Forever Neverland(63)

No wonder he’s so angry, Wendy thought. He had to fight against something he didn’t understand. He did his best, as a child would, caught in the role of a man.

I have to end this, was her next thought.

I have to end Neverland and all that it stands for. It’s brought us all nothing but pain.

The ground beneath Wendy’s shoes bucked violently, knocking her off of her feet. She fell to her side and propped herself up as John shot forward to help her up. But before he reached her, a fissure opened up in the rock, splitting the stone between them. Wendy cried out as Michael toppled to his bottom and nearly fell into the crack, but the boy rolled away from the opening and then scrambled to his hands and knees.

“What’s happening?” John screamed. Before anyone could answer him, a terrible roar bellowed up from within the crack, growing in volume until it drowned out the sound of the howling wind and the crashing of the waves against the rocks.

“What the hell is that?” John asked next, yelling the question at the tops of his lungs.

No one answered him. No one could. But Wendy had a horrible sinking feeling. She’d done something wrong. Someone once said that thinking a sin was as bad as doing it. She’d never believed such utter nonsense. People have bad thoughts all the time and never act on them. It was the not going through with them that made those people good instead of bad.

But in this case, Wendy wasn’t so sure the same rules applied.

For something significant had occurred on the day, six years ago, that she’d begun telling stories of Neverland. The idea for Neverland had just come to her one night, when their parents were at a banquet for her father’s bank employees and her brothers couldn’t sleep. . . .

They’d asked her for a story. And as easy as a breeze through an open window, something had been born. Something big.

And now it knew that she wanted to kill it. Neverland could sense it.

This is it, she thought.

“Once upon a time,” she began.



Chapter Twenty-One

Wendy watched the ground warily as the crack grew wider and the rock beneath her trembled. “Once upon a time, there was a place called Neverland that existed only to serve the needs of a boy named Peter Pan. . . .”

The roar grew in volume, until it began to vibrate Wendy’s eardrums and felt as if it would drive her mad. She watched, in abject horror, as something white and primordial pressed up through the massive fracture in the black stone. It was long and thin and weathered and as it rose higher and higher, Wendy realized what it was.

The Never Bird.

Long-dead and buried, the giant bird had been but a landmark in her stories – a forbidden, sacred burial place where no one was allowed to go. The spirit of the Never Bird, she had told, watched over the Natives on the mainland and guided their hunts. The Never Bird, which had once been a monster greater than any dinosaur and more fearsome than any dragon, was the guardian of Neverland. Its spirit and soul.

It’s here to defend itself, she thought.

“Get back, Wendy!” Peter was beside her, shoving her out of the way, his right hand brandishing his sword as if it would do any good against a monster of fossilized bone. Wendy felt a presence at her back and knew that Hook was behind her. But everyone’s gaze was on the Never Bird as it rose from its sacrosanct grave of skull-shaped boulders and long abandoned castle keeps.

A wing, first. Fifteen feet of boney, bat-like fingers that were once draped in scales or feathers or leather. Wendy wondered what color it had been.

“Once upon a time,” she started over, too rattled to remember what she’d already said. Her voice shook horribly and was barely audible over the cacophony around her. “There was a place called Neverland and it loved its little boy very much – so much that it desperately wanted to hold on to him and never let him go.” She spoke rapidly, barely discernible, but she knew she had to make it a story, complete and whole, or it wouldn’t work.

Suddenly, Hook was reaching his left arm over her shoulder and pressing his palm to her chest. Wendy stilled as a sort of pressure vibrated the rock under her shoes. And then Hook was shoving her roughly back out of the way as the stone in front of Peter exploded outward, shattering into a spray of pebbles and salty rain as the Never Bird yanked its second wing free from its grave.

John and Michael managed to run back far enough not to get caught by the eruption, but Peter was knocked violently backwards and soared through the air to land a good distance behind Hook and Wendy.

Wendy wondered why he hadn’t simply caught himself with happy thoughts and his ability to fly. But then Hook was shoving at her again, this time yanking her behind him as the Never Bird’s massive wing arced down toward her with what could only have been direct intent to smash her beneath it.