Straight On Till Morning

by Liz Braswell

  The qqrimal waggled its tail at Wendy and took off into the forest. Tinker Bell dangled from its mouth; the poor fairy jingled desperately as it disappeared into the bushes.

  “No!” Wendy got up and ran after it as fast as she could. Flying was out of the question—she wasn’t an expert and the understory of the jungle was far too dense for her to even consider it.

  And she already had a late start; the smaller, more lithe carnivore easily leapt over obstacles and slunk under them.

  Wendy also jumped over fallen trees and ducked under canopies of vines, trying to keep the thing in her sights—but she was much, much slower. The qqrimal was black as shadow and made almost no noise as it flowed on the forest floor, just a pitter-patter and occasional chuff.

  She burst out into a hot clearing, an empty hilltop whose dry pinnacle could support little life. The sun beat down like a physical force. It was no longer a happy lemon; it was a blazing ball of fire. Wendy spun around, looking for signs of the qqrimal. But the ground was dried and cracked mud that recorded no footprints. The edges around the outside of the clearing were staffed by half-dead, yellowed trees that all looked the same.

  There was no hint of the creature.

  “TINK?” Wendy cried. “Tink?

  “No,” she murmured, turning and turning.

  “No!” she cried again, and her voice fell flat and quiet in the thick fetid air.

  “TINKER BELL!” she screamed.

  But the jungle was silent.

  There was a very thin line between panic and giving up.

  Wendy was filled with rage and terror—but also a split second away from collapsing onto the ground and weeping. And that would be the end of everything.

  If she just started running—in the wrong direction—she would merely continue in the wrong direction and get farther and farther from the creature and the fairy.

  If she retraced her steps looking for clues, she would be wasting time.

  The image came to her mind ruthlessly unbidden: the black, formless creature biting down on the fairy’s midriff; the resulting terrible crunch.

  “TINKER BELL!” she screamed until her voice cracked.

  Nothing.

  Wendy choked back a sob and pulled at her hair. What to do? What would a hero do? What would Peter Pan do? What could she do? Where was the terribly clever deus ex machina or plot device that she would write for her own heroes?

  What sort of nightmare creature was that thing—that qqrimal—anyway?

  At least the crystalline guardian from before had made some sort of sense, pulled out of Michael’s angry toddlerhood and a doll he had made out of clay. This animal was far too precise, too detailed for his young mind. And John would never have imagined something so horrible and vicious. Secretly he loved fairies as much as Wendy and delighted in designing the twig and acorn contraptions they used to simplify their forest tasks.

  “What sort of child would come up with a carnivorous beast that eats fairies? That hunts and devours and tears them apart?” she wailed.

  But of course there were other children besides the Darlings who believed in Never Land.

  Children who…delighted in the destruction of fairies? Who hated beauty?

  Or who didn’t believe beauty was possible? That only ugliness and horror survived?

  What kind of children were they—what were their lives like?

  Wendy shivered.

  “What do I do?” she whispered. What could she do, when there were monsters like these and worse roaming the fairy-tale world she had thought was safe?

  That was when she noticed her shadow.

  The black shape was doing the equivalent of jumping up and down—elongating and contracting, still connected to Wendy’s feet. She waved her arms frantically, trying to get Wendy’s attention.

  “What? What is it?”

  The shadow bent down and pulled at her feet. Then she stretched her arms, making a flying gesture, and pointed into the woods.

  “What do you—oh, you want me to release you? So you can go look for Tinker Bell?”

  The shadow nodded vigorously.

  “You think you can find her?”

  The shadow nodded again.

  “But even if you find her—how can you help her until I get there?”

  The shadow shook her head: no time. She pointed at their feet again.

  “Oh. I suppose there isn’t much of a choice, really, is there?”

  The shadow nodded vigorously.

  Wendy bent down, unsure what to do exactly. She placed her hands on her left foot and made as if to untie a boot.

  Something…gave.

  It felt like something untied from her belly and slid out through her feet. A wave of nausea washed over her, leaving her enervated. Everything, even standing, suddenly seemed exhausting.

