Lost Boy

by Christina Henry

  She showed me, and we carefully explored all around checking for any sign of pirates—footprints, broken brush, the smell of rum that they left behind them in a cloud.

  After I assured myself that there was nothing to find, we agreed to go back.

  “It must have been a bird,” I said.

  “What sort of bird flashes in the sun?” she asked.

  “You’d be surprised,” I said. “Some of the birds here have feathers so white that they shine. You haven’t seen all of the island, Sal. I have.”

  She would have liked to argue about this, I thought, except there was no denying that on this one subject alone I was more knowledgeable than she. The only person in the world who knew the island better was Peter.

  • • •

  I returned to camp feeling more lighthearted and hopeful than I’d felt in a long time. I even smiled at Peter when I saw him sitting at the fire with the other three. Peter took that grin in stride, but Nod looked sharply from Sally to me and back again, which made my smile fade. I wondered how much he could see there, and how much he understood.

  Charlie was sitting beside Peter, which surprised me very much. He was holding a little piece of carved wood in his hand, and I recognized the thing Peter had been whittling the day I killed the Many-Eyed. That day seemed so long ago, a lifetime ago.

  So very many boys ago, when they were all still alive.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  Charlie’s eyes shone as he held up the wood. “Peter made me a toy! Look, he said it’s a little fairy to keep me safe.”

  He handed the toy to me and I inspected it. The carving was that of a very tiny girl with wings. Somehow Peter had managed to make the wings appear gossamer and light, carving little lace patterns there. Her hair was long and curled past her shoulders and she wore a dress made out of leaves. Her feet were small and bare. The face was full of mischief and delight, a face that drew you, invited you.

  It was very finely done, so fine that it seemed that the girl might suddenly fly away from my hand.

  “A fairy, eh?” I asked, looking at Peter.

  “Oh, yes,” Peter said. “I know all about fairies. I met them in the gardens in the Other Place.”

  This was the first I’d heard of such a thing. The most I knew of fairies were the stories that other boys told when they came to the island, stories about creatures that granted wishes or stole a child away from its parents and left a changeling in its place.

  “When did you ever meet the fairies?” I asked.

  “Oh, it was long before I met you, Jamie,” Peter said.

  I could always tell when he was lying. His eyes went from one side to another, looking everywhere but directly at me.

  “Peter told me that if you find a fairy and make a wish, it will give you whatever you want!” Charlie said excitedly. “I wish I might find a fairy.”

  “And what would you wish for?” Peter asked.

  Charlie fingered the fairy toy’s delicate wings. “I’d wish I could fly just like them. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to soar on the air above everything?”

  Peter smiled, and it was the smile of a crocodile.

  “Yes,” he said. “Wouldn’t it be.”

  chapter 14

  Peter stayed in the camp for eight days in a row after that. I would have snuck off to check the tunnel during that time except that he was suddenly showing an unnerving interest in Charlie.

  Wherever Peter went and whatever he did, suddenly it just wouldn’t do unless Charlie was by his side. Charlie might have been reluctant except that Peter had softened him with the gift of the toy. Now the smaller boy was convinced that Peter liked him best in all the world.

  Charlie began to copy Peter’s walk, a little rooster swagger, and stopped wearing his shoes from the Other Place because Peter went barefoot. If Peter thought that sunshine was wonderful, then Charlie did too. If Peter thought that hunting was boring, then Charlie did too. He would no longer help around camp because Peter never would. More than once I caught the two of them whispering to each other and laughing at the rest of us.

  Peter was making Charlie a smaller version of himself, full of fun and heartless with it.

  I knew that Peter was up to something, that he wasn’t really interested in Charlie at all. Because of this I was afraid to leave Charlie alone with Peter for even a few minutes.

  That meant that when Peter took Charlie off to swim or climb or what-have-you, I always followed along, and the others went because I did.

  Peter was happy because he had all his boys (and one girl) around him all the time and everyone was doing exactly as he wished without arguing about it.

  Sometimes Sally would look at me, and that look would say that I needed to go and scout out the tunnel so that we could leave. I knew, and she knew, that leaving was the only possible way we could save Charlie.

  But I was afraid that the moment I left, Peter would see his chance. If I looked away for even a breath, then Peter would put a knife in Charlie’s heart, and that would be as good as putting one in mine.

  So I stayed in that in-between place, between the future with Sally and the past with Peter, because I didn’t know how to set us all free without losing Charlie.

  Finally, one evening Sally pulled me aside while the others were distracted by Peter capering and tumbling about the clearing. Charlie was laughing like he’d never seen anything so funny in all his life. Peter would turn on his hands and then spring to his feet again, pulling faces and making ridiculous noises that had Charlie howling. Crow was laughing too, and even Nod was smiling as though he wanted to scowl but couldn’t quite do it.

  “You have to go tomorrow,” she whispered.

  I looked from her to Charlie, who had fallen under Peter’s spell.

  “We’ve got to leave before Charlie’s in love with him any more than he already is,” Sally said. “He won’t even look at you anymore.”

