“I think I’ll stay here, thank you.”
Queen Eryne gave her an amused smile.
“Now that you are here in Miath, do you not think that you’re completely at our mercy? Even the pirates fear us, small men looking down from their lofty boats, not knowing that they sail on their death, that the sea whispers their names day and night.”
The queen wiggled her fingers as if she were toying with their mortal thread. Wendy settled carefully onto her knees, her blue dress in a circle around her. She tried to keep her face emotionless, but the beauty of the queen was overwhelming, distracting.
The queen sighed.
“Look your fill, child. Most humans will never see what you see, so gaze away. We were designed by the gods, not meant for this world, but our own.”
Hook’s words whispered in her mind. Play to her pride.
“You are indeed beautiful. I couldn’t even imagine …,” Wendy paused, “not even in my imagination could one create such beauty.”
At least there was no need to lie. Cascades of wavy hair fell in lustrous curls around the queen, celestial blue and pale violet mixed with strands of shimmering gold. Atop her head sat a crown of what Wendy at first had thought was coral, but now saw was actually made of human bones. Their crooked arms reached away from her head and pulled towards the jewel of her crown—the skeleton of a seahorse, forever preserved in a glass bubble. Thick lashes of the same blue and violet as her hair set off the queen’s ashen-blue and fathomless eyes, which blinked at Wendy. She had a sharp Roman nose and harshly drawn cheeks that pointed downwards to lips covered in miniscule, pearled scales, a multifaceted shade that changed and shifted in the light. When she spoke, her mouth twinkled with stars of jade. Her skin was the palest cream, utterly without blemish, as though she was made of carved marble.
She reminded Wendy of one of Michelangelo’s statues—the hard lines, the curved perfection of flesh—that had made her blush when she had seen a picture of it. The queen’s large palms, adorned with six fingers on each hand, now smoothed out her hair. She wasn’t wearing anything, and Wendy blushed as her eyes moved down her torso to the massive tail that flopped like a gutted fish on the rock. The tail was covered in scales that spread out in a circular pattern, their overlapping colors reminding Wendy of a peacock. Water streamed off the tail and dripped into the lagoon, where dozens of other mermaids were swimming silently underneath, their movements frenzied, agitated. Wendy’s hand trembled. Queen Eryne’s voice poured over her.
“They won’t touch you without my command. Do not be afraid, not yet.”
Wendy bowed her head respectfully. It was time to get what she came for.
“Queen Eryne, I have come here seeking answers. Answers that I believe—”
The queen cut her off, leaning forward so that her eyes met Wendy’s across the water.
“I know what answers you seek, foolish girl. How dare you come into my lair and presume to tell me what I will tell you? The sea knows all your secrets, every spoken word since the beginning of Neverland. She is ancient and wise, and you are a speck of dirt that she will swallow, and you will pass to nothing.” She waved her long arm in disgust. “As they say in your world, dust to dust.”
Wendy could not hold back her surprise. “My world?”
“Oh yes, I know all about the world you come from. They are all connected, though in ways you couldn’t begin to imagine. The seas are separate but one, and one wave from Neverland knows every wave in your world’s ocean. Waves pass from one world to another all the time, through deep crevasses that comb through the oceans, unknowable, unpassable.”
Wendy felt the trace of a smile on her face, somehow comforted knowing that the water that surrounded her here in Neverland was the same water that battered up against Britain’s shores. Perhaps her family wasn’t as far away as she believed.
Then again, she was staring at a mermaid.
Queen Eryne flapped the end of her tail impatiently against the rock, thin filaments of deep red, soft greens and blues spread out in a feathery texture on the stones.
“Are you, child, aware of the cost?”
Wendy swallowed.
“Yes. My blood, my blood in exchange for answers.”
The queen shook her head.
“Not just your blood. Your virgin blood.”
She raised an impeccably arched eyebrow, dotted with tiny pearls at both ends. Wendy felt a blush rising up her cheeks.
“Yes.”
