Forever Neverland Read online

  “My legs . . . .” he croaked.

  “Drink!” Tinkerbell shoved the bottle up against his mouth, smashing his bottom lip in between his teeth and the rim of the glass. He flinched. “Sorry!” she said, desperately. Her emerald eyes were watering. “Please, just drink. It’ll heal you. But it’ll take some time. A lot longer than normal and you’ll need to rest.”

  Peter tried to move his other arm and, thankfully, it, at least, did as he wanted it to. He grabbed the bottle and held it for himself. Tinkerbell stood and looked around, the wheels in her head obviously spinning at a thousand miles a minute.

  “We have to get you back to the cottage. But you can’t fly and I can’t carry you.” She glanced at him. “No offense. You’re just bigger than you used to be.” She bit her bottom lip and gazed down the alley, lost in thought.

  “The Lost Boys!” she suddenly exclaimed.

  “What?” Peter asked, after he’d finished off the entire bottle of - . He looked down at it. Welch’s Grape soda. It wasn’t half bad.

  Tinkerbell spun around to face him. “The Lost Boys. They can help!”

  “A bunch of little boys? How can they?” Peter blinked. Of course, they wouldn’t be little boys any more, would they? He’d grown so used to them in Neverland, never aging, never growing up, that he’d forgotten: Everyone grows up in the real world.

  “I think that Tootles is actually nearby, in fact,” Tinkerbell said, her green eyes glittering with possibility. She knelt down beside him again and, with a snap of her fingers, a thick soft blanket appeared, draped over her arms. She tucked the blanket around Peter. “I’m going to get him and have him help us, okay?”

  Peter nodded, once, grimacing when it hurt.

  She then stood again and moved to a trash can nearby. She pulled off the top and, out of sheer curiosity, took a whiff.

  “Ugh! Oh my god, what in the name of -” She shook her head in disgust. “These humans really make a lot of foul-smelling stuff.” She stepped back and concentrated. She squeezed her eyes shut tight and drew a deep, deep breath. Then, seemingly with all of her might, she waved her arms at the trash can and shoved as much pixie dust at it as she could muster.

  The trash can flickered in and out of existence for a moment. Then it re-solidified, only this time, as a stone fire place. A warm blaze crackled in its depths. Smoke billowed out of its small carved chimney.

  Peter couldn’t help but smile. “Impressive, Tink.”

  Tinkerbell wiped her brow and bent over as if to catch her breath. “Yeah, but I think I’m just about tapped out. It took a lot just to slow down your fall,” she muttered. Then she straightened again and nodded at him. “I’ll be back soon. Don’t go anywhere.”

  “Couldn’t,” Peter replied. “Even if I wanted to.”

  Tink studied his face for a moment, noting the brief flicker of brevity in his once-more green eyes. And then she was gone.

  *****

  The sixteen-year-old boy who once went by the name Tootles was now tucked safely away between two very tall stacks of books, in his favorite part of this rather dusty level of the library. It was quiet here, but for the occasional hum-buzz of the overhead lights and the clatter of far-away footsteps or book bags being dropped.

  There was one small, very old table at the far end of the aisle, near the wall. That table had only one chair, and he sat in it now, listening to the solitude.

  Every time that he turned a page in his book, the sand-paper sound of his fingers against the sheet echoed in the hushed atmosphere. It felt as though the books all around him were listening. He liked that about them; they seemed more than two-dimensional. They had lives of their own.

  On one side were the medical journals on osteopathy from the early twentieth century. On the other side were books on neurology and macroangiopathy. He’d gazed at their titles a hundred times, but had never cracked their spines. He wasn’t here to read those particular books, though he was certain they were interesting enough, in their own ways.

  No, he was here to read something of a far, far different nature. And, because not many people actually came to the library to read about macroangiopathy, he knew that this was the one place where no one would find him and give him grief about what it was he did love to read.

  Romance. Love stories. His favorite author was Judith Ivory. But he’d read many others. He loved how they all had happy endings. They all got married and, usually, they had kids and made happy families. Love, happiness, family. Those were the things he liked best.

