Forever Neverland

by Susan Adrian

  How could she be breathing underwater?

  I feel like I still can’t breathe right. Agitation jumps under my skin like electricity. But at the same time I’m too upset to even scream. It’s more like everything has shut down. My body and my brain aren’t working at all.

  I go stand in one of the tree passageways for a while, where it’s cool and dark and tight. It’s hard to explain why a tight space helps—especially since I don’t like hugs or people touching me—but pressure, or a small, confined area, just makes me feel better. More in control. My thoughts settle a little, from a brain whirl to a tumble, and I can breathe.

  Feeling better won’t get Clover back, though. I have to think of a way to save her.

  What are the facts? She’s underwater. With a monster. A monster I brought here. We can’t reach her. We can’t defeat Scylla easily—Peter tried that and failed.

  I have to do something. I can’t just sit around and let Clover be down there with a monster who might eat her.

  I go and wait up above, in the clearing. When Peter comes back, I lunge at him. “What’s the plan?” I ask. “We need a plan. What’s the plan?”

  He still doesn’t look as worried as I want him to be.

  “What’s the plan?” I repeat.

  He drops his head and runs a hand through his hair. “Nothing yet. It’s deep, far too deep for us to swim. And she’s powerful. There aren’t enough mermaids to defeat her.” He shrugs, and tries a smile. “We’ll think of something. It’ll work out, you’ll see. We’ll eat supper in an hour or two, and you can tell us all the stories you know of Scylla again. There will be a clue in there as to how she can be defeated.” The smile drops, and his voice gets quieter. “Neverland always gives us clues.”

  The words sound sure, but he doesn’t look as confident as he normally does. We believed Peter would protect Clover on the rock, because the Lost Boys said it was safe. Because Peter always wins in the stories. That’s how it should have happened, if it was a story in a book. Peter would’ve killed the monster, saved Clover, and we’d be done. Safe, with a good story to tell when we got home.

  What’s wrong with our story? Why isn’t it working? Is the Greek myth I brought with me stronger than Neverland?

  Peter looks around the clearing. “Are you on guard? Good. I need a nap before supper.”

  He disappears below, and I’m left alone again. Naps. Food. Stories. What I want is action.

  I fetch my books. Maybe Peter’s right. Maybe the clue is in the stories, and I want to find it.

  * * *

  —

  Two wasted hours later—after supper and naps—I sit in the clearing, with my books in my lap, and tell everyone all the stories about Scylla again.

  It would be fun to tell stories to the Lost Boys if Clover were here. Even though I’m saying serious things, everyone oohs and aahs at the descriptions and the heroes. They all listen to me with wide eyes, like I’m special because I know the stories. I don’t think anyone has looked at me that way before. No one has ever listened to me so intently.

  Good. They need to know every detail if we’re going to get my sister back.

  “ ‘Scylla is not of mortal kind,’ ” I say, quoting Circe from The Odyssey. “ ‘She is grim and baleful, savage, not to be wrestled with. Against her there is no defense, and the best path is the path of flight.’ ”

  Run away, because she’s immortal and impossible to defeat. When I say that line, even Peter looks bleak. Captain Hook at least was mortal.

  “We can’t kill her, then,” Friendly says. Pixie light flickers on his face, on all their faces, as the pixies dart around the circle.

  “Can’t kill her,” I repeat, and look at the ground. “Can’t kill her,” I whisper. Because it’s true, and I don’t know what else to say.

  There’s silence for a long time. Nothing but the insects in the trees, the calls of birds. I hum and stare at my book, the words jumping back and forth. I could read more, but that really is all there is to say. And I think I’m done talking.

  “If we can’t kill the monster,” Shoe says slowly, “we need to get her to leave somehow.”

  No one answers, but Peter nods. I hum in agreement. I don’t think anyone hears me. After a little while, Shoe goes on.

