by Liz Braswell
Wendy blinked and the monolith was gone. The others behind it in the landscape had also rearranged. There seemed to be fewer.
She let out a breath, not even realizing she had been holding it.
Tinker Bell decided that it was safe to flitter, and zoomed around like a nervous bee—keeping very close to her big friend.
“That was…very interesting. Educational.”
She finally found the right word.
“Terrifying.”
Tinker Bell nodded, swallowing.
“We really have to get out of here and find Peter and get Hook. Immediately. When even the gods of a world are worried about its destruction, well—it’s serious indeed. And I know you think it’s better to find Peter first and then deal with his shadow and the pirates, but perhaps we really should go after the pirates now? I think we’ll find them more easily at this point. What do you think? Tink?”
But the little fairy wasn’t paying attention. She tugged on Wendy’s hair and pointed back the way they had come.
Wendy looked, very reluctantly. Afraid of what would be there—or rather, what wouldn’t.
And she was right.
Never Land was entirely gone. The desert extended for a hundred miles in all directions, seamless and complete.
“No,” Wendy said softly.
Even though she had predicted it, even though now she could see the truth with her own eyes, she still fell down the long-familiar tunnel of childishness: wishing that what just happened hadn’t. Denying with her full being that the vase had tipped and smashed, that the terrible thing just said had come out of her own mouth, that the soufflé had fallen moments before she served it to Mother and Father.
That she and Tinker Bell were stranded, cut off from the rest of Never Land, in what looked like an infinite desert.
Wendy carefully stepped back to the point she had mentally marked before, knowing full well it might be important later. Three red stones in increasing size were lined up like a fallen desert sandman. A scrubby little black and matte turquoise bush with two pom-pom-like appendages grew nearby. There were her footprints coming out of nowhere. Beginning the journey. She bent over, trying to feel a hint of moist air, of cool sea breeze, of pungent jungle funk.
But of course there was nothing.
Tinker Bell zipped around back and forth above Wendy, trying to see what she was seeing. Then she flew a little farther out, to the left and right and front and back with the neat, almost unnatural motions of a dragonfly hunting. Actually, she was hunting. For a way out.
“Anything?” Wendy asked, trying to keep the hope out of her voice.
Tinker Bell shrugged, shook her head, and jingled sadly.
“Maybe…Look, I know you don’t want to disrespect this place, but the First seem to have abandoned us to our fates. For now. Maybe it would be all right if you just flew up—really high—into the air? And looked around?”
Tinker Bell nodded reluctantly.
She took a big, dramatic breath and rose into the pale sky. Wendy had to shade her eyes with her hand to see the fairy at all against the brightness. High, higher still, higher than a kite. Eventually she disappeared.
While Wendy knew her friend’s invisibility was just a trick of distance and the limitation of her own eyesight, she couldn’t help fretting. She shuffled her feet and bit her lip until the fairy reappeared, falling down on the exact same path she had taken up with the inevitability and determination of an acorn freed from its twig. Wendy held out her hand, and the tiny girl landed on it with obvious gratitude.
“Anything?”
Tinker Bell shook her head, looking perplexed. She pointed: north, east, south, west, or whatever passed for them in this strange land. She put a hand to her head, much like Wendy had when watching for her, and mimed looking far out in each direction, frowning and squinting. Then she shrugged again.
“It just goes on and on, in every direction?”
Forever. Just that big muddy plateau in front of us—that is the only feature in any distance.
“But…we saw boundaries to it when we flew down,” Wendy protested, not arguing with her friend so much as with reality. “It wasn’t so big, this area. It only covered a tiny portion of the island.”
Tinker Bell gave her a look.
“All right, all right, I know we’re not dealing with normal forces here.” Wendy sighed. “After telling us that we need to save Never Land, and soon, the First abandoned and trapped us here. One can only assume they think we can find our way out. It’s some sort of test.
