Peter Pan

A Different Wendy

Chapter Twelve

Back in the Faerie Woods, the Boys were creeping through the trees to the clearing that was the Faerie Gathering. Peter turned around after checking the place out and finding it deserted and looked to Nibbs to give orders, "Okay, I need to find the Queen, so while you and Tootles check the place out I'll look for her. If any of you see any faeries ask them where the Queen is, got it?"

The three Boys nodded and it was then that Peter noticed who was not with them anymore, "Where are Marie and Violet?"

Tootles, Nibbs and Slightly looked behind them and then back at Peter guiltily. "They must have gone back to the hideout?" Nibbs offered.

Peter took a step towards Slightly and accused, "You should have been watching them! Go back and see if they're alright."

"But why do I…" Slightly began, but was interrupted.

"Go." Peter turned away and went back to searching for the Faerie Queen.

"Tell Marie I left some breakfast on the table for them." Tootles called after Slightly's retreating backside. He raised his arm that he'd heard him though.

Slightly grumbled and complained all the way back to the hideout. Why couldn't Marie just have stayed here in the first place? Peter shouldn't have let her come. She's just a girl. She doesn't even know what danger is. She might as well take her little sister and brother and go back to London. Slightly jumped down the hole and into the hideout, shaking his head as he walked through the kitchen and into the bedroom.

Once his eyes adjusted to the darkness he stopped mid-step. "Marie?" He crept closer to the place where her body lay. She looked dead. She was lying on her side, arms close to her face and her dark curls spilling over her closed eyes. Slightly bent down and shook her, "Marie?" She didn't make a noise and she didn't wake up. He felt her forehead and found it warm with fever. Her skin felt warm but she still had goose bumps, the same symptoms Marie found Violet with before, only Slightly didn't know about that.

He went to the bed to take down and pillow and a blanket so she'd be more comfortable because he didn't know what else do to, and that was when he saw Violet. She was pale and her body was stiff and cold, but she was breathing fine. What was going on? Slightly didn't know what to do with them. He struggled to lift Marie's limp body and put her down on the bed with Violet. He covered them both with the blanket and hoped they would be fine until he got back with the others.

Slightly ran down the path and back to the Faerie Gathering where Peter and Nibbs and Tootles were. They looked startled as he came panting into the clearing.

"What's up, Slight?" Nibbs asked. Peter and Tootles came over to see what the matter was as well.

"There's something wrong with Marie and Violet." Slightly said after catching his breath.

"What do you mean?" Peter demanded.

"I don't know what happened to them, but neither of them will wake up and they aren't moving." Slightly tried to explain as best he could, but he just didn't know how.

"Are they dead?" Tootles looked worried.

"No, no, they're breathing, they just won't wake up," Slightly assured him, "But I didn't know what to do."

"Okay, we have to go back then." Peter said.

"What? But Peter, we have to find out what happened here too." Nibbs reminded him.

Peter glanced around again, "They aren't here, they are just no where to be found. Not a faerie's in sight, so we might as well go back to see how the girls are doing because we aren't getting anything done here."

Nibbs nodded, "Yeah, you're right. Let's go back."

They headed back to the hideout and into the bedroom where Marie and Violet were lying where Slightly left them, but Violet was now awake. She was crying and whispering to Marie, "Please wake up, Marie, please." She looked up when the Boys came in and cried even harder, "I don't know what's wrong with her. She won't wake up. I tried."

"It's okay, Violet, she'll be fine." Tootles sat down next to Violet and let her cry on him.

"What's wrong with her?" She asked them in the squeaky voice of someone who was still trying to contain herself from crying all over again.

"We don't know, but she'll be fine. I promise." Tootles tried to calm her down, but this seemed to make her even more worried.

She worked up a fresh batch of tears and threw herself across Marie, burying her face in her chest as she would any other time. "Please don't die like Momma did. I need you still."

"She's not going to die, Violet." Slightly spoke up. "She has the same thing you just did. See, now she's cold, and before she wasn't. You were cold when I left, and now you're fine, so Marie will be fine too."

Violet stared up at him and dried her face with the blanket. "So she's only sick?"

Slightly looked at Peter to see what he should say. Peter nodded his head. "Yeah, she's only sick. She'll be fine soon. Why don't we just let her rest?"

"Want something to eat? Tootles made some great breakfast you guys missed out on." Nibbs motioned towards the door.

But Violet shook her head, "I wanna be here when she wakes up. You can leave, though."

"Peter, should we go back to the Faerie Gathering? Or meet up with the other Boys? Or just stay here?" Nibbs questioned.

Peter shook his head as if to clear it of other thoughts, "Uh…just go see how the other Boys are doing. Come get me if they found anything."

"What are you going to do?" Tootles asked.

"I'm…tired. I'm going to go back to sleep for a while." Peter pulled his gaze away from Marie's dead-like body and made his way over to his bed, lying down as if to prove to them that he was really going to sleep.

"Let's grab a snack before we go, I'm hungry." Tootles said.

"You're always hungry." Nibbs joked.

"I am not." Tootles protested.

"Are too," Nibbs said laughing.

"Fine, I guess I am." Tootles gave up. "Are you coming?"

"Slight?" Nibbs waved a hand in front of Slightly's face and Slightly nodded and followed them to the kitchen.

