The Neverland Wars Page 7

  Peter vanished with the smallest and nosiest of the boys just as quickly as he had arrived, leaving the rest of them to their own devices now that they were full of renewed energy. It wasn’t long before the oldest of the girls, little Bard, decided what festivities were in order.

  “I think,” she began, with modesty and conviction, “that before the story, we should prepare a feast for Peter’s return.”

  That simple proposal was all it took to animate her fellows, and they sprang into action, each dreaming up an equally frivolous role they might have in the planning of a feast. Everyone scattered to gather food, find torches, and decorate with flowers. Even Rosemary darted away into the woods in search of fresh eggs. Gwen felt a pang of guilt and inadequacy seize her as soon as Rosemary left her sight. She wasn’t doing a very good job of watching after her little sister.

  She sat, sifting through her emotions and finding mostly confusion. She’d never thought of confusion as its own, independent emotion. Confusion had always been an intellectual state that described the emotions she was feeling, but today, that was all she felt. Confusion and bafflement. There weren’t even other emotions for her to be confused and baffled by. Instinctively, she reached into her satchel for her phone to check the time. It was out of cell range and not functioning. Gwen severely doubted that clocks were going to be of any use to her while she was here anyway.

  Bard, the one child who had not run off to pursue some aspect of her own proposal, quietly approached her. Gwen sat in the grass, still spellbound by her surroundings, trying to figure out what animal off in the distance was making that cooing, whirling noise.

  Bard picked a handful of the blood-red poppies that had sprung up in Peter’s presence. She sat down near Gwen and bashfully looked up at her. “Can I put flowers in your hair?” she finally asked.

  “Uh, sure.”

  She walked smartly behind her and began braiding the long-stemmed poppies into Gwen’s light brown hair. Bard had a calming presence and prided herself on being very mature for an eleven-year-old. “Rosemary told me that you were a big kid, but I didn’t think you’d be as big as Peter,” Bard politely remarked. Bard suspected that Gwen was actually a little older than Peter—she was a very smart eleven-year-old—but she wasn’t going to point that out.

  “Uh, yeah,” Gwen responded, feeling submissive at Bard’s touch.

  “What kind of stories do you tell?”

  “Nice stories,” Gwen said. “I try to tell nice stories.”

  “That’s good. I had a brother who would tell me mean, scary stories, and I didn’t like that at all. We haven’t met properly though. I’m Bard.”

  “Hi, Bard. I’m Gwen, I think… I think I’m still Gwen.” She was slightly unsure of that. Everything else had changed in the past day, maybe she had too.

  Bard took Gwen’s answer in stride. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Gwen.”

  She was intimidated by how calm Bard seemed. Feeling wildly out of her element, Gwen didn’t know how a child could be so confident, or seem so knowledgeable. If she had any pretensions about the sort of rights or wisdom that came with age, it was time to forsake them. Neverland was not a place that lent credence or privilege to age. As counterintuitive as it seemed to ask a child for help or information, Gwen quickly realized that was the only way she was going to make sense of anything here. “What’s going to happen, Bard?”

  “Just about everything we can think of, and everything everyone else thinks of, too. The others are going to go get fruit and food and pick up all sorts of wonderful things for a feast tonight. When Peter gets back, maybe he’ll play us a song or we will all dance until we fall down. If it’s a real celebration, perhaps someone will even bring back some good mud for squishing toes in and making muddy feetprints. I think that Spurt went with Peter to get Neverland fruit for you in case you tell a good story, and I know that Newt and Sal are braiding ivy ropes so that we can bind you and throw you in the lagoon if you tell a bad one. But don’t worry, I have confidence in you. If it’s just a so-so story, maybe we won’t even have to throw you in the lagoon at all, so long as you tell a better one tomorrow night. I like your pajamas.”

