by Liz Braswell
Despite her anger, the fairy made a questioning tinkle that wasn’t too hard to interpret.
“Well, I don’t know what I really want. I want to see Never Land, obviously,” Wendy answered, indicating the world around them. She opened her fingers, loosening her grip on the fairy. “I want adventures. I want…I don’t know, other things. Certainly not to do laundry aboard a pirate ship for the rest of my life.
“Yes, I’m ashamed of what I did. It was a bad deed. But Peter can’t have missed his shadow much, since he never came to get it.”
The fairy tinkled angrily at her, rising up off her palm and clenching her tiny hands once again into tiny adorable fists.
“All right, look, before you start again, two things. One, I’m perfectly willing to make amends for what I did,” Wendy said, squaring her shoulders. “Whatever it takes. Right now.”
Her shadow stood up straight upon hearing this, intrigued.
The fairy frowned at her suspiciously.
“I’m absolutely serious. Also, number two, and potentially far more importantly: either as a result of my actions or alongside of them, Never Land is in trouble. Captain Hook seems like he means to destroy the whole island. We need to stop him—and find Peter. He and his shadow are involved somehow. And I will do whatever it takes to accomplish both things.”
She meant it. She conjured up images in her head of all sorts of brave Englishmen and realized she couldn’t think of a single face. But the idea of dying at sword point or being forced to walk the plank in a dramatic rescue attempt was somehow still easier to swallow than an eternity of serving aboard a pirate ship as a nanny and scullery maid.
The fairy narrowed her eyes, obviously reevaluating the human.
Then she nodded. Once.
Not enthusiastically.
“Shall we go then?” Wendy asked primly. “Last I saw, the pirates were headed north, or what would have been north in England. Up the coast. We need to get some help to stop them, I should think. More of you fairies, perhaps? And mermaids might be helpful. Or we could arrange some sort of boat, one with cannons, I expect, and a willing crew—”
The fairy stamped her foot angrily—then lowered herself back down onto Wendy’s hand so the big human girl could actually feel it. She shook her head. She pointed into the jungle.
“I’m sorry, I don’t…”
The fairy snarled in frustration. Then she made a big show of miming the act of looking for something or someone, hand shielding her eyes from the sun, peering into the distance. She pretended to find the thing and marched very dramatically toward it. She had a whole conversation with this thing, which was now obviously a person, took him by the hand, and pretended to fly off.
Then she and he either battled a small army together or succumbed to St. Vitus’s dance; it was hard to tell which.
“Oh—you want to find Peter Pan first?” Wendy said, suddenly realizing what it all meant. “Find him and bring him along to get his shadow back from the pirates?”
The fairy nodded excitedly, and for a heartbreaking second looked absolutely delighted that Wendy understood.
“But I don’t know how much time Never Land has! And do you even know where he is?”
The fairy shrugged and looked exasperated, throwing her arms out to indicate all of Never Land. Wendy wondered, from the way the fairy was acting, if the two friends had ever been separated before this happened.
In spite of her determination to save their world, Wendy was ashamed to admit her first reaction was No, let’s not go find Peter first—only because then she would have to tell her hero straight off that she had sold his shadow to his enemy. It was one thing to admit wrongdoing to a random fairy, but to the person you’ve slighted himself—well, that took a different kind of courage. “Perhaps he isn’t so useful right now, without his shadow?” she ventured.
The fairy frowned and pointed again.
“But perhaps we should drum up some other help against the pirates first?”
The fairy crossed her arms and closed her eyes haughtily, shaking her head.
“Oh, please,” Wendy said. “Even with Peter Pan, the two of us can’t take on an entire pirate crew. In all my stories about Peter Pan he fights Captain Hook man to man, not against all of them.”
The fairy turned her head away and sniffed.
Wendy rubbed her head. She hadn’t had a lot of experience cajoling people—beyond her father, at least—much less an irrational little creature like this. The thing wouldn’t listen to logic or reason.
