Nothing felt extravagantly relieving as stepping out of the moving boat onto the beach of the small fishing island.
Luckily, I hadn't gotten sick enough to lose my breakfast over the side of worn wooden boat but my small headache had turned into a nauseating migraine.
The sun had finally risen, but clouds blanketed the pale blue sky.
I fell onto the stiff wet sand as the wind whipped around cooling my flushed cheeks, I closed my eyes.
I could hear the squishing sound foot steps someone trudging closer to my aching head in and the little light that shone from the sun was blocked by a towering figure.
"What do you think you're doing?
My eyes squinted opened to reveal Peter with his arms crossed over his chest and his brooding scowl of annoyance.
"I've never been in a boat before." I replied simply, burying my head in the crook of my arm.
"Get up."
I had no choice but to uncover my head and stand before Peter, brushing off my cloak and pants.
"I'm up. Now what do you wish for me to do, your majesty?" I said with teeth clenched and mocking a bow.
"Watch it, Meadow. Don't mock me unless you want to be left here when those boats leave this island." Peter informed, pointing the boats with an extended arm. I was growing tired of his threatening tone that he used in attempt to scare me. But I knew that if I talked back, he would keep going on.
"Yes, Peter. What would like me to do?" I asked him again. He thought for a moment while glancing at the other boys who had worked together to pull the boats into the shore. His tongue flicked over his bottom lip before he spoke. "Since you can't very well use a spear to fish, go into the woods and pick some berries."
"But I can't-"
"Are you afraid?" he questioned, his pupils cutting through me like black daggers dipped in green poison.
"No. But what if something were to happen to me?" I questioned further. "Can Owen come with me?"
"No." he commanded sternly and too quickly as if he had known what I was going to say before I had even said it.
"Liam." he called to the young boy. His head jolted up in attention. "Yes, Peter!" he replied, dropping his bag with a muffled clunk.
"Go to woods with Meadow."
His face fell with disappointment but he complied without hesitation, joining me as we went into the unfamiliar woods to tackle whatever lie behind the soldier like trees.
"Peter told me I could help this time. He's never let me fish with the older boys before." Liam finally said when we were out of ear's reach.
"Well if it makes you feel any better, he told me I couldn't either." I admitted, patting the shoulder of the young boy.
"Yes, but you're a girl."
Liam's seemingly innocent words had just as much of an affect as Chase's words had when he attempted to make me feel lowly and worthless.
When I didn't reply, Liam looked up at me and his expression softened. "Oh I'm sorry, Meadow. I didn't mean it. I meant-"
"No, it's okay! I know you didn't mean it that way. I guess I just feel a bit differently than everyone else."
"Being different isn't a bad thing."
"It is when you feel like you've got a target on your back. The boys treat me like I'm lower than them and I feel like Peter is trying beat the stubbornness out of me because he knows I'm not afraid of him." I say, Liam listening intently to my complaints.
"Or maybe he's afraid that he'll begin to feel the same way about you as he did for Hope."
My feet stop in their tracks and I look at Liam, surprise apparent in my face. "What?"
"He bullies you because he doesn't want to get hurt again."
From the mouth of babes, they say. Though I doubted Liam's theory was correct, his reasoning was wise and thought through.
I shook my head in reply. "Peter doesn't have feelings for me. You know him better than I do. You've seen the way he treats all of you."
Liam simply shrugged, ending conversation and we continued into the woods to find the small sweet fruits.
"What are these?" I ask, pulling the dark berries that hung from many of the bushes into my fingers.
Liam turned around and pushed my hand away. "Don't touch those! They're poisonous!"
A slight gasp escaped my lips and I brushed my hand against my pants. "Those could put you to sleep and you'd never wake up. That's how-" Liam explained, then stopped and shook his head.
"That's how what?" I questioned.
"That's how Hope died."
•••
After finding some raspberries and bitterberries, something Nolan used to make a juice called Flarum, we headed back to the beach with our cloaks full of the tiny fruits.
The boys had filled their bags with fish and had made a fire far enough up shore so that the water couldn't reach it.
"We found raspberries and bitterberries, Nolan!" Liam shouted excited to Nolan, who was prodding a skewer-like stick through one of their fresh catches.
The wind whips through my blonde brown tangled mess of hair as we trudge over to Nolan to deliver our finds.
"Meadow could you find a small rock for me, please." Nolan requested, transfixed on the silver fish in his hands, the belly slit open and cleaned out and the head laying limp with its lifeless eyes seemingly looking up at me.
"Sure."
I walked along the beach where the boys stood in the shallow water, pants and sleeves rolled up and spears in hand and taking stabs into the rolling waves.
Owen glanced up at me and grinned before returning his gaze to the moving waters that never stilled, even for Peter who seemed to control everything.
Something shimmered in the cloudy stirring water, like the scales on the silver fish Nolan was preparing, but it was much too large to be a fishes scale. I reached to pick up whatever it was and was surprised to find that it was indeed a scale.
A pearly glow emitted from the delicate object in my fingers. It's sharp edge was smooth like a blade, but I took care not to let it cut my skin.
"What'd you find?" Caspar's voice erupted from behind me, turning my gaze to him.
"I don't know. A scale or something." I responded unknowingly.
"Let me see." he beckoned for the object with his large wet hand and I placed it carefully into his palm. He shifted it back and forth letting the light hit it's surface.
