Never Never

by Brianna Shrum

  Peter looked at him as though he was daft, as though he was terribly foolish for even thinking to ask the question. “Because he’s a pirate, Hook.”

  James didn’t understand and crouched there, not knowing what else to say. But when Peter made a move toward the ship, something desperate clawed at his insides, needing very much to stop the whole endeavor. He grasped at the first trivial question his mind gave him.

  “Where does the captain sleep, Peter?”

  The group of boys behind them began to wriggle and rustle, confused, impatient murmuring rising up in the air.

  “Nowhere,” said Peter through his teeth. “These pirates haven’t got a captain.”

  James furrowed his brow. “No captain. That doesn’t seem very sporting, killing pirates who haven’t even got a captain when we have.”

  “Have you?”

  “Why, yes, of course. You, Peter Pan.”

  Peter’s entire face lit up at this. “Captain I am. Captain I am.” Then he turned back to the ship as though the rest of the conversation hadn’t taken place and he’d forgotten all about it.

  “Peter, you promised I wouldn’t have to kill—” James went to tug on Peter’s shirt, and Peter thrust a hand out to stop him.

  “Shh.”

  James shrank back, already having given up the fight for fairness. Slightly crawled past him up to Peter and whispered low, but loud enough for James to hear. “Look at that one there. Sleeping, right near the ship’s edge. He’d be easy enough to pick off.”

  James’s stomach flipped, eyes frantically darting between the grizzled old pirate and the Pan before him, and the dark, deep, gilded-around-the-edges wood of the ship—a slow, horrifying sense of recognition dawning on him.

  Peter thought on this for a moment and beamed. “That one there. I’ll slit his throat before any of them get a whiff of me. It’ll be an ambush. Oh, the cleverness of me.”

  Peter scaled the ship’s side as though there were footholds carved into it, and the rest of the Lost Boys followed suit. James miserably figured that he’d better come along, though with every forward movement, it was becoming harder and harder to ignore the dreadful foreboding; chain of command in this place didn’t seem to be up for debate. He was the last one on the shining deck, and he arrived just in time to see a wicked grin come over Peter’s face.

  He’d heard the plan, of course, but seeing Peter do the deed was something different altogether. He was horrified as Peter silently drew a knife from somewhere in the folds of his clothes and flipped it in his hand, gripping it by its handle. The pirate was sleeping peacefully. Peter crept up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. James was too panicked to do or say anything, part of him not believing that this was all really happening. But the gravity of it hit him full force when the pirate woke and scrambled for his sword. Peter quickly and quietly slipped the edge of the blade across his throat, blood flecking across the pirate’s orange hair. His victim’s eyes shot open wider then, but they didn’t find Pan. They looked straight at James, bewildered, shocked, in pain. In that instant, James knew why everything about this night had felt so wrong.

  Somehow, he knew this man; he knew his eyes. He was certain he recognized his hair. This pirate, this scallywag, was one of the pirates he always dreamt about. He’d played elaborate roles in James’s nighttime fantasies. This ship, these men, they were his. He knew it then just as surely as he knew that the sky was blue and the grass was green.

  “Oh yes. The Spanish Main,” Peter had said back in Kensington. “Full of bumbling, stupid, grown-up pirates. I’ve killed at least a dozen of them.”

  The Spanish Main. James’s ship.

  And here they were, and Peter was making good on his claim.

  As the life ebbed quietly out of the pirate and the blood pulsed out of his throat, soaking the collar of his shirt, James knew that the pirate had recognized him, too.

  It was silent on the ship, a sick, heavy stillness that pushed down on his shoulders and his heart and his fingertips. There was a mighty splash as James involuntarily let go of the ship and fell into the water. And high above him, Peter crowed.

