The Piper's Price

by Audrey Greathouse

  Gwen thought on this for a moment before announcing, “I think I have something for you.” She dashed out of Tiger Lily’s room and back to the couch where she had set down her backpack.

  She rooted through the pack, but as she did so, Tiger Lily came out and told her, “I have to make a phone call first before it gets any later.”

  Tiger Lily made no attempt to obscure her conversation, so Gwen didn’t feel guilty for listening and trying to figure out what was going on.

  With her phone, Tiger Lily paced around the kitchen waiting for someone to pick up. She continued to meander, nervously playing with a note-taking pencil in her hand. It looked like a good outlet for her apprehension—there wasn’t any sound of distress in her voice. “Hi, Irene… I’m good, how are you? … Glad to hear it. I’ll keep this short. I know you’re scheduled to host tomorrow, but I was wondering if we could swap. … I can call the others and let them know. … It’s a long story, I can tell you tomorrow, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it out to your place. … Well, bring the pie over and I’ll bake a loaf of huckleberry bread when we meet at your house. … Okay, great. No, no, I appreciate it. Okay. See you tomorrow. Say hi to Curt for me.”

  Tiger Lily hung up as the teakettle began to wail through its tiny steam hole. She set the phone aside and got the kettle off the burner. “Are you sure you don’t want a cup of tea? I’ve got fresh honey. My friend Chayton keeps bees.”

  Gwen reconsidered. “Actually, that would be nice.”

  Tiger Lily pulled out two ceramic mugs. “I’ve got ginseng root, blackberry leaf, rose hip, and chamomile.”

  “Chamomile, please.”

  Tiger Lily plopped tea bags into the cups and dumped the steaming water in to start them steeping. “Are you going to go try to get your music box tonight?”

  “No, not tonight. I’m pretty sure it’s already like three AM Neverland time. I’ll worry about that tomorrow, when I’m not so jetlagged.”

  “Sounds wise,” Tiger Lily told her. “It will probably be best to get a good night’s sleep and stay out of sight during the days. I don’t mean to coop you up in the house, but I don’t think it is a good idea for you to go out in the daylight… Also, as I’m sure you just heard, I’m having some friends over tomorrow.”

  “You think they can help us find the Piper?”

  “I know they can, I’m just not sure if they will. Whatever you do with your sleep schedule, you’ll want to be up before they get here at ten tomorrow morning.” Tiger Lily brought the mugs over and set them on the table to finish steeping. A pink bunny was glazed onto the cup she set in front of her.

  “I’ll set an alarm on my phone.” Gwen had found what she was looking for in her backpack and brought the cloth-wrapped bundle to the table.

  “What’s that?” Tiger Lily’s eyes locked on the familiar geometric patterns of the beautiful weaving.

  “I think I’m supposed to give it to you.”

  She handed over the bundle, and Tiger Lily took it, her hands betraying more excitement than her face did. As she unfolded the weaving and found the cornhusk doll inside, her eyes began to smile even before her mouth did. “Oh, little Singing Robin,” she sighed. “Oh…”

  She seemed unable to articulate a response beyond that. Gwen could tell she had just done a very good thing by reuniting a girl with her doll. “It’s from Dark Sun.”

  Tiger Lily brushed the crinkled folds of Singing Robin’s dress and smiled. “You are a good girl, Gwen. Any friend of Peter’s is a friend of mine, but anyone my tribe trusts is someone I trust. I’m glad you’re here, and I hope I’ll be able to help you.”

  As Tiger Lily picked up her tea and started drinking, Gwen stirred some honey into hers. “That might be hard… I’m rarely able to help myself. I can’t imagine it will be easy for anyone else.”

  “How did you come to find yourself here?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You point to your little sister as your reason for being in Neverland, so why have you come here without her?”

  “I’m not sure,” she answered, taking a first sip of her tea as it continued to steep in a rich, floral flavor. “Peter asked me to. He needed me.”

  “You’re growing quite fond of him, aren’t you?” Tiger Lily leaned back in her chair. Gwen didn’t know how to feel about this friendly interrogation.

