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

Chapter 22 | Questions

I don't sleep, even though that was the reason I came down here. Well, one of the reasons. I wanted to get away from Peter, too.

The hours slide by and I just watch the embers burn themselves into ash and coal, curled up on the rug with a thin blanket over my shoulders, my left arm going numb since I've been using it as a pillow for too long.

I stare into the fireplace and try to sleep, but I can't stop turning things over in my head. It's like talking to the hollow children again has opened some sort of floodgate inside me and now I have even more questions than before--more important questions.

Why am I here?

That was something Peter said before, when he invited me to Neverland--or gave me the ultimatum that brought me here, anyway. He said, 'I want to know why you, Gwendolyn McKinnith'.

I want to know why me, too. Why did the Book of Unhappy Endings choose me? Is Earth really safe now that I'm gone? How would I even find something like that out?

I've learned a lot about Neverland, but nothing about myself or the important things. Facts like 'the two major sets of waterfalls in the Twisted Wood are called Ebony and Ivory' or 'parts of the Eastern Sande River are actually made of sand' aren't going to help me survive this place.

The information Peter gave me before he left last week, that was useful. I asked Mila to clarify his explanation of Nightmares, but it pretty much boils down to the three types Peter said. She told me that sleepmares and wakemares can be killed, but living nightmares have to be completely and utterly destroyed in order for them to die. No trace of them can remain.

Peter and a few of the Higher Faeries are the only ones with enough power to do it. That's why cities like the City of Quiet just put up with them. There are apparently quite a few living nightmares, and Mila said that their functional capabilities vary. Some of them, like Aurora up in the Silent Castle, are just shells who live for blood or destruction or what have you. Others, like Pinocchio--who apparently does exist and is a living nightmare--are basically normal, just, you know, insane. Mila says Pinocchio is known to be a sweetheart in the Marketplace where he lives--up in the northern Faerie Forest--but that if you meet him at night he'll probably cut you into little pieces and eat you.

It sounds really dangerous. I should probably get a sword and get someone to teach me to use it. Mila said the Militia keeps the Nightmares out of cities generally, but I want to be prepared.

And those are just the issues with the Nightmares. Then there are the faeries. Mila says only the six races who are part of the Faerie Council have to abide by the King's 'peace rules'--apparently Peter can be nice--but some of them don't, and there are a whole bunch of other races.

Most faeries are apparently wicked and like to eat people.

Mila won't tell me if she's one of those, or what type she is.

I think I'll be okay, though. If I stay here, or maybe if I go exploring Neverland someday--that might be interesting--I think can handle the danger if I can learn to use a sword. It might even be cool, like I'm the next Xena or Lara Croft. Or Merida.

Being Merida would be cool.

Except it's hard to cut off a Nightmare's head with an arrow...

And then there's me, and I'm back to the question of why am I here? What does any of this have to do with me? What do the hollow children want from me?

What are the hollow children, really? It can't be right that all the children born here are like that, even though that's what Peter said. If that's true then... how are there any adults?