Straight On Till Morning (Disney Twisted Tales) - Liz Braswell Page 0,70
Now he is gone.
“Ah. Do you know when he left? Or where he went to? Did you give him a new shadow?”
One question too many.
Despite the lack of change in the landscape, Wendy could feel its impatience.
The problems of the boy are not our concern. We sent him away. Why are you here. You are not from Never Land. You are—older.
“I beg your forgiveness if I am too old to be allowed here,” Wendy said, immediately lowering her head. “I shall leave as soon as I help my friend here find her friend, and help him get his shadow back, and defeat the pirates with whatever they are planning.”
There was a strange un-noise, as if the air were shaking.
Age is no rule of ours. It is a law created by you humans from the other side. We make no laws. We make no rules. We just are. It is humans who seek to name and regulate and shape this land to their ridiculous whims. Our world is crystallizing to the point of permanence, thanks to your ridiculous dreaming.
“I…don’t understand.…”
Once we and the world were one. We were the world. Then humans came. Their dreams were simple at first. But soon came the rules and the laws and the ideas and the suppositions and the feelings and the wishes and the decisions and the hopes. With each one another mountain hardened and another sea narrowed into a river. Now you have your Never Land. And because children’s dreams are the strongest, their dreams rule the world. Everywhere except for here, where we still rule. We, the First of this world.
“Oh, but isn’t it all rather lovely?” Wendy asked. “Fairies and mermaids—despite their vicious tendencies—and dragons and flying and moonlit beaches? You have an amazing, beautiful world here. Never Land exists the way it does as a result of all that innocent childhood dreaming…all of their most magical and creative thoughts before they grow up and it slips away.…”
INSOLENT!
Wendy Darling you know
You know you and your brothers are not the only ones who dream
Wendy was forced to her knees by the strength of the words. She covered her ears despite not actually hearing anything.
When she managed to look up again, the rock formation had changed. There was something about it that looked different, and it appeared to be looming over her more.
Some children are so twisted by hate from others they can dream of nothing but hate.
Some children dream of going through a day without being whipped or beaten.
Some children dream of nothing more than a full meal. They smile in their sleep as their minds conjure something that would fill their bellies if it were only real.
Some dream that their parents are still alive, or at least that their ghosts come to visit.
Some dream of still being able to play with their friends and go to school although they no longer can.
This Never Land you see is the Never Land you and your brothers are used to. There are other parts of Never Land you never see, with no fairies or mermaids. Only dishes of food and clean water and kindness. Or beasts so horrible you would die upon viewing them.
Silence filled the space in Wendy’s ears and mind when the First finished speaking. Her heart paused.
Other…children’s dreams…
“The qqrimal,” she murmured.
But that wasn’t her fault. Was it? These other children weren’t part of her Never Land, her world—were they? They weren’t part of the London where she and John and Michael played in the nursery with Nana and cufflinks and perfume and Mr. and Mrs. Darling and tea and rain.
But…of course they were.
Wendy knew that.
She just didn’t like to think about it.
They were out there somewhere, at the edges or hidden in plain sight. Orphans, beggars, children with bruises, girls whose parents really did force them into arranged marriages—without even the choice of going to Ireland instead.
Some of them may even have dreamed of a life where all they had to worry about was growing lonely and old in a large house, where there was food and heat every day.
Why else would they have dreamed up a Peter Pan to rescue them?
“I…I just never even thought about that before.”
The First didn’t say anything.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t—I still don’t know how Never Land works. Or…my world, either, I suppose.”
How much do you care about your world? Or this one? The mad pirate will destroy all of Never Land rather than simply quit it, once he has Peter Pan in his clutches to