  “It’s hard not to share his excitement,” Gwen answered. “He makes me feel good about everything, including myself. He seems to have more faith in me than I do sometimes. I feel like I don’t really know who he is though… all I know is that when I’m with him, it’s like I’m looking at the whole world with rose-tinted glasses.” She swished her tea around, a dark ocean inside of a small mug. “What do you think of Peter? You know him better than I do.”

  Tiger Lily gave a slight smile. “No, I don’t. I’ve just known him longer and grown more attached. That’s the thing about Peter… what you see is what you get. There’s no surface to break beyond. He’s got a dirt-covered and ivy-sprouting heart. He isn’t hollow or shallow the way so many people are… he’s just the same all the way down to his soul.”

  So full of layers, emotions, and contradictions, Gwen couldn’t imagine someone having such a solid character. “I keep thinking there must be something going on inside his head I can’t see. I don’t understand why I feel so magical just being around him.”

  Tiger Lily propped Singing Robin up against the teakettle and admired the doll as she recalled Peter’s nature with a sad fondness. “That’s because when you’re with Peter and you feel like you have the whole world inside of you… it’s because when he’s with you, you are the whole world to him.”

  After their tea, Tiger Lily showed Gwen the spare bedroom. It was tidy and neat, with two twin beds and a baffling amount of toys and books for young readers. “Do you have guests often?” Gwen asked.

  “Not often, but kids from around the reservation come around, especially in the summer when I keep my front door open in the day. Sometimes on the weekend, they show up too, and everyone around here knows they can leave their kids with me if they need babysitting. Sometimes though… kids spend the night here. Some of these kids… their houses can get pretty loud and rowdy. I like them to know they can always come here. I should warn you, if any kids show up at night, you’ll get demoted to the couch.”

  “Of course,” Gwen replied, looking at a mobile hanging in the corner of the room. Tiny jungle animals were spinning in slow motion.

  “Do you have pajamas?” Tiger Lily asked. Gwen pulled her polka-dotted pajama bottoms out of her bag. “Very nice. If you need anything else, feel free to poke around or come wake me up.”

  Gwen was eager to call it an early night. As soon as Tiger Lily left, she got out of her felt skirt and paisley blouse in order to pull on her pajamas. She nuzzled into the bed nearest the window, but it was cold in her camisole. Almost tired enough to fall asleep anyway, she got up and grabbed Jay’s sweatshirt. She wrapped herself in the oversized hoodie and curled back under the covers, but now the sweatshirt smelled like Peter.

  She fell into sleep, wading into it, and then dropping off into the deep. Exhausted by everything that had happened since she woke up that morning, Gwen let sleep claim her without a fight.

  While she slept, strange and unfamiliar dreams moved through her mind. She felt aware she was asleep, yet still caught in a dream she had no control over. She tossed and turned, always surrounded by sleep and the boyish smell of clover and spice that Peter had left on the sweatshirt. When Gwen’s stressful sleep finally stirred her back awake, she checked the cracked screen of her phone. The time was little past one in the morning.

  It was so novel to have a functioning cell phone again. She loved that the battery did not drain while she was in Neverland. As soon as she came back to the real world, her phone behaved as if she’d never been away. There were several texts and chat messages waiting for her, but they were all from the first few weeks of he
r disappearance. Her inbox was overflowing with emails from colleges, peers, and websites that were aware she had stopped visiting them. She didn’t want to read through any of it.

  She felt surprisingly awake considering the time. She couldn’t remember exactly when she’d gone to sleep, but it had been little past eight in the evening. Five hours later, she was feeling ready for an adventure. It was probably morning somewhere in Neverland. Peter, Rosemary, and the others would be stirring now, too. Gwen was with them in spirit and consciousness, somehow unwilling to latch onto the reality that she was stationed far away from their haven.

  It was depressing to wake up alone in a spare bedroom on an Indian reservation so far—and yet so close—from her home. Foxglove’s purple glow was dim with sleep as she cuddled into the pincushion pillow Tiger Lily had provided for her. The wind-chime whistling snores of the fairy signified a heavy sleep. Glancing back at her phone, Gwen realized how much power she had in her hand.

