The Neverland Wars Read online

  “He began digging a hole in the soft dirt, trying to push his glowing hands deep into the Earth, grounding himself so he would not be pulled away by the force of the stars lifting him up. No matter how hard he tried, Eugene could not fight it, and the stars consumed him as they pulled back up to the sky. He became the stars, the night, and the darkness.

  “But even once they had returned to their place in the night sky, something was wrong with the stars because they carried with them all the pieces of Eugene that still belonged on Earth, pieces that resisted rising, pulling back down to the ground.

  “So one by one, the stars that Eugene had eaten, that were now irretrievably mingled with his very being but returned to the night, began to slip out of the sky. They became falling stars, falling into the minds and hearts of people all over the world, shooting their way into music and paintings. That’s how I know this story, because one of his stars fell straight into my head while I was dreaming, and that little piece of him told me, clearly promised, Reach for the stars and they will be freely given.”

  Gwen held her hands in front of her then, waiting quietly for a reaction. The children held their breath, wondering if that really was the end of the story, and if so, what they were supposed to make of it.

  Peter, still perched with regal nonchalance on his mangled throne of a tree stump, responded, “That was a good story.”

  The lost children got to their feet and burst into jubilant cries, following Peter’s judgment. He impishly smiled. They wouldn’t have to drown Gwen in the lagoon after all. The children were more excited now about having a feast than an execution anyway.

  The feast was magnificent. There were more fruits than Gwen ever knew existed, and some she was certain didn’t. Sal and Newt had gone fishing and brought back trout they had delighted in disgustingly gutting. There was a thick vegetable soup that Bard had been responsible for, and freshly squeezed juice that little Jam had squished into existence using whatever fruits struck her fancy. Blink had even procured some milk from Miss Daisy, which Gwen assumed was a cow, although she was informed by the youngest of the boys, Spurt, that it was birds’ milk. Gwen didn’t know what to believe, or whether her belief had any bearing on the reality of what she was eating. She was, however, acutely aware that the egg-shaped fruit her little sister served her had twinkling, raven-black shells and a plain white yolk that tasted almost like marshmallow filling. In Neverland, everything that occurred appeared to be a quantum supposition of fantasy and reality, and simply believing in an event seemed to change its outcome.

  Gwen was adorned with more flowery jewelry, including daisy-chain bracelets and a wild zinnia that the dark little girl, Blink, had brought back for her. The massive flower had a hard time staying put behind her ear until Bard weaved it into her hair. Dinner was served in the jungle, at a crudely assembled banquet table made from the cross section of a fallen tree. The children rolled slices of tree trunks up to it like seats, and proceeded to make a grand mess of all the food they had assembled. Much as Eugene had been in her story, Gwen was a guest of honor and treated to the finest and most fantastic food the island could offer.

  Their meal was illuminated by torches, which Gwen found were utterly without fire. What the children called torches were really just small platforms on tall, wooden poles. The reason they radiated light was because fairies had flown up to them to waltz and glow on the tiny dance floors. Before the children distracted her, all eager for her attention, Gwen saw Hollyhock dancing with a dapper fairy boy who glowed slightly more orange than gold.

  Jam and Spurt grabbed her hands and dragged her to the table, asking a million questions between the two of them. Rosemary pushed through the throng of lost children to sit beside Gwen and beam with pride as the others enviously marveled over her big sister.

  Gwen could hardly keep the children straight. The only ones she knew were the oldest girl, Bard, and the duo that was Newt and Sal. They seemed to go everywhere together, but it was easy to keep the two of them straight. Newt was short, and Sal was tall. Newt’s short hair was blond, and Sal’s mop of hair was brown. They both had blue eyes, but animated Newt’s were piercing and bold, whereas lanky Sal had eyes of a mellow, marshy color.

  In order to match all the children to their odd names, Gwen convinced them to tell her about themselves. They did so eagerly. In their world, coolness was measured by age, up until the point when someone became a grown-up. Older kids had a presumed level of wisdom, if only at checkers and storytelling. It didn’t take much to win the respect of children, and by asking them in earnest about themselves, Gwen managed that much.