  Gwen was dazed by all this nonsensical information. She didn’t rightfully process any of it, except for the final compliment, to which she groggily responded, “Thanks.” Gwen had endured a sleepless night, and she’d left well before dawn. The sun was high overhead here, and she wondered what time zone Neverland was in. She was incredibly tired and let loose a yawning roar as Bard finished the loose, elegant braid. Taking a ribbon out of her pocket, she sweetly tied Gwen’s hair with the tiny, ratty strand of pink that looked to have come off a present a long time ago.

  “I think I might just… fall asleep.” Gwen sighed, lying down as she felt Bard’s hands leave her. It wasn’t just the sleep deprivation; it was the overwhelming change of circumstances and confusion as well. She slumped into the grass; it was the sweetest bed she had ever encountered. It was lush but not wet, and it softly folded over itself. As she closed her eyes and nestled down into the ground, she questioned why she had ever slept in a bed. Clearly, the ground was a much better place to sleep. The best, in fact. Beds and mattresses, frames and sheets… these were yet more grown-up conspiracies. When she got home, she was going to get rid of her bed and just start sleeping in the yard.

  Bard retreated, leaving Gwen to sleep in the sunlight. Meandering over to one of the trees where she knew the fairy Bramble would be sleeping, she knocked gently and roused him. With his groggy help, Bard covered Gwen and gathered some of the sheets to turn part of the fort into a tiny recluse for the sleeping teenager. Once that was done, Bramble darted off in the hope of finding more interesting endeavors now that he was awake, but Bard diligently sat just outside of the impromptu teepee, braiding poppies into a bright red crown for their honored storyteller.

  Gwen woke up to the sound of poorly stifled giggling. Something was obviously happening, but she was too disoriented to comprehend her environment. Once again, she groped for her phone in an attempt to make sense of the world with it, only to remember it was no use to her. Her daytime dreaming had been a vague affair—she woke up thinking of Jay, but that thought quickly dissolved. Darkness encroached on every inch of the tiny teepee that had been constructed around her. She hardly remembered falling asleep in the grass, let alone tucked away in this tent. How had she slept through the entire day? Dozens of questions flashed through her mind. The only thing she didn’t question was whether her adventure had been a dream. For as bizarre and unbelievable as it all was, it felt more real than anything else had in a very long time. Neverland’s fairies and flying were fantastic, true, but Gwen felt so quintessentially alive when she encountered them. The metal lockers and plastic desk seats of high school had never endowed her with this intense feeling of life.

  The giggling continued, ebbing and flowing as the nearby children wavered between almost reining in their laughter and utterly losing themselves in it as their giggles infectiously spread to one another. It was getting worse. They weren’t going to get tired of laughing in anticipation, they were just going to get more antsy and giggly until something happened. Whatever that was, Gwen was certain of two things. One, it undoubtedly involved her, and two, there was no way for her to avoid it.

  Having no other option—unless she wanted to sit in the sheets and wait to be ambushed—Gwen crept out and prepared to be accosted in the open. To her surprise, she was not immediately swarmed, tackled, or otherwise attacked. She moved slowly. She could hear the children, and from the influx of giggling, she assumed they could see her too. Something was glowing ahead of her, but she could only faintly make out the light through the cloth curtain. Winding her way through the labyrinth of curtains, Gwen saw motion here and there, like hiding children darting behind the sheets, just out of sight.

  Gwen’s hair was coming undone, but Bard’s little pink ribbon clung tight to the now falling-out braid. She felt strange, as she always did
after sleeping through a whole day, jet-lagged or sick. Moving cautiously, Gwen felt her heart pounding in her chest, heavy and slow. There was no reason for her to be afraid, much less scared of children! At worst, they would ram into her too hard when they charged her. There was absolutely nothing to fear, and yet, Gwen was afraid. Her palms began to sweat as she crept about, and she felt herself woefully unprepared to face whatever startling force she was about to confront. Gwen couldn’t remember the last time she had been so terrified. She loved it.