She beckoned Wendy closer, and Wendy leaned forward, not wanting to get within an arm’s length of the queen, who swayed slightly back and forth as she watched Wendy, like a cobra ready to strike.
“We could have had it all already, your blood. It’s a pity.”
Wendy flinched at the awful memory—being pulled down, the sound of the song as she struggled to breathe… .
“Peter saved me that day.”
“Peter Pan!” The queen spit the words. “That pompous boy. What right did he have to take what was rightfully ours, what wandered into our home due to their own weak spirit? Bah!”
She waved dismissively at Wendy, and a narrow sluice of water echoed up the side of the lagoon.
“If you only understood the value in your worthless veins.”
Her eyes lit up hungrily.
“Your blood feeds our coral garden, one that begins just below your feet and runs out to farthest reaches of the Neverland seas. It provides nourishment for thousands and thousands of living sea creatures, mermaids and anemone.” She gestured to the lagoon. “It’s what makes these colors so bright. The blood enhances everything it touches, from the crested shark to an oyster shell.” She shook her head. “It is most unfortunate that only virgin blood of a girl has the power to make our coral gardens flourish. Daily I wish it was the blood of useless men and boys …” she gestured towards the sea.
“Well, between the pirates and the Lost Boys, we would never have to worry again.”
Wendy suddenly felt very protective of her pumping heart. She crossed her arms over her chest.
“I have not come to give my blood. I have come to trade some of it for answers.” She cleared her throat. “I must know how to defeat the Shadow.”
Queen Eryne snapped her head backwards, rolling her neck from side to side.
“I knew that’s what you wanted. I knew that you would invoke its wicked name in front of my sisters.”
There was a distressed hiss from under the writhing waters, and a jarring cacophony of notes filled the air.
“The Shadow upsets my people.”
Wendy stepped backwards. Fear, its fine fingertips tracing up her spine, crowded her mind.
“We know you must have helped him.”
“You know nothing!”
The queen’s pitch was high and strangled, and scattered pieces of sea glass that littered the lagoon cracked. The queen raised her head, peering at Wendy from under her massive bone crown, her pale eyes simmering with anger.
“Fine. The deal is struck. Your blood for the answers you desire and then you will know the truth.” The queen shivered with anticipation. “I will take what I need and not one drop more.”
Wendy struck out her hand, a business move that she had seen her father do many times. The queen laughed.
“You silly girl. The trade is made when the blood hits the water.”
She lunged towards Wendy and grabbed her roughly by the arm. Her grip was so strong that Wendy unable to even twist away. Queen Eryne dragged her violently down to the lowest mossy rock in the lagoon before laying her face up on the stone.
“It’ll go quickly, passing before you like a dream.”
Wendy closed her eyes and mouthed a prayer as she felt the cool water of the rock begin to seep into her hair. Queen Eryne perched above her, Wendy now close enough to smell the nauseating scent on her breath, a potent mix of raw fish and the aroma of fresh flowers. Wendy’s arm was stretched out so that her wrist lay above the water, and she gasped in horror
as the heads of six mermaids rose out of the lagoon around it. Water streamed from their incandescent hair, and she watched as their eyes changed from marbles of black into the clear, glassy eyes of Queen Eryne. They stretched their hands out of the water, each one holding a conch shell, their singing voices beginning to calm Wendy, even in her distress. The words washed over her, a serene lullaby of the sea and sky, and though her mind protested she felt her heart slowing and her breaths becoming deep and rhythmic.
The queen leaned over her and kissed her cheek softly. “Don’t be afraid, sister. You are one of us, though we be of different species, we are both women. Just breathe, and I will tell you what your heart seeks to know: a story of shadows and broken hearts.”
Wendy felt something thin and hard slice her wrist. She flinched and turned her head just time to see a bone knife, its sharp tip now tinged with red, drop into the water. A tiny trail of dark red dripped down her wrist and fell into the lagoon below. One of the mermaids, her shimmering blue-green hair pulled up with a comb of jagged coral, looked at the queen. “It is good, your majesty.” All the mermaids then looked at Wendy hungrily, and she wished that she had never stumbled into this den of starving wolves.
