He stood, and he was small enough that his head didn’t clear the tall yellow grass, though his ginger hair was just visible.
“You go on back to the cave after I lead them into the plains,” he said. “I’ll meet you there.”
I didn’t want to wait at the cave for Peter. I wanted to go on, to get back to the tree, to assure myself Charlie and Del hadn’t been caught out by Nip. But Peter wanted me to wait, and I would wait because he’d smiled and made me remember.
He was gone the instant after I nodded, so light and free and unbound to earth that the grass barely rustled as he passed.
I waited a few moments, then followed. I could be quiet, but not as silent as Peter. A rabbit was startled by my appearance and darted out of the grass toward the path. I was certain Peter had walked by it a moment before and the little creature had not even noticed.
After a while I stopped and listened. The sun was hot and making me drowsy, for I hadn’t slept in more than a day now.
I think I did drift off for a bit, crouched there in the grass with my eyes closed and the sun beating down and the lovely earthy, grassy smell all around me.
There was a voice then, an accusing voice that sounded like Peter’s—“What have you done?” I thought he was angry about the Many-Eyed again, but that wasn’t it.
She was there again, whoever she was, the she who was in my dreams every night. Her eyes were blank and blue, and dark hair curled around her head. Her mouth was open but there was a smile too, a smile in the wrong place, a smile that ran under her chin from ear to ear. There was a wink of silver in the dark, like a darting fish in a stream, and then I was awake, eyes wide.
The pirates were shouting curses, and I heard Peter’s laughter on the wind. After a moment I was able to trace the sound. They were headed west, into the fields, and from the ruckus they made it seemed certain they would find the Many-Eyed.
The noise also told me all the pirates were after Peter. That meant I could relax and walk along the path instead of crabbing along in the grass. I stood, brushing the sticky bits of grass seed from my coat—I was inclined to be a little vain about that coat, though it was covered in blood and dirt and who knows what else. I was vain about it because Peter wanted it, and because it still bothered him that I’d thought of getting it first.
I drifted along the trail back to the cave, thinking of nothing in particular except perhaps a nap. The thrumming urgency that plagued me earlier was gone. The sun had beaten me into a sense of dreamy lassitude. My only thought was to reach the cave before Peter returned so that I could sleep for a time.
Because I was walking slowly and not listening properly, the pirate was practically upon me before I noticed him.
The trail wandered this way and that along the bottom rim of the foothills, and there were many blind turns and curves. I should have heard him—he pounded down the dirt in those heavy boots all the pirates wore—and his breath came in sharp puffs as he ran. But I didn’t hear him. I was thinking of my dream, and the voice, and the silver knife.
I rounded a corner and he was there—only a few strides away from me—and my sudden appearance made him draw up and jump away with a frightened yell.
“You,” he said, for of course it was Red Tom.
Red Tom who hated me. Red Tom who’d lost his hand to me. Red Tom who was no longer first mate because of me.
That hazy, drifting feeling shook off in an instant. I had my orders from Peter. No one was to go back to the pirate camp.
When he’d passed by earlier, Red Tom had his sword out, ready to slice Peter apart. Now it was gone. He must have dropped it in the fields. Red Tom had entered the fields; I knew that much. I saw the clinging strands of long grass on his clothes.
His face was white as the cold moon though he’d been running hard. He made as if to charge me, but my words stopped him dead.
“You saw one, didn’t you?”
He gulped air, his skin more bloodless than before. “It were horrible . . . The Captain . . . It bit the Captain in two and his blood were everywhere. Everywhere.”
Red Tom closed his eyes, and I was sure he could see that vision of his Captain eaten alive on the insides of his eyelids. That was just enough time for me to pull my dagger out and lodge it in his throat.
His eyes flew open, and he gurgled, and blood pooled in his mouth and spilled over his lips. His hands scrabbled uselessly in the air as he fell to his knees, and then Red Tom was no more.
His body slumped to the ground. I pulled the knife out, wiping the blood on my deerskin pants.
The sun was heading down in the west. I shielded my eyes with my hand as I gazed over the long fields of yellow grass. There was no sign of Peter, the pirates, or the Many-Eyed. I thought they must have been quite near for Red Tom to be returning so soon to the camp.
Then again, I reflected, I had dozed in the grass. Though it had seemed like only a moment, it may have been longer. The noise that woke me could have been from farther away than I thought. Sounds traveled strangely on the island.
Red Tom’s corpse attracted flies almost immediately. I grabbed his arm and dragged him into the grass, leaving a trail of sticky blood behind. Sweat poured down my neck and back. It always amazed me how heavy grown-up corpses were compared to boys’, even if the grown-up in question was as skinny as Red Tom.
I left him just inside the edge of the fields, so that any passing Many-Eyed would find him and eat him. If any of the other pirates came looking this way for their lost companions, the only evidence they would find would be that trail of blood. With luck even that would be washed away in the next rain before anyone went searching.
Then I started on the trek back to Bear Cave. I entered the path through a narrow cut in two rock faces. The trail wound steeply upward before settling into an ebb and flow across the foothills and linking up with the cliff path to Bear Cave.
Once you were partway up the trail you could look out pretty far over the fields, and I did just that, turning back to see if I could catch a glimpse of Peter before the sun went all the way down.
I can’t run as fast as Peter; nor can I hear as well. But I can see clear and far, and the only limit to the accuracy of my shooting was how far arrows could fly.
To my surprise, Peter wasn’t terribly far away at all—perhaps a quarter of an hour’s walking. I saw him very clearly, not far inside the borders of the plains. Several blue and pink flowers sprouted nearby, bobbing around his head. He stood there, clearly unconcerned that he might be seen or caught by anyone.
His face was in profile, and he was—talking to his hand? At least, that was what it seemed like he was doing. I squinted my eyes and thought I saw a little golden light bobbing in his cupped palm.
A firefly? Why would Peter be talking to a firefly? That was strange, even for Peter. He turned away, toward the center of the plains and the Many-Eyed’s nest. I watched him, wondering what he was doing and why he wasn’t turning back toward the cave, toward me.
That was the first time I saw him fly.
He rose out of the grass gently, so gently, his bare feet wriggling in excitement. Soon enough he was almost level with my height on the trail. If he turned around, he would see me. But he didn’t turn around. He soared away, over the golden fields and toward the sea.
I felt the burn of envy deep in my chest, scorching hard enough to bring tears to my eyes. When had he learned such a thing? Why hadn’t he shared it with us?