“So why aren’t there any girls?” Preston asked, remembering Eva. “Other than fairies or mermaids. Do girl children come Here?”
“They do not,” Peter answered. “This is for boys. There’s another one for girls. I don’t know anything about it, I’ve never been There.”
“It’s probably filled with princesses and unicorns and rainbows and junk,” Starky complained, sticking his tongue out as if to dispel a bad taste.
“That’s probably right. Children, girls and boys, they get their own place, they’re not grownups,” Peter explained, flying just a tad higher than everyone else. The fairies flew with him, quietly trailing, but all of a sudden Peter slammed back down, tunneling toward the trees as Dilweed and Starky followed. Preston remained where he was, unsure of what to do. After a second he felt a hand pull him down, careening with him until he was smack on the forest floor.
“What was that?” Preston asked and Starky looked at him, out of breath. “Where’s Peter?”
“He’s back up there, scouting,” Starky whispered. “He’s gotta make sure the pirates didn’t see us.”
“Why?” Preston asked. “I didn’t see anything. I thought they left us alone.”
“They leave us alone because they can’t see us. They move outside the Cove sometimes, looking for us. If they found out where we lived they might go after us. Peter says it’s bad, it’s really bad.”
“Shut up, Starky,” Dilweed hissed, his voice not above a whisper. “Don’t be scaring him like that. The pirates aren’t going to get us, and they can’t see Peter, not with the fairies around, the pirates aren’t like us, they can’t see beyond the fairies’ brightness, it’s like we’re invisible.”
“Peter has to check,” Starky elaborated as Peter flew back down, slip-streaming through the air and landing on his feet.
“I didn’t see anything,” he announced. “That is to say that they didn’t see anything. We’re okay, but we should know better, we’re not supposed to fly that high, not like that, not even with the fairies, but Tinkerbelle was there and she helped us, she made sure they didn’t have a chance.”
“What’re they doing outside the Cove?” Dilweed asked.
“I don’t know,” Peter said, shaking his head and looking over at Preston. “Strange things are happening.”
“I hope it’s not like that other time,” Starky pondered.
“Shut up,” Dilweed warned very seriously and Preston put his hands behind his back, wondering if he should be scared. He had a strange urge to go back. He hadn’t wanted to leave until now, he knew this was all very odd, he knew things were off, he missed his mother and father, whom he’d never see again, but something about those pirates. . . .
“Ah, it’s okay. Nothing is going to go wrong and it wasn’t that bad that time they came, and if it happens again we’ll fight them. You forget, you always forget that I’m Peter and nothing bad is going to happen to you while I’m around. And I’m around forever. Nothing can end me, it says so right there at the edge of the world, where eternity was made.”
“That’s right,” Starky called loudly.
“Here, here,” Dilweed added and all three boys put their hands together in a high five as they flew toward the tree house.
Just then, as they were flying away, they all closed their eyes as a bright and powerful light slid by them, cascading across their bodies as they remained still in the air. This was not like the other times the fairies had come, something was happening and Preston placed his hands to his ears so as not to hear the humming of the wind.
“What’s that?” he asked when the wind died down and the bright lights had moved from the front of the tree house to the back as the boys followed. They weren’t the only ones out, all the boys, even the inside boys and the ones who played far into the forest, were huddled near the tree house, looking up at the sky.
“Come on,” Dilweed called, running in the direction of the light, pushing past more boys as they ran after it. Some of the boys reached out, trying to grab the fairies flying overhead, but none of them could hold on as they ran, a great stampede to the back of the trees.
It was a giant party and though this entire place was like a celebration, this was different, this moved so fast Preston felt as if he couldn’t catch up. He’d never seen all the boys together. There were hundreds of them. They looked different, different races, different heights, some of them looked too old to be boys, towering over the rest and, seeming to know they were right on the cusp of being too old to come here as children, they stood in back, watching over the others.
It was Peter who wasn’t there when the fairies stopped, resting in a clearing at the edge of the forest. A great whirling wind followed the bright lights of the fairies, one Preston might have been afraid of if he hadn’t seen that none of the other boys were scared. “They’ve all been through this,” Dilweed explained. “I remember when this happened to me, they all remember,” he went on as if he understood Preston’s confusion. “You just woke up in the woods so you don’t know.”
The winds picked up and there was Peter, hovering over the storm that accumulated like a contained tornado as if he were conducting it. Peter watched attentively, unafraid as the wind changed from a physical presence to something beyond that. It turned to light; a white light like the fairies and Preston could make out a dense fog streaming down. He watched as children appeared in it. They came one after another, but landed together as if the time difference, the space did not matter.
Preston saw them as he could see the cowboys and Indians. One boy came down in a bed, IVs hooked up to his arms. He was bald and Preston could see twelve seconds before, as a mother and father looked down at his hospital bed, a little sister watching the boy spit up. He watched the little boy close his eyes and he was Here. When he reached the forest floor the bed was gone, shattered and shed—it could not keep him any longer. The boy’s hair returned, shaggy and light brown, his limbs fattened, there was color in his cheeks and he ran to the other children.
He saw another boy standing out in the middle of a street, a car came racing at him, he closed his eyes, frightened—fear, he felt so much fear and then he was Here and okay. The child laughed as he ran to a group of Lost Boys as if he knew them.
Preston watched them and as they left the streaming light their stories disappeared, he could only see them for a split second and then they were gone and he would have to get the rest of their stories the old fashioned way.
Most of the children had finished coming down, or so it seemed, no more were appearing and yet the white-lit stream remained. Most of the other boys were busy with their new companions. Groups of Lost Boys huddled around a single new boy and Preston wondered if it was his job now to join one of the welcoming committees, even though he’d only just come himself. Dilweed and Oregano had gone over to the little boy who’d been sick and Starky playfully joined them, hopping up to the group like a curious rabbit. But the stream did not stop; it only became quieter as other lights fell to the forest floor. These lights were dimmer and Preston could see children, children encased in darkness, float to the ground. Preston tried to look at them, but after the first one he couldn’t watch anymore. He started to see things he didn’t want to see. They weren’t stories, moving pictures like what the other Lost Boys had projected, just flickering moments, a man’s face, dark and mean, a chair and it was dark.
There were other boys like the first, less brightly lit boys that came down and did not get up. They lay unable to move, unable to speak, and the Lost Boys did nothing to help them. Preston inched closer, stopping just at the edge of the streaming light. “What’s wrong with them?” he asked no one in particular, since no one in particular seemed to be paying attention. “What happened?” He looked down at the new dimly lit children and wondered why this disturbed no one else.
Then the fairies came. Their bright lights, brighter than