Chapter 1
When a bleary eyed Paige Morgan saw three dark-suited men shoving her friend Jake out of his house at three in the morning, she thought she was dreaming. When she saw that the three men were armed with handguns, she panicked. She looked around at the dark street and the neat line of houses for help, but the windows were dark. If anyone was awake on Juniper Berry Drive, they were camped out in front of their television O.D on Cheetos and soft drinks. Paige thought of calling for her father, but the words died in her throat. Samson Morgan wouldn’t help Johnny if he was bleeding to death on the front step.
Before she could think about what she was doing, she slid the window up and swung herself over into her mother’s prized rose bed. The three men were just shoving Jake into a black panel van when she ran up.
“Wait. Um…stop. You can’t just take people out of a subdivision in the middle of the night .” Oh God, she thought, even when faced with armed kidnappers I’m lame.
Two of the men just looked at her and then got in the van after Jake. The third turned and put the oily barrel of his gun against her forehead.
“You should have stayed in bed, little girl,” he said.
Standing there sweating in her rainbow and fluffy cloud pajama pants, Paige couldn’t disagree. Beyond the gun in her face, she could see that the man’s eyes were a cruel, electric blue set in a tan face. He looked familiar. In the silence, the sound of the safety clicking off was deafening.
The gun, slicked with her own sweat, bored into her forehead and she closed her eyes. Jeez, I’m an idiot, she thought, and then screamed when the van door rumbled back on its tracks.
One of the other men leaned out. “Hey, the boss said no bodies. Just let her go, and let’s get out of here.”
Blue Eyes tapped the gun against her eyebrow. “Can’t do that. She’s recognized me, haven’t you sweetheart?”
Paige tried to shake her head, but only managed to roll her eyes. She did recognize him, but she couldn’t remember how she knew him, and she wasn’t going to admit it anyway.
“Who cares? We’ll bring her too. Let the Captain deal with her.”
The gun pulled back from her forehead and she found herself stuffed into the van next to a pale and shaking Jake. His eyes widened when he saw her.
“What are you doing here? Why would they want you?”
Paige frowned and kicked out at him. “What’s that supposed to mean? I’m not worth being kidnapped? Go to hell. I was coming to save you.”
Jake pulled back, blinking in the dim light from the dash board, and one of the men laughed and elbowed Jake in the ribs.
“Yep, you’re a computer geek alright. Real way with the ladies.”
Paige glared at the man and turned back to Jake. “Is that why they’ve kidnapped you? Because of all the computer stuff?”
The man who’d elbowed Jake pushed her onto the floor. “Shut up.”
Slumped up against the side of the van, unable to speak, Paige had a sudden, fierce desire to be back in her bed under the covers with the air conditioner cool on her face. When the van squealed around a corner and threw her up against Jake, he leaned over and whispered in her ear.
“They haven’t told me what they want with me. They kept mentioning some guy named the Captain. Do you know who they might be talking about?”
She shook her head, her eyes on the driver. She could just see his profile from where she was on the floor and she still thought she recognized him.
“I know that guy from somewhere,” she said.
Jake leaned forward and shook his head. “How would you know him? He looks like a secrete-service agent.”
The guy sitting in the back with them kicked her in the leg. He smiled as she gasped and grabbed her thigh.
“I said shut up, princess.”
With her leg cramping underneath her, Paige rested her head on Jake’s shoulder and shut her eyes. The next time she panicked, she’d make sure just to go back to bed, best friend getting kidnapped or not.
When the van stopped, the cloying odor of greasy French fries and burned meat filled the cab. They were somewhere near downtown: close enough that she could smell the fast food, but far enough away that she couldn’t hear the traffic. The thought gave her a chill, and when the men pushed her and Jake out into a muddy parking lot and through a dented metal door into an old storage building, she began to tremble. This wasn’t the sort of place you brought people you kidnapped; this was the sort of place you brought people to kill them.
Blue Eyes noticed her shiver and dug his knuckles into her back. “What’s the matter? Don’t want to play anymore?”
She darted a look at him under her lashes and the sneer on his face, coupled with his particular tone of voice as he taunted her, filled her with recognition. She gave a small gasp and tottered a little in her shock. He was the Governor’s Aide de Campe. She’d learned about him in her government class at the beginning of the year. The Governor had been impeached for shady business dealings, but this man, Gregor something, had gotten off clear by claiming he was a victim of the Governor’s greed. He certainly didn’t look like a victim now.
Blue Eyes saw her look and gave a nasty smile. “Oh, finally clicked did it? Well, it won’t matter. Not where you’re going.”
He pushed her into Jake and they both stumbled. The boards underfoot were slicked with bird crap and littered with rat turds. When a rat pellet wedged in between her toes, Paige repressed a whimper and set her eyes forward. Jake didn’t seem to be doing any better. He was pale, and great rings of sweat circled each of his arms.
“Welcome. Gregor, another fine job I see.”
The voice came from the shadows ahead and instantly Paige relaxed. No one with a voice like that could be bad or want to kidnap kids. They would be fine. Jake turned and smiled at her before rushing forward. Paige followed him, only to collide with his back and fall into the rat poop when he stopped short.
“Who are you?” Jake asked.
Paige peered around him and the comfort she’d felt at the man’s voice vanished. She’d seen enough pirate movies to know that the man that stood before them was a pirate, and not the lovable, screw-ball, Johnny Depp type either. It didn’t matter that there wasn’t an ocean for hundreds of miles or any other type of water. It didn’t matter that this man didn’t look like the pirates on the news lately. He was a pirate, and he was the vilest person she’d ever seen. His clothes, a rag tag assortment of leather and silk looked like they’d been dragged through a slaughterhouse.
He saw her scrutiny and frowned. “What is this? I requested only the boy, not some worthless female.”
Again the warmth in his voice nearly overwhelmed her. She couldn’t reconcile the sound of it with his appearance. It made her sick.
Gregor cleared his throat. “She came out of her house while we were taking the boy. We had to bring her with, Captain.”
The Captain stared at her for a moment and then walked forward. Before she could stop him, he’d wrapped his fist in her hair and pulled her up to his face. His breath smelled like cigar smoke and Swiss cheese.
“What skills do you have, girl?”
Paige tried to shake her head, not sure what he was talking about, and he shook her.
“Skills! What are you good at?”
“Drawing,” she cried out, tears stinging her eyes from the pain in her scalp.
Jake stepped forward. “That’s right, sir. Paige is the best artist I’ve ever met.” He looked scared, but he gave Paige what she guessed he thought was a reassuring smile before dropping his eyes back to the ground.
The Captain let her hair go and she fell to the filthy floor with a thud. He stalked over to Jake and grabbed him by the shoulders.
“Is that so, boy? The best artist you’ve ever met? And how many artists, may I ask, have you met?”
Blue Eyes and the other men sniggered, but the Captain didn’t look away from Jake. At the intense scrutiny, Jake’s ears turned red and he began to stutter, something Paige hadn’t heard him do since he was a little kid.
“I m-mean, I’ve n-n-never seen such r-r-ealistic drawings b-b-b-before. She makes s-s-s-s-stuff jump off the p-page.”
The Captain sneered down at Jake, and then pushed him away. “T-t-t-thank you for you the explanation, young man. Very enlightening.” He motioned to the other men. “I’ll take her, but I won’t pay extra for her.”
From his pocket, the Captain pulled out a small leather bag tied off with a twist tie. He tossed it to Blue Eyes.
“Your payment,” he said. “Make sure it gets to your boss.”
Blue Eyes nodded and gave her a pleased smile before herding her and Jake to the back of the room. A freestanding doorway waited for them in the gloom. The wood of the door and the door knob were plain, something you’d see in any condo, but it stood unsupported in the middle of the floor, as if the frame were anchored in the floor.
The Captain stepped forward and pushed the door open. “After you,” he said, and gestured her and Jake through.
Paige balked, not caring that the door only opened up onto the rest of the building. She’d seen enough movies lately to know that magical worlds on the other side of doorways weren’t all fun and games. She’d rather stay here and take her chances with Blue Eyes.
Jake head already gone through the door when she felt the cold hardness of a gun on the back of her head.
“It’s Neverland or a dark street somewhere, princess. Your choice.” Blue Eyes sounded eager, like he was just itching to pull the trigger.
Paige chose the doorway and fell into darkness.
Chapter 2
They came through the doorway into a dark, wet space filled with the sound of hissing steam and clanking metal. It was so hot, Paige could actually feel the sweat beading on her skin. Before she could complain or gasp for air in the overheated space, the Captain grabbed them around the arms and pushed them towards a metal door off to the side of the room. They passed three soot-blackened men on the way, their eyes like white spotlights in their grimy faces. They were all working around the source of the heat, a vast metal drum with pipes poking out of it that dominated the floor.
Jake was looking around in shock. “It’s a steam engine,” he said. “The United States hasn’t used stuff like this since the 1930s. China’s still got some steam locomotives, but nothing like this.”
Despite the danger they were in and the weirdness of walking through an empty doorway and finding themselves in a boiler room, Paige rolled her eyes at Jake’s dorky enthusiasm and smiled. The Captain didn’t seem amused.
“Yes, boy. That’s why you’re here. I need electricity and computers. Technology. I’m tired of smelling like a fire all the damned time.”
Paige slowed at the Captain’s voice, distracted once more by the tone and music in the words. Something was different here; the man’s voice was more soothing, more powerful. It made her skin prickle.
Jake shook his head, his face set in a disappointed frown. “But I can’t just make you electricity. There are machines and all sorts of stuff you need for that. I need parts for computers that have to be developed in sterile labs by special technicians.”
The Captain stopped and turned Jake to face him. “You will help me with what I want. I will provide all of the materials, and if your world cannot give us what we need, you will find a way to overcome.”
Paige licked her lips and strained away from the man. There was definitely something in his voice, something evil and sinister. Jake looked like a zombie; his eyes were dilated and glassy, and a small stream of spittle dripped from the corner of his mouth.
Without pausing to think of the consequences, Paige swung out her arm and belted the Captain across his shoulders. “Leave him alone, you monster! You hear me? You stop that—“
She didn’t get any farther. After the first blow, the Captain pivoted, and with a casual gesture, flung her across the room. She hit the metal door, which gave out off a deep, bass bonk, and slid to the floor. The Captain came after her, Jake, still catatonic, following behind.
“I’ve had about enough of you, little girl. Your friend here can be of use. Your talents, however, are yet to be seen. You can draw you say?”
Paige, her ears ringing from the blow, nodded. When the Captain shoved a burnt stick of wood into her hands and pointed at the floor, she stared at him in dumb shock. He expected her to draw him something now?
“Draw or I’ll have you killed,” he said. His voice had none of the musical lilt she’d heard when he was talking to Jake. Instead it was flat and hard and felt like knives against her ears.
She leaned forward and began to sketch the rough outline of a dog with floppy ears and sad brown eyes. It was a good drawing considering she was using a stick on a rusted metal floor, but the Captain smeared it with his foot.
“Draw something interesting. Something with teeth,” he said. He sounded bored.
