Читать книгу Betwixt and Between - Jessica Stilling - Страница 10

PRestoN

Preston did not remember going to sleep and he did not recall waking up the next day, but after a certain amount of time (as if time were another thing here) he opened his eyes and found that he was in bed. He heard the other kids playing down below, and when he glanced out his window he saw them tumbling off the Ferris wheel, nearly crashing to their deaths before picking themselves up and flying away.

Just after he awoke, as if on cue, a knock sounded on his door and Preston answered it. He didn’t call out, like he would have at home when his mother knocked and then barged right in, usually with a laundry hamper full of clothes. Preston could see that the leader and his Lost Boys had a certain respect for a person’s space. He opened the door, rubbing his eyes, to find the boy called Peter. He looked exactly the same as he had the night before in his green shorts and T-shirt; his scraggly hair appeared to have leaves in it and that impish grin was plastered across his rugged, though delicate, face.

“Hi,” he said. “I wanted to see how you were doing. I was wondering if you were ready.”

“Ready for what?”

“For the tour. Usually kids come all together and I give them the tour, or one of the Lost Boys does it, or a couple of them, or I get the fairies to do it, but you came on your own and so you get a private tour.”

“I’m different?” Preston asked and all of a sudden he felt sad as he remembered once more. “I can’t go back there? Home, I can’t go back?”

“You can’t go back,” the leader reiterated as they walked along the wide branch of the tree Preston’s room sat on. The sounds of TV shows, some Preston recognized, or video games with their “pow, pow, peeeew, peeeew,” filtered through the doors.

“I remember people, Peyton, Eva,” Preston started recalling the memories that had come flooding in last night. “I remember what the house looked like and the trees. There were always a lot of trees.”

“Trees are good, there are a lot of trees here,” the boy replied.

“I used to hide in them,” Preston elaborated. “Where are we exactly?”

“We’re Here,” the boy said simply, scratching his head. “They call it Neverland because it’s a place where children never grow up. I mean, that was the simple way to describe it when she woke up and they ran with it.”

“I know Neverland,” Preston stopped, remembering further back, to a television and a cartoon of a little boy on a windowsill. “Are you him, are you the. . .you said your name was Peter… are you the Peter?”

“That’s what they started calling me, Peter Pan,” the boy said as if he didn’t know what to do with that kind of question. “This place has been here forever, well before the stories, and one of them came back and she told everyone else about it and some man wrote a play and they were all telling stories and writing books and making movies and now the boys who come Here think they know everything. And it’s good, it’s good that she told them because now no one is afraid, they think they’ve been Here before, they think they know it. But I guess to give it a name misses the point and it’s just Here and you’ll be Here for a while until you’re somewhere else. But then again I like calling it Neverland. . .I don’t make up my mind easily. But this isn’t the end. You can’t spend all the time in the universe running around a Ferris wheel and hunting Indians.” The boy’s words came out of him in a single breath and it was as if his mind were going a mile a minute.

“There are Indians?” Preston asked as they reached the edge of the branch.

“There are,” Peter answered. “Now, what do you remember of Before?”

“I remember trees,” Preston replied. “And Mr. Hawthorne gave me cookies.”

“He did,” Peter said as if he knew.

“Then I felt really, really sick, and I went to sleep in the trees and woke up Here.”

“I know,” Peter went on, hands behind his back as if he were thinking long and hard about something.

“So it was Mr. Hawthorne’s fault and he poisoned me,” Preston reasoned, speaking as the words came. “He must have done this to me, but he was so nice.”

“You shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” Peter interrupted. “It’s okay,” he then said. “It’s okay,” he looked at him as Preston felt tears coming and Peter wiped them before they reached the middle of his cheeks. “We’re all going to take care of you,” he said and then he walked right off the edge of the branch. “Peter!” Preston cried, too frightened to care or wonder or miss his Mom just then. The boy came back up, he didn’t look like he was swimming as the other boys had, he was just standing there, right on the air, as if he could simply walk on it.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Come here, I’ll show you, you can do it too.”

“With fairy dust and happy thoughts?” Preston asked remembering these instructions from Before.

“No,” Peter shook his head. “Just walk off the branch and if you know you’ll be okay, if you know you can fly, you’ll be fine. All children think happy thoughts, they don’t have problems, they don’t have worries, we’re all a bundle of happy thoughts and so we don’t have to start thinking them, and as for fairy dust, it’s all around, it’s in the air, it’s a part of the makeup of this place, you don’t need a special dose of it.”

