It was dry, but left much to be desired. She put one hand on it and closed her eyes, seeing in that corner of her mind usually reserved for dreams a shirt to match the light purple sky, fitted white trousers, and a cloche hat to match. When she opened her eyes, the romper had been transformed, and her hat sat on the table as if it had always been just there.
She put them on, finding the outfit just as lovely and perfectly-tailored to her as it had been in her dream. When she longed for a mirror to see her creation, one appeared in the far corner, its plain wooden frame perfectly matching the minimal decor of the treehouse. The romper had been daring enough, but it was practically unheard of for a woman to wear pants in the Frostwater. But Wren was on Never Island now, and free to bend the rules a bit. Speaking of which, she conjured a small dagger like the one Pan had and tucked it in her pocket, just in case.
The rope ladder unfurled, tumbling to the ground below when she released it from where Archer had tied it on the porch. She descended carefully. As she grew nearer to the ground, she could hear the sounds of what she guessed was the party already in full swing. Indeed, when she rounded the bend to the dining table, the boys were all there, dressed again in their furs. And it wasn’t just the Lost Boys. There were others there, too, she guessed from the village and other parts of the island. A large bonfire was already burning in the clearing, the flames licking the sky, smoke rising above the trees. On one side of the flames, an animal that looked like a pig was spinning on a spit.
Archer was the first to spot her. It was strange but also flattering how in tune with her he seemed to be. He handed her a drink and she recognized the pungent smell of the same ale she’d drank the night before.
“You look beautiful,” he said, leaning close so she could hear him over the raucous noise.
She took a sip of her drink to hide the flush that had heated her cheeks. “Thank you.”
He was seemingly oblivious to her discomfort, and carried on as if nothing. “They’ll start the ceremony once it’s full dark.”
“What sort of ceremony is it?”
“An easy one, I swear.” He clinked his cup to hers and they both drank again.
“I wanted to thank you for lending me your home for the day.”
“Did you sleep well?” he asked.
“Better than you can imagine.” She gestured toward the pig. “It looks like you got on well, also.”
“Very.”
Archer replaced her empty cup with another full cup of ale and then took her around to introduce her to the guests she hadn’t met. They were shop-owners and hunters and fishermen, all of them boys her age or younger. Most of them were unimpressed by her, but a few gaped openly. She did her best not to fidget beneath their stares, and instead met their curiosity face first.
Just as Archer said it would, the ceremony started as soon as the last rays of the sun disappeared from view. Without city lights, the stars were bright in the night sky, a few billion more guests to witness her induction into the Lost Boys. They sat her in a seat of honor so close to the fire that she could feel the heat on her back.
The Lost Boys banged on homemade drums and danced in circles, while the others stood around them, clapping and shouting along. It took on an almost dreamlike quality, with the orange flames reaching into the black sky, the boys’ long shadows gyrating over the ground. Wren watched, both amused and impressed by the seriousness of it all.
Pan approached her wearing a headdress that made him look very much like a rooster. He took her hand and pulled her up, and then helped her to stand in the chair, not letting go. The drumming came to a head, and when he raised his free hand, the sound stopped all at once, every eye turning to him.
“Tonight, we welcome a new member to the Lost Boys.” His voice was loud enough to be heard over the crackling of the fire. He turned to her. “Wren Darlington, Hunter of Treasure, Friend to Mermaids, Blood of the Creator.”
She felt herself flushing and not from the heat of the fire. She nodded down at him to continue.
“Do you swear to be steadfast and true? To live a life of adventure, to do battle with monsters, big and small, and to protect all the boys who are smaller than you?”
“And girls,” Wren added.
“And girls,” Pan agreed.
The answer, she was glad to find, came easily to her. “Yes, I do.”
Some of the boys shouted and banged on the drums at her response, until Pan held up his hand again.
“Archer,” he said, beckoning the taller boy forward.
Archer approached, in his deerskins, the antlers making his shadow look like some terrific beast. In his arms, he held a bundle that he unfurled, holding up for everyone to see.
Wren peered down at it and saw a cloak covered in feathers—black and blue and white. It was magnificent and strange, like nothing she’d ever seen before.
While Archer displayed the cloak, Pan beamed at the group. “Henceforth, you shall be known to the Lost Boys as Bird. May you always fly.”
There was another cheer from the onlookers. Pan spun in a circle. For a celebration that was supposed to be about her, he was sure loving the attention.
Archer hadn’t forgotten about her, though. He came forward with the cloak. “Bend down,” he said.
She did, her face coming very close to his as he wrapped the cloak around her shoulders. Neither of them pulled away immediately.
Instead, he studied her, his eyes searching her face.
“What is it?” she asked. They were close enough that she didn’t have to raise her voice for him to hear her.
He leaned closer still, his lips nearly brushing her ear, the stubble of his jaw scraping against her cheek. “A crown does not make a king. You are the rightful ruler of Never Island.”
“Archer.” She tried to pull away but he held her close, his hands still on her cloak under the pretense of fastening it at her throat.
“My bow and my loyalty are yours, if you’ll have them.”
