“Are you ever going to come live with us?” Tootles asked.
Tiger Lily looked down quickly to avoid his eyes. “I don’t know.” She didn’t look at Peter.
Afterward, the boys separated to their treetop beds, and Peter and Tiger Lily curled onto their platform, wrapped up in thin suede blankets. They lay on their backs and the sky showed itself to them, the stars limitless.
Tiger Lily reached out and touched a leaf above them, to reassure herself it wasn’t dry. It was supple to the touch.
Whatever always troubled Peter in his sleep, it seemed a million miles away from him now. He lay his arm out as a pillow for her head, while his was against the hard board. He made sure every bit of her was covered with blanket. He held tight to her waist with his free hand.
“I’m too mixed up for you,” Peter finally said; it came out of nothing but silence. “That’s what you think.”
Tiger Lily looked at him. “Peter, no.”
He gazed at her intently, and he seemed adrift. “You’ll never come to stay with us, forever?”
She was silent. Tiger Lily’s head was full of thoughts, of Tik Tok and Pine Sap and Peter and Giant, and how none of it fit together. After a while, with silence between them, Peter drifted off to sleep. It was a long time before she followed him.
It was I who woke up first.
Below, a shadow was approaching in the night, slowly, through the bushes. As it moved closer, it resolved itself into separate figures—ten altogether. Grown men. Pirates.
Beside me, I felt Tiger Lily come awake. Her skin prickled against me and her belly caught fire with fear. An instinct made her draw her hand to her waist for her hatchet, which wasn’t there. She’d left it at the bottom of the tree, after trimming some branches for one of their games. She felt Peter’s arm shoot over the top of her to contain her.
My thoughts immediately went to the other boys. Would Tootles scream if he woke to see the pirates? Would Baby cry?
I followed Tiger Lily’s gaze as she silently turned her head to the right. In the trees closest to them, Nibs was awake, his eyes glinting at her in the moonlight.
The pirates circled the burrow, stood above it. Smee and another man knelt beside the tree stump, working at something quietly. Sparks began to issue from their hands. They lit several tiny flames, at different edges of the stump. The flames caught. Smoke began to rise from the burrow. Beside us, Peter’s body was stiff and tensed, ready to fight. Tiger Lily’s heart was pounding. Peter and she might be a match against many of the men. But the other boys wouldn’t. If they fought, the boys would be easy targets.
The pyre grew. It was a breezy night—perhaps the pirates had planned it that way—and the flames fanned into the air. They stood with their daggers and cutlasses out, waiting for the boys to emerge. What would happen when they didn’t and the pirates began to look for them?
The smoke made me dizzy. I began to sway. I felt Tiger Lily’s hands sweeping me against her beating heart.
Only Smee didn’t watch the flames. He was examining the ground.
Nibs must have managed to silence the other boys, because there was no sound from them. I waited to hear Baby’s cry, knew it would happen at any minute and they would be defenseless.
In the firelight, I could see Hook’s back. He was all bones, and in the strange shadows I noticed for the first time that he looked almost starved. I could see him start to slump in confusion as no one came out of the burrow, his body become concave in a question, and then tenser, angrier.
While the others were staring at the smoking hole in the ground, still catching on, Hook’s head swiveled, and he seemed to look right at us in the trees. I was burrowed against the suede of Tiger Lily’s tunic, and it seemed to me that the sound of my wings brushing against each other was deafeningly loud. It seemed that we must be completely visible—big, dark, still lumps in the softly swaying trees.
But there was no telling, because Hook looked away. Was it a trap?
We must have stayed like that for half an hour or more.
As the burrow lay in cinders, two of the men crawled in to search it, coughing. When they emerged shaking their heads, Hook whispered to the men, and they spread out.
They walked right underneath us. Across the darkness, Nibs and Tiger Lily locked eyes; his were terrified.
