Summary: The fate of the Darling women proves inescapable, even to those who do not have daughters. The orphans of the Neverland Orphanage are swept away by Peter Pan, despite a Darling's best efforts to prevent just that. This story is based on the book by JM Barrie, not any of the movies. The rating has been cranked up because later chapters will be dealing with violence & other non-K things.
Disclaimer: While the characters of the Neverland Orphanage, the descendants of John & Michael, & the new generation of Neverland inhabitants are of my own creation, Peter, Wendy, John, Michael, Wendy's daughter & Wendy's granddaughter, Smee, Tiger Lily, & anyone you recognize from Peter Pan are all belonging to JM Barrie.
Chapter Five: Getting Lost
"Let's never go back!"
Penny swooped around her companions and suddenly dove through the cold night, plunging downward out of the blue-black sky toward the dark rooftops below. The other girls watched her, laughing through just the smallest bit of alarm as she dove. Even Peter paused to follow her descent, and when she pulled sharply out of the dive to circle tightly around a church steeple and rocket back up, he cheered the loudest. She shot toward the other children hovering in the air, stopped abruptly, and bobbed in the night like a cork in water, grinning proudly. The only blush on her cheek was caused by the cold air whipping color into the faces of all the girls.
They had long ago stopped shivering, and indeed the air felt warmer now that they had left the city and flew over sleepy hamlets and dark countryside. Warm enough, at least, to allow them to unstick their tightly clasped hands and wipe away the crust of frozen tears that had streaked down their faces as the cold night air tore past their eyes. Peter Pan, they learned, did not slow down for anyone.
Nor did he seem to be affected by the self-made wind that made the girls' eyes water and noses run. Each time he looked back at his entourage – and they could remember each time for he had done it very rarely – his beautiful, youthful face was clean, his eyes clear and sparkling, his button nose dry. He seemed surprised at the sight of their wild, dirty faces, though Sylvia had begun to suspect he was more surprised at their very presence. He had taken a brief nap as they passed over a forest of bare trees, a feat which baffled and delighted the girls. A few had tried it out themselves, but once they had managed to lie down and get comfortable, they dropped from the sky like stones, plummeting toward the black tree limbs that reached up to the fliers like arms lonely for embraces. After more than a few terrified screams and shrieking laughs, Peter had rolled over and regarded them crankily. It had taken an uncomfortably long moment for recognition to dawn on his rosy face, during which Sylvia and Olivia were not the only girls wearing suspicious frowns.
Not long after that incident, Sylvia and Olivia had approached him from behind, intending to ask for definitive proof that there were Lost Girls in the Neverland. With Hattie's glare warming their backs, they swooped alongside of him and cleared their throats politely. His response had been to whip around in shock, one hand flying to his waist to grip the handle of a small but clearly sharp dagger tucked into his belt.
"Where did you come from?" he had snarled, and the twins could only stare dumbfounded, Olivia at the glint of silver amid the folds of fresh green and Sylvia at the flashing steeliness of his eyes. She watched the hard gleam soften as he recognized them, but the uneasiness did not entirely leave her. The twins fell back among the other girls, deciding to wait and see Lost Girls for themselves rather than ask.
It was difficult to be suspicious of Peter Pan for long, however. After all, he was Peter Pan, and he was more enchanting and delightful than any story could truly express. He indulged them, too, when he remembered them. He helped them with their flying until even Hattie, who had from the start adopted an ungainly method of flying that involved working her legs like those of a swimming frog's and flapping her arms as if they were featherless wings, was gliding almost effortlessly in what was very nearly a straight line. He engaged Sylvia in mock combat mid-air, his silvery blade raining blows upon her wooden sword until she had learned enough about blocking to save her blade from being hacked to bits. After some prompting, he even managed to remember Captain Hook – "Oh, yes, that old codfish!" – and promised Sylvia, on his honor, that he would show her where the pirates made berth. She, like all the others, found herself ensnared by the charm of youthfulness, which emanated from Peter like the warm golden light haloing his fairy.
Glimmer Bell led the way, flying ahead of the children and standing out bright against the dark sky. The trail of light and fairy dust that streaked out behind her made the fairy seem like a small shooting star that the children followed. Peter was close behind the fairy, but she did not circle around him protectively as she had in the dormitory. Like the Tinker Bell of the stories, Glim had been possessive of Peter and threatened the girls with angry chimes and tinkles of swears, but she had taken to ignoring the lot of them once they had flown out of London. She flew straight on without pausing or doubling back to check on her followers, as if it meant little to her whether they came or not. For the girls' part, they were content to follow Peter and the fairy, so long as they reached the Neverland.
