Wendy cried. “Tink?
“No,” she murmured, turning and turning.
“No!” she cried again, and her voice fell flat and quiet in the thick fetid air.
“TINKER BELL!” she screamed.
But the jungle was silent.
There was a very thin line between panic and giving up.
Wendy was filled with rage and terror—but also a split second away from collapsing onto the ground and weeping. And that would be the end of everything.
If she just started running—in the wrong direction—she would merely continue in the wrong direction and get farther and farther from the creature and the fairy.
If she retraced her steps looking for clues, she would be wasting time.
The image came to her mind ruthlessly unbidden: the black, formless creature biting down on the fairy’s midriff; the resulting terrible crunch.
“TINKER BELL!” she screamed until her voice cracked.
Nothing.
Wendy choked back a sob and pulled at her hair. What to do? What would a hero do? What would Peter Pan do? What could she do? Where was the terribly clever deus ex machina or plot device that she would write for her own heroes?
What sort of nightmare creature was that thing—that qqrimal—anyway?
At least the crystalline guardian from before had made some sort of sense, pulled out of Michael’s angry toddlerhood and a doll he had made out of clay. This animal was far too precise, too detailed for his young mind. And John would never have imagined something so horrible and vicious. Secretly he loved fairies as much as Wendy and delighted in designing the twig and acorn contraptions they used to simplify their forest tasks.
“What sort of child would come up with a carnivorous beast that eats fairies? That hunts and devours and tears them apart?” she wailed.
But of course there were other children besides the Darlings who believed in Never Land.
Children who…delighted in the destruction of fairies? Who hated beauty?
Or who didn’t believe beauty was possible? That only ugliness and horror survived?
What kind of children were they—what were their lives like?
Wendy shivered.
“What do I do?” she whispered. What could she do, when there were monsters like these and worse roaming the fairy-tale world she had thought was safe?
That was when she noticed her shadow.
The black shape was doing the equivalent of jumping up and down—elongating and contracting, still connected to Wendy’s feet. She waved her arms frantically, trying to get Wendy’s attention.
“What? What is it?”
The shadow bent down and pulled at her feet. Then she stretched her arms, making a flying gesture, and pointed into the woods.
“What do you—oh, you want me to release you? So you can go look for Tinker Bell?”
The shadow nodded vigorously.
“You think you can find her?”
The shadow nodded again.
“But even if you find her—how can you help her until I get there?”
The shadow shook her head: no time. She pointed at their feet again.
“Oh. I suppose there isn’t much of a choice, really, is there?”
The shadow nodded vigorously.
Wendy bent down, unsure what to do exactly. She placed her hands on her left foot and made as if to untie a boot.
Something…gave.
It felt like something untied from her belly and slid out through her feet. A wave of nausea washed over her, leaving her enervated. Everything, even standing, suddenly seemed exhausting.
It wasn’t a simple thing to release one’s shadow, Wendy realized. It wasn’t all fun and games and a funny quest to reunite with it. The shadow—in Never Land, at least—contained something besides a lack of light and mimicry of movements. Some very visceral part of Wendy was in her shadow. And when she let go…
“You will come back to me, after you find her, right?” she asked before reaching for her other foot.
The shadow shrugged and shook her head.
No time.
No time to stop and think. No time to consider the ramifications.
“For Tinker Bell,” Wendy told herself sternly and untied her right foot.
The shadow shot off out of the clearing, into the woods.
Wendy slumped to the ground.
Her energy and strength weren’t all gone, she figured out after a few silent moments. She could still move and still stand up with a little effort. It was more like she didn’t really care to.
“It’s like I have the chills, or a cold, but of the soul,” she said aloud to cheer herself up. “Nothing so very serious. Manageable. Peter has done without a shadow for four years. Certainly I can go an hour.”
She did a few stretches and was satisfied with the way her body responded. Weakly, but up to the task if pressed.
She just hoped her shadow was going to do what she