“Really?” Preston asked and Peter shook his head Yes.

“Step off and see; I want to show you around,” Peter called and with that he flew away, doing a double loop and coming right at Preston, who tumbled off the branch, his eyes closed as he nearly hit the ground. Peter was there with him, ready to catch him, and with the sense of the leader’s presence, he felt safe, and it lifted him, he felt light and airy, moving through the sky as Peter followed.

They cascaded over the tree house and Preston nearly got caught up in the red bars of the Ferris wheel, but he turned at the last second, as another boy fell off and flew with them for a while. Preston closed his eyes as they dashed above the trees, soaring so he could see this entire place. It was land and it went on for miles, then there was a curve toward the water and he could see a misty lagoon, and on the other side there was a forest where a bunch of tepees stood across from a group of log cabins. Most of it was forest, all those trees separating each world from another, but one group of trees was so lit up it looked as if it was on fire, burning uncontrollably. Preston turned around, and he could see a ship in the water, a big black one that, even from far away, looked as if it was enveloped in smoke.

“Don’t look there,” Peter gasped, grabbing Preston and bringing him back to the ground. “You don’t want to see it and they can’t know we’re watching them.”

“Who?” Preston asked and though he was starting to recall everything else, things from Before, he still couldn’t heed the pirate warnings.

“We don’t look at pirates,” Peter said forcefully. “That’s all, just stay away from them; you can fly anywhere you want, just not by them. And you’ll know where they are—you’ll start to lose your happy thoughts, you won’t be able to fly.”

“So what’re we up to today?” Preston heard a voice call from behind and turned to see Starky followed by Dilweed coming out of the trees. Starky was still wearing his blazer and shorts, but Dilweed had changed and now wore nicer jeans and a black T-shirt with an emblem Preston couldn’t recognize on it.

“He’s Remembering,” Peter said, descending to the ground as everyone followed him. “I’m going to show him around.”

“You’re not going to wait for the other kids to come?” Dilweed inquired.

“Can we show him around with you?” Starky asked, eyes wide, mouth gaping open like a happy puppy.

“Of course you can,” Peter replied as if to even ask the question didn’t make sense.

“What’re you going to show him first?” Dilweed asked, seeming to consider whether he’d participate.

“I was going to show him Mermaid Lagoon first and then the cowboys and Indians and then the fairies and maybe we’d go over to the caves and the Neverbird…”

“I want to go,” Dilweed announced and Peter chuckled, holding his hands over his stomach as if to keep the joy inside.

“Is that all right with you? Do you want to see the mermaids and the cowboys and Indians?” Peter asked Preston.

“You have cowboys and Indians?”

“We have both,” Peter explained. “Sometimes they’re not cowboys and Indians, sometimes they’re policemen and firefighters, or they’re teachers and students or they’re soldiers on two sides of an army, recently they’ve been elves and hobbits—it doesn’t matter, as long as there are two groups of them.”

“Okay,” Preston responded and they moved along. Preston might have preferred to fly, he was starting to like the idea, but he didn’t mind walking.

At the edge of the forest, where the trees got thicker, so thick Preston thought it might be time to lift himself off the ground so as not to trudge through the bramble, he heard a soft, low rumbling, like the branches of trees shaking. “Holy Cow, no!” Dilweed hissed, grasping Starky, who stood bravely in front, but visibly afraid.

“What is it?” Preston asked, wondering if he had real cause for worry, since there didn’t appear to be any actual threats in Neverland when the pirates weren’t around.

“Boxwood’s here. I hope he doesn’t know about you, I hope he didn’t find us,” Dilweed replied, taking a few steps back as the rumbling grew louder and Peter stood between the boys and the woods.

A boy appeared from the trees like a wounded animal, screaming and hissing before he stopped and stared at them. At first Preston didn’t think he was seeing anything, it was as if he were watching make-believe, the child was so unchild-like. He was a little taller than Preston, though not as tall as Peter, and he slumped when he walked, back arched, feet dragging as if he, not just his feet, were broken. He was pale white, like in a horror movie, and there was blood caked on his lips and under his nose like he’d been out eating raw animals. His clothes looked very old, he had a wide gray collared shirt and a black overcoat with holes in the pockets and when he opened his mouth, Preston saw that two teeth were missing and the rest were visibly black. The boy hissed at them, first like a snake and then like a disturbed cat, he looked at the Lost Boys, but also past them, as if he knew there was something there, but couldn’t tell what it was.

