by N. D. Wilson
Samra carefully reached into her puffy vest and felt for the dense little brick of coiled wires and duct tape and old rechargeable batteries that were more valuable to her father even than his spiked beard or his favorite shotgun. She flipped a crude switch on the side, and she knew that far away, in her father’s pocket, a tiny red light would soon be blinking.
Another hour passed, too loud for conversation, as Sam steered the boat through inlets and channels and island chains that he was only just beginning to remember. He would have been happier if Glory hadn’t curled up inside her oversize jacket and tried to sleep, because he never knew when he might suddenly forget something, anything. He was fully capable of blacking out and imagining himself—or remembering himself—somewhere and somewhen else completely. It didn’t happen often; the incidents usually only happened when he was bored or doing something monotonous—like standing in a boat for an hour listening to the engine’s constant whining. But they did happen. And when they did, he tried his best to keep any of the others from noticing. The Vulture had found them through one of those daydreams. They were stuck in a destroyed ruin because of one of those daydreams. He’d be happy to never have another one.
Steering the boat, he was more likely to misremember an island than he was to suddenly believe himself to be standing on a train platform in Arizona two centuries ago, but he didn’t want to make any mistakes at all. He didn’t want to justify Glory’s decision to leave him behind and explore with Peter. And he didn’t want to look like a moron in front of the . . . new guest.
Samra followed Glory’s example and went to sleep, curled up in the bottom of the boat, and Sam was left alone to watch the water crease in the wind and sea hawks dive after fish. He thought about waking the girls when he saw the distant dorsals of what was likely a pod of killer whales, but he didn’t. He focused on finding his way home, and his memory didn’t betray him.
The island wasn’t entirely evergreen. Oranges and reds and yellows doubled their colors in their reflections on the water as Sam guided the boat toward the mouth of the little island harbor and throttled back. As the engine quieted, he heard laughter and shouting, and he smelled the smoke of a wood fire and the too-familiar scent of grilled fish.
The place was shaped like a crescent moon, if the two tips of a crescent moon ever stretched out almost to touching while still leaving the center empty. Sam and the boat crawled through the shallow mouth and drifted into the small central harbor that held three docks, two boathouses, a waterslide, a waterfall, a fuel tank with pumping station, a torn but still floating trampoline, and perfectly smooth black water.
Above the harbor, imitating the curve of the island, a thirty-thousand-square-foot home of glass and chrome and white leather and gray marble made the place complete. On one end, the mansion had its own power station that no one knew how to run. On the other end, it had a heated indoor swimming pool which was no longer heated or suitable for swimming, having grown itself a thick pool-cover of algae and then dried up. Now it looked like a huge green carpeted hole in the floor.
In between the power station and the dead pool, thirteen boys and two girls had made a home—or at least they had all staked out various claims on various rooms and corners, cooking by firelight, but eating with silver utensils and sleeping on silk sheets.
Sam and Glory docked the boat and led Samra up a wide flight of stone stairs between low walls overgrown with moss and ferns, to the mostly glass entrance to the mostly glass mansion. Sam pulled the wide, heavy door open and stepped to the side, letting the girls enter first. When he followed, the door crawled shut behind him on its own.
The floors were marble. The couches were leather, and thick wooly rugs softened the floors in front of them. A glossy concrete fireplace the size of a small garage held a crackling fire, and six or seven large fish sizzled above it, spread out over a makeshift grill that looked like it had once been part of a metal fence.
The kitchen was vast and steely, a blend of a science fiction laboratory and a Boy Scout campground. The polished white counters looked sterile enough for surgery, but a large plastic trash can was perched beside the sink with a makeshift water spigot screwed into its base. Fish spines and tails were piled on a thick slab cutting board beside a knife gunked with blood and scales. Kindling firewood was stacked up tight between the counter and the cabinet.
Glory crossed the room and stood at the wall of windows that overlooked the silver water and a dozen neighboring islands.
