Wendy gasped. “Did you say fairies?”
But Oxley had leapt out of her room already, and all Wendy was left with were a thousand questions dangling in the damp Neverland air. She couldn’t quite believe what she had heard. Fairies? She tried to think of what her mother would say, but she couldn’t even remember her face. She found herself caring less than she should and let the thread of guilt unspool in her mind for a few minutes before the rocking hammock, and her sleepiness, took over.
CHAPTER TEN
WENDY WOKE UP HOURS LATER to a sticky face pressed next to hers. Dusk settled its hushed lull over them, and Wendy smiled, wrapping her arms around Michael, happy to breathe in his sweaty-little-boy smell.
“Hi, Wendy,” he mumbled.
“Hi, Michael.” They stayed in the hammock for maybe another ten minutes, sleeping on and off, enjoying the warmth of being snuggled up next to each other. Finally, Wendy gently pushed him off and began washing her face and hair in the large basket of steaming water that someone—Ox?—had somehow transported to her room. After looking around, she pulled off the trousers and lacy shirt that now reeked of salt and sea and washed her legs and arms, wishing for the proper bathtub back in . . . she shook her head. Back in . . . ? She turned to Michael.
“Michael, where did we live with our parents?”
Michael looked downright puzzled. “We lived in . . .” His face distorted. “We lived in . . .” His lip gave a quiver. “I don’t know!”
He ran to Wendy, burying his face in her belly. “Wendy, I can’t remember Papa’s face!”
“I think it’s something about Neverland that makes it hard to remember. It’s okay. Do remember what Peter said, that when we get back, it will only have been a few minutes, and Mother and Father won’t even know that we were gone.”
“Wendy, you promise?”
She looked into his impossibly bright blue eyes. “Promise.” Hoping to distract him, Wendy splashed some water on his face and rubbed hard with her hand, attempting to erase the dirt on his cheeks. He laughed and scampered away.
“No cleaning!” Her blue nightgown was draped over a rickety chair—the only actual chair she had seen on Pan Island—and when she picked it up, she was surprised that it had been cleaned. She pressed her nose to the fabric, smelling the aroma of herbs that even the best alchemist wouldn’t recognize. She pulled it over her head and slipped her feet into her black shoes, still crunchy with sand. Her hair—well, the sea had made it curly, and there was no taming it back, and so she simply decided to let it cascade down her shoulders in messy waves. Michael was still wearing the tunic Oxley had given him, but someone had the good sense to cinch it at the waist, and when Wendy looked over, she noted with surprise that he had tied a maroon ribbon across his forehead and tucked some mauve leaves into it so they hung down over his ears. Wendy suppressed a giggle—he looked like a giant puppy. The poor kid.
“That’s interesting. Here, let me fix it for you.” She gently tucked the leaves so they were above his temples. Michael puffed out his chest.
“This is how Peter wants us to wear it. He showed me.”
“Oh, did he? That was nice of him.”
“Yup! He said that all the Lost Boys wear it this way the night before a raid. It shows their lawalty.”
“Loyalty.”
“Oh. Loyalty.”
“Are you ready?”
Michael nodded. “And hungry.”
“Me too. Now, how do we get down again?”
“Oh, Wendy.” Michael giggled all the way over to the tree. “You know how.” Michael climbed up onto her back, and Wendy stared at the trunk once again. Then, without a second thought, she wrapped her arms around the trunk and hurtled down toward the Teepee. Michael shrieked with delight. When she neared the landing, she hesitantly put her foot out to slow her speed, and it hit the landing with a hard thump, wrenching her off the trunk and onto her knees. She stood up flustered but proud. A smile broke open across her face. She was about to say something to Michael when the deafening noise of two hundred boys roared out of the open doors of the Table, a wild, blustery wave of voices. Wendy self-consciously gathered her hair to the side, knowing that all their eyes would be on her when she entered.
“Michael!” she hissed, approaching the outer doors.
“What?”
“Do you want me to hold your hand?” She was suddenly desperate to deflect the attention that would be put upon her. He looked at her with disgust.