She leaned over and sketched out a rough tiger, its stripes harsh black lines against the orange rust. When she moved to finish its eyes, her fingers began to tingle and she got a chill. She gasped, but at the Captain’s glare, went back to the picture. She drew in one eye and then the other, her whole body prickling with the pins and needles feeling, but when she finished the drawing, nothing happened.
The Captain shook his head and sighed. “The boy was right; you’re a very good artist. Unfortunately, I’m not interested in art.”
The Captain dragged Jake up to the door, opened it, and pushed him through. He gestured one of the dirt-covered men over and pointed at Paige.
“Lock her up. I’ll kill her later.” He left without looking at Paige again, Jake following like a beaten puppy.
The coal man, or whatever he was, gave Paige a sympathetic look and then dragged her up off the ground and marched her to the other side of the room. He opened a door and pointed up the staircase. She went where he told her, shocked at the Captain’s last words. She’d lost Jake and now she was going to be killed. She didn’t even know where they were. She set her teeth and turned to her guard.
“Where are we?” she asked.
He looked surprised and then shrugged. “Neverland.”
“Like Peter Pan’s Neverland?” she asked. She was confused. Neverland was a story, and this place was so real it made her head hurt.
The coal man flinched and looked over his shoulder. “Here on the Jolly Roger, we do not say his name. It is forbidden. And if Neverland ever once belonged to that flying devil, it belongs to the Captain now. You’ll see…if you live long enough.”
He opened a door at the top of the staircase and pushed her through it without another word. She found herself in a small room without a window, with nothing to sit on but the floor. She beat at the door for awhile, but there was no handle to turn and it didn’t budge when she pushed on it.
When enough time had passed that it seemed alright to give up, she sat down on the sooty floor and cried. She was in Neverland, and the Captain had her best friend. She was going to die without ever kissing a boy or going on a date. These thoughts made her cry harder, until she was hiccupping and blowing out great ropes of snot. She was so wrapped up in her tantrum that she didn’t hear the door open or realize someone had come in until a bright, cheerful voice spoke in her ear.
“Well then, it can’t be all that bad, can it?” the voice asked.
Paige jerked away from the sound, and smashed her head against the wall hard enough to make her ear swell up and go hot. A boy around the same age as her, fifteen or sixteen, crouched in front of her. His hair was tangled and wild, and his face was a little lopsided from a scar that split his eyebrow in half and traveled down to his chin, but he was one of the best things she’d ever seen.
“I’m Peter,” he said. “Hook must have just brought you over; I checked this closet yesterday and it was empty. Good thing I came today, though, huh? You’d probably get pretty bored sitting here all night.”
Paige nodded, trying to keep up with the stream of words, but when he pulled her to another door and opened it onto empty air, she pulled back. “You’re here to rescue me?” she asked.
He nodded and stuck his thumbs into his leather vest. “Of course I am. That’s what I do. Hook brings people here and I rescue them.”
“That’s great,” she said. “The Captain took my best friend, Jake. He’s somewhere on the ship. We have to find him.”
Peter shook his head. “No can do, earth girl. Hook doesn’t know I can get in down here, and he forgets about his prisoners anyway. If he took your friend up top, then he’s a goner.”
“What? No! We have to find him.” When Peter began to drag her towards the hatch, she grabbed at the rusted floor with her toes and leaned back. “I won’t leave until we find him.”
Peter let her go and his cheerful face wilted. “Well then, you just won’t leave. Your friend’s as good as dead. Tell me, did Hook use the voice on him?”
Paige was about to ask what the voice was, but then she just nodded. That was as good of way as any of describing it. She waited for Peter to explain what the voice was.
Paige was about to ask what the voice was, but then she just nodded. That was as good of way as any of describing it. She waited for Peter to explain what the voice was.
“If Hook used the voice on your friend, Jake was his name?” he asked.
Paige noted the past tense, but just nodded again.
“Well, if Hook used the voice on Jake, then your friend won’t even want to come with us if we try to rescue him. He’ll fight us and give us up. We’ll die.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Paige said. She glared at Peter, daring him to argue, but he just shrugged.
“Neverland doesn’t play by your rules. I’m sure you noticed Hook’s voice back on earth. It was nice, right? Totally creepy out of such a monster, but nice. Here, it’s different. He can persuade people to do things, even things you don’t want to do. Once he’s used the voice on you, you’ll do whatever he tells you to and want to do it. It’s Hook’s ability.”
Paige bit her lip at the news that her friend was now a brainwashed psycho, but quirked an eyebrow at the last sentence. “Ability?”
Peter smiled and pointed out the hatch. “Some people brought over from Earth develop a special ability once they get here. It has to do with the fairies and their magic. Eat enough of their dust or breathe it in and you might develop one too. My ability is flying.”
He gave her a sly look then, and moved around to stand behind her. “So will you come with me or not?”
Paige began to shake her head, determined not to abandon Jake, when Peter clamped a hand over her mouth and pushed her out of the hatch. They fell for a few feet and then jolted away from the ship. Paige closed her eyes, opened them, and realized they were flying over an ocean towards a hazy island in the distance. It was either early morning or late evening and the air carried a tropical scent. Hook’s ship beneath them was massive. It looked like a US battleship on steroids. She tried to look for Jake among the bristling steel towers and guns, but they were going too fast.
Peter pointed with his free arm at the island. “That’s where we’re going. You’re doing great!” he yelled.
Paige, without any warning at all, threw up all over both of them.
Chapter 3
Covered in her own vomit, thirsty, tired, and sore, Paige sat in a circle of staring children and hoped, with all her might, that if she did have a special ability, it wouldn’t be flying. Peter hadn’t gotten angry with her for throwing up on him, but he did seem a little less cheerful when they landed in the middle of a jungle and he pointed her towards a group of trees laced with platforms and small woven grass huts.
The clearing where she sat was filled with children. One boy, who seemed to be having deep, soul-searching conversations with the monkey that rode on his shoulder had offered her a piece of flatbread with something green on it, and she had thrown up again at the sight of it. A girl who looked a few years older made a face, and then offered her a wooden cup filled with a bitter smelling liquid.
“It’s for the nausea,” she said. “I’m Jasmine.”
Paige nodded, not caring what the girl’s name was, and sipped the lukewarm liquid. When another boy walked up with flames dancing in his hair and on his fingertips, Paige set the cup down and buried her head in her arms. Neverland was overwhelming. Everywhere she looked there was something weird going on. She’d even spotted what she thought were fairies rustling through the underbrush.
She wished Jake were here to see it. He was so analytical and scientific that she couldn’t even imagine his reaction to all this magic. But she’d left Jake behind with Hook, and now he was gone forever. The thought hit her like a punch in the stomach, and she began to cry again.
The boy with fire in his hair sat down next to her and patted her on the shoulder. “I’m Pyro. So, you miss your family, huh?” he asked.
Paige flinched away from his touch. He’d burned a hole in her t-shirt.
“No, I don’t miss my family, and my family probably doesn’t miss me either,” she snapped.
The boy looked surprised and then frowned. “Why you crying then?”
Paige stood and stomped a few feet away. “Because Peter refused to even try to rescue my best friend. And now Jake’s a zombie or something.”
Jasmine came and took the cup away from her. “Hook captured me and my brother a couple of years ago. Peter rescued me, but Hook had already used the voice on Sean. I haven’t seen him since.”
The fire boy nodded. “Yeah, I had a friend here that got caught by Hook. Once the Captain uses his magic, you might as well be dead. It’s not Peter’s fault.”
Paige, her tears drying with her anger, shook her head. “I don’t care whose fault it is. I’m going to rescue my friend.” She took a few steps into the jungle, turned around, and then took a few more steps in another direction. Finally, she stopped, defeated, and slumped back to the ground.
“I should have just stayed in bed. Then I wouldn’t know about Jake and feel bad or be covered in vomit.”
The boy with the monkey walked up and stood over her. He couldn’t have been more than seven or eight, but he stared at her with such compassion, she felt like he was her grandpa.
“There’s no use feeling sorry for yourself,” he said.
Paige glared at him. “What would you know about it? You’re like what, eight?”
The boy frowned and looked at the monkey, and then the monkey frowned. “I’m 234 years old, newbie and what I told you is the truth. You can’t save your friend. If you try, you’ll be captured too. Hook will either kill you on sight, or he’ll use the voice on you. Either way you’ll be dead.”
She stared at the boy. Over two hundred years old? She knew you never had to grow up in Neverland, but two hundred years was a long time to be stuck as an eight year old. The kid was old enough to be her great, great, great grandfather. She looked down at the ground, imagining herself stuck at fifteen forever. It was a depressing thought.
“Cheer up,” Pyro said. “Thomas is right, and you can always ask Peter to take you back to Earth.”
Paige perked up at that and then wilted. She couldn’t just leave Jake here on his own. Even if she couldn’t save him, no way was she going to go back to McDonald’s, caffeine, and graphic novels without him. Abandoning him to suffer would make her an even bigger loser than trying to rescue him had.
“I’ll stay,” she said. Her voice was so quiet she barely heard it, but Peter plopped down in front of her and smiled.
“Glad to hear it, because I wouldn’t take you back anyway.”
Paige forgot for a moment that she didn’t want to go back. “Why not?”
Peter shrugged and flung a handful of rotting leaves at her. “Because silly, I need help fighting Hook. You might have an ability we can use.”
Paige brushed the leaves off her lap and stood, shaking her head. “No. I won’t fight for you. That’s ridiculous. I’m not some comic book hero with super powers. I think Hook already tested me anyway.”
Peter’s face fell a little, but it came back again just as bright after a few seconds. “Maybe he’s wrong. Sometimes it takes awhile. In the meantime, you can help clean out the privy. It’s full again.”
Groans broke out across the clearing, and when Paige found her hands full of a crude shovel, she nearly chucked it into Peter’s face.
A few hours later, with blistered hands and an empty stomach, she flopped down against a log and snatched the food Jasmine handed her. It wasn’t a cheeseburger, but it smelled like rice and beans and that was fine with her. She finished the food in three bites and slid down until her head was pillowed on the log. For now, Jake was out of reach and she felt like she’d just run a marathon...without any shoes on. When one of the other kids came up and started brushing her hair, she let out a groan of appreciation and began to drift off to sleep, not even wondering why a stranger would be touching her hair.
She woke up later when Pyro kicked her leg. “Hey, you better get up if you don’t want to be bald. Didn’t anyone tell you not to fall asleep on the barber log?”
Paige sat up and shook her head. “What’s a barber log?” she asked.
Pyro pointed at where she’d been laying, and she turned to see a steady stream of ants marching through the channels in the rotting wood. They were carrying little strands of pale string all twisted together.
“They like hair,” Pyro said. “We usually just lean over the log and let them clip the ends.” He was staring at her head with amusement.
She stared at Pyro for a second and then touched her head. Her scream scared Thomas’s monkey into the trees and woke up some of the other kids who’d fallen asleep around the fire.