  “It would help to understand why she’s here…or, if it’s only because Fergus and Clover are here, why she’s taken some of the mermaids. What does she want? We know she didn’t kill them—right away at least…” She gulps. “So it’s not for food or just killing.”

  I shudder.

  “It was the singing that brought her up, that brought her to the mermaids and Clover,” George says.

  “Right,” Friendly agrees. “We knew that. So it must be something to do with the singing. Either she wants to stop it, or she wants more of it.”

  “Maybe she just wants them to sing to her,” I say. “She was a nymph before, a long time ago, and we don’t know where she’s been since Hercules killed her. Maybe she misses singing.”

  “Or maybe she wants them to sing for some specific reason,” Peter adds. “That’s why she took them with her.”

  I nod, excited that we’re finally getting somewhere. Singing has to be the key—all of them were taken while they were singing, so it must be that.

  But she is still a monster, and I know what monsters do, from all the stories. A chill like ice water splashes down my spine.

  “She might kill them still.” I say it out loud so everyone else will know it too. “Even if this is all true. She is a monster and a Greek goddess. She might kill them if they don’t sing the way she wants. She might already have done it.”

  There’s only silence after that. I look up at the trees, listen to a bird squawking, and wish that I could scream and scream and that would fix everything.

  Or that Clover were here to make me feel better.

  I grit my teeth. She isn’t dead. She isn’t. And I’ll find a way to get her back.

  Scylla studies me so intently that I start to wonder if she has X-ray vision or something, like she can see through to my thoughts. The dogs bark and bark.

  “You want us to sing?” I squeak, because it feels like I have to say something, and I don’t want her thinking about how I disobeyed her.

  She makes a sound of disgust and turns away, swimming across to the room where Allora and Jasmina are. She places one hand in front of the door, closes her eyes, and says a few words, too low to hear. “You may come forth,” she says. They swim out and stay awkwardly by the table.

  “Clover!” Jasmina says, sounding shocked, as though we haven’t just spoken. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m Allora,” Allora says behind her. “Jasmina told me about you and your brother.”

  Allora is smaller than Jasmina, curvier. Her light blond hair is loose, fanning around her face in the water.

  Scylla’s head jerks from them to me, her eyes narrow. I swear she knows we talked already.

  “Hello. I’m…I’m okay,” I say. “I think.”

  Scylla takes one of the deep seats, gingerly, the dogs still scrabbling with their paws and barking. Always barking. I try not to look at the dogs directly, in case it’s rude.

  “Sit,” Scylla says to Allora and Jasmina. She points at the chairs. “I must tell this land girl my story, since she is too stupid to figure it out herself.”

  “I know some of it,” I say, stung. I’m not stupid. She raises her eyebrows, and the eels swish around wildly on her head. Maybe I shouldn’t have spoken, but it’s too late now. “My brother told me. You’re Scylla. Glaucus fell in love with you, but you rejected him. And then Circe turned you into…into…”

  “A monster.” She sighs. “I accept the word. It is not a kind or gentle descriptor, but I am neither kind nor gentle, not anymore. I have eaten men whole. I have to
rn them apart, with my dogs. In the early years as a monster I was very angry, bitter toward all mankind, and I was not merciful.” She leans back in the chair, and two of the dogs yelp reproachfully. She sits up again.

  I think of her tearing men apart and eating them whole. I grip the arms of my chair hard.

  “But after I was killed by the mortal hero and my father brought me back to life,” Scylla continues, “I wanted no more of that. No more of people or their hatred for me. My father built me this cave and hid it away, far in the depths of the ocean. From that day to…not long ago, I was alone. I spent my time making art.” She gestures to the roof, the walls. “I would have been at peace if not for the dogs.”

  “They do bark a great deal,” Jasmina says flatly.

  Scylla closes her eyes, then opens them again. The lines in her face look deep in the half-light. “They bark endlessly. When one goes hoarse, another picks it up, stronger. I cannot sleep. I have not slept more than a few minutes in a thousand years.”