“Not in front of them! I’m not a baby anymore, that’s what Peter said!” he scoffed, before sauntering inside, as proud and mature as a five-year-old could be.
With a deep breath, Wendy quietly stepped inside the Table. Once inside, her eyes ate up everything around her; it was the strangest dining room she had ever seen. In the center of the room, there was an enormous round table, made of dark shiny wood, marked with a thousand tiny hatch marks. A chandelier made of broken wine bottles hung overhead, littered with half-burning candles, held up with a tattered rope that looked like it could give at any moment. Frayed ribbons dangled down from the broken bottle necks. One was on fire, a small smoldering flame licking its way up the ribbon to the glass top.
“Pretty great, isn’t it?” Oxley asked, sneaking up behind her and yanking on her hair playfully.
Wendy looked around. “It’s . . . something, indeed.” The circular center table was surrounded by dozens of tiny square tables that were heaped with piles of dirty dishes, stacks upon stacks of them.
“Who . . . washes the dishes?” Wendy asked cautiously, not wanting the job to be assigned to her.
“Oh, we just find the cleanest ones and wipe them down with our rags before we eat,” Ox said, shrugging. Wendy must have made a face because he burst out laughing. “Things are different here, Miss Darling! This is Pan Island! We do not pretend to live like how grown-ups say we should live.”
Wendy raised her head, standing on her tiptoes to see the center of the table, in which she could see people moving. At its radial core, there was a hole cut out in the middle where three young boys—Pips—stood, spooning out food and putting more on the table, where the ravenous Lost Boys constantly reached for more. The three servers were dripping with sweat, struggling to keep up with the demand. From where she stood, Wendy could see that under their feet were several layers of circular rooms connected by a spiraling ramp—and that was where the food was being brought up from, carried by a lean boy who moved impossibly fast, even when carrying what looked like a full turkey.
Awed by the sight of it all, Wendy breathed in too quickly and in return let out a loud cough when the smell of the sweat, the meat, and the dirty dishes became too much. All the eyes in the room turned toward her, and there was a moment of silence as they stared at the strange girl creature who had invaded their pit of gluttonous delights. Eyes narrowed, heads dipped, whispers rose. Willing herself to move, Wendy walked toward the table with her hands clenched, past the rows of judgmental eyes and twisted mouths. Peter was nowhere to be seen, and she felt as though she were wading through a den of hungry wolves. As she made her way around the circle, she was relieved to see John, ripping apart a turkey leg with his teeth, laughing at something another boy said. She went to sit next to him and was surprised when he put his hand down in her way.
“Can’t sit here. Sorry.”
“John!” she snapped. “What are you doing? Let me sit!”
He looked up at her calmly. “I don’t think so, Wendy. You’ll have to find somewhere else to sit. Unfortunately, I don’t think you are the most popular person in this room. Best of luck.”
“John, if this is because of earlier, I’m sorry—I was just trying to protect you—”
But by then John had turned away and was chatting to the long-haired boy sitting next to him. She bit her lip.
“Fine, just see that Michael gets fed.”
John gave the tiniest nod of his head before ignoring her completely. Turning away so that her brother would n
ot see the tears that were stinging her eyes, Wendy moved toward the door. She was suffocating with all these eyes on her, the hungry looks of boys who hadn’t seen a girl in years. The looks on their faces were either full of a ferocious desire that made her squirm or a seething hatred at her presence. Either way, Wendy wouldn’t just stand here and be gawked at. Better to be hungry. Her stomach howled its discontent with her decision, but she still turned to leave before feeling a strong hand on her upper arm.
“Peter?”
A hope surged through her, but it was left unanswered when she turned to see Abbott. He looked at her with a frown.
“This is why bringing a girl to Pan Island was a terrible idea. Here.”
He walked over to where two older boys were shoving some sort of black eel into their mouths. “MOVE!” he thundered, and the boys scampered aside, making more than enough room for Peter’s General and Wendy.
She sat.
“Paran! Dimitri! Food!”
