Straight On Till Morning (Disney Twisted Tales) - Liz Braswell Page 0,75
there to save you, no matter how mean you’ve been.
And for once, Wendy had the sense to just nod and smile and not say anything.
Ahead the canyon opened up wide and flat as it traveled into the heart of the mesa. Inviting. Strangely clear of even the hardiest scrubby plants, almost paved in alternating ribbons of soft silt and packed sand. Very easy to walk on. Tiny polished pebbles congregated in delta formations in the middle of the path and along the edges.
“Peculiar,” Wendy said softly. “Almost like the bottom of a stream, without a stream on it. Yes, that’s exactly what it’s like. Like we’re walking in a stream that isn’t here. What do you see?”
Tinker Bell shrugged. Mud…You’re walking on flat rocks just above the mud. Your feet are getting filthy.
“Well, whatever it is, sounds like a road to me. Let’s take it.”
Tinker Bell nodded. One very suspicious rock guarded the entrance of this new path, a boulder perched on a pedestal with a strangely intelligent look about it. Much, much smaller than the monoliths that had dotted the desert earlier, or the one that had spoken to them. Still…
The way gently twisted and turned, the high stony walls above them copying its movements in folds and wrinkles. But the rocks, the sands, the scattered plants, the strange shadows—they all looked more or less exactly the same no matter where they were. There was no discernible feeling of progress.
This was more walking than Wendy had ever done at once, and all without her shadow. At some point she realized she could barely feel her legs. Sometimes when she put her foot down she misjudged the distance and stepped bone-jarringly hard on the ground. Sometimes she felt the world tilt.
The inside of her mouth was rough and painful like sandpaper, but she feared spitting the dust out—afraid of losing any fluid at all, since they’d had nothing to eat or drink since eating that rubyfruit.
And while Wendy didn’t like spending too much time dwelling on functions of the body, it had been a very long time since she had last needed to use the loo.
“Tinker Bell, I think I need a break,” she finally admitted.
The fairy nodded glumly. Her hair was limp and her wings drooped, and she didn’t jingle. They found a large shadow (cast from who knew what object) to collapse in.
“I think this might be a kind of an oubliette,” Wendy admitted after they had both sat there silently for a moment. “A trick of the First. There’s no end or escape. I put these things into stories now and then—paths which look useful but lead nowhere.”
Tinker Bell nodded reluctantly. She had come to the same conclusion.
“This is so frustrating!” Wendy suddenly shrieked, using a last bit of energy to kick the canyon wall. “We can’t be here—we have to be out there, saving Never Land!”
The fairy was silent.
“You haven’t said anything at all about the danger your whole world is in,” Wendy pointed out, somewhere between curious and peevish.
Without Peter—
“It’s like you don’t have a world anyway. Yes, I understand.” Wendy sighed and put a very careful finger on the fairy’s hand. “I’m terribly sorry. About him, and everything. But I’m not sorry we’re together. Imagine if you had to face this alone!”
Tinker Bell shuddered. She looked up at Wendy with something approaching chagrin.
I’m very glad you’re with me. And not just because you saved me.
“Those First, eh?” Wendy said wryly, trying to keep her humor. “Nice gods, those lot.”
Tinker Bell was silent, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. Then she frowned.
“What? What is it?”
They said, “Is there nothing else you could do? For yourself? Perhaps you should see if that is really true.”
“They were talking about whether I could change anything back in London. If I could fix our world, and therefore make changes here.”
But…then they said goodbye and left us here. And you said this could be a test. What if they meant perhaps you should see if you can change anything or figure out anything here, first?
“Oh,” Wendy said, and she thought about it.
Once she quieted her initial immediate objections the idea sort of tasted right. Like something that would happen in an adventure story. The villains who turn out not to be villains at all, really, just helpers on the hero’s path to heroism. What seems like a serious setback is actually a test to see if the hero is worthy enough to proceed with the rest of her quest.