Page 14 of The Last Lost Girl

Not convinced I did…

I’m sprawled on my back. For several long breaths, I try my best to garner enough strength to raise my head out of the gently surging tide and look around when I see Belle approach. She hovers over me for a moment with eyes far from golden and tilts her head as if she recognizes me but isn’t sure of it. Palm fronds nosily peek over her shoulder, reminding me of Mrs. Jennings.

“Belle?” I rasp, trying to draw her out of the shadow world and back to me.

It doesn’t work. She blinks once, twice, then flies away into the copse of palms that, like jagged teeth, lead into the island’s gaping maw.

And as if karma can’t help but add insult to my injury, from my supine position, the glittering Second Star and its dimmer twin are the only things I see.

It takes longer than I’d like to admit, but eventually, and after letting out a few incredibly long, frustrated groans just in case she remained close enough to hear me, I come to terms with the fact that Belle isn’t coming back and slowly sit up. Every inch of my body is sore and I’m hard-pressed to diagnose what part is sorest. Definitely my heart, I decide, but my head, back, and bottom vie for second place.

I look toward the island’s shadowed foliage a few sandy yards away and decide to go after her. What other choice do I have at this point?

A swish of water makes me lift my neck. It was probably just a fish, I tell myself. I hope there aren’t kraken suckering the shores of Neverland. But then, scant movement in the water draws my eye. I tense, then curse when my ribs ache from the motion. If Belle is a fairy, maybe there are other fae creatures in the water. What are those waterborne, terrifying, mythological horse-like creatures called? Kelpie?

I don’t remember reading about them in the Peter Pan story, but Belle said the whole damn thing is a lie and I trust my sister. Besides that, my instincts scream that something out there wants to eat me.

The moon and Second Star cast their light upon the water where the bright red reflection of a pair of watchful eyes flashes – eyes far too watchful to be friendly. From them, a long, bumpy snout stretches toward me. The knobs and ridges of the crocodile’s back emerge next, and its tail begins to work back and forth, pushing the enormous monster closer to shore – to me.

Hard. Pass.

I roll over and push up to my knees, then stand. A sharp pain spikes through my ankle when I put weight on it, but I possess too much self-preservation to care. The ankle pain is a problem for Later Ava. Not Now Ava. The crocodile enters the shallows and as more and more of his massive body emerges, the only thing I want to do is run into the trees.

Did Belle see him? If she did and left me to the beast like a little human snack, I’m gonna kill her.

As I hop away from the shore, every creature movie I’ve ever seen flashes through my mind and I check behind me to make sure this isn’t a Jurassic Park velociraptor-style attack where the croc I see is herding me toward his hidden, hungry friends.

Never before have I been hunted as prey, I tell myself, limping into the dark jungle. But if I’m being honest with myself, this sensation – this fear – feels too familiar.

The broad leaves of a lush plant brush my arms as I push into the dense undergrowth, past the skeletal palm trunks fencing the shoreline. The island is eerily quiet. As if it’s alive and it isn’t sure what I am or what I’m doing within its lush boundary. The only sounds come from my terrified breaths and the dried leaves crunching under my feet.

Belle’s favorite phrase echoes in my mind: You don’t belong here.

Something overhead lets out a shriek that makes it feel like my soul momentarily leaves my body. So terrible, I stop and seriously consider doubling back and taking my chances with the crocodile.

When I find a tree with branches the size of trunks that sweep the ground and twist back up into the canopy, I climb one of them and gingerly wedge myself against the trunk, Katniss Everdeen style. I draw my leg up against my chest and wince when I touch my swollen ankle, wishing I had a Haymitch to find someone to sponsor me. I can almost hear the beeping of the little parachute delivering a splint and ibuprofen.

When my phone falls out of my pocket and lands with a dull thud somewhere beneath me, I groan wearily. That the device wasn’t obliterated from my heavy landing is a miracle. The screen doesn’t light up, although I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad one. I can’t climb down right now to retrieve it. I will in a few minutes, I vow. After I take time to rest and think.

Thinking is good…

Belle never described Neverland, so my over-active imagination begins filling in all the horrific blanks as I close my eyes and lean my head back against the tree, despite the soreness in the back of my skull. A million terrifying possibilities flit through my head.

Hand-sized spiders. The Princess Bride-esque rodents of unusual size. Skin-burrowing beetles à la The Mummy (with Brendan Fraser, of course). Leeches. Snakes. Killer bees. Piranha. Quicksand. Mudslides. Volcanic eruptions. Cursed pirates. Creepy little Peter Pan and his friends, the Lost Boys. If the story is right and they see me, they might assume I’m their mother, and I have no time to play games or waste time pretending to be what their underdeveloped brains think they need.

I’m not a therapist or a hero, which is what they actually need.

My back aches in this position, so I try to scoot back and sit up a little higher. But moving hurts literally everything and is made even harder by my soaking wet and incredibly uncomfortable clothes, socks, and shoes.

I know I’m having a pity party for one and I’m smack-dab in the middle of an existential crisis, but therapy and a hero must be what I need now, because I can’t stop the fearful thoughts from coming. One after another, they march in like a macabre parade at which I am the only spectator.

With my ankle incapacitated like this, how can I possibly walk this island to find Belle? Besides that, where do I even look? I’ve seen Naked and Afraid, but my beige flag is believing I might actually be able to survive on a show like that. Beyond my injury, there’s also the problem of finding food and water that won’t give me dysentery on the Neverland Trail.

I’m sure I’ll find some sort of poisonous berries and assume that because they look like raspberries from back home, they’re perfectly fine to eat, or waste my hours trying to spear a fish when there’s no way on this beautiful earth that I’ve ever possessed the reflexes necessary to accomplish that. I’ll probably die of dehydration and starvation, so why shouldn’t I throw humiliation into the mix?

The morbid festivities in my whirring brain abruptly end when I hear footsteps on the ground just beneath me. I hold my breath and try so hard not to move that my thighs begin to tremble from the exertion.

Heart in my throat, I lean out to see what – or who – is nearby. It’s not my sister, as I hoped. In fact, I’d be less afraid if it was the hungry crocodile.

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