If I had walked even a few steps farther, I would have bumped into it, for it blocked the way completely. It partially dammed up the flow of the little stream, which had caused the water to seep around it and soak the grass.
My heart pounded as I approached the broken trunk. Just because the tree was gone didn’t mean that the tunnel was gone. Why should the tree falling affect it? The roots were still in place . . .
The roots were there, but these had definitely been cut by something that bit sharp and deep. And every place the roots were sliced, there was something filling those cuts, something dark and sticky that looked like blood.
I touched it, and it clung to my fingers, and when I sniffed it the stuff smelled like blood too.
The hole between the roots was gone.
It wasn’t just filled in. It was entirely gone, as if it had never been. There was grass growing over the place where it used to be.
“Peter,” I breathed, and fell to my knees.
Somehow, Peter had discovered our plan, mine and Sal’s. Had he been in the woods that day? Had he seen Sal kiss me, heard us talk about leaving the island?
It would explain the flash that Sal saw, and why there had been no sign of anyone nearby. Peter knew how to cover his tracks.
Peter had snuck away from the tree, probably in the night when we all slept, and destroyed the gate back to the Other Place so that we could never, ever leave.
It was Peter’s island, and we were now his prisoners.
“No,” I said, and stood up again.
I was not going to stay there. The island was surrounded by water. We could make a boat and sail away. We could steal a boat from the pirates. They had those rowboats that they used to come ashore. It would be hard going on the ocean in a boat that small, but we might find a ship of friendly folk who would take us aboard.
And if we didn’t, well—anything, even dying at sea, was preferable to staying there one more moment in the company of a mad child who would jail us on his island paradise.
If Peter tried to stop us, tried to hurt any of the others, I would kill him.
I knew then that I could do it. For a long time the memory of our former happiness had stopped me, but no more.
Peter wasn’t my brother. He was my enemy.
I knew what to do with an enemy.
My dagger was in my hand, and I ran.
• • •
I wasn’t away from the tree that long, but it was long enough.
When I reached the clearing I don’t know what I intended to do—to wake Peter and make him fight me or to slit his throat in his sleep. I just knew that I wanted to know his blood, to see his green eyes dull, to end his power over me forever.
I could hardly remember why his smile had once meant so much to me. There was only one smile I wanted from him then, a long thin red one where a smile should not be.
(a flash of silver in the darkness)
(what have you done?)
(small hands covered in blood)
The dream-memories were in my way. I shook them off, entered the tree, ready to confront Peter and end it all forever.
He was gone, and so was Charlie.
“No,” I said, and kicked the skins they’d been sleeping on. “No, no, no, no, no!”
Sal and Crow and Nod sat up, all three still bedazzled by sleep.
“Where’s Peter and Charlie?” I shouted.
Crow and Nod looked like they didn’t understand what I was saying, but Sal was on her feet right away.
“They must have gone while we slept,” she said, and her face was white and scared.
She reached for my arm, and I shook her off. “I thought I could trust you.”
“Jamie, I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Why are you yelling just because Peter and Charlie are gone?” Crow said.
“Because Peter hates Charlie,” Nod said. So he understood, too, what Peter’s game was about. Before Fog died, he wouldn’t have even noticed. “We could track him.”
I shook my head. “No, it’s hard to track Peter in the day. It’s impossible in the night.”
“Where would he take him?” Sal asked.
I immediately thought of the crocodile pond, and then realized Peter would never take Charlie anywhere so obvious. He would know that I would think of the story, and run to save Charlie there.
There was only one place where he’d go, because he would think we’d never guess.
“The Many-Eyed,” I said. “He’s taking Charlie to the nest.”
“Would Charlie follow him there?” Nod asked, and now his face was white too. Nod never went near the plains, or even the border of them, if he could avoid it. “He’s scared of the Many-Eyed.”
While we were talking I was gathering anything that might be useful—bows and arrows, knives, rocks, slingshot, sharp sticks, the special stones that we used to start fires. I thrust all of these things in my sling-bag.
“Peter’s got Charlie now,” I said. “He’ll believe anything Peter says, do anything Peter does. If Peter said it was a wonderful lark to cross the plains at night, then Charlie would do it.”
I started out of the tree and the others followed, though Crow still looked like he didn’t really understand what was happening.
Instead of taking the trail that led in the direction of Bear Cave, I went toward the forest on the opposite side. From there we could cut through the trees to the central plains, which was where the Many-Eyed nested.
Before we entered the trees, I stopped. I couldn’t take a chance that I was wrong.
I would lose Charlie forever if I was wrong. That story—always that damned story, chasing Charlie and me.
“Go to the crocodile pond and make sure they aren’t there,” I told Nod and Crow.
Nod’s face hardened. “You don’t have to keep me from the Many-Eyed just because I’m afraid.”
“I’m not,” I said. “I just don’t want Charlie to die if I’m wrong about where Peter took him.”
He looked into my eyes hard and believed me. Nod grabbed Crow and took off running in the other direction.
Then I started to run too, toward the plains of the Many-Eyed.
Sal ran beside me. She never stumbled; she never slowed; she never hesitated. She just stayed right beside me, driven by the same fear that was riding me.
My little duckling, wrapped in a Many-Eyed’s silk, nothing but food for their babies.
The branches lashed me but I didn’t feel them. Bears and wolves and cats ran from us, for we didn’t slow when we saw them and that meant we were something to be feared.
The moon went down. The sky turned purple-orange, and we broke out of the trees and into the plains.
Charlie and Peter were just before us. Peter was whispering into his cupped hand, and Charlie’s hand was wrapped around it.
Then Charlie caught sight of us, wild-eyed and sweaty, and his face lit up.
“Jamie! Jamie! Peter’s showing me how to fly!”
“No!” I said, but I couldn’t run fast enough.
Peter grinned down at me as the two of them floated up into the air, high above, and he pulled Charlie over the long yellow grass. Charlie laughed in delight, and Peter laughed too—laughed because he’d won. I watched, chest heaving in despair, as they flew toward the center of the plains.
I couldn’t outrun Peter in the air. He would carry Charlie to the Many-Eyed nest and drop him there, and that would be the end of my trusting duckling.
No. There had to be something I could do. I couldn’t just let it happen. I couldn’t let Peter win.