And then, below, Smee stopped at the foot of our tree. He was studying Tiger Lily’s hatchet. He picked it up, ran his hand along the handle, and laid it down again. He didn’t look up from the ground.
Our luck was that Hook, Smee, and the others didn’t wait until morning for us to come back from wherever they thought we might be. In the light of day, we would have been impossible to miss. Maybe the pirates thought we were trapping them, and wanted to get away before they were caught.
They trailed away, watching their backs as they retreated in the direction they’d come. Long after they were gone, Tiger Lily and the lost boys stayed up in the trees, until dawn began to make out their figures to each other. The light reminded them they were still alive.
They climbed down warily.
From near the burrow, I heard Peter’s harsh, angry laughter. He was making jokes about the pirates’ eyesight, saying that Hook couldn’t get at them even when they were right above their noses.
But the laughter was broken. Peter’s face was ashen. And the burrow lay in smoking rubble.
It was easy to guess the route the pirates were taking home. I wanted to make sure they were on their way out.
To my relief, I found them making a beeline for the cove. Smee, as usual, hung at the back.
I was too far behind them to see what summoned him to the water at first. But to my surprise, there was Maeryn, reaching her hand up to him from the water’s edge.
For a moment I was sure she would drown him. I hoped that she would. But then she simply handed him something I couldn’t see. And before he could process it, she had sunk under the water again. Smee held the object in his hands, staring at it, and I flew close enough to see it was a whistle. Her voice echoed in his ears, telling him to use it if he wanted to call her to the shore.
What Maeryn could want with Smee, I could only guess.
Tiger Lily was late getting home. Giant was waiting for her in her hut when she got there. She froze in her tracks. Giant looked her up and down. He stank of clove oil and pipe smoke, and while Tiger Lily was not small, standing at his full height, he dwarfed her.
“Where were you?” he asked, sucking on his teeth, anger in his dull eyes.
Tiger Lily’s gaze flitted to his. “Hunting. I was tracking an okapi I wounded. I lost it.”
Giant took this in unsteadily. His eyes were watery and dazed from caapi water. He was drunk. “If you lie to me, I’ll kill you,” he said. “You sneak. I know you do.”
Tiger Lily met his gaze more directly now. “I’m not lying.”
He swayed on his feet a little. “No more sneaking,” he said.
Giant’s hands were enormous. He reached for her neck. Tiger Lily felt his fingers against her collarbone, and tried not to shudder. His breath hit her face, over and over. “My wife,” he said. Then, he let go, and sank down onto her bed. “I could kill you,” he muttered, then lay down on his side. First he propped himself on one elbow, trying to get the room into focus. But in another moment, he let himself give in to gravity. His eyes closed as he passed out.
THIRTY
Peter said he hadn’t been careful enough, and that he had put the boys in danger. But all of the boys insisted that wasn’t true. He began looking for a new hiding place, and settled on a spot up and across the river, beyond a patch of briary undergrowth that seemed almost impassable, and began to build. After fearing for their safety for so long, I was relieved to see them move. They tried to make it as much like the old burrow as possible. Almost as if they could pretend that nothing had ever happened.
Tiger Lily stayed home for a few days, longer than she had in some time. Giant wouldn’t allow her
to do otherwise. She knew that Peter would be hurt, and she planned to get away as soon as she could, but so far, the opportunity hadn’t come.
She helped Tik Tok pack one afternoon. He was going to a meeting of the shamans. This meeting took place twice a year, in the village of the Bog Dwellers, and was very mysterious. And she could tell he was relieved to get away.
“Watch my house, little beast?” he asked, putting the last things into his leather bag.
She nodded.
He bent and kissed her on the forehead. “When I come back, we only have days until your wedding. Please save some of them for me,” he said. “I want us to have some time away like before, just the two of us. We can pretend nothing is changing.”
Tiger Lily nodded again at his sad smile.
