“Yes,” she said, “but mostly you, Lyric.”
“No pressure,” Skye mumbled.
I was feeling all the pressure. I was a demigod who didn’t know how to use my powers, tasked with saving my home and then the world. And I was staring at a quest that my friends had already started and could perish from unless I somehow passed.
Why couldn’t they have waited? We could have talked about this more, maybe found a way around taking more chances with our lives. I shook my head. No, I had to stay strong. The Nixies had protected us through the night and healed me. The woman before me, though unsettling in appearance, didn’t appear unsettled by the fact that Hook and whoever else the Enchantress had gathered to her side would have fewer people to stand in their way if we failed. If I trusted these powerful creatures and they trusted me, could I trust that meant everything would be all right?
“Don’t overthink it, child.” Her brows knitted delicately, and for the moment, she appeared less monstrous. “You may enter the temple when you are ready, but realize the longer you wait, the longer your friends must face their demons.”
She had said nothing about demons. Skye stiffened, shifting uncomfortably. We looked at each other, and worry darkened his blue gaze, but he didn’t press me. He only nodded, offering his support.
I leaned on that, took a deep breath, and nodded, standing. “Let’s get this over with…”
“You mean to say you are ready?”
“As I’ll ever be…”
She laughed again, but this time other voices joined in her mirth. They pooled together until the sound was akin to the rush of a waterfall. “That is simply not true, but you are on your way. You have all you need, and that will be enough.” She extended a webbed hand toward the temple entrance, and I squinted against the sun at the pit of darkness she expected me to enter.
It was not a gradual descent into the pitch. I stepped forward, stopping before the wall, and lifted my hand. It disappeared into the blackness, and my breath held. The second I entered fully, I wouldn’t be able to turn back.
“We’ve done this before,” Skye murmured near my ear, but his hold on my hair tightened.
“You have to promise not to leave me like last time.”
He stayed silent a moment, and my heart pounded with every second he delayed. At last, he whispered, “If the Nixies are hinting at what I suspect, I don’t believe I’ll have a choice. However, for as long as I can, I’ll stay with you.”
That was as good as I was going to get. Glancing back at the Nixies one last time, I met the woman’s glowing eyes, shoved down a shiver, and stepped into the temple. A blinding light consumed me whole.
Night curled around me in an unusual way. Like I was a part of it. I stood firmly, but my feet were not visibly on the ground. I checked for Skye and found him still perched on my shoulder. His tiny presence calmed me enough to take in the rest of the dream-like surroundings.
Home. It was home. Peter’s tree stretched before me in the forest, the same limbs and plateau I had grown up in yawning into the sky. Pixies darted around like they didn’t see me at all, like this was a normal night for them. I swallowed, waiting for the twist, the moment when everything changed, the moment when what I loved disappeared before me, and then an impossible task presented itself.
That hadn’t happened in the first temple. But that temple hadn’t ripped me away into a vision the second I stepped inside either.
Everything stopped. The pixies halted as one and peered at each other with wide eyes. Their voices were questioning, but my ears only picked up bells. “Do you understand them?” I asked Skye.
“Understand who?” His brows lowered.
“The—” My heart skipped. A baby. The soft wails of a child cut through the trees, and from the corner of my eye, a form appeared garbed in a cloak. My heart rate picked up when I caught a snatch of orange hair peeking out of the bundle in the woman’s arms. Me. That was me. And if that was me, and this was here, then…
Desperate for a glance of my mother, I tried to fight through whatever held my feet on a solid plane, but my body remained suspended in the air, feet firmly planted against the barrier.
“Lyric,”—Skye’s voice pitched—“what is it? What’s going on?”
“It’s my mother and me and my home. You can’t see it?”
“I’m seeing something completely different,” he replied but didn’t elaborate. Only a touch of anxiety tainted his tone, but he gripped my hair tighter, and his heels pressed into my shoulder.
Any question I was going to ask Skye died when the woman lifted her hand and knocked on the tree. Every second waiting was torture. This was the moment she left me, abandoned me, decided I wasn’t worth keeping, and that a twelve-year-old would be good enough to raise me.
Who was she? How dare she?
Peter peeked out of the secret entrance and lifted a brow. His eyes narrowed, and something inaudible mumbled past his lips.
I hoped, and I prayed that the woman would hesitate, kiss my cheek, show that she didn’t want to give me up, but when Peter stopped speaking, she held me away from her body without reservation. He floated over me, disgust scrunching his nose. The woman, my mother, said something, and his eyes widened. His head shook. He reeled back.
By now, the other lost boys were fighting at the secret entrance for a glimpse of what was going on. My eyes were filled with tears.
Peter looked horrified when the woman urged him to take me. His head shook again, and his arms folded. Tinkerbell zipped out of his hat, hovered over me, and then laughed, disregarding me. Both of them nodded their dismissal and turned to leave.
A tear fell, a sob wracking my chest, and I covered my mouth.
“Hey, Lyric, what’s going on over there?” Skye asked.
This had to be a lie, I reasoned. Peter had taken me. This was just a matter of the temple getting into my head. Nothing more. Peter would walk away here, and I’d have to confirm it was a lie. What a simple, insipid little test. “I’m fine,” I choked. “It’s stupid. Are you okay?”
“Well enough,” he mumbled, and even I could hear the lie amidst my clogged head, but neither of us addressed it further.
I waited for the scene to end. It didn’t. Peter’s retreat stopped, and he looked over his shoulder, listening to unheard words my mother spoke. His eyes narrowed, but he faced her again, peering at me. I continued to cry, both presently and in the scene.
Peter stuck his finger in his ear and toyed with whatever she had said. When she offered me to him again, he sighed, glanced at the Lost Boys, then took me into his arms. A tiny frown marred his lips, and he held me like I was something filthy, but my gold-rimmed eyes opened, the deep brown meeting his, and the expression drifted away into something of surprise.
Baby me sniffed, and my wails ceased when Peter poked my forehead.
A deep sigh filled his chest like I was a burden he couldn’t care less about, but he said some final thing to my mother, then turned back toward home. She turned away as well, and I watched her, waiting.
She didn’t so much as slouch.