Violet snuggled up close to Marie and pushed the curls out of her eyes. She straightened the pillow and blankets and placed her arms on her stomach. "There you go, Marie." She smoothed Marie's curls and lay down beside her. "Wake up soon, please." She fell asleep for a few minutes, but awoke to movement next to her.

Marie was waking up. Violet sat up so fast she got a little dizzy, but she didn't even notice in all her excitement because Marie was better again. "Marie!" She lunged at her and hugged her so tight Marie couldn't breathe for a second. Then, Violet began crying again saying over and over, "I thought you were dead."

"Oh, I'm fine, sweetie. Everything's fine now." Marie rubbed Violet's back and comforted her until the little girl was almost back to normal. In fact, both girls looked perfectly normal, except for the pale skin and blank look in their eyes, but no one noticed that yet.

Marie straightened up and asked Violet, "Where are the others? Have they come back yet?"

Violet shook her curly little head, "Yes. Peter is sleeping, and the others went to find the other Lost Boys."

"Peter is sleeping?" Marie questioned. She stood up and took a few steps towards Peter's bed just to see if he was really there, and once she was satisfied that he was sleeping and no one else was in the room she whirled back around and took Violet by the elbows, "Do you know what happened before? Do you remember anything?"

Violet averted her gaze to the floor and shook her head at first, but then changed her mind and nodded cautiously.

"You have to tell me everything you remember, okay?" Marie ordered.

"Okay," Violet consented. "Well…there was a man in the woods with us before. I didn't tell you because I thought he might just go away. But he didn't. I could hear him talking to me in my head, and I thought you heard too, but you didn't. He told me I was too innocent and he was taking it away. Then I just hurt everywhere and I felt too tired to stay awake any longer. That's when you picked me up, and I don't remember anything else."

Marie made a muffled growl-type noise and clenched her fists. What she had thought all along was really true, and it didn't just happen to her, it had happened to her little sister, whom she was supposed to watch and protect. She couldn't believe she had failed so miserably at being a big sister. She calmed herself down for Violet's sake, but Violet seemed unfazed by her older sister's show. Marie said quietly, "I need to talk to Peter about this. You can go back to sleep or something if you want to."

Violet announced that she was going to get some breakfast and skipped off into the other room. Marie noted that she was acting strangely, but then again, she, herself, wasn't feeling…normal, to say the least. Marie made her way over to Peter's bed and found that he was not sleeping, but writing in a tattered old journal. She cleared her throat so as not to startle him. He looked up and shoved the journal under his pillow. He sat up and said, "You're all right now?"

"Yes," Marie answered. "But I have to warn you, 'all right' isn't as good as it might sound. The rest of you Boys are in danger. The man from the dreams is real, and he's close. He was just here, as a matter of fact. And he didn't leave empty handed…" Marie trailed off for a moment.

"What do you mean? What did he take with him?" Peter's eyes scanned the room to see if anything was out of place or missing.

"No, no, it's not something you can see." Marie explained. "As weird as this is going to sound, I think he took our innocence. Violet's and mine, I mean."

"He took your…innocence?" Peter asked incredulously. Marie nodded and he shook his head, saying, "That can't be true, you can't take away someone's innocence. It isn't even something you can take, is it?"

"That's what I thought before, but he said the same thing to Violet that he said to me. He said 'too innocent' and then he sucked this white mist from me and I can't remember any more. Neither can Violet." Marie was trying to describe what happened to Peter as best she could, but there were huge gaps in her story that she couldn't seem to fill. She just didn't know the answers.

"He sucked white mist? Marie, this is crazy. I don't understand." Peter held up his hands.

Marie got frustrated, "Neither do I, Peter, but you have to do something! All of you Boys are in danger of losing your innocence as well, and if that happens, well…I'm not exactly sure yet what will happen after that, but I'm sure it's nothing good. You have to find out some way to keep him away from the others!"

"Okay, okay, calm down. I'm thinking. I'll try and come up with something." Peter said, and then he sobered up a little more, "What about you two?"

"What about us? He took it away, there's nothing we can really do now that he has it, is there?" Marie snapped.

"That's not true. There has to be a way to get it back somehow. There always is. The bad guy never wins." Peter said decidedly.

"Peter, you can't decide that. This isn't just a world revolved around you that will do exactly as you say. Not everyone is on your side. You do have enemies and that is the way things work. Bad guys win all the time in my world." Marie told him. She was trying to give him a dose of reality, but he didn't buy it.

"Yeah, in your world that stuff happens, not here. Not in Never Land." Peter said confidently. "We'll find a way to get your…uh…innocence back."

Before the conversation could carry on any further, sounds of many footsteps began thumping around in the other room, as the Boys returned. And they sounded excited. Whittle and Quickie came running in, closely followed by Ethan, Barky, Hoppy, Curly and Nibbs. Slightly appeared in the doorway, as did Tootles, but Tootles turned back to the kitchen, where Violet must have spoken, and Slightly went with him.

"Oh, it's so perfect, Peter, you have to come see it!" Quickie yelled.

"Yeah, we found a great spot for our new hideout!" Whittle agreed.

Peter brightened up a bit and he said, "Really? I can't wait to see it. We'll go after we have lunch and you can show me."