by Kara Swanson
How am I supposed to change any of this? How can I rescue Claire when I can’t even get close to her?
This is not a game . . . this is not a game . . . this is not a game . . .
The words chant through my head, mocking me, and swell into a mammoth headache. As I reach for a stray root, the trees shudder around me. A sharp intake of breath from the whole island.
And every time I close my eyes, I see Nibs’s frozen expression staring up at me.
We didn’t even get to say a proper goodbye.
I rake my hands through my hair and kick at the nearest rock. I hear Tootles grunt, and for a moment I think I might have hit him, but when I get to my feet, I realize he’s just huddled by one of the trees, looking rather pale as he bandages up a nasty scrape on his lower leg.
Tootles always looks a bit like he could blow away in a strong wind, but now he seems even more fragile.
Stop just staring and help him!
Wiping at my dripping nose and aiming one more sound kick at that rock, I finish cursing out this whole island and this sadness that makes it hard for me to breathe. I kneel at Tootles’s side. “Lemme help, mate.”
He lifts his head slowly up to me. “I thought you’d be angry after I left you in that cavern. Why are you helping me?”
I tear a strip from my shirt and mop at the bruising cut on his leg. “Oh, I was mad,” I told him. “Fumin’ mad.” I sit back. “But I get it. I know you and the rest of the boys don’t trust me. You were doing what you could to try and rescue Claire.”
A muscle tightens in his jaw, and I notice how red his eyes are. I’m not the only one who’s been blubbering.
He gives a small nod. “It was the only shot we had. You were the best distraction we could come up with to get Connor away so we could go in. And we weren’t going to actually let him capture you. We just needed to get her out. But it failed.” His head droops. “Just like it always does.”
He really is a decent chap. “You did the best you could, mate. This whole thing is blasted insane.”
“That’s for sure.” His voice cracks, and I know he’s thinking about Nibs. I doubt we’ll be able to think of much else for a long while.
I wind the clean-ish material around the cut on his leg, when I hear a rustle in the brush behind us. I bristle and glance quickly over my shoulder, ready to reach for the nearest stray branch and go down swinging.
But instead I see a familiar silhouette sliding across the ground, pushing trees out of its way as Shadow joins us. I step toward him, and suddenly he’s grabbing for my shins and playfully swinging around me.
I wince, my body more bruised than I’d care to admit, and his jovial behavior making me flinch. “Now’s not the time, mate.”
Shadow stares up at me for a moment, and I know he’s understood, but suddenly he’s darting past me toward Tootles. Tootles shoves to his feet, visibly groaning, but he’s not fast enough. Shadow reaches him, and before Tootles can shake him off, the little creature is shoving a finger directly into one of the wounds slicing across Tootles’s arm.
“Ouch!” the Lost Boy yelps, shaking off Shadow. The thin silhouette of a boy rolls across the ground, gripping his belly and shaking with laughter.
My anger flares. “Hey! Tootles is hurt—that’s not funny.”
But Shadow just keeps laughing.
I kick a shower of dirt at him. “Cut it out!” I lick my dry lips. “Nibs is dead. So now is not the blithering time.”
That makes Shadow pause, head inclined to me, listening. And then he makes a movement of pulling back a bow, and I nod. “Yeah. Nibs. He taught me how to shoot.”
He vaults up the tree and dissolves into more laughter.
It grates on my raw, nearly snapped nerves. Grates on the throbbing hole in my chest.
He’s laughing.
Like all this means nothing.
“Stop it!” I shout up at Shadow.
Tootles has finished wrapping his own wound and has moved away, shooting a glance at Shadow. He doesn’t trust the little bloke.
I’m not sure I should either.
There’s something unhinged about him.
Maybe from the time he’s spent here, cut off from me. Maybe he’s affected by the island and Connor’s impact on it.
Maybe my younger self always had this sense of disconnected cruelty, and I couldn’t see it.
Either way, his mimed laughter and poking at Tootles’s wounds is the last thing I need.