“My hair,” she moaned. While she was sleeping, the ants had made away with most of her hair. Her hair had never been cut in her life, and now, it felt like she looked like a new military recruit.
Peter came hurrying over at her scream, took one look at the ants scurrying away with more than eight inches of hair, and burst into laughter. He wagged her finger at the kids around the fire.
“That wasn’t nice,” he said. “Paige is new here. You remember how it felt to be new, don’t you?” Peter’s voice was so light and teasing that the kids just shrugged and smiled.
Easy enough for them, Paige thought. They had hair. She could feel the breeze on her scalp now, and it tickled. She resisted the urge to feel the stubble again and stomped off towards where Jasmine was sitting with Thomas.
“Where can I sleep where I won’t lose anymore hair?” she asked.
Jasmine shot her a sympathetic look and pointed behind her at a hammock strung between two trees and covered with a complicated looking layer of palm fronds.
“I’ll be on guard duty tonight, so you can use mine. We’ll work on building you one tomorrow. If you have to get up at night, don’t cross the stream,” she said.
Paige sighed and headed toward the hammock. “Why not?” she asked.
Thomas pointed off into the jungle. His monkey, returned from his perch, pointed too. “The spiders won’t cross running water, but if you go out there, you’ll be dead and eaten before you even realize it.”
“Spiders?” Paige asked. She shuddered and waved a hand at Thomas as he began a spiel about six foot wide arachnids with immobilizing venom. She really just didn’t want to know. Really.
Chapter 4
It was just barely light when Peter flipped her hammock over and threw her on the ground. She popped up covered in leaves and sticks to find Jasmine waiting with a piece of fruit and a cup of water.
“Most of us have gotten used to Peter,” she said. “We make sure we’re awake before he can come and do it for us. Saves a few bruises.”
Paige took the food from the girl and bit in. The fruit tasted like a mango mixed with an orange. With her mouth full, she pointed after Peter. “He’s a jerk. What’s his problem?”
Jasmine looked a little nervous at the criticism but then just shrugged. “He’s been here for a very long time, and he’s...forgetful.” She looked sad at this, but Paige really didn’t care.
“How long have you been here?” Paige asked. Jasmine didn’t seem as old fashioned as some of the other kids and wasn’t nearly as smug as Thomas.
Jasmine leaned over her and pulled a sword from a rack in the wall behind the hammock. “I’ve been here for seventy years,” she said.
Paige eyed the sword and set the bowl down. She’d never even seen a sword before, at least not in real life, and seeing this teenage girl strapping it to her hips with practiced movements sent a chill down her spine.
“What’s that for?”
“We’re going on a mission,” Jasmine said with a feral smile.
The militant gleam in the girl’s eyes made Paige swallow wrong and she choked on the last piece of her fruit.
“A mission?” Her voice wheezed out of her throat, and she coughed. When Jasmine leaned back over her and retrieved a long staff of polished wood and thrust it into her hands, she nearly dropped it.
“Yes,” Jasmine said. “And you’re coming too. Peter specifically requested your attendance.”
Paige stood up and planted the staff in the ground. “No. I’m not going. I’m not playing any of Peter’s war games. I’m going to rescue my friend.”
Jasmine dropped her hand until it was resting on the hilt of her sword. “You know, for someone who would have died without Peter’s help, you’re pretty ungrateful. And your friend’s dead. You might as well get used to it.”
Paige, upset at Jasmine’s sudden coolness and backed into a corner by her comment, answered with a sneer. “I didn’t ask to be saved. I wanted to stay, and Peter took me anyway. I was kidnapped, not rescued, and I don’t see why I should be grateful. He’s crazy.” She didn’t mention Jake.
When Thomas found them, Paige and Jasmine were standing toe to toe, both glaring bullets at each other. His monkey gave a questioning little chitter, and Thomas responded out loud.
“No, Friend, our newest member was just unaware that being left behind meant kitchen and cleaning duty. She wants to come with us.”
Thomas gave Paige a wink as he walked by and she let out the breath she’d been holding. He was right. She’d rather go and hit things with a stick than clean anything. She backed away from Jasmine without an apology and followed after Thomas. The rest of the kids had already lined up in front of Peter where he stood at the edge of the clearing. Their ages ranged from six to sixteen, and every single one of them looked too young to be carrying the weapons they were. When she saw an eight year old caressing a mace with what looked like dried blood on its spikes, her stomach rolled and she tried to fade back away from the line.
A burning touch at her shoulder stopped her and she turned to find Pyro giving her a happy grin.
“Decided to come with, huh?”
She nodded, pretending that she hadn’t been trying to sneak away. “What are we doing?”
Pyro shrugged. “Who knows. Peter will tell us when we get closer.”
She didn’t like the sound of that, and when Peter let out a loud crow caw, she liked it even less. Caught up in the group, she couldn’t stop herself from being forced forward when Peter thrust out his arm and marched off into the jungle. When her bare feet splashed through the stream, she tried to stop and was shoved forward into the kid in front of her.
“Wait,” she cried. “What about the spiders?” The kids snickered and ignored her and kept marching. Pyro, reappearing at her side, gave her a friendly pat on the arm that left a little patch of red.
“The spiders only come out at night. Unless you fall in one of their traps, you’re fine.”
“Traps?” she asked.
Thomas slid through the crowd and pulled her free with remarkable ease considering she’d been pushed and prodded and poked since they started marching. He led her a few feet into the woods and pointed at the patch of ground in front of them.
“They dig a hole and then cover it with web and leaves. When you step into the hole, the web breaks and you fall in. If you’re lucky, you land on the spider, crush it, and just climb back out.”
Paige swallowed hard and stared at the ground. It looked just like the rest of the forest floor. “What happens if you don’t land on the spider?”
Thomas shrugged. “The spiders’ venom is paralyzing. It only takes a few seconds, and then they eat you. Alive. Let’s see if there’s something in this one. Sometimes they dig the trap and then forget where it is when they come back at night. If you’re really lucky, the trap will be empty.”
He grabbed her staff and stabbed it through the webbing. From below her feet, she heard a nervous shuffling and then a soft hissing noise that sounded like steel wool on glass. She shuddered and waited for the monster to explode up out of the hole, but when nothing happened, Thomas pulled the stick up and handed it back to her. The light colored staff was dark and glistening at the bottom.
“Don’t touch that end,” he suggested and wandered away.
She stood there for a few seconds more, afraid to turn her back on the pit, until Pyro came back for her. She wondered, for a second, why he was being so nice to her, and then just nodded and fell into step behind him. She carried the staff without setting it down, afraid she’d kill the ferns and flowering plants they brushed past with the venomous wood, and kept her mouth shut.
When they emerged into a natural clearing ringed with giant moss-covered trees, she sank onto a log with a groan. She’d never walked so far in her life. All she wanted was a hot bath and a plate of spaghetti. At the thought of spaghetti with steaming, cheesy garlic bread, her mouth started watering. Peter was giving some stupid speech about snakes and cutting off their heads when she came back around.
When she looked where he was pointing and saw the sword raised above his head, she thought she was imagining things, but when he began to swing the sword down, she lunged off the log and pushed him to the side. They both lay sprawled on the ground when Jasmine came up. She had her own sword out and it was pointed at Paige.
“Explain yourself,” she said.
Paige looked at the thick black wires Peter had been calling snakes and pushed herself away. Now that she was listening for it, she could hear the buzz in the air. It made her teeth itch, just like it did at home.
“If Peter cuts these with his sword, he’ll die.” She threw a quick glance at Peter, and seeing the rage there, wished she’d just let him fry himself.
The child she’d seen with the mace earlier that morning rushed forward, his face twisted in a wild grin. The other kids seemed to melt away as he leaped over the line and straddled it.
Paige shook her head and moved to pull the kid back to safety, but Peter stopped her by grabbing her arm.
“No! Stop. You don’t understand,” she pleaded, but Peter’s face was set in a hard, blank mask, as if he’d forgotten what it was he’d come here to do and was content to watch the others take care of it for him.
The little boy sneered at her and raised the mace over his head with a wild war cry before bringing it down on the power line. The severed line jumped and snapped like an enraged animal, but the boy stood, rigid and unmoving, the muscles writhing beneath his skin. The smell of cooked meat began to fill the air. Paige wrenched herself free of Peter’s bruising grip without looking at him and swung her staff at the boy’s hand. The mace fell to the ground, and the boy slumped to the side. His arm, shoulder, and one side of his face were the color of charred wood. He was dead.
She rounded on Peter, but stopped when she saw his smile. Pyro, Jasmine, and Thomas stood behind him, their faces carefully blank and neutral. When Peter pushed past her to stand over the dead boy, Paige let him go, too shocked by their lack of reaction to react herself.
“The enemy has been vanquished! Our brother was brave in the face of danger and has won a great victory against the Captain and his abominations. We will remember him!” Peter’s voice shattered the silence that had fallen over the jungle and the rag-tag group of children screamed and hooted in response.
Paige let herself sink to the ground. They would remember him, she thought, but would Peter? She turned over Jasmine’s words in her head. He forgets sometimes. She hadn’t really cared about that comment before, but now she wondered. How long before Peter forgot what would happen when you cut a power line with a metal object? How long before he sacrificed another lost child for his own personal vendetta against Hook?
The thought made her sick and she heaved up her breakfast until all that remained was thick, bitter stomach bile and the slightly sweet, heavy taste of cooked meat on her tongue. Pyro came over and helped her to her feet. He was smiling, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.
She glared at him. “You’re new enough to have recognized a power line. Why didn’t you say anything?”
Pyro shrugged. “I didn’t remember until after it was too late.”
Her stomach rolled again. “Jasmine said that Peter forgets sometimes. Do we all forget?”
Pyro shrugged again, but this time it was defensive. His shoulders curved in and he crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t remember,” he said again.
Paige stared at him, unable to hide the pity in her eyes. I need to get out of here. Just get Jake and leave. This place is cursed. Before she could stand to confront Peter, they were off again, following the black snake of line further into the jungle. They left the charred corpse of the child behind, and no one but Paige looked back.
Chapter 5
They walked for what felt like hours. When one girl was stung by a wasp the size of Paige’s fist, the group stopped long enough for Jasmine to give the girl some leaves to reduce the swelling, and then marched on. Paige couldn’t help staring at the wounded girl. Her arm looked like one of those cheap plastic bats they gave as prizes at the fair: all red and swollen and tight. When another kid fell into one of the spider’s traps but climbed out again a few minutes later with a pink and black smear across his back, any plans she had for slipping off into the jungle and sneaking back to Hook’s ship died a quick death. She wouldn’t make it three minutes alone in this jungle.
Peter seemed oblivious to the groups’ suffering. Occasionally, he would turn and say something to Thomas, but most of the time he walked with his eyes on the ground, a serious frown on his face and his hand in a white-knuckled grip on his sword. When Paige was so tired and thirsty she could barely put one foot in front of the other and noticed that Peter was actually floating a quarter inch off the ground and wasn’t walking at all, she wished again that she’d let him cut the power line with his sword. Instead, a foolish, naive child had died for his stupid mission, and they were stuck walking through this green hell of a jungle without food or water.
