The Untold Stories of Neverland: The Complete Box Set
Page 2
She waited to see if any words would make their way into the song. If he only continued humming, then he wished to replay his memories alone, and wouldn’t share them with her. But if the words came, then he would reveal bits of what he missed about the life he had lost.
“Sleep tight…”
The words were bare whispers in the silence between hums. “…until the morning comes.”
There were pauses, bits of quietness, where words didn’t dare intrude. She glanced over at him. A stray beam of moonlight had made its way between the branches and played on his face during one of these bouts of silence, showing her exactly how deep in thought he was. A story was playing behind his eyes, soon enough it would find its way out.
“I can’t remember all of the words,” he said with a frustrated sigh, shaking his head, sending locks of brown hair down toward his eyes. “She sang them to me every night. Why can’t I remember them now?”
The question seemed rhetorical, and one not directed personally to her, so the pixie closed her eyes and feigned sleep, though she knew that he knew she didn’t have any intention of sleeping. The stories were important and she would listen to them always—not because she had any desire to know about what a mother was or of the adventures he’d had in another life. She would listen because they were a part of him, such an important part, he would sit for long periods of time and replay the memories in an effort to never forget them.
“Neverland makes me forget,” he grumbled. “I always knew the words before. She sang them to me the last night before I was made a guardian. I should know all of the words.”
The pixie slit one eye open to peek at him. She didn’t know if the magic here made him forget or not, though she wished it would. She didn’t mind the memories of his adventures. Some of them she found entertaining. But if he would only forget the woman with the long, dark hair who sang him to sleep—the one he called mother—it would make her life so much easier. Giving up all pretense of sleeping, Tink sat up and stretched, then scowled at him, hoping all the while that he would give up trying to remember this silly song and apologize for disturbing her.
That didn’t happen. Instead, he offered her a different memory. “Shall I tell you about my last adventure?”
As this seemed a cheerful alternative to the humming and singing, she gave him a happy nod, hugged her knees to her chin, and waited.
Peter leaned against the tree again and swinging one foot out into the open air, began his tale.
“One morning, I set off into the woods. The winter had been harsh and cold, and that morning was the first day the sun came. We’d been stuck inside for such a long time that all I wanted to do was go outside and explore. The snow sparkled like silver,” he grinned at her, adding, “as if it had been sprinkled with pixie dust.”
This story was beginning to sound much better than several others he had told her, so she lifted her chin off her knees in anticipation of what would happen next.
“Mother warned me to stay inside; she said the sky was too dark and another snow was coming. Winter hadn’t ended. I told her I wouldn’t go, but I snuck out once she went to check on my baby brother.” Peter paused here, frowning. “I’d forgot all about him. You know what babies are, don’t you, Tink?”
She shook her head no. She’d once heard that a baby’s laugh was what first created the pixies, but it had been so long ago, she thought maybe she had forgotten exactly how it went. Neverland did make you forget things, after all. Regardless, she’d always wondered what a baby was and she was happy Peter was going to tell her.
“They’re squirmy, little things with pink faces and they have tiny fingers and toes. They cry a lot and they are always hungry,” he informed her before scrunching up his nose. “And they smell, too.”
The crocodile, who was snoring contentedly at the base of the tree, seemed more likeable than these baby-creatures, Tink decided. Surely, the first pixies in Neverland had forgotten how they came to be.
“Anyway,” Peter continued, dismissing the thoughts of the baby with a wave of his hand. “Once she was out of sight, I left. I’d heard there was a cave deep in the forest that held an underground river, and on the banks of that river…”
“…a pirate captain had hidden his treasure,” Tink chimed, finishing his sentence. She’d heard of this particular adventure many times. It was one of their favorite adventures to play. Neverland had caves and caverns aplenty, and while many of them had hidden niches where the Never Sea would tide and ebb, there never was a treasure to be found—nor a pirate captain, for that matter. Still, the adventure was always worth it.
“Yes,” Peter agreed. “But this time was different. I headed north, where I’d heard the hunters talk of caves so big huge bears would make their homes in them. I thought if the bears loved those caves, maybe there was a river in them, too, and that would be where I found the treasure. I walked all morning, searching for the caves, and all the while it got colder and colder.” He crossed his arms over his bare chest and shivered, as if the memory still had enough power to affect him as he told his tale. “Then the snow came, just as Mother said it would. I kept thinking I had to be close. If I could just go a bit farther, then I would find them and I could duck inside and be safe. But the snow fell faster, and it got cold…so, so cold…”
He was shivering and hunched into a ball now, and while the temperature in the tree hadn’t dropped at all, Tink was certain she saw his breath, frosty and white.
“I couldn’t find the caves, so I turned and tried to go back, but the snow had gotten so deep, it covered my tracks. I couldn’t tell where I had been, or which way I needed to go. I knew I was lost…”
This adventure had definitely taken a turn for the worse, she decided. Something told her this wasn’t going to end well, so she stood up and flew over to him, sat on his shoulder, and gave him a comforting pat.
