Chapter 1
Chapter
One
Peter’s shadow is locked around me, its arms and legs holding me tightly as we soar away from the fight below.
I shove and kick at it, trying to free myself from its grip, but it slithers close to my skin, the darkness coating me in black oil. It’s like an inkblot, a two-dimensional shape that wraps around me like cloth.
“Get off!” I don’t want to fall to the trees below, but I have to get away.
Going back to the cave won’t end well for me, and I don’t think I can return to Hook either.
My eyes sting with tears at the thought of it, at the thought of spending one more minute with the man who hurt my mother.
I crumble inside as I realize what I’ve done, what I’ve given the man who always told me he was a villain.
I just didn’t want to believe it. But now I know.
“I said get off!” I fight more, trying to reach the cutlass at my side, but the shadow constricts, keeping me bound as we aim straight for the Nevertree.
When we get close, the shadow dives toward the ground at a frightening pace. I scream before my breath is stolen from my lungs from the sharp descent.
It flies me past the grove, then down the shaft where Tinker Bell led me the night I first ran into Hook.
I scream as I fly past a confused Tootles, then scream again as the shadow takes me down a long, dark tunnel I don’t recognize.
It eases its grip somewhat, and I reach for my sword right as it dumps me on the ground.
I hear something creak, and then the sound of a metal door clanging shut. “Hey!” I get up, but it’s completely dark in here. I don’t know where I am or where the shadow is.
I draw my sword. “Stay away!” Holding it out in front of me, I slowly back up. I ease one foot out behind me slowly, feeling for a dropoff or anything at all, but there’s nothing until I bump into a stone wall. At least I know nothing can creep up behind me as I flatten myself to it.
A light begins to glow to my right. Then I catch the sound of footsteps.
“Tootles?” I call.
“Moira? What’s going on?” He quickens his pace, and then I see him appearing down the dark tunnel with a candle in one hand.
I’m in a cage, some sort of jail fashioned out of bits of metal and wood that have been jammed against the cave wall. I hurry to the door and yank on it. It creaks but doesn’t give way.
As Tootles gets closer, I realize Peter’s shadow is just outside the door. I jump back and raise my sword again, my hand shaking as I stare down the darkness that seems to be looking at me with its eyeless, featureless face.
“Don’t you fucking touch me.” My voice trembles.
The shadow doesn’t move, just stands eerily still.
Tootles finally arrives and lifts the candle up to get a look at me. “Why are you in there?”
“That thing brought me here.” I point at the shadow with my sword.
“Oh.” Tootles seems to finally notice the shadow. “Hello.”
The shadow doesn’t move. It still seems to be staring at me, sending a chill creeping along my skin.
“It’s Peter’s shadow,” Tootles says.
“I know. I have to get out of here. Unlock the door for me.”
“Sure thing, Moira.” Tootles steps forward, but then the shadow turns its head toward him.
Tootles stops. “I don’t, um, think I’m supposed to.”
“Tootles.” I move closer to the door. “Let me out. You know me. I’m not supposed to be in here.”
“Yes.” He glances from me to the shadow and back again. “But maybe I should wait for Peter.”
“No!” I move to the side of the cage away from the shadow and try to think quickly.
“Peter’s in danger. That’s why he sent the shadow here with me.
To protect me from Hook.” I glance at the shadow.
It’s not like the damn thing can talk. I may as well go all out.
“But he needs me. I mean, us. He needs us. He’s fighting Hook right now. We have to help him!”
“Right now?” Tootles blanches.
“Yes! He’s in danger. I can take you to him.” I grip one of the bars. “Let me out so I can show you.”
He waffles, his gaze darting to the shadow again.
“Tootles! If you don’t let me out right now Peter could die!”
He jumps. “Okay. Okay. I’ll, um, I’ll let you out.” He steps toward the door, but the shadow turns, blocking him.
“Just push it out of the way or something.”
“Why is Peter’s shadow acting like this?” Tootles asks.
“It’s just being overprotective. You know how Peter is.”
“Brave.” Tootles nods.
“Exactly.” I point at the shadow. “So we have to get it out of the way. Come on. Peter’s counting on you.”
“Can’t you just tell me where he is so I—”
“Tootles!”
He jumps again then swallows hard. “Okay, all right.” When he moves to sidestep the shadow, it moves with him, blocking him.
“Come on, Tootles.” I reach through the bars while the shadow’s back is turned, but there’s a rusty lock on the door. “Wait, do you have the key?”
He lifts the candle and looks at the wall across from the cage. “It’s just here. I’ll grab it.”
“Good.”
He takes the key and tries once again to move around the shadow.
The shadow puts its hands on its hips and stands in front of the door.
“We need to help Peter,” Tootles explains.
The shadow doesn’t move.
“Just poke through it or something!” I yank and pull on the door to no avail.
“Poke through it?” Tootles winces. “I can’t do that.”
“I don’t care what you do as long as you get me out of here. Just, just throw me the key.”
“Okay.” Tootles rears back with the key in his palm.
The shadow jumps him, knocking the candle out of his hand as it tackles him to the hard stone floor.
“Tootles!”
The shadow engulfs him, holding him down as the candle flickers on the damp floor.
“Get off him!” I reach through the bars and grab at the shadow, pulling it away from Tootles as best I can, but it’s like sand through my fingers. It drips through and reassembles around the Lost Boy who struggles to free himself.
“Stop!” I reach through again, grabbing and pulling as the shadow falls away over and over. It covers Tootles’s mouth and face.
He fights and kicks, but his movements are growing sluggish.
“You’re killing him!” I can’t use my sword without risking Tootles. “Leave him alone!” I pull and pull.
Tootles rolls onto his side, momentarily jarring the shadow. It moves from his face and wraps around his neck. Tootles takes in a deep breath, his face red, and reaches toward me, key in hand.
I stretch for it, jamming my shoulder against the bars as I try to grab the key from him. I have to get out of here and help him. I have to.
He uses his other hand to claw at the shadow around his throat as his face turns purple.
My fingers graze the key. I almost have it.
Tootles kicks weakly, his eyes rolling back in his head.
“Stop!” I scream. “Please!”
The candle sputters and dies. Darkness falls so completely it seems endless.
I can’t feel Tootles anymore, not his hand or the edge of the key, even though I reach as far as I can toward him. But I hear a faint gurgling sound as he tries to get air.
Then the tunnel goes silent.
“Tootles?” I keep straining toward him. “Tootles?”
The silence is deafening as tears well in my eyes.
The shadow is still there. I can’t see it, but I can feel it looking at me. Something brushes against my hand, the touch of ice-cold fingers.
I pull back as if burned. “Tootles?” My voice is a whisper as I grip the bars and try to peer through the deep black of the cave. “Tootles, please say something.”
He doesn’t. There’s no sound, only my breathing and the faint drip of my tears on the hard floor. I drop my sword, the sound ricocheting down the cavern as a sob catches in my throat. This can’t be happening. I can’t be caged while Tootles lies dead only a few feet away.
No. This isn’t real. It can’t be. I tell myself this as I rock back and forth.
I don’t see the cinderblock wall. I see nothing.
I see death in hues of impenetrable black.
A curtain of it all around me. Holding my head in my hands, another sob escapes though I try to hold it in.
The cave walls mock me as it echoes back.
I scream when something brushes against my face, but when I try to pull back, I realize someone’s reached through the bars and grabbed my hair. I’m yanked forward, my face pressed to the metal as I yelp.
“I’m so glad you’re home.” Peter’s voice wraps around me even more tightly than his shadow, and all I can do is scream and scream and scream into the endless dark.