Straight On Till Morning

by Liz Braswell

  Without Peter—

  “It’s like you don’t have a world anyway. Yes, I understand.” Wendy sighed and put a very careful finger on the fairy’s hand. “I’m terribly sorry. About him, and everything. But I’m not sorry we’re together. Imagine if you had to face this alone!”

  Tinker Bell shuddered. She looked up at Wendy with something approaching chagrin.

  I’m very glad you’re with me. And not just because you saved me.

  “Those First, eh?” Wendy said wryly, trying to keep her humor. “Nice gods, those lot.”

  Tinker Bell was silent, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. Then she frowned.

  “What? What is it?”

  They said, “Is there nothing else you could do? For yourself? Perhaps you should see if that is really true.”

  “They were talking about whether I could change anything back in London. If I could fix our world, and therefore make changes here.”

  But…then they said goodbye and left us here. And you said this could be a test. What if they meant perhaps you should see if you can change anything or figure out anything here, first?

  “Oh,” Wendy said, and she thought about it.

  Once she quieted her initial immediate objections the idea sort of tasted right. Like something that would happen in an adventure story. The villains who turn out not to be villains at all, really, just helpers on the hero’s path to heroism. What seems like a serious setback is actually a test to see if the hero is worthy enough to proceed with the rest of her quest.

  Basic storytelling, really.

  “Maybe…maybe you’re right. If I can get us out of here, I can find Peter and get his shadow back. And If I can do that, surely I can save Never Land!”

  Tinker Bell nodded vigorously.

  “Only…” Wendy’s face fell. “Only I’ve never really done anything real. Solved any real problems or puzzles. What could I possibly do? There are no obvious riddles to solve here. This isn’t a labyrinth. There isn’t even an actual villain to test my strength against. All my skills are imaginary. And all my real talents are useless.…Mend a skirt? Run a house? Stare out the window, dreaming? Which do you think would help us here?”

  Dreaming.

  You can tell stories.

  “Oh please—that’s nothing. Anyone can tell stories.”

  No. Stop it. You told stories so wonderful that Peter Pan came to listen—to stories about himself! Your telling stories invited Never Land into your home.

  Wendy blinked. “I…suppose that’s true. I never considered it that way before. If I hadn’t told the stories about Peter Pan, Peter Pan wouldn’t have come…which is an odd thought in itself. But if he hadn’t come, he wouldn’t have lost his shadow and left it. And then I wouldn’t have traded it to Hook to come here. What a strange series of events! It’s all because I tell stories.

  “But how does this help us now? I can’t just make up a story about us escaping here and have it come true.”

  The fairy looked at her thoughtfully. What happens in your world, the dreams of your world, affects our world. And we are in the Land of the First, the origin and heart of Never Land.

  “Oh, I see what you’re saying. My stories change and shape Never Land—and other children’s do, too. So perhaps here I could directly alter it, myself?”

  Tinker Bell shrugged: why not?

  “It’s worth a try!” Wendy said, growing excited. “Let’s see. What can I come up with… ? All right. Here goes.

  “Once upon a time, there were two girls lost in a desert that went on and on forever, one fairy and one human. They seemed to have no means of escape, but then…a giant friendly bird, a Never Bird, flew down out of the sky and took them on her back, safely returning them to the Pernicious Forest and Never Land proper!”

  Wendy waited expectantly.

  Nothing happened.

  Although she hadn’t completely believed that something would happen in response to her words, she still felt an almost overwhelming sense of disappointment at the completeness of the nothing that happened. Not even a random sparrow appeared in the dusty canyon.

  That’s not a story, Tinker Bell said dryly. That’s a wish.

  Wendy started to argue and then actually thought about what the fairy had said. True: although it had a beginning, middle, and end, there was no character change—no character interaction at all, really. There was no setup, no grand description of the scenery, nothing. She should know better! She spent so much of her spare time writing.…

  Wendy looked at the strange, washed-out path they were on and began to imagine.