“I stumbled to the base of a tree. This one kind of reminds me of it,” he noted, picking a green, heart-shaped leaf from a limb beside him. “I huddled under it and waited, hoping the snow would stop and someone would come to find me. I sat there for a long time, watching the snow fall. I was so scared for a while. My body ached at first, it was so cold, but then it stopped hurting and I just sat and watched the snow coat the branches of the tree.”
He glanced up at the crisscrossing branches above them. “I remember thinking it was beautiful. A few leaves were still there, though they were brown and frosted in ice. While I watched a few of them float down with the snow. Then I remembered being so, so tired, and I fell asleep. When I woke up, I was floating near the branches.”
He stopped and shook his head. “It’s a strange thing to look at yourself, while you aren’t yourself anymore. It’s like a dream. You know, the ones where you’re dreaming and you’re caught outside of your body? Only this time, I didn’t get to wake up. My body stayed beneath the tree, under a blanket of snow and no one ever came for me.”
Tink had gone from patting his shoulder to patting his hair now, in an effort to give him some kind of comfort. It was helping, she thought. He didn’t seem too worried about remembering his last minutes of life, so she kept patting while he talked.
“Then a light came and I knew I was supposed to move toward it, but a voice stopped me and gave me a choice. It said if I would be a guardian, I could stay,” he shrugged the shoulder she wasn’t standing on. “I knew I wanted to stay and I knew I wanted the chance to live. But that wasn’t what the offer was, though I didn’t know it when I agreed. My task was to collect the spirits of children, and show them where to go. It wasn’t life I was offered. It was an existence of death. I couldn’t go home and I couldn’t be a boy anymore.”
He turned his head enough that she backed up, so he could look at her. “I’m glad you found me, Tink. You saved me. You gave me what I wanted most.”
SLEEP EVENTUALLY CAME for them and the pixie awoke the next morning just in time to see the crocodile’s tail swish back toward the sea in sear
ch of his breakfast. She yawned and sat up to rub the sleep from her eyes. Sometime during the night, she had gone from Peter’s shoulder to sleeping on his head, and now his entire forehead was covered in gold. She patted his hair, watching the small clouds of pixie dust puff into the air.
“Ah…ahhchoo!” The sneeze sent her off his head and higher up into the branches. “Sorry, Tink,” Peter called out as he sat up. Once she flew back down, he grinned at her. “That’s what you get from making a bed out of my hair.”
She stuck her tongue out at him, before pointing out toward the sea, where the crocodile could be seen, swimming toward an unsuspecting flock of sea gulls.
“Right,” Peter nodded. “Time for us to get away.” He stood up and started to climb down the tree, happily chatting away about the dream he had just woken from. “I remember her face now,” he said happily, “I thought Neverland had taken it from me for forever. I can remember her eyes and her smile…and I know the rest of the words to the song.”
Tink felt the heat creep into her cheeks and she flew down from the tree, not wanting to hear anything more about the one he called Mother. It was enough to listen about her at night, but now that it was morning, the pixie had had quite enough.
She heard him utter a quick oh in surprise, and turned just in time to see that his foot had caught a vine. In an instant, he was falling toward the ground. She flew toward him, hoping to find some way to save him. It would be a terrible thing to meet your end under a tree twice, she thought, dread filling her as she reached his hand. But just as she did, something strange happened.
Instead of crashing to the ground, the boy hovered inches from the underbrush, stopped by some unseen force. His eyes were squeezed shut, as if he had been expecting the same thing she had thought a split second earlier.
She tugged at his fingers, wanting him to open up his eyes, but not wanting to speak, lest he continue falling.
“What is this? How did this happen?” he asked, opening his eyes.
Tink shrugged. “I don’t know, but maybe you’ll want to see if you can get down before you fall the rest of the way.”
He nodded and slowly dropped until his feet touched the ground.
They both let out a sigh of relief, then looked at each other in bewilderment.
“I wonder if I can fly again,” Peter said, arching an eyebrow. “Maybe that’s what that was.” And before she could answer, he jumped in the air—and fell back down just as quickly.
“Huh,” he muttered to himself. “All I was thinking about were the words to the song. I was happy that I remembered them again.”
As she watched, his feet left the ground. “That’s it! I’m doing it!” he exclaimed, a look of pure joy covering his face. “I’m flying, Tink!” He lifted his arms out from his sides, experimenting. Within seconds, he was flitting around in the air as easily as he had when she had first saw him.
She grinned and happily flew around him as he spun in circles.
“I’m so happy I could burst!” he told her. “I can fly again—it only took a happy thought!”
3
The Magic of Pixies
HER PLAN HADN’T worked. In fact, it had failed—terribly. The pixie’s skin had gone waxen and pale. Her magic was flickering out—she was dying. She writhed on the ground for a moment before her movements became sluggish and slow.
She’d been a young pixie, born since Peter’s arrival, so Tink hadn’t known her. Since Peter’s love of adventure had included chasing pixies, Tink hadn’t been around them much lately, and knew very little of the goings-on in the mountain that was their home. Still, she felt her heart break when the little one shuddered and went still.
