“Come on, boys, the way is clear! Let’s go!”
The Lost Boys grabbed their weapons and began flying down out of the trees, landing in a small patch of jungle that sat quietly at the edge of the Vault. Lost Boys swarmed down all around her, their swords and axes drawn as they quietly pulled themselves out of the jungle to float alongside Peter. Wendy willed herself to move and finally propelled herself down, landing gently on a tree branch. Following Kitoko’s lead, she stayed low, her eyes on the thick jungle below, her mind swimming with the image of the pirate dying, again and again, a relentless battering memory. She must have stopped moving for a moment, because suddenly Peter was before her, a smile on his handsome face.
“Wendy! Are you all right?”
Wendy shook her head. Peter touched her face.
“Poor girl. That must have been the first time you’ve seen death. It gets easier. And I promise, we’ll talk later. But for now, I need you to be brave.”
His words shook something loose inside of her. A flood of images whirled in her mind, jumbled and confusing. She saw a building of stone, a pile of books, suspenders, and a wool hat. A hand pulling off a glove. A ladder. She shook her head. What was happening?
“Wendy!”
Peter was in front of her again, lovely Peter, his golden sword drawn.
“Are you here?”
Her eyes found his face. There was a small spot of blood on his ear, not his own.
“Yes, yes, Peter. I’m here.”
The warm and wet jungle pressed around her on all sides.
“Good.”
He cradled her cheeks, and Wendy remembered the way he had kissed her, his warm, wanting mouth.
“Now, Wendy Darling, let’s have ourselves a grand adventure!”
Peter flew up from her tree branch and flew down toward the skull, landing in the river with a splash. He walked toward the open mouth, the jagged teeth churning with angry white waves. Peter’s feet brushed the top of the river until he hovered in front of the open mouth, which looked as though it wanted to swallow him whole. For a moment, Wendy worried that it would. Peter spun in the air until his feet were facing the sky and he could look upside down through the wooden teeth, his body rocking ever so slightly. The Lost Boys and Wendy held their breath. Then Peter righted himself and curled his finger toward the jungle. Come. The platoon of Lost Boys emerged from the jungle, flying silently up to Peter. Wendy stayed in the trees, still battling the barrage of images in her head—blue eyes, a dog barking at a window, the pirate’s head exploding with a splat against the rocks.
Wendy felt an arm wrap around her elbow. It was Abbott.
“Come on, girl. You can’t stay out here alone. Keel cats.” Without warning, he flung her harmlessly into the air. She floated down to the ground and gave him a nasty stare.
“I think you are very rude.”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t care less. Stay out of the trees. Don’t you Darlings ever think? God knows what your idiot brother is doing right now.”
Wendy’s voice caught in her throat at the thought of John doing something dangerous, so far from her protection. Her anger made her want to agree with Abbott, but her love for John, even though he never deserved it, won the battle for her tongue.
“John is very smart.”
Abbott’s voice lowered. “A lot of boys here were once very smart. Some of them are now swinging over there.”
He nodded his head toward the hanging skeletons, now whipping back and forth in the wind. He gripped a spear in one hand and stepped out of the trees into the misty sunlight.
“Come on, girl, let’s go. Stay by Kitoko or me. If something happens to you, we will never hear the end of it.” He looked at Peter long and hard before shaking his head. “Honestly, you shouldn’t even be here.”
Following behind Abbott’s filthy boots, Wendy flew up to the mouth of the cave where Peter waited. She tried not to look at the floating body of the dead pirate as she flew over him, his eyes and mouth widened in surprise, a tiny stream of blood trickling out from the corner of his mouth, water filling up the collapsed place where his rib cage had been broken. Up close, he looked no different than any other man. His face was clean underneath his black beard, and surprisingly young. Handsome even. He had not seen the death that came from the sky. He had not seen the boy who had crushed him into the ground like an insect. It was the first dead person Wendy had ever seen, and just for a minute she hoped that death was different in Neverland. That some sort of magic would rise out of his chest and that the man would be given another chance to become good.
The man stayed dead.
Abbott reached over and shut the man’s eyes before pushing Wendy away from the body. Peter sloshed past Wendy with his sword drawn out in front of him.