[DISCONTINUED] I Believe

Chapter Four

It was kinda quiet for a minute. I sighed and flicked Jingle's bell again. He laughed and shook his head so the bell rang continuously, making me chuckle almost noiselessly. There were the small sounds of toys being constructed, but the people all seemed to be pondering over what I said. While they were distracted, I put Jingle on the floor and sat at an empty worktable. I took out my knife and splayed the fingers of my dominant right hand out on the wood surface. I started singing quietly, sticking the knife in the spaces between my fingers as I went. It was a song I sang all the time at home. I repeated the little chant over and over again. The knife moved faster and faster, never once touching my hand. It was a blur of old shiny metal, leaving scars in the table from the force of my playing. I had an idle smile on my face as I chanted.

It was relaxing, playing this little game. I did it all the time at home.

"Hey!" someone yelled, throwing off my concentration, or lack thereof. The knife lurched downwards in the wrong spot, embedding itself in the space just before my shortened finger. If it had been full-sized, it would have been pinned to the table with the knife or cut half-off.

I stared at the knife, then stifled a laugh and put it away, wrenching it out of the table without a second thought, small flakes of dried blood drifting down. I stashed it in my pocket wrapped in rags again.

"Yeah?" I answered absentmindedly, lifting my right hand to look for any scratches. If there was one, I lost. If there was none, I had to do another hand next time. I was up to 6,379 hands.

"What were-!" the shadowy figure started to say angrily, but I cut them off.

"Yes!" I jumped off the tall stool and landed on the ground, fist pumping once. "Beat my record!" I displayed my right hand proudly. "Not one scratch."

The figure, who claimed to be the Easter Bunny, facepalmed. I still couldn't see him right in this light.

"Oh," I said. "Sorry. Continue."

He did. "What were you doing?" But he didn't sound half as angry.

"I was playing a game." At their blank faces, I elaborated. "Just a game. I'm really good at it. Haven't even touched my hand in..." I counted on my fingers, giggling when I tapped my middle finger. "-five years of playing."

Jack tilted his head. "How do you play?"

I hopped back up in the stool, planting my hand again. I pulled out my knife and held it poised above my hand. "You see, you sing this song and go like this-" I lightly tapped the space in between each finger with the point, slowly for demonstration. "-while you do it. It's fun. See?" I started singing and stabbing again, my hand moving very fast. Once I got the rhythm, I stopped singing and even looking, doing it instinctively. "It took me a long time to do it this fast. I recommend starting with a pencil." I pulled my hand away and kept reflexively stabbing the table, wiggling my fingers in front of them. "I started with a knife. I recommend something not sharp unless you want to lose a digit," I said in a sing-song voice.

I slipped my hand back and kept playing. "A lot of kids are playing it. Not everyone is as good as me. I know kids with no fingers," I said, my voice tempting.

Their uneasy smiles had become fixed. "That's... nice."

I smiled innocently, still playing. "I know. Most parents don't like their kids playing, but it's my favorite game ever."

Jack raised his eyebrows. "What games have you played?"

I thought back over twenty nine years. "Clean the Dishes Already You Lazy Brat, Touch That Again And I'll Beat the Crap Out of You, Stay Locked in My Room All Day, Why Didn't We Sell You While You Were Still Cute, I Dare You to Jump Off the Mast, Tease the Crocodile, that sort of thing. You know them?" I brushed my hair over my shoulder and let the knife stay in the table, purposely sticking it directly where the tip of my middle finger would have been if it wasn't cut off. I left it quivering in the wood as I got off the stool and picked up Jingle, nestling him on my hip. I sheathed the knife and slid it into my belt again, yanking it out of the wood with a great deal of force. "What games do you play? Those are boring now. I've been playing them for tw- long enough." I almost slipped and said 'twenty nine years'. Thankfully, I occasionally have a half-working filter so I don't always go rambling on about something random or that I shouldn't talk about.

"Have you ever played with dolls?"

"Ever gone on a scavenger hunt?"

"Brushed your teeth?"

"Had a snowball fight?"

They all spoke at the same time. I sorted through what they said and pinned down who said what. "I never played with dolls, I've been on maybe one scavenger hunt ten years ago, of course I brush my teeth you just saw them, and what's a snowball fight?" Yes, I brush my teeth, when I get the opportunity, don't look at me like that. But I didn't for seven years, and they don't really need to be brushed as often since then.

Jingle climbed up my arm and sat on my shoulder, holding on by my hair. I automatically reached up to steady him with my bad arm, the one with the hurt shoulder blade. I swore I heard the bandages start to peel away, and I moved my arm back down to clasp my hands behind my back.

They all looked a bit confused. "What was your childhood like?" Tooth asked gently.

I shrugged amiably. "Meh. Nothing special." My back and arms itched and my fingers twitched with the need to scratch them.

"It's all right if you don't feel comfortable telling us." She acted as if she knew. Tooth laid a hand on my shoulder and I held back a hiss. "Let's just figure this out."

"What's the problem?" I asked, my voice almost crisp. Pain was keeping me serious, though I was doing my best to ignore it.

"Your light on the Globe was green, for some reason. We've never seen anything like it," Santa, no, North, explained. Suddenly Jingle was gone from my arms. There was a bell noise and Jingle was being shaken about in the air by an invisible hand, a terrified expression on his face. I snatched him back and soothed him, sending a tiny glare in the direction of the invisible thing that shook my little friend.

Jack, Tooth, the Easter Bunny, who I'm just going to call Bunny, and North all turned to the place where Jingle was being shaken and then to a hole in the ceiling, just above the Globe. It wasn't really a hole, just a giant skylight. "Thanks Sandy," Jack said, as if talking to a person.

I looked at him, my eyebrow quirked. "Who are you talking to? I'm starting to think not only am I legitimately crazy, but the figments of my imagination are too."

Jack looked stricken. "So you really can't see him..."

"Can't see who?"

He opened his mouth, but at an invisible sign closed it and shook his head, muttering If you're sure. "No one. It's nothing." I fixed a glare on him, making him squirm uncomfortably, but I turned and looked where everyone else was looking. Through a hole in the ceiling, the moon was showing. Funny thing was, it was broad daylight, and the moon was almost twice as large as normal. Kind of like the way it was when I first got to Neverland and I told it to shut up. And the way it shone through the holes in the giant skull-shaped rock sticking out in the bay. It made me uncomfortable, as if it remembered me, so I backed out of the light, where I could no longer see it. It creeped me out.

The pool of moonlight on the floor grew bright and then a shadow appeared in front of it, of a boy with a sparkly dot next to him and surrounded by glitter. Peter! I nearly yelled, but I bit down on my shortened finger to keep quiet. Then a cannon was pictured, and tanks, and armies. Peter floated over one side, Jack over the other.

North looked concerned and excited. "We go to war?"

The moon glowed brighter in response and zoomed in on Peter again.

"With Peter Pan?" Tooth asked anxiously. "He exists?" I almost snapped at her, but I managed to calm down.

"No good upstart, kidnapping children..." the Easter Bunny grumbled, making me want to slap him as the comments became more and more insulting.

Jack just looked confused, so at the moment he was my least-hated immortal here. "Wait, what? Peter Pan is an immortal? How come I've never heard of him?"

"He's a character from children's storybooks," I said quietly. "I know all the stories. He takes boys to his island and they play games to the death with pirates. He wanted to take my brother, and he wouldn't take me since I was a girl, so he left when I wouldn't let go of my brother. He's really bossy and Tinker Bell was mean."

.

[DISCONTINUED TEMPORARILY]
[UNFINISHED]
[UNEDITED]
[IDEAS WELCOME]