Michael. John. Booth. Mama. Papa. Hook.
Wendy.
As she neared the bottom of the foothill, she could see the tip of Sybella peeking out over the boulders. The closer she got, the larger it grew, until she could see it fully, looming above the shore, a great sea-glass rock, a behemoth monolith, flat on the top with rounded sides and a small opening in the middle. Her footsteps pounded underneath her, a rhythm most erratic; her breaths pushed out in gasps.
Why didn’t I run more on the Sudden Night?
The thought amused her, if only for a second. She pumped her arms as her chest roared its disapproval, her lungs heaving with each step. She reached the bottom, a long stretch to the shore unfolding itself before her, perhaps only a half a mile away.
Almost there.
Her relief was shattered by the sound of a pistol shot far above her, and Smith shouting something, his voice carried away on the wind whipping off the shore. No. No.
Wendy didn’t have to hear his warning, because she knew it already in her heart.
He was here.
She could feel Peter’s presence in the follicles of her hair, lust and hatred rising up in her chest with a murmur of regret and a whisper of terror. If she was blind, she would have known that he had arrived. She sprinted, her feet carrying her as fast as she could go, practically flying now, her legs carrying her closer and closer to Sybella. Her only thought was that she would make it; she would, she had to.
Pebbles scattered under her feet as she raced forward, her eyes on the glass, its reflection shifting from green to blue in the filtered morning light. Another pistol shot blasted in her ear, and then another. She ran. A shadow passed over her head, once and again, circling now, like a buzzard. The momentary distraction caused her foot to slide off a small rock in her path and her ankle rolled, sending her sprawling into the dust. Her whole body gave a shudder at the jarring impact as she slammed into the ground. His voice dripped like poison honey.
“Oh, Wendy, you’re the opposite of graceful.”
The cruel, familiar voice taunted from above.
“Beautiful, yes. Smart, undoubtedly. Graceful, no. Fast …”
His voice was close to her now; his lovely mouth brushing her ear.
“Not fast enough.”
She slid to a stop, her breaths heaving from her open mouth. A wave of red blood was dripping down her knee. Wendy closed her eyes for just a second, recovering, gathering. Her hand closed around the jagged edge of a seashell.
Get up.
She had barely hit the ground before she was pushing herself to her feet, running again.
His soft voice cut through the air, cut through her mind.
“I can’t tell you how nice it is to see you again. I’ve missed you, Wendy.”
Sybella was close now. She could see the distorted skulls, animals and human, that filled the inside of the blue-green glass, their mouths forever open in screams. Instead of the fear that it inspired at a distance, Sybella now pulled her closer, the glass humming with a familiar song, lulling, hypnotic, deadly—that same song that had pulled Wendy out into the ocean. It was that same seduction, only this time she was running for her life, unable to focus and so it drifted past her, curling off her skin like mist off the ocean.
How ironic, she thought, plunging forward, her lungs cutting for breath, that she now ran so desperately towards danger. It depends, her mind whispered, on what is chasing you.
She heard the air tunneling above her, Peter plunging downwards.
“You can’t outrun me, you know,” he shouted gleefully. “I’m not sure why we are pretending that you can.”
He reached out and tugged playfully on one of her curls. Blood from her knee was splattering the ground with each step now.
She wasn’t going to make it.
She saw stars exploding in her vision as her chest ripped apart with pain, her legs trembling with exhaustion. That same body betrayed her now, crying out for her to stop, to surrender to Peter, to his arms and his will. She could take the rest she had so earned; it would be so easy. He was right above her now. She could feel his breath on her face, his scent clean like pine trees and berries, a scent that she had once dearly loved. She felt his fingers brush her cheek.
“You are looking much more … rugged than the last time I saw you.”
Wendy gasped for air, a cramp piercing her side. She was almost to Sybella, almost there…. She reached out her arms… .
Peter’s voice turned cold.
“I’m not sure I like this new look.” He tsked-tsked. “Oh, and you were so close.”