She bit her lip, not sure how to respond. It felt wrong, especially with Pan right there, but she liked Archer, and it would be good to have an ally. “Do you mean it?” she finally asked.
“I swear it.”
In response, Wren brushed her lips against his cheek. “Thank you.”
He pulled away, and this time he was the one with flushed cheeks. He finished fastening the cloak and stepped back, holding out a hand to her. She took it, steadying herself as she hopped down from the chair. Almost immediately, the Lost Boys converged on her, and in the madness, she lost Archer, his fingers slipping from her hand. But she wasn’t worried, because she knew he was nearby, and when the time came, he would be there for her.
Hours later, Wren walked back to the Lost Boys’ camp by herself, her feathered cloak wrapped right around her. She loved the cloak, and appreciated what it meant to the Lost Boys to accept her as one of them, but it didn’t change things for her. She would still have to stand up to Pan, and fight for freedom and independence—not just hers but everyone’s.
The path she followed was lit with torches, the only way she knew that she was not hopelessly lost forever in the Neverwood. The boys had all stayed behind even as the party dwindled. Even Archer was still there, playing a game of cards with some of the village boys. She had told him she was leaving, and declined his offer to escort her back so as not to ruin his fun. He didn’t seem like he had a lot of fun. Wolf had scowled at her from his place beside the bonfire with a cup of ale, but none of the others had seen her go.
The treehouse village had just come into view when she heard a tinkling around her ears. She spun, careful not to swat at what she was sure was a fairy. Indeed, the tiny creature came into view just a few inches from her face. Her trail of fairy dust had fallen across Wren’s shoulders, and the fairy was jingling at her and pointing behind her, into the trees.
Wren’s eyes followed the direction she was pointing and saw Pan’s house, and on its porch was Pan, leaning on the railing.
“It’s not safe to be out alone at night on a full moon.”
“Not safe?” She looked around her as if expecting a monster to jump out at her any minute.
He smirked at her and crooked his finger, beckoning her to come to him.
The fairy, her job done, gave one more spin around her head and darted away. With the fairy dust fresh on her shoulders, she let herself float a few inches off the ground. It would be her first time flying alone, even if it was just a few yards up.
“Are you afraid?” he taunted. “You are no Bird, after all.”
Steeling herself, she pushed forward, zooming toward him. Stopping was not her strong point, though, and she barreled into him. They fell to the porch laughing, their limbs tangled together. She rolled off of him and lay beside him on the porch. They were high enough in the tree that she could make out the plentiful stars through the thin canopy of leaves.
“It truly is lovely here,” she said, almost to herself.
He folded his arms behind his head. “It is. Your grandmother was an artist.”
Wren licked her lips nervously. “Yes, but she was perhaps a bit selfish, too, don’t you think?”
“What do you mean?”
She rolled to her side, tucking her hands beneath her cheek and gazing at his profile. Oh, but he was handsome, with his fine, sharp features, and golden hair. “To keep you here, and then leave you here.”
He turned his head to look at her. “Where else would I be?”
“Do you ever wonder what else is out there? What you missed by being held here?”
“You mean, do I want to move on?”
She could tell just from the way he said it what his answer would be. “Yes, I guess.”
“I died once, and that was enough for me.”
“Even knowing she’s never coming back?”
“It’s OK. I have you now.”
She groaned a little on the inside and pushed up to sitting. “You know, I’m not my grandmother,” she said quietly, the words floating between them.
“I know, Wren Darlington.” Suddenly, he sat up beside her. With an urgency in his voice, he said, “Promise me you’ll never leave.”
Wren shifted a little away from him. “Never is a long time.”
He cupped her face with one of his hands. “It’s a good thing time doesn’t exist here, then. Stay and be our—”
Queen. He was going to say queen, give her the opportunity to take her grandmother’s place. If he acknowledged her as Never Queen, they would have to make decisions together. Maybe instead of going behind his back, she would be able to convince him to free the dreams and open the island again.
“—Mother,” Pan finished.
Wait, what? “Your Mother?” She had to have heard him wrong.
“The boys are so young, and they don’t have anyone to care for them. They’ve never known the love of a mother.”
Even as he spoke, Wren pulled away, pushing up to her feet. He did the same so that they were squaring off. His nearness suddenly felt imposing and threatening, not appealing.
“But I’m not a mother,” she said, trying to make sense of it in her mind.
Pan cocked his head to the side. If he smirked at her, she thought she might slap it off of his face. “What else is a woman if not a mother?”
The nerve. He was making a mockery of her feelings, reducing her power to what? Her ability to care for others? There was nothing wrong with being a mother, if that was what a woman wanted, but she wanted more than that. She wanted independence and adventure, and yes, even a bit of responsibility as long as it was responsibility that she chose, not something thrust upon her by some fool-headed man-child who refused to grow up.
“What else? A woman can be anything she wants,” Wren answered. “I can be anything I want. I didn’t escape marriage into your family in Astanrog just to enter into another type of servitude here.”
She was pacing, moving up and down the length of the house.