“So let’s think about this logically. Their demesne seems to continue forever. It’s all outside, beyond us. But where did the First go? I don’t see any of those monoliths—er, I guess you would see mud piles—in any direction far away from us. They are only in the middle distance. So perhaps…perhaps there is someplace inward they go. Or downward. Yes, that seems rather backward and Never Land-y. What do you think, Tinker Bell?”
The fairy shrugged and nodded, pursing her lips. Like: sure, sounds as good as anything at this point.
“All right then, let’s head over to those cliffs over there. Maybe there’s a secret canyon that burrows deep into their lair. Race you!” Wendy raised her arms to fly.
Nothing happened.
“Up now! Happy thoughts!”
Her feet remained firmly planted on the ground.
Tinker Bell frowned.
“Oh dear,” Wendy said.
The fairy spiraled up and down around the human girl, practically smothering her with fairy dust. Much of it was blown away on the harsh, hot breeze: thousands of sparkles spreading across the arid landscape in a cloud that grew taller and taller and more spread out as it dissipated into the air. “What a waste,” Wendy sighed.
She thought of all good things. Candy floss, the first scent of lilacs in the spring, a really nice day in the shade of the backyard tree with her notebook, Nana under her hand.
Still nothing happened.
“Either I’m terrified to the core of my soul by this place,” Wendy said thoughtfully, “or I can’t borrow your fairy magic here.”
Tinker Bell shook her head sorrowfully and patted her on the hand.
“Well then, onward anyway!”
Wendy straightened her back, gave Tinker Bell (and herself) a reassuring nod, and began marching toward the cliffs. That’s what Englishmen did. They pushed up their sleeves, gritted their teeth, and did what needed to be done. Out in the midday sun, if need be. Like mad dogs.
And so went she.
It was hard going in the strange sand. There were occasional patches of slick white rock, flat as a tabletop and much easier to walk on. But these didn’t always line up the way she was heading; often she had to walk along one until its end and then stumble in the sand until the next one. Any plant she accidentally dragged her legs against left scrapes of both kinds: harmless little white-lined reminders and truly defensive strikes, deep angry red welts.
Wendy was sweating profusely now although it evaporated immediately in the dry air. This caused her some confusion until she finally figured out where the potential rivulets of sweat were disappearing to. Which brought up another worry. In her stories dehydration was much less threatening: “And they couldn’t find water anywhere on the deserted island, not even a coconut palm to climb and crack the fruits thereof and drink the sweet nectar. And so the heroes wandered and thirsted and dreamed of lemonade.…” And of course, Peter Pan and the Lost Boys eventually found something like a washed-up cask of cider or a hidden spring.
Here there were no trees at all, and it seemed very unlikely without Moses to find a spring in the middle of the desert. Lack of water was going to be a real problem, real soon.
Not to mention hunger…
She looked askance at her little friend, who was flying beside her with an equal look of determination. Her teensy brow was a bit dewy and smeared with dust, but it didn’t seem like she was in any real discomfort.
It was
hard to tell if time passed at all in that strange land. The cliffs and mesas did seem to grow closer—very slowly—but the light didn’t change at all. Wendy noticed with fascination that the shadows of this land chose their angle and size with no particular logic. A stone might have a long shadow lying to the area she thought of as “east,” as if the sun were setting somewhere to the west, while the bush next to it might have a barely-there black circle clinging to its twiggy skirts like it was high noon. Perhaps that was why Peter was drawn here; the First might have some sort of strange affinity to shadows and shadow magic.
Tinker Bell’s shadow yawned and stretched and pointed here and there, but honestly, the little fairy moved too quickly herself for the difference between them to be that noticeable.
Unlike Wendy’s lack of shadow, which was very noticeable. The ground looked bleak and empty beneath her. She found she missed even the shadow’s not quite appropriate behavior, like when she grew distracted and did something Wendy wasn’t doing. She wondered if the shadow was out looking for Peter. Did she also grow weak without contact with her mistress? Did she need Wendy? And once they found Peter and reunited him with his shadow—would her shadow follow suit?