Sam stood beside her at the window, rubbing his left shoulder and grimacing. He was sore from the rifle kick.
“Where’s Millie?” Glory asked.
Sam shrugged. How would he know? Millie was probably peeling potatoes outside or searching for spices or washing clothes. His sister was different from the rest of them, always restless without some kind of work. And thank goodness for that, or the Lost Boys wouldn’t have eaten most days.
“I’m going to find her,” Glory said. “You got the prisoner?”
“She’s not a prisoner,” Sam said.
“Right,” Glory said, backing toward a wide hallway. “She’s a big fan of yours. I forgot.”
Sam smiled back over his shoulder at Glory. “Just like you were.”
Glory vanished into the hall. “That was before I really knew you, Sam Miracle! Not anymore!”
Sam turned back to the window and Samra stepped up beside him on his left.
“Is she the real Glory?” she asked.
Sam glanced at her in surprise.
“I thought so,” Samra said. “She’s in the movie, too. And the comics.”
“Really?” Sam asked. “Well, don’t tell her that. She doesn’t need to feel famous.”
He was expecting a laugh, or at least a smile, but Samra remained perfectly serious.
“You shouldn’t trust her,” Samra said. “I hope you don’t.”
Sam tensed. “You better watch what you say. Glory is one of the only people in this world that I do trust. I would be bones in the desert without her.”
Samra turned and faced Sam. He refused to give her so much as a glance. After a long moment, she leaned in closer, aiming quiet words up at his ear.
“She is the one who kills you,” she said. “In the movie and in the final comic. She loves you and is very sad about it, but she does it to save the world from you. So that she can have more control of the future.”
Despite himself, Sam’s mouth fell all the way open, but no words came out. He closed it again and focused on the water.
Samra inched even closer and Cindy tightened in Sam’s left arm.
“Just be careful,” she said, touching his elbow.
Sam’s arm jumped, shoving the girl away from him, sending her staggering backward.
“I think you’re lying.” Sam stared at the girl, noting the fear that flashed in her eyes, and how quickly it vanished and was replaced by disappointment. “I think you’re trying to mess with my head. Believe me, I have a lot of experience with that. I know what it feels like. And even if you are telling the truth, movies are made up. And comics? Well, obviously. The story I live is the only story that really matters, do you hear me? Not what other people say about me. Not even people who think they know me. Anybody can call me a villain. I don’t care. As long as they’re wrong. And anybody who calls Glory a villain is an idiot or a liar.”
A cowbell began to clatter and echo through the house. Shouting voices and thumping feet responded, growing louder and louder until eleven boys slid into the living room. Boys were battling with Ping-Pong paddles and boys were racing piggyback. One was dragged across the marble floor on a soft fuzzy blanket before being flung forward, spinning all the way into the kitchen.
Sam laughed, finally turning away from the window in time to watch his sister, Millicent Miracle, walk into the room beating the cowbell with a wooden spoon. Her long blond hair was in a thick braid down her back, and she was wearing an apron over one of the many dresses she had accumulated on ex
plorations of neighboring island houses. This one was red-and-black flannel with a high belted waist and short sleeves. Millie wore it with cowgirl boots that had come from the same massive closet as the pair she had given Sam.
Millie’s eyes widened when she noticed Samra, and she threw Sam a curious look before changing course and approaching them both with a smile.
“This is Samra Finn,” Sam said. “Samra, this is my sister, Millicent Miracle.”
“Millie, please! Lovely to meet you,” Millie said, extending her hand. “Welcome to Neverland. I hope you like fish.”
“Fish is fine,” Samra said. “Call me Sam.”
“Really? I don’t think I will.” Millie smiled, guiding the girl toward the kitchen, now overflowing with boys.
Sam didn’t see Glory anywhere. There were times when she hated a carefree crowd more than anything. If that meant she ate cold leftovers, so be it. Sam followed his sister toward his rowdy Ranch Brothers, gathered but not yet silent enough to listen to Millie’s evening supper instructions.