  I groan in sympathy. I’m terrible when I don’t get a full night’s sleep, because of worrying too much. I can’t imagine never sleeping. For an eternity.

  Scylla stares at the ceiling, her eyes empty. The dogs bark. And bark. And bark.

  The rest of us are quiet.

  “Not long ago I heard the singing—that one singing.” Scylla points at Allora. “It came down through the ocean, beautiful and strange. I had not heard singing since I was a nymph. I had not heard any other beings at all, deep in my hidden cave. But with the singing, two of the dogs began to fall asleep.” She shrugs her shoulders, like it’s a mystery. “I swam up to the surface and found that my cave is no longer where it was, but in an odd and different land. I took the singer so she could sing for me whenever I wanted.”

  Allora glares at the rocky floor, her expression grim.

  “But only two of the dogs slept. It did not help, not enough. Later the singing came again. That one.” Scylla points at Jasmina. “Two more of the dogs dozed off. So I took her, too, to make them sing together. It is a relief, but still, still I cannot sleep.”

  Her X-ray gaze turns to me. “I know your singing was a trap for me. I have lived through many mortals’ traps. I could have just let you be, or killed you, like I have killed others.” She rests her hand on one of the dog’s heads, but it snaps at her. I don’t move, don’t say anything. “I could have thrown you into the ocean, like I threw your hero, Pan. But your singing—it lulled the last two dogs. I needed you. I need you. All three of you, to sing my dogs to sleep. To give me rest.”

  Allora shifts, gripping the edge of the table like it’s the only thing keeping her from running away. What has it been like down here with Scylla?

  Scylla stares up at the ceiling again. “You may ask your question, land girl,” she says, almost bored. “I see you have one.”

  I frown. “I understand,” I say quietly. “I get why you did it, why you brought us here. But what happens if it works, if our singing lets you finally sleep?”

  “Then you will stay with me here,” Scylla says, like it’s obvious. Her gaze snaps back to me. “Forever.”

  It’s darker in Neverland than I’ve ever seen it back home. In San Diego there are so many lights: house lights, streetlights, all the businesses and people who never seem to sleep. I’ve tried to look at the stars before, to see Andromeda and Aries and Hercules in the sky, but there’s too much distraction, too much light pollution. I’ve found Cassiopeia and Orion, but the rest are too hard to pick out without going to the observatory. And that’s not the same as seeing them with your own eyes. Here it’s so dark you can see everything.

  All the Lost Boys were snoring, but I couldn’t sleep. It felt wrong, anyway, to lie down like there’s nothing the matter, when Clover was here last night and now she’s not.

  I’ve never been alone outside at night before. I’m hardly ever alone outside at all, to be honest. Mom or Clover or someone is always around to make sure that I’m okay, that I don’t need something. That I don’t run into other people, or wander away, or have a meltdown.

  It feels free to be by myself, to not have anyone even know where I am. I can’t scream or sing, because I’d wake everyone up, but I can do anything quiet. I can spin. I can make my hands fly. I can rock. I can make all the faces I want. I try one to see what it feels like, a fearsome frowning face, but then it feels like I’m forgetting Clover is with a monster right now, so I stop.

  But I’m too restless to stay here by the house. And there are still too many trees for me to see all the stars.

  I could go for a walk up the mountain—up there I could see the whole sky. And maybe…maybe I could see where Clover is, find some clue that no one else has noticed, from way up at the top. Maybe I can do something to make it all right again. I have to do something.

  I’ll be back before they even wake up.

  I take the left path out of the woods, the one that doesn’t go through the Haunted Forest or Pixie Hollow. It goes around the base of the mountain, then through to the other side and up, eventually joining the path with the waterfall.

  I’m not afraid. I can’t name all the feelings that are in my chest, but fear isn’t one of them. Clover faced the sea monster, on purpose, and she got taken below the waves. I can go for a hike, even in solid dark. Even by myself.

