“Don’t go,” I said, and splashed out into the water.
The boat drifted on the current. I reached for the edge, wanting to climb in, but every time it was just out of reach.
Fog and Crow and Sally watched me with curious eyes.
“Wait!” I cried. “I want to come with you!”
I followed the boat into the deeper water, and soon I was swimming instead of wading, and the boat was drifting away faster and faster.
The sea rose up then, pushing me back, pushing me back to the shore no matter how hard I fought.
The boat disappeared on the horizon.
• • •
I woke suddenly, my face wet, the fire burned down to nothing but coals. Nod and Charlie were asleep. I sat up and poked at the fire, feeling my skin prickle.
Peter watched me from the sky.
His eyes were shrouded by the dark, and his skin glowed silvery-white in the moonlight. He just floated there, bobbing up and down on the air, with his little fairy light darting around his head. I could see the tiny flutters of golden dust that drifted down on him.
“Tink is very angry with you,” he said. “You burned all of her family when you burned the fields. Now she’s the only fairy left.”
“I didn’t know they were there,” I said. “You didn’t tell me.”
“It’s not my fault you never found them,” Peter said. “You shouldn’t have burned the fields in the first place. What did the Many-Eyed ever do to you?”
“You shouldn’t have taken Charlie in the first place,” I said. “What did Charlie ever do to you?”
“He took you from me,” Peter said. “And so did Sally. Now you won’t play with me ever again.”
“So you thought it was fine to feed him to the Many-Eyed?” I asked.
Peter shrugged. “It would have saved me a lot of trouble. Anyway, all this happened because you killed that Many-Eyed in the first place when you weren’t supposed to, the one at Bear Cave. That was your doing.”
I shook my head at him. “This is all your doing. You brought the boys here. You didn’t care for them. You used them and then you tossed them in the rubbish pile and you expected me to feel the same.”
“You should have!” Peter said. He’d been calm up until then but now I saw the spark of anger. “You were supposed to feel the same as me! All this place, all the fun, all the boys—it was only for you. I did everything for you.”
I stood then, and wished like mad that I could grab him out of the sky. “Including kill my mother?”
He gave me a sly look. “I didn’t kill your mother. You did. Don’t you remember? I found you standing over her and her throat was cut and there was blood all over your hands. You must not have liked your mother very much.”
“I don’t think it was like that at all,” I said. “You killed her so that I would follow you here. You knew I would never leave her.”
“That only shows how much I loved you, Jamie,” he said, changing tack. “I took your mother away because I never wanted anyone to love you as much as me.”
“That’s not how you show someone love, Peter,” I said. “But you’re only a boy, and you’ll never understand.”
Peter narrowed his eyes at me, and crossed his arms.
“There’s only one way to settle this.”
“Yes,” I said. “The way we always settle quarrels on the island.”
“You know where to go, then,” he said. “I’ll be waiting.”
He flew away then, and the night was blacker than it had been before.
“You won’t be able to watch this time, Peter,” I said. “This time, you’ll have to fight me.”
Nod sat up and stared at me as I poked the fire.
“Are you going to fight Peter at Battle?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, wondering how much he’d heard.
“Peter killed your mother?”
He’d heard plenty, then.
“Yes,” I said.
“I thought you didn’t remember her,” he said.
“I didn’t, until yesterday.”
“Oh,” he said. “I still don’t remember mine. I wish I did. I only remember Fog, and he’s starting to fade already. It must be nice to remember your mother. If she was nice.”
“Mine was,” I said. “But Peter tangled me up and made me forget her.”
“He must have made me do that too.”
His expression was terribly sad, then, and terribly old.
After a moment he shook his head, as if shaking away the memory, and said, “How will you get to the Battle place with your ankle like that?”
I flexed it, and discovered that it had healed while I slept. I rubbed my hand across my face. My beard was thicker, though not as full-grown as Nod’s.
“It’s better now,” I said.
He looked at my ankle and then my beard and nodded in understanding. “You grew a bit more.”
“I want you to take Charlie and go across the island to Bear Cave and wait for me there,” I said.
“I don’t think you should go to Battle with Peter on your own,” he said. “Someone should watch, and judge, like we’ve always done. He’s likely to cheat. You know that. He only cares about fair play when it’s not fair to him.”
“I don’t want Charlie anywhere near Peter,” I said. “And we’re not going to leave him alone on the beach.”
“And what happens if you don’t come back?” Nod said, his eyes bright.
“You’ll know what that means,” I said. “If I’m not back in two days you follow your idea, and take Charlie and go to the pirates.”
• • •
When the sun rose I took up my dagger and a pirate sword, and I went toward the mountains where the Battle place was, and the other two went toward the forest and Bear Cave.
I felt stronger and better than I had the day before, and my new body was a wonderful thing. I could run faster and climb easier. When I reached the meadow before the Battle place I wasn’t even winded.
It wasn’t such a terrible thing, then, growing up. Peter was still a boy, and I was big and strong now, stronger than I’d ever been.
I could hurt him with this body. I could kill him.
Peter waited there for me, in the middle of the arena, his hands on his hips.
“You took a very long time,” he said crossly, looking me up and down. “I imagine it’s because you’re old now.”
“Not all of us can fly,” I said.
I put the pirate sword down on the bench but carried my dagger. Peter already had his knife in his hand.
“This Battle isn’t like the other Battles,” he said. “There are no rules.”
“But it is a fight to the death,” I said.
“Oh, Jamie.” He sighed, and there was a strange tenderness in the way he said my name. “Do you think I could ever kill you? Look at all I’ve done for you.”
I lunged at him then, not wanting to talk anymore with this child, this mad child who thought that he was showing his love by killing anyone who took my attention away from him.
But though my new body was strong and fast, I couldn’t fly, and he darted into the air and around behind me before I could blink.
“Not fair play,” I said, in hopes of appealing to his better nature—what little there was of it.
“There are no rules in this Battle,” Peter said, laughing. “You agreed to that yourself.”