  “You know, once upon a time this was a thriving, fast-moving river,” she said almost conversationally. “It was all sorts of different colors—clear white to the bottom, red from the sand of the cliffs, green with life and fish. Where it splashed out of its banks, lush grass and trees grew.

  “But then one day, far north of here, a powerful warlord fell in love with a beautiful maiden who did not love him back. For she loved another, a young farmer who lived on the other side of the river—”

  Farmer? Tinker Bell interrupted skeptically.

  “Shush. This is my story. And I always thought farmers were rather dashing and romantic figures in their own way. Especially the Scottish ones. Anyway: The warlord grew angry and swore that the maiden would never see her lover again. He used his incredible strength—from years of rampaging and pillaging—and picked up the river and tied it in a knot. The waters stopped flowing to the south and dried up, turning the once lovely river valley, the very one in which we sit, into just another dead path through the desert.

  “The knot was so clever and complex that the maiden and the farmer could not figure out how to untie it, even had they the strength. So they each got a little boat—well, hers was actually rather magnificent because she was a warrior princess, as it happens, with a golden prow and silken cushions. His was more fitting to his station, of course.

  “But back to the story. Every day they rowed toward each other but could never find a way to meet, for no matter what path they chose the water kept them apart. The princess had her wisest witches and most wily wizards use their magic to try to help her cross. On the back of a clockwork crocodile, through a tunnel made from the breath of mermaids.…None of it worked, of course. And so the maiden and the farmer kept trying, and failing, and wept at their fate.

  “All who saw them pitied the poor lovers and cried with them. Year after year the tears fell, adding to the volume—and the saltiness—of the river that divided the princess from the farmer.

  “And then one day the tears were just too much for the river to hold. It overflowed its banks and burst the knot—pop! pop! pop!—straightening itself out like a snake waking up.

  “Not completely, however,” Wendy added as a quick aside. “The bumps in the knots became a series of tiny islands and beautiful, rich ponds and lakes known as the Maiden’s Tears.”

  Why not the Farmer’s Tears?

  “Excellent point. They were known as the Farmer’s Tears, and made for quite good irrigation. The two lovers, united at last, left their boats in the river and met in the middle of the water on one of the new islands, and that is where they built their house and lived happily for the rest of their lives.”

  Was it her imagination, or was a breeze picking up?

  Was there a shimmer in the sky, a difference beginning in the otherwise flat white sheen?

  All right, the fairy said, interrupting. But…

  “Just wait. This happened so far north that it took weeks before the river joyfully managed to come all the way back down to the desert, greeting its old, lost friends and watering the sands around it. Careful, Tinker Bell. Come over here.”

  Wendy stood and took her friend by the hand, pulling her into the air and moving both of them farther up the side of the gully. She couldn’t have said how she knew, but with a calm assuredness like nothing she had ever felt before, she was utterly unsurprised when a strange noise began
somewhere up in the canyon.

  A crashing, booming, terrifying sound.

  Tinker Bell just had time to tightly grab Wendy’s finger when a ten-foot wall of water came hurtling down the ravine. It foamed and roiled in all the colors Wendy had described, red and white and green. Rainbow-sparkling fish leapt along its crest, riding it with apparent joy.

  Tinker Bell swooped up backward in surprise and delight. Wendy grinned.

  The river crashed up against the bank nearest them, careened off it and continued, splashing the two girls. It was like when a hundred children run down the street, out of school for the day and well aware that the marionette performer was back in the square; all violence and speed and good nature and excitement and force, bouncing off the gates and fences and alleys of London, un-slowed and untroubled by any accidental crashes.

  “The river eventually found its way back to the sea, and settled with great relief into its old banks and beds,” Wendy continued, feeling that things should calm down a little bit. “Once again it divided Never Land, but never as permanently as when it was in knots.”

  It’s great we have water now, Tinker Bell said, but how does this help us? You can’t swim—we’ve seen that.