  It wasn’t a simple thing to release one’s shadow, Wendy realized. It wasn’t all fun and games and a funny quest to reunite with it. The shadow—in Never Land, at least—contained something besides a lack of light and mimicry of movements. Some very visceral part of Wendy was in her shadow. And when she let go…

  “You will come back to me, after you find her, right?” she asked before reaching for her other foot.

  The shadow shrugged and shook her head.

  No time.

  No time to stop and think. No time to consider the ramifications.

  “For Tinker Bell,” Wendy told herself sternly and untied her right foot.

  The shadow shot off out of the clearing, into the woods.

  Wendy slumped to the ground.

  Her energy and strength weren’t all gone, she figured out after a few silent moments. She could still move and still stand up with a little effort. It was more like she didn’t really care to.

  “It’s like I have the chills, or a cold, but of the soul,” she said aloud to cheer herself up. “Nothing so very serious. Manageable. Peter has done without a shadow for four years. Certainly I can go an hour.”

  She did a few stretches and was satisfied with the way her body responded. Weakly, but up to the task if pressed.

  She just hoped her shadow was going to do what she said—what Wendy assumed she was saying. That she would go find Tinker Bell before it was too late and somehow signal to Wendy. After all, despite whatever influence Never Land had, she was still Wendy’s shadow. The shade of a good, well-meaning, honest girl must be a little good herself.

  Unless all of Wendy’s worst behaviors were contained in her shadow.

  Like her betrayal of Peter Pan…

  Wendy had a few long minutes of pondering these oppressive thoughts. But before she even thought it was possible there came a strange and ominous crashing in the woods. As if something was being flailed wildly back and forth. Thrown into the bushes, picked up, and thrown again.

  And was that—was there the faintest jingle?

  “Tinker Bell!”

  Wendy made her feet move in the direction the sounds were coming from as quickly as she could manage.

  She often had to stop, pause to listen, run the wrong way for a moment, trip over a plant, then turn the right way again (at least seven times), the way all heroes do when chasing through the woods on a rescue mission.

  Like all good heroes she eventually found her quarry. But the scene made no sense at all when she first came upon it.

  The qqrimal seemed to be throwing itself around violently. It growled, shook its head, leapt headfirst into a tree, then flowed down its trunk—and then began the whole thing over again. Like a dog with hydrophobia.

  Tinker Bell was still clutched in its paws.

  Wendy crept up quietly—but it didn’t seem to see her at all.

  When she accidentally stepped on a twig and snapped it, then the creature leapt up, alert.

  Looking the wrong way.

  Carefully, unsure what was going on, Wendy came up behind it as silently as she could, as close as she could.

  She grabbed it by the nape of its neck.
/>   Swinging it around quickly before it could flow out of her grasp, she seized its stomach with her other hand. She had to keep tossing it from hold to hold so it couldn’t use its tricky thinning-out powers to escape.

  The thing yowled and growled and hissed and batted out with his hind legs. It snapped is jaws wildly in all the wrong directions.

  Something strange was going on with its mirror eyes. They looked dull and unseeing.

  Wendy tore Tinker Bell out of its grasp and then slammed the qqrimal into the ground. Perhaps harder than was strictly necessary.

  “Tink—are you all right?” She held the crumpled and bruised little fairy up for a better look.

  Tinker Bell nodded woefully. She was bleeding, but not from the giant punctures Wendy had expected from the creature’s claws. More like scratches from being shaken around while in its grasp.

  It was taking me back to its lair. They don’t like…fresh fairy meat.

  “Oh!” Wendy said, swallowing.

  The qqrimal stood up woozily, swaying and sick.

  A black mist—no, shadow!—peeled itself off its face.

  Wendy’s shadow had covered its eyes, using herself as a mask!

  The animal shook its head and blinked its eyes, back to their normal shiny silver. It gave Wendy a wounded, irritated look.

  Wendy, pulling a Tinker Bell, stuck her tongue out at it.

