***
20
***
He was closer here to the Heart of the Island than in any other place. Here Neverland was the thickest, the trees were the oldest, and the things that hid in cracks and hollows were untouched by the false civility of the outer lands. However, the monsters here at the Heart of Childhood's Creation were the most difficult to come across if you weren't watching for them.
Slightly always made a point not to watch.
Peter had always been perfectly at home here; the darkest shadows touched and flowed through him without leaving a mark, because he of all the boys was most blind to them. Wendy had always been nervous here, but quite empty of terror; John had looked around warily at shapes that brushed his toes. The boys had never been as comfortable in the forest above the heart of Neverland. Peter had mocked them for it on numerous occasions, and perhaps they had deserved that mockery, because in all truth what was there to be afraid of? Shadows in the trees? Imaginary monsters skulking at their feet? If they walked straight forward, with a purpose, and didn't watch for the things, they never showed themselves, so why be afraid?
Slightly had forgotten about the shadows. They were so easy to trivialize once they were gone, and so they always wandered back through and found themselves stalked once again. Toodles never forgot, though. Whenever Peter's new idea called for them to cross this Heart he always balked and refused to go, which only made Peter taunt him, and Slightly was ashamed to say that he sometimes taunted him, too. It seemed cowardly, when you weren't here, to be afraid of this place. But Toodles wasn't like the rest of them, even Tinkerbell could see that.
He should turn back, even if the Captain was in this direction. The cave was outside the Heart by several hundred feet, and he could wait patiently outside the boarder for Hook to come through. He wondered what Hook saw in the shadows in the Heart. Would an adult see anything at all? Or would Hook's iron claw send the fairy magics scattering?
Something touched the leg of his trousers and Slightly shut his eyes immediately. Don't look. Don't look… the warm thing paused a moment to snuff along the torn edge before he felt it settle along the back of his calf, warm like the inside of a mouth, and slowly begin to seal there. Slightly kicked at it and ran, all to aware that where some terrible beast should be there were only shadows.
After a few dozen yards he stopped again and looked warily about. Whenever he told himself not to look was the only time he simply had to. He hated that. His own mind was such a traitor here. Another shadow positioned itself infuriatingly close at his back, but he resolutely shut his eyes and ignored it. He had a job to do. Slightly took a deep breath and held it for a moment.
"MULLINS! Mullins, I'm over here!" he bellowed.
Something in the trees twitched. The bark seemed to run downward, like turpentine had been thrown on the canvas, but the trees did not move; the rotted leaves of the forest floor smothered and twitched as something poured over them. Stop looking, he told himself. He couldn't.
His voice wavering now, Slightly shouted again into the trees "I'm over here, Mullins!"
It ran towards him, creeping towards his toes, and he knew he was giving his position away to more things than the pirates. Slightly took a trembling step back from the flooding earth, and it jumped with him, stretching for his ankles with threads he couldn't look away from. If he could just ignore it, it would go away.
The threads slipped around his foot like vines, thin as wire. They shoved their cold noses through his bones and separated his toes. He choked. Slightly tried to pull his feet back from the shadows but the thing stayed put, nuzzling into the paths of his veins. His heart fragmented it and pulled it in, shooting like tiny shards of glass through his arteries and into the chambers. It had wrapped him up to his knee.
Don't look.
He couldn't help it.
The shards were multiplying, settling behind his eyes and in his neck and in tracks down his ribs. His legs were held fast to the earth and he stumbled, twisting to try to catch himself. The shadow, which he only imagined he could see, wrapped his arms and wrists like skeletal hands. Threads sank between the bones of his wrists and nailed them flat to the soil. His heart was laboring under the weight of the broken shadow fragments; the veins of his neck hurt with them. Cool threads snaked through his hair and nudged his temples, pushing into the capillaries of his cheeks, curling over his snarling lips and delving between his teeth. They touched his eyes.
The panic he'd tried to convince himself wasn't real burst as the threads pushed down through his retina, and Slightly started to scream. Before he understood what had happened he was running, his feet beating the earth, heart fluttering and the numbness of panic turning pain to dull heat. He ran until the shadows were far behind him, until the Heart of Neverland lay silent and dead at his back. At the border he fell to his knees and panted; for a moment on that forest floor he'd known something, something dark and lonely and true. But as his pulse slowed, he couldn't remember what it had been. The gap winked mockingly at him in his mind.