Tik Tok ambled out the door, clanging and weighed down with all of his potions and the recipes he intended to share. He took the path toward the river, and would meet the other shamans far downstream, a day’s journey.
Tiger Lily sat after he left, listening to the sound of silence in his house. She thought about one word he’d said. Days. Only days.
Outside the air was getting drier. The forest was going brown and pulling in on itself.
She was to be married.
She listened to the silence and the tick tick of Tik Tok’s clock. She turned to look at it.
At dusk in Neverland, as with anywhere else, all the colors begin to fade one by one before night comes. The last color to disappear is green, and in those moments between dusk and darkness, it stands out brightly for lack of all the other colors, and almost glows.
As Tiger Lily walked to meet Peter at the bridge so he could lead her to the new burrow, the world was this color of green. Green tall grass along the creek, green moss at the edge of the bridge. Green leaves over graying trees. She held the clock rolled gingerly in the folds of her tunic.
Peter stood on the bridge, elbows on the rail, looking over the water, into the mouths of the crocodiles below. He had a sadness that told itself through his whole body, the listless set of his arms, the slump of his delicate shoulders. But when he saw her coming, he straightened up and rallied, held his shoulders back and smiled as if there were nothing wrong at all.
She leaned next to him on the rail. He reached for her hand, but she reached for her stomach, and unrolled her tunic. She held the clock on to the rail, grasping it with both hands tightly.
“This,” she said, “is time.”
Peter stared at the clock in wonder. He reached out to touch the little silver hands, but Tiger Lily shook her head. “It’s delicate,” she said. “I just brought it to show you. I have to take it back.”
He nodded. He leaned on his elbows on the rail beside it and watched with amazement as the seconds ticked by. He smiled, and this time his eyes twinkled.
“I think I believe it,” he said. He put his hand on her cheek, tugged at a strand of her hair. “Thank you.”
Just as he pulled back, there was a sound behind them in the bushes.
It was so close that Tiger Lily and Peter both jumped. Peter drew his knife. A figure stepped out of the bushes.
Pine Sap.
Tiger Lily stayed where she was, in the middle of the bridge, holding on to the clock protectively, as if she were a thief.
“I was looking for you,” he said, his eyes big and slowly taking things in. “I followed your tracks,” he stammered.
They looked at each other, and then Pine Sap swallowed, looked down at the clock in her arms.
She could see it all coming together in his head. She could see that he was seeing the lie. He looked at Peter, then at her.
“But you’re going to be married,” he said, still making it make sense.
Beside her, Peter stood perfectly still for a moment, and then he turned and ran away, disappearing into the woods.
Pine Sap stayed a moment longer than Peter did, not letting go of Tiger Lily’s eyes with his wide, wounded ones. And then he, too, turned and walked in the opposite direction.
Tiger Lily, alone now, began to shake.
She leaned into the rail, looking at the water below, her hands trembling. The clock teetered for a moment on the edges of her fingers. She reached with her arms, tried to catch it with her wrists, but it bounced against them, slipped through the space between her hands. She watched in shock as it fell directly into the gaping jaws of the biggest crocodile. There was the loud snap of the animal’s teeth. And then came the creature’s realization that something was wrong. It whipped its tail from side to side, distressed, and slid off the muddy shelf into deeper water.
Just for a moment, she could hear the muffled tick tick from inside its mouth before it disappeared underneath the murky surface, and curled away.
THIRTY-ONE
She found Peter attempting to talk a jacamar out of its nest. He was trying to imitate its call.
“How long have you been here?” she asked.
“All day. I still can’t get it right.” His brow furrowed with concentration and frustration with himself. “Peter, get it right,” he muttered.
“I thought you thought talking to the birds was stupid.” Peter didn’t reply. He kept on practicing.
She sat beside him, and he laid his hands on his lap, giving up for the moment. The sounds of the forest were gentle and quiet. Finally he seemed to really notice she was there and he put his arm around her and kissed her cheek.
