A new resolve burned within my chest and I allowed myself to build the fantasy that kept me strong. I thought of my mother, sitting by the fire clutching her old scarf. She rocked slowly back and forth with each sob. I watched her face light up with joy as William and I burst through the door. She held me close and called to Emily, who came in from the dining hall and ran into my arms. It was all perfect. The way it was meant to be.
A sudden rustling to my right startled me. Nimble feet pattered on the soft dirt. The pace was quick and playful. My first guess was logical but entirely wrong.
“William?” I called. “What in blazes are you doing?” My error must have been irresistibly funny, because it was followed by a familiar and infuriating giggle. It was unmistakable.
“Peter!” I cried. “Pan! Show yourself!” I challenged. The rustling stopped. Hidden behind the brush, two eyes lit up in the gathering darkness. They were not as I remembered them from the night we met.
A beast lunged for me just as I began backing away. Its jaws snapped inches from my face. I tumbled to the ground, but recovered my footing quickly and drew my knife. My heart raced as I finally saw the full measure of the creature.
This crocodile covered the distance of the brush in two steps. Its length and breadth were easily twice that of the one William and I killed. Something ancient and angry stared back at me from behind her black, dead eyes. We could never dig a ditch big enough.
We stared at each other for minutes. Her jaws opened and closed slightly as if she would speak at any moment. Part of me wished that she would. Talking crocodiles would fit quite nicely in this twisted world of fantasy and horror. I moved to the right and she moved to match. I moved to the left, she moved and advanced. There was nothing to do but stand still and wait for her to come get me.
With a howl, William swung in from my right, wielding a tall pointed branch. He did his best to get in front of me and draw the crocodile’s attention but it didn't work.
“What's got it so mad?” he asked.
“She’s really got it out for me, doesn’t she?” I said. Of the three ways I could get out of this alive, only one involved not sacrificing William to the crocodile. It did, however, involve the sacrifice of my only pistol shot. I drew my pistol from my belt and aimed it at the croc’s head.
“How do you know this one is the female?” William asked.
“We ate her eggs and killed her mate,” I smirked. “Only a mother would be so angry.” There was no time to plan and no room to maneuver. It was unlikely that this shot would kill the animal. At most, it would scare her away or startle her enough for us to make good our escape.
As I drew the hammer back, the beast paused. She looked to the sky and breathed in deeply. She hissed at us again and disappeared into the thick underbrush. William and I looked to the darkened clouds and felt the first drops of rain.
“What happened?” William asked.
“She’s hiding from the storm,” I told him. “The croc could have killed us just now, but there’d be no joy in it for her. The coming storm would have hastened the taste of her revenge.” She didn't need to speak for me to understand her perfectly. “Get into the cave. We’re not safe here.”
Chapter Sixteen
Wind and water pounded the rock outside as William and I sat for hours and watched the fire make shadows dance against the rocky wall. We didn’t talk. We didn’t move. We just watched.
The quiet gave me time to think again of how oddly fortunate our lives were on the island. If it were not for the fresh water spring and the barrels of food that washed ashore, we would never have survived this long. Now, the cave provided the ideal shelter from the storm.
My trance was broken when the fire began to die into smoldering embers.
“We need to keep it burning,” I told him. William snapped out of a waking sleep and gathered kindling.
“Why?” he asked. “It isn’t cold here, just wet.” I grabbed the dry twigs and snapped them before setting them onto the pile.
“The fire isn’t for us,” I said. The sticks caught and light filled the cave more brightly than before. I pointed into the darkness outside, “It’s for her.”
“The croc? Where?” William stared for several seconds more. “I don’t see anything except for a fallen tree trunk at the cave opening.” At that moment, the tree trunk blinked and snorted. Her eyes flashed a cold reflection of the flames.
“My god,” William gasped. “How long has she been there?”
“About two hours,” I told him as I added another dry log to the pile.
“What are we going to do?” he asked me without taking his eyes off of the beast. He stared for another few moments before speaking again. “I mean, you can’t be thinking that we can kill her.”
“Right now, we wait her out,” I told him. “She’s looking for shelter. The fire is the only thing that is keeping her away and that’s your job.” He turned to me and looked down.
“Good, because you’re doing it all wrong again,” he said as the color returned to his face. He knelt by the fire and made two quick adjustments. “You need to let air in or you’ll smother the flame.” In seconds, the blaze was hot and bright.
“At least we know the fire is in good hands,” I said with a smirk. He smiled as he hopped over the thin stream of water to look for more wood to burn.
“I don’t blame her for wanting this cave back,” William said with a grin. “It’s warm. It’s dry. There is even a way to drain rain water out from the storm.” I didn’t think much of the comment at first, but the longer I let it sit in my mind, the more a question burned to the surface.
“If that is true,” I thought aloud, “then why is there always a stream even when it isn’t raining?” The question puzzled William and sparked even greater curiosity in me. The fresh water that made up the spring outside came from within the cave. There wasn’t any more water flowing now than usual. Was this water really from the storm or from another source entirely? I realized that, in the time since we killed the male croc, I never thought to venture further into the cave.