  Those things seemed to be either rare, or so overshadowed by other, bad, things in this world that they were as hard to find as a needle in a hay stack. So, Tootles came often to the library – and hid between these two stacks of books – and disappeared in a world where violence was short and justified and the good guys always won.

  Even in Neverland, where it was infrequent compared to the real world, Tootles had disliked violence. He’d always made it a point to attempt to be away – gathering berries or visiting the Piccadilly tribe – when his fellow Lost Boys and Peter Pan decided they needed to go to battle. He was certain that they believed it to be strange luck that he always missed the fighting. He knew the truth, however. The truth was, fighting made him sad. He never wanted to be sad around his Lost Boy brothers and, especially, around Peter Pan. So, he kept himself out of the aggression whenever possible.

  Just as he did now, tucked away from the rest of the world in his private space. No one could find him here. No one-

  “Tootles!”

  Tootles leapt out of his chair, knocking it over behind him and losing his balance in the process so that he landed on the floor in front of it. “Wha-what –” He stammered, trying to right himself.

  “Tootles, it’s me! I need your help!”

  Tootles scrambled onto his feet and peeked over the table. A teenage girl, perhaps a tad bit older than him, was making her way hurriedly toward him. She wore blue jeans and a green t-shirt and had shoulder-length blonde hair. Her eyes matched her t-shirt almost exactly.

  Tootles blinked.

  “Who-who are you?” he asked, his eyes wide. “No one calls me by that name – my name is Jason now,” he insisted, shaking his head. “Jason Carmichael!” The girl drew nearer and he noticed that she appeared vaguely familiar.

  When she reached the other end of the table, she stopped, her hands on her hips. She shook her head. “Tootles, don’t you recognize me? It’s me! Tink!”

  Tootles stood up so fast that he caused the chair behind him to skid back a few feet and it crashed into the wall noisily. From somewhere several aisles down came an irritated “Shhh!!”

  “T-Tink?” He stammered. His whole body began to tremble.

  Tink smiled broadly, but her expression was also slightly admonishing, and there was something troubled in her green eyes. “Yes, it’s me. Tootles, I need your help. Peter needs your help.”

  “Peter?” Tootles looked around, standing on his tip-toes to peer over Tink’s shoulder. “Is he here too?” he asked in an excited whisper.

  “No,” Tink shook her head. Her troubled expression deepened. “He’s hurt, Tootles. Pretty bad. I can’t move him and he can’t fly. I need your help to get him back to the cottage, and the sooner the better.”

  Tootles frowned. “Peter’s hurt?” He looked utterly confused. “That’s impossible. This has got to be some strange dream.” He glanced surreptitiously at the book he’d dropped on the table. The cover portrayed a wounded man standing victorious over his enemy. A beautiful woman clung to the hero’s arm. “I must have fallen asleep reading-”

  Tink swatted him on the arm and he flinched and jumped back. “Ouch!”

  “Feel real enough for you?” She asked, her patience clearly running low. “We don’t have time for this, Tootles. This is real. Peter is hurt. Now are you gonna help or not?”

  Tootles gritted his teeth, looking stubborn. “Tinkerbell is a tiny little fairy covered in sparkles and you’re a teenage girl!
” He leaned forward, pointing at her. “And the Peter Pan that I know never – ever – gets hurt. None of this makes any sense at all!”

  Tinkerbell’s gaze narrowed dangerously. She took a slow, deep breath to calm herself and then said, “Tootles, Hook took Wendy and her brothers and managed to injure Peter because we’re not in Neverland.” She took a threatening step forward, batting Tootles’ finger out of the way and pointing one of her own. “You can act like a Lost Boy and help your leader right now or you can continue to pretend that I don’t exist.”

  She lowered her voice and her green eyes began to glow red.

  “But I should warn you that if you choose the latter, I will prove my existence to you in a most unpleasant manner.”

  Tootles swallowed audibly, his eyes growing wide. “Okay, okay. I believe you. Where is he?” he finally asked, holding his hands up in surrender.

  “Follow me.” Tinkerbell’s eyes returned to normal and she spun around, leading the way down the aisle. Tootles followed behind her.

