Chapter 7: The Great Pan is Dead
Smerf lead Lilly to another teepee but stopped her before she got inside.
"Lilly, do you have any sort of fear of blood?" asked Smerf seriously.
"No," she answered quickly. She'd never been bothered by blood. Like the time Jane had accidentally sliced her hand with a kitchen knife. "This wouldn't be much different, right?"
Smerf nodded encouragingly and pushed aside the animal skin that served as a door. The first thing she noticed was Jane crouching over a limp figure on the bearskin floor and a plump Indian man next to her. She looked up when Lilly entered and rushed to her younger sister to hug her.
"Lilly! What are you doing here?" said Jane trying to sound authoritative but her voice shook with relief.
"I was worried about you so I went to find you and I met Smerf here and-"
She stopped in mid-sentence. She looked down and saw Peter, pale and motionless and surrounded by a puddle of blood. Lilly gasped and felt suddenly ill.
"Is that Peter?" whispered Lilly in disbelief. Jane hid her face with her own blood-covered hands and mumbled an answer. Lilly took a few steps closer and said, "What happened?"
"Hook shot him in the jungle," answered Jane.
Lilly looked to the Indian man for some sort of encouragement, but he gave none. He just lowered his head grimly. Standing over the body resting on the floor, she thought, "This can not be Peter Pan."
Her stomach dropped when she spied the grotesque bullet hole on his arm. Blood was still flowing from it, though slowly, and the flesh around it was torn and mangled. Kneeling in the shallow pool of blood, Lilly touched Peter's face tenderly. He opened his eyes for a brief moment and she smiled joyously.
"He's alive! He's alive!" she exclaimed to the Indian. She looked up at Jane said, "He was only hit in the arm so he'll be alright, won't he? It didn't hit him where it could kill him."
It doesn't necessarily have to, Lil," Jane explained. By now, Peter had already shut his eyes again. "He can still bleed to death. And he's lost so much blood already. The medicine man has done all he can. There's nothing we can do right now."
"You're pessimistic!" hissed Lilly with a livid red face.
"I'm not being pessimistic, I'm being realistic."
Lilly wasn't listening, though. She was focused on her dear hero, who was looking worse by the minute. Then the unthinkable entered her mind. Was Peter Pan, the immortal adventurer… dead? Truly this could not be so. Everything in Neverland functioned as it should in a child's mind. Meaning good always triumphed over evil. The good guy always lived to celebrate and the bad guy died a horrible death. But now, Peter was just barely clinging to life and the supposedly dead Captain Hook was still roaming the seas. This was all wrong. This went against the very principle of fairytales. This contradicted justice and fairness. If Peter died, the whole world would turn inside out.
Tears began to fall freely down Lilly's face as she stared down at Peter, feeling her heart tearing apart. A small hand slipped through the seemingly lifeless fingers belonging to Peter Pan. Lacing her fingers with his, Lilly lowered her head and tried to conceal her tears. Jane watched from a little way's away, and felt her own tears threatening to explode from inside. But by crying and responding the way Lilly had, she'd be accepting his death and admitting that he was indeed gone.
"He's not dead. He can't die," she assured herself. The Indian medicine man bent his head down to listen for a heartbeat. When he sat up, his eyes were downcast and his face gravely serious. He put his hand over his heart and tapped his fingers like a rhythmic heartbeat. After a few beats, he stopped and then shook his head, making sure both girls saw.
Lilly leaned down and rested her forehead on his chest.
"Please wake up, Peter. Please," she pleaded as soft sobs escaping with her words. "I'm so happy with you, Peter. Don't make that go away. I'm not afraid with you. So I beg you, wake up!"
Jane covered her face and dropped to her knees in surrender. "He's gone…"
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Lilly stormed out of the medical tent with tears of anger and despair still in her eyes. A gust of icy cold air blew her hair about her face and she shivered.
"Jane is wrong. Peter doesn't die! I can bring him back!" she muttered (quite loudly) and in her rage, she wasn't watching where she was going. All of a sudden, she hit a body and bounced backwards onto the ground and looked up rather dejectedly at the interference. The kind, friendly face of Smerf sat before her and she apologized immediately.
"Quite alright, really. I wasn't paying attention to where I was going either," he assured her as he brushed off some dirt from his clothes. When he stood back up, he held out a hand to help Lilly off the ground as well. "But if I may ask, what got you so fired up?"
Once standing again, the girl went on to tell Smerf that Peter's death. Smerf first went pale then reacted as Lilly had.
"There's no way! Pan wouldn't be killed by a gun, much less by that bastard Hook," he shouted.
"I agree. This is Neverland, after all! Is there anything we can do?" asked Lilly hopefully. The boy thought as hard as he could to come up with a solution while his female companion could do nothing but stare at him intently and wait. Then suddenly the light bulb flicked on.