  How long ago had her last game of hide and seek been? When was the last time she had played kick-the-can and attempted to sneak her way past her playmates? It had been too long since she felt this awful, jostling sense of doom over something totally harmless. Her gut told her she was being stalked, watched, and preyed upon, but her mind and heart could not have felt lighter. She had forgotten the tenacious and feverous joy of fear when nothing was at stake.

  As she finally escaped the fort, Gwen spilled out into the unobstructed grove, the moon rising from behind a monolithic oak. The torches were staked in two rows, creating an eerie aisle up to a jaggedly broken, bulging tree stump, on which Peter was sitting.

  He made a throne of the towering stump, leaning against its back and sinking into its mossy base. Kicking his feet up, he lounged with a nonchalant, princely presence. His eyes were on Gwen as soon as she came into sight.

  Leaves rustled violently, and Gwen realized the children were tucked away in the trees. She saw Newt and Sal in one, lying on adjacent branches, their bellies against the bark.

  Bard was situated on a rope swing, hanging low to the ground. She leapt down and approached Gwen, crowning her with the wreath of poppies she had woven while the girl slept.

  Gwen leaned down and accepted the crown, but she moved like a zombie, stunned and uncertain how she was supposed to react to this whimsical stimuli. She felt she was playing a game unaware of the rules.

  She drew closer to Peter, approaching and looking up at him from his high throne. Gwen couldn’t begin to imagine what the tree had looked like before it shattered, or what monstrous force had toppled it.

  As she passed them, the children scaled out of the trees, creeping through the darkness and following as her tiny entourage. Their giggling unified and harmonized, like a chant or song, but it was neither. It was only the rawest expression of joy.

  They managed to calm themselves, and by the time Gwen thought to look back at them, they had already taken their seats, happily situated on the floor of grove, surrounding her and facing Peter.

  In her blue dress, polka-dotted pajama bottoms, and poppy crown, Gwen waited for something to happen.

  “So,” Peter began, his high and boyish voice booming to the best of its ability, “we gather for a story, and we will have a story from her or we’ll have her head!” The children cheered.

  Somewhat detached from her circumstances, Gwen was more troubled by the fact that they were constantly changing her form of execution than the fact that they seemed to be planning to execute her. Gwen suddenly wished she had thought of a story today rather than nap in the grass.

  She looked up to the sky for inspiration, and it was freely given. Seeing the stars, as bright as they were numerous, Gwen had a thought for a story.

  She didn’t know what she was going to say from one word to the next, and yet the story seeped fluidly out of her lips. It was not her story, only one she happened to be telling.

  “Once, not that long ago, there was a man named Eugene, who was an anthropologist, someone who studies strange, new cultures. Well, a strange new culture was discovered, on an island that no one even knew existed until some sailors were blown off course and landed there after a storm. They saw fires and huts, but they didn’t dare venture onto land, for fear the inhabitants would be unfriendly, possibly cannibals who would devour them whole. So they sailed back home and told everyone of the island they had found.

  “When Eugene heard about it, he made up his mind right away to head to that island and study the people there. He found the sailors and the captain who had landed there by accident, convincing them to set sail to that island with him aboard. The captain and his crew were reluctant to embark on the voyage, but Eugene paid them handsomely and they finally agreed, on the sole condition that they would not have to put foot on the island themselves. They were deathly afraid of the natives.

  “So they set sail within a week’s time, and Eugene bravely embarked on his mission, not knowing what he would find when he arrived. The journey took them several days of bad weather and treacherous seas, but he was sailing with an able crew, and they survived. On the final day, the weather cleared, and they approached the island under blue skies.

  “They moored the ship in the sandy waters of a calm bay. Two of the crewmen rowed a dinghy to shore, but were too afraid to as much as step out of the boat. Eugene was left, all alone on the shore, with only his pack of rations and bushwhacking supplies.”

  “What’s bushwhacking?” one of the girls whispered.

  “Shush, Jam. It’s what happens when you whack a bush,” Bard informed her.