As the fear drifted away Slightly paused to wonder why he'd run so easily. There hadn't been anything there, after all.
Only shadows, and his own imagination.
***
By the time the scream reached the Captain's ears, Picadilly had been stuffed in the hat.
He'd been tolerable when he'd been civil, and useful when he's pointed the way, but now that he'd gotten bored of the silence and begun to sing, there were few men alive who could live with that.
"—the fiend strike me blue! I'm scarce able to walk, and damn me if I can stand upright or talk!" By verse four he was singing with a slur. "Here, landlord, bit Betty to summon a chair, I'll try home for a while for my wife is not there! So lend me a hand, I'm scarce able to—omph!"
Hook snatched the little fairy out of the air, silencing him with his gloved fist and pushing his bruised ribs into his chest.
"MASON!"
The carpenter barely had the wits to catch as Hook threw the fairy at him, literally. Picadilly tumbled through the air with a frightened wail and landed hard on the calloused palm of Alf Mason. The few moments he spent trying to arrange his head to be higher than his feet was enough for Mason to open the hat and stuff him inside with the indignant Captain Popper.
"Oh, lovely." Popper deadpanned, as Picadilly sat up on his neck.
"Stuff it, mouse muncher."
Outside the hat, all pirates were feeling greatly relieved at the newfound silence. Even Hook felt momentarily amiable now that the fairy was out of sight. However, that pleasant moment was abruptly killed by a call echoed faintly through the woods.
"mullins…mullins i'm over here…"
Hook froze. Starkey and Mason dead stopped to keep from walking into him.
"Did you hear that?" Hook hissed.
"i'm over here, mullins…."
Hook snarled "Odds, bobs, hammer and tongs, that's a Lost Boy!"
"Why would a Lost Boy be callin' to Mullins?" Mason asked blankly.
"Because Mullins is with Jukes, you ingrate!" Hook shouted, and Starkey dodged out of the way so the back-hand intended for Mason's head actually got there. Mason reeled back, and the indignity of the reprimand set his eyes to a lethal sharpness.
"Remind me to flay Cookson when they're dead." He said offhandedly, like he'd just remembered. "He's to blame for the bloody yank getting out in the first place. Any Lost Boy calling him has to be Slightly. Shut your traps and follow me, he'll lead us to Billy Jukes."
Hook was likely unaware of the glare he was receiving from the ship's carpenter as they set out again. Starkey, however, was keeping a safe distance from them both.
They hadn't gotten very far before a new sound came bolting through the forest, something sharp and shrill and terrified. A child was screaming. The protective reaction this elicited struck their internals and was stamped out; children were the enemy, in this place. A sharp glint in his eye, Hook drew his sword and picked up the pace.
***
Coming from the other side of the island, the pirates were not the only ones who heard Slightly's scream. The dove, in a display that could easily be mistaken for concern for the victim, twisted around in Peter's hands.
"It's Aborigine! It's Aborigine, I know it!" he yelped at the boy. "Aborigine's caught up to them!"
Wendy gave a horrified gasp, the image rising unbidden of the branded egret gouging out poor Slightly's eyes.
"We gotta go find them!" Nibs shouted. "Come on, it came from this way!"
The Lost Boys flew towards the source of the scream. Toodles wavered at the edge of the formation and shot a frightened look towards the Twins. They seemed oblivious to what they were facing.
All too aware he wouldn't be missed quite yet, Toodles slowed in the air as the boarder of the Heart rose up before them and let the Lost Boys fly on ahead. The island was so quiet when they were gone. He didn't want Slightly to have his eyes taken out, and he didn't really want Jukes to, either. If Aborigine had indeed cornered the boys in the Heart of Neverland, Peter would be more capable of helping them than Toodles ever would. He always got in the way.
In the Heart…the shadows in the trees were not really shadows. The other boys never seemed to see what was there; what was more, they never remembered it. Fear, once you are away from it, became something strange and laughable. You can never say quite why the darkness scared you or what monsters lurked invisible beneath the bed.
They never saw anything.
Toodles saw things. He saw things that were shut out by charcoal patches and giggling games with bubbles in the lagoon. He saw things Peter didn't want him to see.
He wouldn't go into the heart.
Lowering himself carefully to the ground, Toodles set himself on a warm, mossy stone that pushed the trees aside to let it be. Little vines pushed out from the cracks and the moss formed a fat, soft layer under his hands. He'd wait out the adventure here.