"It's a mermaid scale. You're lucky to find one." he concluded, handing it back to me. There was something so captivating about its glow, something mystical and unreal.
"Meadow, did you find a rock?" Nolan called. I turned briskly and picked up the closest rock to where I stood and sauntered back to the fire ring.
Handing Nolan the rock, I sat next to him and fondled my anomalous treasure. "Wow. Where'd you find that?" he asked.
"Over there by Caspar. How do you think it got there?" I inquire.
"Probably floated in with the tide. Peter has one like it that he keeps in his room." Nolan says, grinding the bitterberries under the stone I had collected for him.
"You've been in his room?"
He shakes his head. "No. He found one a long time ago and I know he keeps it in the tent with all the other secrets he keeps in there."
•••
Time had passed and the moon reappeared in the darkening sky. Life seemed to stand still in Neverland, every day looking like the next even though time flew by quickly.
The boys sat around the fire as Peter played his pipe, never once playing the familiar tune that emitted from his tent in the dead of the night. Perhaps that was a sacred song, only played when most of us were asleep, but I secretly wished he would as we were sitting here.
Nolan held a small jug of the juice that he had made by crushing the berries and straining them through the burlap bag.
"May I try it?" I asked him.
"Be my guest." he said, handing me the container of the bitter liquid.
I put the rim to lips and could already smell the putrid aroma seething from the strong extracted juice. Taking a single sip, my lips tightened in disgust and I spit it out. "That is terrible! How do you drink that?"
The group, excluding Peter and Chase, giggled at my reaction.
"I've grown accustomed to it, I suppose." Nolan replied, taking back his vile liquid and chuckling before taking a long swig.
"We're leaving early tomorrow." Peter announced, taking his lips away from the small wooden instrument. "We'll sleep on the beach tonight."
Owen, who sat next to me, leant against the wooden boat they had turned over and draped his arm around my back carelessly, unknowing that the simple gesture sent a warm safe feeling through my body.
He noticed me staring at him and glanced at me, grinning. His hand brushed my back quickly, something a loving friend would do as if you reassure me. "Don't have any bad dreams tonight." he uttered softly.
I returned the smile. "I won't."
And so we all settled down and I lay with my limbs pulled close to me and my body wrapped with the thick cloak, but I couldn't fall asleep.
I wondered if Peter was asleep, or if he ever slept at all, but I wouldn't peer at him to find out.
I untangled myself from my cloak and stood up to get some water. The oceans of Neverland, as I was told earlier, was not salt water and was safe to drink, so I hobbled sleepily over to where the land met the sea and dipped my cupped hand into the water.
Suddenly, I noticed someone sitting on the beach a little ways from where I stood and I look back at the camp to count the heads of those sleeping. Six people lay on the sand, when there should be seven.
I walked closer to the figure and as I neared them, I realized that it was Owen, sitting on the beach with one knee bent and the other leg extending outward facing the sea.
"Can't sleep?" I asked.
He jumped, turning around quickly and smiling with relief when he recognized his approacher.
"You scared me." he admitted. "No, I'm afraid I've been blessed with insomnia."
"Ah. Were you awake last night as well? When I called for you?" I sat next to him and pulled my knees to my chin.
"I was. That's why I heard you so easily. I don't think I would've heard you if I had been sleeping."
A moment of comfortable silence passed between us. There was something safe about being with Owen that made me forget the discomforting feeling that Peter emitted.
"Meadow, do you remember loving anyone? I know Peter makes us for a lot of things, but do you remember ever loving someone?" Owen broke the silence with his deep voice, stirring up thought in my restless mind.
"I don't think so. I don't remember my parents or if I had siblings. I don't remember the giddy feeling of being in love with a boy. Do you?"
He hesitated before answering. "I remember the face of a girl and when I think of her, the name Rose comes to mind. I'd assume that was her name."
"Is she beautiful?" I ask.
"Gorgeous. Especially when she smiles. I don't know who she is or if I'll ever see her again, but I know that I once felt something for her." he pauses. "She's only a memory though."
"Anyway, changing the subject, why was it my name that you called out in your dream? Was I..was I hurting you?" he asks, concern apparent in his voice as his eyes shift between both of mine.
"No, you weren't hurting me, I promise. Peter was.. well, he was dragging me away and I called to you for help." I explained.
"Did I?"
"Hm?" I mumbled.
"Did I help you?" he asked. I looked up at him and shook my head slowly.
"I wouldn't ever let that happen, Meadow." Owen whispered. His face was dangerously close to mine as the conversation ceased between us. My heart galloped like beating drum and a cold feeling ran through my veins.
"Meadow."
"Yes, Owen." I barely got out, swallowing hard.
"May I.. may I kiss you?"
I didn't respond. Instead, I tilted my head and barely brushed my lips against his before a eerie shout came from where the boys slept.
"Help! Peter isn't breathing!"
•••
A/N
WOOOW THAT WAS FUN!
how's that for a chapter ending?
So I decided who will play Meadow! Alice Kristiansen, a singer from YouTube! I saw her videos and she was absolutely perfect for her so go look her up!
I am kind of in love with Owen right now, guys.
What do you guys think so far?
I'm really happy with the speed that this is going and I hope it won't go too fast!
Thanks for reading!
Love love love