She giggled in spite of herself, not meaning a word of it. After a moment, to her vast relief, Wendy was able to vaguely make out the voices of the Lost Boys behind her. She turned her head to see their dirty faces, but the mist hid them from view. Someone called her name, softly, like a whisper. When she turned her face back, the sharp wind carrying her hair all around her, numbing her cheeks and hands, Peter was there waiting for her. Her breath caught in her throat, her heart speeding up, thrumming so intensely that she felt it in her ribs. He was so close that his face was inches away from hers, and she could see the small navy flecks, lined with gold, that circled inside his green eyes.
His cool, clean smell, the smells of leaves and earth and magic, washed across her face as he trailed his fingers down her cheek and up into her wild hair. His body curled toward Wendy, his green eyes never pulling away from hers even though they were moving through the air, pulled by his momentum, downward, ever downward. Wendy forgot to breathe as he looked at her with wonder, his curious eyes tracing every line of her face with want.
“Wendy . . .”
Then he leaned forward and pressed his lips against her own with a palpable hunger. His lips were warm and woodsy. His hands traced her jawline and neck as they kissed, his tongue running over her own, his hands tangling in the hair that was standing straight up as they sank lower and lower through the mist. With a sigh, he buried his face in her neck before pulling back up to her lips and kissing her again, hungrily, his arms pulling her ever closer as they sank lower and lower.
There was mist and there was Peter, and Peter’s lips, and Wendy felt herself falling, falling into him, falling down with Peter Pan, falling down into Peter Pan. She pressed herself firmly into his chest, wrapping her arms around his neck. They plunged downward, feet first, her blouse fluttering around them both, Peter’s mouth drinking from her own, pulling away from her like water from a stone. They fell, their lips dancing and playing, the feel of his face against her own, soft skin over lean muscles. He ripped the scarf from her hair before lacing his fingers up in her thick curls as they fell ever downward, the wind cool around her body, Peter’s heat warming her core. Finally, he pulled back from her lips with a regretful sigh and gave her a naughty grin.
“Wendy Darling, I could not wait another moment.”
He shrugged, as if he couldn’t help himself, and then launched himself away from her in a graceful backward swan dive, disappearing into the mist below her. She blinked twice, her hands touching her lips with shock. He had kissed her. Her mind flitted back and forth between ecstasy and guilt, but her need to follow closely behind him won out over both feelings as she followed him downward into the thinning mist, her lips on fire from where he had touched them. As they emerged from the clouds, Wendy gasped. She had become used to seeing the main island from Pan Island, where it appeared as an impassive bump on the distant horizon, but here it was below her, five hundred miles of foliage, white cliffs, and pristine beaches spread out like a tiny world below them, Shadow Mountain rising out of the mist like a green behemoth.
The mountain loomed ominously over the island, a thin stream of white mist trailing out from its open crater, its wide mouth forever watching over its rocky mass and jagged foothills. Peter appeared beside her once again, and the flock of Lost Boys began emerging from the mist, one by one, each looking relieved when they saw Peter’s face on the other side. Peter waited patiently as they each plummeted down to meet him, some flying better than others, Kitoko flying down with incredible grace. He slapped Peter’s hand as he passed, raising his eyebrows at Wendy in a way that suggested that he had been witness to their kiss. Wendy blushed and looked down, not wanting to meet his eyes. At the tail end of the boys, Abbott appeared in the clouds, holding onto a taller Lost Boy by the collar of his shirt, his face pale, a ring of sweat around his neck.
“We almost lost Alfonso in the fog.” He looked over at Peter. “You were flying too fast.”
Peter laughed, although Wendy saw a glint of annoyance cross his face. He flew up to meet Abbott and Alfonso, who was flushed with shame.
“Keep up next time.” He swatted the back of the boy’s head and then gave Abbott a playful grin. Abbott returned it with a forced smile before leveling his eyes at Kitoko and coming down from above. Peter turned back to the boys and Wendy, his feet hovering above the island like a god.
“From here on, whispers only. Understood? Hook has spies everywhere.”