Then he swept her feet out from under her. She flew forward, towards the rock, bracing herself to hear the crack of her bones, but Peter caught her midfall. She felt his hands wrap around her waist, felt the ground pull away from her, felt the sudden weightlessness of flight and the heat of his skin.
She plunged the seashell deep into his hand.
Wendy felt Peter’s skin give way to the softness underneath, and worried that she would be sick. Instead, she yanked the shell out of his hand and clasped it tightly against her chest. Peter roared and jerked his hands off her waist in surprise. Wendy tumbled roughly to the ground. She landed hard on her side, but scrambled into a crouch before throwing her body desperately forward. Peter lunged for her once more, but she passed through Sybella’s open archway, curling her body behind her so that all of her was swallowed beneath its wide curve. As she gasped for breath, the melodious song coming off the rock absorbed her into protective folds. Ancient magic was passing through her skin, inspecting and approving.
The rock wanted her, she could feel it. She pulled herself forward, the archway of Sybella soaring above her. Wendy climbed to her feet, stopping for a moment to stare in wonder at the sea glass that now surrounded her. There was no reflection of her bruised face, only the skull of some forgotten sea monster, its narrow jaws unhinged. Wendy gasped, her fingers trailing inches over the surface. Inside of the glass were waves. Tiny waves, moving so slowly that unless you were inches from the glass, you wouldn’t be able to see them. Sybella wasn’t solidly sea glass—no, she contained the sea. The water was alive, and somehow trapped forever inside of her.
Wendy didn’t dare touch the glass, even though every reckless part of her longed for it. Stepping slowly forward, she passed out from under the archway. A short path down to the water continued in front of her, weaving its way in between boulders, the same sky open above her. All was the same and yet, not at all. The air around her changed—it hung with a potent heaviness. There had been a strong wind coming off the sea, and now all was perfectly still. The scent of salt water filled the air, mingled with the fragrance of fran-gipanis. Wendy looked down, noticing that her knee no longer bled, nor was it scraped. Her wounds had been healed.
“Incredible!” she murmured.
“Isn’t it, though?”
Wendy Darling turned around slowly, then leapt backwards with a shout. Peter was right behind her, floating at Sybella’s open entrance, perhaps only eight feet from where she stood. The air in the archway between them had a strange quality to it. She could see through it, though it occasionally wavered and leapt, as if she was looking through a fine wall of water. Peter Pan was cradling his bloody hand against his chest.
“You stabbed me.” He gave a hysterical laugh. “I’m disturbed, and somewhat aroused.”
Wendy said nothing, her eyes watching him as he began to pace back and forth in front of the open archway. His eyebrows lowered, and a look of real concern passed over his face.
“I don’t know what you are doing in Miath, or why you would come to this place. This is dangerous, Wendy! Do you really understand what you’re doing?”
His voice rose a few octaves.
“Wendy, listen, you’re not safe here. Go back to that bastard Hook if you must, but don’t go to the lagoon. I’ll leave if you promise not to go. You can’t begin to understand the deep magic that rests on these shores. Queen Eryne is c
razy. They’ll kill you!”
He paused, his emerald-green eyes alarmed.
“Wendy—I can’t protect you here!”
She narrowed her eyes.
“The only thing I need protecting from is you.”
Peter threw his head back dramatically.
“Oh yes, protection from Peter Pan, the boy who only wants to love you.”
“You don’t want to love me. You want to own me.”
Peter’s eyes clouded with navy—the Shadow!—before meeting her own. His tone became flirtatious, playful.
“I know the fire that rages under your skin. I know that even though you hate yourself for it, you want me. And if you gave yourself to me, I would consume you and you would let me, happily.”
Wendy’s skin flushed at his words, knowing they were true. Her eyes traced the fine line of his jaw, the handsome, carefree smile that was plastered across his face, even as blood dripped down his arm.
“But that’s not what I want, something that never mattered to you.”
Peter sighed, exasperated. “Aren’t you tired Wendy? Tired of running? Tired of bleeding? Tired of Hook and his crazed fairytales?”
