Escaping Neverland (8 page)

If I thought the march through the jungle the day
before was hard, I was definitely wrong. I’d never been so tired in my whole
life. This was worse even than the march with William to the power station. A
few quick glances to the side showed me that the fae weren’t having any trouble
at all. I wondered if they were even able to sweat. It’d sort of mar their
perfect image and all, so I thought not. Then again, they also didn’t seem to
be getting wet from the constant rain.

Stormy followed behind me, stopping now and then
to nibble on a few plants. I was relieved to see her eating. The thought of
bringing a creature to life only to watch it starve to death made me feel a
little sick to my stomach. I hadn’t thought about that part of creating a
living creature at all, and I felt sort of bad about it.

The sun was out and high in the sky, shining
through the broad leaves of the tree and sparkling in the dripping rain water
when we finally stopped. Etain came up to stand beside me and put his finger to
his lips. He pointed out through the leaves, and I had to stifle a gasp. We’d
come right up behind some sort of village of wooden shacks and cobbled streets,
and it was full of people.

I watched, a little confused, as a bunch of guys
scurried back and forth between a wagon and a building before I realized they
were unloading weapons. I didn’t know what kind of guns they were, but they
were a flat black with long pointy barrels and a thick stock. They looked like
the same guns I’d seen all the soldiers carrying on television back home. I
paled.

The fae were deathly allergic to iron. Apparently,
even steel was enough to cause the reaction. If the Captain was using some sort
of steel bullet in those guns, the fae wouldn’t stand a chance, even without
Jake’s steel monsters. I looked at Etain and could see the fear in his eyes at
the sight of the weapons.

“Those are guns,” I whispered.

He nodded. “It’s not the first time the Captain’s
brought in such weapons. We managed to destroy the last batch, but this
delivery looks much bigger.”

“How does he bring so much through the gates?”

Etain made a small gesture towards the men. “With
every delivery, he brings in more and more humans. This village used to only be
a few dwellings.”

I looked out, wondering what the Captain was
promising these men to convince them to come to a place with no running water,
television, fast food, or modern medicine. It was probably money. I couldn’t
think of anything else that would work.

I thought back to the warehouse. The Captain had
paid Gregor for Jake with a small leather bag. I wondered what was in it.

“Do you know what the Captain is paying for all of
this with?” I asked.

Etain looked at me, confused, and I gestured
towards the guns.

“That stuff takes money. There’s no way he’s just
waltzing in and walking out with crates and crates of weapons. He’s got to be
trading something for them.”

Etain’s eyes lit up a little with recognition and
then darkened. “He trades in fairy dust. The dust is the main reason he came
back to the island after he left. William told the Queen that away from this
island, the Captain’s powers are not as strong. He figured out it was the dust
and has been capturing the little ones ever since.”

Lavender, who’d been sitting on my shoulder in
silence, whimpered and huddled closer to my shoulder. I put up a finger, trying
to be gentle, and stroked her wings. Stormy nudged my back, as if she too
sensed the little Queen’s sorrow.

“We have to stop him,” I said. The words surprised
Etain, and it was another one of those moments where I wished I could just
rewind and take it back.
What did I mean by “we?”
I asked myself.
You’re
not here to fight, remember? You’re here to get Jake back and go home, away
from all this craziness.

But I couldn’t. I couldn’t just let the Captain
take advantage of the fae and the little fairies. He couldn’t be allowed just
to pop into Earth whenever he wanted and snatch children like some sort of
living nightmare. And even worse, he couldn’t be allowed to supply fairy dust
to the corrupt men he had to be dealing with. If the fairy dust gave
supernatural, special abilities to evil people, who knew what they could get
away with? The Governor was surely using the fairy dust for something bad.
There wasn’t any other way around it. The people the Captain had bought the
guns from certainly couldn’t be nice people. I wondered if this was how the
spell worked, making me see the fae’s side of the fight, trying to make me feel
bad for them so I’d kill my friend.

I sighed. It was a mess. And Jake and I were right
in the middle of it. It made me want to go dig a hole like one of the spiders
and just hide until it was all over.

