Then it was over.
And then I was screaming.
There had been many nights as kid when I woke from my nightmares, scaring the daylights out of my father. It took many years to be able to control myself when the horrors came, especially the visions during the day, when they were least expected. At least at night, I was prepared for them, and I could almost battle them. But the times I wasn’t prepared—like after a large expel that I thought would’ve worked but hadn’t, or when the nightmares became daymares—that was when the shrieking really got bad. This first nightmare in Neverland… it was one of the worst, definitely startling Lox awake.
She shoved my body into the ground, trying to hold me down from thrashing and hurting myself and those around me. “M-Mainlan—”
My foot, having a mind of its own, kicked her back away from me, right in the gut, flopping to the ground with a yelp.
The rest of the camp was awoken by the ruckus, and I couldn’t blame them—I couldn’t control what, how loud, and how long the screams were coming out of me, but my fear had taken over at this point.
When Lox got her bearings again, she and two men reached down to hold me in place. Tears streamed down my face as the images wreaked havoc on my mind, as if their small leave of absence had built them up so tall that I had no option but to explode. My heartbeat ricocheted in my ears, and as my body started to calm down, I opened my eyes to see a large group of people hovering over me with worried expressions. Except Lox. She looked miffed.
“What the Neverland is wrong with you?” she growled, holding her gut. “Are you crazy?”
Robin, despite Lox’s curses, kneeled beside me and moved some unkempt hair from my face as I tried to catch my breath, feeling the panic attack beginning to finally ebb. “What happened, my friend? Tell us so we may help.”
Finding all I could do was shake my head, I cleared my throat and wiped under my eyes. Several pairs of hands helped me sit up gently before I was offered more sympathetic looks.
“Just a dream,” I croaked, running my hands over my face and trying not to have another freak-out. The dreams hadn’t even been as scary as some I had witnessed before, but it’d been so real, so detailed and lifelike this time, more than ever before.
Lox’s face looked dark with anger. “You dropkicked me in the gut because of a dream?”
At the sound of this, the camp dwellers all gave a commemorative sigh of relief, thankful no unwanted visitors or darkness had been the cause of my fear, and backed into their tents. The sun was barely on the horizon, painting brilliant pink and orange hues in the sky. I stared down at my hands and tried to control myself as Robin rose to his full height beside me.
“If you were tormented by just a dream, my friend, then we should be rounding our things together to leave for Merlin’s tower soon. But kind of a frightening wake-up call, if you ask me,” he chuckled lightly, trying to ease the mood, and then left to gather his things.
Mumbling curses at me amidst her anger, Lox sulked away, still grasping her stomach, casting a dirty look in my direction.
I held my legs to my chest, trying to physically find the strength to get moving after what I’d just witnessed.
I was so tired of the darkness.
The memories from the dream were vividly replaying in my head, making it swirl with confusion, fear, and all things insane. So far, I’d taken for granted the silence of Neverland, thinking I was free from my own mind while I was here. But evidently, I was horribly wrong. Why had Peter tried to warn me so much? What from? Dream catcher. What did that mean?
Slowly but surely, Lox and I gathered our gear. She looked over, nodding but not saying much, still upset. I had no urge to speak, afraid of what secrets might come flying out, and I was still too confused to tell her anything anyway. So I followed behind the confident Robin and her silently, waving halfheartedly to those I had partied with the night before, a solemn feeling in my stomach.
Such peace for such a short, short time.
As we stepped into the forest, the sun evident on the peaks now, Robin moved swiftly through the brush, as if he walked it every day. I believed it. And clearly, I was out of shape—not surprisingly. I could see Lox was struggling some as well, but we managed to keep up, and Robin began to whistle a nice little tune. It helped keep my mind off walking for most of the rest of the journey, as well as distract my thoughts from what I’d experienced the night before. No one spoke unless to communicate of our surroundings, never once bringing up what had happened, and the sinking feeling of what we weren’t discussing was making my skin itch. But still, I stayed silent.