20
***
He was closer here to the Heart of the Island than in any other place. Here Neverland was the thickest, the trees were the oldest, and the things that hid in cracks and hollows were untouched by the false civility of the outer lands. However, the monsters here at the Heart of Childhood's Creation were the most difficult to come across if you weren't watching for them.
Slightly always made a point not to watch.
Peter had always been perfectly at home here; the darkest shadows touched and flowed through him without leaving a mark, because he of all the boys was most blind to them. Wendy had always been nervous here, but quite empty of terror; John had looked around warily at shapes that brushed his toes. The boys had never been as comfortable in the forest above the heart of Neverland. Peter had mocked them for it on numerous occasions, and perhaps they had deserved that mockery, because in all truth what was there to be afraid of? Shadows in the trees? Imaginary monsters skulking at their feet? If they walked straight forward, with a purpose, and didn't watch for the things, they never showed themselves, so why be afraid?
Slightly had forgotten about the shadows. They were so easy to trivialize once they were gone, and so they always wandered back through and found themselves stalked once again. Toodles never forgot, though. Whenever Peter's new idea called for them to cross this Heart he always balked and refused to go, which only made Peter taunt him, and Slightly was ashamed to say that he sometimes taunted him, too. It seemed cowardly, when you weren't here, to be afraid of this place. But Toodles wasn't like the rest of them, even Tinkerbell could see that.
He should turn back, even if the Captain was in this direction. The cave was outside the Heart by several hundred feet, and he could wait patiently outside the boarder for Hook to come through. He wondered what Hook saw in the shadows in the Heart. Would an adult see anything at all? Or would Hook's iron claw send the fairy magics scattering?
Something touched the leg of his trousers and Slightly shut his eyes immediately. Don't look. Don't look… the warm thing paused a moment to snuff along the torn edge before he felt it settle along the back of his calf, warm like the inside of a mouth, and slowly begin to seal there. Slightly kicked at it and ran, all to aware that where some terrible beast should be there were only shadows.
After a few dozen yards he stopped again and looked warily about. Whenever he told himself not to look was the only time he simply had to. He hated that. His own mind was such a traitor here. Another shadow positioned itself infuriatingly close at his back, but he resolutely shut his eyes and ignored it. He had a job to do. Slightly took a deep breath and held it for a moment.
"MULLINS! Mullins, I'm over here!" he bellowed.
Something in the trees twitched. The bark seemed to run downward, like turpentine had been thrown on the canvas, but the trees did not move; the rotted leaves of the forest floor smothered and twitched as something poured over them. Stop looking, he told himself. He couldn't.
His voice wavering now, Slightly shouted again into the trees "I'm over here, Mullins!"
It ran towards him, creeping towards his toes, and he knew he was giving his position away to more things than the pirates. Slightly took a trembling step back from the flooding earth, and it jumped with him, stretching for his ankles with threads he couldn't look away from. If he could just ignore it, it would go away.
The threads slipped around his foot like vines, thin as wire. They shoved their cold noses through his bones and separated his toes. He choked. Slightly tried to pull his feet back from the shadows but the thing stayed put, nuzzling into the paths of his veins. His heart fragmented it and pulled it in, shooting like tiny shards of glass through his arteries and into the chambers. It had wrapped him up to his knee.
Don't look.
He couldn't help it.
The shards were multiplying, settling behind his eyes and in his neck and in tracks down his ribs. His legs were held fast to the earth and he stumbled, twisting to try to catch himself. The shadow, which he only imagined he could see, wrapped his arms and wrists like skeletal hands. Threads sank between the bones of his wrists and nailed them flat to the soil. His heart was laboring under the weight of the broken shadow fragments; the veins of his neck hurt with them. Cool threads snaked through his hair and nudged his temples, pushing into the capillaries of his cheeks, curling over his snarling lips and delving between his teeth. They touched his eyes.
The panic he'd tried to convince himself wasn't real burst as the threads pushed down through his retina, and Slightly started to scream. Before he understood what had happened he was running, his feet beating the earth, heart fluttering and the numbness of panic turning pain to dull heat. He ran until the shadows were far behind him, until the Heart of Neverland lay silent and dead at his back. At the border he fell to his knees and panted; for a moment on that forest floor he'd known something, something dark and lonely and true. But as his pulse slowed, he couldn't remember what it had been. The gap winked mockingly at him in his mind.