Or would her shadow prefer to stay in Never Land, where she was free to do as she pleased, rather than return to London and a life of just copying Wendy’s every movement? Would Wendy be able to convince her to go home with her?
She found herself missing deeply the cold and wet weather of that city. It was vastly preferable to the oven they were in now.
Minutes or hours passed. Wendy fretted and swore quietly to herself. Time was ticking away and they were no closer to stopping Hook, his nefarious plans now confirmed by the First.
“What sort of lunatic destroys everything when he can’t win?” she growled. Perhaps it was her fault, as a storyteller. Perhaps recurring villains grew sick of their own recurrence.
Wendy tried not to brush back the hair that wound up in her eyes because then she would get red streaks from the ubiquitous dust in it and all over her face. Tinker Bell had plucked a tiny, thick leaf and tried to hold it as an umbrella above her head—perhaps to keep herself dry in whatever the landscape was doing in her vision. But no matter which way she tilted it she seemed unsatisfed with the results. Eventually she let it drop—but only after taking a tentative bite out of its flesh.
The look on her face was all that was needed to stop Wendy from launching into a lecture on the danger of unknown plants and their possible toxicity. The fairy wasted precious spit getting all of it—and the taste—out of her mouth.
Finally they arrived at the skirts of the red cliffs. Here giant slopes of rock that looked like they used to be part of the mountains finally succumbed to time and melted into piles of sand and rubble. Amongst their folds were multiple canyons twisting and leading deep into the plateau. Wendy picked a likely one and pointed. Tinker Bell nodded. They plunged ahead.
“So…Tinker Bell…” Wendy ventured after they had walked for a bit. “Your little—pardon me—your fairy friends back there…What were their names? Berryloon and… ?”
Thorn.
“Thorn. Yes, that suits the fellow quite well. Thorn. Like with his sword, stabbing.”
Tinker Bell narrowed her eyes suspiciously.
Wendy slipped down a treacherous patch of slick rock covered in fine gravel. More of her skirt tore. Without even thinking this time, she simply ripped off the ragged piece and tied it around her middle like a belt.
“Cuts quite a figure, doesn’t he? I mean, his apparel was most immodest—but he wore it well. Didn’t he?”
Tinker Bell buzzed over to hang in Wendy’s face.
Oh my phlox. You like him.
“Like?” Wendy said indignantly. “I hardly know the boy. I was just saying how handsome he was, and well-spoken, and his ears were very elegant.”
You like Thorn.
Whatever the fairy was saying from then on grew incomprehensible as she lapsed into great peals of jingly laughter that echoed off the canyon walls. She actually held her belly and guffawed, wasting quantities of sparkling fairy dust on the sand below. This only irritated Wendy further. She had just grown used to flying and was now more than a little peeved that her power was gone.
“All right, all right, no need to be all gossipy and schoolgirlish about it.”
It’s just…Thorn. He’s so dull. And you’re so big.
“I was only making conversation,” Wendy said grumpily.
Oh, I’m just teasing, the little fairy said, patting her hand, eyes wide with mock apology. When we get out of here and rescue Peter’s shadow, we can go find him in the fairy realms and you can tell him your true feelings.
Or I will, if you can’t.
“Don’t you dare!” Wendy cried.
Tinker Bell wiped a tear of laughter out of her eye. Kidding! I wouldn’t unless you asked me to. It’s just so weird.
“I don’t see why it’s strange. But let me just make sure I am clear about this, so we don’t get into trouble again: you don’t…ah…like him?”
Tinker Bell made a sick face. Then she thought about it. Really thought about it. Then she shrugged: nope.
“You only have eyes for Peter Pan, don’t you?” Wendy asked softly.
Tinker Bell nodded woefully.
“All right, well, we’re not going to discuss him. But what about that other girl? Berryloon or whatever? She acted like she knew you very well. Are you friends?”
Tinker Bell frowned and made a sour face, like she would have spit if she had been less ladylike. Or perhaps had any spit to waste.
