and not too moist—although Wendy could hear the distant tinkle of water splashing from a height.
“Oh! Is that the Tonal Springs? Or Diamond Falls?” Wendy wondered breathlessly. “Luna, let’s go see!”
She made herself not race ahead down the path, but moved at a leisurely, measured pace. Like an adventuress sure of herself but wary of her surroundings.
(And yet, as she wouldn’t realize until later, she hadn’t thought to grab her stockings or shoes. Those got left in her hut without even a simple goodbye.)
Everywhere she looked, Wendy found another wonder of Never Land, from the slow camosnails to the gently nodding heads of the fritillary lilies. She smiled, imagining John as he peered over his glasses and the snail faded away into the background in fear—or Michael getting his nose covered in honey-scented lily pollen as he enthusiastically sniffed the pretty flowers.
The path continued, winding around a boulder into a delightful little clearing, sandy but padded here and there with tuffets of emerald green grass and clumps of purple orchids. It was like a desert island version of a perfect English meadow.
“Oh, Luna, isn’t it beautiful? Let’s go see!”
With the loud snap of a horse rider’s crop a white vine whipped out across the path at her ankles.
“Oh!” she cried, stumbling forward.
But she didn’t fall; another vine shot out across her chest. She bounced jarringly into and then off it. This one, too, was ugly and poisonous white—but also slightly sticky. Her dress got caught and so did her throat, already bruised from the impact.
Another vine whipped behind her so she couldn’t fall backward. Couldn’t escape.
“What the deuce!” she cried, pulling at the vines. They were tough but stretchy and gave rather than broke under her hands.
More of them—slowly now, like they had all the time in the world—coiled around her wrists and ankles. Their viscous sap itched and burned where she struggled, and it was an unhealthy scarlet color.
“No grown-ups allowed.”
Out of the clearing stepped the speaker of these words, a strange little fellow indeed. He was short and fat and as clear and crystalline as a blob of molten glass. His head was a misshapen oval on top of his body. A peaked crystal hat sat on his head, and he held a sharp shard of a spear. The only color on him at all was his eyes, strange and tan, like two butterscotch candies pressed into the face of a snowman.
“What?” Wendy asked indignantly, trying to understand the harsh words from the otherwise almost adorable figurine.
“No grown-ups allowed.”
He turned to face her, but not like a normal person; more like a cross between an owl and some sort of hideous, broken toy. His body didn’t move. Instead, his head spun smoothly and slowly and farther than it should have until his pupilless eyes locked on hers.
Probably. It was hard to tell what he was looking at.
“I am not a grown-up!” Wendy sputtered. “Let me through!”
“You are sixteen,” the guard said tonelessly. “The time of parties and balls and weddings and husbands has commenced.”
“It has not commenced,” Wendy said with great dignity. “I’m here in Never Land, aren’t I?”
The creature’s button eyes didn’t move at all but somehow darkened.
“You should not be here in Never Land. No grown-ups in Never Land. No fun killers! No bringers of pain and boredom! GET OUT!”
Wendy blinked at the ferocity of the ridiculous, strangely terrifying little thing. It leaned forward, bringing the tip of its spear perilously close to her stomach.
Where on earth had it come from? She had never invented any such monster. True, adults didn’t figure in her stories of Never Land except as incidental characters—pirates and their ilk, villains and foils. Never Land was supposed to be an island of endless fun for children like her and Michael and John, but she had never said anything specifically about prohibiting grown-ups or threatening them with spears.
“You make the days long. You make the food terrible. You make us go to school!”
Wendy caught her breath in shock, recognizing the tirade. Michael. Michael had horrifyingly once told his own father that he hated him—actually hated him—for making him go to school, where the seats were hard and the lessons worse. And for forcing him to eat their mashed peas.
Also, now that she thought about it, the shape of the little creature wasn’t unlike something Michael had made out of mud once. Puppin, he’d called it.
Yes, this whole scenario felt a bit like Michael, now that she thought about it. A crazed, all-powerful