“Stop laughing!” I shout up at Shadow, and he kicks a stray branch toward my head. I duck away from the projectile, but I’ve had it.
I scramble up the tree.
Before I can reach for Shadow’s blasted ankle, the frightful little creature scrambles back down the bark and slithers across the ground. This time aiming for Tootles.
Not again.
Tootles is sitting propped against a tree and kicks back at Shadow, but that only seems to set him off more. Shadow darts around and kicks up a mound of dirt, flinging it into Tootles’s face. The Lost Boy hacks and coughs, wiping dirt from his eyes.
“Hey!” His eyes water as he tries to blink the granules out. “That’s not funny.”
I’ve had it.
“Get out of here!” I bellow at Shadow, leaping out of the tree and storming toward him. Before he can slither away again, I aim a sharp kick at his side.
Shadow moves a few inches away and then reaches for a rock poking out of the ground. “No, you don’t!” I leap over him and land on top of the rock, pinning the stone and Shadow’s hand to the ground. I glare down at him.
“Unless you can behave, I want you gone.”
I lift up my heel just enough for him to pull his hand out. “I’m done with your shenanigans. Either you stop or you leave.”
Shadow hisses at me. Hisses. And there’s something like a threat in his expression.
He slithers off through the jungle, pausing a few feet away from me to find a new rock and launch it at my head. It clips my shoulder as I duck, and then I’m about to race at him again when Shadow hisses a final time and disappears into the jungle.
Heaving a mammoth sigh, I go back over to Tootles and drop down beside him.
“Please tell me I wasn’t as much of a blooming mess as that pipsqueak is.”
He regards me solemnly. “Only sometimes. Usually you cared about us enough to not laugh at our pain. And he usually listens to me. He must just be in a mood.”
If he’s trying to make me feel better, it’s not really working.
Suddenly his hand shakes on my shoulder.
“Peter . . . is that . . . ?” His voice trembles.
I launch to my feet, half expecting that Shadow has come back for a second round.
But my jaw drops when I catch sight of something small and glittering flying through the craggy jungle toward us. My eyes sting again. It’s a pixie. The first pixie I’ve seen since arriving here. A wall of homesickness crashes into me.
She dips and bobs as she flies our direction. Is she sick?
I hurry through the trees toward the little pixie. Gray mist spirals around us, the trees like skeletal hands reaching for the overcast sky—but the tiny pixie is like a drop of sunlight piercing through the dreary wood. She ignites the tiniest spark of hope as my frozen, bare feet skim over the jungle floor. When I reach her, I realize the reason her flight path is wavering is because the tiny winged creature is carrying some kind of pouch.
“What is . . . ?”
She lifts her big eyes to me and whispers in a lilting tone, “Are you safe?”
“I think so.”
She drifts a little closer, holding the pouch tight. “Are you one of Claire’s friends?”
That hits like a blow to my gut, but I jerk a nod.
“Glimmer? Is that you? I can’t believe you’re alive!” Tootles’s faint voice drifts toward us, and the pixie brightens, giving an excited little cry. She jets around me, still hefting that pouch, and flies quickly to Tootles. A trail
of faint pixie dust stretches across the mist behind her. The pixie drops the pouch into the Lost Boy’s hands and then snuggles up to his face, peppering his cheek with tiny kisses.
Of course, Tootles is best friends with the first pixie we’ve seen yet.
I’m not jealous.
Not much.
I slowly walk back toward them, watching as Tootles raises the small bundle in his hand. “What is this, Glim? What’s going on?”
She settles down on his shoulder with the same casual comfortability the pixies used to have with me. I catch fragments of her tumbling of words as I reach them.
“Claire . . . sent some of her dust . . . fly back . . . get Tiger Lily . . .”
I plop down beside Tootles, gaping at the tiny pixie. Tootles shoots me a look and then turns to the tiny winged creature.
“Glimmer,” he says carefully, “are you saying that this bag is filled with Claire’s dust? And that she wants us to fly back to Earth and get Tiger Lily?”
She nods emphatically. “Lily. And the Guardian too.”
Of course.
Of blooming course.