Not a word was spoken in reply. They flew low over the east end of the island, staying maybe twenty feet above the treetops and the rocky coast, which marked the island with its jagged gray rocks and pale sand. When they finally veered north, Wendy could see the edge of the white cliffs rising angrily out of the ocean, their peaks like razors.
“They are beautiful,” she murmured.
“The Teeth,” Peter whispered next to her. “That’s where I burned the Jolly Rodger.”
A minute passed, and then they were soaring above them, an endless stream of violent white, pockmarked with blue bird droppings and an occasional turquoise-green pool hidden in the deep grooves of the rock. Eventually the Teeth began to taper downward, towering peaks surrendering to sloping foothills that plummeted into the jungle, a tangle of waterfalls and rivers, twisted vines and green leaves the size of houses. The changes in Neverland’s geography were just like its natural landscape: extreme and defiant, as if another country started at the exact line on a map, the greenery stopping right where it was supposed to.
From above, Wendy could perceive small marks of the hungry life below: a large bird’s nest with robin blue eggs the size of her head, a green lizard with dazzling pink wings plodding its way across the canopy, an insect that resembled a gigantic dragonfly that followed them for a while before veering away to snatch up a yellow canary midflight with wide jaws that extended from a second mouth. Wendy gave a shiver as it spit out the yellow feathers and looked up at the unwelcome guests flying overhead. As they neared the end of the rolling hills of jungle, Wendy found her nerves tingling with fear when she saw the turquoise sea emerge once again on the horizon, realizing that they were close to their destination. She swallowed hard, for a moment forgetting the kiss. It’s going to be an adventure, she reassured herself. Just an adventure.
The gentle creek that was winding its way like a snake beneath them opened up into a gaping river that ran upward to the middle of the island. They followed the river for a few minutes, seeing an occasional fin cut through the water. Peter pointed.
“Sharks. They love the river fish.”
Finally, the lazy river gained speed, the water churning out over boulders as the land grew rockier, the jungle thicker. The river grinded angrily forward, falling downward in a series of small pools before it opened up into a gigantic waterfall that roared beneath them, the haze of spray rising up into the thick mist above them. From the base of the waterfall, a lazy stream, tired from its journey, wound its way quietly down to the ocean, the river bend making a sharp right turn before continuing out to the sea. Peter flew up beside her again and pointed to where the river bent away from its main stream.
“Do you see it, Wendy?”
She didn’t, not at first, but then her eyes followed a small wisp of steam that trailed up from beyond the trees. Steam, she thought. That’s an odd thing to see in a jungle. She would have easily missed it had Peter not pointed it out. The curling steam trailed up out of the trees and then dipped under a swaying green branch, massive in size, draping across a large rocky outcropping. Her eyes followed the serrated gray rocks down a slick tumble of stone, as if a giant had shoved over a mountain and then piled it back up again. There was a wooden stake that rose out of the peak of the stone pile, a huge cross that was turned sideways so that the arms of the cross pointed down into the peak. From there, a single white rope tethered to the cross wove its way down until it met the ground, its taut line disappearing under the rushing river water. Spaced evenly along the rope, each dangling in place by g
igantic metal hooks, a line of broken skeletons blew in the wind, their bones rattling. The horrific sound whispered quietly out through the jungle and made Wendy long to clasp her hands over her ears, to block the memory out forever. A strong gust of the humid wind of the island rocked the skeletons simultaneously, and they all turned to face the sea, a macabre coordinated dance.
Large red birds, their brilliant feathers shimmering like ripe plums, reminiscent of distorted peacocks, nested in the ribs of each skeleton, looking from above like huge, beating hearts. The wind changed direction again, and the skeletons all twisted to look right at Wendy, and she saw the glittering black obsidian rocks that had been placed in their eyes. Her stomach lurched when she realized that the skeletons looked so terrifying not because of their red bird hearts or their coordinated turns in the wind, or even the metal hooks around their necks—the skeletons were uniquely terrible because they were small. Far too small to be grown men. These were the skeletons of children. These had been the eleven Lost Boys. Fear twisted Wendy’s heart, overwhelming any lingering excitement that she felt.
