Shadow

by Kara Swanson

  But there still is something off. Even about her. I can’t stay here. It can’t stay this way.

  “I’ll miss you more than air, Mama,” I whisper, kissing her cheek before I pull away. I study her for a long moment. Imprinting her image into my mind.

  And then I let her go. I stand up and slowly turn toward the lagoon. Toward Peter.

  When I glance over my shoulder again, she’s gone. I wipe away the salty streaks that still trail down my cheeks. I inhale a deep breath and step to the very edge of the lagoon. I can see Peter playing tag in the water with the Lost Boys and sirens far below.

  I close my eyes for one moment, soaking in the sound of their laughter. Imprinting one more thing in my memory—that big, innocent smile on Peter’s face.

  I open my eyes and call down to him. “Peter? Peter, I need to talk to you.”

  The boys still instantly, turning to look up at me. Something about their expressions tells me that they know their game is almost over. Lily is almost sorrowful as she peers up, not quite seeming to recognize me. Peter is the last one to finally lift his head and meet my eyes, but when he does, he nods. He swims to the shore of the lagoon and begins to climb up the same way I had. A small, golden blur darts past me and spirals down toward him, swirling around him as he climbs. He laughs and throws out his arms as he begins to lift into the air, pixie dust coating his body.

  The little pixie lands on his shoulder as Peter flies up toward me. He grins down at her. “Thanks, Tink!”

  My stomach plummets. If I can get through to him, Peter is going to have to lose so much all over again.

  Peter’s calloused feet have landed. He stands as close to the edge of the cliff fading into the lagoon as he can without falling in. He plants his hands on his hips, bare chest glistening with water droplets and pixie dust. “You wanted to talk?”

  Even his voice is younger. His dimples quicker to appear. His eyes are filled with more mischief.

  Add to that the little pixie standing on his shoulder, making faces at me and smoothing out her little green dress . . .

  He’s about as Peter Pan as it gets.

  It kills me, but I have to take that away from him.

  “Peter, we can’t stay here.”

  He quirks a brow. “What do you mean? It’s Neverland. Of course we can stay.”

  I take a small step toward him. “But that’s just it. This isn’t Neverland.” Oh, Peter you have to listen. “Peter, this isn’t real.”

  He scoffs. “That’s codswallop, and you know it.”

  I throw a hand out at the sprawling green jungle around us. “Everything we’re seeing—the trees and flowers and even the Lost Boys—nothing is real, Peter.” I stumble through words, trying to find a way to explain. “This is like a film covering what Neverland really looks like. It’s masking the rot that’s underneath.” I kick at the grass underfoot, dislodging some of that oozing, dark gunk. “Neverland is rotting, and if we don’t do something, its poison is going to destroy us all before we realize it.”

  He shakes his head so hard that water sprays from his drenched curls. “This is how I remember it. Why do you want to ruin that?”

  His voice is high-pitched, accusing. A little boy confused why I would take away his favorite toys.

  I bite my lip. “I wish I could give you the world you want, Peter. But it doesn’t work this way.” At a glimmer on his shoulder, I put a gentle hand out to Tink, but the minute my finger glazes over her little wings, she disappears. Blinks out of existence.

  Peter’s face pales, and he spins, searching for the pixie. That’s when I notice the shadow spreading out from his feet. I step forward onto it, and the instant my toes touch the silhouette, it disappears too.

  “See?” I look at him, but he’s crossed his arms over his chest, and his bottom lip is shoved out in a pout.

  “Neverland, life, it wasn’t meant to be a freezeframe, Peter. It can’t stay suspended forever. As much as it may hurt, we have to grow.” I take a deep breath. I know how much the little boy Peter hates that word. “If we don’t grow, we don’t live. We just stagnate and begin to rot from the inside out.”

  Peter gives a sigh and a little sniffle. Then he glances up at me. “I guess living is quite an adventure.”

  A corner of my lips starts to tug into a smile. “Exactly. And that’s what we have to get Connor to see.”

  Because if we can’t find a way to help Connor face himself, face his own shadows, then we will all shrivel inside this shell of a world he’s lost in.

