Page 32 of Lost Starlight
I grunted. Pixies were very difficult to speak with, for they moved and flitted around and repeated themselves, irritatingly.
“Peter! Peter!” they chimed.
“I get it, you know my name. How long is my sentence here?” I asked as they moved around me.
“Forever!”
“Forever?! No, no, I will stay for a while, but I have to go home.” Fear pulsed through me. I would not–could not remain on that dreadful Island.
“Till the task is complete, Debt repaid!”
“Okay, what is my task?” Relief flooded through me.
As I looked around and the fear of never seeing my family and Gwen again overtook me, the pixies pushed me forward and sideways until I was walking behind the waterfall, the one Gwen had emerged from the last time I was there. We walked through a glowing cavern, piled high with golden gems. As we took a left turn, I saw piles of dust, and what looked like a fountain of that goldendust falling like water from the side of one wall. Looking around, I noticed that some of the pixies didn’t glow at all, not until they dipped themselves under the falling dust.
“What is this?”
“Dust! Dust! Dust!”
“What?” I said, pausing to observe the scene before me. “I see it is dust, but—” I watched how the pixies who doused themselves in the dust flew about.
“Pixie dust! Pixie dust!” they chanted. “Fly! Fly fly!" they sang.
They led me to another branch of the cave, filled with golden gems—gems that small pixies were cutting and shaving down, creating the dust.
They make pixie dust from gems?
Finally, we moved from the caverns and walked to another side of the island. There was a dirt path, which led us to a small grove and a rather nice-looking campsite. There were only a handful of home-like structures there, but they all appeared to be well cared for.
“Peter is here! Peter is here!” the pixies chimed, moving around me.
I looked to see small movements from within the trees.
There were ten boys, of all different ages and sizes. The eldest didn’t look to be more than twelve. The youngest looked to be about six. I thought we had taken all the children away from there. Had they collected more? Was it a different group? Gwen told me that the stolen childrenlived in squalor. Those children looked organized. Their faces were smudged with dirt, yet their clothes seemed well-kept, for the most part. They even appeared well-fed. They did not appear to be living like the children I had saved with Gwen.
“Who?” one little boy with light blond hair asked me, looking up.
“My name is Peter. How long have you all been here?”
“I’m Stone,” a taller boy said, “and we don’t know. Time is different here.” He had wavy light brown hair and stood more confidently than the rest as he was the eldest; I could see it in his eyes.
“I do not know why the pixies took you, but I will help you,” I said.
“No. Neverland is our home,” a blond boy beside Stone said.
“Neverland?”
“Yes, this is Neverland. It’s part of Pixie Isle, officially, but unofficially, we named this area,” a larger boy said, who had a kind face and big brown eyes. “That’s Leaf.” He pointed to the blond boy. “I am Bear. Welcome. Are you here to help us defeat Captain Hook and save the pixie?”
“Who is Captain Hook?”
“A blasted pirate,” Leaf snarled.
“He stole some of our own people,” Stone said.
“Some of your–”
“Boys. We call ourselves the lost boys,” one boy said, wearing all black with black hair and a small dagger, hanging at his side.
