The Piper's Price

by Audrey Greathouse

  They parked across the street from the Rotary Club’s Rose Garden, and everyone sprinted for the rendezvous point after fast but heartfelt goodbyes to their wonderful caretaker. Gwen went with the children, checking half a dozen times for any oncoming traffic while the reckless kids ran across without looking.

  Once they were safe across the street, Gwen finally looked back and saw Peter.

  He was still in the car with Tiger Lily.

  He didn’t join the others in the rose garden until Jam and Spurt appeared in the sky. Tiger Lily’s sedan putted away, its red taillights disappearing as it rounded a bend. Gwen wished she’d gotten a better goodbye. She remembered the feeling of falling asleep mushed up against Tiger Lily the night before… the woman had been unequivocally kind to her.

  Time was passing quickly though. She checked the clock on her phone. It just past eleven, and if Piper was prompt, then she would see her sister soon… not that there would be any time for a proper reunion.

  Jam and Spurt descended from the sky in a cloud of shining, flitting fairies, including Dillweed and Hawkbit. Left in Neverland, they had been charged with rounding up as many fairies as they could, a task second in importance only to fetching Piper’s pay and pipe. Their past day had been a long exercise in tromping through the woods and recruiting as many as they could to venture back to reality and help draw new children to their cause. While some fairies were still against the children’s crusade and the magic-hungering adult attention it brought to their home, plenty of others supported the children and knew their best chance of protecting themselves rested with the young ones who came to their island.

  The sky was dabbled with a rainbow of shimmering fairies. Gwen hadn’t seen so many since Bramble’s wake at the willow tree. How they came through and escaped radar was a testament to the combined power of their magic. They settled among the rose bushes, glowing in place of the flowers that had been pruned away for the winter months.

  Gwen kept her eyes glued to her phone while the others gave Jam and Spurt a briefing and tried to counteract Jam’s desire to re-plan everything to her liking.

  Right as the digits changed to eleven-eleven on her screen, the world went still.

  The slight breeze, much like the distant traffic noise, hadn’t been noticeable until it came to a jarring stop. The children fell silent. The fairies stopped buzzing. The world was without sound, without motion.

  The wind came to life like a gasp for breath. The force of it whizzing by felt as though it would knock her over. Gwen held tight to her clothes and grabbed her hair out of her face. She watched the whirlwind that formed and the black mass that twirled into existence in the center of the garden. It took form, and all at once, Piper was kneeling in front of them. He stood up, stretching to his full, unnatural stature.

  “Hello, Pan.” His bitter voice matched his eyes. Leroy, running in ecstatic circles around his feet, was a comical contrast.

  “Where is she?” Gwen screamed. The second she realized Rosemary wasn’t with him, she prepared to tackle the man. She didn’t know what she would do, but she would do it to the best of her ability to avenge Rosemary and find out where he’d hidden her.

  “She can be here shortly.” Piper’s apathy was infuriating. “You have my pipe and payment?”

  “I’ve got it,” Peter said, pulling the enchanted flute and priceless crown out of his knapsack and handing them over.

  Piper immediately placed the crown on his head and wore it with greedy pride. “What about the Never Tree root?”

  Peter pulled that out, too, and the dark root with its rune-like patterns shot a satisfied look into Piper’s eyes. Peter leapt back into the air and hovered out of reach, however, and Gwen told Piper, “Rosemary first.”

  Piper smiled, briefly. “Very well, mäuschen.” He grabbed his cape in his hand, pulling it from its strange fluctuations. Shaking it out and then spinning it, the dark cloth seemed to expand into a small hurricane. He jerked it away with a flourish, and a poofy-haired little girl appeared in the middle of the rose garden. The fairies floating around all trilled with joy to see her safely returned.

  “Rosemary!” Gwen cried, running to her as Piper slid away.

  She collapsed to her knees as she flung herself into an eye-level hug with Rosemary.