  It was true. Far from being my trailing little duckling, Charlie now disdained me as boring, the way that Peter often did.

  “If you don’t go in the morning, then I will,” Sally said.

  I thought this was unfair in the extreme. She was asking me to choose between keeping Charlie safe and letting her do something potentially dangerous.

  “I’ll watch out for Charlie,” she said. “You have to trust me.”

  Peter picked Charlie up, turning him upside down and making him laugh even harder. Charlie was so happy, but Peter—I could see Peter’s eyes, and he was not.

  He was plotting.

  That night I stayed awake while the others dropped off to sleep. Even Peter closed his eyes and slept, his arm thrown over Charlie like the smaller boy was a possession that he wouldn’t share.

  I knew I wouldn’t have a better chance than that.

  Out into the night I went, shivering in the cool air. We never got a proper winter on the island, of course, but it was that time of year when the wind blew a little colder and the sun lowered just a little earlier.

  The unchanging moon was hidden by clouds. I thought I smelled the scent of rain. All around me the brush rustled as small animals darted away from my footsteps. I ran fast and quiet, wanting to reach the tunnel quickly. I’d know as soon as I entered it whether the passage to the Other Place was even possible without Peter.

  If passage was possible, I would only go as far as the tree at the opposite end. From the tree you could see the lights of the city—the city Peter had taken me from all those years ago, the city that seemed to grow and stretch, reaching its fingers out to the tree that had once been miles from its center.

  If I saw the city I would know, and I’d be able to return to our tree just as quickly. I was terrified that Peter would wake up and find me gone, and come looking for me. He seemed to be able to sniff you out like an animal if he wanted to find you. I didn’t know wha
t lie I might tell him if he did follow me. He would never believe that I was going to the Other Place to find new boys to play with.

  I turned off the path, finding my way despite the lack of moonlight. I’d walked that stretch so many times I was certain I could find it in my sleep.

  And yet when I reached the place where the tree was supposed to be, I thought I’d made a mistake. Because the tree wasn’t there.

  It was dark, but even with the dark I should have been able to see the shape of the tree against the sky. The stream that was supposed to bubble nearby was silent, and the ground underfoot was strangely squashy, like the land near the marsh.

  I must have walked the wrong way in the dark, and I imagined how Sal would laugh at this after my insistence that she test her memory of the path. Feeling foolish, I started back to retrace my steps when the clouds parted and the moon revealed what had been hidden a moment before.

  The tree had been cut down.

  In truth, it looked as though it had somehow been torn down. The break in the trunk was less like an axe-chopping and more like it was ripped away by an angry giant.

  If I had walked even a few steps farther, I would have bumped into it, for it blocked the way completely. It partially dammed up the flow of the little stream, which had caused the water to seep around it and soak the grass.

  My heart pounded as I approached the broken trunk. Just because the tree was gone didn’t mean that the tunnel was gone. Why should the tree falling affect it? The roots were still in place . . .

  The roots were there, but these had definitely been cut by something that bit sharp and deep. And every place the roots were sliced, there was something filling those cuts, something dark and sticky that looked like blood.

  I touched it, and it clung to my fingers, and when I sniffed it the stuff smelled like blood too.

  The hole between the roots was gone.

  It wasn’t just filled in. It was entirely gone, as if it had never been. There was grass growing over the place where it used to be.

  “Peter,” I breathed, and fell to my knees.

  Somehow, Peter had discovered our plan, mine and Sal’s. Had he been in the woods that day? Had he seen Sal kiss me, heard us talk about leaving the island?

  It would explain the flash that Sal saw, and why there had been no sign of anyone nearby. Peter knew how to cover his tracks.

  Peter had snuck away from the tree, probably in the night when we all slept, and destroyed the gate back to the Other Place so that we could never, ever leave.

  It was Peter’s island, and we were now his prisoners.

  “No,” I said, and stood up again.

  I was not going to stay there. The island was surrounded by water. We could make a boat and sail away. We could steal a boat from the pirates. They had those rowboats that they used to come ashore. It would be hard going on the ocean in a boat that small, but we might find a ship of friendly folk who would take us aboard.

  And if we didn’t, well—anything, even dying at sea, was preferable to staying there one more moment in the company of a mad child who would jail us on his island paradise.

  If Peter tried to stop us, tried to hurt any of the others, I would kill him.

  I knew then that I could do it. For a long time the memory of our former happiness had stopped me, but no more.

  Peter wasn’t my brother. He was my enemy.

  I knew what to do with an enemy.

  My dagger was in my hand, and I ran.

  • • •

  I wasn’t away from the tree that long, but it was long enough.

  When I reached the clearing I don’t know what I intended to do—to wake Peter and make him fight me or to slit his throat in his sleep. I just knew that I wanted to know his blood, to see his green eyes dull, to end his power over me forever.

  I could hardly remember why his smile had once meant so much to me. There was only one smile I wanted from him then, a long thin red one where a smile should not be.

  (a flash of silver in the darkness)

  (what have you done?)

