Straight On Till Morning (Disney Twisted Tales) - Liz Braswell Page 0,79

Between her triumph at figuring out how to escape the First and the speed of the river and the water and the day, Wendy was almost overcome with joy.

“I had no idea boating could be such fun!” she cried to Tinker Bell. “It’s almost like flying!”

Tinker Bell gave a definitive headshake to this. No. But Wendy just laughed.

She did worry a little whether the whole plan would really work, if they could really get out of the demesne of the First or if they would just ride the river forever.

But then the landscape around them began to change—slowly. Perhaps indicating that they were getting back to Never Land proper.

The thick red walls of stone that rose into the sky on the left and right of them fell away, too busy with the eternal task of crumbling into piles of dust to bother with the riverbanks any longer. And while there was still the occasional tor or small rocky hill, the buttes and hoodoos and columns and pedestals and other exotic formations grew far less frequent.

Just before these features disappeared entirely, two final ones appeared on opposite sides of the river. These were unbelievably massive, so tall that Wendy couldn’t see their tops. Striped layers of red and white and black alternated with each other up and into forever.

She had the strange urge to salute as they passed between these two guardians. Both girls, fey and human, remained silent and still until the columns were far behind. Even the boat seemed to slow for a bit.

After that the land grew greener by stages. Tall, gracefully curving trees with branches like umbrellas marked the edge of the jungle. Canyon walls back in the desert were recalled in living format here as massive gray trunks of trees, barriers of thick foliage, and unbelievably substantial skeins of vines. The calls of monkeys or parrots or other Never Land creatures echoed hauntingly from the tops of emerald hillocks. Far in the distance they could once again just make out the toothy shapes of the Black Dragon Mountains.

Wendy never imagined she could be so relieved to see jungle. Or hills, for that matter, even if they were covered in exotic plants. The desert had been fascinating but she never wanted to be somewhere that flat again. It was so exposed—she had felt like a speck peered at by God through an infinite microscope. Now she could relax and breathe again with leaves between her and the sky.

Where does the river lead? Tinker Bell asked curiously.

“Why, to the sea, of course,” Wendy said with bravado. Things had worked out well so far—why shouldn’t it continue to do exactly what she predicted? “It feeds into the cove from the western side of the Pernicious Forest, skirting the Quiescent Jungle.”

Tinker Bell looked around a little thoughtfully.

I wonder how all this new water will affect everything.

“Whatever do you mean?”

When you fly, you are aware of these things—air weight, rising, falling, moisture, winds.…Remember your tumbling back there, over the ocean?

“Oh yes,” Wendy said with a blush. “But that was the ocean. This is just a river. I’m sure it will all work itself out.”

Tinker Bell pointed.

Up ahead things grew cloudy.

Literally.

As the two girls watched the jungle began to disappear. Hills and vales faded—but not from supernatural causes. This time it wasn’t the First playing tricks with geography; this was real mist and real fog. The world was blurred by something thicker than air but thinner than real rain. This swirled madly as stray breezes gathered considerable speed over the tops of the trees, rushing toward the river. Clouds of all sorts were pulled from across the heavens into the maelstrom: puffy white Never Land specials, thunderheads from the Black Dragon Mountains, mackerel-backs and mare’s tails from someplace inland that must have been a bit like England.

“My goodness…”

Wendy had never seen anything like it. Whatever was happening was fascinating and hypnotic—and deeply unnerving on a very basic level. She felt the touch of terror that all animals experience when they instinctively know something is wrong with the world around them. When the weather goes south.

There was a giant crack. A moment later Wendy realized it wasn’t the sound of thunder. It was the sound of thousands of gallons of water spilling out of the sky all at once. Giant, hot raindrops hurt as they hit her head and eyes; the percussion of them pounding the river was deafening.

“We need to get to land!” Wendy cried out, once again grabbing the pole and