Tink brushed tears from her cheeks as she watched Peter bend over and scoop up the body. He lifted her up to take a better look, but she disintegrated into a small pile of gold dust before he got the chance.
“What happened to her?” he asked, a look of horror on his face. “I didn’t do this. I haven’t chased or bothered any of the pixies in a very long time. I promised I wouldn’t, and I haven’t!” he told her emphatically, as if he was worried she blamed him for this.
“Pixies are made of magic. If we aren’t believed in, we die,” she said, revealing her secret. There. Now he would know the reason behind her bringing him to Neverland.
“But I believe in pixies,” he said, a frown wrinkling his brow. “Why did this happen?”
She didn’t answer him. She’d been so sure he would be the key to their survival.
“Maybe we just need more people to believe in you. Maybe I’m not enough,” he suggested.
She’d expected him to be angry that she’d kept a secret from him, but instead he was focused on trying to help them. She truly had chosen the right one to save the pixies after all.
“We could save another boy, the same way you saved me,” he said, thinking aloud. “Do you think that would work?”
She shrugged. She didn’t know, but she was willing to try. However, it would take several trips back to the human star to find someone suitable to bring back with them. In that amount of time, anything could happen.
“Let’s go now!”
She shook her head. “I should go alone. Who knows how long you’ll be able to fly?” Shortly after the discovery of Peter’s happy thought, they’d found out there was an additional item needed to fly—something only she could do.
“As long as you stay close enough to sprinkle me with pixie dust, I’ll be fine,” he argued, unwilling to stay behind. “Besides, you promised never to leave me.”
He had her there. A promise was a promise, after all. “You’ll stay very close to me, won’t you? You won’t go off on an adventure without me?” She had visions of him leaving, then losing his ability to fly and crashing into the sea to drown.
“I’ll stay right beside you,” he promised with a smile. “Shall we be off, then? It’s still early, so we’ll have plenty of time.”
She watched as he gently blew the small pile of dust from his palm. The air sparkled with gold for a few seconds, then a quick breeze stirred, and all traces of the young pixie who had once been vanished.
This trip to the human star would be risky, but it had to be made. Without someone to believe, there would be another pixie forgotten soon—another small pile of dust to vanish with the wind.
“Let’s go.”
SHE HADN’T THOUGHT about where they should go once they reached the human star, but Peter seemed to have an idea, so she let him lead the way. It wasn’t a surprise when he took her to the same town where she’d watched him as a guardian.
She sighed in relief when he didn’t fly straight back to the old house by the forest, instead taking her into the heart of the town. “Up here is the best place to watch,” she said, taking the lead. She took him to the old tower with the snarling monster perched on its roof. She gave the monster a quick nod hello, remembering his frosty goodbye the last time they parted, and opted to sit on Peter’s shoulder.
It had taken a lot longer than she had planned to get there, much longer than she remembered it taking before. The sun was setting and the sky above them was darkening quickly. There weren’t many people out. There wouldn’t be many people to choose from on this trip.
Staring at those who were out, Peter idly kicked his feet back and forth into the open air. From his expression, she gathered he wasn’t impressed with the man who had locked the bakery, or the one who was leading horses down the street to a large barn.
A slight movement from a corner shop caught her eye, and she focused on a dark piece of fabric caught in the breeze. In a moment, a man came into view. It had been the edge of his long coat she had spotted. As she watched, he locked the door to the shop and jiggled the handle for good measure, then turned and set off resolutely down the street. Something about him made her want to follow him and take a closer look.
“Let’s go and watch him,” she told Peter, tugging on a long strand of brown hair to get his attention.
Fine, she thought, glaring at the spot where he disappeared, with her hands on her hips. I’ll still watch who I want to watch. I don’t need his help. Besides, I’m the one with the pixie dust. They can’t fly without me.
So she flew the opposite way, and caught up to the man walking down the street. She stayed a safe distance above him, so as not to be noticed, but she was still close enough to see his face.
He wasn’t a child by any means, but he wasn’t nearly as old as Peter made him out to be, she decided, taking in his clear, unlined face and bright, blue eyes. A soft breeze brushed against her, and a quick sprinkle of gold dusted his long, black hair.
As if he’d realized she watched him, he stopped, and turned around, but after seeing no one, he shrugged and continued on.
Something about him told her he was the one she needed to bring to Neverland. She wasn’t sure if it was the confident set of his shoulders, the look of kindness in his face, or something else, but the same familiar pull like the one she had felt when she had watched Peter was there. This was the one they needed to bring back to help them.
Of course, they would have to watch him for a while. There were certain factors that couldn’t be dismissed. She wanted to see where his home was and if he had a family, whatever that was. Because if he did, then she couldn’t bring him to Neverland. She still wasn’t sure what made family important, but it must be a grand thing and something one must never lose.
So now it was time to find Peter. Where had he gone, anyway? She wondered, cautiously looking down the side streets while trying to keep an eye on the man so as not to lose him.