Chapter 1

Jimmy lay on top of his cot with his chin propped in his hands. Peter had granted him permission to release one of the pixies from her cage, and Jimmy watched, mesmerized, as she flitted around the damp underground cave he and Peter used as a hideout. Her wings hummed and the jingling of bells filled the room with the enchanting noise all pixies made from time to time. Jimmy had flown a few times using the pixie dust Peter collected, but he was still fascinated by the movement of the pixie’s wings as they blurred together in flight. For the first time, underneath the jingling, Jimmy heard faint words.

“Release me!” the tiny pixie pled. “Let me out!”

Jimmy stared. This pixie was not buzzing around the room like some foolish bumblebee. She was frantically running her hands all over the cave wall, desperately yet methodically searching for an escape. Could pixies…reason? He had never before been visited by the idea that they were capable of intelligence.

“You can talk?”

The pixie performed a graceful pirouette in the air, spinning to face him. The fluttering of her wings grew less rapid, and she slowly descended to perch on Jimmy’s pillow. “You understand me?”

“Yes. I only heard jingling bells before, but I can hear your voice now.”

The pixie held her hands up to her tiny mouth. “You haven’t been putting the dust into your drink each morning, have you.” It was a statement, not a question.

Jimmy thought hard. Peter had all the Lost Boys collect eggs, milk, and pixie dust every morning. The eggs they cooked, and the dust was mixed in with the milk to be drunk. He had never thought much about it; it was just a boring morning routine. But after he got violently sick from eating bad mushrooms some months ago, milk began to taste strange to him, and he had avoided it—along with the accompanying pixie dust—ever since. “No, not lately. Why?”

The pixie tilted her head from side to side. “You’re older.”

“No, I’m not!” Jimmy leapt to his feet, outraged at such a suggestion. Wasn’t aging the worst crime of all in Neverland? How dare this stupid pixie make such absurd accusations! He lunged forward to snatch her up.Jimmy couldn’t wait to stuff this pixie into her cage and put her back where she belonged—with all the other of the Lost Boys’ pets.

The pixie fluttered into the air, darting around to evade his grasp. “It’s true!” she screeched, her thin voice piercing Jimmy’s mind like a dagger. “Why do you think Peter Pan has you steal our dust every day? It’s to keep you young forever and never return to your families! He’s a monster who kidnapped all of you!”

“Stop it! You’re lying!” Jimmy yelled, then leapt off his cot, snatched the mischievous pixie out of the air, and thrust her back into her prison. His fingernail scraped against the tiny creature’s body as he did so, and he picked off the scrap of green fabric that snagged under his nail. The pixie clung to the bars and glared at Jimmy. Her face had changed from a gentle golden glow to a bright red.

“Do you even remember your family?”

“Shut up!” Jimmy screamed. He snatched up the cage, ran down to the animal shed, and shoved it onto one of the many pixie-laden shelves.

Jimmy ran all the way to the beach, where the white-crested waves and screaming calls of the seagulls had always managed to soothe him before. No matter how he tried, he couldn’t seem to get rid of the pixie’s cry.

“Do you even remember your family?”

What nonsense. Of course he remembered his family! Jimmy strained his memory as fuzzy and elusive recollections floated near the forefront of his mind but were difficult to clarify. He had a mother…didn’t he? Yes, he did. She was a sweet, plump woman with wavy black hair, but for the life of him, Jimmy couldn’t remember her face. His stomach sank. He couldn’t even picture his father—the man he had been named after. He didn’t even know if he had brothers or sisters.

The first real memory he had was of Peter Pan slipping into his window one night, promising a lifetime of adventure and eternal youth. Almost everything else before that point had faded over time to a hazy, grayish black.

The pixie had been right; he couldn’t remember his family at all. The young man’s shoulders slumped, and he dug his fingers into the gritty sand. He flung a handful at a nearby crab and watched glumly as it scuttled away over a smattering of shells and rocks that lay scattered on the shore.

Jimmy shook himself out of his gloom. Pan frequently went to visit the “other world” to look for more boys to join their club in Neverland, so all Jimmy had to do was ask to go with him to visit his family next time. He and Peter were friends—best friends! Jimmy was the first Lost Boy Peter had brought to Neverland, a fact which he had always been proud of. But now, pangs of homesickness stirred in his gut.

Jimmy couldn’t bring himself to leave the comfort of the beach’s crashing waves yet. He watched as the sun sank lower and lower, painting the oceanic landscape with golden, rosy hues until it finally dipped beyond the horizon. The changing tide crept closer to his bare feet, but Jimmy couldn’t find the motivation to move farther up toward the tree line. The sand on which he sat grew increasingly colder as stars began to pop into existence across the vast expanse of night sky. The brightest star of all—the second to the left of the moon—was the one that housed the gateway through which Peter brought all the Lost Boys. The starwinked, mocking his pain.