  She opened her texting app and began drafting a message. She only had a hundred and sixty characters to work with, and Gwen knew what she wanted to communicate wouldn’t take nearly that many. Still, she wrote and rewrote with her thumbs, feeling electrified with every tiny buzz of haptic feedback her phone gave. Her rising heart rate should have warned her against sending the text, but it only egged her on:

  Can you keep a secret?

  It took a minute, but Jay texted back:

  GWEN? Holy shit!

  Where are you!?

  Gwen didn’t respond as these messages came in—she just waited. After a moment, the text she was waiting for came through:

  Yes.

  She hadn’t thought this far ahead. Excited beyond measure, she texted, I still have your sweatshirt.

  His response was instantaneous: I’ve got your sweater too.

  Her fingers tripped over the screen as she tried to type the simple phrase, We should trade.

  Do I get to know where you are? he asked.

  It was Friday night according to her phone—Gwen wouldn’t have known otherwise—so she dared to ask, Can you meet me out at Lake Agana?

  In a moment, she got a response: Yeah, in like forty minutes.

  Ample time to get from Tiger Lily’s house back to where she had landed earlier that day. She could meet with Jay, and then get back home in time to finish an eight-hour night of sleep before Tiger Lily’s company arrived in the morning. As she threw on her clothes, her phone buzzed again. Are you doing OK?

  She smiled, her face illuminated by the glow of her phone screen as she absorbed his concern. Definitely, she typed back. Can’t wait to see you.

  She felt silly getting ready to go see Jay in these outdated clothes, maybe even sillier than she had when she flew to reality in them. The felt skirt and paisley blouse didn’t look like anything someone her age would wear. Then again, hadn’t Jay praised her for being so strange and unbelievable when she showed up in her sundress to his house party? For as well as he did in the shallow perceptions of their peers, he seemed to give little weight to appearances. Gwen tried to remind herself that Jay had kissed her mere days after turning down Jenny Malloy. This man had the girl’s swim team captain throwing her blonde, manicured self at him and he was still more interested in her.

  She tried to use that to force perspective on the situation—what could go wrong if he actually liked her for who she was? Still, Gwen’s nerves wanted to take her through a thorough examination of all the ways in which she could come off as an utter idiot.

  She snuck out of her room with Jay’s sweatshirt, being careful not to disturb Foxglove, who was sound asleep on her pincushion bed. Tiger Lily’s door was closed and her lights were off, so Gwen had no worries as she laced up her shoes and grabbed her satchel. She left the front door unlocked behind her as she stole away, making sure she would be able to creep back in before the morning light started inching over the horizon.

  She walked back the way she came. At least, she appeared to. No bystander who might have seen her would have realized that Gwen was flying just barely above the ground. She swung her legs to imitate her own gait, but avoided crunching on gravel and waking any of the dogs in the neighborhood. Once she made it to the forest, she took more liberties with her flight.

  Aside from a few camping trips back when she was still in scouts, Gwen had never spent much time in the wilderness after dark. Neverland didn’t count. She knew there were no foxes, coyotes, spiders, or rats creeping the jungles of Neverland and threatening to surprise her. Gwen wasn’t so sure about the forest surrounding Lake Agana. She hovered four feet off the ground, which she imagined was high enough to avoid any animals on the ground, but not so high that she would risk running into bats and owls. She comforted herself thinking the animals of this forest would be inclined to avoid anything as big as her that could fly.

  She knew she could walk two miles in forty minutes, so she was confident that even with the deterrent of the dark, she would still be able to make it flying. Retracing the steps she and Peter had taken was impossible, but she had her cell phone and its GPS at her disposal. She tried to set up navigation to plot a course for Lake Agana State Park, but “flying” wasn’t a transportation option. It was too dark to find the walking trails, so she settled for watching her little blue GPS dot move across the screen’s map as she headed toward the lake.