  Her little sister’s skin felt cold, and her eyes were glazed over with a persisting confusion.

  “Now give me the Never Tree.”

  Peter hesitated. “This isn’t going to help you hide, Piper.”

  “That’s no concern of yours. Hand it over,” Piper demanded.

  “It’s only going to weaken the island. Let me keep it and graft it back, Piper. Not even Neverland can protect you from the deal you made with the mermaids.” A discordant buzz surrounded them, as the fairies warned Piper against this as well.

  Piper wasn’t amused, and his dark voice intimated his dissatisfaction. “Do we have a deal or not?”

  Peter took a breath, and then nodded. He threw the root to Piper, who caught it in one hand and snapped his fingers with the other hand.

  Rosemary sprung back to life. Vivacious but confused, she hugged Gwen back and told her, “I had an adventure.”

  Gwen felt a happy tear run down the side of her face. “I want to hear all about it, Rose.”

  “Some other time,” Piper told her, brushing his cape back and standing with his colorfully patched waistcoat. “First the matter of tonight’s business. Where do we begin?”

  Peter handed him the map with their final route. “This is our course.”

  Piper’s straight teeth formed a crooked smile on his face. He adjusted his hat and tucked the map into the pocket of his loose trousers once he had a cursory understanding of their direction. “We’ll make this a night to remember. When we’re done, they’ll rue the day they ever tried to lock the Piper away.”

  The fairies drifted out of the rose bushes, clumping in orbit like multiple moons among each lost child. The kids themselves sprung into the air.

  Piper lifted his ancient wooden flute to his mouth, for the first time in eight years. “Let the concert begin.”

  Piper neither walked nor flew. He hovered, in the true sense of the term, less than an inch above the ground. Gliding as if on skates, he leaned to and fro as he pushed himself along at a speed to rival the children’s quick flight.

  He played his pipe whimsically, getting used to the instrument again after so long away from it. His fingers flew along the holes of the glossy, purple-painted pipe. It resembled a clarinet more than any other modern instrument, yet it was clearly its own musical species. It belonged to some family of woodwind that had died out long ago. Piper had a spectacular range, and the timbre of each note carried an earthy depth and a light airiness. This was not the tiny melody of her music box recalling a memory… this was what Gwen had heard when she was Rosemary’s age. This was the sound that enchanted her to her window and would have taken her out of it, too.

  The children hung in formation, flying forward in a massive ring as Peter flew ahead and kept them on course. Gwen hung close to Rosemary at the forward-most point of the circle. The familiar fairies orbited her—the new recruits clumped around the younger children, drawn to their youthful energy. They divided into small platoons of four or five fairies a piece.

  After reorienting himself to his instrument, Piper pulled it down from his lips and stopped. He asked Rosemary, “Do you remember the song?”

  “Yes!”

  “All of it?”

  “Yes!”

  “Alright. Are you ready then?”

  “Yes!” Rosemary cherished the word more with each utterance.

  “Peter,” Piper called, “I’ll be off fast after this. It’s a pleasure doing business with you.”

  “No hard feelings about last time?”

  “No,” he said. “You’ve made good on that. I don’t pretend to have faith in this scheme of yours, but good luck all the same.”

  “Thank you, Piper.”


  He smiled, and Gwen recognized the expression. It was that sad, amused smile that Dawn had given her. He wasn’t driven to help them… he was just caught up in his own nostalgia for a time when normal adults were powerless against the wonders of magic.

  He nodded to Rosemary, and then began the song from the start.

  There was only a measure before she began singing:

  Come ye children with light heart and fast tongue,

  Your silver is spoken in lands still young.

  Wake up now, we sing for your ears alone.

  Rise and come out, let our mission be known.

  Rally your souls and bang hard your heart-drums,

  Tonight is the night, before morning comes,

  To make the great break that will set you free.

  The stars have opened the gateway, come see!