“Where’s the ship?” I asked.

Etain nodded his head towards the village. “A road
leads down to the harbor from here. The ship is anchored out where the water is
deeper.”

“How do we get Jake back?” I knew whatever plan
they had would involve William, but I didn’t know the details.

Etain pulled me back away from the edge of the
tree line towards the camp the fae were setting up. I stared at the gathering
in astonishment and pulled Etain to a stop.

“We can’t camp here,” I said. “The men from the
village will find us.”

Etain smiled, the expression strange on his
striped face. “As long as we don’t have a fire and remain quiet, they won’t
find us. The Queen has provided us with her strongest concealment spells, and
the men don’t venture into the jungle at night.”

“That’s pretty cool,” I said. “I could have used
some of those back home in my algebra class,” I joked.

When he gave me a blank stare, I shrugged. “Never
mind.”

I sat down out of the way as the fae bustled
about, setting up bed rolls and handing out supplies for lunch. I guessed that
we had to wait until dark to try to rescue Jake, so I sat down and finished up
the drawings of the spiders I’d started the night before. I finished everything
but the last final part of the eyes, stopping when the tingling started. When
I’d finished them, I drew a smaller version of the pink and black spiders, no
bigger than a dime. Nervous, I sketched in the eyes, focusing as hard as I
could on intelligence, obedience, and smallness. I didn’t know if it was even
possible to change the mental nature of something, but it was worth a shot.

The spider formed right above the drawing, its
legs pulling up off the page. When it was fully formed, it just sat there.
Finally, still anxious about being bitten, I reached out and poked it with my
pencil. It still didn’t move.

“Um…go over to Stormy,” I said. I pointed at the
horse. The spider moved so quickly it looked like it teleported over there. My
involuntarily squeak brought Nuada over to where I was sitting. The spider
scurried out of the way to avoid getting stepped on, which answered another
question I had.

“Come back over here,” I said. I held my hand out
on the ground, trying not to grimace at the idea of holding a spider, and let
it crawl into my palm.

Nuada stared, eyes unreadable, at my creation. I
looked at it too. It looked just like the spiders I’d seen the other day at the
river, but much, much smaller. It was actually pretty with its black fur and
vibrant pink spots.

“You’ve made a spider,” Nuada said.

“Um…yeah,” I said. “Isn’t it cute?”

Nuada blinked, once slow, and then looked back the
spider. “Is its venom the same as its larger counterparts?”

I shrugged. I had no idea. I figured if it looked
like one of the ones in the jungle, then my magic would sort of fill in the
rest, but I suppose I needed to test it. I sighed. Holding the spider up to my
face, I closed my eyes.

“Okay, um, little dude. I need you to bite my
finger. As gently as you can,” I added, afraid it would just chomp down. Then
again, I wasn’t sure if there was any other way a spider could bite, so I just
sat there and waited.

When the sting came it was mild and my eyes slid
open. The spider was sitting back in my palm again and a small little red spot
was growing at the base of my middle finger. The sting faded quickly, as did
the feeling in my middle finger. I put the spider back on my sketchpad and
wiggled my fingers. I’d lost all sensation in my entire hand.

I looked at Nuada. “Are the bigger spiders’ venom
just as potent?”

Nuada nodded. “They go for the torso, as close to
the heart as possible to spread the venom the farthest. If you’re bitten in the
foot, you usually just lose the use of your leg for awhile. Still, it’s enough
to slow you down so they can bite you again.”

I stared at my little spider, now afraid to make
even bigger ones. But, if I was going in with William to rescue Jake, I needed
something to protect me.

Nuada leaned over my sketchbook, and before I
could stop him, brushed the spider aside and began flipping back through. He
skipped right past the picture of Stormy and settled on the one of the Queen.

“Do you know what happens if the picture is
destroyed?”

I shook my head, not really wanting to find out.
Nuada glanced at me and then picked the sketchbook back up. He swung it to the
last page, tore it out, and ripped it apart.