  Neverland

  I take in the pleading expression on Claire’s face and the way she stands out so distinctly in this world. Neverland swirls around her in vibrant colors, lit by streams of pixie dust as the little winged creatures dart and dance about. But even though Claire’s own dust is filling the air around her, she’s different than this place. There is certainty in her gaze cutting through the playfulness that consumed my world just moments ago.

  My instinct is to push away the blarmy she’s spilling. I’m tempted to recede back into the world I created, where Peter Pan doesn’t have to think about anything but the next adventure. The world where there is no weight pinning my heart to the earth.

  I lift my hands, looking at their small size, scars and thick callouses from years of romps and scrapes. My Neverland is so tangible, so within reach. It would only take an instant to escape here. And how desperately I want to.

  But just looking at Claire reminds me of what got us into this whole mess in the first place. I’m not that Peter anymore. I can’t be.

  “All right,” I finally say. “Where’s that brother of yours?”

  That instant, something starts to shift. Warmth hums through my body, and I glance down to see a flicker around me. When I look back up, I’m at eye level with Claire. No, taller than her, even. The height I’m supposed to be.

  Almost pretty much grown up.

  I chuff down a deep breath, but while the knowledge smarts, it doesn’t hurt as much as it used to. I look into Claire’s blue eyes. “Thanks for finding me, Pixie-Girl.”

  Her smile is wide. “Thanks for growing. I like you better this way!”

  We wind through the thick jungle filled with the high-pitched songs of tropical birds and the chime-like voices of flitting pixies.

  “What do you think happened to Paige?” Claire asks after a while.

  I kick at a little lump of brightly colored flowers. “Probably trying to get as far from here as she can. If Connor did what he intended, he probably cut her out of this place. Erased her memory from the island so that she can try to leave.”

  Claire glances up at the clear blue sky patchworked through the thick foliage. “You think she might be flying somewhere up there?”

  “I honestly have no idea,” I admit. “For now, let’s just hope she’s far enough away that we have enough time to get through to Connor before she realizes what’s going on.”

  We continue through the lush greenery, and then I spot the little blond boy huddled by a particularly large palm tree.

  I shouldn’t be surprised that he looks so blasted young, but still, I am. This young Connor is the one originally whisked away to Neverland. He’d been on edge even then, something uneasy lurking beneath the surface, but at first, he got along swimmingly with the other lads. Adventuring and joining in on the treasure hunts and spinning tales of his own about all the superhero comics he’d read back in America.

  And then things had started to shift. He’d gotten hurt in one of the games with the Lost Boys, and it all went wrong.

  Claire and I cautiously approach Connor. She reaches him first and settles into the grass beside him. I squat down behind her. Connor doesn’t look so great. His skin is pale, cheeks sallow and sagging, and his expression is blank. He’s staring at his hands, muttering quietly to himself.

  “Connor? I need to talk to you,” Claire tries gently.

  “You okay, mate?” I reach out to shake him, but Connor jerks away. A flas
h of a large silhouette towers behind him. Monstrous and hulking one minute and gone the next.

  Claire clutches my arm. “That happened before too. Do you know what it is?”

  Curiosity draws me closer to Connor. He may look like an innocent child, but underneath, he’s decaying.

  “I have an idea. One way to find out for sure.” I grab onto him and give him a strong shake. “Connor Kenton!”

  It does the trick. Connor starts writhing and hitting at me. On cue, the massive shadow rears its ugly head again, spreading out behind Connor and curling above him. I quickly eye the seeping shadow and find exactly what I expect—dark tendrils are spreading from it, skimming across the jungle floor and forming the veins undercutting the island.

  The shadow turns its large head, hollow eyes locking on me, and hisses in a voice that spews from Connor, “Get back!”

  For a moment, Neverland disintegrates. The rosy sheen masking this place as the paradise it used to be fades, and I can see charred, twisted trees and broken ground. Just behind us, where the shadow is spreading out, is the star at the center of Neverland, which is now only a shriveled pool of oozing, dark liquid.

  And just as quickly as it had gone, the film snaps back into place, the broken, fractured Neverland hidden by bright colors and a mask of normalcy.