  FOUR

  THE WATER WAS COLD, BUT JAMES WAS NUMB ALREADY so he didn’t mind it much. Chaos was erupting on the ship above him, pirates thundering out onto the deck, Lost Boys and Peter Pan killing the brigands who wandered too close to them. But that didn’t matter much either, because in the blanket of the glowing, nymph-infested water, there was a sickly quiet, wherein James was only bound to contemplate and to float.

  It was the eyes. The pirate’s, yes, but Peter’s as well. In the man’s last look, James had seen pleading and confusion and a general fading, and it was terrible. But in Peter’s, he had seen something he could never unsee. The innocent boy who frolicked about and played Commandant and longed for eternal youth had, in the moment his blade slid across the pirate’s throat, transformed into something sinister. For the only look out of Peter’s face in that instant was pure, unadulterated glee. James shuddered, and he wasn’t sure if it was the chill from Peter or the water. But, though his mind didn’t seem to care about the liquid ice around him, he knew his body eventually would. He felt his limbs beginning to turn to slugs, and decided that contemplating on land, further away from Peter and the chance he’d be noticed, was preferable to doing so in the water.

  When he reached the shore, he looked upon the water at the little orbs of light that floated in the sea foam. Nymphs indeed, he figured, according to the mythological research he’d done in the last week. But he didn’t care much for mythology at the moment. So he turned his focus to the pirate ship, quietly observing and considering his own situation. He wondered if he shouldn’t try to swim to the Main again, throw himself in front of a pirate’s (or Lost Boy’s) sword. Perhaps if he was killed here, he would wake up in his bed, and he would never sneak into Kensington Park again. That was a happy thought.

  The ship was nothing but chaos and insanity, roars and crows and clanging of steel slicing through the night. Peter and his Lost Boys were running, hopping, flying here and there, and the pirates were lost and bumbling, with no one to lead them and no idea how to fight back. James felt a very personal sorrow at this and needed to turn away from it.

  It was at this moment that he noticed in the dimness a rogue pirate who had snuck away from the skirmish aboard the ship. He was coming right toward him. James didn’t even have the energy to scamper off; the water had sucked it all away. When he tried to get up, it was as though the sand was holding him down. James grit his teeth, struggling against the white sand and the exhaustion, reconsidering his earlier suicidal musings, eyes trained on the pirate before him. He was running full speed at James, eyes like glowing marbles, teeth peppered with gold, facial hair wild and untamed.

  James pulled himself from the sand and it sucked at his arms and chest as he rose to a wobbly standing position. He brushed his fingers over the little dagger Bibble had given him and squeezed its handle. He shook and struggled to maintain his balance, staring hard at the man, trying to look intimidating, to stand his ground, to be a man.

  The pirate was roaring like some monster out of a book, which didn’t scare James when he was far off. When he got close, still there was nothing. But, when he got really close, that was when the fear set in.

  Then, something strange happened. The man stopped dead in his tracks and his roar was immediately quiet. He and James peered at one another, and the look on the rogue’s face was so queer that James didn’t have enough room in his small body to be afraid, only to wonder.

  “Do I know you?” James finally let out.

  “Captain,” was the reply. The man dropped to a knee before him and put his hand over his heart.

  James was struck with something—bewilderment, peace, fear, or some odd combination of all three. It wasn’t possible. Not really. But he knew it in his bones, and besides, the pirate had said it, hadn’t he?

  Captain, said James’s mind, chewing on the word, e
njoying the feel of it. He was suspended there in silence for a moment until Peter and the rest of the Lost Boys shattered it, running back across the beach, whooping and bouncing as they came.

  “Go, pirate,” James hissed. “The Pan is coming.”

  The man obeyed without question. James stood, not wanting to appear mutinous, and followed the lively crew, very much lost in thought. When they reached a clearing in the center of the forest, the group slowed and one of the boys asked between gasps, “How many, Peter? How many?”

  “I counted four,” Pan replied, chest puffed out, hands on his hips.

  James felt an extremely personal pain at this that he could not explain, as well as a low, bubbling rage that he could. Arrogance. Again. At the deaths of men.