  The qqrimal leapt away into the underbrush and disappeared as fast as it could—this time without a single snarky chuff.

  Wendy’s shadow triumphantly unfolded herself and stood tall, hands on hips. Her toes touched Wendy’s and the human girl could feel energy and strength pour back into her.

  “That was very clever!” Wendy crowed. “You blinded him! Oh, very clever indeed!”

  The shadow bowed.

  Then she saluted.

  And then she took off.

  Disappeared into the woods like the qqrimal, but high: into the branches of the canopy layer.

  Wendy stumbled but didn’t quite fall.

  “I suppose I should have expected that,” she muttered. “No one helps for free around here.”

  Tinker Bell, despite her wounds, looked up at the human girl with pity and concern.

  That was brave and noble, giving up your shadow for me. Thank you.

  “Well, what else was there to do, really?” Wendy asked, a little more tiredly than she wanted.

  After the way I treated you—

  “I mean, that’s a fair point,” Wendy said with a faint smile. “You’re welcome.”

  I don’t deserve it.

  You can’t go back to London now.

  “What?” the human girl asked, startled.

  (Well, that was interesting, at least: she could still feel panic, though muted, in her shadowless state.)

  You can’t return home without your shadow.

  “But why? Peter left his own shadow in London. And he returned here!”

  Peter is almost pixie. You are entirely human. Shadows are different here. They are less of a…requirement than they are in London. The rules of your world are very strict about that sort of thing.

  I’m sorry.

  “But I didn’t want to go back to London,” Wendy protested.

  It was a little bit of a lie: she had always thought she would return, otherwise she wouldn’t have insisted on a return ticket from the pirates.

  And now that it looked like that option was taken away, she was suddenly a lot more concerned about it.

  Never see Michael and John again?

  Mother and Father?

  Nana?

  Even the evil old Shesbow twins, the smokestacks, the roofs, the clouds?

  Tinker Bell seemed to read her mind. You gave up a lot for me. More than you knew.

  “Well, I can’t think about any of that now,” Wendy told Tinker Bell—and herself—firmly. “Before anything else, we must rescue Peter’s shadow and save Never Land. I can’t go home until everyone here is safe. So let us continue to make our way to the En—no, the Chanting Peninsula. Are you well enough to travel?”

  Tinker Bell looked at her with wonder. She nodded once.

  “And is it very far away? Because—I’m afraid to admit it, but I’m a bit done in. All these adventures really wear a girl out. I’m dying to sleep.” Wendy was very, very shaky in fact, but she ground her teeth and tried to sound as blasé as possible. The loss of her shadow made all of her aches and pains and tiredness worse—the exact opposite of the fairy dust.

  Sleep on the way. That’s what we do.

  And although the idea of tiny winged creatures sleeping high in the sky with clouds for their cushions was positively delightful, Wendy couldn’t see herself doing it without heading directly into a thunderhead, or a cliff, or the mouth of some sort of horrid Never Land creature.

  “Oh, Tinker Bell, I don’t think I could. I’d be terrified of falling, or smashing into something.”

  Tinker Bell smiled. Go to sleep. I’ll watch you.

  “Are you certain? I won’t be afraid if you really will keep an eye on me. Sorry about being such a terrible burden. Big ugly human and all. Utterly useless.”

  Tinker Bell opened her mouth and out came great peals of strange, jingly laughter. Then she grabbed Wendy’s hand and pulled her aloft, into the darkening sky.

  The next few hours were strange.

  Or maybe it was a day, or a half day, or two.…

  A glorious sunset performed its final bows across Never Land. Dark purple clouds rolled out along a horizon edged in fiery orange so bright it was like looking into the depths of a blacksmith’s forge. The first stars were entering with some confusion into the not-quite-black sky. It was delightful to see them floating in a sea of turquoise ether.

  “How often do they get to do that?” Wendy wondered aloud tiredly.