When we began to hear the deadpan, lifeless silence of the forest, we knew that was the signal of being somewhat close to Merlin’s. Or at least Lox and Robin did. After a few more feet through the underbrush, Robin pushed aside some branches to reveal the familiar tower we’d visited before.
“Ah,” he breathed. “Here we a—”
A bloodcurdling howl erupted from the forest behind us, causing each of us to freeze in place. At the back of the pack, I turned, my stomach in my toes, and inhaled sharply as a disgusting, sewer-type smell hit my nose. But the stench was the least of our problems.
From the ground up, the beast rose onto its hind legs, gurgling with a growl deep within his body. The large, seven-foot tall monster, with matted brown fur, sharp teeth, and beady black eyes, loomed above us, blocking the sun. Resembling a sloth-bear hybrid, it sniffed the air with a hefty snout and thrashed its head in dislike, tossing strings of drool around him. When he pinpointed our position, the darkness of his eyes landing on the terror-stricken three of us, another roar shook the trees, rattling my insides.
“It’s a M-Mapinguari!” Coming to her senses behind me, Lox rushed forward and grabbed my arm, yanking me with her. “Run!”
As I stumbled to rush after her, the beast roared behind us, stomping onto all four legs so heavily the noise echoed back from the stones of Merlin’s tower. The building was at least a hundred yards away, a looming distance when you were about to be devoured by a monster. Forgetting our things completely, Lox and I burst out of the forest in a full sprint toward the tower.
The ground rumbled as the Mapinguari started to chase after us, Robin coming up quickly beside us, his face ashen with terror.
Lox rasped, “I thought you said there was no darkness in this part of the woods.”
Robin threw up his hands, his gentlemanly demeanor replaced by slight panic. “Not in my part of the woods!”
“Guys,” I panted, kicking my feet forward as fast as I could. Running had never been one of my strengths, but it was seemingly easier to do when you were dashing for your life with a wild giant sloth on your heels. “Arguing isn’t going to get rid of this thing!”
Before Lox could answer, a large set of claws swept out over our heads, forcing us to duck or else be cast to the side as an appetizer. Yelping, I dodged the Mapinguari’s second swing, stumbling from the effort, but was able to catch my footing, thank goodness.
Once we had more range between the monster and us, Lox unsheathed her sword and pointed to the looming tower coming closer by the second. “Get inside and warn Merlin. We’ll split up. Robin, right. I’ll do left.”
Robin, with an impressive battle expression on his face, nodded in understanding, swerving right as she suggested. When the Mapinguari snorted in confusion, Lox also curved in her direction, distracting the beast momentarily, while I maintained my objective—Merlin’s front door—directly in my field of vision. My ears pumped blood heavily in tune with my heart, and my lungs hurt from the exertion, but the Mapinguari, of course, hadn’t followed either Lox or Robin, instead coming straight after me.
Okay, Lacey, you can do this.
When the wall was within a few feet of me, the beast roaring so close I could feel it’s sticky breath on my neck, I wrenched sideways, tumbling along the side of Merlin’s tower after losing my footing. Because of the quick change in direction, the Mapinguari could
n’t keep up and, with the velocity he’d been traveling, smacked, stinky snout first, right into the wooden slant of Merlin’s front door.
The collision resulted in a blue-hued shock pulsing over the entirety of the tower, sending a wavelength of electricity into the Mapinguari the second he made contact. An almost force field-like protection beamed amidst the field it stood upon and forced me to cover my eyes from its brightness. After a few seconds, the jolting of the Mapinguari’s body stopped, and with an angry whine, the gigantic sloth slumped to the ground in a pile of searing fur and bubbly flesh.
Thinking I might be sick, thanks to not only the smell, but the amount of running I’d done, I hunched over and held my hand over my mouth, trying to keep it together. What kind of warrior would I be if I was throwing up every second something gross happened?