“Hey,” I said. He’d torn right through the picture
of the tiny spider. I looked around for the creature a bit frantically, but
when I saw it, it was scurrying for the jungle. It didn’t pause to bite anyone,
thank God, but it was clear it wasn’t under my control anymore.

I swallowed hard. I was lucky Nuada had taken it
into his own hands to test my magic. It wouldn’t end well if the bigger
spiders’ pictures got torn up when there wasn’t anywhere to get away from them.

I looked back at the sound of another page being
torn from the book. Nuada had taken the picture of the Queen’s face and folding
it carefully, slipped it into his vest.

“You do not need this anymore. It’s not safe for
you to have it.” He stood up and walked away.

I sighed and crossed my arms over my chest. The
fae were the most stuck up people I’d ever met. I put my sketchbook back in the
leather bag Cashraina had given me to carry my things and ate my meal. I
watched William and his group as I did, noting how close Jasmine and Pyro sat
to him, and how Jasmine seemed to cater to his every whim. It was annoying.
William was insufferable, but they treated him like he was royalty.

When William stood up and went to sit with the
fae, I listened, and hearing Jake’s name, got up and went over too.

Nuada glared at me. “Your help is not needed,
Healer.”

I glanced at Etain, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Actually, it is. I’m going with William.”

William frowned and crossed his arms over his
chest. “I won’t carry you.”

I smiled. It was a mean smile, sure, but it was a
smile. “That’s fine. I have my own ride.” I pointed over my shoulder at Stormy,
who was being petted by one of the smaller kids, her eyes closed in sleepy,
horse bliss.

William stared at Stormy and back at me, and my
smile widened. “If you try to keep me here, I’ll just follow on my own.”

“Not if we tie you up,” Nuada said. His eyes told
me that he wasn’t joking, and my smile faded away.

“You will not tie me up,” I said. Casting around
for some sort of bargaining chip, I finished. “If you do, I won’t heal anyone
else with iron wounds.”

I watched him think about and then turn back to
William with a shrug. “I cannot bargain away the health of my people, William.
We’ll have to work her into the plan.”

William, still glaring at me, shook his head. “If
she goes, I’m not going.”

With a quick, unreadable glance at me, Nuada shook
his head. “No, William. You promised you’d help her and so you shall.”

At the reminder of his promise, William’s eyes
sank away and he stared sullenly at the ground. “Fine,” he said, looking back
up. “But if we see the Captain, he’s mine. You’ll stay away.”

I nodded, wanting no part of the Captain or
William’s feud with him. “I just want to save Jake.”

Etain surprised me with a hand on my knee. “You
realize, Healer, that when you find him, he’ll have to be gagged and
restrained? He won’t come quietly. The Captain usually orders them to stay on
the ship. Your friend will do everything he can think of to follow that order.”

“And once we’re away from the ship?” I asked.

“He’ll do everything he can to get back,” Nuada
said, his voice grim and unsympathetic.

I took a deep breath. “Well, we’ll deal with that
when the time comes. How are we going to do this?”

If they were surprised by my go-get-em attitude,
they didn’t say anything. Instead, they continued with their plans like I
didn’t exist.

“William will fly to the ship once night falls.
Once there, he’ll use one of our finding charms to locate the boy, bind him,
and fly him back to shore. From there, we’ll travel at night back to the
palace.”

I sat there, a bit confused. “Why doesn’t William
just fly him all the way back there? He carried me at least that far.”

Nuada shook his head. “Your friend will be
fighting, remember. William may drop him. If you try to fly him out on your
horse, he’ll jump.”

“So that’s it? William flies in, uses the thingy
bobby to find Jake, then flies out?”

Nuada shrugged. “Once the rescue begins, many
things can change. It will be up to William to avoid capture and determine the
best escape route. If you are captured in your mistaken attempt to help, we
will not come back for you. Whether or not William will is up to him. Once your
friend is rescued, our deal is at an end. The spell on you, however, will
continue until your friend is no longer a threat to us. I hate to think what it
might do to you to be captured by the Captain and unable to follow through with
your promise.”