  The tune was not entirely the same as Gwen remembered it, but this did not disturb her. The song he played had changed with age and purpose. They had refined their mission, and Rosemary’s voice lent a new energy, a new melody, to the cause.

  The children peeled away from their circular formation, fairies following like fighter jets as they zoomed up and down the street, along the left and right, circling houses one after another, looking for faces. Peter rocketed off, the first to spot a tiny face in a second-story window. Gwen followed after and circled the house, peering in other windows.

  The pudgy-faced little boy had a bowl cut as round as his glasses. He stared out, entranced by Peter. The flying boy signaled the little one to open his window, which he did, slowed only by his awe.

  “Do you want to come to Neverland?”

  The little boy’s little round mouth could hardly form the words he sputtered out. “Are you Peter Pan?”

  “I am,” Peter assured him. “And these are all my friends.” He gestured back to the street and all the flying creatures and children in it. “We’re looking for children who want to come help protect Neverland.”

  “From pirates?”

  “And worse!” Peter told him. The boy was spellbound as a fairy shot into his own bedroom and began examining him. “And this is Hawkbit.”

  The boy’s mouth fell open, and yet somehow managed to retain the full extent of its enthusiastic smile.

  All along the street, lost children prodded others awake… beckoning them to open their windows and meet the fairies accompanying them. Piper played on, depending on Rosemary to carry the melody and song when he took little pauses for breath. This was not the Pied Piper’s song of ancient fairy tale. The adults were bound by the laws of its magic not to hear what was transpiring in the streets, compelled not to worry about what might be happening outside. If they were awake and struck by any impulses, it would only be to close the blinds or go to bed. The children came, not coerced, but easily convinced when confronted by the happy offer the lost children were making.

  Look out of your windows, come listen here:

  We are your friends and you’ve nothing to fear.

  Our dreams fancy free and fairy feral

  Are in danger and horrible peril.

  Piper hovered fast along the street, and Rosemary kept pace in flight with him. Most of the lost children hurried with them. As soon as they got a child willing to come and covered in fairy dust, they zipped ahead to make up for lost time. Blink was in charge of staying behind with the new recruits, corralling all the children from the first few blocks and helping them all get comfortable flying together.

  Two bubbly fairies stayed behind with Blink, and their silver and pink lights guided the children to her while the rest of Peter’s ambitious brigade moved along their route through the city.

  We’re calling you in words you’ll understand,

  To help defend our beloved Neverland.

  No spoiled old soul will hear this sweet plea:

  We’re building an army, come and join me!

  When Rosemary got to the end of her song, she returned to the beginning. Between her singing and Piper’s instrumentation, it sounded loud enough to wake the whole neighborhood, but only children went to their windows.

  In the middle of suburbia, every other house had someone who wanted to come along with them.

  “Can I bring my brother?”

  “Of course!” Spurt laughed. “Bring all your brothers, all your sisters! You can bring your cousins!”

  The freckled girl ran off to another room. She was covered in so much joy and pixie dust that she lunged into flight midway there.

  Elsewhere, a timid boy in dinosaur pajamas told Sal, “I don’t think so. I’m not supposed to go out at night.”

  “That’s okay,” Sal told him, waving goodbye. “Sorry to wake you!”

  Newt, a more assertive recruiter, reminded kids that if they changed their mind they could get a flashlight and do Morse code with it out their window. “It doesn’t even matter if you know Morse code! Just try!”

  Children poured out into the street, gathering around Blink and her fairies, swarming and following the parade of lost children.

  Gwen caught snippets of their conversation. She was amazed at how many of the children were unfamiliar with each other even though they lived in the same neighborhood. They were mere blocks away from each other, but differences of grade level, extracurricular activities, and their pre-existing playdate schedules, had kept them apart. Hadn’t that been the reality of her childhood as well? Grown-ups had dictated her social circle. Knocking on neighbor kids’ doors or bicycling aimlessly up and down the street was a thing of another generation’s childhood. She’d forgotten this in Neverland, where the community and camaraderie with all creatures and other children had spoiled her.