“Who…what is that?” Preston asked, looking away. He wanted to fly with Peter, but none of them moved.

“It’s Boxwood,” Peter explained. “He’s been here too long. He’s starting to grow up.”

“What?” Preston asked, looking back at the boy, who did not seem a day past eleven, maybe twelve. “How old was he when he came?”

They all looked at Preston, distraught, and in that instant Boxwood, who appeared to be biding his time, ran at them, grasping Dilweed’s arm and biting right into it. “Ouch!” Dilweed cried, pulling away. The raving boy stepped back and Peter started to yell at him as if he were a dog.

“Go on! Go! Shoo, shoo! Go away, go away!” he cried and the boy shivered for an instant, looking like he might attack he was so confused, but instead he ran the other way, back into the woods.

“What happened?” Preston asked, still perturbed. He had been under the impression that if a boy could fall from a tree and be perfectly fine, then he should not bleed after another has bitten him. Before his question could be answered Preston saw a white light coming out of the forest. A few fairies danced on Dilweed’s arm until the bleeding stopped and he was healed.

“It’s like he’s a pirate,” Peter explained. “He’s been Here too long and I don’t know why the Island keeps holding on to him. Every time I think about taking him to the After, first when he was a nice little boy, a boy who had been around for a while, but still a nice boy, the Island told me not to. Then he started to go bad. First he was just cranky, but then he started doing these weird things, pulling the heads off animals, and taking knives from dinner and stabbing other boys with them. Again I wanted to take him, but the Island still said no. Then he left, he ran into the forest and now he just sort of haunts it. He’s not a pirate, and the pirates won’t have him, he’s not one of them. So he lives in the woods and whenever we see him he attacks us. But don’t worry, even if he hurts you, the fairies can heal you, that’s their job, and he won’t follow for long. He’s really afraid of loud noises.”

“He was a boy like us?” Preston asked. “What happens if you stay Here too long?”

“You grow up,” Peter replied. “But not the good kind of grow up like where you fall in love and get married and have kids, or the kind where you learn a lot of new things. Nope, you get cruel, you get mean, you turn into that. . .like a pirate.” Peter shook his head and looked over at Starky, who was checking Dilweed’s arm, which was fine now, not even a mark. “There are all different signs of growing up, cruelty is one of them; children are not cruel like grownups are and when children are cruel, it’s because they learned it from grownups.”

“Oh,” Preston replied, wanting to know more, but wondering if he should ask.

“Come on,” Peter called, perking up, “let’s fly over to Mermaid Lagoon.”

“Yes!” Starky cried coming off the ground and twirling into the sky as if they’d all forgotten that fiasco. He was over their heads, above the trees, before Peter could catch up. Peter was the next to rocket away, Dilweed following close behind. Preston waited a second until the boys were over his head. He shook the mean, scary boy out of his thoughts and once they were gone, once the memory of the Ferris wheel and video games, of Starky and Dilweed returned, Preston soared over the forest.

He could feel the wind, it had been calm down in the trees, but once he took flight he could sense the air around him, and the shimmering sheet of gold and silver dust that sparkled in an incredible light. It felt like swimming, as if there was nothing to hold onto as Peter led them across the Island.

Peter hovered over a pond-like body of water as Dilweed and Starky followed. “There they are,” he cried, pointing down as he nosedived into the lagoon. Preston and the two boys followed, watching as Peter did not back down, cascading through the plane of water and coming up a few seconds later, after Preston, Starky and Dilweed had landed safely on a rock. “That was fun!” he cried, coming up soaking wet, his blond locks dripping as he shook them free like a dog. Peter flew high into the air, careening back down and landing delicately on the surface of the lagoon, directly on top of the water. “Hello down there,” he called. “Are you there, is anyone there?”

The mermaids came up, there could have been fifty or a hundred, their silky, wet heads emerging from the bright blue water. Three of them stayed longer than a moment, heads bobbing, placidly smiling as their fish tails splashed the surface.

“What’s down there?” Preston asked leaning over his rock.

“Stay back, only Peter can go near them,” Dilweed warned.

“They’ll pull you in and drown you if you get too close,” Peter explained.

The mermaids continued bobbing, smiling and politely laughing, as they pointed past Peter at Preston. Preston could see their forms under the water, some of them had large bellies, others were bleeding from their stomachs, though they didn’t appear to be in pain. “That’s where the mermaids live,” Starky explained. “They have a whole underwater kingdom with houses and Ferris wheels, there are even castles down there.”