"I've got it!" he yelled in delight. Jumping up and down blissfully, he whispered, "The mermaids."
"The mermaids? Why the mermaids?"
"The mermaids are the only ones who can do it. They have powers…"
"To bring people back to life?" clarified Lilly.
"Yes, of course! Only creatures so in touch with darkness can do something like that. But no time to lose! Let's go to Mermaid Lagoon."
With Smerf leading the way, both children scurried off into the jungle at full speed. However, the jungle looked subtly less green than before. It had turned a shade… browner. Noticing this, Lilly was slightly confused. Was the jungle dying?
"Smerf, how do you even know that the mermaids will help us? Aren't they supposed to be rather beastly creatures?"
"I don't know if they'll help us, but I know they'd help Peter."
"Isn't that the same thing?" said Lilly, trying to keep up in the very dark jungle. She was barely able to see Smerf to follow him.
"Not exactly. They wouldn't help us because they'd probably think us not worthy. But Peter, he's a different story. He's practically the god of Neverland. Even so, they rarely perform resurrections."
"How do you even know that they can perform it!"
"They were the ones who brought Hook back."
They stopped talking and kept traveling through the thick plant life to reach their destination.
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Head bowed and eyes shaded by hair, Jane cried. Peter's dead body lay before her, devoid of all warmth and color.
"Why did he die? How could Hook win? This shouldn't happen…" she stuttered through her sobs. She crawled over to him and looked closely at his deathly white face and a new wave of guilt hit her. "I was too slow. I didn't get here in time. He would have been alive if I could have gotten her sooner. It's my fault that he's dead… It's all my fault."
Not caring that she was covered in his blood, Jane bent forward, kissed his cheek, and then laid down next to him still crying.
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A clearing was just up ahead, and Lilly was revitalized with the realization that they were almost to Mermaid Lagoon.
"Is that it up there?" she panted.
"Yeah," answered Smerf, who was just as out of breath as Lilly. "We're almost there! But be wary of the mermaids. They're enchanting but dangerous."
A moment later, they had stepped out into the clear and a large body of water lay before them. The black water reflected the black night sky but had a foreboding quality that made the little fair-haired Lilly feel uneasy. Smerf looked over his shoulder at her and smiled hopefully. They came closer to the water's edge and waited on the rocks for the mermaids to appear. It had gotten so cold after they were running that Lilly had to rub her arms to keep herself from shaking. Smerf was doing the same and the girl could see his bare calves turning into goose-flesh.
"I'm so cold," Lilly mumbled through chattering teeth. Smerf did nothing but nod as the wind blew his bangs out of his eyes.
In no time at all, there was a soft sound of singing like what she remembered when she had fallen in the water after she first arrived.
"That's them," she whispered.
"They're coming," Smerf whispered back. "Be ready."
The black water started to gleam with silver as the singing got louder. Both very anxious, Lilly grabbed Smerf's hand for comfort and he didn't really seem to notice. Closer and closer the silver mermaids swam until they suddenly stopped right in front of the rocks. For a moment, they didn't come to the surface, almost like they were contemplated whether they wanted to or not. Still, three or four mermaids finally popped their heads out of the water.
"Whaaaatt iissss iiiitt tthhhhaaaattt yyoouuuu wwwaaaannt?" hissed the first one.
"We need help," replied Smerf unsurely. Feeling his hands shaking, Lilly looked over at him nervously. She hoped that he was shaking from cold and not fear.
"Whhaaattt sssoorrrtt oooff hhheeeeelllp?" murmured another.
"Peter Pan has been murdered," announced Smerf and the mermaids gasped, whispering words of distress among themselves. "We need you to bring him back to life."
At first, none of the mermaid's answered. They hissed among themselves in their own language until the first one quieted them down. She turned to Smerf and Lilly and then said, "Yyooouuuuu aaasssssskk mmmuuuucchhh ooofff uuusssss."
"We know that you're the only ones who can do it. Please, for Peter's sake as well as your own, revive him."
"Yooouuu aarrree lyyyiinng. Peeetttteeerrr Paann caaaannnooot diiieee."
At that moment, a light dusting of snow started to fall calmly from the sky. Each mermaid looked up and hissed fretfully to the leading mermaid.
"Look! Now do you see? We need you to help us quickly!"
The leader looked upon Smerf another time and considered his request. Lilly, who was not willing to wait for a panel decision, stepped forward.
"Please…" she implored. "Save him."
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A/N: Whoo! Been a while, eh? Anyway, I'm trying to get back into the swing of things because after my author's note about discontinuing "Never More", I did get a couple responses saying they wanted me to continue. I'm trying to find my original outline for the story but even with it, I'm open to suggestions as to what you all want to see. REVIEW, loves!