As Robin and Lox both jogged up, panting like me, a loud yell rang out from the top of tower. “BLAST IT ALL!” Wincing, Robin helped me to my feet just as a very grumpy-looking familiar face popped out from a window in the middle of the tower, his expression livid. “What the bloody bullocks is that smell?” Seeing the monster below him, Merlin’s face lifted ever so slightly, cheering, “Ah-ha! That’s what I’m talking about! You see that, kids? That’s called protecting what’s rightfully yours!”
To say Merlin’s place was in disarray, aside from its usual chaos, was putting it lightly.
As we were (begrudgingly) invited inside, I found the usual semi-organized state of the tower was completely lost. The many piles of books that had littered sometimes fifteen feet high were nowhere to be seen, and the cleverly cut walkways we’d walked upon when last there were completely nonexistent. Singular pages, scrolls, and covers of books were strewn all across the upper room, scattered like a tornado had zipped through the space. Dangling artifacts barely clung to their perches on the walls, and the only windows were shattered, the glass shards littered all over the floor.
Not only was Merlin’s home a mess, but he himself was in a craze, rushing about, trying to gather up papers in one area, only to leave them flying onto the ground the second he found another similar stack. As he moved, I noticed Lox watching him with a sad expression, her eyes traveling over the pages and torn stories that went with them.
“Merlin…” She shook her head in astonishment, wide eyes finding the wizard amidst the mess. “W-what’s going on?”
Grumbling incoherent complaints, Merlin shuffled through more papers, his sandaled feet crushing some as well. “Where is it? Where is it?” When he blinked and finally noticed his guests in his presence, Merlin’s wrinkled lips pursed in skepticism. “What’s going on, you ask? Well, why don’t I just show you exactly what’s going on, hmm?” Before she could protest, Merlin jostled toward the room containing the Anthology, murmuring more and more to himself as he traveled down the stairs to its location.
Glancing between Robin and me, Lox barely waited for our agreement before she was dragging us with her after the old wizard.
As we sank deeper into the depths of the tower, I felt an uneasiness grip my chest. We had only just escaped a monster, but the pit in my stomach seized up again, making me stop and glance around us. There was nothing but cold stone and flickering lanterns as we descended, but the closer we got to the Anthology, the thicker the dread in my stomach grew.
And as we stepped into the dimly lit room, I realized why.
The Anthology was completely different than I’d first seen it. Pages torn, sliding out at a constant rate, leaked onto the stone floor, scattering everywhere. As Merlin went to stand before the large book, urging us to follow with an impatient huff, my eyes widened at the sight before me.
Not only was the Anthology shedding stories, but also, sickly, black ink. It slithered throughout all the pages and destroyed them with every flick and dip. It was as if the ink had a mind of its own, flickering between sentences and phrases jaggedly, before finishing with a page and sending it flying to the floor. Merlin angrily touched the papers, recoiling just as fast the second they zapped him.
“Poison,” he muttered. “Someone’s poisoned the Anthology.”
Twenty
Lox was almost brought to tears as she gazed over the Anthology, her fingers twitching over its possessed pages, daring her to touch it and receive a mighty rude awakening.
“But… But…” She slid her hand down the side of the pedestal, her fingers tracing the beautiful etchings there. “How could this happen?”
Merlin, apparently already fed up with us, moved to gather up miscellaneous papers the Anthology had shed. “Apparently, the darkness is getting stronger. And now, its poison somehow got into the stories.”
“No,” Lox whispered, her eyes taking in the sight before her and filling with despair. “I-I’ve studied these stories for… for years. And nothing like this has ever ha—”
Merlin spun around, letting loose a waterfall of storybook pages. “Don’t you get it, girl? Neverland has never been this weak before. This has never been a problem until now.” His eyes lifted to me then, sizing me up. “Never, that is, until you arrived, my dear.”
Startled, I took a step back and bumped into Robin. “Me?”
Lox tried to intervene. “Merlin, Lacey has nothing to do with this. Peter is under Rhiannon’s spell. T-that’s why darkness is taking over.”
“The Neverking is asleep? Wonderful. Now wake him up.” Merlin scoffed. Moving to grab for more papers as they dripped from the Anthology, he seemed to be in deep thought.