  “Was that his shadow?” Claire scoots closer to me, voice unsteady. Connor turns away from us as the shadow sinks back into him, and now he curls into a little ball. Claire’s mouth quivers. “He doesn’t even remember me,” she adds brokenly.

  I sit in the grass beside Claire and watch Connor. “Aye. It’s his shadow-self. When Paige tethered his shadow to the star . . .” I’m uncertain even how to explain this. “Well, you saw what he was like before. When the shadow was inside of him, bleeding out. Imagine that, but ten times worse. His dark reflection now has more magic than he could have ever imagined, and it’s taken control. It’s feeding off him, off the island, and destroying them both from the inside out. Much longer, and Connor won’t have much of his original self left.”

  A shiver sweeps over Claire. “So he’s possessed by his own darkness? How can we even begin to stop that?”

  I get to my feet. “I’ve found that the only way to truly defeat a shadow is to face it.” I glance back at her. “We have to get him to wake up, Claire. Connor is the only one who can face his own shadow—and even cut it away.”

  She nods mutely, as if unsure how to proceed, so I take the first step. I sit beside Connor and grip his arm. He tries to wrench away, refusing to look at me, but I hold on stubbornly.

  “Ho, lad. I know you don’t want to—but you have to face it.”

  He shakes his head fiercely and twists, trying to escape. I tighten my hold. “Connor, look at us!”

  He jerks his arm free and attempts to crawl away.

  “Oh, no you don’t!” I grab for him, but suddenly he swings around and slams a fist into my jaw. And he’s not done. The darkness swells out of him again, towering over the boy, mouth open, but its words come out of little Connor’s mouth.

  “We want this! Leave us alone—or we’ll make you leave!”

  I lift my chin, cross my arms, and glare at Connor’s blooming shadow-self throwing a tantrum.

  “Just you try!” I spit back at it. Claire gasps behind me. But I’m not letting Connor just bury his head and let the rest of us burn. I latch onto the boy’s shoulders and shake him hard. “Connor, you have to stop hiding! You have to face it! If you don’t—everyone is dead.” My voice rises in volume as I shake him harder, desperation and frustration roiling together. I sweep a hand toward my Pixie-Girl, shouting at him: “You are going to kill Claire if you don’t wake up!”

  At that, Connor freezes, eyes going wide, mouth going wider, and then he screams. “No!” He yanks away and races off through the jungle.

  I am about to run after him, but Claire holds me back.

  “You’re scaring him, Peter.”

  I swing toward her. “I blooming hope so! This whole blasted mess is scary. I’m scared.” I’m practically vibrating, and I can see from her bloodshot eyes that she can relate, but she’s shaking her head.

  “I don’t think that’s how we can get through to him, though.” She takes my hand. “We have to remind him of the same things you and Lily first reminded me. There is still light.”

  I look at her a moment, then nod. “I guess you’re right.”

  We move farther into the jungle, the color fading from the tropical vistas around us as we draw near where we saw Connor disappear. He’s watching us from the taller branches of a tree.

  “Let me try.” Claire climbs through branches until she pauses on a branch just below Connor’s. Her voice is soothing and low when she speaks to him.

  “Con? We just want to talk.” A few flakes of dust begin to lift from her skin, mingling in the air, and drift toward him.

  But the minute Claire’s gleaming, shimmering gold dust touches him, he recoils with a shriek, as if stung.

  Claire gasps, pulling back as Connor frantically brushes the seeds of gold away. I can see darkness seeping and swelling around him as Connor jumps out of the tree and heads off into the jungle again.

  I follow after him, not about to lose him again.

  I catch a glimmer of a few stray pixie dust remains clinging to him. He’s noticed, too, and instead of ridding himself of them, he slows to a stop. As we come up to him I study the way his face flushes and how he doesn’t look at us and the way he’s chewing on his lip.

  I’ve seen that look before. On other Lost Boys, but mainly in the mirror.

  It’s the expression of a little boy who has been hurt and doesn’t want to recall his pain. Just wants it to end.

