Straight On Till Morning (Disney Twisted Tales) - Liz Braswell Page 0,29

all had them. Michael wanted his to be like a ship with views of the sea. John had wanted to live like a nomad on the steppes. And Wendy…Wendy had wanted something that was part of the natural world itself.

She tentatively stepped forward, almost swooning at the heavy scent of the door flowers. Languorously lighting on them were a few scissorflies, silver and almost perfectly translucent in the glittery sunlight. Their sharp wings made little snickety noises as they fluttered off.

Her shadow made a few half-hearted attempts to drag back, pointing to the jungle. But Wendy ignored her, stepping into the hut.

She was immediately knocked over by a mad, barking thing that leapt at her from the darkness of the shelter.

“Luna!” Wendy cried in joy.

The wolf pup, which she had rescued in one of her earliest stories, stood triumphantly on her chest, drooling very visceral, very stinky dog spit onto her face.

“Oh, Luna! You’re real!” Wendy hugged the gray-and-white pup as tightly as she could, and it didn’t let out a single protest yelp.

Although…

“You’re a bit bigger than I imagined,” Wendy said thoughtfully, sitting up. “I thought you were a puppy.”

Indeed, the wolf was approaching formidable size, although she was obviously not yet quite full-grown and still had large puppy paws. She was at least four stone and her coat was thick and fluffy. Yet she pranced back and forth like a child, not circling with the sly lope Wendy imagined adult wolves used.

“You’re not a stupid little lapdog, are you?” Wendy whispered, nuzzling her face into the wolf’s fur. Luna chuffed happily and gave her a big wet sloppy lick across the cheek. “Let’s see what’s inside the house!”

As the cool interior embraced her, she felt a strange shudder of relief and…welcome was the only way she could describe it. She was home.

The interior was small and cozy; plaited sweet-smelling rush mats softened the floor. The rounded walls made shelves difficult, so macramé ropes hung from the ceiling, cradling halved logs or flat stones that displayed pretty pebbles, several beautiful eggs, and what looked like a teacup made from a coconut. A lantern assembled from translucent pearly shells sat atop a real cherry writing desk, intricately carved and entirely out of place with the rest of the interior.

Wendy picked up one of the pretty pebbles in wonder, turning it this way and that before putting it into her pocket.

“This is…me…” she breathed. She had never been there before, but it felt so secure and so right that it couldn’t have been anything but her home. Her real home. Here there was no slight tension of her back as she waited for footsteps to intrude, for reality to wake her from her dreams; there was nothing here to remind her of previous days, sad or happy ones. There were no windows looking out at the gray world of London. There was just peace, and the scent of the mats, and the quiet droning of insects and waves outside.

“Never Land is a…mishmash of us. Of me,” she said slowly. “It’s what we imagine and dream of—including the dreams we can’t quite remember.”

What an odd thought. “Zane was right. It is an island that knows me better than I know myself.”

She could easily envision herself falling asleep on the scented mats—adventuring was exhausting work—but she went back outside instead. Luna leapt beside her.

In the bright sunlight her shadow reappeared, jumping and waving her arms and trying to pull herself away from Wendy again.

“We are going after Peter Pan. I promise. We’ll certainly need him against Hook and whatever he has planned. But I really don’t know where to even begin looking for him! I suppose we’ll just start. In that direction.” And with that, she strode resolutely ahead, Luna leaping beside her.

(If she had snuck a look, she might have seen her shadow wag her head back and forth as if making fun of her, then snap back to aping her mistress’s movements—if a little slower and more reluctantly than they were actually performed.)

Large-leafed plants at the edge of the jungle reflected the sun rather than soaking it up, their dark green surfaces sparkling white in the sunlight. Some of the smaller ones had literally low-hanging fruit, like jewels from a fairy tale. Behind them was an extremely inviting path into the jungle with giant white shells for stepping-stones. And rather than the muggy, disease-filled forests of books that seemed to kill so many explorers, here the air was cool and pleasant