“It’s not that simple,” I mumbled, frustrated he was trying to blame this on me. But when you thought about it, either way was correct. I’d come here, and I’d let Peter prick his finger without intervening. Now the darkness overtaking all of Neverland's inhabitants was my fault.
Merlin whirled on me. “Of course it’s not that simple. Nothing in Neverland ever is!” Merlin pointed a bony finger my way. “The Sleeping Beauty Spell can only be altered by true love’s kiss. Which is just rich.” He laughed haughtily, throwing all the gathered papers over his head like a mad English teacher. Lox looked like she might pass out, seeing him treat all the stories as he was. Merlin giggled. “Rich!”
“What are you talking about?” I shook when I asked.
Before Merlin could yell at me again, Lox blinked over at me sadly. “I-I can’t believe I didn’t think of it earlier. But… Lace…” She hesitated.
“Just spit it out, girl. Someone should.” Merlin glared.
With my heart in my throat, I shuddered as Lox said, “Peter doesn’t have a true love.”
Thinking this wasn’t the worst news I’d heard, I replied, “Yeah, but does anyone really ever?”
“It’s not that.” Lox sighed. The light color of her eyes landed on me in all seriousness. “He can’t love. He was cursed long ago with it.” I blinked between her and Robin blankly before she continued. “As long as he’s a boy, true love’s kiss won’t work on him.”
“B-but he can’t grow up. So that means—”
Merlin took the chance to belittle me more. “It means the Neverking can’t ever have a true love unless he grows up. Which is impossible.”
This news hit me hard in the chest, almost knocking me completely off of my feet. Ruining Neverland? Yeah, that was never on my bucket list of things to do before I died.
“So he’s never going to wake up,” I said, sinking to the floor in disbelief.
Merlin frowned, resting his robed arms over his chest like a grand wizard. “So the Mainlander finally catches on.”
“Stop bullying her,” Lox snapped, bringing me out of my despair. “Are there any other spells we can use to alter Rhiannon’s? Maybe we could make him grow up just to wake him? Or maybe we could—”
Merlin crushed her hope like a giant shoe. “Once a story has been written, it cannot be altered, only added to.”
We all slithered into an afflicted silence as the Anthology’s pages continued to slide to the ground sickly.
“There’s got t
o be something we can do,” I offered, only to be met with less-than-enthusiastic looks from everyone in the room. Not defeated yet, I reached up to my neck and brought the jewelry into light. “Maybe this can help. It’s saved me before. Why couldn’t it save him? And Neverland?”
That sounded too far-fetched, especially to me. But I tried not to show my doubt.
Merlin snorted. “You think a measly piece of junk is going to break a long-going curse?”
I didn’t see Lox’s warning look before sputtering, “It’s magical. I-I don’t know how. But when it activates, it can scare or kill monsters.”
There was a quiet pause as Lox sighed in defeat and Merlin’s eyebrows picked up. “Show me.”
“I-I don’t know how.”
“You don’t know how to summon your own enchanted necklace?” Merlin accused.
I jutted out my chin, temper flaring at his tone. But I just replied shortly, “No.”
Throwing his arms into the air, Merlin let out an annoyed breath. “Then why am I still listening to this? I have work to do.” He moved to leave the Anthology room, making my heartbeat quicken and my cheeks get hot.
Suddenly, before I realized what was happening, my locket sprang to life, igniting with its red hue and shooting a beam of light toward the doorway. Jumping back just in time, Merlin barely missed the door slamming in front of him, forcing him to stay.
Everyone, including myself, sat stunned, gazing down at the necklace as it floated up near my chin, illuminated like a red sun.
Suddenly, Merlin rushed forward to grab it from me before quickly drawing back, thinking better of it. “Where did you get this?”
I stuttered. “M-my mom gave it to me. Before she disappeared.”
Studying me evenly, the fire from the lanterns blazing in the destroyed Anthology room glinted in the wizard’s eyes. “Every magical device is recorded in the Anthology. I would’ve studied its history and whereabouts by now…”
Mere Phantasy Page 21