Night was beginning to fall when Peter finally looked up. “There’s a river ahead with an island in it where we can stay for the night, but you’ll have to run. I’ll meet you there.”
And he was gone, a black speck against the purple sky and then nothing. The group, as if just realizing how dark it was, bolted like a herd of spooked horses. The boy who fell in the spider pit fell as he tried to run, and the kids behind pushed his face into the dirt as they trampled over him. Paige, bigger than most of the children, held them off as they passed and reached down to help the boy up. One side of his body hung limp, and there was a swollen, bloody bite mark on his shoulder. Without saying anything, she pulled him forward into a fast trot, using her taller body as a brace for his weak side.
When they reached the river, the jungle around them was alive with noise. She recognized the crickets and the bat squeaks, but the muted hissing from the shadows beneath the trees sent a thrill of fear down her spine. Most of the other kids were already on the island, dripping and shivering. She stared at the large stretch of river in between her and the island and bit her lip in frustration. She’d never get the boy across without drowning him. She looked for Peter in the group and spotted him perched in a tree eating a banana.
“Hey you!” she called across the river. Peter stopped eating and looked up.
“Yah, I’m talking to you. Come over here and help me with him.” She couldn’t keep the anger out of her voice, and watched as Peter’s eyes narrowed when he heard it.
“Or what, earth-girl?” At the frost in Peter’s words, the other kids stopped what they were doing and turned towards her. Not one of them stepped forward to help. Jasmine, Thomas, and Pyro all stood on the bank of the island and stared at her with passive, unconcerned eyes.
Behind her, the leaves began to rustle, as if someone were sifting through them with sharp claws. The spiders were coming. She glared at Peter. “Or the next time you try to do something stupid, I’ll just let you die,” she yelled.
She could tell her words surprised him, but her reminder that she’d saved his life spurred him to action. He flew over to them, snatched the boy away from her and was back on the island before she’d stepped into the water. Fighting the current, she swam out a few feet and turned to look back at the jungle. Where’d she been standing, six spiders waited. Their legs were shiny black with pink dots at the joints, and their backs were covered in long, soft looking black and pink spotted fur. They looked both beautiful and deadly.
She turned her back on them, and with her staff held out in front of her, began the long swim to the island. It was hard, and towards the end, she didn’t think she was going to make it, but when Pyro stepped out into the water to pull her onto shore, she ignored him and stomped over to an empty part of the island. She didn’t want to hear Peter telling stories or promising the group a victorious battle the next day. She wanted to go to sleep and wake up in her own bed knowing that this had all been a dream. She and Jake would have a laugh about it, and then they’d go to the bookstore and drink coffee and work on the comic book they’d started together.
Chapter 6
“Oh my God! What is wrong with you?” Paige looked up from where she sat in a puddle of mud and river water. The water was cold, and she’d landed right on a rock with her tailbone. Peter stood over her, his face as hard an unexpressionless as a concrete wall.
“Come with me,” he said and walked away.
She sat there, sputtering, until Jasmine came up with a chunk of meat on a stick and shoved it in her face. “Here. You’ll have to eat on the way. Peter’s in a hurry.”
Paige almost swatted the food out of Jasmine’s hands but then thought better of it and took it instead. The meat was hot, and she was hungry after going to sleep without supper the night before.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
Jasmine shrugged and walked back to the fire. Paige stared after her, stung by the girl’s coldness. She’d saved Peter’s life, and instead of being congratulated and praised, she was being shunned.
Fine, she thought, it doesn’t matter what they think of me. I’m not staying.
With those words marching through her head, she threw the empty stick in the fire as she walked by and stomped over to Peter where he stood waiting for her by the river. She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. He returned her stare with a small quirk of his lips and flew across the river.
“This way,” he shouted.
She stared after him in disbelief. He was making her swim across the river when he could have carried her. She shrugged and turned around to go back to sleep, but Jasmine, Thomas, and Pyro stood in a line a few feet behind her. Pyro looked a little sheepish, as if he didn’t really want to be there, but Thomas and Jasmine held their weapons and pointed at the river.
“You’re ridiculous,” Paige said. “All of you.”
When they didn’t respond or move, she bit back a curse and splashed into the river. Peter was waiting for her a few hundred yards into the forest. He was eating a piece of fruit and flicked the remains at her as she walked up.
“You’re slow,” he said. “I’m not going to wait for you. If you don’t keep up, I’ll leave you here in the jungle.”
“Wow, you’re just Mr. Congeniality aren’t you? How about you try: I’m sorry for making you swim across the river, and I’ll never be so insensitive again.”
Peter shrugged and walked away. He was walking so fast that she had to almost run to keep up. After only a few minutes her calves were burning and her bare feet felt like someone was smashing them with a sledgehammer.
“Where are we going?” she gasped out in between breathes.
Peter didn’t turn around. “Pyro told me that killing the snake lines won’t stop whatever Hook’s planning. I need your help to destroy whatever new machine Hook’s built.”
Paige stumbled to a halt. “What? No! Are you insane? I am not some stupid soldier in your army. You can’t boss me around.”
Peter smiled, but the expression lacked any amusement at all. “Fine. I’ll just leave you here. Instead of trying to save your friend, your bones can rot here with the spiders.”
Paige felt like he’d sucker punched her in the kidneys. “You’re blackmailing me?”
He looked confused and then just shrugged. “Help me and I’ll help you try to get your friend back.” He turned and started walking off. This time he gave up any pretense at all of walking and floated a few inches off the ground.
She wanted to just sit down and take a nap, but Peter’s offer was too hard to resist. She scurried after him in time to catch a piece of fruit he threw at her. She ate it and settled down to a long walk. When they stopped outside a large clearing, her feet were bleeding and covered in bug bites that itched badly enough that she contemplated asking Peter to just chop them off.
Peter was unsympathetic. “The lines go into that building.” He pointed with one grimy, scrawny arm.
She looked where he was pointing and felt a nasty shock. Beyond the outer ring of trees around the clearing, the cleared space looked like a park. At the center of the manicured grass lawn sat a newish looking, squat concrete building. The hardware on top of the building made it look like a power substation. She knew enough to know that that’s what it was but not enough to figure out how to destroy it. She decided to keep that info to herself. When Peter began to creep towards the building using the landscaping, she followed, clumsy and awkward on her sore, itchy feet.
When they rounded the corner of the building and came upon two guards, Peter didn’t hesitate. His sword was a silver blur in the air. Before she could turn away or stop him, the guards lay slumped at the door. A fine spray of blood painted the concrete behind them. She stared at the dead men, her heart leaping and cartwheeling in her chest.
“You killed them,” she said. The words fell like bricks out of her mouth into the silence.
Peter didn’t look at her, just pushed through the door behind the guards. His cry of surprise brought her rushing inside after him. In a cage in the center of the room lay what look liked hundreds of fairies. They were all emaciated, their wings shriveled and cracked against their pale, naked limbs. The cage was hooked up to lines that disappeared into the ceiling and hummed with power.
“Help me,” Peter said.
At the sound of his voice, a few of the fairies stirred. Their weak, mewling cries of pain made her almost physically ill, but she grabbed Peter’s arm. “Don’t touch the cage,” she said.
He shook her off but didn’t reach out to touch the metal. He stared at the trapped fairies with manic rage. “I’m not leaving until they’re freed,” he hissed at her.
Paige nodded, trying to think. There had to be something in the metal itself that was pulling energy from the fairies. If she could just stretch the bars of the cage out, she should be able to pull the fairies out. Before she could chicken out, she shoved her staff through the bars and threw her weight into it. When the metal gave out with a soft squeal, she nearly fell on her face. Whatever the material was, it wasn’t steel. The fairies that were still well enough streamed out of the box. The others crawled onto Peter’s outstretched hand and clung like shipwreck survivors. When all of the living fairies were out, the bottom of the cage was still drifted with bodies.
Peter stared at them, his face pale and set. When he snatched the staff away from her with one hand and began beating the cage and the connecting wires, she stepped back and didn’t say anything. The fairies clinging to his other arm were keening, and the others that had flown out came and clung to Peter’s hair and shoulders until he was wearing a living blanket of little blue fairies.
While he destroyed as much of the machine as he could, she looked around the building. When she spotted a box of colored pencils and a pad of graph paper lying on a table off in the corner, the sweat on her skin turned to ice water. She approached the table slowly, already knowing what she’d find. In the colored pencil box, only the red and blue pencil showed any use. The graph paper tablet was full of schematics, all neatly labeled and notated in Jake’s cramped, precise handwriting. The last page contained an illustration of the cage behind her. The fairies in the cage were rendered as stick figures.
Before Peter could come up behind her and ask what she was doing, she shoved the tablet down the front of her pants. On an afterthought, she dropped the colored pencils in too. Pretending to scratch her insect bites, she pulled up her mud grimed pajama pant bottoms and tied one leg as tightly as she could.
When she turned around again, Peter was already gone. With a curse, she dashed out of the building after him only to see him disappearing over the treetops. She screamed at him to wait and dashed back towards where they’d entered the clearing. Desperate, she searched the ground for some sign of their passage, but beyond a faint scuff on the leaves, there was no trail. He’d left her, and night was coming. She’d helped him and he’d abandoned her in the middle of the jungle.
“Jerk,” she said. The sound of her voice was the only noise in the clearing. Panicked and unsure what to do, she went back to the building and shut the door behind her. Maybe Peter would come back and fly her to safety. She should stay here where he could find her.
Yes, and maybe I’ll wake up and realize this was all a crazy, awful dream. She wandered around the small building, eyes on the wire mesh over the windows high on the wall. She tried not to imagine the spiders tearing through the screen to get at her and failed. Finally, exhausted, she sank back against the wall to wait for night.
A soft moan of sound woke her up a little later. Moonlight painted the inside of the concrete building a pale, silvery gray. She imagined scrabbling legs and clicking fangs in the deep shadows pooled in the corner, but when the moan came again, she pushed herself to her feet and crawled over to the broken cage. With gentle fingers, she pushed aside the drift of stiff, brittle bodies until she found the source of the noise. The fairy, smaller than the rest and colored a very dark purple, clung to her fingers with her hands and feet. The creature shuddered and cried out in pain as Paige pulled her free.
“Oh, you poor thing. I’m sorry,” she said as she brought the fairy over to the table where she’d found Jake’s tablet. The fairy huddled on the bare wood, one wing broken and hanging, both legs tucked up against her chest. Paige plucked at her shirt, and finding a hole, ripped off a piece of material to cover the shivering fairy. She sat there, staring at the injured creature, and felt like crying. She couldn’t imagine Jake being any part of this cruel torture, but she had the proof of it banging against her leg. She untied the pants leg and pulled the tablet out. Some of the drawings made her cringe. One in particular looked like something out of a nightmare. It was a wolfish looking iron creature with captured fairies resting in its chest. The teeth were made of what looked like serrated knife blades.