And they were more than content. The liberty of flying had stirred them into a giddy frenzy; they played tag and raced and made daredevil dives, equipped with a new sense of invincibility. Sylvia felt, without a hint of doubt, that this high up in the air, flying through the black night with the stars a sparkling ceiling above and the lights on the land below a carpet of twinkles and glimmers, they had slipped into a secret pocket of magic in the ordinary world. Like a magical roadway directly to the Neverland, Olivia thought, where no forces of the ordinary world like pain or fear or death could ever touch them. So they zipped and darted, plummeted and rocketed, turned tight loops until they were dizzy and left giggling, staggering in the air.
Penny, surprisingly, seemed the most liberated and the most daring – she had shrugged off her customary shyness at Peter's appearance in the dormitory and had apparently left it behind with her unmade bed, where it proved no hindrance to her bold stunts and the full, cheery belly-laughs that rang through the night, the whole night, as they flew.
The girls flew without the need for rest, even as the night came to its darkest, coldest hour, during which anyone awake will find himself very lonely if not for the right company. Luckily, the four-to-twelves were excellent company for one another and made this bleak hour as exciting as the first hour of their journey. Whooping and looping, they followed Peter and Glimmer Bell straight on until sunrise began bleeding its rosy light through the pale horizon. They watched as the color was caught and seeped through the sky toward them, like glowing embers beginning to give rise to flame. Straight on they flew.
"Look," cried a voice. The girls turned first to find the speaker, and were astonished to see Hattie pointing with one outstretched arm at the blaze beginning to lick the horizon. Her face seemed different – open, the twins thought – though it may have just been the light. Still, the girls trusted the awe in her eyes and each followed her pointing finger, which guided their sights to the heart of the rising sun. Their eyes ached against the glare and they squinted but refused to look away or shut their eyes, staring until tears were again blurring their vision and staring still. They stared until the very tears of their watering eyes hurt and then, when they were nearly convinced that Miss Anne's advice about not looking into the sun was sound, they saw what Hattie had been the first to recognize. Through the glare of red sunrise, only vague shadows were discernible, but they knew it at once.
"The Neverland," Melissa shrieked, sending the girls into fits of delight. Screaming and cheering and cartwheeling, they surged forward to fly alongside Peter, not noticing his shock at their sudden appearance. The sun burned brighter before them, but their eyes could bear it now and Glimmer Bell stood out against its light. They followed her lead and flew straight on to the sunrise.
It didn't take them long to get settled.
The Lost Boys had apparently been expecting them and made a valiant but laughable attempt at tidying up. The four-to-twelves alighted for the first time in the Neverland atop a mountain of garbage and toys poorly, obscured by a threadbare and holey rug. Smudged with dirt and trying their best to look like respectable gentlemen, the boys stood in a single file line to crane back their necks and peer up at the four-to-twelves grouped at the peak of the junk heap. There were six Lost Boys waiting to greet them: Curio (the youngest at five years), Elbow (seven, very good with knots, and armed with a great length of rope, in case of emergencies), Hops and Scotch (the six-year-old twins), Froth (a skinny eight-year-old whose goofy smile always lingered faintly on his face), and Nym (ten and tough, though his attempts at surliness could hardly hide the hopeful gleam in his eyes as he gazed up at the four-to-twelves). There passed a few moments between both parties, before Sylvia unearthed a unicycle from the pile beneath her feet and sent Hattie tumbling down the mountain. Laughing good-naturedly with all the others, Sylvia flitted down to Hattie's aid and joined the two youngest Lost Boys in helping her up.
And after that, things were easy.