  “He traveled through the jungle, slashing through the vines and brush and bramble, heading for the village and hoping he would be well received. He didn’t have far to go—the islanders lived near the shore—and it was not very late into the morning by the time he arrived at the edge of their village.

  “The people of the island, who knew their home as Moon Island and called themselves Astrians, were surprised to see an outsider. No one had ever come out of the jungle before, let alone wearing such strange clothes as the bushwhacking anthropologist did. They were dressed in clothes made of vines and leaves.

  “Still, they welcomed the stranger into their village. They greeted him warmly, touching his shoulders in greeting and shaking his hand when he offered it. They were a friendly people, and they were excited to meet the stranger. They prepared a great celebration, gathering their drums and lighting their torches. Eugene was given an elaborate robe to wear to honor him as their guest. Their storyteller told him the story of their people while others busied themselves within the village, readying the celebration. This delighted Eugene, who took notes furiously in his book, recording every detail the storyteller shared about the history of the tribe.

  “He assumed, while he was listening to the storyteller, that the other villagers were preparing a feast of some sort as part of the celebration.”

  “We prepared a feast!” Newt blurted. Sal clunked him on head, and he was quiet after that.

  “Evening fell though, and there was no food in sight. What’s more, Eugene had not seen any of the natives eat anything all day. He had thought that odd during the day, but he had not wanted to remark. Now that dusk was setting in and the people still were not eating, Eugene began to wonder. As he began to think about it, he realized that he had not seen anything edible during his entire time on the island. He had passed no fruit trees; there had not even been animals. All day, he had not seen so much as a bird flitting through the trees.

  “The chief prepared a bed for their guest within his own home, but Eugene was horribly hungry and could not stand the mystery any longer. By the glow of the fire pit, he approached the chief and finally asked him when his people ate.

  “The chief looked at him quizzically, answering ‘At night, of course. When else?’

  “Eugene was relieved to know they would be eating shortly now that night had fallen, but he still did not understand. ‘But what do you eat?’

  “The chief was very confused by his question, for he thought it would be obvious. ‘The stars. We eat the stars.’

  “Eugene could not comprehend this answer, but the chief gestured to his fellows, and Eugene saw them as they reached up to the sky to eat for the day. He wandered among them, watching as they stretched arms up to the cloudless night and opened up their palms only to close them around the stars. Mystified, Eugene stared silently on as he watched the islanders pluck th
e twinkling stars out of the dark night. Holding them in their palms and between their fingers, they fed themselves from the fruit of the night sky.

  “At last, a young woman with long, dark hair and big, bright eyes took note of Eugene. She swallowed the star in her mouth and approached him, inviting him to join her in this strange dinner. Skeptically, Eugene followed her motions, reaching up to the star she gestured to. The rest of the village was clearing the sky of stars, but as they finished, there were still a few beautiful and twinkling stars left for Eugene. The brightest of all of these, he wrapped his hand around. When it disappeared, he was so surprised he almost let it go again, dropping it out of his palm before he could bring it back down to his mouth. He looked at it in his hand, shimmering and glowing, before swallowing it whole.

  “It was smooth, but it tingled as it rolled down his throat, almost like a liquid. It tasted sweet, but unlike any food he had ever eaten before. He continued to eat, one star after another, until he noticed that his fingers were beginning to glow.

  “Eugene felt something wrong inside of himself, something bubbling up within him that was unsettling and discomforting. Feeling as though he were about to be violently sick, he ran away from the fire pit to get away from his gracious and magical hosts. He dashed just a little ways into the jungle so that he could escape their eyes and let the feeling pass.

  “Collapsing among the trees, he felt something inside of himself rising. It was not an urge to be sick however; it was the stars themselves trying to return to the sky. For you see, Eugene was not one of the star-eating people, and he could not stomach the celestial fruit.”

  “What’s celestial?” Jam asked, even more amazed with that bold, new word.

  “Shush, listen,” the smallest girl instructed. She did not know the word either, but that did not impede her appreciation of the story. Gwen continued.