Lost Girl

Taking Pan's Challenge

I won't lie to myself. He turned dark as the words of my fate pooled from his lips. Something inside of my told me not to go looking for the Lost Boy's camp. The cloud looming over the far end of the island strikes fear in me. Dead fairies. How did the fairies die? I suppose I assumed it was something tragic- an accident. But suddenly, I'm not so sure.
I stand alone, my feet sinking into the comfortable sand and my heart racing a million miles an hour. He didn't walk away, he vanished into thin air right before my eyes. Pan vanished.
I didn't travel here for nothing. This is the land of timelessness. This is the land of agelessness. I won't have it ruined. Pan is testing me.
I gather the skirt of my nightgown above my knees and decide to trend along the shore. There must be a way to know where the Lost Boy's camp is.
"Couldn't you have left me with a clue?" I sigh, knotting my nightgown up so I don't have to hold it.
My only choice is to begin walking. I have two days to cover ground.
The noises of Neverland, the scent of it's breeze, the way the water laps itself. All of it is strange. The noises are more like tinkling Crystal, small voices, even crying. None of it sounds like anything I've heard. The breeze carries scents of a foreign smell- not unpleasant, only unfamiliar. Perhaps a plant or an inhabitant I've never encountered. And the water, churning in inconsistent patterns. It doesn't simply flow up and down the shores; it travels side to side, even in circles around the island. One would be foolish to take a boat into these waters as the craft would be led astray in the confusing currents.
It feels like hours of walking. My legs grow tired for I am unaccustomed to long distance travel by foot. My hair soon tangles into black knots, tied by the wind. But I don't grow sleepy. I feel as wide awake as when I first arrived.
Tall trees of various shades of green surround me when I enter the forest. Glowing flowers tangle up the sides of the trees. Shining dew drops hang from the branches overhead. The moon casts dark shadows beneath wispy clusters of grass and ferns. I am not afraid. Perhaps back in London I would've been frightened to wander outside at night, but here I am not afraid, only curious to venture further inside.