Without thinking, she pulled a purple colored pencil out of the box and begin to sketch the fairy before her. She drew the wings strong and straight, the body well-fleshed, and the face wreathed in a mischievous smile. When she moved to finish the eyes, she felt the tingling again, and this time, she latched on to feeling with desperate longing. She imagined pulling the health of the tiny creature on the page into the fairy laying on the table. The tingling intensified, until with a sharp, stabbing pain in the middle of her forehead, it subsided. With blurry eyes, she plucked the makeshift blanket away from the injured fairy, barely suppressing the foolish hope. The tablet fell to the floor in her shock.
Staring back at her was not the emaciated, weak fairy she’d lain on the table. Instead, a vivacious, sparkling little creature leaped into the air, and with a sharp, high-pitched squeal, launched herself into Paige’s hair, her tiny hands stroking Paige’s cheeks. Paige couldn’t help laughing. When the fairy finally settled back down and was prancing along the table with the piece of t-shirt as a cape, Paige went in search of food. If she knew Jake, there’d be a stash of food somewhere. He couldn’t work without eating.
She let out a little squeal of her own as she unearthed a box of water and dried meat and fruit beneath the table. In between mouths of food, she tore off little bits and offered them to the fairy. After a few attempts at trying to get the fairy to eat some fruit, she gave up and handed over a strip of jerky. With her stomach full and the fairy curled up in the curve of her shoulder, Paige stared at the drawing she’d done. Apparently, she did have a special ability. She wondered if she could draw something from scratch and bring it to life. Instead of trying, she tucked the tablet and pencils up against her side and curled up against the wall to listen for Peter or spiders.
Chapter 7
When the sun was up, she stumbled outside, her eyes peeled for any sign of Hook’s men or Peter lurking in the trees. When she saw nothing but dew sparkled grass, she let out a great sigh and went back inside to eat breakfast. Once she’d fed herself and her new companion, she headed towards where they’d entered the clearing, but the fairy screeched at her and pulled her hair in the other direction. Paige resisted the urge to swat at her and continued in the direction she’d been heading.
When the fairy flew around in front of her and began pelting her with twigs, Paige stopped.
“What?” she asked, completely exasperated. The sun was just up and she was already covered with sweat. She had a long walk back to the island and she wasn’t sure she could even find it.
The fairy chittered at her and pushed her face in the other direction. The tiny little arm pointed towards a path at the end of the clearing. Paige shook her head.
“No,” she said. “I can’t. If I’m caught out after dark the spiders will eat me. You know?” She imitated a quick, scurrying spider with her hands. “Spiders?”
The fairy frowned and then pointed at the sun. Paige nodded and then just stood there for a minute. Peter wasn’t coming back. This fairy obviously wanted her to go somewhere. She might as well follow the fairy. The sun had just come up. If she didn’t find an island to hide on for the night, she’d turn around by midday and return to the building, Hook’s men or not. Better kidnapping to getting gnawed on by arachnids on steroids.
With her mind made up, Paige retrieved as much food from the building as she could carry and set off after the fairy. She had to trot to keep up with the buzzing creature, but the fairy was better at picking a route through the jungle so she didn’t have to struggle as hard to follow as when she’d been chasing after Peter. The fairy also seemed to be adept at spotting the spider pits and steered her around them by tugging on her shirt or hair. Overall, it was a much more pleasant journey then it’d been with Peter, and before midday she found herself stepping into another clearing. This one looked natural and not at all landscaped. The fairy flew off towards a twist of sticks and vines at the other end in a blur of wings and left Paige running to catch up. Chapter 8
When she did, she realized that what had looked like a jumble of broken sticks and debris was actually a very well concealed palace. At the entrance stood two tall, imposing looking men with butterfly striped skin that flashed and sparkled in the sunlight. She wanted to just stand and stare at them for awhile, but her fairy came back and with a hard yank on her hair, pulled her forward. She was met by a tall woman with the same iridescent skin. Her colors were turquoise and red with tornado sky green eyes and slit cat pupils. It made Paige shudder, but when the woman bowed to her and held up her hand for the little purple fairy, Paige relaxed a little.
“You are welcome here, human. Moonlight on Lavender tells me that you healed her wounds and offered her sustenance in a time of need. She is the Queen of the Pixies and asks me to tell you that she owes you her life and will stay with you until she can repay the debt.”
Paige shook her head and the little fairy made a distressed little squeal. “No, really, that’s not necessary. I didn’t know if it would really work, and honestly, she’s not as purple as she was before, so I really didn’t do a great job, and...well, you know.” She trailed off, uncomfortable with the little fairy’s crying and the bigger fairy’s stern look.
“Moonlight on Lavender is a queen among her own kind. Your refusal of her aid is insulting. You are insinuating that any help she might offer you is unwanted and unhelpful.” The fairy’s voice softened a little. “I can see that you didn’t understand this before you spoke. I suggest you take back what you’ve said and accept Queen Lavender’s offer. If you do not, you will have an enemy instead of a friend.”
Paige stared at the two creatures and then with a sigh, bowed her head and turned to the purple fairy. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I would be happy for your help.” She held out her hand to catch the returning fairy and turned her face back to the butterfly woman.
“You may call me Cashraina. I will take you now to our Queen, who has heard Queen Lavender’s miraculous tale and wishes to meet you for herself.”
Paige nodded, overwhelmed, and followed after Cashraina. She marveled at the architecture of the palace as they walked. Everything was created as if from the forest itself. Benches and columns were formed from living trees, and the bridges over gurgling streams looked like the ivy and the vines had just agreed to grow over and over themselves until they formed a sturdy walkway. The scent of flowers was strong enough to make her sneeze as they pushed through a curtain of living green into a smaller courtyard where a fountain burbled up from the inside of a hollow tree trunk.
A woman, flanked by more butterfly skinned guards, sat at one end of the courtyard. Her throne was formed from precious jewels, all fused together into a chair that didn’t look comfortable to sit in at all, but would have been worth a couple million dollars back on Earth. The guards stepped forward in unison when she moved closer, and she stopped. While the women all seemed to have a smile ready and waiting, the men wore dark, hard expressions and looked ready to kill in a second.
Next to her Cashraina bowed at the waist and she felt Lavender do the same from her shoulder. Too late, she followed suit and sent Lavender spinning into the air in a graceful tumble. She felt the blush at her awkwardness travel from her cheeks all the way down to her belly button and resisted the sudden, ridiculous urge to laugh at her own foolishness.
“You may rise, human.”
The voice was soft, but edged with ice, as if the Queen of Fairies whether to be a saint or a monster. Paige found the contrast disturbing and darted a glimpse at the fairy. Her quick glimpse turned into a long stare, until one of the guards leaped forward and jabbed at her with his spear.
She stumbled back and the Queen laughed.
“Foolish human,” he snarled. “You dare to stare!”
She shook her head, eyes fastened on the ground. The Queen’s face was beautiful, at least on one side. The other side looked like someone had thrown a container of battery acid at her. The features were melted and ruined, shiny with scar tissue. Such beauty marred with ugliness was a sickening sight, and made Paige’s stomach churn.
“You shy away from my deformity, girl, as if you have the right to show such disgust when it is I that must look in the water every day and see my ruined face staring back at me. Your discomfort is a selfish emotion and unfit for a healer.” The Queen might have been throwing knives, her voice was so sharp. Paige felt a rush of shame and raised her head.
“You’ve asked me here to heal your face,” she said. She didn’t make it a question.
Cashraina stepped back as if Paige was about to be struck by lightning and didn’t want to get caught in the blast. The Queen floated forward, her ethereal movements surreal against the dark, earthy reality of the palace.
“You do not speak until asked, human. What is your name?”
Lavender, who’d returned to her shoulder, yanked at Paige’s hair and shook her head. Paige frowned, confused, and then nodded. Names had power when dealing with fairies. She wondered if Lavender had gifted her with her full name.
“You may call me Sunshine,” she said, giving them Jake’s nickname for her. It felt right, somehow, to use that name. She realized that no one had asked for her real name since she’d arrived and felt relieved to be named, finally, in this crazy place.
The Queen’s lips quirked at her response, and she gestured towards a bench. “Please sit.” “You are impertinent and rude and you don’t belong here in our world. Still, you have saved Queen Lavender’s life with your special ability. It is unsuitable for one such as I to ask for your help, but I am willing to offer you aid in return for your agreement to heal my face.”
Paige wondered if all rulers were so blunt and abrasive, and then concluded that they were probably were. When no one could argue with you without getting their head chopped off, it was probably pretty hard to censor yourself.
“What can you do to help?” Paige asked. She was curious to know what the fairies could do for her and more curious to find out who had melted off half the queen’s face. She resigned herself to not figuring out the answer to the second question.
The Queen hissed out a breath at Paige’s unasked for outburst but answered. “We have heard from Peter that you wish to rescue a friend from the Captain. We can help you do so. Will you take our offer?”
“Do you have an image of your face before...uh...whatever happened happened?” she asked.
The Queen’s face went red, really unattractive on top of the scar tissue, and then paled again. “I do not know what you mean by a picture.”
Paige shrugged. “You know, like a painting or a portrait? An image of your face? I need to know what you looked like before so I can draw it back.”
The Queen seemed confused, although to give her credit, she was trying to hide it. “The ruined side of my face looked exactly like the unruined side of my face. We do not have pictures. To capture your image in a likeness is to capture your spirit.”
Paige shot a glance at Lavender where she rested on the stone bench and tried not to think of what might happen if the picture she’d drawn of the tiny creature was ever destroyed. Then she thought of what the Queen had said and looked at the other fairies around the courtyard. She could see, now that she was looking, what the Queen was talking about. Every single one of the fairies, butterfly skin or not, possessed perfectly symmetrical features. Now that she knew what it was, their perfection made her skin crawl. No human face was absolutely perfect. If you were to fold someone’s face in on itself, there was always something that wouldn’t line up, be it a sliver of jaw or a tiny corner of eye. She felt a thrill of fear at the thought and debated turning down the Queen’s offer. If she did a drawing of the Queen’s face and it was off, or wrong by even a little bit, these people would know instantly and their sovereign would stand out like a gazelle in the middle of a pride of lions. It wasn’t a good image, and she didn’t want to imagine what would happen if she made that kind of mistake.
Despite those thoughts, her mouth opened and she said “yes.” The Queen must have known what she’d say, because she didn’t look surprised, but Paige wished she could have an out of body experience so she could launch a big, strong kick at her own butt for being so stupid.
The Queen motioned for the bench to be dragged forward toward the throne and seated herself in the jeweled chair with quiet grace. “You may begin,” she said.
Paige looked around. “What. Now?”
One of the guards stepped forward with a scowl, but the Queen motioned him back. “You believe that I wish to remain even one more moment wearing this hideous face? Complete the healing and we will feed and clothe you before making plans for your friend. Refuse and I will have you killed.”
Paige swallowed hard and untied the knot in her pants that held the tablet and the pencils. When a number of fairies leaned over her to see what she was doing, she cleared her throat. “I...um...can’t do the healing with so many eyes upon me, your highness. It will distract me.” She crossed her fingers, not at all willing to let so many guards see that she was basically capturing their queen’s spirit on a piece of paper.
