The next day—or the day after, Gwen couldn't know for certain—the lost children had to catch up on chores. Only so much time could be spent making bracelets and capturing flags. The children needed to wash dishes and swim in the river, sweep dirt out of their tunnels and discover new passageways, and tidy until they had rediscovered all their favorite toys and more.
Rosemary volunteered for scouting duty. Then she volunteered Twill and Gwen for scouting duty, too. “You'll like the Never Bird!” she told Twill. “You haven't even met her yet!”
So the three of them floated up the steep trail to the mountainous peak of the island with two fairies, Bracken and Thistle, for company. Fairies from all over the island adored Rosemary and orbited her like happy satellites, drawn in part by their awe of Twill. Rumors spread quickly among chattering fairies, and they knew Twill was the son of the infamous pirate Starkey, one of only two nefarious pirates who had survived Peter's final battle with Captain Hook.
Fairies lived short lives, but the saga of Peter Pan and Captain Hook had survived even more generations of fairies than it had humans. It was second only to the oldest story, the story of when fairies still manipulated the little lives of humans everywhere in the world. Few fairies were left anywhere but Neverland, and they resided far away. Twill, the pirate boy, picked pebbles off the path with his dark and monkey-bar callused hands. Not older than nine, he had dirt under all his fingernails and grass stains on all his joints.
“Do you think Neverland ever gets monsoons?” he asked, staring at the peaceful sky.
“What's a monsoon?” Rosemary asked. “You mean one of those little wiener dog cats?”
“No…”
It took Gwen a moment of visualization before she wrapped her mind around Rosemary's statement. “You're thinking of a mongoose.”
“Oh.”
“A monsoon is a really rainy, windy storm,” Twill informed her. “Lots of tropical islands get them.”
“That sounds like fun!” Rosemary declared, her whole smile lighting up, save for her one missing tooth. “We should ask Peter to get us one. I bet he would. It'd be fun to fly in a monsoon.”
Bracken and Thistle begged to differ.
As they arrived at the top of the mountain, the children returned to their feet. Rosemary took Twill's hand and they ran to the Never Bird, who already cawed in a bitter mood. Bracken and his twinkling red light followed after. Thistle, tired after the long flight up, nestled herself on Gwen's shoulder to catch her breath and recharge her pink glow.
Rosemary and Twill confronted the noisy, nesting Never Bird. The dowdy old creature had warmed up to Gwen a little, but not much, so she had no interest in seeing the bird when it was squawking up such a noisy storm of upset.
The older Hoffman sister took a moment to admire the panoramic view she had of the island. She wondered if anyone old enough to know the word panoramic had ever seen it. The moment would have been very pleasant, if not for the Never Bird's ceaseless fussing.
The sky stretched over everything, beautiful and incorruptible. The sea, just as blue, was almost as uninterrupted.
Gwen squinted at the small shape, far off and perched on the precipice of the horizon. She pawed her hand in her satchel, never taking her eyes off the ocean, as if she thought so much as a blink might erase it.
The Never Bird continued to caw in distress, her warnings untranslatable.
Had the view been a photograph, she would have dismissed the speck as nothing more than a minor imperfection in the film. But she was not looking at a photograph. Gwen found the spyglass in her purse and expanded it. Once the telescope magnified it, Gwen knew there was no mistaking the naval ship.