No, he wouldn’t subject Peter to an interrogation about an offhand remark from a rogue pixie. If anyone should be cross-examined, it was that good-for-nothing pixie!

Just as the water reached his toes, Jimmy pulled himself to his feet, brushed off the seat of his pants, and hiked back to their base camp, leaving a trail of footprints in the sand as he walked. As he drew nearer to the hideout, Jimmy grew ever more resolved. He needed to talk to the pixie again. He snorted. A pixie talking? He half hoped he had imagined it all.

Jimmy slid down the hollowed-out tree trunk and shot out onto the packed dirt floor beneath the forest. Candles illuminated the large room where more than two dozen boys all played—some were rough housing in the center, while others were throwing Rolland’s cap around as Rolland ran after it, laughing. The joy they all felt couldn’t penetrate Jimmy’s melancholy. Everything felt surreal. As he peered into each boy’s face, another phrase the pixie had yelled came back to him.

“He’s a monster who kidnapped all of you!”

Was it true? Peter hovered over everyone, doused as he always was in pixie dust, egging on each Lost Boy in turn.

Jimmy numbly considered his friend, whose red hair flopped into his eyes from underneath his green cap. Peter had always said that he’d saved them all. Saved them from a life of being unwanted and growing old. He granted them a future of ease and enjoyment, free from the cares of that other, darker world. He thought back to when he and Peter first met. Peter seemed larger than life back then. But now? He studied the boyish face. Peter looked small, or at least, smaller than himself. Was what the pixie said true? Was he, Jimmy, getting older and growing taller?

Jimmy slouched out of the room and down the earthen tunnel to the hollow they used for an animal shed again. He flung open the door, startling several chickens, who flapped and clucked around the small room. Jimmy marched over to the rows of pixies in cages and identified the softly glowing female pixie with yellow hair who had goaded him earlier. She was sitting, hunched over in her cage, massaging her tiny abdomen.

Jimmy tapped sharply on her cage. “Hey, pixie.”

The pixie turned and fluttered her wings angrily, dust flurrying down into the collecting pan set beneath her wire cage. “Hello, thief.”

Jimmy frowned. “I’m not a thief.”

“So you say, despite the fact that you steal my dust daily.” The pixie’s voice was weak, and she continued to press against her sides, her tiny features crumpled in pain.

“I’m not stealing your—” This conversation, surrounded by the smell of penned animals, would get them nowhere. Jimmy picked up the pixie’s cage and carried her out of the shed to his room, where he firmly bolted the door so no other boys would disturb him. “Look, I just want to know what you meant by not remembering my family. I remember my mother!”

The pixie gave a sharp laugh that was cut short when she clutched at her middle. “That’s surprising, considering how long you’ve been here. You must’ve really loved her.”

“How long I’ve…” Jimmy never thought about time anymore. The days and nights always seemed to meld together in Neverland. How long had he been there? The pixie gave a tiny cry of pain and collapsed to the bottom of her cage. “What’s wrong with you?”

“You!” she spat, then gasped out, “You injured me when you grabbed me earlier, but you didn’t think about that, did you? No, you Lost Boys only ever think of yourselves and having fun forever.”

“That isn’t true! Here, I’ll show you!” Jimmy unlocked the pixie’s cage. She didn’t fly away like he expected, but stayed huddled on the interlocking wires. He gently lifted her out of the cage and laid her on his pillow, careful not to bend her fragile wings.

She had a vividly green dress that covered her torso and flowed over her legs, and she was so small that Jimmy’s fingers would have been far too large and clumsy to be of any assistance. He examined the tiny body anyway, but couldn’t see any injury. “You’re so small. I don’t know how to help you.”

The pixie glared at him, red all over again. “You can’t when I’m this size.”

“Yeah, like you could be any other size.”

The pixie cried aloud again, her enormous blue eyes watering with pain, and panic clawed at Jimmy’s throat. He would be responsible if the pixie died. “Tell me what to do!”

The pixie turned her tortured face toward Jimmy, then shook her head, resigned. “Just … don’t scream. Or call Pan,” she whispered. She furrowed her eyebrows in deep concentration, then glowed a brilliant gold and began to enlarge. Jimmy scrambled away from her as she grew rapidly until she was the same size as a young woman, and the small cage was pushed to the ground as the pixie took up all the cot’s space. Everything about her was petite, even in her enlarged form. She had thin arms, a trim waist, slender legs, and her bright yellow hair looked windswept despite the room’s air being still.

Jimmy’s mouth hung open in shock, eyes large as dinner plates. “You just…Pixies can…What?!”

“I said don’t scream.” The pixie grimaced again, and for the first time, Jimmy noticed golden blood trickling out of the pixie, oozing from a wide rip along her dress. “Get a knife.”