“Ah, so you know each other well, but aren’t friends. There are girls like that in my neighborhood—the demonic Shesbow twins, as I call them. Mother and Father are always trying to make me spend time with them. Frankly, I’d rather be alone. Alone, hungry, thirsty, hot, and exhausted, really.”
Tinker Bell nodded vigorously.
“Fairies…spend a lot of time…together, don’t they?”
Tinker Bell rolled her eyes.
Fetes. Balls. Parties. Moon viewings. New moon festivals. Farmers markets. Pollen whispers. Nectar-ines.
“I should very much like to see a fairy Nectar-ine,” Wendy said wistfully. “But I’m sure I probably wouldn’t want to attend many, if I were a fairy. Like the parties and dances in London. I never know what to say that’s appropriate, and everyone thinks I talk too much and I’m odd and…I don’t know. Immature. Childish. Strange?”
Tinker Bell nodded meaninfully. But her eyes were focused elsewhere, on an incident, on the past.
“I guess neither you nor I have had many female friends—any, really?”
Tinker Bell slowly shook her head.
“What about that Lost Boy—er, girl? Skipper?”
Tinker Bell shrugged. Lost Boys. You know. They’re friends…but not friends.
“I do understand,” Wendy said with a sigh. “There are booksellers’ nephews and vendors at the market…but no bosom companions.”
Tinker Bell looked down at her chest, frowning.
“Ah, I mean, very close friends. You know, someone you can tell secrets to, who will always love you no matter what stupid thing you say or do.”
Or will always be there to save you, no matter how mean you’ve been.
And for once, Wendy had the sense to just nod and smile and not say anything.
Ahead the canyon opened up wide and flat as it traveled into the heart of the mesa. Inviting. Strangely clear of even the hardiest scrubby plants, almost paved in alternating ribbons of soft silt and packed sand. Very easy to walk on. Tiny polished pebbles congregated in delta formations in the middle of the path and along the edges.
“Peculiar,” Wendy said softly. “Almost like the bottom of a stream, without a stream on it. Yes, that’s exactly what it’s like. Like we’re walking in a stream that isn’t here. What do you see?”
Tinker Bell shrugged. Mud…You’re walking on flat rocks just above the mu
d. Your feet are getting filthy.
“Well, whatever it is, sounds like a road to me. Let’s take it.”
Tinker Bell nodded. One very suspicious rock guarded the entrance of this new path, a boulder perched on a pedestal with a strangely intelligent look about it. Much, much smaller than the monoliths that had dotted the desert earlier, or the one that had spoken to them. Still…
The way gently twisted and turned, the high stony walls above them copying its movements in folds and wrinkles. But the rocks, the sands, the scattered plants, the strange shadows—they all looked more or less exactly the same no matter where they were. There was no discernible feeling of progress.
This was more walking than Wendy had ever done at once, and all without her shadow. At some point she realized she could barely feel her legs. Sometimes when she put her foot down she misjudged the distance and stepped bone-jarringly hard on the ground. Sometimes she felt the world tilt.
The inside of her mouth was rough and painful like sandpaper, but she feared spitting the dust out—afraid of losing any fluid at all, since they’d had nothing to eat or drink since eating that rubyfruit.
And while Wendy didn’t like spending too much time dwelling on functions of the body, it had been a very long time since she had last needed to use the loo.
“Tinker Bell, I think I need a break,” she finally admitted.
The fairy nodded glumly. Her hair was limp and her wings drooped, and she didn’t jingle. They found a large shadow (cast from who knew what object) to collapse in.
“I think this might be a kind of an oubliette,” Wendy admitted after they had both sat there silently for a moment. “A trick of the First. There’s no end or escape. I put these things into stories now and then—paths which look useful but lead nowhere.”
Tinker Bell nodded reluctantly. She had come to the same conclusion.
“This is so frustrating!” Wendy suddenly shrieked, using a last bit of energy to kick the canyon wall. “We can’t be here—we have to be out there, saving Never Land!”
The fairy was silent.
“You haven’t said anything at all about the danger your whole world is in,” Wendy pointed out, somewhere between curious and peevish.
