Why hadn’t he shared it with me?
The warmth I’d felt when he smiled at me was gone. I didn’t know Peter anymore, not the way I used to. We used to share everything. Peter would never leave me out of an adventure.
But now he had treaties with the Many-Eyed and he knew how to fly. He kept secrets. I didn’t need to wait at Bear Cave for a boy like that, someone who said I was special but only said it so I wouldn’t look too closely at what he was doing.
I ran, all fatigue forgotten then, and when I ran I tried to forget all the times we’d teased the crocodile and splashed with the mermaids and made a fool of the pirate Captain.
All I could think of—all I could see—was the sight of Peter flying, flying, flying away.
Flying away without me.
chapter 7
He didn’t catch up with me until well past the Bear Cave. The sun was gone, the moon was up again, and the urgency I’d lost earlier while sleeping in the heat of the day had returned in force. I’d been away too long. Anything might have happened to Charlie by now.
I’d chosen the less direct trail the boys took earlier because I didn’t want Peter tracking me down on my shortcut. That was my special way, mine and Charlie’s now, and I didn’t want Peter knowing too much about it.
I heard Peter approaching, but only because he whistled the tune of a pirate sea shanty. The night was cloudless and the moon so bright, as always, that it was like daylight on the path once you were away from the shadows of the trees.
“Jamie!” he called to me, once I came into his view. “Jamie, you should have seen it!”
He didn’t seem to notice that I’d ignored his dictate to wait at Bear Cave, and that burned inside me too, all mixed up with my jealousy over his flight.
“Jamie!” Peter said, as he caught up to me and matched his strides to mine easily.
This irritated me also, as I was half a head taller than Peter and my legs much longer. Only a short while before I’d lamented growing. Now I was bothered that my height gave me no advantage over the boy who always loved to win.
“Did you feed the pirates to the Many-Eyed?” I asked, my voice cool.
Peter didn’t notice at all. “Did I!” he said, so full of glee his body hummed with it.
He then described what was no doubt a thrilling adventure that involved Peter being daring and brilliant to rid himself of his enemies. I listened with only half an ear, for if you’ve heard one Peter’s-daring-and-brilliant story, you’ve heard them all.
I picked up a smooth rock from the path and tossed it from one hand to the other, then tossed it in the air with my knife hand and caught it in the same one several times. I found another rock that was about the same size and juggled the two for a while, until I felt I’d gotten the hang of it, then added a third rock in.
Peter stopped talking about how wonderful Peter was and laughed at my trick.
“You could be in a traveling fair, Jamie, flipping torches lit on fire,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder.
“When have you ever seen a traveling fair? It’s not as if we have them on the island,” I asked, curious. I remembered seeing one myself, long and long and long ago, just a washed-out memory of men in brightly colored silks capering across the square.
“We should,” Peter said. “We should have mummers and dancers and magicians to come and entertain us in the evenings. The boys would love that. And we can clap and throw flowers at the performers while they bow.”
He was already off in his own mind, imagining how wonderful it would be, but it did not escape me that he hadn’t answered my question. Peter did that when he didn’t want you to know something. He’d just pretend he never heard you in the first place, and shouting in his ear wouldn’t make him budge.
“We should have taken a magician from the Other Place instead of Charlie,” Peter said. “A magician would have been useful. At least for a while. When he wasn’t useful anymore, we could feed him to the crocodiles.”
“Why do you hate Charlie so?” I asked, ignoring these musings about a magician. Peter would never bring an adult to the island. “You picked him. I told you to leave him behind.”
Peter stared into the sky, giving the impression he was not listening at all, but I knew that he was. We had been together long and long, Peter and me, and I knew his ways as well as he knew mine.
I waited, knowing he would say something sooner or later, for Peter loved to fill in empty space.
“He takes up all your time,” Peter finally said, and I saw an uncharacteristic frustration wrinkle his brow. “It’s always ‘Charlie this, Charlie that, Charlie’s too little, he can’t fight, he can’t keep up.’ Where’s the fun in that? I brought him here to play and he’s useless.”
“I have to look out for him because he’s small,” I said slowly. “Because he shouldn’t be here. We shouldn’t have taken him, Peter. He still has a mother.”
Peter flipped his hand at me. Mothers were of no concern to him.
“If he takes up so much of my time, if he annoys you so much, then you should let me bring him home, back to the Other Place. He doesn’t belong here,” I said.
“No,” Peter said, and his voice was sharp as the blade he carried. “You know the rules. Once you come here you can never leave. Nobody leaves. Nobody goes home. This is his home now.”
“But if he—” I began.
“No,” Peter said. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter, as Nip will have . . .”
He trailed off, suddenly realizing what he said.
“As Nip will have what?” I asked.
Peter said nothing, only turned away and feigned interest in a black-and-emerald butterfly that landed on one of the fat white night-blooming flowers that bordered the path.
Anger snapped inside me, mixed with dread. I dropped the stones I’d been playing with and jerked him roughly around to face me.
“What have you done, Peter?”
“Oww, Jamie, that hurt,” Peter said, rubbing his shoulder.
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” I roared.
“Only what I had to,” he said, and he was serious in a way that I rarely witnessed. “Nobody will take you from me, Jamie.”
I could have killed him then. The rage surged up, pulsed in my blood like fire. I should have killed him then. It would have prevented everything that came after.
Peter took a half step back, just a little shuffle, but he’d never retreated from me before. Never.
He realized this immediately and stepped back toward me, but I was already turning, already running. Charlie was more important than dealing with Peter.
“I don’t know why you’re bothering to run!” Peter shouted after me. “It will be already done by now!”
I didn’t care what he said. Until I saw Charlie, I wouldn’t believe Nip had succeeded in whatever task Peter set him. I believed—I had to believe—that Del and Nod and Fog would look after him as I asked.
I ran, and the terror swamped my anger, and the fear that I would be too late drove me on, faster and faster. I cut into the forest, never wishing so much that I could fly as Peter did at that moment.
My legs burned and my chest heaved and my hair was soaked in sweat and I ran. The forest held no joy for me now. It was only an obstacle in the way, a thing that kept me from Charlie. I’d promised him he’d be safe. He had to be all right. He had to be.