Despite the clutter, which quickly found its way back out from under the rug, there was no trouble finding room for the four-to-twelves in the spacious home of the Lost Boys. They had relocated from the underground hideaway, leaving the hollow halls to whatever wandering creatures needed the shelter. The Wendy-house was an ivy-covered lump just visible from the Lost Boys' new digs, an airy loft in the treetops of the jungle. Actually, it was both in the treetops and of the tree tops. The upper branches of four very tall, very closer trees had been woven tightly together to form a ropey but solid floor – clearly Elbow's work – that allowed everyone to walk around the loft when they tired of flying (it can be unexpectedly exhausting) without disturbing the trees enough to be noticed from the jungle floor. The dwelling had also been strategically constructed so that the highest branches of the trees provided a loose roof, making an aerial sighting of the loft nearly impossible. The four-to-twelves often lost the place in their early days, before memorizing the Lost Boys' specific instructions: left at the forty-fifth sunbeam, over the wind and around the sea breeze, and straight down at the wake of a bird's flight.
"But that doesn't make sense," mused Shannon, a bewildered eleven-year-old who had spent most of her time at the orphanage as one of Hattie's shy shadows. Since coming to the Neverland, she had distinguished herself from the other hangers-on by actually speaking, for one thing. Curio, who had just finished a fifth patient explanation of the directions, sighed in exasperation and slumped in the air. Shannon cast an apologetic look in his direction, but continued in a tentative tone. "How are we to know which beam is the forty-fifth? And 'the wake of a bird's flight' – what bird? There are hundreds!"
"Thousands," Curio mumbled from beneath his hands, which were pressed against his face in frustration.
"Thousands!" Shannon echoed, before staggering back to sit in the air, dazed.
Hattie scoffed with disdain, but said nothing. She did not understand the directions any better than Shannon or the others, but she wasn't going to admit it, of course.
"Well, let's just try, yeah?" Sylvia suggested, rising into the air just slightly to encourage everyone along.
"Isn't this just how things work in the Neverland?" Olivia added without joining her twin in floating upward (she didn't want to rush anyone). "You know, not everything makes the kind of sense we're used to, at first –"
"But it all makes its own kind of sense in the end!" Sylvia chimed in. "Anyway, do you really want to tell tem back in London that you flew all the way to the Neverland and you didn't even leave the house once you got there, all on account of some dodgy directions?"
With that, nearly everyone was sold, and those still doubting were caught up in the enthusiasm of the others as they took off through the canopy and into the open air.
The herd mentality the four-to-twelves showed during their early days in the Neverland did not last. As they became more comfortable with their new surroundings, they found themselves breaking into smaller groups formed around common interest, rather than refusing to take any action unless every one of them was on board. And with everything the Neverland had to offer, it was no wonder the four-to-twelves spread so far out.
Hattie and her most faithful of followers, Adelaide and Sadie, staked claim on the loft, Hattie directing while the other two cooked and cleaned, dusted and darned, swept and polished. They spent nearly all day in the loft, except when Hattie sent one of the girls out to the pretend market on a pretend errand, and each morning after breakfast, the three of them chased the Lost Boys and the other four-to-twelves outside to play so they could get to work. Most everyone was content to leave the loft in their eager hands: the four-to-twelves were, by and large, modern girls with aspirations other than being housewives, and Peter had the Lost Boys thoroughly convinced that they had no business doing any of that "mother work."
But Penny was also drawn to spending time in the loft, though not for work. The excitement and daring that had exploded from her quiet shell the moment the four-to-twelves left for the Neverland, though calmer now, had transformed the shy girl they had known back at the orphanage into a cheery, chattery thing that got on well with everyone: Lost Boys, fairies, jungle beasts, Indians, even the mermaids, if she caught them on the right day. Her newfound sociability allowed her to act on the eagerness to please that she had always possessed, and she had made it her mission to make the loft, once a mess of toys and rubbish, and then, under Hattie's control, severely scrubbed and nearly unlivable, into a cozy, homey hideaway for everyone to share. She returned to the loft halfway through each day, laden with goods that would counter the harshness of Hattie's cleaning with softer, welcoming touches. Freshly picked flowers exploded from any unadorned corner, splashing the room with color. Every interesting rock found or mud pot sculpted by one of the children was placed in a spot of privilege and esteem to decorate the walls of the entire loft. Penny hung up the drawings that the children made, implementing a rotation cycle once she ran out of wall space; she found out what everyone's favorite food was for his or her birthday dinner, and what their second favorite was for unbirthday dinner; she enlisted the fairies in helping her sew together a gigantic, multicolored quilt that represented the best loved colors of all the children. While Hattie had devoted herself to keeping house, Penny determined to make a home, and their combined efforts made them a team of the most darling mothers ever to occupy the Neverland.