Like she’d said magic words, most of the observers in the courtyard disappeared, and the queen gestured for her to continue.
Paige took a deep breath, and without allowing herself to think about what she was doing, began drawing the healthy side of the queen’s face. The lines came quickly and without effort and she realized that symmetrical faces, if weird, might actually be easier to create on paper than a face that contained multiple, minute flaws. Still, the sun sank past the courtyard by time she’d finished the top half of the queen’s face. She was working on the jaw line and lips when someone scurried over with a lantern and hung it over the bench before retreating.
In the warm, golden glow of the flame, Paige began shading in the eyes. The Queen’s colors were all gold and greens, as much as part of the forest as if she’d been birthed from a tree in autumn. When she began to add the glint of light in those sharp cat eyes, she felt the tingle of power and pushed at it, until with the now expected sharp pain in her forehead, the drawing was complete.
The queen, who’d sat absolutely motionless through the whole, hours long process, gave a sudden gasp. Her hands flew to her face and she let out a guttural cry. Unable to read the emotion in the queen’s voice, Paige shrank back on her bench far enough that she almost fell off. The queen’s cry brought female attendants scurrying out of the shadows. One of them held a shallow basin of polished silver and set it in the queen’s arms with shaking hands.
Paige crossed her fingers and wondered if the magic would permit making corrections. She didn’t think it would and wished she could just melt back into the jungle and face the spiders. At least the spiders would just want to eat her. If the queen’s face was anything less than perfect, she was sure she’d be made to suffer the error in excruciating detail.
When a tall male stepped out of the entrance by the throne and knelt in front of the queen, Paige stiffened.
“My Queen, your beauty is beyond compare. The healer’s job was perfectly done.”
The Queen raised her head and stared at her across the courtyard. Paige let out a breath and flipped the tablet closed. The queen’s face contained the same eerie perfection as the other fairies. The drawing had worked. She would live for another few hours at least.
When she did, she realized that what had looked like a jumble of broken sticks and debris was actually a very well concealed palace. At the entrance stood two tall, imposing looking men with butterfly striped skin that flashed and sparkled in the sunlight. She wanted to just stand and stare at them for awhile, but her fairy came back and with a hard yank on her hair, pulled her forward. She was met by a tall woman with the same iridescent skin. Her colors were turquoise and red with tornado sky green eyes and slit cat pupils. It made Paige shudder, but when the woman bowed to her and held up her hand for the little purple fairy, Paige relaxed a little.
“You are welcome here, human. Moonlight on Lavender tells me that you healed her wounds and offered her sustenance in a time of need. She is the Queen of the Pixies and asks me to tell you that she owes you her life and will stay with you until she can repay the debt.”
Paige shook her head and the little fairy made a distressed little squeal. “No, really, that’s not necessary. I didn’t know if it would really work, and honestly, she’s not as purple as she was before, so I really didn’t do a great job, and...well, you know.” She trailed off, uncomfortable with the little fairy’s crying and the bigger fairy’s stern look.
“Moonlight on Lavender is a queen among her own kind. Your refusal of her aid is insulting. You are insinuating that any help she might offer you is unwanted and unhelpful.” The fairy’s voice softened a little. “I can see that you didn’t understand this before you spoke. I suggest you take back what you’ve said and accept Queen Lavender’s offer. If you do not, you will have an enemy instead of a friend.”
Paige stared at the two creatures and then with a sigh, bowed her head and turned to the purple fairy. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I would be happy for your help.” She held out her hand to catch the returning fairy and turned her face back to the butterfly woman.
“You may call me Cashraina. I will take you now to our Queen, who has heard Queen Lavender’s miraculous tale and wishes to meet you for herself.”
Paige nodded, overwhelmed, and followed after Cashraina. She marveled at the architecture of the palace as they walked. Everything was created as if from the forest itself. Benches and columns were formed from living trees, and the bridges over gurgling streams looked like the ivy and the vines had just agreed to grow over and over themselves until they formed a sturdy walkway. The scent of flowers was strong enough to make her sneeze as they pushed through a curtain of living green into a smaller courtyard where a fountain burbled up from the inside of a hollow tree trunk.
A woman, flanked by more butterfly skinned guards, sat at one end of the courtyard. Her throne was formed from precious jewels, all fused together into a chair that didn’t look comfortable to sit in at all, but would have been worth a couple million dollars back on Earth. The guards stepped forward in unison when she moved closer, and she stopped. While the women all seemed to have a smile ready and waiting, the men wore dark, hard expressions and looked ready to kill in a second.
Next to her Cashraina bowed at the waist and she felt Lavender do the same from her shoulder. Too late, she followed suit and sent Lavender spinning into the air in a graceful tumble. She felt the blush at her awkwardness travel from her cheeks all the way down to her belly button and resisted the sudden, ridiculous urge to laugh at her own foolishness.
“You may rise, human.”
The voice was soft, but edged with ice, as if the Queen of Fairies whether to be a saint or a monster. Paige found the contrast disturbing and darted a glimpse at the fairy. Her quick glimpse turned into a long stare, until one of the guards leaped forward and jabbed at her with his spear.
She stumbled back and the Queen laughed.
“Foolish human,” he snarled. “You dare to stare!”
She shook her head, eyes fastened on the ground. The Queen’s face was beautiful, at least on one side. The other side looked like someone had thrown a container of battery acid at her. The features were melted and ruined, shiny with scar tissue. Such beauty marred with ugliness was a sickening sight, and made Paige’s stomach churn.
“You shy away from my deformity, girl, as if you have the right to show such disgust when it is I that must look in the water every day and see my ruined face staring back at me. Your discomfort is a selfish emotion and unfit for a healer.” The Queen might have been throwing knives, her voice was so sharp. Paige felt a rush of shame and raised her head.
“You’ve asked me here to heal your face,” she said. She didn’t make it a question.
Cashraina stepped back as if Paige was about to be struck by lightning and didn’t want to get caught in the blast. The Queen floated forward, her ethereal movements surreal against the dark, earthy reality of the palace.
“You do not speak until asked, human. What is your name?”
Lavender, who’d returned to her shoulder, yanked at Paige’s hair and shook her head. Paige frowned, confused, and then nodded. Names had power when dealing with fairies. She wondered if Lavender had gifted her with her full name.
“You may call me Sunshine,” she said, giving them Jake’s nickname for her. It felt right, somehow, to use that name. She realized that no one had asked for her real name since she’d arrived and felt relieved to be named, finally, in this crazy place.
The Queen’s lips quirked at her response, and she gestured towards a bench. “Please sit.” “You are impertinent and rude and you don’t belong here in our world. Still, you have saved Queen Lavender’s life with your special ability. It is unsuitable for one such as I to ask for your help, but I am willing to offer you aid in return for your agreement to heal my face.”
Paige wondered if all rulers were so blunt and abrasive, and then concluded that they were probably were. When no one could argue with you without getting their head chopped off, it was probably pretty hard to censor yourself.
“What can you do to help?” Paige asked. She was curious to know what the fairies could do for her and more curious to find out who had melted off half the queen’s face. She resigned herself to not figuring out the answer to the second question.
The Queen hissed out a breath at Paige’s unasked for outburst but answered. “We have heard from Peter that you wish to rescue a friend from the Captain. We can help you do so. Will you take our offer?”
“Do you have an image of your face before...uh...whatever happened happened?” she asked.
The Queen’s face went red, really unattractive on top of the scar tissue, and then paled again. “I do not know what you mean by a picture.”
Paige shrugged. “You know, like a painting or a portrait? An image of your face? I need to know what you looked like before so I can draw it back.”
The Queen seemed confused, although to give her credit, she was trying to hide it. “The ruined side of my face looked exactly like the unruined side of my face. We do not have pictures. To capture your image in a likeness is to capture your spirit.”
Paige shot a glance at Lavender where she rested on the stone bench and tried not to think of what might happen if the picture she’d drawn of the tiny creature was ever destroyed. Then she thought of what the Queen had said and looked at the other fairies around the courtyard. She could see, now that she was looking, what the Queen was talking about. Every single one of the fairies, butterfly skin or not, possessed perfectly symmetrical features. Now that she knew what it was, their perfection made her skin crawl. No human face was absolutely perfect. If you were to fold someone’s face in on itself, there was always something that wouldn’t line up, be it a sliver of jaw or a tiny corner of eye. She felt a thrill of fear at the thought and debated turning down the Queen’s offer. If she did a drawing of the Queen’s face and it was off, or wrong by even a little bit, these people would know instantly and their sovereign would stand out like a gazelle in the middle of a pride of lions. It wasn’t a good image, and she didn’t want to imagine what would happen if she made that kind of mistake.
Despite those thoughts, her mouth opened and she said “yes.” The Queen must have known what she’d say, because she didn’t look surprised, but Paige wished she could have an out of body experience so she could launch a big, strong kick at her own butt for being so stupid.
The Queen motioned for the bench to be dragged forward toward the throne and seated herself in the jeweled chair with quiet grace. “You may begin,” she said.
Paige looked around. “What. Now?”
One of the guards stepped forward with a scowl, but the Queen motioned him back. “You believe that I wish to remain even one more moment wearing this hideous face? Complete the healing and we will feed and clothe you before making plans for your friend. Refuse and I will have you killed.”
Paige swallowed hard and untied the knot in her pants that held the tablet and the pencils. When a number of fairies leaned over her to see what she was doing, she cleared her throat. “I...um...can’t do the healing with so many eyes upon me, your highness. It will distract me.” She crossed her fingers, not at all willing to let so many guards see that she was basically capturing their queen’s spirit on a piece of paper.
Like she’d said magic words, most of the observers in the courtyard disappeared, and the queen gestured for her to continue.
Paige took a deep breath, and without allowing herself to think about what she was doing, began drawing the healthy side of the queen’s face. The lines came quickly and without effort and she realized that symmetrical faces, if weird, might actually be easier to create on paper than a face that contained multiple, minute flaws. Still, the sun sank past the courtyard by time she’d finished the top half of the queen’s face. She was working on the jaw line and lips when someone scurried over with a lantern and hung it over the bench before retreating.
In the warm, golden glow of the flame, Paige began shading in the eyes. The Queen’s colors were all gold and greens, as much as part of the forest as if she’d been birthed from a tree in autumn. When she began to add the glint of light in those sharp cat eyes, she felt the tingle of power and pushed at it, until with the now expected sharp pain in her forehead, the drawing was complete.
The queen, who’d sat absolutely motionless through the whole, hours long process, gave a sudden gasp. Her hands flew to her face and she let out a guttural cry. Unable to read the emotion in the queen’s voice, Paige shrank back on her bench far enough that she almost fell off. The queen’s cry brought female attendants scurrying out of the shadows. One of them held a shallow basin of polished silver and set it in the queen’s arms with shaking hands.
Paige crossed her fingers and wondered if the magic would permit making corrections. She didn’t think it would and wished she could just melt back into the jungle and face the spiders. At least the spiders would just want to eat her. If the queen’s face was anything less than perfect, she was sure she’d be made to suffer the error in excruciating detail.
