Still feeling the effects of the magic repellent, Gwen was forced to travel on foot. Peter had been right—the white coats must have refined their formula for the black coats' ammo. Gwen couldn't even fly after the impact.
She kept her eyes peeled for shadows; it surprised her that she hadn't yet run into any. Where were they? If one had found her sprawled in the mushroom patch, it would have had no problem restraining her. Lacking a shadow of her own, Gwen felt even less prepared to confront one of those slippery, dark demons.
But the memory of the Anomalous Activity officers at Jay's party evoked another thought. The principle function of that shadowy emissary had been to find her. As soon as it had, the officer had come back for her himself. Gwen gasped as she realized the black coat's strategy. The shadows weren't coming for children. They were searching for the Never Tree. They could survey the island faster than anything inhibited by a body.
A thundering, animalistic noise startled Gwen. The resulting screams didn't disturb her—they were an appropriate response to the threatening sound. She froze and watched as two black coats came, running and screaming, as a gigantic grizzly bear pursued them.
The bear didn't frighten her. Everything that wasn't a black coat was on her side today. But since when are there grizzly bears in Neverland? she wondered.
She watched as the black coats ran straight into one of the pits the lost children had dug and covered up with leaves. The man and woman both screamed again as they fell. The foolish adults didn't think to shoot at it—the grizzly bear did not seem magical to them. The bear approached the pit and growled down at them, and Gwen made sense of the creature at last.
“Growling Bear!” she called.
The furry monster turned its head and growled, affectionately, at her. She ran to him and attempted to give him a hug—she flopped against his massive side with her arms spread wide. She didn't know why she felt such an affinity for this entity who she had seen crafted from clay the day before. They both fought for Neverland, though, and that made them comrades. “The shadows—they're searching the island for the Never Tree, I'm sure of it!” Gwen told him. “We've got to make sure they don't find it.”
Growling Bear deemed this pertinent information. He collapsed on the ground and nudged Gwen. It took a second of growling and nudging before he communicated his desire to have her climb onto his back. She was afraid of pulling his fur, but Growling Bear didn't object as she crawled onto his back and held tight to him. Pressing herself against his dark fur, she tried to imagine what his plan was as he began galloping through the forest.
Chapter 21
While riding Growling Bear, Gwen caught flashes of smaller battles. Redskins stalked through the woods and took prisoners in a variety of manners. It surprised her to see a black coat strapped to a post atop an ant-hill; she knew from experience that Neverland's ants never bit, only tickled. The poor solider laughed with hysterical frustration as the little purple ants crawled all over him.
Lost children flitted through the forest like fairies—still hiding for this battle, given their fragile nature. The black coats fruitlessly pursued the children through an alien world where they had no idea what was possible. The lost children had a home team advantage that extended all the way into the laws of physics which governed—or failed to govern—their island.
She only caught snippets of the chaos, until Growling Bear came to a halt. Gwen didn't know why he'd paused. The forest seemed calm and empty where he stopped.
“Growling Bear?” Tiger Lily asked. She and Storm Sounds emerged from behind the brush right in front of them. The creeping redskins could move so seamlessly through the wilderness! Gwen didn't know how Growling Bear had even spotted them.
They carried a post with a bound and gagged black coat hogtied to it. He had given up squirming for the most part—he seemed more flabbergasted than anything.
Tiger Lily and Storm Sounds dropped their captive. “Gwen!” the redskin princess exclaimed, delighted to see her friend peeking up at her over the furry back of the grizzly bear. “What news?”
“The adults have sent their shadow soldiers out into the jungle,” Gwen informed her, pointing to their shadow-less prisoner to prove her point. “I haven't seen any of them though.”
“Neither have I,” Tiger Lily agreed.
Growling Bear growled.
“I think they're looking for the Never Tree,” Gwen told her. “And I think shadows might be magical enough to find it easier than the soldiers themselves.”
Tiger Lily's troubled but alert expression told Gwen that she had pinpointed a problematic possibility. “What happened to your shadow?”
“It's a long story,” Gwen answered. “I lost it during the night with Piper.”
Tiger Lily nodded. “Growling Bear, can you take this white man to the pirates?” She pointed in the direction of the pirates' search and capture mission. “I need to find my father. He will be able to help hide the Never Tree from the shadows.”
She and Storms Sounds lifted the staff with the hogtied solider into Growling Bear's impressive mouth as Gwen slipped off him.
“Are you okay?” Tiger Lily asked, indulging the brief concern that the moment afforded them.
“Yeah. I think so,” Gwen answered. “One of the black coats shot me, but I think I might be able to fly again…”
She tried to lift off her feet. She managed to hover, and attributed her recovery to the confidence she gleaned from riding a magical grizzly bear through the woods.
“Stay safe,” Tiger Lily warned her. “I'll tell the Chief about the shadows.” She pulled her into a hug. Tiger Lily smelled of crisp leather and honeyed sweat, which suited her much better than the smell of laundry detergent and the