  (small hands covered in blood)

  The dream-memories were in my way. I shook them off, entered the tree, ready to confront Peter and end it all forever.

  He was gone, and so was Charlie.

  “No,” I said, and kicked the skins they’d been sleeping on. “No, no, no, no, no!”

  Sal and Crow and Nod sat up, all three still bedazzled by sleep.

  “Where’s Peter and Charlie?” I shouted.

  Crow and Nod looked like they didn’t understand what I was saying, but Sal was on her feet right away.

  “They must have gone while we slept,” she said, and her face was white and scared.

  She reached for my arm, and I shook her off. “I thought I could trust you.”

  “Jamie, I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Why are you yelling just because Peter and Charlie are gone?” Crow said.

  “Because Peter hates Charlie,” Nod said. So he understood, too, what Peter’s game was about. Before Fog died, he wouldn’t have even noticed. “We could track him.”

  I shook my head. “No, it’s hard to track Peter in the day. It’s impossible in the night.”

  “Where would he take him?” Sal asked.

  I immediately thought of the crocodile pond, and then realized Peter would never take Charlie anywhere so obvious. He would know that I would think of the story, and run to save Charlie there.

  There was only one place where he’d go, because he would think we’d never guess.

  “The Many-Eyed,” I said. “He’s taking Charlie to the nest.”

  “Would Charlie follow him there?” Nod asked, and now his face was white too. Nod never went near the plains, or even the border of them, if he could avoid it. “He’s scared of the Many-Eyed.”

  While we were talking I was gathering anything that might be useful—bows and arrows, knives, rocks, slingshot, sharp sticks, the special stones that we used to start fires. I thrust all of these things in my sling-bag.

  “Peter’s got Charlie now,” I said. “He’ll believe anything Peter says, do anything Peter does. If Peter said it was a wonderful lark to cross the plains at night, then Charlie would do it.”

  I started out of the tree and the others followed, though Crow still looked like he didn’t really understand what was happening.

  Instead of taking the trail that led in the direction of Bear Cave, I went toward the forest on the opposite side. From there we could cut through the trees to the central plains, which was where the Many-Eyed nested.

  Before we entered the trees, I stopped. I couldn’t take a chance that I was wrong.

  I would lose Charlie forever if I was wrong. That story—always that damned story, chasing Charlie and me.

  “Go to the crocodile pond and make sure they aren’t there,” I told Nod and Crow.

  Nod’s face hardened. “You don’t have to keep me from the Many-Eyed just because I’m afraid.”

  “I’m not,” I said. “I just don’t want Charlie to die if I’m wrong about where Peter took him.”

  He looked into my eyes hard and believed me. Nod grabbed Crow and took off running in the other direction.

  Then I started to run too, toward the plains of the Many-Eyed.

  Sal ran beside me. She never stumbled; she never slowed; she never hesitated. She just stayed right beside me, driven by the same fear that was riding me.

  My little duckling, wrapped in a Many-Eyed’s silk, nothing but food for their babies.

  The branches lashed me but I didn’t feel them. Bears and wolves and cats ran from us, for we didn’t slow when we saw them and that meant we were something to be feared.

  The moon went down. The sky turned purple-orange, and we broke out of the trees and into the plains
.

  Charlie and Peter were just before us. Peter was whispering into his cupped hand, and Charlie’s hand was wrapped around it.

  Then Charlie caught sight of us, wild-eyed and sweaty, and his face lit up.

  “Jamie! Jamie! Peter’s showing me how to fly!”

  “No!” I said, but I couldn’t run fast enough.

  Peter grinned down at me as the two of them floated up into the air, high above, and he pulled Charlie over the long yellow grass. Charlie laughed in delight, and Peter laughed too—laughed because he’d won. I watched, chest heaving in despair, as they flew toward the center of the plains.

  I couldn’t outrun Peter in the air. He would carry Charlie to the Many-Eyed nest and drop him there, and that would be the end of my trusting duckling.

  No. There had to be something I could do. I couldn’t just let it happen. I couldn’t let Peter win.

  I threw down the sling-bag in frustration. All my weapons, all my plans—they were useless against a boy who could fly.

  The fire-stones rolled out of the bag. The breeze went through my hair. The wind was blowing from the south, almost directly from the south.

  “Burn them,” I said, and grabbed the stones. “Burn them all out.”

  Sally understood immediately. She always knew precisely what I was thinking. She ran to collect wood that would be useful for torches.

  If we burned the plains, then the Many-Eyed would have nowhere to go but the sea—if they survived the flames. The wind would help send the fire where I wanted it to go—toward the nest and away from our forest.

  Peter might still try to drop Charlie in the middle of the plains and hope the little boy cooked to death. I was going to run ahead of the fire for just that reason.

  Nod and Crow shot out of the forest just as I lit the first torch.

  “Good, this is better,” I said when I saw them. “Nod, you take this torch and go west. Light all the plains grass all the way to the sea on that side.”

  I touched the tip of the torch to another piece of wood, and when it caught I handed it to Crow.

  “You do the same going east, all the way to the mountains.”