He reached out for her, and she saw that his arm was bleeding, his own spirals of blood falling down into the depths. The voices that had called to her were now screaming, and she clasped her hands to her ears as she struggled to kick to the surface. Peter looked backward and then back at her. He winked as he wrapped both of his arms around her.
Then they were flying. Up through the depths of the sea, the sunlight growing ever closer as the waves tossed it about. Together they exploded out of the ocean, straight into the sky, moving faster than Wendy ever dreamed possible, the water wicking off her skin in tiny droplets, up into the impossibly bright Neverland sky. She was coughing up water, gulping the air, of which there would never be enough. Peter cradled her against his body, taking them ever higher, until the beach and its sea seemed tiny beneath her feet, the boys barely visible on the beach, jumping and cheering and waving.
“Are you all right?” Peter gently turned Wendy in his arms so that she was facing him, even as he soared higher into the air. She was still coughing up water, suddenly aware of how miserable and unladylike she must appear at the moment. Her body was limp, her ears still ringing with the screams below the depths. Finally she found her voice.
“Peter! You saved me!” She reached a shaking hand toward his face. “Thank you, thank you!” She took a deep breath, trying to calm her thundering, fearful heart. Then she wrapped her body against his in a tight, grateful hug. She felt his body go straight with surprise and then mold against hers, his lips close to her ear.
“It’s nothing.”
“It isn’t nothing, Peter! What is down there? What . . .” She shook her head at the terrifying memory of being pulled down, of the arm like marble, of the song that she still couldn’t quite shake. Peter slowed his pace, circling gently in the air, always moving, even if only just in the slightest way.
“Was that a mermaid?” she gasped. “Why, I don’t even remember why I went into the sea in the first place!”
Peter nodded. “The mermaids will call you out to sea with their irresistible song. They will call you down to them, then drown you, and use your virgin blood to feed their coral garden.” Wendy shuddered.
“Queen Eryne, their leader, if you can even call it that, is a beautiful and wicked creature who loves to spew nonsense and spread her lies.” That sounded truly terrible. How close she had been to death?! It terrified her to consider what would have happened if Peter hadn’t been there. Peter continued, lazily circling a piece of her hair around his finger.
“The mermaids have been in Neverland even longer than I have. They are ancient beings, full of bitterness toward every living thing that experiences joy. Queen Eryne has hated men for as long as I can remember. They’ll do anything to draw a virgin female down into the depths and claim her life. There aren’t many young women around these parts. I imagine they were waiting for you.”
Peter shifted his eyes downward, nervously, before resting his hand on Wendy’s bare neck, his other arm still wrapped around her waist. Her heart began hammering at his closeness, at his skin that burned like fire against her freezing neck.
“Listen to me, Wendy—promise that you will never go close to the sea again—at least not without me.”
She looked down at the turquoise waves lapping far below her, such a peaceful and mesmerizing sound.
“How can something so beautiful be so dangerous?” she murmured.
Peter raised his eyebrows and leaned his head forward. “There are places that the mermaids can’t go, secret places within Neverland where the sea meets the land. I will take you there one day, I promise. And we can swim to our hearts’ delight.”
“Do you swim then? In the ocean?”
Peter grinned. “All the time! See, the mermaids don’t care about boys. They don’t want to be anywhere near boys. It isn’t dangerous for us, but for you, the sea is the most dangerous place in Neverland.”
Wendy shuddered against him, traumatized by how close she had come to death, but at the same time, loving how her very skin seemed to light up at his touch, at the way her heart was bursting with excitement. Was this what adventure felt like? An addicting rush of blood to the brain? She didn’t know what to say. Instead, she turned her hazel eyes upon his green ones and whispered.
“Thank you, Peter, for saving my life.”
A blush rose up from his cheeks, adorable beneath a smattering of freckles. “Ahem, shall we return to Pan Island and your brothers now? I’d love to see how they are getting along with that poor chap Oxley! He was swimming out to you when I arrived, but he never would have made it in time. It was a noble try though.”
Peter spun in the air, and as they soared back toward the beach, Wendy looked with fear at the water below her, its dangerous song sparkling in the early afternoon light. There was a dark spot in the water, now churning with the fins of sharks. Wendy forced herself to look away.
CHAPTER NINE