“I’m exploring,” I told William. “Stay here and keep the fire lit. We don’t want her back in here.” I made a small torch and followed the water upstream.
Although the island itself was scarcely a mile in length, I must have covered half of that distance in the brief moments of my exploration. By all rational sense, I should have been outside behind the cliff when I first stopped to relight the torch. The cave had been black as pitch since I first left William to guard the entrance. As the fire died in my hands, a faint glow at the far end of the cave got steadily brighter.
The madness of this island was dizzying. There was no way that there could be a second entrance to the cave. There was no such opening outside.
As I approached, I found a small pond, no more than twenty paces in diameter. The rock wall shot straight down, closing it off at the back. The water trickled past my feet toward the mouth of the cave. The water had to be coming from a natural wellspring underneath.
With the mystery solved, I turned to make my way back to tell William. But as my fingers traced the wall, I caught a carving in the rock. Like the tree outside, the words were those of a Spaniard: País de Nunca Lamás. I didn’t know what it meant, but I studied enough Latin to know that País was a form of the word land. Nunca looked like some form of no or not.
My mind rolled the words over again and again. Land No? That made no sense. Not Land? No Land? It seemed likely that someone stranded here would curse his fate. My eyes widened as I looked at the carving again. Shock tore down another barrier between what was and what couldn’t be.
Never Land.
“But that’s impossible,” I whispered.
My fingers traced the cracked edges of the rock wall repeatedly. There were no seams. No hinges. No openings.
The light from the wellspring rippled against the walls, drawing my attention back to it. William could hold his breath far longer than me. My fi
rst thought was to run back and get him, but I couldn’t lie to him again nor could I tell him about Peter. If I couldn’t prove Pan’s existence, I would not make myself into a fool yet again. I took off my shoes and over shirt and waded into the water.
I swam to the bottom and found that I didn't have far to go. Several feet down, I came to a passage much wider than I expected. Four men could swim side by side through the opening.
Nearly a minute later, just as I reached the edge of how long I could hold my breath, I surfaced. I coughed, wiped my eyes, and looked around. I was in another cave with more dark rocky walls, but this time the water led in from an outside source. I rose from the pond and followed it.
The crashing sound up ahead told me that there was a waterfall long before I saw it. This was clearly the source of the water on the island, but where was it coming from? Spray from the rocks stung my face and arms as I worked my way around.
Once free, I turned and saw Neverland for the first time.
My breath fled into the noonday air as tears streamed down my face. When I did breathe back in, my lungs were filled with a honey-scented sweetness. Worry, anger, and pain melted from me and I became too heavy to stand.
What stunned me was not the fantastic, but the distinguishable clarity of the common. Everything looked as fresh and vivid as a new uniform. The grass was the most vivid green. The flowers were a vibrant blue and violet. The water, however, had no color. It was completely clear regardless of depth.
I rose from my knees and took my first steps in this new world. I walked without knowing that I took a single step but caught myself in time to get my bearings and see beyond the waterfall. Grassy hills and forests covered the land. On all sides the endless expanse of water mocked me. Even here, I was stranded without hope.
I turned to head back when a rustling startled me. Fearing the croc, I ducked behind a four foot mushroom and peered around the corner to identify my stalker.
The forest ceased to move as if begging me to come out of hiding. The thick blood of my veins pounded in my ears with each passing moment. Suddenly, a voice assaulted me from above.
“I found you, Slightly! You’re it!” squealed the upside down boy.
“Who?” I shot back. His eyes opened wide with shock and he spilled off of the mushroom cap onto the grass.
“You’re not Slightly,” the boy said.
“I know that,” I told him. “Who are you?”
“They call me Nibs. I’m one of the Lost Boys.”
Chapter Seventeen
“Nibs?” I asked. “What kind of name is that?” The boy got up off of the ground and dusted himself off. I didn’t see the point, seeing how he was covered in filth from head to toe.
“It’s my name and I’m proud of it,” he said with a smile. “What’s yours?”
“James,” I told him. He’s younger than me and smaller too. The knife tucked away in his belt told me more about his life here than anything else.
“You’re not from here,” he said. I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “Well, if you’re not from Neverland, how did you get here?” I pointed to the waterfall and his face went white. “The croc’s cave? No one goes in there. She’s a monster.”
“I know. I’ve seen her.” I took a step back toward the waterfall and a twig snapped behind the bushes, followed by hushed whispers. “You said there were others?”
He nodded to the tree line and underbrush. One by one, dirty children emerged out into the open and surrounded me.
“We’re the Lost Boys,” Nibs said. I looked from one to the other until my eyes settled on a familiar face.
“Donald?” I asked. “Donald Sotheby?” There was no mistaking his curly hair and dim expression. “My God, I can’t believe I have found you.” But as I moved to greet him, the others raised their weapons of war against me.
“What is the meaning of this?” I said as they looked me over carefully.
“Found me?” Donald asked. “I’ve been here as long as I remember. And my name’s Curly.”
“Nibs,” the one with the panda hat and blackened eye said, “where did you find this one?”