  “How did you get so big, anyway?” he asked sulkily.

  “This is my human form,” she told him over her shoulder. “You know how it is here. People are freaks. I don’t want to get sprayed with Raid or something.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Some places take a life time to reach.

  Carnegie Hall. The White House. Mars.

  But, compared to Neverland, these places are as close as your own back yard. Because it doesn’t take a lifetime to get to Neverland. It takes forever.

  Or, so Michael Darling would tell you. At the moment, he sat on an empty ale barrel, looking out over an ocean of black and stars, a slight night breeze playing with the tendrils of hair around his face. He had been allowed up on to the deck, under the close supervision of a pirate by the name of Billy Jukes, for the last few nights. Michael couldn’t be certain why it was, as Wendy wasn’t forthcoming about it, but according to Smee, who was a very amiable pirate, despite himself, and loved to converse with the boys when Hook wasn’t around, Wendy had been sad to have Michael kept below decks. And Hook didn’t want Wendy sad. So – he had ordered that the young boy be allowed on the main deck when the sun went down.

  Michael couldn’t deny being grateful. The gun deck stank of vinegar and gun powder and alcohol and there was no fresh air. It wasn’t a laugh being under “Officer Billy’s” watch, either, since he was only called “Officer Billy” because, before he’d become a pirate on the Jolly Roger, he’d been a truant officer in some place by the name of Black Mountain Alley.

  Michael took a deep breath and closed his eyes, enjoying another fresh breeze as it washed in from some unknown place. To the left of him, a good ten paces away, Billy Jukes lit a pipe and took a few puffs, his gaze, too, locked on the nothingness of space. The ill-fated pirate sported a peg leg and only one good eye. He squinted it as he blew out a ring of smoke.

  Behind them, back on the main deck, came the sound of clashing swords.

  Michael turned to find Hook and Wendy at it again.

  Lately, the captain of the Jolly Roger had been giving Wendy fencing lessons. He had seemed openly impressed with her talent from the moment she’d first stolen and brandished one of his sailor’s swords. And now, each night on the deck of his ship, he honed her skills. And Michael, for the life of him, could not understand why.

  He could not understand why their sworn enemy would want to make a better fighter out of one of his prisoners. He simply could not comprehend the idea of their captor trying to help any one of them in any way. He was almost positive that Hook had some ulterior motive in mind. He was probably going to use Wendy against Peter. That had to be it.

  There could be no other reason for Hook’s strangely cordial behavior.

  Michael heard John come up beside him on his left, as he had every night that Michael had been let up top. “I think she has Stockholm Syndrome,” John said.

  Michael turned to find his brother’s gaze locked on his sister as she expertly swatted away Hook’s sword.

  “What’s Stockholm Syndrome?” Michael asked.

  “It’s when captives start to identify with their captors.” John explained. His expression was grim.

  “Identify?” Michael asked.

  “I mean that she’s empathizing with him. I don’t know why. He must have told her something that made her trust him. Probably some sob story or something.”

  “Hook told Wendy a sad story so that she would agree to meet him every night on deck for sword lessons?”

  “Well. . . . ” John stammered, “I mean. . . .” He seemed a bit befuddled for a moment and then he blew out a frustrated sigh. “Never mind.” He shook his head. “Besides,” he started over. “I think Wendy’s just doing it to get good enough that she can beat Hook if she has to. She doesn’t talk to him at any other time. She stays in the barracks with us and she works on deck with us all day, even though Hook doesn’t seem too pleased about it.”

  Hook suddenly advanced and Wendy expertly counter-attacked, managing to knock his sword to the side. Even from their distance, they could hear Hook commend her emphatically. And even from their distance they, too, could see Wendy’s smile.

  Without looking up at his older brother, Michael changed the subject. “When will we get to Neverland?”

  “Soon, I think. The pirates are beginning to get restless. I overheard Starkey saying that Neverland was ‘a breath away.’”

  “Feels like it’s been years. How do you know we’re not there already and we’re just flying over the ocean below us?”

