Stars (Wendy Darling #1)(95)

“Wendy!” Michael tugged hard on her shoulder and let out a whimper. “Stop!”

A figure stood in the darkened tunnel ahead of them, his tall form blocking the way, the rippling sea churning at his back. Wendy put Michael down and stood in front of him. With shaking hands, she drew the dagger out of her bag and stepped closer. “Peter . . .”

The figure stepped into the light. It was Abbott, soaked to the bone, his sword drawn but dangling at his side. Water dripped from the tip, mingling with the puddle at his feet. Lightning flashed, and Wendy saw the determined look in his eyes, the way he stared right through her. He raised his sword, and Wendy raised the dagger. “Please, Abbott, he’s just a child . . .” He tilted his head to the side and looked at the dagger, and with a roll of his eyes he gave a soft shake of his head. Then he pointed the sword to the right, pointing to a small hole in the bushes, barely noticeable. Without a word, he gestured again with the sword. Wendy blinked and raised her eyes to his. He gave a barely discernible nod.

Wendy didn’t have time to think. She pushed Michael through the small hole, just the perfect size for Pips. The hole opened up into another trail, this one covered by a canopy of white flowers, their mouths shuttered shut against the storm, a perfect cover from above. Clutching Michael’s hand tightly in her own, they sprinted through the canopy before it spilled them out, without much warning, onto the rocky shore.

“Wendy!” Michael shouted, pointing past a large boulder. “Look!” Wendy turned her head. The boats that she had seen with Peter were still tied in groups, rocking violently just on the other side of a rocky outcrop. She had found them, thank God. They were right there. She raised her head to look up to the top of Pan Island. The fire was out, only a burning husk remaining. A strange horn blast rang out through the island.

“Run, Michael!” she screamed. “Go!” They ran toward the boats, both frequently stumbling and rising again, knees and shins leaking blood, leaving trails on the jagged peaks of rock that led to the sea. Wendy made it to the makeshift wooden dock, a thin piece of rotted plywood painted yellow, the water of the sea sloshing around her ankles, pulsating up over the dock. The boats were rising and falling on the angry waves, slamming into each other with violent cracks. She carefully picked up Michael as she made her way over the planks. Rain poured down all around them, heavy drops that blinded the eyes and made clattering sounds upon hitting the boats. Wendy could barely make out twenty feet in front of her. She plucked Michael up and set him down hard in one of the boats.

“Throw out everything!”

Michael began dumping the fish baskets and reed poles, each piece disappearing silently beneath an angry wave. She began untying the group of boats, her fingers shaking, making clumsy mistakes in her haste as she pulled one knot out only to make another.

“Dammit!” she screamed.

Michael stared at her. “WENDY!”

“WHAT?”

“You can’t say that!”

“I know, I know, sorry!” She looked back at the rope, her brain finally connecting what she was seeing. She pulled one end of the rope after looping it through another. The knot dissolved, and the boats began pulling away from each other. Wendy leapt off the dock, landing hard next to Michael. He handed her an oar. Wendy stared at it, trying to remember how Booth had paddled the one day that they had rented a small boat on Buttermere. With a shake of her head, she grabbed the oar and began pushing the other boats out of their way as they paddled out of the tide pool and into the open sea.

Michael curled against her as she pushed the wooden oar into the water and back out, their boat rocking wildly as the angry sea curled around them. A wave crashed behind them, spinning the boat outward from the shore, Wendy losing control of the direction as the turquoise water flexed its muscles around the hull. The wind whipped the water into sharply crested waves, the salt spray splattering them both. She pushed again, harder this time, sweat dripping from her forehead, mingling with the drenching rain.

“I can’t see!” Michael cried.

The small rowboat battled against the waves, occasionally churning in a circle as swirling crests around them roared with unchecked fury. The boat finally pitched and rocked forward, striving out to sea as if the waves themselves were carrying it. Wendy felt her arms clench as she drove the paddle into the water again and again, her hard determination inching them forward, her teeth grinding against each other. Michael was sobbing beside her, clutching the boat with one hand and her dress in the other. Finally, the boat seemed to pass some sort of barrier; the angry waves determined to hurtle themselves against the rock turned into waves that rose only to disappear again without the resulting foamy splash.

The paddle went in again and again. Wendy, soaked to the bone, her hands bloodied and splintered, began to hope. A full white moon rose over Neverland, and even through the pouring rain, she could make out its pocked surface. At first, it brought her comfort, this moon with all its history, the moon that she had watched out of her nursery window, just a girl gazing at the stars. Then she remembered that this wasn’t the same moon, and that these weren’t the same stars. She was a world away from her parents in the most devastating of ways. A prayer fell from her lips into the open ocean, out over the waves, into the pouring rain.

Her paddling slowed but kept its soothing rhythm: splash, pull, pivot, rise. Pan Island rose up behind them, fading now into the misty shroud that wrapped the island, barely discernible through the fat raindrops that were filling the boat. There was a moment of quiet before Michael began screaming. Wendy looked up to see a figure plunging toward them through the air, hurtling down toward the boat with unthinkable speed. Wendy stood up and held the oar out, trying to keep her feet steady as the boat pitched underneath her. Thunder crackled across the sky as gray clouds swirled in a tumult of stormy air, the sea and the sky becoming one. Wendy braced herself, the oar across her chest.