Through the windows, he didn’t see three boats cruising in a distant channel miles away. He didn’t see the boats carving slow arrows in the water as they traced an invisible signal.
Moving through dark air and darker water, ignoring the cold spray, standing in the prow of his ship with two shotguns on his back and five thick red spikes in his beard dripping salt water, an enormous man held a duct-taped box with an antenna in his enormous hand. The box clicked against his palm, and a red light blinked.
His name was Leviathan Finn, and some fool had taken his daughter.
5
Dreamers
NEVERLAND WAS NOT A DEMOCRACY. IT WAS A MONARCHY, AND it was run by Millicent Miracle—queen and cook. She had a clear set of rules, which had grown quite a bit and was bound to grow more. Jude had written them down with a fat black marker on the white inside of a roll of old Christmas wrapping paper. He had done it as a joke, but Millie had thanked him seriously, given him a bran muffin—freshly baked, with butter and honey—and had hung them prominently on the kitchen wall with the roll of wrapping paper still on the floor below. When more rules were needed, they would be added. For now, they were as follows:
MILLIE’S LAWS OF NEVERLAND AND HEREAFTER
violators will be gravely punished
No knife Fights
No knife games
No firing Guns (unless on the range and with Peter’s permission.) ← Or Sam’s
No gambling
No boting Alone
No Smoking in the house (also, no smoking out of the house)
No steeling Food
No biting fingernails in the Kitchen
No spitting in the House
No dead Animals in the house (unless they are dinner)
Always Bathe before bathing is needed (with soap)
Always Listen to Millie
Do whatever Millie asks quickly and without complaining
No breaking windows
Violators were gravely punished, even if their specific crime had not yet been banned and written on the wrapping paper scroll. First, they were denied Millie’s goodwill. Depending on the gravity of the offense, she no longer smiled at them, she no longer spoke their names, she no longer fed them, and she had been known to go so far as to confiscate blankets and force boys to sleep outside in the rain. When the violators managed to do sufficient—and always unspecified—penance, they were welcomed back into Millie’s fold with a stern warning, a smile, the sound of their names spoken nicely, and freshly baked goods when available.
The Lost Boys all loved and feared Millicent Miracle. Which Sam appreciated, because his sister kept them busy with assigned chores and jobs that would have sent them into fits of moaning coming from anyone else. The boys were always collecting eggs from the chickens they had brought to the island; milking Neverland’s two goats and one cow; tending to the beehives Millie had collected; making candles; churning butter; cleaning fish; clearing brush or felling dead trees and sawing, splitting, and stacking firewood; tilling a new garden or tilling another new garden or winterizing and prepping the old gardens.
Millie Miracle was a girl who didn’t even know how to be dependent on grocery stores. For her, the future they had been swept into was simple and overflowing with opportunity. She was a girl who had lived without electricity for years, who had survived winters in West Virginia on pickled watermelon rinds and bone soup with shoe leather. She knew exactly how far away death was when the meals stopped—especially in winter—and she pushed that danger farther and farther away from Neverland with every shelf she loaded with jam jars and jerky and smoked fish. She was tough. She was firm. And she was happy. Which meant she frequently sang while she worked, and every boy within earshot went quiet when she did. Under Millie’s government, the boys worked harder than they had ever worked at SADDYR. And they even liked it.
While the boys spent their days working, Sam and Peter and Glory hoped, hunted, explored, searched, guessed, and—so far—failed to find any hint as to where an entrance to a time garden might be, or where El Buitre might be hiding. Although hiding didn’t seem to describe what he was doing. The time-walking arch-outlaw, with his six remaining gold-and-pearl pocket watches, may not have shown himself, but Sam knew that he was stuck in the time stream the Vulture had chosen for him, along with Glory and Millie and the Lost Boys. Even if he wasn’t exactly where the Vulture wanted him, he was generally when the Vulture wanted him. Which made him feel powerless. And the fact that Peter had not been able to find his way into any future without a desolate and destroyed Seattle made Sam feel even worse.