  “The night and day are coming at regular intervals,” John told him. “In Neverland, it would take a literal year before night would fall.” He shook his head. “We aren’t there yet.”

  Michael sighed. He tore his eyes off of the sister he loved and the pirate he hated and turned to look out over the black vastness of space once more. “I saw a shooting star earlier.”

  “That’s impossible,” John said. “Shooting stars are really meteors that burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere. We aren’t on Earth any longer, and so there’s no atmosphere for meteors to burn up in.” Of course, right after he said it, he realized the error of his statement. After all, by that reasoning, day and night shouldn’t have existed either.

  Michael said softly, “I made a wish.”

  John was silent for a long time before, quietly, he asked, “What did you wish for?”

  “Can’t tell you. Then it won’t come true.”

  “Captain!” came a call behind them. The two boys spun around to find Smee climbing down the futtock shrouds from the Crow’s Nest. He leapt onto the deck, one hand holding his glasses on his face, the other hand pulling his red hat straight on his head. “Captain!” he repeated.

  Hook straightened and sheathed his sword. Wendy stepped back away from him and did the same as Smee came running up to salute his captain. “What is it, Smee?”

  “Land below, Captain.” His smile was miles wide. “We’ve reached Neverland.” He was breathless as he relayed this. Wendy’s eyes grew wide.

  “Neverland. . . .” she whispered. Then she ran to the side of the ship and bent over the railing, peering into the darkness below. It was very dark and she could see nothing.

  “You’ll need this, Wendy.” Hook was beside her, having moved as quietly as a cat across the ship’s deck. He held out his telescope, long and lean. He was smiling, and for once, the smile seemed to reach the blue of his eyes.

  She took the looking glass from his hand, hesitantly at first, and then excitedly. In a moment, John and Michael were both beside Wendy, each wanting to look through the glass as well. But she held them back as she adjusted the lenses, concentrating on the darkness below her.

  “I… don’t… see…” and then, suddenly, there it was. A black outline of mountain and shore against a deep, dark, troubled sea. “Wait – there it is!”

  At this point, John literally ripped the telescope from her hands and scrambled to peer throug
h it himself. Wendy scowled at him. He didn’t seem to notice.

  “You’re right. There it is.” He frowned and removed the lens, handing it in turn to Michael, who took it greedily. “But it certainly is dark.”

  Michael stood on his tip toes, leaned carefully over the railing, and put the glass to his eyes.

  “Where are the Piccadilly tribe’s camp fires?” John asked. “And the lights from the pixies’ trees? And the blue glow from the underwater lamps at Mermaid Lagoon?”

  To this, Hook took a very deep breath. His expression was contemplative. “Neverland, it would seem,” he began carefully, “is… different these days.” He turned around and paced a few steps away, his gaze locking on something far across the distance of night – something that no one else could see.

  Wendy cocked her head to one side, studying him carefully.

  “What does he mean – different?” John whispered from beside her.

  “I don’t see anything,” Michael mumbled, still attempting to peer through the telescope.

  “I’m not sure,” Wendy replied. She motioned for John to stay where he was. Then she squared her shoulders, which she always did when she was summoning up a certain amount of courage, and she slowly approached Hook.

  The captain must have sensed her coming near, because he turned to smile gently down at her.

  John’s brows raised inquisitively at the cordial expression.

  Wendy bit her lip. “Hook,” she began. “What do you mean when you say that Neverland is different?”

  Hook’s smile turned grim. He raised his left arm and pointed to the place that he had been staring at moments before. “The sun should have risen over that horizon more than a thousand years ago,” he said, softly. “It has yet to do so.” He lowered his arm. “Neverland sleeps below us in that perpetual night.” He sighed. “I have, however, at last come to comprehend what has made it so.”

  Wendy, eyes wide, face troubled, asked, “What? What’s made it so?”

  “Haven’t you noticed, Wendy?” he asked softly. “Neverland is straight out of a story book.” He gestured to the world beyond his ship. “It possesses a back drop of fantastical proportions. And, most especially,” he smiled a sad smile, “it has a hero.” Hook shrugged then. It was a hopeless gesture. “Neverland cannot exist without Peter Pan.”