Stars (Wendy Darling #1)(61)
The gentle creek that was winding its way like a snake beneath them opened up into a gaping river that ran upward to the middle of the island. They followed the river for a few minutes, seeing an occasional fin cut through the water. Peter pointed.
“Sharks. They love the river fish.”
Finally, the lazy river gained speed, the water churning out over boulders as the land grew rockier, the jungle thicker. The river grinded angrily forward, falling downward in a series of small pools before it opened up into a gigantic waterfall that roared beneath them, the haze of spray rising up into the thick mist above them. From the base of the waterfall, a lazy stream, tired from its journey, wound its way quietly down to the ocean, the river bend making a sharp right turn before continuing out to the sea. Peter flew up beside her again and pointed to where the river bent away from its main stream.
“Do you see it, Wendy?”
She didn’t, not at first, but then her eyes followed a small wisp of steam that trailed up from beyond the trees. Steam, she thought. That’s an odd thing to see in a jungle. She would have easily missed it had Peter not pointed it out. The curling steam trailed up out of the trees and then dipped under a swaying green branch, massive in size, draping across a large rocky outcropping. Her eyes followed the serrated gray rocks down a slick tumble of stone, as if a giant had shoved over a mountain and then piled it back up again. There was a wooden stake that rose out of the peak of the stone pile, a huge cross that was turned sideways so that the arms of the cross pointed down into the peak. From there, a single white rope tethered to the cross wove its way down until it met the ground, its taut line disappearing under the rushing river water. Spaced evenly along the rope, each dangling in place by gigantic metal hooks, a line of broken skeletons blew in the wind, their bones rattling. The horrific sound whispered quietly out through the jungle and made Wendy long to clasp her hands over her ears, to block the memory out forever. A strong gust of the humid wind of the island rocked the skeletons simultaneously, and they all turned to face the sea, a macabre coordinated dance.
Large red birds, their brilliant feathers shimmering like ripe plums, reminiscent of distorted peacocks, nested in the ribs of each skeleton, looking from above like huge, beating hearts. The wind changed direction again, and the skeletons all twisted to look right at Wendy, and she saw the glittering black obsidian rocks that had been placed in their eyes. Her stomach lurched when she realized that the skeletons looked so terrifying not because of their red bird hearts or their coordinated turns in the wind, or even the metal hooks around their necks—the skeletons were uniquely terrible because they were small. Far too small to be grown men. These were the skeletons of children. These had been the eleven Lost Boys. Fear twisted Wendy’s heart, overwhelming any lingering excitement that she felt.
This is a bad place. We should not be here. She looked up at Peter, whose eyes rested easily on her. She started to mouth the word “no” before he gave her a devilish grin and led the boys forward, banking hard in the air so that they silently came up above the jungle about a half mile from the Vault. Peter motioned to the jungle, and one by one the boys and Wendy dropped into the dense trees that grew beside the mountain of horrors. The jungle was deep and ill-behaved. Choking vines tangled around her, and the canopy slithered closed immediately after they slipped through, turning them all a sickly shade of green in its emerald light. Wendy watched with wide eyes as a hairy, scarlet spider made its way through Abbott’s hair in front of her.
“Abbott!” she hissed quietly.
He rolled his eyes and batted it away without a second glance. The spider gave a tiny cry as it fell through the jungle air. Peter motioned forward with silent hand gestures that Wendy didn’t understand but didn’t need to, as she just followed the rest of the boys, flitting from branch to branch, leaping through the air like apes, catching and swinging. Wendy was a bit more cautious as she went, carefully weighing which branch she would grab next, unable to swing so joyfully like the other boys. Peter laughed silently at her before giving her a wink. Her heart fluttered at the gesture. Through the trees they went, silently making their way toward the Vault. Finally they halted, and Wendy could see a small clearing through the dense mosaic of green, a peephole of misty gray light. They were here.
As she moved closer to the cave, hand over hand through the trees, Wendy began to understand that the pile of rocks she had seen from above was much more than a loose pile of boulders. What she had believed was the front of the cave was actually the side of a gigantic rock face, its discombobulated features assembling themselves at just the right point. Violently carved in shades of dust and bone, the menacing skull rose up out of the river, the main head composed of three enormous boulders clustered together. The face was made up of deep grooves carved into the rock face, each accented with stitches made of bones that crisscrossed over the eyes and nose. Dripping green condensation pooled at the bottom of the concave eyes and trickled down the face, angry tears to mar a horrified expression of fear. The mouth of the cave opened up underneath the pooling green, an unhinged jaw open in a perpetual scream, wide enough to swallow a man whole.
The river poured out of the mouth and onto the rocks below, foaming angrily underneath large wooden spikes that protruded out of the mouth like wicked teeth. On the other side of the skull’s head, another line of children’s skeletons rocked in the wind, their rib cages also filled with the red birds picking invisible scraps of meat off their bones. A gray mist of water and air and river poured over the skull, caressing the sides of the cave like a bridal veil. At the center of its forehead sat Peter’s yellow moon, a painted third eye that seemed to watch their approach with an unwavering stare. The moon had been crossed out with what appeared to be blood in the shape of two hooks. The sun shifted, and suddenly the gigantic skull was encased in a dim light as Shadow Mountain cast its heavy shroud over it. The yellow moon glowed in the mist, the empty eyes weeping a luminescent green.