I will be brave, I will be brave, I will …
The queen grabbed her chin, turning Wendy’s head from her bloody wrist.
“Don’t look at them. Look at me. Hear my words.”
And with that Wendy surrendered, letting the queen’s words weave her, like silk on a loom. Lulling blue light flickered across the scales on her lips.
“You ask me how to defeat the Shadow, and how to defeat Peter Pan. One I can tell you, but the other I cannot. Peter Pan is simple—the boy is after all, still a mortal, and can be killed as easily as any other man. A knife, poison, drowning. But the Shadow …”
The queen leaned back, and Wendy saw two thin gills that ran up the sides of her long neck. They flapped open and closed as she spoke, her words rolling over Wendy’s skin like drops of rain.
“You should know that it wasn’t my fault, I never meant …,” she sighed. “I knew Peter when he first came to Neverland, still very much a regular boy, not able to fly. I met him on a rowboat in the middle of the sea, where he was attempting to fish. He had been singing, and his voice, it called to me. I spared his life in exchange for a song, and he sung me the most-beautiful tale, of an old man called Wick, and an emerald-green shore.”
Wendy felt a tendril of nausea curl inside of her. She wondered what version of this story Peter had told Queen Eryne. A poor child at the mercy of his brothers and sisters? Or had he told her the truth—that he was a rich, spoiled son of the manor, who abused his servants and serfs?
“I continued to visit him after that, on the shores of his home on Pan Island, and we spoke of many things, many ancient things—intimate things.”
Wendy blinked. She was beginning to feel a slight pain creep up from her wrist.
“I invited him to visit Miath under my protection, and he did. We can grant permission to visit our shores to whomever we choose, but we normally extend it to none.” She paused. “It had been so long since we had a man in our mist. The decision angered some of my clan.”
Underneath the water, Wendy heard the chorus of cries, a lamenting dissent. They were listening to the queen’s every word.
“We grew … closer. He began to visit here often, and gained the favor of many of us, though there were some that doubted his intentions. I ignored their voices, because this mortal boy confused my mind. He manipulated my emotions through some sort of mortal witchcraft… .”
Wendy gasped. “You loved him. You fell in love with him.”
The queen gripped Wendy’s shoulders, her six fingers digging into Wendy’s collarbone.
“Mermaids do not believe in your pitiful human concept of love. In your world, it is used to excuse the most horrible of behaviors. It leads to the downfall of great civilizations, and makes slaves of women. Do not ever again accuse me of love.”
The pool had gone silent, and Wendy knew that she had stumbled upon a truth.
Queen Eryne had fallen in love with Peter Pan. Of course.
Wendy was more empathetic that she would have liked to be. She knew how easy it was, how one lingering look from those green eyes could undo any reservation, how one cheeky smile, meant only for you, was the sun shining on the secrets part of your soul, bringing you into the light. Wendy shifted and felt a tiredness seeping into her bones.
How much blood had they taken? How long had it been? The lagoon seemed a bit darker than when she had arrived. Her mouth was dry and crusted.
“The Shadow … tell me about the Shadow,” she gasped. Queen Eryne looked sideward, a look of shame passing over her etched features.
“Fairies,” she spat. “It all started with the fairies. Prideful, prancing creatures they were. They ruled over Neverland and declared it all under their control—even the trees and the mountains, which belonged to the Pilvinuvo Indians. They declared rule over the rivers and lakes, the seas and all its creatures, though they belong to us. The fairies wanted to rule everything, claiming that their benevolent peace was the best standard for all beings. They knew nothing of our ways. BAH!” Her tail lashed behind her angrily.
“Fairies and their silly songs, that’s really who is to blame. Peter Pan was obsessed with them, particularly their ability to fly.” The queen scoffed, jealously seeping through her words.