But of course, she was a fairy. Why would she put up with terribly human ideas like logic and reason?
Wendy thought about her mother’s gentle arguments with shopkeepers when the Darling account came up a bit short.
“Well, how about this,” she said, using her best reasonable voice. “Let’s do go fetch Peter. But perhaps we should start with the Lost Boys? He’s always with his crew. So he might be there, or they might know where he is. And if he’s not there, we can see if they’re interested in joining us for our big run-in with the pirates. All right?”
The fairy pouted and looked suspicious, as if she thought Wendy were trying to trick her somehow. But she couldn’t find anything obviously wrong with what had been suggested, so she nodded. Reluctantly.
“All right then, let’s—”
And the fairy took off like a shot, a golden bauble that zipped high into the air and disappeared.
“All right,” Wendy repeated, uncertainly, watching it go.
“I can’t fly,” she added after another moment.
The clearing was silent except for the chirping of a single insect. It regarded Wendy through what looked like a very tiny pair of spectacles.
“I’ll just walk then, I guess.” She adjusted her dress and looked at Luna. “Shall we? I think…I think the Hangman’s Tree is due north of us, and a bit east. We may need to bushwhack. A pity I don’t have a machete or some such…”
Just as Wendy set foot into the shady, vaguely threatening undergrowth, there came a distant tinkling sound. The bauble of golden light tore back through the sky and stopped suddenly in front of her like a confused meteor. It hovered up and down angrily. Within the glow, the fairy tapped her foot and pointed to the sky.
“I can’t fly,” Wendy said politely. “I will have to meet you there. It will take me rather longer than you, I should expect.”
The fairy looked like she was going to explode in frustration. Her face turned red and her tiny hands became grasping, strained claws. Her shoulders rose up around her neck.
“Ah…sorry?”
With a strangled cry, the fairy flew at her. Wendy threw her hands up over her face for protection.
Nothing happened.
When no pinches or bites occurred, she hesitantly lowered her arms.
The fairy was flying in loops and swirls around her, shedding fairy dust as she went. Throwing it at Wendy.
Delighted, the human girl raised her arms up to fully experience what was happening. Delicate golden sparkles floated down and kissed her skin. Where they touched, Wendy felt lighter. Tiny pains she hadn’t even realized she felt entirely disappeared, and any weariness vanished. She felt rested, energetic, eager, and—airy.
“Oh! Fairy dust! Will this help me fly?”
The little fairy crossed her arms and nodded. She looked over Wendy with an appraising eye, perhaps seeing if she had done a good enough job. Then she nodded again, satisfied, and buzzed off into the sky.
Wendy raised her arms. She felt like the wind itself!
Nothing happened.
“All right,” she said. “Here I go!”
Did the ends of her hair lift a little, or was that just the breeze?
Sparkles continued to twinkle on her arms for a bit before settling into her skin. She worried: Was there a time limit? Did the magic fade if not used properly?
And with that worry, she felt the earth solidly under her heels again, her full weight bearing down on the soil.
“Oh, oh oh oh,” she cried, panicking. “Don’t do that, don’t think bad thoughts. I don’t think the fairy dust likes that. It won’t work if I think bad thoughts.”
She then had to stop herself from worrying about not flying because of worrying and bad thoughts. It made her head a little crazy.
The fairy hovered a good twenty feet up with her arms crossed and an impatient, bored look on her face.
“Sorry,” Wendy called as brightly as she could. “Never done this before! Doing my best here!”
The fairy rolled her eyes. Wendy winced. Nothing she did or said seemed to endear her to the pretty little thing at all. She wished she could do something right, immediately, the first time.
The fairy dove down and grabbed Wendy’s left thumb with both her hands and pulled. Wendy caught her breath, delighted by the tiny, warm touch.
Luna barked. She didn’t at all like the unfriendly creature coming too close to her mistress.
Wendy was torn, not wanting to upset the fairy—but not wanting to upset her wolf, either.
