now.

He shrugged back, and opened his mouth. I think he said, That’s fair, but I’m still not sure if that was right.

I turned my attention back to the rest of the boys, knowing Ace wouldn’t be running anywhere. Tyler on the other hand was trying to sneak out on the far side of camp. I pulled back my arrow, about to shoot when I heard a voice behind me. It startled me enough that I released the bow without aiming. Thanks God, my arrow just sliced Ty’s cheek instead of killing him.

Didn’t your mom ever teach you it’s rude to shoot people. Great. Pan was the reason I almost killed one of my best friends. I looked over my shoulder to find him leaning on the tree next to me with his arms crossed and smug look on his face.

It annoyed me that he was handsome, it’s so much easier to hate someone mediocre, but noooooooooooo, Pan was so stupidly hot it made me want to punch him. He had hazel eyes that couldn’t decide if they wanted to be golden brown or green. His face structure was impeccable, sharp cheek bones, strong jaw line (although, sometimes it kind of looked like he had a frog in his mouth, but even that worked for him! Auck he was annoying). He had chocolate brown hair that was always perfectly styled, whether it waved over his forehead, pulled back and up, or left down (in a Prince Charming kind of way) it was always flawless. As for the rest of him, perfectly toned abs (he used to fight in our monthly sparing match—all the other girls swooned even Clover and Elena), muscular arms and legs. Basically, he was perfect and I hated it, but not so much anymore.

No. She didn’t get the chance. You killed her just like you almost made me kill Tyler. Asshole. I didn’t know why I said that. Maybe it was because of that dream this morning. Maybe I just wanted to know for sure and saying it to him was the only way to find out. But the look on his face made me doubt my recollection of that night even more.

Pan dropped his arms to his sides, pealed himself off the tree, and stared at me with complete disbelief. I… I didn’t… you… And then he just disappeared, leaving me just as confused as he looked.

Did I really remember that night wrong? Or is he just a really good actor? I didn’t have time to think about this right now, I had to focus at the task on hand.

There were only five boys left, Damon, Luke, Hunter, Justin, and Shawn. Damon was trying to wrestle the rope out of Dawn’s hands, so I decided to give her a hand. I grabbed an arrow out of the case hanging on my back and aim at Damon’s belt buckle. He always wore pants too big for him, because he thought it looked cool. I pulled back my bow, released the arrow, and took his belt clean off.

When his pants hit the ground his hands few over his private area. That dumbass wasn’t wearing underwear. Dawn didn’t seem to notice until after he was tied to the tree. It wasn’t until she stepped back that she noticed Damon was naked from the waist down. She waved her hand, so his pants were back on, trying really hard not to laugh. I didn’t hold back my laugher. His face was priceless. Hanging from a tree, trying to cover himself up was the only entertainment I needed.

By the time Damon was tied, all the other boys were in the trees as well. I made my way down barely breathing. Willow was the only one that didn’t give me a funny look as I met the girls in the middle of camp. She knew exactly why I was laughing.

Hello boys, I managed to say after controlling my laughter. Nice to see you, it’s been a while.

Ze, what the fuck are you doing? You know we’re getting you back for this right? It was Justin’s voice.

I turned to him. Oh, sweet, naive Justin, you can’t find us.

How did you—

Know? Oh, I’m so glad you asked. The last fifty years, we’ve been hiding, waiting for this precise moment to get our revenge, watching as you looked around for us franticly. But now we’ve found you. So, gotcha. I smiled.

Ha, ha, ha, Matt said. Now let us down.

Oh dear boy, this isn’t all. I signaled Clover and Elena to get the rest of our stuff. We haven’t even got to the best part.

The boys had wide eyes as Clover and Elena reentered camp with a box full of bows and arrows. This is part we’d been training for. The objective of this part is to not kill all of the boys, but to definitely maim them. Elena had been looking forward to this since 1700 even—long before this was our plan.

Have fun girls, I said with a smile. Like I said there were 27 girls plus me and 27 boys plus Pan, so unless Pan was going to let us tie him to a tree, I was out of luck. Instead, I headed off to the side, climbing a tree that would allow me to watch the action. There was one just inside the camp that almost looked like a throne. I pulled myself up to sit in the three-branched tree.

Three meters off the ground, I could see everything. Clover planted herself in front of Justin with a smile on her face. He looked terrified, probably because he knew first-hand how bad she was with a bow and arrow. A sword, she was graceful and deadly, but a bow and arrow? She was clumsy with zero ability to hit her target. He was probably terrified that he was going to get an arrow to the throat, even if she was aiming for his leg. She never actually shot an arrow at him, but she made damn sure he almost cried before she stepped away.

Elena on the other hand, nearly shot Kathryn when she tried to stand in front of Hunter. I wanted to do the same when Jasmine planted herself in front of Ace, but no one would understand why I didn’t want her shooting at Ace, where everyone knew why Elena was shooting at Hunter. Instead, I tried to avoid watching Jazz flirt with my boyfriend by watching Elena.

There were a couple times I thought about jumping in, but decided that was a bad idea. She was in the zone, firing arrow after arrow at him. It was kind of scary actually. He was flailing the whole time, screaming like he was drowning, while she laughed. She got him a couple times, slicing his cheek, his neck, and his ankle. They were barely flesh wounds, but you would think he was being murdered if you were just listening.

Call your girls off please? I don’t want them killing my minions.

I rolled my eyes at the sound of Pan’s voice. Minions.