  It was telling, what each child focused on as they vied for Gwen’s attention.

  Bard spoke modestly about her sewing and hopscotch records, letting her accomplishments speak for her, and added that she had once held a baby without dropping him to further her credibility as a caregiver. Jam spoke longest, despite talking the fastest. However, she managed to say very little about herself. Most of what she said had to do with her favorite parts of stories that she had read. By the end of it, Gwen did know that Jam liked princesses who saved themselves, witches who were sometimes good, and the name Eleanor. Jam was a very beautiful girl, with a round face framed by her pigtails, and a bookish glint in her bright blue eyes. Had she not been younger than Newt, Gwen would have mistaken them for twins.

  As for Newt, he and Sal explained themselves together, stumbling over each other in their excitement to volley the conversation back and forth. From the gate, Gwen knew she couldn’t trust anything they said. They constantly changed their stories, trying to one-up each other or weave each other into memories they weren’t part of or hadn’t made yet. There was no coherency to their stories, which made them unbelievable even in the environment of Neverland.

  Spurt was the smallest of all of them, and he seemed peacefully offset from the two totally in-sync boys and all the girls. He was dark-haired and freckled, with a mouth full of funny teeth and a face full of expression. Spurt had energy, but no productive use for it. He spoke little, but he was constantly loud. His laughter was incessant, his screaming his primary means of communication. He raced from person to person, as if he were a shadow who couldn’t make up his mind whom he belonged to. Gwen never got more from him than his name.

  Blink, the tiniest of the girls, was far more composed, one of those children who had a no-nonsense attitude about their nonsense. Her brown eyes were soft against her dark complexion, and her attention was hard to break once it was focused on something. Blink stared at things curiously, with a steadfast devotion that ran counter to her name. Her tone was incredibly happy, but her face rarely reflected her joy. When given a chance to explain herself, she explained her future. She had a clear vision of her future as a musician, a champion swimmer, and a renowned scientist… but never did when I grow up creep into her explanation. Blink seemed to be under the impression that she could accomplish all that she wanted to within the realm of childhood, and for all Gwen knew, it was well within her capacity.

  Rosemary interjected here and there to bring attention back to herself. She was full of positive observations and compliments, pertinent to the situation. Gwen listened whenever Rosemary volunteered that Blink was the best tree climber she had ever seen, or that Newt and Sal knew how to sword fight, but Gwen’s attention began to drift as the conversation fractured into a whimsical cross between fish tales and duck-duck-goose. Her eyes were on Peter, who had slowly distanced himself from the feast and headed back to the grove.

  Absorbed in their own antics, the young children did not much care as Gwen slunk away from the table. They continued boisterously, but she crept through the forest, stepping softly with her bare feet. Only the fairies noticed her leave, and of that bunch, only Hollyhock was interested to see where she was going. Her dancing partner, Bramble, had long since abandoned her to gorge himself on the food lain out as part of the children’s feast.

  It is an inescapable truth that eEvery fairy in N
everland wasis terribly afflicted terribly with one vice. On all other counts, the fairies wereare generally good and noble creatures, but each one hads one failing, one Achilles’ heel within their moral fiber. For Bramble, it was gluttony. He could never pass up a speck of food, and he had been known to abandon far more important endeavors than dancing in the pursuit of sweet food. If left undisturbed, Bramble was liable to indulge until his stomach ached with the richness and quantity of food he piled into it, leaving him no occupation but lying belly-up, inert and idle. Had Spurt not decided to chase after him and play cat-and-mouse games with the gluttonous fairy, Bramble might have eaten himself into that state at this feast as well.

  Of course, being new to Neverland, Gwen did not know this about fairies. So she could neither have known what Hollyhock’s particular vice was, or that it was the worst of all vices.