I can’t help but shake my head and give a little smile. Brilliant, Claire. We need reinforcements, and her dust is the only magic potent enough to be able to carry someone all the way back to Earth, since most of the pixies are gone. The ones left, like Glimmer, are much too weakened.
But even as I nab the bag of dust, despite Glimmer glaring at me, and balance it in one hand, measuring how much dust is inside—I know something doesn’t seem quite right. Filled with this much pixie dust, and Claire’s potent magic at that, this bag should be floating off my hand. Instead, it seems weaker than usual. Exhausted, probably like Claire herself.
Without her connection to the island and with whatever else those blaggards have done to her that the Lost Boys didn’t even know about to snitch to Tootles, even her magic has waned.
Which only means one thing . . .
“There’s only enough dust for one of us to go.”
Tootles stares at me. “Really? You’re sure?”
I nod. “Aye. There might be enough to bring Lily and Jeremy back, but definitely not enough for two of us to go and return.”
Tootles sits up straight. “You’re Peter Pan. Of course you’ll go.” His tone is matter-of-fact. Then he gulps. “I can stay behind. I always do.”
I close my eyes and knead my forehead. I’m seeing Nibs’s shocked eyes again. Feeling him slip through my fingers and sink beneath that water.
There’s no way I’m losing anyone else.
I lift my head and drop the bundle of pixie dust back into Tootles’s hand. “No, you should go. I’m not leaving Claire—not ever again. Besides, I think it’s high time you get off this island, mate.”
His eyes well with surprised, relieved tears. “Really?”
I pat his shoulder. “Absolutely. Plus, once you get there, Lil can patch you up much better than I could.”
At the mention of Tiger Lily, his face colors a shade, and I bite back a smile. Another good reason to send Tootles.
“Thank you, Peter. You have no idea how much this means to me.”
Oh, I have an idea.
My face grows serious, and I look straight at him. “I should never have left you behind for so long, mate.”
He gives me a slow smile.
We both know that it’s best if Tootles leaves as soon as possible, before anything else can happen to mess this all up. We spend the next two hours trading information—Tootles showing me the ropes of everything he’s learned to survive on the island and avoid Connor, and me laying out everything the lad needs for the flight. We quickly scrounge up berries and other food for him to eat now and take on the journey. Glimmer darts around us, adding in her thoughts as I walk Tootles through the star map he’ll need to follow to get back to Earth.
Then he’s ready.
He knows where he’s going, and he’s got enough food to last if it takes him a little longer than usual to make the flight.
As he stands next to me, about to open Claire’s bag of dust, it hits me how real this is. Tootles is leaving, and then it’s just going to be me. Hiding in any of the small nooks I have memorized in this island, trying not to step on Shadow’s toes or tick him off any more, and seeing if I can convince Glim to help me get to Claire. Because those are my main goals:
Get Claire back.
Don’t die.
I suck in a deep breath and reach out to lightly punch Tootles’s shoulder.
He looks at me, surprised. “What was that for?”
“Nothin’,” I say blithely. “I’m just gonna kind of miss havin’ you around is all.”
A smile stretches across his features. “Me too. I’ll try to be fast, Peter. And I know you’ll find some way to turn the tide even while I’m gone.”
I huff out a breath. “I hope so.” I pull my shoulders back and whack his shoulder again. “All right, y’gaffer. The longer you wait around, the more chance we have of Hook stumbling upon us. Get out of here, will you? The faster you leave, the faster you can bring the chums back.”
He nods quickly and gently tugs the bundle of pixie dust open just enough so we can see the shimmer of gold dust inside. Glimmer leaps off her perch on the curve of Tootles’s ear and flies over to gingerly land on my shoulder. She seems a tad uncertain but settles in, and even that simple movement sparks a bit of warmth in my chest.
Maybe we will be almost okay after all.
“You ready?” Tootles asks.
Shouldn’t I be asking him that? “Ready.”