“Can we go?” Preston asked, excited by the prospect of underwater castles.

“We can’t go to the mermaid kingdom, not even I can hold my breath that long,” Peter explained. “They’ll pull us in, they’ll make us stay until we drown if we let them. Not that downing matters Here, you’d wake right up again, but it’s still unpleasant.”

“Why are they bleeding?” Preston asked. “Why are their stomachs so big?”

“The mermaids came Here like the rest of you. They come from Before and they’re all going After, but they’re grownups. Everyone else is a grownup.”

“I thought this place was for kids?” Preston asked feeling a little lost.

“It is for kids,” Peter explained. “Everyone Here is somehow tied to children. The mermaids are mothers who came Here because they died during childbirth. That’s why they’re all girls and they’re the only girls Here, except the fairies of course, they’re girls as well, but they didn’t come Here like the mermaids.”

“They’re mothers who died in childbirth?” Preston inquired.

“They come Here for a while. But they’re not all happy, they want a child of their own and most of the time their babies survived, besides, babies don’t come Here, you have to be over a certain age. That’s why they’ll pull you under, they’ll drown you if you’re not careful,” Peter explained. “They don’t talk to us. There used to be a lot more of them, now we only get a few a day and they’re usually gone within an hour.”

“Why do they come?” Preston asked and Peter scratched his head.

“I don’t know, they’re just Here.”

The mermaids, who had been watching, flitted their tails and swam away. Preston could see the large belly of one as her bright blue tail flashed through the sequenced water, parting the sun as it shone off the miniscule waves.

“D’you want to see the cowboys and Indians?” Starky asked, jumping up and down.

“Okay,” Preston replied, eyes still on the glistening water. Peter rose into the air and the two boys followed. They were off on their way before Preston noticed and, not wanting to get lost, he trailed them into the air and over the forest.

They flew swiftly across the trees to a place where smoke rose through the branches. The island looked so large when Preston took it in all at once, but it didn’t take long to fly anywhere, Mermaid Lagoon had only been a few seconds away and as soon as he glided over the forest Preston landed next to Peter at a clear spot in the trees.

He could hear the sounds of drums and tambourines as the wild cries of a man’s melodic wailing rang out nearby. “That’s the Indians,” Dilweed explained, whispering importantly into Preston’s ear. “They’re always singing and dancing and having parties when they’re not hunting cowboys or us kids. Even when they are hunting us they’re having a party.”

“What do the cowboys do?” Preston asked, looking to Peter, though it appeared all the boys had the answers to his questions.

“The cowboys stay in the saloon when they’re not trying to get the Lost Boys or the Indians,” Peter explained. “They pour over books and strategize. The Indians don’t like strategy, they just do what they do and sometimes they win and sometimes they lose, but they just have fun. But the cowboys are always trying to make a plan.”

“Can we start a war with them?” Preston asked, jumping excitedly at the prospect. He could remember a game like this, only not with real cowboys and Indians, with Eva and Peyton where Peyton had been the bad guy and Eva was the princess and Preston had had to save her, but in the end Eva had had to run home for her flute lesson and the game wasn’t much fun without her. But Preston knew enough about this place to know that there were no flute lessons and no one had to go home for dinner.

“They’re at our disposal,” Peter explained as if he could read Preston’s thoughts as he watched through the trees as three grown men wearing rawhide pants and brown jackets with fringe on the sleeves danced around a fire singing. A man walked bravely into the camp; he wasn’t one of the Indians, who stopped abruptly at his arrival. He had a large white cowboy hat on and wore leather pants and big boots. Once he appeared more cowboys emerged. Preston couldn’t hear what they were saying, but after a second they seemed as if they were drawing invisible weapons, the cowboys using their hands as guns, the thumbs as triggers as the Indians reached their arms behind their heads to start shooting with invisible bows and arrows.

“What’re they doing?” Preston asked as all four boys stood in the woods, their eyes glued to the battle about to be waged.

“They’re fighting a war,” Peter explained as the Indians began to cry louder, sounding the alarm as the cowboys ran fast at them, making “bang-bang” sounds with their “guns.” They watched for a while, a few cowboys fell over and the Indians dragged them away as one Indian was grabbed by two cowboys and pulled into the forest. They ran around like this, shooting and crying out until finally out of nowhere they stopped, the cowboys who had fallen to the ground got up and walked back to the other side of the clearing to their own kind, and the Indian who’d been captured walked away from the cowboys and back to the Tepees.