The other four-to-twelves were too fascinated by the island around them to spend their days in the loft. Melissa and the younger girls – four-year-old Calla and Ruth, who was pushing five-and-a-half – flocked to the Indian camp. Some of the older four-to-twelves, including Shannon, joined them to shadow Tiger Lily and serve as her ladies-in-waiting to get their hands on cast-off clothes and outgrown moccasins. They returned to the loft each evening to sit Tiger Lily fashion and rehearse her stoic, regal gaze on their companions, who pulled faces at the practicing princesses like tourists at Buckingham Palace guards.
Though they admired the attempted aloofness of the Tiger Buds (as the girls were affectionately dubbed), Melissa, Calla, and Ruth dreamed of being braves, stalking through the plains that stretched out beyond the Indian camp and tracking each other through the jungle. While the Tiger Buds lined their eyes with dark smudges from charred wood to lend them a touch of the princess' mystery, the little braves, joined by Hops and Scotch, smeared mud across strategic areas of each other's faces for camouflage. Regardless of how the children chose to dirty their faces, they were sure to wash up when they returned to the loft for supper, of course.
Olivia and Sylvia, though they found fun everywhere from the mermaid lagoon to the city of apes, were primarily concerned with Lost Girls. Peter proved as forgetful as ever when questioned, so the twins turned to the other Lost Boys for information. Muddled as their memories were, Nym readily responded to the twins' queries.
"Them," Nym snorted, biting viciously into an apple. The children that were not occupied with chores or playing at the Indian camp were lounging in highest branches of the fruit trees in the heart of the jungle. The trees bear a wide variety of fruit, blueberries and honeydews hanging side by side on the same branch. Nym and the twins were perched in the same tree, along with Froth, who sucked on a mango seed and looked on silently.
"Yeah, they were here once," Nym continued, his voice tight and bitter. "But they left. With her." Sylvia was about to speak but hesitated, stayed by the silencing gesture from Olivia. Nym turned the bitten apple over and over in his hands broodingly and remained silent. Finally, Olivia spoke.
"With who?"
But Nym only hurled the apple away from him and took off from the tree, shaking the branches so hard that Froth tumbled from his seat and caught himself just before his head split on a large bough. Below them, a heavy hanging watermelon could be heard crashing through the branches and landing with a wet thump on the jungle floor. The twins ignored both the melon and Froth's floundering, staring after Nym until he was gone from their sights.
"With who?" one of the twins repeated, making Froth jump and nearly lose his balance again. Instead, he almost swallowed the mango seed and spent a few minutes choking before Sylvia gave him a well-aimed whack between the shoulder-blades. Clearing his throat, he watched the seed rocket through the trees until it pegged an unsuspecting Scotch in the back of the head.
"With who?" said one of the twins again, and Froth turned to see who had spoken. This had become a game all of the Lost Boys liked to play when the twins were talking, especially Hops and Scotch, who were proper twins that looked alike but behaved like complete opposites and found it baffling that Sylvia and Olivia could blend so easily together when they looked so different.
Their appearances were even more distinct in the Neverland. While the other four-to-twelves had donned leaf clothing (or buckskin shifts, in the case of the Tiger Buds and the braves), Sylvia had opted to stick with her standard-issue blue pajamas, now tattered and worn and torn from all the adventuring. With the sword still hooked through the ripped waistband and a portion of a torn pant leg serving as a kerchief to keep her wild hair out of her face, she looked positively piratical.
Olivia had traded in her pajamas for a pinafore of woven long grass, which she had trickily manipulated to turn the skirt of the dress into shorts. Elbow had given her a great deal of help with that, and the result was a sturdy apron-like coverall that Olivia wore only and always. It withstood nearly all their adventures, and was easily mended with the juice of fresh leaves and a cobweb or two, and with its braided texture and the shininess of the long grass, the four-to-twelves and the Lost Boys thought her attire nearly as impressive as Peter's.
She and Peter, in fact, were often compared by the others. When the whole gang of them had a race, Olivia finished second every time, just on Peter's heels. Though he would claim not to be trying, Olivia's performance was still lauded and admired. When they were taking dives from the high cliffs into the mermaid lagoon, Olivia's many somersaults and mid-air spirals always received just a bit more cheering and applause than Peter's effortlessly amazing feats. And each day they spent in the Neverland, Olivia became stronger and faster and wilder, until Sylvia was not the only one to notice a glimmer of panic in Peter's eyes as Olivia gained on him in a race, or jealousy twisting his sweet face while she was zipping around during a game of tag. It was becoming clear that Olivia and the rest of the four-to-twelves were not just mothers; they were a whole new class of Lost Children. Sylvia and Olivia, side by side, looked like perfect enemies – pirate and Lost Boy – and still they were capable of being completely undifferentiated, as like as twins.
