Forever Neverland(21)

“Stuck here?” Wendy interrupted, her tone somewhere between fury and confusion.

Peter saw the confusion and glimpsed his opportunity. He lowered his hands, nodding slowly. Then he chanced a step toward her and, for once in his compulsive, instinctual life, he thought about what he was going to say before he said it. It might have had something to do with the beguiling, if dangerous tempest brewing in Wendy’s beautiful eyes. Or maybe it was the slight trembling in her full, pink lips. Whatever it was, Peter simply needed to make certain that she understood – and that she forgave him. Suddenly, even more than he’d ever wanted to defeat Captain James Hook, Peter Pan wanted to make Wendy Darling forgive him.

“Wendy, when you and the Lost Boys came back from Neverland, I made a promise to make sure that Neverland’s children were okay before I went back.” He took another step forward and Wendy did not retreat. She narrowed her gaze at him, listening.

“If I’d been in Neverland, I would have heard you and I swear I would have come, but I haven’t been able to return and I didn’t know why until Tinkerbell found you,” Peter explained hurriedly. “And them,” he added, gesturing toward Wendy’s brothers.

Wendy looked from Peter to Tinkerbell, who nodded emphatically, then to Michael and John, who nodded once each. She frowned and looked back at Peter.

“It’s you, Wendy. You’re the reason I’m still bound by my promise. You’re not okay. And you’re Neverland’s child too.”

“And so are we,” Michael and John added simultaneously.

“But. . . you mean -” She slowly sat back down on the edge of her bed and blinked a few times. “You mean that we’ve been in the same world all along and you were just.so close? All this time?” She looked stunned, then, in that moment. As if everything had suddenly hit her all at once. Which it had.

Peter chewed on the inside of his cheek and took a shaky breath. “I’m sorry, Wendy. Believe me, I really am.”

Still staring at the floor, Wendy softly murmured, “Why are you all in my room?”

“You were dead, Wendy,” Michael told her.

“No she wasn’t, Michael. Don’t tell her something like that. She was just unconscious,” said John.

“Sleeping,” Peter corrected. “Deeply sleeping.”

“Sleeping is different, Peter,” Michael insisted, his eyes narrowed. “You know she wasn’t sleeping. You know this was worse.”

Peter nodded and held up his hands as if to stave off an oncoming argument. “Okay, okay. She wasn’t just sleeping.” He turned to Wendy and sighed. “I think you were dying, Wendy. And the man responsible is on his way here right now.”

She blinked. “What?” She looked at John and then at Michael again. “What?” She asked again. “What do you mean? Why? How?” Her expression became desperate – scared. She stood up. “What do you mean?” She repeated, her tone demanding.

“I think it was that.” Peter pointed at the bottle that sat on Wendy’s night stand, beside the bed. “The medicine.”

Wendy turned to gaze at the bottle. “Dr. Coffer’s medicine? But it’s just. . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“Ever since you took it, Wendy,” Michael said, “you haven’t told me any stories. You haven’t written anything. It took away your words.”

“Take away the words of a story teller,” Peter said solemnly, “and the story teller dies.” He nodded once. “That’s what was happening to you.”



Chapter Eight

Some people never dream. Or, they dream, but don’t recall their dreams upon awakening. But there are some who dream every night. And some of those dreamers remember their dreams. Some even know when they’re dreaming. These are the special few, the lucid, the magicians of the imagination.

If any of those people had been looking up at the city’s skyline that night, they would have known right away that they were dreaming. For, climbing over the sea of smoke stacks, church steeples, and radio antennae that made up the horizon like so much metal and steel was none other than a massive ship, its white sails billowing and luminescent against the glow of the full moon, its giant hull ploughing the low-lying clouds like a wooden whale.

At the wheel of the ship stood a man with long black hair, a red brocade coat, and a shining silver hook for a right hand. This, alone, would have been enough to promise the dream would be remembered. For no one ever forgets something as beautifully wicked as a hook.

They would have glimpsed the ship and its perfectly nefarious captain for an instant before it once more disappeared from sight, rising above the mist and fog to vanish into the night.