This is a bad place. We should not be here. She looked up at Peter, whose eyes rested easily on her. She started to mouth the word “no” before he gave her a devilish grin and led the boys forward, banking hard in the air so that they silently came up above the jungle about a half mile from the Vault. Peter motioned to the jungle, and one by one the boys and Wendy dropped into the dense trees that grew beside the mountain of horrors. The jungle was deep and ill-behaved. Choking vines tangled around her, and the canopy slithered closed immediately after they slipped through, turning them all a sickly shade of green in its emerald light. Wendy watched with wide eyes as a hairy, scarlet spider made its way through Abbott’s hair in front of her.
“Abbott!” she hissed quietly.
He rolled his eyes and batted it away without a second glance. The spider gave a tiny cry as it fell through the jungle air. Peter motioned forward with silent hand gestures that Wendy didn’t understand but didn’t need to, as she just followed the rest of the boys, flitting from branch to branch, leaping through the air like apes, catching and swinging. Wendy was a bit more cautious as she went, carefully weighing which branch she would grab next, unable to swing so joyfully like the other boys. Peter laughed silently at her before giving her a wink. Her heart fluttered at the gesture. Through the trees they went, silently making their way toward the Vault. Finally they halted, and Wendy could see a small clearing through the dense mosaic of green, a peephole of misty gray light. They were here.
As she moved closer to the cave, hand over hand through the trees, Wendy began to understand that the pile of rocks she had seen from above was much more than a loose pile of boulders. What she had believed was the front of the cave was actually the side of a gigantic rock face, its discombobulated features assembling themselves at just the right point. Violently carved in shades of dust and bone, the menacing skull rose up out of the river, the main head composed of three enormous boulders clustered together. The face was made up of deep grooves carved into the rock face, each accented with stitches made of bones that crisscrossed over the eyes and nose. Dripping green condensation pooled at the bottom of the concave eyes and trickled down the face, angry tears to mar a horrified expression of fear. The mouth of the cave opened up underneath the pooling green, an unhinged jaw open in a perpetual scream, wide enough to swallow a man whole.
The river poured out of the mouth and onto the rocks below, foaming angrily underneath large wooden spikes that protruded out of the mouth like wicked teeth. On the other side of the skull’s head, another line of children’s skeletons rocked in the wind, their rib cages also filled with the red birds picking invisible scraps of meat off their bones. A gray mist of water and air and river poured over the skull, caressing the sides of the cave like a bridal veil. At the center of its forehead sat Peter’s yellow moon, a painted third eye that seemed to watch their approach with an unwavering stare. The moon had been crossed out with what appeared to be blood in the shape of two hooks. The sun shifted, and suddenly the gigantic skull was encased in a dim light as Shadow Mountain cast its heavy shroud over it. The yellow moon glowed in the mist, the empty eyes weeping a luminescent green.
“Quite a sight, isn’t it?” Peter whispered to the boys. “I can’t wait to see the inside.”
He rubbed his hands together greedily.
“Finally. The Vault. It’s ours. Boys, this is going to be great.”
Wendy thought quite the opposite as a panic rose within her. At the peak of the massive skull, a single guard stood watch, marching left and right, the tick-tock of a clock in his hand loud enough to hear from the silent trees, his eyes going from the sea to the land and back again. His lean muscled arms rested on the huge scabbard at his waist and the pistol in his other hand. At his feet sat a copper cannon that faced out to sea, its black string trailing between his legs.
“Idiot,” Peter mumbled. He turned back to his troops, trailing silently behind him in the trees.
“It begins.”
“Peter, no!” Wendy whispered as she reached out for him, hoping to try and convince him to reconsider this folly, but her arm fell into empty air.
“Peter?”
He was gone, and she watched in silent horror as he flew straight upward, out of the jungle, disappearing into the low clouds. She looked back at the pirate, who had turned toward the jungle, his hand twitching, his eyes narrowed.
She turned to Abbott. “But where . . .”
