Unhappily Never After (Neverland Archives II) (ON HOLD)

Chapter 10 | The Things That Don't Exist

I look at him, confused. "You mean it doesn't exist?"

He shakes his head. "It exists."

"Then what--"

"The Neverland you know--that does not exist. The Neverland I mean is nothing like the world in your stories, Gwen. If you come with me, you'll have to give everything up. Your whole life and everything. Neverland is not like your story books. It's..." he stops, sighs like he's trying to find the words. 

I just stare at him wondering... wondering what kind of world could have made his eyes look so dark and sad. Wondering what kind of world could've made Peter Pan want to grow up.

After a moment, he sighs, and looks at me with that same quiet, shadowed sadness. "Neverland is where the unhappy endings go. It's where that book leads--and it's where the Nightmares came from."

I can only blink at him, surprise and fear and confusion warring inside me. "I... I don't understand."

Peter shakes his head, rakes a hand through his hair. "Didn't you notice, Gwen? What happened every time you opened that book?"

"I... everything... disappeared?" I guess, frowning at him. But as I say the words, memories come to me--so many times. I opened the book so many times, and every time there was only... "Darkness. I passed out, I think--everything went black."

"You didn't pass out, Gwen. The blackness came from the pages. You can't read the Book of Unhappy Endings because it isn't really a book--it's a portal. A portal to my world, and every time you open it you let a little of that darkness through. You let one more broken fairytale escape from the Dark into the Light, and it brings shadows and emptiness and anarchy with it. That's why your world is falling apart--because you let every last shadow out until there weren't any left to keep the nightmares contained, and now they're loose--and the only thing they want is to turn your world as dark as mine is."

I look at him, feel tears press against the backs of my eyes. "How--" I take a deep breath, not wanting to ask but knowing that I have to, because this is all my fault.

"How many times did I open it? How many times... how many times did you try to stop me?"

He just looks back at me, and something in his eyes tells me I don't want to know. I take another shuddering breath, reach up to wipe away the tears that haven't fallen yet. "If I go with you--will it really help?"

"You're the eye of the storm, Gwendolyn," he tells me, quietly; his tone is not gentle, but neither is it unkind. "If you're gone, the storm spins out of control--and then it stops."

"C-can't you just... just..." Just what? I don't even know what I meant to say. But there has to be another way... another way. Any other way.

"Kill you?" I gasp, a slice of fear racing through me at his casual question. "I've tried that. The Book just brings you back."

I gape at him. "You've killed me before?"

He arches a fire red brow, crossing his arms again. "More than once. They say the third time's the charm, that it's supposed to stick--" he sighs, shrugs too casually, "--but even seven didn't work on you. The Book is just too powerful."

"You killed me seven times?!"  Dead. I was dead--he killed me. He killed me. Suddenly I can feel it, every one of those moments from lives and times I don't remember, from Todays that aren't Today anymore.

Vines suffocating me, a knife through my ribs, the shock and terror of all the air being forced from my lungs--

"Eight, actually." I gasp again, like I'm waking from a nightmare, and I take several steps away from him, can't get enough air into my lungs. He sighs.

"I told you, it didn't work. Why would I do it again?"

"You killed me!" The words are a shout that I didn't know I had in me.  Peter just meets my eyes, unapologetic, uncaring. "I did."

I feel like a fish out of water, I can't breathe, can't think past the fear and the white noise in my head. He sighs again. "But like I said, it didn't work. And even if you leave the Book alone now, it won't do any good. The Nightmares are already here. It's too late."

Red encroaches on my vision--but the fury is tempered by sorrow. He's right. All of this, every bit of it, is  my fault. And if I were in his shoes... "Why you?" I ask, hugging myself, arms around my middle like they're going to protect me.

"Why are you the one who's doing this? Trying to stop me. If it's that bad, why aren't there others?"

"Because Neverland is my responsibility." His words are heavy with darkness, and when I look at him, his eyes are completely shadowed--and his form is flickering again; one moment he's the normal human, the next a strange, fairy god.

He barks out a laugh. "I'm no god, Gwendolyn. I'm just the guy who happened to be around when everything went to the Echo."

There's so much bitterness in his voice, so much emptiness. I wonder who he lost to get to where he is. I wonder what happened to him.

"I-if I go with you..." I can't voice the end of the sentence, the thoughts too chaotic in my head--but he can read my mind, I remember, and he pucks the words from inside me.

"I don't know what will happen to you, Gwendolyn. No one from the Light has ever entered the Darkness before. But I can promise that I'll try to keep you safe."

"Why?" I whisper, hugging myself tighter. "Why bother?"

"Because it's my job to protect this world from Neverland's forces." He tilts his head. "But you meant why am I bothering with you."

I just nod, and he shrugs--again too casually. "Because I can. Because in almost three thousand years, no one has ever found that Book--or been Chosen by it. Because I want to know why you, Gwendolyn McKinnith."

The tears slip down my face without my wishes, and I can't control them--it takes everything in me to keep them silent. "If I go... will it really--" I'm cut off by my own choked sob, can't keep going. --help?

He nods. "I can't promise, Gwen, because this has never happened before. But there is a very high chance that your world will be set to rights once you're gone, and the Nightmares will disappear."

"And there's not--"

"There's not another way."

I'm silent, and he's silent, and we just stare at each other across the roof for a very, very long time. Finally, I straighten my shoulders and wipe the tears from my face and I ask, "In Neverland... are they all--are they all like you?" Harsh. Uncaring. Empty. Sad.

He shrugs like it doesn't matter, but when he meets my eyes, they're hard and unforgiving. "No." I release a sigh of relief, but then he says, "They're worse."

Another sob chokes my throat, but I refuse to let it out. To live in a world like that... where there's nothing but darkness, a world of unhappy endings... I can't even imagine what that would be like. All my life, I've been running from the shadows in my sister's eyes, the ones born the day our big brother murdered both our parents and then himself. I don't even remember what they looked like, don't remember their voices or faces.

Stacy can't forget them, and it tears her apart inside, has twisted her into something mean and hateful and angry.

Will I become like her, if I enter Neverland? Will I lose all the light I've managed to hold onto so tightly all these years?

Will I stop believing in stories, too?

"Some fairytales are lies, Gwen," Peter says, softly, drawing my eyes back to him. He's in his true form again, almost too beautiful for me to handle. He smiles sadly at me and then he says, his voice wry, "But only some."

A few more tears slip down my face, but I wipe them away, haul in a deep, sniveling breath. I look at Peter and I say, "Let's go."