The Piper's Price

by Audrey Greathouse

  Peter and she had fled the party with urgency. Did Jay wonder what had happened to her? Was he happy she got away or angry she left him behind with the cops? Her musings were fruitless things. She couldn’t even decipher her own emotional impulses… let alone make sense of someone else’s.

  No one remarked on the sweatshirt. It was absurdly big on her, but all the children wore silly clothes and thought nothing of it. She was certain that none of them understood it was a boy’s coat or the fluttery connotations that came with wearing it. She didn’t know what Peter thought of it. He never remarked on it, but brief anxieties struck her whenever she considered that he might comprehend the nature of her attachment to that other world.

  Fireflies blinked by, gravitating toward Gwen as if hoping to illuminate her confused mind for her. Rosemary came running to her.

  “Gwen, are you going to tell us a story tonight?”

  The other children’s ears pricked up. She didn’t know why anyone ever asked for a story. It was only a matter of minutes before the rest of the children flocked over and began outright demanding a tale.

  “Oh yes! Please, Gwenny?”

  “We haven’t had one in so long!”

  “The fairies want one too!”

  They crept forward like inchworms, scooting their bottoms across the grass and closing in on Gwen. Hollyhock and Foxglove drifted over, but theirs was only an idle interest. Peter pushed his bowl aside, but lay down where he was by the fire. He was not out of earshot, but it was unclear whether he was listening.

  “Make it romantic,” Jam sighed.

  “No, make it scary,” Newt demanded.

  “Yeah!” Spurt agreed, before qualifying, “but just a little scary, okay?”

  “No! Stop it! I want it romantic,” Jam insisted.

  Blink broke her pensive quiet to suggest, “Maybe you could do a scary romantic story?”

  Gwen sorted through the haphazard collection of story ideas and plot points that had been rattling in her head, and began to draw a suitable story from these varied elements. “Alright. This is a story about two people who loved each other very much… and the horrible thing that happened to them.” Gwen folded her legs into lotus pose and ignored Foxglove and Hollyhock as they began eating the lilacs out of her bowl like popcorn at the movies.

  “Once upon a time, there was a boy and a girl who were very much in love, and had been for a number of years. One day they decided to have a picnic at the beach where they first met. It was a long drive through the mountainous country, so they left early and walked along the beach until it was time to have their picnic dinner with the sunset. Afterward, they watched the full moon rise over the mountains in the east. They had never been at the beach for a full moon before though, so they did not know what that meant. As the tide went out and the night got cold and dark, they decided it was time to go home. It was easy for them to find their way back to the car by the bright light of the full moon, but as they began driving the long way home, the sky began to cloud over.

  “Despite the glowing moon, black clouds rolled over the sky and covered it so thoroughly not a single star could peep through. All they could see was the short stretch of road ahead of the car’s headlights. Tired and unable to see well, the boy took a wrong turn down an old dirt road and became lost in the dark countryside. He kept going, looking for a place to turn around, but the narrow road just kept going into the black woods, farther and farther…”

  She watched Spurt’s anxious eyes start to dart around. For safety’s sake, he climbed into Bard’s lap. She held him protectively in her arms, but kept her own wide eyes on Gwen.

  “At last, the boy pulled off and got turned around, but to make up for the time he had lost, he began driving faster to get back to the main highway. It was very late, and the tired girl was almost falling asleep when suddenly—”

  Rosemary preemptively gasped, and the fairies momentarily forgot to chew their lilacs.

  “A dark creature swooped by, rushing in front of the car… or at least trying to. As the boy saw it, he slammed on the brakes in an attempt to avoid it. It happened too quickly though, and the dark form thudded against the hood of the car as the vehicle struck it.

  “The girl screamed and clutched at her heart. ‘It must have been a bird,’ her love said, but she didn’t believe it. What they had hit was much bigger than a bird, and in the moment of impact, it had looked almost human.

  “‘But it flew in front of the car, didn’t it?’ he asked, and she could not argue. There was no denying that it had appeared to be a giant, black raven of some kind.”

  Jam made a fussy face—unamused but not scared of the eerie bits in the story.

  “He told her to stay in the car, but she was too afraid to let him look at the creature on his own, for fear it was still alive and dangerous. When they stepped out of the car, however, they found an old woman wrapped in a black cloak, collapsed on the ground. The boy reached out and touched her shoulder, fearing that the collision might have killed the ancient woman. Her wart-covered face and crooked nose wrinkled in pain at his touch, and she began to moan. ‘Oh you horrible children,’ she cried, even though the boy and girl were very nearly grown up. ‘You’ve killed me, and I’ll curse you for it.’”

  Newt and Sal were giddy with this twist. They could think of nothing more terrifying than a witch’s dying curse, and they delighted in it.

  “She began muttering a frightening spell, and the couple began to feel horribly wrong, as if their bodies were no longer their own. The girl looked to her love and saw that he was turning an awful, ghostly white and shrinking away to almost nothing. However, before the old witch could finish her curse, she died on the ground. She shrank away into her cloak, and then the cloak turned into a dozen ravens that all flew off into the night.”

  “So they were okay after all?” Spurt hesitantly asked.