“He says he came from the cave behind the waterfall, Tootles,” Nibs responded. “He says he’d seen the croc.” The boys gasped all at once. I decided to ignore their foolishness and turn my attention back to my old schoolmate.
“Donald, you were in my class at Port Royal. You disappeared over a year ago.” He looked to Nibs and then back to me.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” he said, shaking his head. The boys looked to one another and kept their sharpened sticks and knives pointed at me.
“Your father is a doctor in town. Mine is … was a captain.” I searched for some recognition in his eyes, but found only pools of emptiness. “We looked for you.”
A stifled “thank you” and a shrug was the best he offered in response. Maybe he had some sort of accident or a bump on the head has affected his memory. I decided to use another boy as an example.
“Nibs, where are you from?” I asked. His face twisted as though it were an odd question.
“What do you mean? I’m from Neverland,” he said.
“I mean before Neverland. You had to have come from somewhere.” I saw that I was going to have to guide him to the answer I was looking for. “You know how I came through the cave? If you didn’t come through the cave, then how did you get here? How did you get to Neverland?” His eyes lit up and he puffed his chest with confidence.
“I was brought here,” he said confidently. He then made a broad wave towards all of the boys and said, “We all were.”
“Brought here?” I asked. “Who would bring you here?” The answer came to me before any of the boys could speak. Memories of endless fields of stars and moons flashed before my eyes as I said the name of the only boy I knew who was capable of bringing a child across creation, “Pan.”
A wind from the shore cut through the trees and shook tired limbs. Countless jostled birds took flight, blotting out the sun. Among their cries, I heard a rooster crow followed by the patter of two nimble feet landing fast between the boys and me. They all gasped again, lowered their weapons, and stared in amazement.
“Wow, you’ve found me,” Peter Pan called out. “I am so happy. Now we can play all we want, forever.”
“Forever?” I asked him, still stunned by his sudden appearance. With the birds gone, the sun lit up his hair and features.
“Of course, forever,” he told me, “and besides, I’m tired of just playing with Tiger Lily and her Indians.”
“So this truly is Neverland?” I asked him. Pan looked at his boys before they all doubled over in laughter.
“But of course it is,” Peter said, still rolling on the grass. “Where else would I be, silly?”
The question was a bit naive after everything I’d seen. It just seemed that since the first night we met, Pan had shown me the impossible. If I’d only been able to fly that first night, perhaps I’d have seen many more wonders.
At that moment, my eyes caught Donald’s gaze. Again, I searched his face but there seemed to be nothing left of my friend behind those eyes. My mind raced to the only possible conclusion.
“I don’t know, perhaps taking children from their homes?” I sneered. The question took Peter by complete surprise. His face grew stern as he rose to his feet. I pointed to Donald.
“His name is Donald Sotheby and he was my schoolmate,” I told him.
“Curly?” Peter asked, annoyed.
“He disappeared the night we first met,” I continued. “You took him because I couldn’t fly, didn’t you?”
“His name is Curly and he wants to be here,” Peter said, now hovering inches off of the ground.
“He wants this, does he?” I asked. “Mindless? Dirty? No memories? Is this what you would have me be, Peter? These boys have families. They have mothers and fathers.”
“What’s a family when you have Neverland?” he said, soaring over our
heads. The boys, Donald included, watched in wonder. “Battles and adventure! Treasure and games! It’s an eternal childhood.”
“It’s an eternal servitude,” I called out to him. Peter did another loop in the air to the boys’ delight. I turned to Donald and grabbed his wrist. “Come, I’ll get you home.”
Seeing this, Peter stopped his show and swooped down between us. He landed on the mushroom cap, drew his short sword, and raised it to the sky.
“Lost Boys! Fall in!” he commanded. Like an obedient dog, Curly left my side and took his place in the formation. They stood at attention and awaited their next order.
“You’re all fools!” I shouted at them. “Without your memories, you are truly lost.” I turned back to the waterfall and Peter flew around to block the way.
“Why don’t you stay with us?” His voice was soft and kind again. “Aren't you lost, too?” Something ancient and unnatural stared back at me from behind his eyes. I didn’t know what he truly was, but Peter Pan was no mere boy.
“I am not lost, Peter. I’m stranded. There's a difference,” I told him. I moved again to the cave and he again moved in my way. The temperature dropped suddenly. Clouds rolled in and the sky became dark.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked him. “With a thought, you could send William and me back to our homes. I have to get back and if you are not going to help me then I will have to do it myself.” With inhuman speed, he placed a hand on my shoulder and leaned in close.
“You won’t survive as you are,” he said. “If it isn’t the croc, it’ll be something else.” Whether this was a threat, a warning, or a trick, I knew he was right. Our stores of food were running low and William and I risked starving within weeks. One look back to the Lost Boys gave me all the answers I needed.
“I’d rather die as I am now than live for centuries like them.” With a deep breath, I pushed past him and into the cave, leaving Neverland behind.
Chapter Eighteen
Captain James Hook and the Curse of Peter Pan Page 6