  Once she was confident of her direction, she glided through the trees like a bird of prey on holiday. She was more excited than she’d been in months, knowing she zoomed toward Jay. She was sneaking out to see a boy! Gwendolyn Hoffman, of no reputation at Polk High School, was flying through the forest on her way to meet with an attractive senior boy. It didn’t register in her giddy mind that the flying should have been what felt impossible and exciting. She managed to reach the lake without running into any major tree branches, and then flew around the edge of the elongated lake much faster without the trees to dodge. She wasn’t brave enough to cut straight across—should her flight give out, falling into the bitter cold of the lake water would be disastrous.

  As she approached the grassy bank of the eastern shore, she fell onto her feet and jogged the rest of the way toward the maple tree where she was almost certain a young man leaned against the trunk. She felt fearless. If it wasn’t Jay, she knew she could fly away.

  She passed a picnic bench and watched as part of the maple’s shadow peeled away. Jay walked over, her cardigan sweater in his hand.

  “Hey,” he called.

  Gwen’s heart stopped, and it almost stopped her feet with it. “Hey, Jay.”

  He held out his arms—a noncommittal invitation for a hug. She was happy to walk into his arms. First and foremost, they were friends, weren’t they?

  “How have you been?” he asked, his voice full of curious excitement. “What’s happened to you?”

  “I’ve been great,” she gushed. “How are you? What happened at the party? I’m so sorry I bailed on you.”

  She pulled out of his arms a little, just to see his face, but Jay took it as a signal that the hug was over. He let go of her and was empathic as he told her, “No, don’t think twice about it. I’m glad you got out. That was some scary shit.” He shook his head, recalling the traumatic night.

  “What happened after I left? What did the cops do?”

  “You’re not going to believe this,” Jay explained, “but they left.”

  “They just left?”

  “They didn’t even confiscate the alcohol! They didn’t ask for any names or make any threats… except for when you vanished. They wanted to know who you were.”

  This was discouraging news. “Oh.”

  “We didn’t tell them,” Jay insisted, wanting to make sure she knew he hadn’t ratted her out. “When they asked me where you went, I told them you must have gone out on the roof and down to the porch to get away. I said I didn’t know who you were, that you had said your name was Sarah, and I thought you were a friend of Troy’s. He had no clue who you were, but then
everybody got the drift and pretended to realize you were some weirdo who had just crashed our party.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “They told us to knock it off and sent everyone on their way home, but that was it. Just a warning. When the officer who found us first came back down, they grilled us really hard about some missing kid. I guess they had bigger fish to fry. The other one went up and searched, but neither of them could find anything. They didn’t care about anything else.”

  Gwen wandered closer to the tree and sat down against it. “That actually makes a lot of sense,” she told him. Remembering how much trouble Jay, Claire, and everyone could have gotten into, she shuddered and apologized. “I’m so sorry.”

  Jay looked confused, and Gwen regretted even broaching this conversation.

  “What do you mean? Do you know who they were looking for?”

  She grimaced and admitted, “I think they were looking for me; they just didn’t expect me to be so old.”

  His eyes narrowed, and his tone became cautious and serious. He hunched down beside her. “Are you in trouble, Gwen?”

  “I didn’t do anything wrong,” she burst out. “I just might have aided in the abduction of my little sister… or run away with her, depending on how much autonomous decision making you attribute to children.”

  “You have a sister?” Jay sank down, sitting beside her under the maple tree.

  “Yeah. Rosemary is eight. She’s adorable. So when my decision was to let her run away or go with her, I went with her.”

  “So you’ve just been on the lam with a fourth grader all this time?” He picked up her arm and examined it. Gwen almost shuddered to feel his fingers on her skin. “It looks like that bad burn you had healed up pretty well. I had no idea what happened to you, but I didn’t think you were just sick. Apparently, your parents have been telling people you have mono.” He looked amused. “I’ll give you credit—you’ve got guts to bail on school.”

  Gwen hadn’t stopped to look at it in that light. “It just kind of happened. I mean, nothing’s more important than school, and I know I’m supposed to be sending out college apps next year, but…”