  The last thing he wanted was to be there, dripping, among a troupe of heartless children who were reveling in their unprovoked slaughter. Still, the infantile celebration continued.

  Finally, when he could take no more, James shouted, “Peter!”

  All at once, the merriment came to a grinding halt.

  “Yes?” Peter said, turning slowly to face him. The trees rose, dark and tall behind him. James swore for a second that they actually grew.

  “Peter, I’ve got to know something,” he said, voice softening a bit.

  “Ask it, then.”

  James shuffled back an inch, but tried to keep his chin lifted and strong. He ignored the warning looks from Bibble and Bobble beside him. “The man you killed—”

  “Men,” he corrected.

  James could feel a bit of blood drain from his face, but he ignored that as well, or tried to. “One of the men you killed, I knew him. I swear I did.”

  The forest went very quiet then and Peter’s face darkened as he slunk a step at a time toward James. “Are you a pirate, James?” Peter whispered, so close to James that he could feel Peter’s breath on his face, see the small sprinkling of blood across his cheek.

  “Of course not,” James sputtered.

  “Then what do you mean, you knew him?” Peter did not back away, did not raise his voice a decibel.

  James could feel the sudden negative space in the area directly near him. The other boys had shrunk away. “I’ve seen him before,” he stuttered. “Not here—in my dreams. Back home. In London.”

  James could feel sweat beading up all over his face, and he swallowed hard, wishing for something to soothe his raw throat. Peter backed away a little and stroked his chin. “In your Neverland.”

  James just looked at him, unable to decide what emotion to feel, caught between revulsion, terror, and curiosity.

  “Your Neverland. That place just between waking and sleeping. You dreamt them there. That’s how everything’s built in Neverland—on dreams. The pirates are yours, then.”

  The trees began to slowly shrink back down to their regular tallness. “I—I suppose so,” said James.

  On the outside, James was very controlled, albeit trembling a bit. But inside, he was still quite frightened, and confused. He could hardly believe what Peter was saying. He’d created lives by dreaming them? It seemed impossible. But so did everything in this fantastical place.

  Peter sheathed his dagger and laughed, somehow delighted. “I’ve been wondering who dreamt them up.”

  James let out a breath. Life re-entered the wood and the boys got back to their revelry.

  “What do you mean, exactly?” said James, practically flitting with nervous energy as he followed Peter, who was pacing around in a circle.

  Peter rolled his eyes and sighed, and Bibble stepped quickly between them. He grabbed James’s arm and James frowned, but allowed himself to be led away, as Bibble’s fingers seemed rather insistent on it.

  “I say—” said James, but Bibble just shook his head, and Bobble appeared beside him in a wink.

  “It’s best not to ask Peter too many questions,” said Bibble.

  “He’s awfully busy, after all,” Bobble chimed in.

  “Well I just wanted to know—”

  “Why he picked you,” said Bibble, flicking his sandy brown hair out of his eyes. “You’re a Dreamer, James.”

  “We all are,” said Bobble, flicking the same sandy brown hair out of the same bright green eyes.

  “What do you mean? Everyone here? On the island?”

  “Well, not everyone.” Bibble’s mouth turned in a smug little grin. “Peter dreamt up the Indians, and you did the pirates. At least, the ones on the Spanish Main.”

  “The Never Wastes are mine,” Bibble’s slouchier twin said brightly.

  “Well, I came up with the nasty Graps who live there.”

  James raised an eyebrow. “Graps? What exactly are—”

  Bobble laughed, ignoring James’s question altogether. “Fat lot of good that did for poor Flobbins.”

  Bibble cast his eyes downward, and Slightly stopped whatever he was doing so that he and the twins could make a gesture James could only assume was a mimicry of crossing themselves, and spit.

  “Flobbins,” said Slightly, “may he rest in pieces.”

  Then Slightly went on about his doing-nothing, and James shook his head quickly, then returned his attention to the boys.