Jimmy withdrew the pocketknife tucked into his vest. All this time he had been sitting on the beach trying to remember his family, and this pixie had been injured and suffering! She wasn’t going to ask him to put her out of her misery, was she?

She gestured weakly to the candle on Jimmy’s side table. “Get the blade hot. I need you to cauterize the wound.”

Jimmy’s panic grew. He had only experienced having a gash cauterized once—when he was much younger back in London—but he would never forget the searing pain. Now this pixie wanted him to perform the operation he could barely remember?

He couldn’t! He was only sixteen years old, or at least, he had been when he left with Peter. But…what other choice did he have? Who else would help the pixie if not him? He didn’t have the knowledge or experience to perform medical treatments! Jimmy held the blade into the flame and watched as the metal began to glow red hot.

“Give me your belt.” The pixie’s tone was demanding as sweat broke out on her forehead. Jimmy removed the leather strap and wordlessly handed it over. The pixie clamped her jaws around the belt then ordered through clenched teeth, “Do it.” She closed her eyes and turned away.

Jimmy gingerly folded back the ripped fabric to expose the injury, then took a deep breath to steady his hands. It was fortunate he had such a strong stomach. If Rob or Ozzy had been the ones to see all the blood and do this, they would be hunched over, heaving. This pixie needed Jimmy.

He gently pinched the separated skin together and pressed the long flat of a blade against the width of the wound. The pixie cried out, and glittering tears seeped from her eyes. Once the wound had sealed, Jimmy immediately withdrew the knife, revolted by what he had done.

“I’m sorry, so sorry!” Jimmy repeated. The pixie slammed her head backward, writhing in agony. Jimmy heard several quiet sobs escape from between the pixie’s pressed lips, and his stomach churned horribly. He placed a hand on her delicate shoulder, trying to express the extent of his remorse. The pixie’s gasps of pain had barely begun to slow when a rapid knocking assailed the quiet room.

“Jimmy Boy!” Peter Pan’s voice floated in from behind the locked door. “Everything okay in there?”

“Fine!” Jimmy was amazed at how calm and collected he sounded. “Just rehearsing for a new play is all!”

Peter’s easy laughter rang out, boisterous and lively as ever. “Sounds like fun! I look forward to it!”

It surprised him how easy it was to lie to his best friend. Jimmy heard Peter’s voice fade away without any accompanying footsteps. For the first time, Jimmy wondered how many pixies had to sacrifice their dust each day just to maintain his friend’s constant use of it in addition to what he drank. He spun to face the pixie, who was still sweating and trembling.

“Were you telling the truth? Does drinking the dust make us stay young forever?”

The pixie turned her head toward Jimmy and weakly lifted a solitary finger. “You tell me. Did you have facial hair when you stopped taking the dust?”

Jimmy slowly raised his hand and stroked the stubble on his chin. She was right. He was getting older.

“You stink too,” the pixie reported in a matter-of-fact voice. “Grown-up humans smell terrible.”

Jimmy raised an arm and sniffed. She was right again. How had he not noticed all these changes? He supposed that it happened so gradually that it was impossible to tell from one day to another, and none of the other Lost Boys had said anything.

“Do you have a name, pixie?”

The pixie wiped sweat from her forehead and placed her hand on her abdomen over the sealed wound. “Tinkerbell, but you can call me Tink,” she said through clenched teeth. “And you, Lost Boy? Do you have a name?”

“Jimmy. My name is Jimmy.” He hesitated, then asked, “Tink…do you know how long I’ve been here?”

The pixie’s brow furrowed. “In Earth time?” she counted on her fingers then flicked her eyes up to the ceiling as she thought hard. “Probably about two hundred years, but not nearly that long in Neverland time.”

Jimmy staggered back and sank to his knees as his chest constricted around his heart. Two hundred years? “But…my family…m-my mother…”

The pixie’s eyes softened with the first showing of compassion as she shook her head. “Humans don’t live very long, Jimmy. I’m sorry.”

Jimmy couldn’t catch his breath. All his family members were dead. Had they searched for him? Wondered where he had disappeared to for decades on end? When he’d left with Peter that night, Peter had assured him he would be able to come back whenever he wanted. In Jimmy’s mind, when he decided to return, he would arrive back during the same night from which he departed.

Up to this point, his life’s entire purpose had merely been to have endless fun, day in and day out. But now…now he had nothing to go back to when he was finished with his fun. What other option did he have? His entire future had been stolen from him.

How long had the other boys been here? Less time than he had, he knew that much. Did they still have the chance to return to their families and experience what he would never be able to?

He glared at the meddlesome pixie. Everything had been fine this morning! Now, this pixie had him questioning his future, his very existence! Could she be lying? What evidence was there, really, that he should trust her over his best friend? He clung to the shred of hope as if it was his only salvation.