  As more boys and girls joined the herd of new playmates, they realized they could wrangle others into this adventure.

  “Nick lives down this street!”

  “I want go see Allyson and Hannah! Can I go get them?”

  “Jessica’s going to pee herself when she sees me flying!”

  The new ones took to flight and magic like ducks to water and bread crumbs. Imploring fairies to come with them, they expanded the territory the lost children were planning on covering. Blink flew higher and higher, trying to keep track of the innumerable children their mission was fast compiling.

  In intervals, Peter’s brigade reformed, checking in to make sure everything was still going according to plan.

  Blink zipped down during the third of these rendezvous. “I see lights. Like policemen, only… different.”

  Peter’s face was full of stoic resolve and adventurous anticipation. “They’re coming then.”

  “We’re lucky they haven’t shown up yet,” Gwen reminded him.

  “There’s no way they were expecting this so soon, or able to prepare for it.” Peter counted on his fingers, but for no discernible reason. “They probably haven’t sent scouts because they want to launch a proper counter measure with all the forces they can assemble.”

  “Oh gosh, this is going to be the biggest adventure of my life,” Newt exclaimed, bobbing and jittering. He added, “The biggest so far, anyway.”

  They split up again, determined to visit as many more houses as time would allow.

  For some reason, none of the houses Gwen investigated yielded any children. What few children she had uncovered were not interested in taking off with her. She tried not to take it personally, and imagined it was all for the best. She didn’t even know how she felt about being an active participant in this mass abduction. She’d gone along with this—as always—for the sake of getting Rosemary back and sticking close to her.

  Out of the darkness of a bedroom, a boy approached his window and stared at Gwen. The whites of his eyes were vibrant against his dark skin, and they were transfixed on her. He didn’t make any motion, or even display surprise. He looked as though he thought he was still dreaming.

  Gwen flew over to his window and tried to convince him to open it so they could talk. He tried, but it was too heavy fo
r him. From the outside, Gwen got some traction against the glass and helped push it up. It only budged an inch. She floated down and spoke through the crack. It was wide enough for Foxglove to fit through, so she did. Sitting on the window ledge, she waved and greeted the young boy. He looked like Rosemary’s age—not older than nine, she thought. In her peripheral vision, Gwen saw lights in the distance, flashing like police cars, but oscillating between shades of purple and red she’d never seen before.

  “We’re going to Neverland,” she told him. “Do you want to come?”

  Foxglove cheered. The thin boy spread his chapped lips into a surprisingly small smile. “Yes,” he said simply, desperately.

  Gwen tried to get the window to lift higher. “How do you open the window?” she asked.

  “I can’t. Dad fixed it so it doesn’t open all the way.”

  “Can you get out downstairs?”

  His eyes, a happy hazel color, followed Foxglove as she danced and hummed over his head, showering him in granules of condensed, pure magic.He nodded, but he didn’t seem in control of the wistful motion. “I can go out the back door?”

  “I’ll race you there.” She laughed before they both took off.

  If she hadn’t been so focused on helping the boy out, she might have stopped to wonder what parent made certain their child couldn’t open their window wide enough to squeeze out of at night.

  Around the house, Gwen saw the sliding door into the garden and backyard. She waited, gazing into the living room and admiring the antique globe near the window. Ambient street light poured in from the expansive windows on the other side of the house. She could see a stained glass lamp on the coffee table and a sword mounted over the fireplace hearth.

  The boy came down the stairs, lighter on his feet, thanks to the fairy dust. Foxglove accompanied him. He came running to the door so fast she thought he would slam into it like an overeager dog. Standing in his Spiderman pajamas, he unlatched the door and slid it open. The house’s aroma of old books ambled out as Foxglove shot free and the boy put a cautious, naked foot out on the grass, still holding the door in one hand.