Two of the sticky boys in the circle immediately set to work preparing their meals, and soon, food was being shoved toward them across the smooth table, made that way by years of greasy meat being slung across it. A hunk of turkey meat landed in front of Wendy, along with a hardened roll, a piece of white cheese, and lastly, a huge plum, easily the size of a melon. A wooden goblet filled with wine sloshed over the food as it slid across the table. There were no plates or napkins.
“Are there, er, utensils?” Wendy asked delicately. Abbott stared at her for a moment before rolling his eyes and tearing into his piece of almost-raw fish. Wendy looked around the table, where all eyes seemed to rest on her. Abbott swallowed noisily.
“Eat, before it gets any worse. They need to see you are like them. Hurry.” He gulped his wine down. Wendy reached for her turkey leg and hesitated for a moment, taking in its sinews and bloody stump. She closed her eyes and reached for her hunger, that need that was gnawing at the inside of her stomach. Then she ripped into the turkey leg, mashing the meat in between her teeth as Abbott had done. It was so delicious that she sighed with her mouth full, something she would have never done at home. Home, wherever that was—she couldn’t be bothered to remember because there was just her and the turkey leg. The meat was spicy, seasoned with flavors that she had never even dreamed of—it was somehow buttery and tart, with a hint of bitterness and . . . onion? And yet, not onion. Whatever they had done to the meat, it was the most delicious thing she had ever eaten. The roll would not come apart easily, and so she banged it on the edge of the table until it broke open, showering her in crumbs. She tore the plum apart and spread some of the juices on the roll to soften it. The cheese went into her mouth whole, and she had no regrets.
The sounds of the boys eating rose around her: grunting, tearing, slurping . . . and after a few moments of watching Wendy eat, their gratified laughter rose back up through the Table, the giggling guffaws bursting from the mouths of the boys with abandon. The sound was wonderful, and Wendy quietly smiled to herself as she ate, trying very hard not to think about what she looked like at the moment. With ravenous bites, she tore into her turkey leg until it was nothing but the bone. Eating it that way was intoxicating, either that or her hunger had driven her a bit mad. She shoved the roll into her mouth, and then the remainder of the plum, until nothing was left except for her full glass of berry wine. Every few minutes, large jade leaves floated down from the mossy branches that curled their way under the roof of the Table. The ones that made it past the spitballs of the boys settled gently, as if the wind had loved them, on the glossy surface of the circular table.
Wendy took a final bite of her roll, and when she was finished, she pushed up from the table and grabbed one of the leaves. Abbott watched her with amused eyes as she folded it in half, and then half again, before raising the corner of the leaf to her mouth and wiping it daintily. After she was done, she set it down next to the abolished bone that had been her dinner. Abbott burst out laughing. She looked at him with a half smile.
“Just because I ate like a Lost Boy doesn’t mean I’m not a lady.”
“I can see that.” He leaned over. “Well, just because your brother is smart doesn’t mean he’s a General.”
The moment was broken. Wendy fell silent, not wanting to betray John again.
Abbott stood up. “I’ll be skipping Peter’s story in the Teepee tonight. Some of us have to actually prepare for the raid.”
Wendy felt a panic rise in her chest as Abbott walked away, leaving her unguarded with all these boys, but she was relieved to notice that suddenly no one seemed to care. Their curiosity satiated, they were just gouging themselves on food, not even looking her way.
“I think they just realized that you eat just like the rest of these hungry wretches.” Oxley slapped her hard on the back as he walked by her. “Peter’s waiting for you in the Teepee.”
Wendy had never heard such glad words and quickly brushed the crumbs off her lap before leaving the Table, happy to be away from prying eyes and the noises of hundreds of boys eating. She could feel John’s jealous eyes burning into her back as she ducked her head under a string of glass bottles, each rocking in the warm air as she left the Table behind.