As the fear drifted away Slightly paused to wonder why he'd run so easily. There hadn't been anything there, after all.
Only shadows, and his own imagination.
***
By the time the scream reached the Captain's ears, Picadilly had been stuffed in the hat.
He'd been tolerable when he'd been civil, and useful when he's pointed the way, but now that he'd gotten bored of the silence and begun to sing, there were few men alive who could live with that.
"—the fiend strike me blue! I'm scarce able to walk, and damn me if I can stand upright or talk!" By verse four he was singing with a slur. "Here, landlord, bit Betty to summon a chair, I'll try home for a while for my wife is not there! So lend me a hand, I'm scarce able to—omph!"
Hook snatched the little fairy out of the air, silencing him with his gloved fist and pushing his bruised ribs into his chest.
"MASON!"
The carpenter barely had the wits to catch as Hook threw the fairy at him, literally. Picadilly tumbled through the air with a frightened wail and landed hard on the calloused palm of Alf Mason. The few moments he spent trying to arrange his head to be higher than his feet was enough for Mason to open the hat and stuff him inside with the indignant Captain Popper.
"Oh, lovely." Popper deadpanned, as Picadilly sat up on his neck.
"Stuff it, mouse muncher."
Outside the hat, all pirates were feeling greatly relieved at the newfound silence. Even Hook felt momentarily amiable now that the fairy was out of sight. However, that pleasant moment was abruptly killed by a call echoed faintly through the woods.
"mullins…mullins i'm over here…"
Hook froze. Starkey and Mason dead stopped to keep from walking into him.
"Did you hear that?" Hook hissed.
"i'm over here, mullins…."
Hook snarled "Odds, bobs, hammer and tongs, that's a Lost Boy!"
"Why would a Lost Boy be callin' to Mullins?" Mason asked blankly.
"Because Mullins is with Jukes, you ingrate!" Hook shouted, and Starkey dodged out of the way so the back-hand intended for Mason's head actually got there. Mason reeled back, and the indignity of the reprimand set his eyes to a lethal sharpness.
"Remind me to flay Cookson when they're dead." He said offhandedly, like he'd just remembered. "He's to blame for the bloody yank getting out in the first place. Any Lost Boy calling him has to be Slightly. Shut your traps and follow me, he'll lead us to Billy Jukes."
Hook was likely unaware of the glare he was receiving from the ship's carpenter as they set out again. Starkey, however, was keeping a safe distance from them both.
They hadn't gotten very far before a new sound came bolting through the forest, something sharp and shrill and terrified. A child was screaming. The protective reaction this elicited struck their internals and was stamped out; children were the enemy, in this place. A sharp glint in his eye, Hook drew his sword and picked up the pace.
***
Coming from the other side of the island, the pirates were not the only ones who heard Slightly's scream. The dove, in a display that could easily be mistaken for concern for the victim, twisted around in Peter's hands.
"It's Aborigine! It's Aborigine, I know it!" he yelped at the boy. "Aborigine's caught up to them!"
Wendy gave a horrified gasp, the image rising unbidden of the branded egret gouging out poor Slightly's eyes.
"We gotta go find them!" Nibs shouted. "Come on, it came from this way!"
The Lost Boys flew towards the source of the scream. Toodles wavered at the edge of the formation and shot a frightened look towards the Twins. They seemed oblivious to what they were facing.
All too aware he wouldn't be missed quite yet, Toodles slowed in the air as the boarder of the Heart rose up before them and let the Lost Boys fly on ahead. The island was so quiet when they were gone. He didn't want Slightly to have his eyes taken out, and he didn't really want Jukes to, either. If Aborigine had indeed cornered the boys in the Heart of Neverland, Peter would be more capable of helping them than Toodles ever would. He always got in the way.
In the Heart…the shadows in the trees were not really shadows. The other boys never seemed to see what was there; what was more, they never remembered it. Fear, once you are away from it, became something strange and laughable. You can never say quite why the darkness scared you or what monsters lurked invisible beneath the bed.
They never saw anything.
Toodles saw things. He saw things that were shut out by charcoal patches and giggling games with bubbles in the lagoon. He saw things Peter didn't want him to see.
He wouldn't go into the heart.
Lowering himself carefully to the ground, Toodles set himself on a warm, mossy stone that pushed the trees aside to let it be. Little vines pushed out from the cracks and the moss formed a fat, soft layer under his hands. He'd wait out the adventure here.