  Wendy shook her head at her friend and made a tch tch sound.

  “Don’t you remember the story? The two lovers stayed on the island in the middle, and left their boats in the river.”

  Tinker Bell opened her mouth, about to ask another question, when the boats in question came bumping slowly around the bend.

  They looked a little out of place in the desert, drifting along the base of the high umber walls. The farmer’s boat was a tiny wood-and-hide thing that could have been mistaken for a pile of driftwood. It was made for quick jaunts close to the land, for poking about ponds and lakes. Not for going down the rocky rapids of a canyon wash.

  The warrior maiden’s boat was far more intriguing. It was all dark wood, beautifully bent and fitted together with the complexity of a true seafaring vessel. Intricate gilded carvings covered the prow. The gunwale was painted a bright, cheery blue. A pole stood up in the back for steering. While there were no cushions left—they looked like they had been ripped out by the incredibly rough journey—the benches looked comfortable enough.

  Tinker Bell clapped and jingled her approval.

  The boat seemed to sense their need and nosed its way through the back current over to their bank.

  “Shall we?” Wendy asked, trying not to sound too pleased with herself. “After you.”

  Tinker Bell gave a little bow in the air, and Wendy returned it with a curtsy and a flourish. Then the fairy flew delicately to the fore bench and sat. On the bench next to her was a carelessly left, beautiful gem-encrusted dagger that hung on a useful necklace. Tinker Bell gave her friend a look.

  “Oh yes. She also left her necklace behind, the one her mother gave her for protection,” Wendy said, reaching in and putting it on. “All right, it’s not really part of the story—but it seems like a weapon would be useful for me to have, don’t you agree?”

  She carefully held the side of the boat as it tipped a little with her weight, then settled herself in the back with the pole. She had done some punting on a visit to see her mother’s cousin up in Oxford but wasn’t entirely sure what use that skill would be in a river that was the topological opposite of a sleepy English canal.

  A strange tick tick tock noise could be heard just above the sound of the rushing water, growing as it came closer.

  Tinker Bell looked left and right, trying to find the source of it as Wendy experimentally maneuvered the pole. When the fairy finally figured out what the noise was, she squeaked, jingled desperately, and flew back to desperately squeeze her friend’s arm.

  But Wendy already knew what it was.

  It was a beautiful gold-and-steel crocodile. Four yards long from tip to tail. It skimmed the water, its black nose and glass eyes just sticking out of the surface, its sparkling, mechanical tail swishing back and forth rhythmically. It smiled at the girls with clear crystal teeth.

  “Oh yes, that’s the clockwork crocodile. Now free from its previous task, the toy beast sought its way downstream to find other people in need of help. And, I daresay, we might have use of a clockwork crocodile somewhere along the way—against pirates, maybe? One particular crocodile-fearing pirate?”

  Tinker Bell stared at her friend in newly discovered admiration—and the teensiest bit of horror.

  You’ve changed, girl.

  Wendy smiled as she pushed the boat away from the bank.

  There was more to her than just manners and wishing, as her little fairy friend had pointed out. A whole world of Never Land was inside Wendy…with beasts as well as fairies.

  The beautiful little boat began its journey slowly, bumping along the bank until Wendy managed to push them away from shore. The steering pole had a well-hewn and polished handle that fit in her hands perfectly. She couldn’t have imagined a better designed piece of equipment. Which was intellectually amusing since some part of her mind must have actually imagined or designed it. Of course, she hadn’t really visualized every detail of the entire boat; she had just said boat, royal boat, and figured there would be gold and blue and fancy things on it and comfy seats. And regal-looking equipment, like this pole. But not specifically the pole she was holding. Which inevitably led to the question: Who or what did provide the details? When she invented the story, who filled in the missing bits? Was that just how the magic of Never Land worked?

  But this was a deep thought for another time. She had to work the pole around and around with all her strength before finally getting out to the middle of the newly reinvigorated river. The little boat bobbed in place for a moment as if discussing matters with the waters around it, spinning a little as it found a good place to join, and then—it took off.