“Oh, it’s all right, girl,” Wendy said, putting her other hand out for Luna. “She’s just trying to help.”
The wolf pushed her nose into Wendy’s palm, licking it and forcing the hand up over her head to encourage scratching behind her ears. Wendy felt a rush of warmth and affection for this friend she only knew from dreams, who loved her so fiercely and unconditionally.
She felt herself lighten.
The fairy also must have felt it somehow, because at that exact same moment she tugged, beating her little wings, trying to fly backward and drag the girl up.
Wendy rose onto her toes.
Luna barked again, less worried and more perplexed.
“Oh! It’s working!” Wendy cried.
In that moment, all of Never Land became everything she had always imagined it would be. She could do anything. The sky was blue, the future full of infinite good.
The fairy still held her hand, obviously trying to keep a skeptical, annoyed look on her face. But her lips moved in a strange duck-billed twist, as if she was working very hard to keep them frowning. Her whole face had lightened, the scowling darkness removed like a storm whisked away by a whimsical and beneficent god. When she impatiently rolled her eyes and twirled her fingers, it wasn’t with anger this time; it was encouraging: Come on, come on! More of that!
“But…more of what?” Wendy asked, distracted by the feeling of weightlessness, Luna, and her own thoughts.
The fairy tapped her head then pointed at the human girl and shrugged dramatically.
“What? What was I thinking? Is that what you—yes, it was. Well, I was thinking about flying—no, I was thinking about Luna, actually. What a good girl she is and how wonderful it is that she loves me.…”
Wendy’s toes left the ground entirely.
“Oh! Oh! It’s happy thoughts! I see it now! They make you fly!” she cried, clapping her hands.
And with that, she slipped the surly bonds of the earth and rose slowly, twirling into the sky. The fairy kept one tiny hand on hers, steadying her ascent.
Trees and bushes below her waved in the mild tropical breeze like undersea plants. Wendy wasn’t as terrified of the height as she had thought she might be. The change in perspective was a little thrilling, a little startling, but that was all. It was like she merely had nothing to do with the ground anymore.
Luna barked.
“Oh, Luna, I’m all right, I—”
The fairy let go.
Wendy suddenly listed to the left. It was as if the fairy were the only thing anchoring her to the sky. She thrashed wildly, making flailing swimming motions that did little to help. The earth rolled sickeningly below, looming close.
The fairy immediately grabbed her again.
Wendy felt everything…stabilize. The lightness on both sides of her evened out and she bobbed steadily again, feeling somehow supported by the air around her.
The fairy waited a moment and gave her a look—All right? Are you ready?
Wendy swallowed and nodded.
The fairy—slowly—withdrew her tiny hand, drawing it across Wendy’s skin until just a finger touched, and then nothing at all.
Wendy remained steady this time.
She laughed. Out loud, like she hadn’t laughed in years—honest, billowing peals of pure joy. Her skirts swished and spread out. Gravity had no effect on her anymore—nothing tugged at her shoulders, feet, neck, mind, ears—she was weightless, untouchable.
Luna barked. But it was a bark of excitement this time, a wow look at us and you and me and that’s all great yes! bark.
Seeing this, the fairy dipped down and started to sprinkle some dust on her—but the wolf ducked neatly out of the way. She pranced back and forth, her back bending and shimmering in the sunlight. She barked again politely. No, thank you, she was obviously saying. I’ll go my own way.
The fairy shook her head—Who wouldn’t want to fly? Silly thing!—then buzzed up to Wendy’s nose and snapped her fingers imperiously.
“All right, yes, yes,” Wendy said, too happy to take offense. “I’m coming. Forgive me—I’ve only flown in my dreams before!”
The fairy rolled her eyes and took off toward the gray mountains. More slowly this time.
And Wendy, spreading her arms out to catch the wind, happily followed.