  I put a hand on his small shoulder. This time he doesn’t move. He’s staring at the few flecks of dust. Claire intakes a quick breath, and her eyes widen a bit. She looks at me, and I nod.

  She lets her pixie dust drift from her hands and waft all over Connor. He starts to shudder and quiver, face drawn in pain. Suddenly, I can feel it too. I stare down and watch thin, dark, spidering veins spread from him onto my hand and up my body. Carrying with them a deep, ripping ache.

  I gasp for air, forcing myself to not let go, even though the pain makes me want to jerk away. And this is just a taste of the pain that’s been tearing at his insides for months because of that shadow.

  Connor’s breathing grows heavy. Suddenly, he arches his back as more dark veins skitter across his body, his skin growing chalky white before our eyes—and, all at once, we can see it. Seeping out of him, spilling across the dull ground, much larger than a shadow should be. Even if it was a reflection of his more adult stature.

  This is the part of him that is tethered to the island. The part of him Paige twisted in order to poison the star and create the fantasy world he wanted. This is all of Connor’s fears and faults poured into a dark reflection on steroids.

  And it’s not happy.

  But . . . it’s no longer inside of him. Which may be our only chance of actually helping Connor face it. Overcome it.

  Claire lets more golden dust pour out of her body, filling the air and washing over Connor. He grunts when the flakes of gold sink in. As they do, the dark veins seem to pulse, trying to push back the light.

  Connor rotates to face the monstrous shadow that is seeping up the side of the darkened trees and still towering over him. He’s not speaking to us.

  Connor’s shadow hisses, rearing at him, spindly fingers wrapping around his neck. “Coward . . .” it hisses.

  Claire’s pixie dust spirals around her like a bright light, a torch, and she shoves it toward the shadow. It screeches and lurches back from Connor just enough for him to be able to breathe and speak again.

  The shadow is rearing and spewing curses, trying to reach for Connor, sink back into him, but with Claire standing between them, it can’t. It can’t move past her light.

  “This doesn’t have to be the end, Connor,” Claire
tells him. “You’re not alone.”

  I grip his wrist. “She’s right, lad. If I can change and try to fix all the blooming messes I created—anyone can.”

  He takes in a deep breath and then looks beyond Claire to his shadow that is leering at us. It continues to hiss words, threats. But Connor pulls his shoulders back, lifts his chin, and says four words that shake the entire island:

  “I don’t need you!”

  And just like that Connor severs his connection to Neverland. To the star. It’s like an invisible line snaps. Connor’s whole body convulses, and he’s thrown backward. The island starts to groan and vibrate again, the earthquakes rumbling to life.

  Once his connection breaks, Connor’s shadow begins to change. It shifts, grows smaller, and as it does, Claire and I let go of Connor.

  We step back and watch as the thin haze coating him dissolves, and suddenly there he is. A young man with gaunt shoulders and sallow skin, in a ragged blue T-shirt and baggy cargo pants. He looks like he could be blown over but manages to stand on his own. When he lifts his head and I can see his eyes, I find a well of raw, aching pain and anger boiling under the surface. But the edge that had always followed Connor, even when he put on a brave face for Claire—the edge that wanted to damage anyone who threatened him—that edge is gone.

  Instead, Connor just looks hollow. But there’s a small spark of hope there. Especially when Claire rushes forward and wraps him in a hug, and he collapses in her arms.

  Beside them, I watch Connor’s shadow shrink until it’s the size it should be. The thick darkness that had filled it begins to ooze out, streaking across the ground, bubbling and arching. Like a dark mire searching for a new hole to crawl into.

  With an exhausted tremor, Connor’s knees go out, and Claire helps him gently settle to the ground.

  The world around us continues to dissolve, and as the vibrant jungle fades, I can see the broken, craggy Neverland coming back into view. And it’s not in good shape. The massive schisms in the ground seem to have grown wider, and most of the trees here have fallen to become shriveled kindling. Without the connection to a child heart, the island may survive for a short time longer on its own, but eventually it will begin to just . . . fragment, without a heartbeat. It has already crumbled so much. The sky is dark, filled with storm clouds. There’s a dim flicker of faint light at intervals, and I finally make out what they are.