Chapter Nineteen
Vera
Neverland.
Aptly named because it’s a place where I never wanted to go.
I took a beloved island in a children’s novel, and I made it into a land of shadows and nightmares. Now I’m trapped here. Maybe I am the villain after all, the villain in my own story.
The island is dark ahead as waves lap against me, gently lifting me before they lower me back down. I can make out palm trees, the outline of a mountain, and the glow of the part of the island where the fairies reside.
James groans and pushes himself up, it appears that he landed in a dingy of some sort, sitting here in the shallows. I however, wound up in the water. When I look down atmyself I almost cuss when I see red and orange scales. That dratted tail is back.
I slap the water in frustration.
“As you can see… Neverland always shows a different version of you,” Peter says with a laugh. I glance up, following his voice and shudder when I see an ominous dark shadow hovering over our heads. Red eyes are the only point of light, everything else seems as though it is a void of nothingness in the shape of a boy.
I narrow my eyes as I glare at Peter. Here in Neverland he is a shadow, almost one with the darkness of the island. Here in Neverland the sun never rises. Time stands still in eternal night; it’s how you stay young because not a second progresses past this night.
“Wait, I didn’t change,” James says sounding disappointed. He holds up his hook as if half expecting it to turn into a hand.
I press my lips together into a smile and shake my head. “And you never will, James.”
“Oh, Jimmy, your old friend will be so excited you are back in Neverland so be quick to get your affairs in order. The clock is ticking, you don’t have much time.”
James blanches at the mention of the croc. Making it just a crocodile wasn’t cool enough, I made it a massiveshadow monster that was driven by a bloodlust, a craving to fully devour none other than Captain Hook.
In the screenplay, we enter Neverland with Frederick and Naia because we had all been in the dungeon at the time that Peter arrived. The main cast would then be forced to work together to survive the dangers of Neverland as Moira becomes a better person and Captain Hook descends into madness as he is forced to face the demons of his childhood as a lost boy. But Naia and Frederick aren’t anywhere to be seen. It’s just James and me here.
The plot seems to be derailed because Frederick and Naia never showed up. It would give me hope that the rest of the story can be changed—namely the ending, but we are still in Neverland.
Neither Hook nor Moira make it out of Neverland alive.
In the script, as Hook descends into paranoia, constantly being hunted by that shadow croc, Peter uses that opportunity to trick him into believing that Moira used her siren’s song to control him. Since Moira was the whole reason Hook wound up in Neverland, he is understandably furious to think that she could have just been using him and that his driving love for her might just be forced.
Moira, for her part, was just choosing to give up on revenge because harming Naia never made her happy. She was ready to move on to a better future with CaptainHook. Andthat’swhen he stabs her. It’s only after she dies in his arms does Captain Hook realize that his feelings for her last even after her death. He learns that she wasn’t controlling him at all, but that he loved her all along.
Then a heartbroken James sacrificed himself to the shadow croc to buy time for Frederick and Naia to escape Neverland.
I glance at James out of the corner of my eye, wondering if we are still on track for him stabbing me. As if to punctuate that thought, Peter’s shadow pulls something out from behind it. My eyes widen in horror as I take in its familiar size and shape. It’s the satchel that held the siren’s song.
“Oh, and Vera Dear, you dropped this. It looked important so I grabbed it for you. Aren’t I a good boy?”
He tosses the satchel into the rowboat by James’s feet. James recoils, almost capsizing the boat. I reach out, grabbing its edge to help steady it.
Peter laughs before he takes off, his shadow form disappearing from view as he nears the mountain.
“Is that what I think it is?” James asks, with disgust.
I nod slowly. “It’s the siren’s song…the plot device that controlled you earlier.”
“Get that thing away from me,” James says, scooting back further. “Vera, swim this down to the deepest partof this ocean and feed it to a shark. I never want to see it again.”
I kick my fin so that I can reach over the edge and grab the satchel. However, as my fingers close over it, I realize that I cannot oblige. Because this siren’s song might be the very thing that dooms me, but it’s also probably the only thing that can save James. “No,” I say firmly as I tighten my fingers around it. “This song can control animals. With it, you will be safe from the crocodile.”
James whips his head to me. “But you won’t be safe from me.”
I ignore him as I tie the satchel over my shoulder. Fortunately, I’m still wearing the black pirate shirt because the night air is a bit chill.