Wendy followed the fairy as best she could without becoming distracted by the details of the landscape below. Some things looked exactly as she had imagined them (the savannas of Upper Hillsdale, for instance, and the multilevel pools of the Tonal Springs). But some things were subtly different and others entirely unrecognizable. Far to the northwest was the area she couldn’t remember very well: in reality it turned out to be a peninsula shrouded in a heavy gray and viscous fog.
Maybe it really is masked by the elements because it hasn’t been described yet, or used in a story, Wendy thought.
To the south of that was a strange, balding mound of a hill that was just crying out for an obvious name. Was it John’s invention? Or Michael’s? Or…someone else’s?
And, wait a moment, what about those someone elses? Other children? Besides me and Michael and John? Wendy suddenly wondered. Did they make up whole areas of the island in their own games? And was there any part of Never Land that was just—itself, not prone to the stories and imaginations of children? Was this fairy with her a native, as it were, or the result of some little girl’s dream?
Maybe Wendy could get some answers once everything with Hook and the shadow was sorted.
Luna ran far below them, disappearing into the jungles here, reappearing on a trail there, keeping an eye on the two fliers and barking at their shadows.
(Wendy’s shadow waved insouciantly at her as she rippled over the treetops and clearings.)
The fairy was already descending toward the center of the island, which wasn’t really that big.
Despite the very obviously non-temperate flora near the beach, here the Pernicious Forest became solidly northern (if not quite Hyperborean). There were pines and oaks with their surprisingly familiar leaf shapes that spoke of cool, moist shadows below. But these grew alongside palms and vines and exotic flowers and the like, a mishmash of ideas. Spot in the middle of this mess was a scrubby clearing that was just short of terrifying and very long on creepy. A giant dead tree stood in the center. Its gnarled, broken-off branches and twigs were like bones grasping at the sky, as if the tree were still fighting its fate a hundred years after its death. What looked too regular to be vines turned out, of course, to be the frayed ends of ropes and nooses, all sizes and shapes. “For all sorts of necks, I suppose,” Wendy said thoughtfully.
The grass and weeds around the tree had been trampled into dry brown dust by unknown activity. Standing like sentinels on the cardinal points just outside this circle were other gigantic trees, but these were very much alive. Almost too alive.
Wendy carefully and slowly lowered herself to the grou
nd, wobbling a bit as she went. She was hoping for a perfect, graceful landing like a Russian ballerina en one pointe but had to settle for a mostly-on-two-flat-feet stumble. She bowed forward with momentum, managing to catch herself before completely tumbling over her own head.
The fairy had disappeared, presumably into the hidden hideout of the Lost Boys.
“Luna?” Wendy called. “Luna!”
An answering howl came from somewhere downhill and to the south: the wolf was on her way, but still far.
“All right, I’ll see you in a bit!”
She made a barefoot circle of the clearing, the weight of her dress now feeling strange as it swished against her legs, catching against the little hairs on her skin. She studied the living trees on the perimeter carefully and was quickly rewarded for her efforts: giant knots in their trunks had suspicious black cracks around them. Body-sized holes rose up from their roots with edges that seemed strangely smooth, as if they had been polished by constant use.
“They’re not actually hidden that well, are they?” she mused. Anyone, not just clever Wendy, with an eye and a moment’s thought could tell there was something off and a little too frequented about the area. Did the pirates really never find Peter Pan’s hideout? Had they ever actually looked? It brought to mind the idea of when a child plays hide-and-go-seek with his mummy and tries not to giggle while posing behind something too small to adequately camouflage him. The family dog, for instance. Or a small ottoman.
Wendy shrugged and primly stepped through a door, feeling just a tad superior.
So she was more than a bit taken aback when the floor fell away mechanically below her and she tumbled, heels over head, down a hard and lumpy ramp.
She landed on an equally hard floor, a mess of dress, hair, and sash, legs splayed and vision spinning. But she could see enough to notice a very smug-looking fairy hovering in the air before her, arms crossed.