  Wrath could find its outlets, gluttony could be satiated, and even envy could be tempered. What troubled other fairies were very simple vices that had limits and constrictions. Hollyhock was a different case though, because her vice was bred from virtuous desire and innocent incomprehension. Hollyhock was curious. There are few things as dangerous as curiosity, for it is never satiated and curious people are always coming up with more questions to ask. In a world constricted by the necessity of growing up, it was seen as imperative to human survival that the majority of people outgrow their curiousness, but in Neverland, they had quite a different view of the issue, and Hollyhock’s curiosity was perennially left unchecked.

  Her curiosity was what prompted her to follow Gwen, to see where she was going, hear what she would say, and observe how she would say it… even if Hollyhock already knew exactly who Gwen was going to go say it to.

  Unaware she was trailed by the glittering Hollyhock, Gwen approached Peter’s darkened stump. Her feet were cautious against the cool grass of the grove, and she half expected the boy to order her away, he appeared so nestled in his own thoughts. Peter made no objection though. He didn’t even look at her.

  Only when Gwen came to the foot of his stump and finally said, “Hello,” did he even give her a fleeting glance. Strolling around the stump and bending down so that she could stare directly into his askance eyes, Gwen prodded, “It’s polite to acknowledge people when they greet you.”

  Peter looked at her and replied, “Consider yourself acknowledged.”

  Gwen stood patiently. When Peter gave her another quick glance, she asked, “May I join you?”

  Without verbalizing an answer, Peter stood up on his stump and sat on one of its knotty edges. Gwen climbed up, her bare feet feeling their way across the dry bark and spongy moss of the shattered tree trunk. He seemed reluctant to let her up, but more at ease once she was on his level with him. She sat opposite of Peter and said, “You left the feast.”

  Peter had a handful of berries that he was absently eating, but he had not taken anything else with him from the table. “So have you.”

  “Why?”

  “Everyone was telling their stories. I already know all their stories. It was boring.”

  Gwen pulled her knees up to her chest as she perched on part of the massive stump. The cuffs of her polka dot pajamas were already getting dirty. “But I never got to hear your story.” Peter didn’t seem inclined to respond to that remark. “I mean, you carried me off to Neverland, I’ve been here all day, and I haven’t any idea who you are.”

  “I’m Peter Pan,” he informed her.

  “Just like in my stories?”

  “Just like.”

  “Not quite.”

  Peter gave her a wary glance. Gwen knew age would be a sensitive subject, and she didn't dare do more than hint at it. Everything else about him was just the way she had once pictured it, in imaginings long since forgotten in the wake of algebra homework and driver’s ed classes. Gwen didn’t know what to make of him, and Peter offered no assistance on that front.

  “This is a neat stump.”

  His toes wormed their way into a patch of fluffy moss. “It used to be a neater tree.”

  “It looks like lightning struck it.”

  Peter’s eyes narrowed, as if angry, but he delighted in the mysteriousness of his answer, “It was a different sort of storm that killed it.”

  “Oh?” Gwen gave him a look of wild curiosity, prompting an excited explanation.

  “A horrible storm. Electricity can ferry so much information back and forth. That’s why they attack with it. They think they can kill things and pinpoint our location. They can’t though. Neverland is too smart.

  “Who are they?”

  Peter didn’t even bother to look at her. “Don’t be stupid,” he instructed.

  Gwen remembered flying to Neverland, and what he had told her as they flew up to the moon. “You said they were watching one of the pathways. What does that mean?”

  Peter looked at her, as if her ignorance was insulting him personally. “Do you really not know what’s been going on?”

  “You’re taking kids to Neverland. Parents are freaking out. What’s there to get?”

  Peter scoffed at her, watching his feet as he wiggled his toes. He continued to lounge in the lightning-shattered stump, offering no answer.

  “Why did you carry me off to Neverland?”

  “I didn’t carry you here,” Peter objected. “You flew. Hollyhock gave you a bit of dust, and you did the rest yourself. Anyone who wants to go to Neverland for the right reasons can get there.”