When a tall male stepped out of the entrance by the throne and knelt in front of the queen, Paige stiffened.
“My Queen, your beauty is beyond compare. The healer’s job was perfectly done.”
The Queen raised her head and stared at her across the courtyard. Paige let out a breath and flipped the tablet closed. The queen’s face contained the same eerie perfection as the other fairies. The drawing had worked. She would live for another few hours at least.
While the fairies of the court converged on their queen, Cashraina pulled Paige to her feet and ushered her out of the courtyard. When the blood returned to her legs in a tingling rush, she stumbled and the turquoise and crimson fairy caught her.
“It was a good thing you’ve done, Healer. You have returned our Queen to us.”
Paige shook her head, shocked at the callousness of a group of people willing to judge their sovereign based solely on her looks. “Just because her face was messed up doesn’t mean she wasn’t your queen.”
Cashraina shook her head. “Our society is based on beauty and perfection, human. Without her beauty our queen was less than what she should have been. It was a bad time for us. I have heard that many on Earth struggle not to judge based on people’s appearance, but that is not our way.”
Emboldened by the fairy’s openness, Paige cleared her throat and asked: “How did it happen?”
Lavender gave a sad little chirp and hid underneath the taller fairy’s hair at the question. Cashraina’s answer was slow and hesitant, but bitter.
“When the Captain came with his men to take the little ones, our Queen stepped forward to stop them. She was very brave. It was the Captain himself who cut her face.”
“That happened because of a cut?” Paige asked, a little incredulous. She’d heard of infections, but jeez.
Cashraina’s smile was sad. “No, Healer. The queen was cut with iron. It is poison to us, and the Captain has armed all of his men with it.”
Paige thought of the cruel intent of such an act and the pictures she’d found in Jake’s tablet and shuddered. She couldn’t stand thinking of Jake under the control of such an evil man. Jake was smart and could be a little misguided, but he was a good guy. She’d never seen him hurt anything before.
“What does he want?” she asked.
Cashraina shook her head and pushed Paige forward into a small, private bower of shiny green vines and steaming water. “Bathe and when you are done, Prince Nuada will explain how he plans to help you retrieve your friend. The prince has a better idea of what the Captain is doing here on our island than I do.”
The lithe fairy turned on her heel and left her alone with Lavender in what was obviously a bathing chamber. Paige set the tablet and pencils down at the edge of the chamber away from the water before stripping out of her clothes. They were so filthy that when she threw them aside she was a little surprised to see that they didn’t stand up on their own. She sank into the water with a grateful sigh. A bar of milky soap and a jar of golden liquid sat next to the hollow in the ground. The soap smelled like honeysuckle. The scent and the heat of the water made her eyes flutter close. What felt like only a few minutes later, she was being hauled out of the tub by her hair. Lavender was darting through the air and shaking her fist. Her shrill cries carried over the sound of the water and made Paige wince. Whoever was holding her by her hair dropped her into an ungraceful heap on the wet cobblestones around the pool.
“For a healer of such power, you appear remarkably stupid,” a dry voice sounded above her.
Paige looked up into the face of the male fairy who had knelt before the queen. She gasped and tried to cover herself with her hands. Lavender was still whizzing around and making rude gestures at her rescuer.
“Turn around!” Paige cried.
The fairy looked amused, but did as she asked. “If you are worried about your state of undress, it will comfort you to know that I have no interest in the human female body.”
Paige blushed and tried not to be offended. She failed. “Well, aren’t you pleasant,” she muttered as she draped a length of clean cloth over her still wet body and fastened it with a brooch Lavender carried over to her. She looked up to find the fairy still staring at her and she blushed even harder. It felt like her ears were going to explode.
“What?” she snapped.
He smiled and gestured her to another opening in the bower. Beyond the glowing greenery sat a table loaded with food. She stopped only long enough to grab her tablet and her pencils away from the spreading puddles of water before almost sprinting to the table.
Her companion watched with obvious curiosity as she stuffed fresh grapes, cheese, and chunks of bread in her mouth. When she’d finished the plates of finger food, the fairy pushed over a bowl of soup. Small pieces of what smelled like fish floated in a rich, creamy broth that melted on her tongue. He didn’t eat with her, but kept filling up her glass with a smooth, honey flavored drink that made her tongue numb and her eyes go fuzzy. She studied him as she finished the food. He looked different from the other fairies, more human. The colors on his skin, blue and green, were muted, as if he’d been painted with a different brand of butterfly dust than the others. His eyes, blue and yellow and slightly reptilian, were as overwhelming and scary as his mother’s.
“Now that you are no longer in danger of starving to death, I am Prince Nuada.”
Paige choked on her drink and nearly sprayed a whole mouthful of the golden liquid onto her companion. “Um…nice to meet you,” she stuttered.
He didn’t seem offended by her lack of grace. “So, my mother has promised you our help in retrieving your friend.”
Paige nodded, talking around the lump of soup soaked bread in her mouth. “Yes. At least that’s what I think the deal was.”
The prince’s eyes went dark, the yellow pupils contracting until they were almost invisible. “My mother has a habit of forgetting that some things aren’t hers to promise.”
Paige frowned and Lavender settled onto the table to point a slim little arm at the prince in anger. Obviously, the little queen didn’t think much of deal breakers.
“You’re backing out of the deal?” she asked. She wasn’t surprised, but the news disheartened her. She didn’t stand a chance trying to rescue Jake on her own. She didn’t even know where he was.
He frowned and his hands tightened on his own glass. “I’m not. I want to know what this boy is to you that you would risk me and my warriors to save him. My mother was not the only one disfigured by the Captain’s iron.”
“Well,” she stared, not sure what to say. “Jake’s my best friend.”
The prince shook his head. “Does this mean that you have many friends?”
She shook her head, embarrassed at the truth of it. “No, I mean he’s my only friend. Jake’s been my only friend since third grade when my mom accidentally gave me an awful haircut and then bought me the ugliest glasses possible a few weeks later. He was the only one to still talk to me.”
The prince didn’t really seem to understand all of what she’d said, but he nodded. “Because your feelings for your friend seem the honest, strong ties of loyalty and not the fleeting flash and fire of a summer romance, I will help you. It is not in me to default on a promise, even if that promise was not made by me.”
She didn’t know how to respond to his offer, so she just nodded. Her eyes fell on the tablet laying next to her, and she rested her hand on it before raising shy eyes to the prince. “If something happens to you or your warriors, I will heal them. If they want me to, of course.”
His eyes widened, the yellow swallowing the blue. “That is a generous offer, Healer. My mother will be pleased to hear it.”
Paige shrugged and began to pick at her food remnants. Drawing people seemed a silly way to heal people, but it worked, so who was she to deny it? “So tell me about Hook. Why is he doing this?”
The prince stood and began to pace. His movements were so smooth and graceful it looked like he was dancing instead of walking. “The Captain is greedy for what Neverland can offer, but he is also dissatisfied at what he has found here. He seeks to rebuild our world using yours as a guide.”
Paige looked around at the fey woven walls of the palace and the night sky sprinkled with tiny glowing firefly lights that she realized were really fairies even tinier than Lavender. The beauty was so fragile looking thing that it made her heart ache with joy. She couldn’t imagine this gentle place corrupted with soot and fumes and pollution.
“That’s why he needs electricity,” she said. “That’s why he kidnapped Jake. God, that’s awful.”
Prince Nuada stilled and returned to his chair. “Electricity? Peter has told us of the snake line and what happens when they are killed. This is what you speak of?”
Paige nodded but raised her hand. “Wait, Peter’s here?”
“He brought the injured little ones back to us because he thought we could heal them. They all died from iron poisoning.” The prince’s eyes were narrow slits again, the anger in them so raw and fierce that she felt scraped raw.
At his words, Lavender whimpered and put her hands over her face. She took off before Paige could stop her, her fragile wings like razorblades in the air she flew so fast. Paige stood up to follow her, but the prince motioned her back to her chair.
“Leave the little queen to her grief, Healer. Her clan is dead.”
“All of them?” she asked. She thought of all the fairies clinging to Peter’s arms and had to fight back tears. They were all so little.
The prince nodded. “The Captain’s been stealing the little ones all over the island. It started a few suns ago.”
Paige thought of the iron wolf in Jake’s tablet and felt her dinner lurch into her throat. “We’ve got to stop him,” she said.
Nuada’s smile was a grim, feral thing. “Yes, we do.”
When he stood and gestured for her to follow him, she did, still clutching her stomach. When she’d said they had to stop him, she hadn’t been sure if she was talking about Hook, Jake, or both.
Chapter 9
The Prince took her to a different side of the palace where she found Peter and his ragtag warrior band waiting. If Jasmine, Pyro, and Thomas hadn’t formed a protective ring around their leader, she would have walked up and punched Peter in the nose for abandoning her in Hook’s power station. She debated going through the other three kids, but one look from Jasmine had her hanging back with Nuada.
The prince gestured to the kids. “Peter has agreed to help us recover Jake. He claims he had a deal with you that he must fulfill.”
She blinked in surprise at that and then shook her head. “I don’t want his help,” she said. She shot a nasty look at Jasmine when the other girl went for her sword. “All Peter’s ever done since I’ve met him is put me in danger. Knowing him, he’ll leave me stranded somewhere else that’ll get me killed.”
The prince looked between them and then nodded and gestured Paige off to the side. Cashraina appeared and herded the children, with Peter in the middle, towards another room off to the side.
When they were gone, Nuada sighed. “It is not wise to alienate Peter, Healer. The queen is very fond of him and the little ones are devoted to him. He can be of great help to us.”
“I don’t trust him.”
“It is good that you don’t trust him. He’s been with us for a very long time and doesn’t remember things very well. His lack of memory takes his compassion and fear from him. He is capricious because he doesn’t know any other way to be. To blame him for it is like blaming the spiders for their voracious appetites. It is not fair, nor honorable.”
The prince’s voice was so full of censure she thought she’d feel guilt, but all she felt was a rising irritation. “Well, that still doesn’t change the fact that I don’t trust him. I’d rather have the spiders on our side. Peter will get Jake killed.”
“From what I have heard of your friend and what he’s done here on our island, his death may not be all that unsatisfactory.”
Paige felt the pain of that but pushed it away. “You promised me you’d help rescue him,” she said.
Nuada smiled again. “Yes. My mother promised you we’d help you rescue your friend. She did not promise that he would be rescued alive or stay that way once we’ve gotten him away from the Captain.”
Paige bit her lip, fighting back tears at his harsh words. “Great. That’s just great. Peter can barely remember his own name, you’re just out to kill my friend, and no one on this island even tries to keep anyone else alive but me.”
By time she got all of it out, she was crying in sheer rage. Lavender, as if sensing her anger, came zooming back to her shoulder and began screaming at Nuada with so much energy her little purple face actually began to turn blue.
If either of their rants had any effect on the prince, he didn’t show it. When Cashraina came back to see what all the commotion was about, she took one look at Paige and rushed forward.