  Tinker Bell kept rising up and up into the sky and then pausing, then dipping down, then going sideways—and then repeating the whole procedure. Wendy had just summoned enough energy to ask her what she was doing when, with a bright look of satisfaction, the fairy apparently found whatever she was looking for and dragged the human girl through the air to her.

  Aha!

  Wendy suddenly realized what the invisible object of her friend’s search was: a calm thermal wind. It was so large and encompassing that when she slipped into its embrace the howling breezes of the upper airs immediately became silent, as if in the presence of a king. Here it was surprisingly warm and scented with things that didn’t seem to come from the jungles of Never Land: exotic but somehow familiar, like Mrs. Darling’s perfume when she kissed her daughter before going out.

  Wendy had no trouble at all curling up on this invisible bed, and sleep came quick despite the confusing scenes she saw between languorous blinks. Instead of crisp sheets, comforting fire, and downy quilt, she saw nothing but empty space, sharp mountains, and trees a thousand feet below. But not even these could keep her from unconsciousness.

  She drifted, literally and figuratively, the whole night, Tinker Bell always close by. One time the little creature took a sit-down on her, lying back on the big girl’s shoulder and watching the stars. Wendy remained silent and as still as she could, reluctant to disturb her.

  Eventually, the fairy woke Wendy with a tug on her ear—back to her usual naughty tricks. But as the human girl started, indignant, she saw that the sun was close to rising. More importantly, the fairy held a rather ridiculously sized rubyfruit to break her fast with. These were the fruits that heroes stranded on a desert island in Wendy’s stories always hoped to find to quench their thirst and save themselves from starvation.

  Wendy sat up as best she could on nothing.

  “Thank you, that’s most kind.” She took the rubyfruit and popped off the stem like she had in dreams. It fell neatly into ten perfect, juicy sections. “Would you like one?”

  Tinker Bell shrugged nonchalantly but took a section and immediately sank her face into its pale, creamy flesh, tearing out
mouthfuls while somehow managing not to get any juice on her face. A delicate, civilized little beast.

  It was rather funny when Wendy thought about it. Despite Tinker Bell giving Wendy the gift of understanding fairy tongue, they had just had an entire conversation without the fairy speaking a single word. In fact, most of Tink’s communicating still seemed to be in gestures, facial expressions, and body movements. They weren’t just affectations or simply to enhance understanding for those who couldn’t decipher jingles; this was really just how Tinker Bell spoke. When she had to she could be as articulate and verbose as anyone else—including other fairies, who spoke clearly and wordily and whose hands didn’t move at all during discourse (like well-trained boarding school ladies). Tinker Bell’s meaning was wrapped up in movement; she was energy and gesture.

  Wendy ate another piece of fruit and turned to watch the east. She wasn’t normally fond of sunrises because she was barely awake when they occurred and because they signaled the end of the peaceful quiet of the house. Others rose at that time, and Wendy had to deal with the various personalities and problems of the day that were outside her own head. Sunrises were never spectacular in London, anyway: just a yellowish lightening of the fog, or, on a really clear day in autumn, a brightening of rare blue sky somewhere behind all the rooftops. Perhaps in some neighborhood east of the Darlings’ house, east of their street, east of the park, east and east and east, maybe someone at the edge of London saw the sun come up properly, from behind something natural like the sea or a forest edge. But no one else did.

  Now two days in a row Wendy got to witness the real thing, Never Land–style. First came the strange false dawn that presaged the sun’s appearance, like the hopeful breath of an audience before a famous chanteuse steps out onto stage.

  Taking its own time, the lemony Never Land sun finally rose—and surprisingly hot for the morning, its first rays hitting Wendy’s skin with an almost tangible pressure.

  Through all this, the air and the sunlight, came a strange vibration.

  At first Wendy’s brain almost dismissed it, thoughtlessly categorizing the repeated drone as “waves crashing on a shore.” But the girls weren’t low enough to hear any waves—and they weren’t over a beach at all. So her mind tried to resolve the sounds into words or hums: ommm, nam-nam-nam-nam ommmmm and strings of only slightly more complicated sounds.