  “That’s what the girl thought as her body started to feel her own again, and she realized that the nightmarish encounter was over. But when she looked over to her love…”

  “Oh no,” Bard muttered, burying her face in Spurt’s dark, rumpled hair.

  “…she saw that in his place, there was only a little white dove. The boy was gone. This so terrified her, she began to scream, which in turn frightened the dove away. On white wings, it flew off, disappearing into the forest beneath the clouded night sky. Overwhelmed and alone, the poor girl fainted.

  “In the morning, a farmer from the other side of the woods came along the road and saw the stalled car on his way to the highway. When he saw the girl lying in front of it, he immediately got out to help her. Afraid she was dead, he was glad that she woke up as soon as he started shaking her. She couldn’t remember what had happened to her—at least, that’s what she told him. She couldn’t bear to mention the bizarre and horrible reality that a dying witch had turned her love into a dove. Once she had assured the farmer she was all right—which she wasn’t, but she had to pretend—he helped her back into her car and watched as she drove back to the city that morning.

  “When she got back to her home, she crawled into bed and cried. For days and days, she stayed in bed, heartsick for her lost love and distraught that she would never see him again.”

  “This isn’t romantic—it’s just sad,” Jam pouted.

  “Until,” Gwen announced, instantly hushing her, “one day, she heard a tapping at her window. A strange rapping noise, as if someone was gently knocking against the glass pane. She drew the curtains, and found a little white dove sitting on her window ledge, peering at her with curious eyes. Excited with an impossible hope, she flung open the window. The dove flew in and began tweeting a cheerful tune. She watched it, and then held out her hands for the bird to land in. As she held him she asked, ‘Is it really you?’ and he tweeted so happily, she knew that it must be. Her happiness gave way to grief as she confirmed her beloved was now trapped in the body of a bird. Miserable, she declared, ‘Oh, I wish that awful witch had turned me into a bir
d, not you!’

  “As the words left her lips, she began to feel a tremendous change in herself. She was shrinking down, closer to the ground, and the dove began to feel immeasurably heavy in her hands. She let go of him, but he could only flutter his wings for a moment in the air before he lost them, growing back into her beloved boy at the same time that she morphed into a white dove herself.

  “The boy immediately panicked. ‘Why would you ever say such a thing? I flew for days in the woods to find my way back home because I wanted to see you safe. I would spend my whole life a bird if you could be fine,’ but as he spoke the words, the transformation began again, so that once more, he was a tiny dove and she was a human girl. This was how they discovered the strange result of the witch’s half-cast curse. The cruel witch had died before she could turn them both into birds, so now they existed in a middle ground in which one of them would always be a bird.

  “They were happy that neither was hurt and they could both be human at least sometimes. The girl went out, bought a beautiful birdcage, and filled it with all the things that she would find most comfortable and enjoyable while in avian form, and from then on, they lived together and took turns being a bird. At night, she would sleep in her bed with the birdsong of her love like a lullaby, and in the morning, she’d wish herself the bird. Her boy would then go out and work, eat lunch, and go about the town as a human until he came home and became a bird again in the evening for her.

  “A bird is not a person who can hold you though, and the girl began to feel very alone even though she had the boy she loved still beside her. They would never be able to hold hands, to have a conversation, or go on a date together again. Although they still loved each other, she feared that this would ruin either of their chances at a full life. One day, while the boy was home and the girl was a bird, a pretty neighbor lady came over to borrow a cup of sugar.

  “Why?” Next asked.

  “She was baking a cake, and so the boy let her in and took her to the kitchen for sugar. She thanked him and invited him over for a slice of cake when she finished baking. She looked around at the big home and asked him if he lived alone. He told her he wasn’t alone, as he had his dove. She thought it must get very lonely living with just a bird for company.

  “At this remark, his beloved began chirping furiously and squawking in distress. It was very obvious that the pretty neighbor lady liked the boy. The girl shook her cage until it rattled open, and then she flew straight out. The boy tried to calm her and tell her that it wasn’t true—he was very happy with her even if she was a bird—but before he could catch her, she went to the window and flew away. His love did not return.

  “He waited days and nights, but the girl never flew back. First, her body had vanished in the form of a bird, and now, she had vanished all together. Days passed, months passed… in time, years passed. Out of necessity, the boy moved on. He met another girl who he eventually married. They had three darling children who grew up, went to school, and then got married and had children of their own.

  “One day, when the boy was an old man made of wrinkles and grey hair, he sat down by his window to read. His children were grown and his wife had passed away. He lived all alone and led a quiet life. While he was reading though, he heard a tapping at his window. When he looked, he saw a beautiful white dove pecking at the glass. Amazed and astounded, he hobbled over to the window and opened it. The bird flew in and right into his hands. His wrinkles folded up as he smiled. ‘You’ve come back!’ he said. It had been sixty years since he last saw his beloved, and he had been sure the bird had died long ago. He whispered, ‘I wish I was the bird,’ and watched from his shrinking body as the dove blossomed back into his beautiful young love. She had not aged a day in all her time as a magic dove, and as soon as the old man had feathers and wings again, he felt light and young himself.