“Shut up, you stupid girl!” he hissed at her, and Wendy was reminded of why she thoroughly disliked him.
She turned her head back to the sky, and that’s when she saw Peter. Nothing had prepared her, and she felt a cold hand of regret tighten around her throat. He plummeted downward through the clouds, feet first, the soles of his feet flexed out in front of him, his body hurtling down toward the guard with a staggering speed, a bullet in the air. Peter let out a happy crow, and the pirate turned his face up, raising his pistol in the air, but it was all for naught. Wendy watched in horror as Peter landed hard on the man with one foot on each shoulder, crumpling his body into the ground as if he were made of paper. Loud snaps filled the air as the man’s bones broke one by one, his life snuffed out in seconds, his body contorting as it was ground down into the rock by Peter’s speed.
The pirate’s head snapped back hard against the roof of the cave, and then there was no sound, just the quiet cheering of the Lost Boys beside her. She covered her mouth with her hand as nausea rose up inside of her throat. Peter stood on the rock and waved happily toward them. Then, with a laugh, he kicked the pirate’s body off the top of the skull. It fell a few feet before crumpling lifelessly against a large rock. Then, leaving a smear of blood on the rock, it rolled into the foamy river, where it turned over and floated faceup. With a whoop, Peter leapt down off the skull and flew toward the jungle, hovering above his troops.
“Come on, boys, the way is clear! Let’s go!”
The Lost Boys grabbed their weapons and began flying down out of the trees, landing in a small patch of jungle that sat quietly at the edge of the Vault. Lost Boys swarmed down all around her, their swords and axes drawn as they quietly pulled themselves out of the jungle to float alongside Peter. Wendy willed herself to move and finally propelled herself down, landing gently on a tree branch. Following Kitoko’s lead, she stayed low, her eyes on the thick jungle below, her mind swimming with the image of the pirate dying, again and again, a relentless battering memory. She must have stopped moving for a moment, because suddenly Peter was before her, a smile on his handsome face.
“Wendy! Are you all right?”
Wendy shook her head. Peter touched her face.
“Poor girl. That must have been the first time you’ve seen death. It gets easier. And I promise, we’ll talk later. But for now, I need you to be brave.”
His words shook something loose inside of her. A flood of images whirled in her mind, jumbled a
nd confusing. She saw a building of stone, a pile of books, suspenders, and a wool hat. A hand pulling off a glove. A ladder. She shook her head. What was happening?
“Wendy!”
Peter was in front of her again, lovely Peter, his golden sword drawn.
“Are you here?”
Her eyes found his face. There was a small spot of blood on his ear, not his own.
“Yes, yes, Peter. I’m here.”
The warm and wet jungle pressed around her on all sides.
“Good.”
He cradled her cheeks, and Wendy remembered the way he had kissed her, his warm, wanting mouth.
“Now, Wendy Darling, let’s have ourselves a grand adventure!”
Peter flew up from her tree branch and flew down toward the skull, landing in the river with a splash. He walked toward the open mouth, the jagged teeth churning with angry white waves. Peter’s feet brushed the top of the river until he hovered in front of the open mouth, which looked as though it wanted to swallow him whole. For a moment, Wendy worried that it would. Peter spun in the air until his feet were facing the sky and he could look upside down through the wooden teeth, his body rocking ever so slightly. The Lost Boys and Wendy held their breath. Then Peter righted himself and curled his finger toward the jungle. Come. The platoon of Lost Boys emerged from the jungle, flying silently up to Peter. Wendy stayed in the trees, still battling the barrage of images in her head—blue eyes, a dog barking at a window, the pirate’s head exploding with a splat against the rocks.
Wendy felt an arm wrap around her elbow. It was Abbott.
“Come on, girl. You can’t stay out here alone. Keel cats.” Without warning, he flung her harmlessly into the air. She floated down to the ground and gave him a nasty stare.
“I think you are very rude.”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t care less. Stay out of the trees. Don’t you Darlings ever think? God knows what your idiot brother is doing right now.”
Wendy Darling Page 19