“My Lord, what have you done? We owe our queen’s health to Sunshine’s generous efforts. She is an honored guest.”
Nuada bowed from the waist. “Healer, I am sorry to have upset you, but the deal with my mother did not include the safety of your friend. I will not pretend that it did. As Peter has already told you, once someone has been influenced by the Captain, the only freedom from the spell is death.”
Paige shook her head. “No, that’s not what Peter said at all. Jake’s going to be stuck like this forever?”
“Sometimes when you separate the victim from the spell the effects will fade with time. But your friend will try everything he can to get back to his master. It is a dangerous situation, especially with your friend’s unique talents. I cannot promise anything.”
“It sounds like you’re not even going to try to keep him alive. If that’s true, I don’t want your help either.”
Jasmine’s voice came from the alcove, and when Paige turned to look, she saw Thomas standing with her. “Refusing their help and Peter’s is childish. The Fae cannot board Hook’s ship, and Peter can’t carry your friend to safety by himself. What do you think you can do by yourself? You don’t even know where your friend is. Not that I care, but if you go off by yourself, you’ll die.”
Paige resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at the other girl, or better yet, flip her off, but she resisted. Jasmine was right however much she wished she wasn’t. She’d just have to figure out a way to make sure that the rescue mission for Jake didn’t turn into a campaign to murder him instead.
“Fine. What’s the plan?”
Nuada looked at Jasmine and then called Peter out from the other room. Paige expected some sort of look of remorse or guilt, but his face carried the same expressionless mask it always did.
“I will fly to Hook’s ship, locate your friend, and fly him back to the Fae where they will be waiting. They will ensure his safe return to here.”
Paige shook her head. “What? How do I know you won’t do something stupid, like drop him in the ocean? How do I know you just won’t kill him when you find him?”
Confusion flickered through Peter’s eyes and he shook his head. “That would not be the honorable thing to do. I will not harm your friend unless it is necessary. You have my word.”
Paige looked at Nuada and then at Cashraina where she stood with a small, sad smile on her face. Very slightly, almost imperceptibly, the turquoise and crimson fairy shook her head. She wondered what Cashraina knew about Peter that made her so certain of Peter’s untrustworthiness, but then, thinking of Peter’s actions so far, didn’t think it was so hard to figure out.
She sucked in a deep breath and hoped that Jasmine didn’t have a projectile weapon handy. “No, Peter. I don’t trust you. You say what you mean right now, at this moment, but when you find my friend, you will forget what you’ve promised, do what you will, and then feel no guilt for it because you do not remember that you’ve done something wrong. No. I will go with you, and if you hurt my friend, I’ll kill you.” She threatened death because everyone else always said it. It seemed the thing to do in this world, and she figured she’d give it a shot.
As it turned out, Jasmine didn’t need a projectile weapon and apparently wasn’t impressed with Paige’s false courage. She was past Nuada before anyone could stop her, and her sword was at Paige’s throat. The steel was icy cold and sharp enough that she didn’t feel the shallow cut until the warm blood started trickling down her neck.
Lavender exploded into her shrill screeching and Cashraina cried out in shock. Nuada and Peter didn’t move. Thomas stood off to the side frowning, but his eyes were flashing with what she thought was pleasure at the scene.
Jasmine’s face was a study of contrasts: all flashing green eyes, flushed pink cheeks, and skin so pale that Paige could see the blue of her veins.“That is enough out of you, silly girl,” Jasmine spit in Paige’s face. “You come here, whining about your friend, complaining about what’s happened. You insult Peter when he saved your life. Your friend deserves death, and so do you. I will solve this problem right now and release the Queen from her obligation to help you, you spineless, puling, disgusting pile of refuse.”
Paige couldn’t quite process what was happening. She tried to come up with words, some sort of defense, but all she could think of was what a crappy insulter Jasmine was. It was a new voice that spoke and stilled the sword at her neck.
“Jasmine, release the healer. This pile of refuse, as you call her, saved my life where your own potions and tonics failed,” the queen’s voice rang out across the courtyard, the barely concealed rage physically frosting the leaves on the walls with a fine mist of ice.
“Whatever she has said about your brother is accurate, and you know it as well as everyone else here. Your behavior is in defense of Peter’s honor when we all understand that the word does not, cannot apply to a boy who cannot remember who or what he is. Desist or I will have you killed.” The queen stepped forward into the light, her perfect face nearly glowing with a serenity at such odds with the rage in her eyes that Paige shuddered at the wrongness of it.
“You won’t get to me before I can open her throat.” The sword pressed in harder. Paige could see the blood where it snaked its way down gutter of the blade and over Jasmine’s hand.
“Will you wager your life on it?” the queen asked.
Paige desperately hoped the answer was no. Jasmine didn’t seem like the betting type, but nothing here was as it seemed. When the sword slid away from her neck in a splatter of her own blood, it took a moment to realize she was free. She stumbled back, her knees weak with shock, and nearly collapsed into Cashraina’s arms.
She was led away from the spectacle in the courtyard where Jasmine stood grinning. Peter still did nothing, his face as empty as a clean whiteboard. Nuada looked her way and performed a jaunty salute.
“Try not to drown yourself this time, little human. We will begin or journey in the morning.”
Chapter 10
Paige woke before the sun the next morning, and it was only while she was lying there in the gently lightening morning air that she thought to worry about the spiders. She hadn’t seen any running water surrounding the palace when they’d approached, but she also hadn’t seen any spiders. She decided to trust that the Fae had their own ways of deterring the arachnids and lay back on her fur covered bench. She needed to figure out a way to ensure Jake’s safety when Peter went for him on Hook’s ship.
If she couldn’t be there with Peter to make sure nothing happened, she needed to make sure something or someone else was. Deep in thought, she pulled her tablet and pencils out from under the bench, grateful that Cashraina’d had the foresight to retrieve them from where they’d fallen after the fight with Jasmine.
So far, she’d only drawn things in order to return them to a previous state. Could she draw something from scratch and bring it to life? When she’d bitten her fingernails down to their grimy quick and the sun teetered on the horizon, she gave up worrying and began to draw. The lines came quick and sure. She was finishing the outline of the eyes when Cashraina came in the small room with a stack of clothing. When the fairy saw that she was busy, she smiled and without saying anything put the clothes down before retreating back outside as quietly as she’d come.
Paige turned her attention back to the drawing. She needed a creature that would respond to her commands, and hopefully, not attack her even if that was a natural urge. She’d picked one of the jewel bright birds she’d seen darting through the canopy of the palace as the safest option and focused as hard as she could on the creature’s intelligence and free will tempered with a strong sense of obedience.
The bird was sitting preening on her shoulder when Cashraina poked her head back into the room.
“Oh dear,” she exclaimed, and Paige nearly flung the bird across the room in sudden fright. She’d probably drawn the only flesh eating bird on the island.
“What?” she said, afraid to move and upset the bird.
“Well, it seems that no one’s explained Jewel birds to you.” Cashraina seemed more amused than alarmed, so Paige began to relax.
“So? What’s the big deal?”
Cashraina actually laughed. “They’re matriarchal and highly intelligent. They never leave their mother’s side. I assume you made the bird obedient enough that you can send it off on its own when you no longer need it, but that creature will never leave you even if you order it to.”
Paige swallowed hard and then smiled a little. “Um…well, that’s nice I guess. Loyalty and all that.”
Cashraina’s smile slid from her face. “Yes, loyalty,” she said. She stood there for a moment, her eyes filled with what looked like tears, then shook her head and pointed at the clothes. “Please, change. Nuada is anxious to start.”
She tried to figure out what Cashraina’s sudden rush of emotion was all about but gave it up as a lost cause and got dressed. She gave the jewel bird directions to follow her through the forest rather than clinging to her shoulder with every step and marveled that the bird understood so perfectly. Its bright eyes only stared at her for a moment before it was off in a flurry of red, blue, and green feathers.
She was herded to Nuada and a large band of warriors outside the palace while she was still stuffing food in her mouth. Peter and his ragtag band stood behind the fae. The children looked just as bloodthirsty as before. That made her angry, and she wanted to order Peter to leave them here where it was safe, but Jasmine stepped forward and glared at her, so she kept her mouth shut.
When the group started to move forward, Cashraina stepped up beside her and pressed a cool, round object into her hand.
“Lavender has told me of your fear of the spiders. This will protect you and any others around you for a good distance. The warriors carry similar wards to protect the campsites, but this will protect you without those.”
Paige looked down at a small white stone with a strange mark carved into the surface. A leather cord threaded through a small hole at the top of the stone. She slipped it around her neck, not really sure if she trusted it to protect her from the spiders or not, but glad of the gift anyway.
She lifted it up and raised her eyes to Cashraina. “Why?” she asked.
Cashraina smiled and gave a little shrug. “I have heard of your promise to heal any of the warriors if they are injured in their fight. My beloved travels with you on your journey.” She pointed out a tall, gold and black pattered fae who stood next to Nuada.
Before she could say anything else, Cashraina continued. “Your desire to save your friend is honorable and right, but do not let your compassion get you killed. If your friend cares as much about you as you do about him, he would not want you to sacrifice yourself.” Without taking a breath or offering up a transition, Cashraina continued. “Beware of Jasmine. She will do anything she must to protect Peter. Although they are not blood, Peter is her brother. Ask Nuada to tell you what he knows of Peter along the way. It may help you understand him better.”
With all of that bouncing through her head, Cashraina pushed her forward after the departing warriors and children. She found herself walking next to Cashraina’s boyfriend, or whatever he was, and he gave her a big smile full of pointed teeth completely at odds with his innocent looking bumblebee paint job. It almost made her laugh, but she swallowed it, figuring he wouldn’t appreciate the humor.
It seemed that there weren’t any animals on the island suitable for riding, which meant they had to walk. She wasn’t used to so much exercise and her legs ached, but at least this time her pants were thick enough to keep the mosquitoes away, and Bumblebee, as she’d taken to calling him since he wouldn’t speak to her to tell her his name, seemed to have some sort of spell to keep the insects down. She wondered what else the Fae could do and how, if they could do so much, they couldn’t defeat Hook.
It probably had to do with the fact that Hook used iron weapons. The man probably had guns too, where from what she’d seen, Fae used bows and swords. The younger children in Peter’s group all seemed to rely on blunt objects, while the older ones, like Pyro, Thomas, and Jasmine, all had swords like Peter. She still carried her own staff, but she didn’t really want to use it. She wasn’t really a premeditated fighter. More the bad temper that got you into bad spots fighter than anything else.
She thought back to the one real fight she’d ever been in. It’d been in fourth grade, when an older fifth grade boy told the whole bus that Jake had cooties. Paige bounced right out of her seat and popped the boy in the nose. The boy, who she’d later found out took regular beatings from his father and was used to getting hit in the face, had hit her back, poked her in the eye, and ripped out most of her ponytail. She still remembered her surprise and the feelings of betrayal at the pain. She’d never been hit before and it just didn’t seem like something could hurt so much.
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