“Why are they Here?” Preston asked. “They look like grownups,” he went on, remembering that grownups had never acted that way in the Before.

“They’re like the mermaids, they’re tied to kids in some way,” Dilweed explained.

“The cowboys are more the bad guys than the Indians, though neither of them are really bad,” Peter elaborated. “The cowboys came Here because they unintentionally harmed a child. This is sort of a waiting place for them to learn to understand children better. Some of them weren’t paying attention and ran over a kid with their car, a few of them were told by a child that something bad was happening and ignored it. They come Here when it’s their time, but they go to the After like everyone else, they’re not that bad, they didn’t do anything bad on purpose. The Indians are more the good guys, they’re Here because they helped children in some special way. They’re Here to be with us, to understand the goodness, the happiness of children, before going to the After. They win more wars than the cowboys.”

Preston turned and watched an Indian. This one didn’t look like the Indians he’d seen in books and movies, he had short brown hair and pale skin, but he was dressed like the Indians in the old Westerns his father sometimes watched with him. As this Indian stuck a twig into the fire Preston saw a flash of that man inside his head like he was watching from behind a video screen. He was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt and he was in a driveway like the one at Preston’s house. He saw the Indian run across the driveway and pick up a little boy just before a car crashed into the side of a house.

“Why do they have to come Here at all?” Preston asked, scratching his head as he watched an Indian, who didn’t really look like an Indian, talking to a cowboy. Preston watched the cowboy closely and could see everything that needed to be seen. He saw a flash of white and there was the cowboy driving a car, talking on his phone and not looking at the road. Preston heard a car screech, the driver (the cowboy, though he looked like a man in a business suit) turned the wheel and felt a thud that caused his heart to sink. He saw the cowboy waiting at a hospital, shaking his head as a doctor told him something. He saw the cowboy in a black suit at a funeral, looking down at a tiny coffin, then there was the cowboy with a yellowish drink in his hand, downing it with a bunch of pills, over and over again until he fell to the ground and woke up Here.

“I can see them, what was that?” Preston asked and Peter, who‘d been watching him very closely, nodded.

“Only the kids can do that. You know where everyone has been, who everyone is. It’s for the best that you know. You don’t have to see it, you can look away, but this is another reason why you shouldn’t visit the pirates,” Peter explained. “You see,” he went on as Starky and Dilweed ran off to play, “There are certain things about growing up that we as children should understand. Growing up is about five things. Number one is emotions, having and understanding feelings; number two is intellectual, it’s about getting smart and understanding the world around you; number three is about something called society, like your friends and the people around you, and how you act around them; number four is physical; and number five is about cruelty, like Boxwood, like the pirates. It’s so much more than that, but that’s basically what it means to grow up and we have it Here, and we can watch it even if we won’t ever be it. Though some of the grownups in the Before, although they are adults, have never grown up. And for them it’s very hard, they never really fit in with the child world, nor do they fit with adults. A lot of them end up Here.”

Preston nodded at Peter, who seemed to make sense, though the explanation had been so long winded, he wasn’t sure where the speech had started or ended. There was something about Peter, even with his childish manner, that seemed not grown up, but almost, like he was trying very hard to understand growing up, it was on the tip of his tongue, but he just wasn’t there. And what was worse, it seemed as if he knew he’d never get there.

“It looks like the fight is over,” Starky said a little disappointedly. “Let’s show him the fairies.”

“Can we see the fairies?” Preston asked and the leader shook his head yes.

“We can look over their part of the forest, but we can’t go into the fairy world.”

“Why?” Preston asked. “I thought this place was for us.”

“There are kids there and we’re not allowed to meet those kids yet. Some kids have to go to the fairies first, before they can play with us, so we can’t bother the fairies; they come to us whenever they’re ready.”

“What about when there aren’t any kids for the fairies?” Preston asked.

“I wish there was a time when there weren’t any kids for the fairies, it would be much better,” Peter said sadly. “Let’s go,” he went on, that impish smile returning as he lifted off the ground and started flying, Starky and Dilweed following closely behind.

They flew over the trees, hovering just above where they started flowering. The new green leaves looked as if they were stoking a great fire and Peter whistled as he glanced down, bobbing like a mermaid in water as he hovered. A few white lights flew up to them, twirling around Peter, and the boy laughed hysterically as if they were tickling him. When Peter caught his breath, he pointed to Preston and one of the lights landed on his arm. Preston could feel it, it was bright, but soft and silky; he tried to look into it, but the light was too intense and all he could see was yellow-white glowing so brightly as if he were looking into the sun.

