Gwen proceeded through the forest with a cautious respect for all the surprises hidden in it. However, a watchful presence kept pace far enough behind her that she would not catch it spying on her. Her stalker didn't know she was heading for the Never Tree but, on the other hand, Gwen didn't know where the Never Tree was. She barreled forward with only the suspicion that if she headed toward the heart of the island, she would come close enough to find the children patrolling it.
The Never Tree, and Neverland itself, was a trickier beast than she gave it credit for. Several minutes into her trek, she stumbled onto an unintended destination and arrived at the grove.
Gwen could see her familiar home through the break in the trees. A handful of wildflowers dabbled the clean and grassy ground, and as she stepped into the open grove—where the sunlight spread like a canvass—she noticed the shadow slinking behind her.
More afraid of the slippery blackness than any actual soldier, Gwen let out an impulsive scream. She leapt into the field as if that would help her get away, but the shady thing could chase as fast as she fled.
Gwen's assumption that all the shadows on the island were searching for the Never Tree was swiftly dismantled as this shadow grabbed her foot. The hand felt as real and heavy as any physical hand, and brought her down as she tried to jerk out of its hold.
The only way to escape it was to escape surfaces, but the air would not give Gwen flight—it hardly gave her breath. She toppled down and could not push herself back up before the shadow swarmed over her. She couldn't tell if it was swaddling her like a blanket or pinning her to the ground like a wrestler. It put a hand over her mouth, as if to silence her, but blocking light did nothing to block the sound. Gwen shouted for help.
She couldn't imagine its endgame. Would it keep her down until a solider found her and took her into custody? Who knew how long that would take—or what the advantage would be unless its body was nearby and poised to collect her? When no one came, it confused Gwen almost as much as when the shadow started waving its free hand over her eyes. The sun flashed in and out of her vision, and the shadow continued to hold a hand over her mouth, even though this gesture achieved nothing.
The light flickering in and out of her eyes started to fade. The sky started to darken, and the shadow's motions became more frantic. Gwen didn't pay attention to the hostile shadow; she paid attention to how much lighter she felt as the light left the sky. In a few minutes' time, she slugged off the faint shadow and watched the weak thing shirk away. It continued to make gestures on the grassy floor of the meadow, but they grew too faint to see. Only then did Gwen suspect it might be trying to communicate with her.
On her feet and in control of her body again, Gwen turned to face the sun and saw it swallowed by an eclipse. The last of the sunlight vanished, and so did the meager shadow. As it did, it occurred to Gwen that the shadow seemed too small to belong to an armored black coat. Had someone else sent a shadow to her? Had someone been trying to send her a message?
Her questions went unanswered. The shade of the eclipse would consolidate and disorient all the shadows scouring Neverland. They would have no bright surfaces left to glide.
The alarmingly strange luck of an eclipse at this precise moment didn't confuse Gwen for long. She suspected that Tiger Lily had conferred with her father, and Chief Dark Sun had managed to interfere with the shadows himself.
An eclipse would only last so long. Gwen suspected she didn't have more than five minutes before the totality of the eclipse began to dissolve. The moon would push past the sun, and the shadows would become powerful and swift again.
She heard rustling in the brush behind her and felt her heart leap into her throat. She did not want to be found in an open field without any cover.
“Ahoy!” a gruff voice greeted her. Two flat-footed pirates came stomping out of the brush, their pistols drawn. “Heard you screaming, didn't we, lass?”
Gwen looked off and gestured, pointlessly, to the place where her attacker had disappeared. “One of the shadows surprised me.”
The taller of the two, with a beard as red and rough as coral, shoved his pistol away. He had a bright green glass eye that didn't match his natural green eye at all. Gwen wondered if he knew eye-patches were more traditional. Holstering his gun, he remarked, “Can't shoot a shadow.”