“Flying, like it’s such an admirable thing! Soaring through the air like some silly butterfly. Not only do mermaids have the ability to swim, we also breathe in both land and sea! We of the salt water and rock, Peter did not deem us worthy of his admiration, oh no. It was the fairies that he wanted to be like. He had tried to befriend them as he did us, and they would not have him.”
She paused, a droplet of water running down her face. A black forked tongue emerged from her lovely mouth and picked it off her lip. Wendy thought she might be sick.
“Though, looking back, I do believe that Qaralius, their king, saw a darkness in Peter that I did not. He was not blinded by the same … afflictions.” A salmon-pink blush ran up her face. “Peter begged me to intervene on his behalf with the fairies. He was obsessed. I wanted to please him, because he threatened to leave us and never visit again.”
An angry moan rose up from below the waters, mournful and dirgelike. Wendy was feeling very, very tired. The queen looked down for a moment at her clan, circling like sharks below Wendy’s wrist.
“He was going to leave us. What else was I to do?”
A chorus of angry cries rose up from the water, and the lagoon pitched with angry waves. The queen’s voice rose angrily.
“I hear you, my sisters! I know I shouldn’t have told him. It was a grave mistake. I have made amends. Quiet your voices!”
The lagoon immediately went still, and the queen sighed.
“I didn’t want him to leave. And so I told him about The Song That Calls the Shadow. When the fairies called it, I could feel it moving from wherever I was.” Her voice saddened. “Then, its presence was light, and warm. Kind.” She shook her head as her eyes narrowed.
“I thought he would mock them for their silliness. Instead, Peter listened to the song, called the Shadow, and bound it to himself. Mad that the fairies had snubbed him, Peter ordered the Shadow to kill them. Perhaps even more importantly, he knew that Qaralius was the greatest threat to his power and he wanted him out of the way.”
“But he saved Tink,” whispered Wendy.
“Yes. During the massacre he ordered, he ordered the Shadow to spare Tink, and led her to believe that he saved her. In return, she gave him speed, flight, and the ability to never age. I believe that when she did that, Peter’s relationship with the Shadow became even darker.”
Wendy’s eyes fluttered. Stay awake, she ordered herself, stay alert! The mermaids below her hissed. Something was yanking hard on Wendy’s wrist, squeezing the veins of her arm. She flinched.
“And
now?” Wendy whispered. The queen straightened her spine.
“I have felt the Shadow stir only once since the fairies were massacred.”
Wendy shivered. The Sunned Shores. The queen’s voice dropped, a quiver unmistakable.
“It is a cold, dead thing, full of malice. It tore through the fairies like paper. They were strong creatures and they were no match for it. I heard their screams from the bottom of the sea, in the deepest trench of our ocean.”
The queen looked disturbed at the memory.
“Now we are all held hostage by that same cruel boy, the boy who once played here, in our lagoon. The same boy who once made me believe in fantastic things.”
Wendy’s voice was barely a whisper. She forced herself to keep her eyes open.
“You fear the Shadow.”
“I fear nothing!” The queen tightened her grasp on Wendy’s arm. Blood spurted into the lagoon to a chorus of happy mermaid sighs. “But Neverland will never be free, not while the Shadow lies in wait. We are held prisoner in our own paradise.”
“Where is the Shadow?”
The queen gave a low hum, its sound echoed off the walls of the lagoon, like the cascade of harp strings.
“It rests now in the Forsaken Garden, that once magnificent fairy city. It sleeps, until Peter calls it once again. And yet, at the same time it resides in the Forsaken Garden it also resides inside of Peter.”
Wendy tried to push herself to sitting.
“What is the rush, my dear?” Wendy yanked her arm upwards and was alarmed at how pale it was. Blue veins stood in stark contrast to her white skin. She shivered, suddenly freezing in this warm lagoon. When she looked out across the blue water, she saw hundreds of black eyes watching her, their floating swirls of hair undulating gently underneath the surface. She looked back at the queen and lifted her chin indignantly.