Peter whistled again and all the fairies dispersed except one, who hovered on his shoulder as if it were about to touch his face. “This is my friend Tinkerbelle. I found her when the fairies came and she’s been Here ever since,” Peter explained and the light flickered on and off as if it were speaking. “Oh stop that, you,” he said at the ball of light before turning to Preston and explaining. “She gets terribly jealous.”

“What did she say?” Preston asked.

“Oh, you wouldn’t want to know,” Peter replied.

“The new boys are almost ready, Peter, they’re almost cured,” Starky said, lifting himself further into the air.

“Shh…hush you,” Dilweed cried, clocking Starky on the arm as Peter stood listening to the Tinkerbelle fairy buzz in his ear.

“Do they live here?” Preston asked and Peter shook his head no.

“This is an outpost, they live in the Fairy Forest, but we don’t go there,” Peter explained as Tinkerbelle hovered around him.

“So what are the fairies?” Preston asked. “The cowboys are people and the mermaids and Indians are too, but what are the fairies? Are they people?”

“Do they look like people?” Dilweed remarked as if Preston had just asked a very silly question.

“They’re not human,” Peter elaborated more patiently. “They came after me. There was me and then there were the fairies and I spent a lot of time playing with them before the cowboys and Indians, before the children showed up.”

“What are they?” Preston asked again.

“The story is true I assure you. ‘When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they became fairies,’” Peter explained as if he were reciting. “That’s from the book. And after the first baby laughed the fairies came Here. And they do a little more than keep us company,” Peter explained, looking down at the trees that twinkled as if they were touched by tiny shards of the sun and moon. “They help kids who come to us, or if the pirates come. . .but they’ve kept their distance for a while.”

“I thought kids fought pirates?” Preston asked. He’d been so good about not mentioning pirates, but now that Peter had brought them up they seemed like fair game.

“I don’t know how he got out that time, or why she told them that. He wasn’t very nice to her,” Peter thought out loud. Preston glanced over at Dilweed, who was looking right through Peter as if he wanted to slug him like he slugged Starky whenever he said something he shouldn’t have, but Peter was Peter and didn’t get slugged. “I’m sorry,” he went on, shaking his head as if freeing himself from a trance. “It’s just that you’re here and you came the same way and it has me thinking.”

“It’s dangerous to think too much, Peter,” Dilweed warned.

“You’re right Dil, yes you are, you are right,” Peter said enthusiastically.

“So why aren’t there any girls?” Preston asked, remembering Eva. “Other than fairies or mermaids. Do girl children come Here?”

“They do not,” Peter answered. “This is for boys. There’s another one for girls. I don’t know anything about it, I’ve never been There.”

“It’s probably filled with princesses and unicorns and rainbows and junk,” Starky complained, sticking his tongue out as if to dispel a bad taste.

“That’s probably right. Children, girls and boys, they get their own place, they’re not grownups,” Peter explained, flying just a tad higher than everyone else. The fairies flew with him, quietly trailing, but all of a sudden Peter slammed back down, tunneling toward the trees as Dilweed and Starky followed. Preston remained where he was, unsure of what to do. After a second he felt a hand pull him down, careening with him until he was smack on the forest floor.

“What was that?” Preston asked and Starky looked at him, out of breath. “Where’s Peter?”

“He’s back up there, scouting,” Starky whispered. “He’s gotta make sure the pirates didn’t see us.”

“Why?” Preston asked. “I didn’t see anything. I thought they left us alone.”

“They leave us alone because they can’t see us. They move outside the Cove sometimes, looking for us. If they found out where we lived they might go after us. Peter says it’s bad, it’s really bad.”

“Shut up, Starky,” Dilweed hissed, his voice not above a whisper. “Don’t be scaring him like that. The pirates aren’t going to get us, and they can’t see Peter, not with the fairies around, the pirates aren’t like us, they can’t see beyond the fairies’ brightness, it’s like we’re invisible.”

“Peter has to check,” Starky elaborated as Peter flew back down, slip-streaming through the air and landing on his feet.

“I didn’t see anything,” he announced. “That is to say that they didn’t see anything. We’re okay, but we should know better, we’re not supposed to fly that high, not like that, not even with the fairies, but Tinkerbelle was there and she helped us, she made sure they didn’t have a chance.”