  “So that’s it, then? I’m a Dreamer?” He felt ridiculous even saying it, having no idea at all what it even meant.

  “Yes,” said Bobble, knocking on James’s head. James shut his eyes and shrank back, a little more than irritated. “Pay attention. Peter liked what he saw and he took it to Neverland and kept it, and now you’re here too. That’s it.”

  Bibble spoke very slowly, over-enunciating, shadows from the fairies playing on his angular face. “You were selected. So you could come and go from Neverland as you pleased, and so did your dreams. Like little ghosts. But the ones Peter likes, they stay here forever. He likes your pirates, and apparently, he likes you. So here we all are. Got it?”

  “But—”

  But James was unable to finish his question, because at that moment, Simpkins made his way over to Peter and tugged on his shirt, and said, “Peter, I’m hungry.”

  Peter thought about this for a second and shouted, “Food!”

  All the boys stopped mid-dance, mid-conversation, mid-everything, and sprinted over to Peter, huddling around him. At that, Peter’s grin nearly overtook his face, it was so large. It was difficult to hate Peter when he smiled like that. Then, he motioned his hand in the air like he was grabbing some morsel and bit down on it, “it” being nothing. James was perplexed. (Not that that was new.) He noted minute looks of malcontent on all the boys’ faces, but they disappeared as quickly as they came, and the entire party took up biting and tearing and scooping at the air.

  James felt his countenance fall, for just then had he realized that he was starving, having not eaten a bite since he’d left London what seemed like ages ago. His hand was trembling when he raised it slowly in the air, and his stomach growled angrily when he curled his fingers like he’d curl them around a hunk of bread. He grabbed at nothing and brought it to his mouth over and over, teeth clacking hard, almost painfully, against one another. He did this until the motion was repetitive and almost frantic, as though if he consumed enough nothing, it would eventually sate the gnawing hunger in his gut.

  At the end of this ritual, Peter lay back on the earth, his hands clasped behind his head, looking utterly satisfied. He stared up at the twinkling stars, which were swirling and swarming and chasing each other across the sky. James had only just now noticed this, having had no real time to focus on the celestial backdrop until now, and the sky held him in awe for a moment.

  The others mimicked Peter, though the looks on their faces were significantly less convincing. He wagered they were all starved, like him, and that made him feel a bit better, for some wicked reason. James managed to pull himself toward the group, and lay beside Peter, clothes still slightly damp, moistening the mossy ground below him with seawater.

  As the boys began to get drowsy, a thousand thoughts hit Ja
mes at once, as though they’d all been waiting for days and were finally let out of the gate to overwhelm him at this exact moment. His mind was a whir of questions and misery and guilt and happiness and all sorts of strange mixtures thereof.

  “Peter,” he whispered, low enough that none of the boys woke, and Peter hadn’t been asleep anyway.

  “Yes?”

  “Where does everyone sleep?” James asked, pulled in once again by the stars, which seemed all the brighter and more playful in the silence.

  “Wherever we fall asleep. I’ve been scouting for a tree or something we could live in, but none’s turned up yet, so we sleep wherever we are.”

  This was a bit disconcerting, as he’d pictured Neverland to have the most luxurious bedrooms, full of the forest and fairy magic. He wished Peter had taken that dream from him. The trees seemed large and disagreeable, and he swore the shadows on him were darker than on anyone else.

  “You just sleep outside?” James said, trying very hard to swallow.

  “If that’s where we fall asleep.” Peter’s voice was flattening. James couldn’t quite tell if it was from sleepiness or irritation, but something told him it was the latter.

  “You don’t worry about creatures and such chomping at you in the middle of the night?”

  As he said this, a lonesome sort of whistle-howl rang out through the wilderness, and James shivered, even more concerned, if that were possible.

  “No creatures wish to eat Pan. And very few would try to eat a Lost Boy under my watch.”