The night was perfect and still, and she watched in silence as hundreds of wooden lanterns along the walkways lit up from within, a white light pulsing out from their broken windows. Magic. It was alive here, in small ways, almost unnoticeable if you weren’t watching. Wendy leaned her head back, taking in the evening sky, the wind that blew around her, somehow warm to the touch, like a loving caress. As she watched, Neverland spread its beautiful twilight in front of her; a sky the color of fresh thistle looked down from above, a finger trail of navy stretching across the firmament. The tangled trunks of Centermost wrapped around her, beckoning her to explore. Reaching above her, Wendy steadied her foot on a branch and began pulling herself upward toward a small hole in the branches, a tiny window to the stars. She pulled herself easily through the branches that were almost steps in their pattern, a relaxing climb. Without much effort, she made it to the top of Centermost, to a small break in the tree branches facing west. Wendy poked her head under a curtain of exotic, sharp-edged orange flowers and followed the branch outward toward the break in the leaves.
The view was worth the climb. Standing on top of the grainy texture of the tree that made Pan Island, she felt a breath catch in her throat as she looked out over not just Pan Island, but all of Neverland. The mysterious main island was quiet from here, a hulking giant slumbering on a silently pitching sea. Dark hills rose out from its watery base, impassive and beautiful, stretching miles beyond what she could see. The very dim lights of Port Duette and its small townships flickered in the shadows, the city dwarfed by the massive shadow of the mountain above it, a thin trail of smoke continually trickling out of the crest. Wendy let a surprised sob fall from her lips at the raw beauty that played out like a painting in front of her. The beauty of Neverland was almost too much, an assault on her senses, stripping all logical thought from her mind. She couldn’t help but marvel at this magical place, this dream inside of her wildest imaginings. Even the air here moved differently. It caressed with its warmth, each breath filling you with the hope of adventure. The tree swayed in the breeze, thrumming out a peaceful rhythm against her feet. Wendy gave herself over to it all, to the rich beauty and the feel of Neverland. There was so much she couldn’t remember or understand, but in that moment she knew that her heart was content, and she let the beauty soak into her skin like the sun. For a few minutes, she watched the dark horizon, and then, with a nervous heart, she turned back, happy with the knowledge that Peter was waiting for her.
The walkway between the Table and the Teepee was a long rope walkway, strung with tattered ribbons and more than a dozen hanging lanterns that danced like fireflies in the dusk, and it swayed and pitched with each step. Wendy held onto the rough frayed tassels that strung from end to end, proving, as she stumbled, to be completely useless. Her foot slippe
d on one of the boards, and suddenly her leg went crashing through, leaving Wendy with her shin dangling outside of the walkway, her heart hammering so loud it felt as though the entire island could hear it.
“This is so very unsafe,” she mumbled, pulling herself back. Her shin was scraped and bloody, and she rubbed it quickly, trying to make the stinging pain disappear. Out of the darkness, she felt a breath wash over her face, smelling like sugar.
“You aren’t very good at this, are you?”
The voice was female, the same voice that she had heard wailing on the wind when she had fallen asleep the night before. Wendy whipped her head around, but there was nothing there. She scrambled up to her knees and looked around. As she stared at the night sky, she noticed something filtering down toward her in the moonlight, a glittering dust falling around her like rain. It shimmered and leapt in the light, its surface that of a multifaceted mirror that gleamed as it fell, gentle as a twisting snowflake. She reached out to touch it, but when she made contact, the dust vanished, leaving no trace on her fingertips. It fell onto her hair and on her eyelashes, Wendy caught in its glimmering cylinder. A strong gush of warm wind rushed through, blowing the dust up and over the rope walkway, and slowly the splendor waned, the night silent in its absence. There was another flutter in the air, and then Wendy felt a presence just behind her right shoulder.
She had barely turned her head when something shoved her roughly to her knees. Her knees hit the wood planks with a hard slam, but she had barely registered the pain coursing through her legs when something yanked her hair back, hard. A piercing whistle sliced through the warm air, its harsh sound causing Wendy to cover her ears momentarily and curl into herself. With a final loud tweet, the whistle ended. The silence that followed was even more terrifying. Wendy cautiously raised her head. The great tree seemed to let out a breath of relief as all the lanterns on Pan Island gave a shudder and then went dark. A wave of boy groans came out of the Table, far below where she was, suspended in the middle of a walkway hundreds of feet in the air.
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