Pan watched her as one might watch a wild animal. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”
Wren stopped moving and looked at him. “No, I suppose you didn’t.” Her eyes drifted to the trees and the sky beyond his shoulder. “I have to go. I need to think.”
She pushed past him. He reached for her, but could not catch her as she pulled herself up and over the railing.
“Wait, Wren, the fairy dust—”
But she didn’t hear anything else. She took a leap off of the wooden rail and was beyond the treetops in a matter of seconds, out of sight of the treehouse, and Pan, and the Lost Boys, and anyone else who might try to hold her back.
Chapter 11
The fairy dust was running out.
That was what Pan had tried to tell her before she’d foolishly leaped over the banister and into the black night sky. She was sinking lower and lower with no real idea of where she even was. Eventually, her feet were brushing the forest floor and she had to drop down, landing in the middle of a dark copse of trees.
Wren was a city girl. The Frostwater had its rural areas, but she’d grown up in its heart. The sounds of a dark forest were foreign to her, and terrifying. The crack of a branch, the sniffle of a rooting animal, the croak of a frog. All of it scared her as she crouched frozen, unable to move from the spot where she’d crash-landed. Part of her longed for Pan to fly to her rescue, but that would just prove his point. Women were good only in the capacity that they were able to raise boys. Boys who would rescue girls like her.
She didn’t want to be rescued, not anymore.
Standing, she tried to get her bearings. She’d been flying in the direction of the mountain, which meant if she went—
A wolf’s howl cut through the night, echoing off the trees, impossible to trace. Her newfound courage faded fast and she began to tremble, her teeth knocking together. As far as she knew, the only inhabited parts of the island were the treehouses and the village. Had the rest of the island been left to the wild things?
She whirled at a sound behind her and a dark, humanoid figure came into view.
“Wren?” It was Wolf’s gravelly voice.
“Thank goodness,” she said, exhaling. She never thought she’d be happy to see him, but here they were. “I’m frightfully lost.”
But then he stepped into a ribbon of moonlight, and it was not the Wolf she knew.
This was a monster.
What she’d originally thought were the Lost Boy furs that he’d been wearing earlier she now saw was actual fur, bristly and dark, covering his whole body. His face was a grotesque mixture of human and animal, and his arms were abnormally long, tipped with claw-like fingers. She could not have dreamed up something this terrible.
He bared his fangs at her and she took a step back, stumbling over an exposed root but keeping her balance.
“Wolf,” she said, hearing the pleading in her own voice. Her eyes searched the trees for fairies, for any sign of their twinkling lights, and saw only darkness.
He tilted his head to the sky and howled. It was not a human sound. In the distance, another howl answered.
Wren wasn’t going to wait around to see what happened next. She turned in what she hoped was the direction of the village and ran, crashing through the underbrush. Branches grasped at her hair and her face and her purple shirt, shredding it as effectively as a wolf’s claws.
She tried to think but it was nearly impossible in her panic. What could she create, imagine, dream up to stop this monster from hunting her? A fence, a cage, a trap—but every time she tried to stop to bring something into reality, she would hear the sounds of the wolf-boy crashing through the trees and her feet would carry her forward again almost of their own accord. If the option was fight or flight, it was clear which one she chose, even if subconsciously.
Finally, she burst out of the trees and onto a dirt path. In the distance were small houses and then the docks. She’d made it to the village. She skidded to a stop at the door of the first house and banged on i
t loudly. No one answered, though she thought she heard a whisper from inside.
“Please,” she begged, “help me.”
Nothing.
A howl rang out, deafening in the silence.
She ran to the next house, and the next, and was met each time with only silence. The village was equally as still. It was only standing beside the dock, hearing the water lap against the wooden pilings, that she remembered what Pan had told her. That it wasn’t safe to be out alone on a full moon. He hadn’t been speaking in general terms. Apparently, everyone on the island knew but her.
Wolf appeared around the bend, his eyes glowing yellow in the light of the moon. Why had her grandmother made these creatures? For a little adventure?
He began to run toward her with long, loping strides.
Wren closed her eyes, trying to conjure a cage out of her imagination, but she kept peeking, kept seeing him grow closer and closer. What kind of cage could even hold this monster, anyway?
An old memory came to her then, of a night she’d gone camping with her father and older brothers, when she was young enough to still want to grow up. She’d begged to come along, made such a nuisance of herself, in fact, that they’d taken her. They’d all slept around a fire, and when the wolves had howled, her father had smiled at her across the flames, his eyes glinting orange in their light.
“Don’t worry, Wren. The fire keeps the wolves away.”
When she opened her eyes, she held a long torch. The end of it flared to life, fire crackling and dancing in the dark.
“Stay back,” she yelled, brandishing it at Wolf.
Wolf paused just long enough to make it clear that he wasn’t happy about the flames. He snarled and snapped, but he didn’t come any closer.
She took a few steps back, but didn’t know where to go, or how long she had before the torch burned out.
Someone hissed at her from a nearby alley beside the tavern where she’d met Pan. Turning, she saw a figure with a black cloak pulled up over his head. The boy stayed in the shadows. Wolf didn’t seem to notice.
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