  “What are the right reasons?” Gwen asked. She could hear crickets in the grass nearby, but they sounded like they were neighing, not chirping. Usually slightly paranoid about bugs, Gwen didn’t feel like she had to worry at all about spiders or worms out here. Whatever creatures crawled and crept across Neverland wouldn’t be as disgusting as the bugs back home.

  “You know—adventure, mischief, exploration, curiosity… good reasons. That’s why so few adults can ever get here, even when they try to come destroy us.”

  Gwen surveyed the stump. It looked brutalized. “Adults did this?”

  Peter was more somber than she ever imagined he could be when he informed her, “We’re fighting a war, Gwen. We’re building a resistance.”

  Gwen laughed nervously, simultaneously trying to communicate that she didn’t believe that in the least, and that she really did. “A resistance against what?”

  “Against all the adults who think we should have no choice as to whether or not we age. Against everything that says magic can’t be entrusted to people, that it has to be committed to organizations and groups, used to forward grown-up agendas.”

  Gwen had only recently been introduced to the idea of magic as a functioning aspect of reality. Her father had explained it to her in brief, never mentioning that there were other sides to the argument. Gwen tried to wrap her mind around this new perspective, but it was hard enough to imagine that this was somehow a politicized issue.

  “But Peter, isn’t it only natural?” Gwen timidly asked. “Haven’t you figured out by now that everyone needs to grow up? Maybe a few of you can exist on the fringe of reality out here, but everything depends on the fact that people eventually grow up.”

  “Everything there is different from everything here. They have a system in place, but no one’s going to tell me that makes it natural. Or even if it is, natural isn’t the same as right. Normal isn’t the same as moral. Everyone deserves a say in what happens to the world, and the only reason they don’t have it is because kids don’t know any better than to believe their moms and dads when they say growing up is such a wonderful thing. It’s stupid… Do you want to grow up?”

  “I think I might already be up,” Gwen quietly confessed. The mere fact that she could argue the other side gave a dangerous insight to how deep the hooks of adulthood were in her.

  “Nonsense,” Peter said. “If you were grown up, you wouldn’t have come here. Nobody who’s grown up ever flies to Neverland. They might get here through other means, but they sure as sn
owsalt don’t fly.”

  “I’m not a kid,” Gwen said.

  “Well then,” Peter said, “if you believe that, I think the real question is… why did you let yourself be carried off to Neverland?”

  He had stumped her, and Peter reveled in the argument he had won. Gwen knew what she had told herself about why she followed after Peter and Rosemary, but there were a hundred other reasons brewing in her heart and mind, all in conflict with each other. Gwen couldn’t think of why she had flown off to this place—she could only dream up every possible reason someone in her position might have taken off for Neverland. She had told herself that she was going to watch after Rosemary and keep her safe, but her little sister was currently in the jungle romping around with six other children while Gwen sat, curled up on a stump, talking to a boy. Gwen had hardly seen Rosemary since they’d touched down in the grove.

  “I guess so I could tell a story,” Gwen answered, feeling as though she ought to produce an answer, no matter how flimsy. It was comforting just to have a response.

  “It was an alright story,” Peter told her.

  “Didn’t you like it?” Gwen asked. She resented his aloofness.

  “It was good; it just wasn’t great.” He was so casual about it; Gwen couldn’t stand it.

  “Well, what kept it from being great?” All the other children had loved it, so Gwen wouldn’t have minded even if Peter hated it. Or at least, she wouldn’t have minded as much. His seeming indifference was maddening.

  Peter shrugged, as if it wasn’t anything in particular, or anything important. Gwen waited, determined to make him to defend his position. “It was unrealistic,” he finally retorted.

  Gwen couldn’t believe his audacity. “How could that possibly bother you?”

  “It was just so obvious from the way you told the story that you’d never actually eaten a star.”

  “Well, of course I haven—” Gwen stopped, suddenly realizing that it was more than likely her point wasn’t valid in Neverland. After all, if it was possible to eat a star, Peter Pan would know. She paused before it dawned on her what her response should be. “Will you help me eat one now?”