  Something crackles behind me, a person or animal in the brush, and the insect sounds cut off. I stop and listen.

  In Wendy’s time, at least in the movie, that could’ve been a pirate. Here I don’t know what it could be: the mountain lion again, or a dragon, or a deer. I wait, quiet, my hands tapping silently on my leg, until the insects start up again. They know when it’s safe.

  I keep going, out of the trees, on the flat dirt path along the bottom of the mountain. From here you can’t see the lagoons. I can see the ocean, or at least hear it—a flat darkness that murmurs back and forth against the sand. The smell of salt and seaweed is strong in my nose.

  How could Clover be out there? How could she not be dead, under the waves?

  How do I know she’s not dead?

  I don’t. But I don’t believe it.

  I stop and look at the stars. From here a lot of them are still hidden behind the mountain, and they’re all in different places than at home. But I see Orion’s familiar belt. And then I see Andromeda.

  Andromeda in the stories was chained to a rock to face a sea monster, the Kraken. She faced it like Clover did—but she was expected to die, a sacrifice. Perseus saved her by showing Medusa’s head to the Kraken and turning him into stone. That’s in Clash of the Titans.

  I can’t do that for Clover. I can’t hunt down Medusa, who’s already dead. I can’t turn Scylla into stone. But I have to be like Perseus and think of a different way to save her.

  I keep walking, the ocean on my left. The path starts to tilt up, and I stumble. It’s hard to see my feet in the dark. I should’ve brought the flashlight that’s in my backpack, still in the underground house. I didn’t think of that.

  Suddenly the ground brightens, like a flashlight is pointing at it. I look up, startled, and see that a pixie has joined me. I don’t know which one, of course, but I imagine it’s the same one that comforted me at the beach, that felt like a warm, purring cat. I smile, though I don’t know what that looks like to a pixie.

  “Hello,” I say. The pixie circles around me once, fast, and then goes back to its place near my knees, lighting the way. I wish I knew what the pixie’s name was, but I guess it doesn’t matter. I’m not that good with remembering names anyway. Sometimes I see someone I know, and all I can remember is the first letter of their name, but nothing else. It’s like all names in my brain are organized in boxes by letter, but sometimes when I go to find the detail, the box is locked.

  Pixie will do, for now.

  The path dives into a tunnel
that goes through to the other side of the mountain, and now I’m really glad Pixie is here. I thought outside was dark, but inside the tunnel it’s so black the darkness feels solid, alive. A different monster. I wouldn’t even be able to see my hand if the pixie light weren’t shining. It’s quiet in here too, without the sound of the ocean or the birds or insects. There’s only a steady drip, drip of water down the walls.

  Pixie stops. I take a step farther, then another, but Pixie darts in front of me and nudges against my knees, pushing me back.

  “Hello?” I whisper. “Is something there?”

  Pixie waits for a minute, like it’s making sure I won’t move, then darts forward, its light bobbing higher. Something swishes. And then I see.

  There’s a low overhang, the bottom of it even with the middle of my forehead. If I’d kept walking I would’ve slammed right into it and probably knocked myself out.

  There’s also a line of bats hanging from their feet by the stone ceiling. I see them on the low part and, when Pixie flies higher, all the way around. Hundreds of furry little bodies, red eyes winking in the light.

  A thrill of fear runs through me, but I squash it. I learned about bats at the zoo in San Diego, in one of their school programs. They look scary, but most of them eat fruit. They’re not a threat. I shouldn’t be afraid of them at all.

  “Why are you here, bats?” I whisper. “Shouldn’t you be out hunting right now, when it’s nice and dark?”

  As if in answer, every bat in the cave moves at once, in a rush, shooting past me in a rustling cloud. I squat down, my arms covering my head, but I still feel the breeze of all their wings on my face, my hair. The pixie curls up close to my chest. We hang on, still, like fish in the middle of a stream. I imitate the whooshing sound as best I can, closing my eyes. Whooosh. Whooosh.