“Say! That’s pretty great! You are using your weight to balance against the . . .” John squinted his eyes above. “Pulley system. Is that right?”
Oxley nodded and began taking longer, graceful leaps down the tree as the two clumsy Darling children attempted to do the same. Michael giggled the entire way down, happily strapped to Ox’s back, oblivious to anything else but the wind on his face. Wendy crept down, step by tiny step. John had passed her up a long time ago, but with each step she seemed to grow a bit bolder, and each step grew longer than the next. It seemed to be an eternity before she reached the ground. Finally, her shoes met solid ground, and she quickly untied the rope around her waist, letting it fall into the pale sand that lined the base of the roots. She knelt down and ran her fingers through it. It was so fine that she was able to carve tiny lines with her fingertips, little circles and swirls by barely moving her fingers, so fine that it barely left any stain on her nails. She picked some up and held it up to the wind, where it disappeared in the slightest lukewarm breeze.
“Neverland soil,” Oxley said, laughing, “is very fertile.” He gestured to Pan Island. “As you can see.”
Wendy dusted off her hands and leaned back, way back, to take in Pan Island.
“Brilliant,” John said breathlessly.
Michael silently appeared by Wendy’s side. “That is one big tree.” She pulled him close to her. To call it an island was almost a stretch. There was the tree, and the tree was the island. There was very little beach—ten feet maybe—between the tree and the water. It was as if the island solely existed to support the great tree, and the tree itself was the source of life for the island.
“It’s wonderful, isn’t it?”
She turned around to look behind her. A thatch of branches dotted with tiny blackberries ran around them, but if she closed her eyes, she could smell that it was very close: the turquoise sea. She let Michael’s hand drop and walked forward, ducking under the thicket of pink flowers that bordered the berries, brushing branch after branch out of her hair. Within a few steps, she was there. It stirred something in her heart, each gentle curve of the waves whispering its joy into her ear. Wendy wiped away a tear. She had never seen anything so superb. The ocean lapped silently near her feet, the brilliant blue green stretching out as far as she could see. The sun blazed overhead, warm but never hot. John was running back and forth at the base of the tree, knocking on its wood, measuring out its distance by walking carefully, foot by foot, around its perimeter. Michael was playing happily in the sand with Ox, building small castles and rivers.
The turquoise water beckoned Wendy, its lulling sound too peaceful to ignore. She slipped off her shoes and waded in, her toes playfully splashing. She took a deep breath in, tasting the sweet air of Neverland on her tongue, wondering how she could ever return to normal life again. She felt so alive here. The water pulled tenderly at her ankles, its white foam lapping over her bare feet. She had only stood in the ocean once before, and the freezing cold shores of . . . of—Wendy couldn’t remember the name of it, but it didn’t matter!—had so little in common with the water licking her shins that they might have been from different worlds. She smiled quietly to herself. As indeed they were. She took another step forward, listening to Michael babble pleasantly back on the beach. That’s when she heard the voice, at first so faint that she wondered if it was the wind.
“Wendy. . .” She turned her head back to the beach. None of the boys were calling her name—John was chasing Michael up the beach, Oxley laughing beside him. She turned her head back to the ocean.
“Wendy Darling . . .”