Peter flew closer to Sybella’s archway. She could see the way his red hair curled over his forehead, could see the pale pink of his lips, the gleaming white of his teeth. “Aren’t you tired, Wendy, of turning away from your own desires? Don’t you see? You and I, we can live together, with both of your brothers, on Pan Island.” His navy eyes lit up as he continued. “All that I have could be yours. We could be a family.”
An image came to Wendy then, an image from a story she had seemingly heard in another lifetime: Peter, standing over the body of Hook’s father, murdered for not choosing Peter over his own son.
“Come and get me then.”
Peter snarled, but he didn’t move forward. Men could not pass through Sybella, and she could feel the magic humming around her. Peter feared it, this distinctly female power.
“Leave me be, Peter.” Wendy turned to go. The air above her was open and clear … and somehow safe.
Peter’s voice rose, infuriated.
“Soon, you will fall into my arms and beg for my love. I know it. I’ll be the only one you want.”
Wendy stepped backwards.
“I have to go. Good-bye, Peter.”
His beautiful face erupted into a distorted madness as he began screaming at her as she walked away.
“No one turns their back on Peter Pan. No one! Do you hear me! I will kill every living creature in Neverland if I have to. These seas will turn red when I am done. You and your good friend Hook haven’t seen anything yet. I swear on the lives of your brothers, YOU WILL LOVE ME!”
His diabolical rant continued, each word a splinter in her heart.
“Do you hear me? I WILL TAKE EVERYTHING YOU LOVE.”’
He kept shouting at her, his voice roaring in her ears, growing ever dimmer as she made her way off of the Gray Shore and into Miath.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
A large cluster of lean, jagged boulders separated Sybella from the shore. Foreboding, they hovered above Wendy’s head, their peaks dusted white, not with snow, but with the fine dust of crushed bone. Wendy passed in between the slivers of rock, trying in vain to wipe Peter’s blood off her hands and onto her dress. I will take everything you have. Though her heart still thundered at the sudden violence of their interaction, seeing Peter was somehow exactly what she needed. This was why she was here. It renewed her purpose, her strength. The look in his eyes, the power in his words and touch, this was why she needed to speak with the mermaids, so that one day Neverland—and her family—could be free from his tyranny, from a game built on the corpses of men and boys.
Wendy passed by a series of dwindling rocks, arranged now in a wide circle. Vegetation had started to creep back onto the rocks; white leaves tumbled down the rocks in a cascade of vines, not unlike the green ivy that once crawled around her nursery window.
Wendy …
The haunting song that she had heard pulling from the glass of Sybella entered her ears once again: an intimate lullaby that bathed her skin, stripping her bare in the process.
“We’ve been waiting for you, Wendy. Come to us.”
The rocks closed over Wendy’s head, and she stopped walking. The path had ended, and ahead of her was a curtain of blue-and-green veined ivy, the leaves thicker than her palm. Crisp notes of the sea filled her nostrils as she peered at the curtain, and the voices of the mermaids rose to a deafening chorus, each singing their own song, each perfectly in harmony with each other. The voices barreled past her, passing her over like a rock in the sea. Wendy looked backwards and saw Sybella twinkling in the sunlight, the waves inside of her pulsing in cadence with the mermaids’ song. They were singing to her, the rock. She turned back to the curtain of ivy, which blew outwards, opening for her, though she felt no breeze on her skin. She swallowed once, working to quiet the doubts and fear pushed against her chest.
Wendy squared her shoulders and slipped through the curtain, letting the wet leaves brush over her curls. On the other side, a wide lagoon opened up in front of her, perhaps a half mile around. Vibrant colors, almost violent in their lushness, assaulted her from every surface: amaranth pinks and lemony-yellow corals exploded out from under the perfectly blue water; mossy rocks of emerald rose up out of the pool, their round stones covered with purple flowers, their lapping tongues dotted with creamy swirls. Flora covered every inch of the lagoon, and she watched silently as trees dripping with pink blossoms fell leisurely into the pool. There was no beach, no sand, rather just a steep drop off of the moist ground that Wendy stood on straight down into the water. She struggled to regain her focus, her senses assaulted by the beauty around her. A strange high-pitched squeaking emanated from the clear blue water, and she crouched down, peering over the edge.