The smaller pirate switched his pistol for a rolled up map and examined it as he announced, “I'm Jimmy Sloat, and this here is Madman Mulligan.” He unrolled the map, and Gwen noticed Jimmy Sloat was missing a finger on his right hand. The scar on his hand ran halfway up his arm. She didn't want to know the story behind such a scar. “Captain told us to keep a lookout for you.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, Hoffman, ain't it?” he asked. “He said you'd surely get yourself stuck in trouble, running around the island with Pan's herd of pipsqueaks.”
Gwen resented Starkey's doubt. “Well you can tell him that I managed just fine on my own.”
“You got real lucky there with the weather,” Madman Mulligan grumbled, shielding his eyes as he looked at the eclipse.
Before Gwen could insist that it was an astronomical event, not a weather event, Jimmy Sloat barked, “You durn fool, that was redskin magic if I ever saw it.”
Madman Mulligan grumbled something else, and then asked, “Which way is we supposed to be heading?”
Gwen thought the pirates spoke very poorly, considering they belonged to the crew of a ship called the Grammarian.
Jimmy Sloat turned the map upside down, and then right side up again, with a cross expression that Gwen did not find encouraging.
“Do you know where them guttersnipes rigged their big trapping pit?” he asked. “This map don't give no point of reference for us to start at.”
“Yeah,” she answered, uncertainly. She had a healthy mistrust of pirates, the same as any lost child. “Follow me.”
For Gwen, the meadow served as a strong point of reference. She'd been with Rosemary and Twill while they had rigged the biggest of the leaf-covered holes just a few yards from the meadow's edge. With the pirates behind her, she cut across the meadow. While the men both had both their legs, Jimmy Sloat walked with a limp that kept him a pace behind at best, and scrambling to keep up at worst. Madman Mulligan carried a heavy, jangling bag that rattled as they walked through the cornflowers and past the lilac bushes.
Jimmy Sloat caught up once Gwen reentered the jungle and slowed down, careful not to fall into the trap herself. This was an unnecessary precaution—someone had already tripped the trap, and a team of three black coats bitterly occupied the bottom of the pit. Gwen felt bad for them, and hoped they hadn't hurt themselves when they toppled down together.
“Hey ho!” Jimmy Sloat chortled, looking down at them. “Had you a bit of a fall, did you?”
In response, the quickest draw of the three shot him in the face.
The magic-repellent splattered against Jimmy Sloat's face, covering it—hook nose, warts, and all—in blue gunk. Unamused, he smeared it off his face and drew his pistol. “You yellow-bellied, rat-faced, swine!” he yelled. “Do I look like a fairy to you? Pirates ain't magic, we's just here to capitalize on it—same as you ugly freebooters.”
To prove a point, he fired a booming shot from his wood-handled pistol. The iron ball, not as aerodynamic as modern bullets, struck the stony wall of the trap pit and carried little force as it ricochet into one of the men. He howled as it stung his arm, but one of his fellow soldiers picked it up and examined it with horrified curiosity.
“Now then,” Jimmy Sloat announced, as if continuing an eloquent discussion, “you've come a good long ways to be here today and we're going to schlep you a good long ways back. A most merciful fate, considering the atrocities you was intending to commit on this island. Why, such stuff's beneath even the most malicious of pirates! Ain't that right, Madman?”
“That's right, Jimmy,” Madman Mulligan answered, giving a single, solemn nod.
“So we's going to get you out of there and take you back to the ship with us—all with no fuss, eh boys?” He cocked his gun again. “And, in case you were wondering, that first shot was a warning shot. I'm the best shot this side of the Indian Ocean. Ain't that right, Madman?'
“That's right, Jimmy.”
The black coats, forced to surrender, reluctantly complied with Jimmy's demands. All the while they cursed the bad intelligence they had gotten regarding the pirate population of Neverland.
Gwen, meanwhile, was distracted by the sound of a man shouting a little ways off. It sounded like a heated, one-sided argument, and the odd rambling compelled her to investigate.