Which brings us back to Froth, smiling slightly and gazing at the mismatched pair, trying to guess who had said –
"With who!"
This time it was both of them together, shouting to snap Froth from his dreamy trance.
"Oh, well, I suppose he meant Rocky."
The twins waited while Froth paused, until they realized that he did not plan on continuing.
"Who's Rocky?" Sylvia sighed.
He shook his head slightly and his smile took on a different air. The goofiness seemed replaced with something that was almost wry. The twins each raised an eyebrow.
"Rocky was in charge of the Lost Girls." The twins perked up excitedly. "Peter fetched her...so long ago. She came with others...Davs and Cubby...he wanted to be a wolf...and another, our mother. We called her Mother, but Peter and Davs and Cubby and Rocky called her Allison." The twins exchanged a look, half-skeptical and half-hopeful, but quickly turned their heads back to Froth when he continued on his own. "Rocky wanted to find the Lost Girls, but Davs and Peter said there weren't any. We said so, too, because Peter would know. But our mother said that there might be, and Peter had told us we had to love our mother and listen to her, so we went with Rocky to find them. We flew all over – through the jungle and the plains and the beaches. We asked everyone – the apes in their city, the Indians in their camp, the mermaids, even, but they just spit water at us. Cubby got the wolves to help him, and Davs spied on the pirates in their town to see if they had any." Sylvia leaned forward at the mention of the pirate town, but Froth moved along. "We couldn't find anyone anywhere. We wanted to give up, but Mother told us we must never give up. Then Rocky started talking to the fairies. The fairies don't like us much; they only like Peter. But they liked Rocky okay, too, and they told her they knew about Lost Girls. So Rocky and a fairy went back out to look, and we all pretended to be hurt so Mother could bandage us and give us medicine, and tuck us in to tell us stories in bed all evening. Mother was telling us the story of the Wendy-house, and why it's called the Wendy-house, and we heard voices. Girl's voices. They were laughing and screaming and Rocky was saying 'Steady now, that's it,' and we all forgot to be hurt and flew out to see what was happening. And there was Rocky with the Lost Girls all in a line behind her, holding hands and flying very poorly. They were terrible. And then Peter came out to see and he and Rocky just looked at each other and we looked at the girls and Mother looked at Peter and Rocky. And then Peter shrugged and flew back inside, and Mother said 'We'll need a bigger table,' and Davs said 'We'll need a bigger house.' So, Elbow built the treehouse and the girls moved in, and Mother and Davs and Cubby had to leave, but Rocky came back with Peter. Then one day she disappeared. And another day, we woke up and the Lost Girls were all gone. We left a light burning for them, so they could find us in case they had got more lost. But Peter made us take it down and told us to forget about them."
"But you haven't," Olivia breathed. Both twins were leaning as far forward as they could, hanging on Froth's every word.
"No, I suppose not," Froth sighed. And then a very strange thing happened. Right before the twins' eyes, Froth aged. It was only a very little bit, but there was no mistaking it. As he turned his brooding face, with its sad smile, toward them, they could see he was older.
Sylvia went white as sheet and Olivia's throat ran dry as they clutched each other's hands and stared.
"Where did they go?" Sylvia whispered.
Froth shrugged and shifted to lean back against the tree trunk. He stared at the sky through the tree branches, the sad smile fixed on his face. "They're just gone," he said. "Lost."
& now a word from our author: hi! i tweaked some of the stuff on top, but it's not too important. we're going to spend some time in the neverland & leave london alone for awhile. in terms of crediting, curio is a name shakespeare used. the lost boys were otherwise named by me, with lots of mysterious reasoning behind them. ooo, mysterious. for example, nym has no connection to nimh. then why would i do it? so mysterious. okay, enough of that. davsdavid, cubbyjude, rockyemily, in case that was troubling anyone. & unbirthdays were made popular by lewis carroll, of alice fame. okay, then, move it along!