The water was still momentarily, before something flung a stream of water in her direction. Wendy leapt back with a shriek. A large creature stared back at her, the length of a horse, but shiny and rubbery, with smooth gray skin and a thin, bottled nose. It opened its mouth and squeaked happily at her. There was a small black hole in its head and, when Wendy looked back at it, a thin puff of steam and water ejected from it. Eyes like marbles peered at her, and Wendy felt an overwhelming sense of gentleness from this serene creature.
Cautiously, she lay on her stomach and reached out her hand, slowly reaching towards the creature who watched her with knowing eyes. The animal raised its nose to her fingers, Wendy realizing too late that it was not smelling her, but rather Peter’s blood, when it jerked away with an unhappy squeal. It disappeared under the water, and Wendy frowned, missing the peace she had felt in it presence. A dolphin, that’s what it was. She had seen them once in one of papa’s picture books.
“Come back!” she whispered.
The lagoon was still for a moment before the dolphin vaulted itself upwards, displaying an amazingly sleek form before landing sideways, splashing Wendy with a wave of water. She leapt backwards, water dripping from her nose and hair, and clapped her hands.
“Well done!”
The dolphin gave a playful splash of his fin, soaking her once more and then disappeared under the lagoon.
“Bravo!” Wendy cried, elated.
“I see you’ve met Maji.”
Without looking, she knew it was the queen.
Wendy pushed to her feet, slowly stepping backwards from the edge of the lagoon. The voice echoed across the lagoon, streaming down from the high stone walls, the flowers, the grass, everywhere and nowhere at once. Beautiful and cruel, it cracked Wendy’s confidence.
“It’s nice to finally meet you face to face, Wendy Darling. We have heard much about you.”
The water in the lagoon, previously still, began swaying back and forth in small waves. The waves grew larger, cresting in a circular pattern that wove around the rocks, one wave crossing through another, creating a small vortex around the rock
s. The entire lagoon vibrated with a low hum, as the reverberating chorus rang across the water.
Queen Eryne rose out of the center.
Wendy’s parents had taught her never to swear, that it was unladylike and crass.
And yet, her mouth fell open with the familiar words, all of her proper etiquette falling away.
“Holy Mary, mother of God.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Wendy shrank back from the edge of the water, her eyes blinking rapidly, trying to take in what she was seeing. It was too much, the colors of the lagoon, the blue of the water, and here, a mermaid whose beauty actually burned her eyes. Without her permission, a salty tear rolled down her cheek and splattered the front of her gown. Held aloft by a muscular tail that glistened in the wavering light of the lagoon, Queen Eryne rose over the swirling water, her eyes hungrily resting on Wendy. Buoyed by the push of the water, the queen slid easily onto one of the rocks at the center of the lagoon with a wet slap. She casually curled her fingers in Wendy’s direction and three mossy rocks pushed themselves out of the water, sending a handful of chittering blue crabs scurrying back into the lagoon.
“Come closer, Miss Darling. Mermaids are able to see many things, but far away isn’t one of them.”
Wendy stepped forward, her slipper squishing in the wet ground. The creature that had been so playful now appeared by the queen’s side, squirting water over her massive tail, squeaking happily as she stroked its slick maw with a long, pale hand. Moving carefully over the slippery rocks, Wendy started to make her way over to a small adjacent rock that sat close to the queen’s mossy throne. The water, once a clear blue was now filled with strange undulations of blue and purple, marked with flashes of black marble. Wendy blinked and looked again as a bubble of horror rose up inside of her. They were mermaids. Under the water, shifting and moving, slithering through one another, hundreds of them followed her steps from underneath as she moved from rock to rock. Wendy stopped walking.