He takes a few pinches of Claire’s pixie dust from the small bundle and sprinkles them over himself. The thin, golden flecks cascade over him, and he rises off the ground. The dust catches the edge of Tootles’s shirt and filters in his thick hair, lifting his worn shoes off the ground.
He sprinkles a little more over his body for good measure, then reties the pouch and slides it into his pocket. His eyes shoot wide as he stares down at the ground that he’s quickly floating higher and higher away from.
“Whoa! I forgot how fun this was!”
His cautious expression has transformed into a grin, and I can’t help but grin back at him. At the way flying, being weightless and spinning in the air, frees the perpetual weight Tootles usually carries. Even his scars and the bandages on the side of his head and leg seem to fade away in the light of this magic that defies gravity.
I wave at him. “You’ve got the hang of it, mate. Now, remember what I said about finding the second star—and go get Lily.”
He flashes me a quick salute. “Aye, aye, Cap’n Pan.”
At that moment I’m reminded of the other time Tootles and the rest of the Lost Boys flew. We’d stolen Hook’s ship, and I’d announced that I was captain, and then we’d flown the Darling children home.
All of those carefree adventures feel like they were an eternity ago.
But maybe we can still be okay. Both island and boys.
“Safe travels, Tootles.” I toss a salute back at him.
He gives me one last lingering look. “Thanks, Peter. You really have grown.” Then he turns his gaze to the gray sky and shoots up through the wrinkled foliage. Tootles is a gleaming beacon for a brief moment, a flash across the overcast sky, and then he is out of view.
And the world feels cold again.
A single tear drips down my face.
The hair on my arms stands on end, my ribs constricting and pinching in at my lungs again.
Because I wish I could fly out of here too.
Instead, I reach a hand out to scoop up the little pixie perched on my shoulder. She stands in my palm, peering up at me expectantly.
“Guess it’s just you and me now, Glimmer.” I lift her closer so I can meet her shining, curious eyes. “Are you okay? I know it hasn’t been easy and that most of your people are . . .” I’m not sure how to finish the sentence, and from the way her wings droop and she hangs her head, I decide maybe I d
on’t need to.
So instead I cup her close, and she nuzzles my cheek. “Don’t worry. You’ve got me now, for what that’s worth.”
Her color has gone a little blue, and her eyes glisten as she peers up at me and pecks a kiss at my cheek. “What now?” she asks in that lilting voice.
I glance at the gray sky where Tootles disappeared and the direction of Skull Rock.
“Are you ready to try something a little crazy?”
Neverland
Sound echoes down the hallway as Paige leads the Lost Boys toward my cell. I lift lightly off the ground, the tips of my toes trailing across the rocky floor until I reach the door and can peer out between the bars.
Paige is on the rampage. A chill spirals over my shoulders.
Her eyes are filled with fury, hair spiraling around her like a dull red halo of fire. She has one pale hand clamped tightly on Slightly as she pulls him mercilessly after her. The twins and Cubby are right behind them.
The posture of their bodies and hunch of their shoulders spell defeat. I stare out at them. Just an hour earlier, Tootles and Nibs came racing down the same hallway, shouting for me to move aside so that they could get me out.
But then Connor appeared. I hadn’t seen him in weeks, but suddenly he was there, eyes dark and expression fractured. He dragged Tootles and Nibs away, the whole cavern shuddering with his seething anger.
Now, Tootles and Nibs are nowhere to be seen, and it’s Paige who is seething.
My grip tightens as Paige shoves Slightly toward my cell.
“Open it,” she snaps.
I dart back from the door as Slightly fumbles with a key. “What’s going on?” I mouth at him. But he doesn’t see me.
He gets the door open, and Paige storms into the cell, forcing Slightly in front of her. The other Lost Boys stumble in too. The twins look so young as they cower against the wall, eyes frightened.
“What’s happening?” I ask again, pulse kicking up.
“Ask them!” Paige shrieks, gesturing to the Lost Boys. “Ask them what happens when traitorous little boys try to betray us.” She slaps Slightly hard across his face, spittle flying with every vindictive word she spews. “Ask them what happened to Nibs when he double-crossed us.”