  Wendy squealed with delight as they rushed along with the waves. Tinker Bell also squealed, but with terror, and held on to the seat for dear life. Then she looked over at Wendy and saw her laughing, and the fairy reassessed the dangers. Very slowly she began to smile.

  “Yeehaw!” Wendy shouted as they rose up with a swell and then crashed down with a belly-flopping smash, spraying water into the sky with bright rainbows. The droplets were small and cool and very refreshing. Her parched skin soaked them up gratefully. She licked her lips: cold, clear, and lightly mineral.

  Fish leapt in arcs before the bow of the boat, their scales glittering in the sunlight. The canyon walls raced by. Between her triumph at figuring out how to escape the First and the speed of the river and the water and the day, Wendy was almost overcome with joy.

  “I had no idea boating could be such fun!” she cried to Tinker Bell. “It’s almost like flying!”

  Tinker Bell gave a definitive headshake to this. No. But Wendy just laughed.

  She did worry a little whether the whole plan would really work, if they could really get out of the demesne of the First or if they would just ride the river forever.

  But then the landscape around them began to change—slowly. Perhaps indicating that they were getting back to Never Land proper.

  The thick red walls of stone that rose into the sky on the left and right of them fell away, too busy with the eternal task of crumbling into piles of dust to bother with the riverbanks any longer. And while there was still the occasional tor or small rocky hill, the buttes and hoodoos and columns and pedestals and other exotic formations grew far less frequent.

  Just before these features disappeared entirely, two final ones appeared on opposite sides of the river. These were unbelievably massive, so tall that Wendy couldn’t see their tops. Striped layers of red and white and black alternated with each other up and into forever.

  She had the strange urge to salute as they passed between these two guardians. Both girls, fey and human, remained silent and still until the columns were far behind. Even the boat seemed to slow for a bit.

  After that the land grew greener by sta
ges. Tall, gracefully curving trees with branches like umbrellas marked the edge of the jungle. Canyon walls back in the desert were recalled in living format here as massive gray trunks of trees, barriers of thick foliage, and unbelievably substantial skeins of vines. The calls of monkeys or parrots or other Never Land creatures echoed hauntingly from the tops of emerald hillocks. Far in the distance they could once again just make out the toothy shapes of the Black Dragon Mountains.

  Wendy never imagined she could be so relieved to see jungle. Or hills, for that matter, even if they were covered in exotic plants. The desert had been fascinating but she never wanted to be somewhere that flat again. It was so exposed—she had felt like a speck peered at by God through an infinite microscope. Now she could relax and breathe again with leaves between her and the sky.

  Where does the river lead? Tinker Bell asked curiously.

  “Why, to the sea, of course,” Wendy said with bravado. Things had worked out well so far—why shouldn’t it continue to do exactly what she predicted? “It feeds into the cove from the western side of the Pernicious Forest, skirting the Quiescent Jungle.”

  Tinker Bell looked around a little thoughtfully.

  I wonder how all this new water will affect everything.

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  When you fly, you are aware of these things—air weight, rising, falling, moisture, winds.…Remember your tumbling back there, over the ocean?

  “Oh yes,” Wendy said with a blush. “But that was the ocean. This is just a river. I’m sure it will all work itself out.”

  Tinker Bell pointed.

  Up ahead things grew cloudy.

  Literally.

  As the two girls watched the jungle began to disappear. Hills and vales faded—but not from supernatural causes. This time it wasn’t the First playing tricks with geography; this was real mist and real fog. The world was blurred by something thicker than air but thinner than real rain. This swirled madly as stray breezes gathered considerable speed over the tops of the trees, rushing toward the river. Clouds of all sorts were pulled from across the heavens into the maelstrom: puffy white Never Land specials, thunderheads from the Black Dragon Mountains, mackerel-backs and mare’s tails from someplace inland that must have been a bit like England.