  “He was wonderfully happy that now he could leave and let his first love live out a full and rich life of her own. He would fly away, not an old man but a bird capable of soaring anywhere in the world.

  “But before he could fly away, the girl caught him in her hands. He struggled to free himself, but he could not lift his tiny wings out of her grip. As she held him, she began to speak in some strange and ominous language that he had only heard once before, when the witch had first cursed them. The girl had spent sixty long years traveling the world as a bird and learning the mysteries of magic and the language of spells from far corners of the globe. She could not undo the witch’s black magic, but as she spoke, she finished the curse and turned herself into a bird as well.

  “A neighbor heard the boy’s frantic chirping and came knocking to see what was the matter, but when she arrived, all she found were two beautiful white doves that took off flying out the window to spend their lives together at last.”

  Jam aww’ed with wistful satisfaction, and Spurt seemed to have completely forgiven the scarier elements of the story in light of its happy ending. “So they’re just birds now?” Newt complained.

  Bard answered him, “Yes—it’s very nice.”

  “I wouldn’t want to be a bird,” Newt grumbled.

  Sal thought briefly on this. “I’d be a bird if you were a bird.”

  Newt mumbled, incomprehensible and disgruntled, before admitting. “Well, yeah, I guess if you were a bird.”

  The fairies buzzed around, creating a whirling and disorienting spasm of purple and gold between them.

  Gwen saw Peter looking over at her, still lying on the grass near the fire. He leapt to his feet and wandered over to her. She waited for him to pass judgment on the story. She knew it was more important to make all the other children happy, that all their joy counted for something, but she could never shake her desire for Peter’s approval. The children always loved her stories, but Peter was much more of a connoisseur.

  The only one standing, he towered over Gwen and cast a tall shadow over her as the fire danced behind him. “That was a good last story,” he told her.

  “Whadya mean ‘last story?’” Spurt objected.

  Peter looked at him, but then back to Gwen. His eyes on hers, he announced, “She’s leaving tomorrow.”

  Once the fire was out and the children started flooding back down into the underground home through their various tree trunk passageways, Gwen grabbed Peter by the shoulder and turned him to face her before he could take off flying. The glowing embers of the fire cast little light, but between the fireflies and fairies, she had enough light to see his face… not that she could make sense of it.

  The children had devolved into a frenzy of complaints, questions, and demands for more warm milk. When Peter announced that Gwen was leaving the next day, she hadn’t had a chance to get a word in edgewise. She was not going to let the announcement go undiscussed. “Why am I leaving tomorrow?”

  He didn’t seem to think it merited discussing. “Because you need to find Piper.”

  “Tomorrow?” She had anticipated something of this nature would follow once she admitted to having heard the Piper’s song, but she never thought it would incite a trip to reality so soon! Granted, she’d been in Neverland twice as long as she had following her first arrival, but leaving this time carried different connotations. Last time, she’d flown to reality with the intention never to return. Coming back had been a solemn commitment to standing by Peter’s side. Or at least, she thought that was what it had signified. Now he wanted her to leave?

  Peter paused in consideration. “You can wait until the day after. You probably should, on account of the supplies you’ll need to collect first.”

  A day. He would delay her departure a day. “I don’t want to have to fly to reality again with you!”

  “Oh, you won’t.” Peter sounded reassuring, and he seemed not to understand that he was utterly destroying her when he added, “I’m not going with you.”

  “I have to go alone?” Was she even capable of making the flight? She could hardly stabilize herself well enough to make trips around the
island. Gwen was struck by a vision of herself falling out of the sky and drowning in an ocean that may or may not even exist between Neverland and home.

  “Hollyhock will go with you,” Peter offered. The golden fairy made a violent objection to this idea, tweaking Peter’s nose. “Foxglove will go with you,” he said, as if the previous remark hadn’t even been uttered.

  Foxglove nodded, more with her body than her tiny head, trying to encourage Gwen toward this civic duty that was being thrust upon her.

  “How long will I have to stay in reality?”

  “Until you find Piper.”

  Having spent more than a month with him and the children now, Gwen couldn’t imagine what it would be like to spend entire days back in a world that penalized her every thought and action for the inbetweeness of her age. She couldn’t bear the idea that she would be abandoning Rosemary either. She tried to pull Peter’s plan apart in order to escape a role in it. “Where will I stay? I can’t go home. Do you realize how much trouble I’d be in?”

  “You only have to go home to get your music box.”

  “I hate to break it to you, but I don’t think my parents will let me just run upstairs to get something out of my room when I’ve been gone for a month and effectively dropped out of school.”

  “School never did anything good for anyone worth their snowsalt.” The fairies floated into his hands, and he began casually half-juggling them as they flew back and forth.

  “You’re missing the point. I can’t go home. Not go home and come back, that’s for sure.”

  “Don’t go home, sneak home. At night.” Peter gave all his instructions as if they were the easiest tasks. It galled Gwen. He couldn’t wrap his mind around anyone else’s challenges.

  “I didn’t exactly bring my house key with me when I flew to Neverland.”

  It was apparent that Peter was painfully bored of explaining what he had already figured out in his own mind. “Go through the window.”