Chapter 16 #2
The Boglin looked as if he was trying to resist, but there was no one living who could ever dare to pass up a lasagna.
He began to salivate as she described the meal further, enticing him forward and away from the fairies with everything she uttered.
The drool dripped onto the floor when he shoved a bony finger in Maggie’s direction with wild eyes.
“Give it to me,” he commanded. “Give it now!”
From behind her, Maggie heard rustling underfoot.
Stealing a look over her shoulder, she caught a glimpse of Peter steadily approaching.
Something flickered in his eyes, something that Maggie assumed to be fear at first, but it couldn’t have been that.
He wouldn’t have been afraid, he was the King of Neverland, after all.
Maggie shook her head at him, insisting that he stay back without saying a word.
Peter froze in place, remaining in the shadows.
The Boglin impatiently waited for her response.
Though he still clutched onto the fairies, he no longer seemed interested in eating them, and it was exactly where Maggie wanted him to be.
She cleared her throat and stepped closer, determined to forge a deal with the creature.
As she got closer, the Boglin’s scaly skin and reptilian features were too prominent to ignore.
An emerald colored tongue rolled in and out of his mouth repeatedly before snapping out to snatch a bug from thin air.
His skin was a sickly pale green color, and was constantly slimy.
Maggie looked upon him and willed herself to simply see another creature of Neverland, nothing more and nothing less.
“I’ll be happy to make you all of those things,” Maggie said in the most rigid voice she could conjure up. “As long as you let all the fairies go, and you give your word to leave them and the Everything Plants alone.”
The Boglin grew frustrated quickly, stomping his feet and throwing his hands about. Disgruntled sounds left his mouth as he waited, as if he believed Maggie might’ve changed her mind at the last minute.
“That’s the deal, Boglin,” Maggie snapped, holding her ground firmly. She crossed her arms and held her chin up. She couldn’t remember the last time she stood up for herself in such a way, raising her voice enough to be heard by the beast. It was an unnatural feeling. “Want all those foods?”
His head swayed in a small nod.
“There’s only one way, and that’s through me.”
The Boglin lowered his head menacingly. Without uttering a word, he simply stared at Maggie with a determination that was as loud as her own.
But the salivation continued to pour out from between the creatures lips and the hunger, obviously, lingered.
There was little capable of stopping a hungry creature, and it surely wouldn’t be someone as small and insignificant as Maggie.
The Boglin reached for the jar at his hip and unclenched his fist at the same moment.
The fairy did not rest a single moment and pelted towards Maggie.
As the creature unscrewed the top that had been snapped back on, the remaining three fairies shot out in a burst of light, retreating till all four of them were crowded behind Peter in the depths of the shadows.
Maggie released a deep breath, one that she didn’t realize she’d been holding.
Turning around, she gave Peter a beaming smile, his hands full of the relieved fairies.
“Boglin,” Maggie called out as she slowly began to face the creature once more, entirely full of joy and pride, “You have done incredibly well on this –”
The Boglin pranced forward with his frog-like legs and landed in front of Maggie within an instant.
He snatched onto her arm, the slimy and fleshy padded claw wrapping around her with a surprising tightness.
Maggie released a surprised shout, looking up at the beast to see his frighteningly animalistic eyes.
“Boglin,” she said again, her voice quivering, “r-remember our deal! We can talk and –”
“Starving!” The beast bellowed, catching the attention of Peter and the rest of the fairies.
Though Maggie had a hard time looking over her shoulder, she could tell that the King of Neverland was only a few feet away, his shadow falling across where she was being held.
“I've been starving for too long! You take my fairies, I take you!”
Peter had his hands outstretched towards him.
“Relax, Boglin. We’ll get you some food, alright?
Everything she said sounded good, didn’t it?
” Peter nodded rhythmically, trying to get the creature to do it along with him.
“The only way to get it, though, is to let her go. That’s all you can do, Boglin. That’s all –”
The Boglin’s head flew up in a rage. “No more! No more tricks, no more!”
Suddenly, Maggie remembered Peter’s warning from before. Their bite is poisonous, so keep your distance.
She was a downright fool.
The Boglin sunk his teeth down into the curve of Maggie’s shoulder and neck, the sensation forcing a frightful shriek out of the back of her mouth.
The Boglin was only attached to her for a dreadful minute, right until something plowed straight through him.
The frog-like creature skidded against the grassy floor and remained there for a moment, the wind knocked out of him.
Maggie didn’t remember falling, but she was suddenly on the ground. Above her, the twinkling lights of the fairies glistened in and out like a flickering star. She wanted to reach for them but held back, blaming the odd urge on the venom that was beginning to course through her system.
Venom!
“Peter!” Maggie cried, her head jerking up in the same moment.
The King of Neverland was there in an instant, catching her hands in his own.
There was a fiery flame dancing in his eyes, something she had never seen in the normally reserved man beginning to take over him.
She didn’t feel entirely unwell, which surprised her the most. Peter silently looked over her neck, his hand grazing her bare skin as he swiped thick strands of brown hair out the way.
When he pulled back, the look on his face only grew more angry and hot.
Maggie reached for him but he was already retreating, already pelting off to chase after the running Boglin.
Her vision grew blurry the longer she watched him go.
A sinking feeling began to take over her stomach, one that felt surface level before becoming something ten times worse.
She fell against the ground, groaning as an unbearable heat festered beneath her skin.
It was the poison, it had to be. The bite was having its toll on her, and Peter was nowhere to be seen.
What would happen? Would she perish, right there, on Neverland’s beach without a person around to hold her hand?
And what would become of her back home, where there wasn’t a person who fondly held her name in their thoughts?
For all she knew, the venom would render her dead in seconds.
Panic grabbed a hold of Maggie’s chest. The illness was already upon her, but she was heaving from the anxiety and fear, and it made it all rush forward quickly.
Maggie reached into the sky above when the blinking lights she figured to be stars came zooming down towards her.
They grew larger the closer they came, dancing and giving off different colors of bright lights, making her realize they were fairies, not stars.
Small patches of a robust coolness touched Maggie in all the spots that the fairies touched her.
Instantly, she realized that it was their magic, and it was…
making her feel better. Healing her from the poison.
“Thank you,” she breathed, finally regaining the ability to sit back up.
But there was hardly any time for rest. Above her head, sounds echoed through the late evening.
Maggie climbed to her feet after staggering a few times, her vision adjusting in the darkness to see Peter raising the Boglin high in the air.
Close enough to be heard, the King of Neverland had his hands tightly wound around the Boglin’s arms, the creature’s loud shouts echoing in every direction.
“Don’t tell me you thought I’d let you go,” Peter’s voice boomed across the sky. “Did you believe Neverland had a place for creatures like you? Beasts that find pleasure in eating fairies and biting beautiful women? Those that are mine?”
Maggie’s heart slammed against her chest.
“Neverland has no place for you, Boglin,” Peter snarled.
The King of Neverland soared through the air with the Boglin hanging beneath him.
Maggie quickly ran after them across the beach, following on foot for as long as she could.
Peter went all the way to the end of the beach, where the sand abruptly turned into jutting rocks and obsidian stone.
Maggie teetered at the edge, her feet dipping into the ocean.
She watched as Peter continued to soar through the air, not once letting go of his beast. In the distance, shrouded by the night, was an ominous island, one that Maggie could hardly make out from her distance.
Maggie watched until she saw nothing any longer, wondering where the King of Neverland had gone, and what had made him carry such a dangerous fire in his soft eyes.