“I needed to tell you,” she said.
Peter looked at her. “Tell me?” Peter was the best at pretending, of anyone I’ve ever seen, before or since. He smiled brightly and threw a rock at a tree for target practice, though there was uncertainty under his smile.
“Peter.” Tiger Lily’s voice shook. Her face went a deep red. “It was the truth. I’m going to be married.”
Peter laughed; it bubbled out. And as soon as it did, it went still.
“You’re joking.” He smiled again. It was more of a grimace.
“I’m not....”
He pulled his arm away sharply.
“Your friend was lying and so are you. Why would you lie about that?”
He stood up. He stuck his hands into his pockets, softened.
“You’re not going to do it, though,” he said softly, as if it were a matter of course.
“It’s what I’ve been sworn to do,” she said. “Tik Tok promised.”
Secretly, she wanted Peter to say no, and demand that it wouldn’t happen. She wanted to tell him she needed him. He was silent.
“I’ll be married in twelve days,” she said, with finality.
“You’re telling the truth?” he said flatly.
She nodded.
He looked up at the trees, as if tracking the birds from earlier.
“Peter,” she whispered, pride rearing up. She suddenly wanted to put as much distance between them as possible. “It was like, sometimes my life at home doesn’t seem real. Sometimes I can’t see myself when I’m with you. I can only just see you.”
He stood up.
“You’re worthless to me, Tiger Lily,” he said.
He walked off into the woods. She sat on the ground, listening to the calls of the birds.
THIRTY-TWO
There were rumors of a ship spotted off the coast, gathered from some Bog Dwellers that Stone and some others had run into on a long hunt. Phillip went to the shore once a day to look for it, and kept claiming—half crazily, everyone decided—that they’d come for him at last. But Tiger Lily didn’t really believe it, and neither she nor I really thought about it. She began the ten-day ritual of preparing for her wedding.
Weddings in the village were solemn affairs. Each day, she had to walk to the river with the other women and be washed from head to foot. Each woman gave her a gift, and these surprised her in their sincerity and thoughtfulness. From Moon Eye, of course, there was the long skirt, with the picture of the bird. But from Aunt Agda, there was a pair of slippers lined with fur. From Red Leaf, a shell neckla
ce painted with a smiling crow. From Aunt Sticky Feet, a new necklace of fine turkey feathers. All painstakingly and lovingly made.
Tik Tok had returned, and she saw him one afternoon as she passed his house, looking around for the missing clock and muttering to himself. He didn’t mention it to her, clearly sure he had misplaced it on his own. But he looked distressed, like it was weighing on him. Tiger Lily would go to hover at his door, planning to tell him, and then hesitate, unsure how to do so without telling him too many other things. So she waited, and tried to think of what to say. And she wondered when she had become the kind of person who wasn’t brave enough to say the truth to him.
She didn’t go on the walks with him that they’d planned before he’d left. She couldn’t look him square in the face, so she kept avoiding it. And to be fair, he seemed so consumed by other matters that he didn’t much pursue it either.
Each night, she lay in her bedroll, sleepless.
She imagined Peter appearing in different ways. She imagined him kneeling outside her house, listening to her breathe … standing on the edge of the forest, waiting for her to get up and come find him … padding down the village path at night barefoot, intent on entering her house and waking her with his hands, whispering that she should be quiet. Each of these possibilities seemed as real to her as the last, setting her skin on fire as she lay awake. But nothing changed. When she got up at night, when the moon was passing the middle of the sky, and she walked the perimeter of the village while everyone else slept, she saw no one.
She went to find Pine Sap one afternoon. He had been avoiding her, sitting at the other side of the circles at dinner, taking a different path when he saw her coming his way.
He was sanding the floors of his house smooth. He didn’t look up at her as she approached and laid her hand on one of the poles, leaning slightly against it and watching him.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth,” she said, standing with her hands folded in front of her, the closest to humility she could get.
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