“What’re they doing outside the Cove?” Dilweed asked.

“I don’t know,” Peter said, shaking his head and looking over at Preston. “Strange things are happening.”

“I hope it’s not like that other time,” Starky pondered.

“Shut up,” Dilweed warned very seriously and Preston put his hands behind his back, wondering if he should be scared. He had a strange urge to go back. He hadn’t wanted to leave until now, he knew this was all very odd, he knew things were off, he missed his mother and father, whom he’d never see again, but something about those pirates. . . .

“Ah, it’s okay. Nothing is going to go wrong and it wasn’t that bad that time they came, and if it happens again we’ll fight them. You forget, you always forget that I’m Peter and nothing bad is going to happen to you while I’m around. And I’m around forever. Nothing can end me, it says so right there at the edge of the world, where eternity was made.”

“That’s right,” Starky called loudly.

“Here, here,” Dilweed added and all three boys put their hands together in a high five as they flew toward the tree house.

Just then, as they were flying away, they all closed their eyes as a bright and powerful light slid by them, cascading across their bodies as they remained still in the air. This was not like the other times the fairies had come, something was happening and Preston placed his hands to his ears so as not to hear the humming of the wind.

“What’s that?” he asked when the wind died down and the bright lights had moved from the front of the tree house to the back as the boys followed. They weren’t the only ones out, all the boys, even the inside boys and the ones who played far into the forest, were huddled near the tree house, looking up at the sky.

“Come on,” Dilweed called, running in the direction of the light, pushing past more boys as they ran after it. Some of the boys reached out, trying to grab the fairies flying overhead, but none of them could hold on as they ran, a great stampede to the back of the trees.

It was a giant party and though this entire place was like a celebration, this was different, this moved so fast Preston felt as if he couldn’t catch up. He’d never seen all the boys together. There were hundreds of them. They looked different, different races, different heights, some of them looked too old to be boys, towering over the rest and, seeming to know they were right on the cusp of being too old to come here as children, they stood in back, watching over the others.

It was Peter who wasn’t there when the fairies stopped, resting in a clearing at the edge of the forest. A great whirling wind followed the bright lights of the fairies, one Preston might have been afraid of if he hadn’t seen that none of the other boys were scared. “They’ve all been through this,” Dilweed explained. “I remember when this happened to me, they all remember,” he went on as if he understood Preston’s confusion. “You just woke up in the woods so you don’t know.”

The winds picked up and there was Peter, hovering over the storm that accumulated like a contained tornado as if he were conducting it. Peter watched attentively, unafraid as the wind changed from a physical presence to something beyond that. It turned to light; a white light like the fairies and Preston could make out a dense fog streaming down. He watched as children appeared in it. They came one after another, but landed together as if the time difference, the space did not matter.

Preston saw them as he could see the cowboys and Indians. One boy came down in a bed, IVs hooked up to his arms. He was bald and Preston could see twelve seconds before, as a mother and father looked down at his hospital bed, a little sister watching the boy spit up. He watched the little boy close his eyes and he was Here. When he reached the forest floor the bed was gone, shattered and shed—it could not keep him any longer. The boy’s hair returned, shaggy and light brown, his limbs fattened, there was color in his cheeks and he ran to the other children.

He saw another boy standing out in the middle of a street, a car came racing at him, he closed his eyes, frightened—fear, he felt so much fear and then he was Here and okay. The child laughed as he ran to a group of Lost Boys as if he knew them.

Preston watched them and as they left the streaming light their stories disappeared, he could only see them for a split second and then they were gone and he would have to get the rest of their stories the old fashioned way.

Most of the children had finished coming down, or so it seemed, no more were appearing and yet the white-lit stream remained. Most of the other boys were busy with their new companions. Groups of Lost Boys huddled around a single new boy and Preston wondered if it was his job now to join one of the welcoming committees, even though he’d only just come himself. Dilweed and Oregano had gone over to the little boy who’d been sick and Starky playfully joined them, hopping up to the group like a curious rabbit. But the stream did not stop; it only became quieter as other lights fell to the forest floor. These lights were dimmer and Preston could see children, children encased in darkness, float to the ground. Preston tried to look at them, but after the first one he couldn’t watch anymore. He started to see things he didn’t want to see. They weren’t stories, moving pictures like what the other Lost Boys had projected, just flickering moments, a man’s face, dark and mean, a chair and it was dark.

