He handed the toy to me and I inspected it. The carving was that of a very tiny girl with wings. Somehow Peter had managed to make the wings appear gossamer and light, carving little lace patterns there. Her hair was long and curled past her shoulders and she wore a dress made out of leaves. Her feet were small and bare. The face was full of mischief and delight, a face that drew you, invited you.
It was very finely done, so fine that it seemed that the girl might suddenly fly away from my hand.
“A fairy, eh?” I asked, looking at Peter.
“Oh, yes,” Peter said. “I know all about fairies. I met them in the gardens in the Other Place.”
This was the first I’d heard of such a thing. The most I knew of fairies were the stories that other boys told when they came to the island, stories about creatures that granted wishes or stole a child away from its parents and left a changeling in its place.
“When did you ever meet the fairies?” I asked.
“Oh, it was long before I met you, Jamie,” Peter said.
I could always tell when he was lying. His eyes went from one side to another, looking everywhere but directly at me.
“Peter told me that if you find a fairy and make a wish, it will give you whatever you want!” Charlie said excitedly. “I wish I might find a fairy.”
“And what would you wish for?” Peter asked.
Charlie fingered the fairy toy’s delicate wings. “I’d wish I could fly just like them. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to soar on the air above everything?”
Peter smiled, and it was the smile of a crocodile.
“Yes,” he said. “Wouldn’t it be.”
chapter 14
Peter stayed in the camp for eight days in a row after that. I would have snuck off to check the tunnel during that time except that he was suddenly showing an unnerving interest in Charlie.
Wherever Peter went and whatever he did, suddenly it just wouldn’t do unless Charlie was by his side. Charlie might have been reluctant except that Peter had softened him with the gift of the toy. Now the smaller boy was convinced that Peter liked him best in all the world.
Charlie began to copy Peter’s walk, a little rooster swagger, and stopped wearing his shoes from the Other Place because Peter went barefoot. If Peter thought that sunshine was wonderful, then Charlie did too. If Peter thought that hunting was boring, then Charlie did too. He would no longer help around camp because Peter never would. More than once I caught the two of them whispering to each other and laughing at the rest of us.
Peter was making Charlie a smaller version of himself, full of fun and heartless with it.
I knew that Peter was up to something, that he wasn’t really interested in Charlie at all. Because of this I was afraid to leave Charlie alone with Peter for even a few minutes.
That meant that when Peter took Charlie off to swim or climb or what-have-you, I always followed along, and the others went because I did.
Peter was happy because he had all his boys (and one girl) around him all the time and everyone was doing exactly as he wished without arguing about it.
Sometimes Sally would look at me, and that look would say that I needed to go and scout out the tunnel so that we could leave. I knew, and she knew, that leaving was the only possible way we could save Charlie.
But I was afraid that the moment I left, Peter would see his chance. If I looked away for even a breath, then Peter would put a knife in Charlie’s heart, and that would be as good as putting one in mine.
So I stayed in that in-between place, between the future with Sally and the past with Peter, because I didn’t know how to set us all free without losing Charlie.
Finally, one evening Sally pulled me aside while the others were distracted by Peter capering and tumbling about the clearing. Charlie was laughing like he’d never seen anything so funny in all his life. Peter would turn on his hands and then spring to his feet again, pulling faces and making ridiculous noises that had Charlie howling. Crow was laughing too, and even Nod was smiling as though he wanted to scowl but couldn’t quite do it.
“You have to go tomorrow,” she whispered.
I looked from her to Charlie, who had fallen under Peter’s spell.
“We’ve got to leave before Charlie’s in love with him any more than he already is,” Sally said. “He won’t even look at you anymore.”
It was true. Far from being my trailing little duckling, Charlie now disdained me as boring, the way that Peter often did.
“If you don’t go in the morning, then I will,” Sally said.
I thought this was unfair in the extreme. She was asking me to choose between keeping Charlie safe and letting her do something potentially dangerous.
“I’ll watch out for Charlie,” she said. “You have to trust me.”
Peter picked Charlie up, turning him upside down and making him laugh even harder. Charlie was so happy, but Peter—I could see Peter’s eyes, and he was not.
He was plotting.
That night I stayed awake while the others dropped off to sleep. Even Peter closed his eyes and slept, his arm thrown over Charlie like the smaller boy was a possession that he wouldn’t share.
I knew I wouldn’t have a better chance than that.
Out into the night I went, shivering in the cool air. We never got a proper winter on the island, of course, but it was that time of year when the wind blew a little colder and the sun lowered just a little earlier.
The unchanging moon was hidden by clouds. I thought I smelled the scent of rain. All around me the brush rustled as small animals darted away from my footsteps. I ran fast and quiet, wanting to reach the tunnel quickly. I’d know as soon as I entered it whether the passage to the Other Place was even possible without Peter.
If passage was possible, I would only go as far as the tree at the opposite end. From the tree you could see the lights of the city—the city Peter had taken me from all those years ago, the city that seemed to grow and stretch, reaching its fingers out to the tree that had once been miles from its center.
If I saw the city I would know, and I’d be able to return to our tree just as quickly. I was terrified that Peter would wake up and find me gone, and come looking for me. He seemed to be able to sniff you out like an animal if he wanted to find you. I didn’t know what lie I might tell him if he did follow me. He would never believe that I was going to the Other Place to find new boys to play with.
I turned off the path, finding my way despite the lack of moonlight. I’d walked that stretch so many times I was certain I could find it in my sleep.
And yet when I reached the place where the tree was supposed to be, I thought I’d made a mistake. Because the tree wasn’t there.
It was dark, but even with the dark I should have been able to see the shape of the tree against the sky. The stream that was supposed to bubble nearby was silent, and the ground underfoot was strangely squashy, like the land near the marsh.
I must have walked the wrong way in the dark, and I imagined how Sal would laugh at this after my insistence that she test her memory of the path. Feeling foolish, I started back to retrace my steps when the clouds parted and the moon revealed what had been hidden a moment before.
The tree had been cut down.
In truth, it looked as though it had somehow been torn down. The break in the trunk was less like an axe-chopping and more like it was ripped away by an angry giant.