Forever Neverland(14)

And a dreamless sleep, at that.

*****

“I don’t know, Peter… I don’t really – I mean – I’ve never had this kind of thing before, and –”

Peter sighed, barely containing some amount of exasperation. “Just drink it, Johnny. It’s the only thing worth a bugger in your world. Especially after Tink’s done working her magic on it.” Peter Pan winked at Tinkerbell from where he sat on the ledge of the overlook, his booted feet dangling over the edge of the precipice. Tinkerbell smiled back and blushed slightly.

John sat beside Peter, a little further back from the ledge. At the moment, Peter had a bottle of red wine in his hands and it shimmered enticingly, having been enhanced with fairy dust. He held it out for John, who eyed it suspiciously.

At last, though, John’s will power dwindled and he clasped the bottle with one cold hand and brought it to his lips. It smelled like strawberries and sunshine and freedom.

He frowned. Did freedom have a smell?

Mmmm…. He closed his eyes and took another whiff. Yes. Freedom and ocean waves and honey and magic. It smelled like child hood. It smelled like Neverland.

He took a drink.

With the iridescent liquid’s first sweet contact on his tongue, John was instantly warmer. The chill of the autumn night slipped out of his fingers and toes and they tingled as if he was holding them near a hearth fire. He swallowed again, slowly, languidly. The liquid burned down his throat, filling him with a feeling of lightness. Weightlessness.

Now, as everyone knows, people cannot fly. They are made, sadly, without wings and as everyone also knows, wings are the only thing that can make an animal fly.

But, thankfully for the children of Neverland, what everyone knows is usually wrong. For wings are not the only thing that can make a person fly.

There is also that other thing.

John Darling opened his eyes and cried out in surprise. For what he had expected to see was Peter Pan sitting beside him and Tinkerbell standing off to one side and the outline of the lit-up city, at night, in the distance beyond the cliff’s ledge. But what he saw, instead, was the night sky and, below him, the wispy tendrils of a cloud that licked with gentle wetness at his exposed skin.

The sound of laughter drew his panicked attention up and away from the ground, which was suddenly quite a long way down.

He glanced over to find Peter Pan, in his black clothes, sitting on the edge of the very same cloud that now caressed John. “Do you remember now, Johnny Boy?” Peter asked, again flashing perfect white teeth.

John couldn’t answer. He found that he had, in fact, stopped breathing once more. And as he contemplated the very fact that he was flying and that such a thing was impossible, he realized, also, that he was sinking.

Peter Pan seemed to walk calmly across the top of the cloud, his arms crossed over his chest. Tinkerbell, once more in the form of a tiny fairy, flitted about Peter’s head.

“Happy thoughts, Johnny! Better think of some soon!” Peter called.

John began to thrash out at the sky around him as he sank right through the cloud beneath him and Peter’s form rose out of sight. Lower and lower, he went. He wasn’t quite falling, but he wasn’t not falling either. It was like being in a glass elevator that had lost most of its power.

He began to sink faster.

“Bloody hell,” John whispered, squeezing his eyes shut tight against a building queasiness.

“That was the wrong thought!” Peter called after him.

Frantically, John attempted to call to mind the things that made him happy… “Einstein,” he said quickly, “Darwin! Copernicus!” In desperation, he lifted the bottle again and took another swig, this time pulling long and deep.

At once, the queasy sensation eased and John could feel that the wind was no longer whipping at his face. All traces of cold were gone. All traces of fear were gone. As the last of the liquid slid down his throat, John Darling realized that he felt better than any other human being would probably ever feel. At once, he understood how an individual might become addicted to a drug. He opened his eyes.

“Atta boy, Johnny.” Peter Pan sat in front of him, his legs crossed Indian-style, floating on nothing but thin air and night. Tinkerbell landed on John’s shoulder with a tinkling spray of pixie dust and leaned to whisper in his ear.

“Welcome back!”

Her voice was so tiny that it reminded John Darling of what a chipmunk or a mouse might sound like, if it could speak. But it was also beautiful. It felt like being kissed by an angel when she placed her tiny hands on his ear lobe and he couldn’t help but blush furiously.

He laughed, not even knowing why.

And Peter laughed as well.