No part of Sam regretted saving Millie. But Millie regretted having been saved, and Sam knew it, even though she would never express anything but gratitude to Sam. More than once, he’d seen his sister cry, looking at the ruined city, and he knew that she was wishing that Sam had chosen to save the world instead of her. And he knew why she never wanted to leave the house and bear witness to the destruction.
In the kitchen, Sam watched his sister introduce Samra to each of the Lost Boys in turn. Drew Dill was the strongest of the boys, and he looked it. Built like a guard dog, and with the same personality, he had dark skin and a shaved head, and arms that seemed to get thicker daily. He was missing most of his left pinkie because he’d chopped it off on a dare long ago, but despite his sometimes unreasonable toughness he had a bright smile that lasted for hours whenever Millie asked him to do something because it was too hard for the others. He wore a wide belt full of knives, and his hands were always resting on the handles.
“Which gang is yours?” Drew asked. “Cannibals? Pirates? Raiders?”
“Hush, Drew,” Millie said. “Manners.”
Drew nodded, but resting his four-and-half-fingered left hand on a bone knife handle, he looked Samra up and down. His loyalties were clear.
Millie dragged Samra on to four boys in a single cluster—all of whom were clearly impressed with the redhead. Jimmy and Johnny Z, twins and redheads themselves, were small and silent but always ready for a brawl and the most likely to be banished by Millie for playing knife games. They both blinked and blushed themselves sunburned when faced with the strange new girl of their own complexion.
“Hey,” Jimmy said, chin down, rubbing his own matted red hair.
Johnny watched his shuffling feet and didn’t bother saying anything at all.
Matt Cat and Sir Thomas had been fighting over a wooden puzzle game, but now they stood grinning, side by side. Matt Cat had a round biscuit face with blond hair perched on top like a pat of butter. Sir Thomas had a face as sharply creased as a paper airplane, and the elbow he popped into Matt Cat’s ribs was even sharper.
“Miss,” Sir Thomas said, pulling his elbow out of Matt’s ribs and bowing with a smile. “Welcome. If you need anything at all—”
“Idiot,” Matt grunted. He tugged the puzzle away from Thomas, and then he focused on Samra, lifting his heavy cheeks with an overdone smile.
“Did they blindfold you on the way, or are you now capable of revealing our island to the marauder of your choice?”
“Oh, stop.” Millie laughed, steering Samra to the next four boys. “Ignore him. They’re all just protective of Sam. Now this is Bartholomew,” Millie said. “Barto can fix absolutely anything.”
Barto, tall with brown hair in need of cutting and a pair of rewired glasses, nodded slightly. He pulled a tangle of wire and a pair of pliers out of his pocket, then handed the wire to Samra. Across the kitchen, Sam could see her surprise as she realized that the tangle was actually the intricate outline of a galloping horse. She tried to hand it back, but Barto shook his head, playing it cool.
“What’s in your pocket?” he asked, pointing at her vest. “It’s heavy. Did they let you keep a gun?”
“No!” Samra said, blushing. “Do I need one?”
Millie stepped quickly between them, redirecting Samra’s attention to a broad boy her own height who was all smiles.
“This is Filipe,” Millie said. “But we call him Flip.”
“Flip the Lip,” Flip said. He pointed at his lower lip. “Because I chew it whenever my mouth isn’t doing anything. So I talk a lot when I don’t have gum. Keeps my jaw busy. And I’m the island wrestling champion.”
“Only in his weight class. Which is above mine.” A thin boy with long legs and sharp sparkling eyes stepped forward.
“This is Jude,” Millie said. “Our historian, storyteller, and comic book artist.” Jude had curly brown hair and a notebook and pencil in his hands—both crisscrossed with ugly scars. He saluted with his pencil as Millie tried to move on.
“Wait,” Samra said, pulling back to Jude. “You draw comics?”
Jude nodded.
“What about?”
“Things,” Jude said. “Things I dream. Things Sam dreams.”