Straight On Till Morning (Disney Twisted Tales) - Liz Braswell Page 0,66

about that sort of thing.

I’m sorry.

“But I didn’t want to go back to London,” Wendy protested.

It was a little bit of a lie: she had always thought she would return, otherwise she wouldn’t have insisted on a return ticket from the pirates.

And now that it looked like that option was taken away, she was suddenly a lot more concerned about it.

Never see Michael and John again?

Mother and Father?

Nana?

Even the evil old Shesbow twins, the smokestacks, the roofs, the clouds?

Tinker Bell seemed to read her mind. You gave up a lot for me. More than you knew.

“Well, I can’t think about any of that now,” Wendy told Tinker Bell—and herself—firmly. “Before anything else, we must rescue Peter’s shadow and save Never Land. I can’t go home until everyone here is safe. So let us continue to make our way to the En—no, the Chanting Peninsula. Are you well enough to travel?”

Tinker Bell looked at her with wonder. She nodded once.

“And is it very far away? Because—I’m afraid to admit it, but I’m a bit done in. All these adventures really wear a girl out. I’m dying to sleep.” Wendy was very, very shaky in fact, but she ground her teeth and tried to sound as blasé as possible. The loss of her shadow made all of her aches and pains and tiredness worse—the exact opposite of the fairy dust.

Sleep on the way. That’s what we do.

And although the idea of tiny winged creatures sleeping high in the sky with clouds for their cushions was positively delightful, Wendy couldn’t see herself doing it without heading directly into a thunderhead, or a cliff, or the mouth of some sort of horrid Never Land creature.

“Oh, Tinker Bell, I don’t think I could. I’d be terrified of falling, or smashing into something.”

Tinker Bell smiled. Go to sleep. I’ll watch you.

“Are you certain? I won’t be afraid if you really will keep an eye on me. Sorry about being such a terrible burden. Big ugly human and all. Utterly useless.”

Tinker Bell opened her mouth and out came great peals of strange, jingly laughter. Then she grabbed Wendy’s hand and pulled her aloft, into the darkening sky.

The next few hours were strange.

Or maybe it was a day, or a half day, or two.…

A glorious sunset performed its final bows across Never Land. Dark purple clouds rolled out along a horizon edged in fiery orange so bright it was like looking into the depths of a blacksmith’s forge. The first stars were entering with some confusion into the not-quite-black sky. It was delightful to see them floating in a sea of turquoise ether.

“How often do they get to do that?” Wendy wondered aloud tiredly.

Tinker Bell kept rising up and up into the sky and then pausing, then dipping down, then going sideways—and then repeating the whole procedure. Wendy had just summoned enough energy to ask her what she was doing when, with a bright look of satisfaction, the fairy apparently found whatever she was looking for and dragged the human girl through the air to her.

Aha!

Wendy suddenly realized what the invisible object of her friend’s search was: a calm thermal wind. It was so large and encompassing that when she slipped into its embrace the howling breezes of the upper airs immediately became silent, as if in the presence of a king. Here it was surprisingly warm and scented with things that didn’t seem to come from the jungles of Never Land: exotic but somehow familiar, like Mrs. Darling’s perfume when she kissed her daughter before going out.

Wendy had no trouble at all curling up on this invisible bed, and sleep came quick despite the confusing scenes she saw between languorous blinks. Instead of crisp sheets, comforting fire, and downy quilt, she saw nothing but empty space, sharp mountains, and trees a thousand feet below. But not even these could keep her from unconsciousness.

She drifted, literally and figuratively, the whole night, Tinker Bell always close by. One time the little creature took a sit-down on her, lying back on the big girl’s shoulder and watching the stars. Wendy remained silent and as still as she could, reluctant to disturb her.

Eventually, the fairy woke Wendy with a tug on her ear—back to her usual naughty tricks. But as the human girl started, indignant, she saw that the sun was close to rising. More importantly, the fairy held a rather ridiculously sized rubyfruit to break her fast with. These were the fruits that heroes stranded on a desert island in