There were other boys like the first, less brightly lit boys that came down and did not get up. They lay unable to move, unable to speak, and the Lost Boys did nothing to help them. Preston inched closer, stopping just at the edge of the streaming light. “What’s wrong with them?” he asked no one in particular, since no one in particular seemed to be paying attention. “What happened?” He looked down at the new dimly lit children and wondered why this disturbed no one else.

Then the fairies came. Their bright lights, brighter than anything Preston had seen yet, engulfed the dimly lit children, standing them up and whisking them away. The dimly lit children remained quiet; they stayed motionless as they were flown through the air, carried by the gigantic horde of fairies over the woods and back toward the trees that looked as if they were perpetually burning.

“What happened?” Preston asked turning to Peter, who had just appeared, hovering behind him with his hands curiously behind his back. The stream had vanished and everything was back to normal. “What happened to those kids? Are they okay? Why did the fairies take them?” he asked desperately, watching after the light from the fairies, which grew smaller and smaller the further away it got.

“Those are the children who need the most help,” Peter explained. “They did not live as children should. They came Here from a Before where they were beaten and abused; they come frightened, they come without voices, without thoughts and it ’s the fairies’ job to take care of them. It ’s the fairies’ job to heal them so they can speak again, so they can come and play with us.”

“Why can’t they speak? What happens when they’re with the fairies?” Preston asked, wringing his hands nervously. This had been such a good place but even Here, even Here it seemed the horrors of the adult world could get through. “Why do they let this happen? Why doesn’t someone stop this?”

“Someone? Who?” Peter asked. “There’s nothing we can do. We don’t come from Before, we don’t control the Before and believe me if we did it would be a much better place…but we don’t and there is a natural order, an order that I cannot interrupt.”

“Did Starky come like that? He was sent to the gas chambers, did he go to the fairies? And me, I was poisoned, why didn’t I go there?” All of a sudden Preston realized even Here the adult world could get through. “Why do they let this happen? Why doesn’t someone stop this?”

“There’s a difference between dying violently by someone you don’t know and being abused regularly by someone you’re supposed to trust,” Peter replied gravely, his voice sounding almost like a grownup’s. “You and Starky were loved in the Before.”

“Who did this to them?” Preston demanded, angry.

“The pirates,” Peter replied.

“The pirates?” Preston asked, nervous. “There are pirates in the Before?”

“That’s where they come from. Except one, he says he was always Here, but he wasn’t, I saw him come, he’s lying.”

“The pirates,” Preston repeated. “So what’re you going to do with the other kids, the ones who came Here fine?” he asked. He’d had Peter to himself since he’d appeared in the woods and wondered how things would change. “Will the quiet kids ever get to play with us?”

Peter smiled, he tousled Preston’s hair, laughing, and it felt for a brief moment as if it were Before, when his Dad tucked him into bed, when his Mom picked him up from school. “I’ll show the new kids around just like I showed you around, I’ll talk to each and every one of them, they’ll all make friends. And when they’re ready, and for each one of them it’s different, but when they’re ready, the quiet kids will slip into our world, one by one, the fairies will drop them off once they’ve started to talk, and they’ll join in with the games as if none of that bad old stuff ever happened. That’s what happens to the quiet kids, it’s all okay in the end.” Peter nodded, hovering over Preston until he was just about at treetop level.

“All right,” he announced to all the new kids, who stopped their play to look up at him. “My name’s Peter and this is my tree house and we’re all going to live together. Now, if any of you would like a tour of the place, follow me.” Peter hovered closer to them. “Just think you can fly and you can, no strings attached, I promise,” he explained and several kids shot up after him. A few more took their time, but after only a minute a great line of children were flying after Peter, who’d gone a great distance in the air.

Some of the new kids stayed playing whatever games they’d been playing with the Lost Boys, though most of them followed their leader. Peter could be seen flying backwards, his hands behind his head as if he were simply lounging there, explaining the trees and the lights and Mermaid Lagoon.

Preston approached Starky, who was standing near the Ferris wheel, pointing up at it for the benefit of two new kids. “Hi,” he said, hands in his pockets as the other kids turned around, smiling warmly in return. “I’m Preston. I’m from Before.”

“Me too,” one of them said, and Starky smiled at them all.

“This here is Jake and the other is Connor. They just got Here,” Starky explained. “I was showing them around, you want to come?”

“Sure,” Preston replied.

“Come on, I want to show them the tree house,” Starky called, running, not flying, toward the trunk as first the two new boys and then Preston dashed after him.