Nothing else moved in the jungle, only the splotch of darkness that recoiled from the light. Fleeing over the surface of tree trunks, shrub branches, and ground covers, the black coat's shadow could almost outrun the penetrating light, but not quite. Gwen kept it on the shadow, and saw how the flashlight's ray began to eat at the dark of the shadow. Where the light assaulted it, the shadow's hue became grayer—its darkness wounded.
The shadow only dodged the light until it found an opportunity to go on the offensive again. Running circles around Gwen, darting and zigzagging, it forced her to follow until it made a sudden shift in direction and pounced for her.
Gwen saw it coming and jumped into the air, but her flight did not catch her. She came back down, and into the shadow's grip. It yanked her off her feet, but Gwen resisted the urge to break her fall. She held tight to her flashlight as she went down, despite the creature's efforts to knock it away. Her head spun, dizzy and hurt, but she turned the beam on the shadow and fried it at close range.
She watched the shade convulse as she held the light on the center of its chest. Debilitated by the beam, the shadow couldn't escape, and Gwen watched as the light burned a hole through the magical entity. It looked like a normal shadow now—one that disappeared when light shined on it.
Breaking free, it fled from Gwen as fast and far as it could go. She didn't even need to chase it off with the light beam. It escaped with a hole over its heart, and she almost pitied the little shadow. She wondered if the adults had any means of mending shadows, or if some black coat would go through the rest of his life with a hole in his shadow.
Her heart pounding from the encounter, Gwen kept it beating fast as she began sprinting for the shore. That diversion had taken more time than she wanted to waste. Where was Peter, and was he as worried about her as she was about him? Had he found and raided one of the aviator's packages for flashlights, or would he be susceptible to shadow attacks until Gwen gave him her spare? Fortunately, beating a shadow had given her a sense of confidence and fantastical capacity, so Gwen rode more than an adrenaline rush as she lifted into the air and zipped through the jungle, fast enough to make any fairy proud.
She hurried along, only stopping when she saw something small and white bounding through the underbrush and heard a heavy-footed black coat in pursuit. Rising into the tree branches, Gwen hid above the officer's line of sight. From her static position in the trees, she identified the the tiny white creature as a simple rabbit—albeit dressed in a tartan waistcoat.
“Oh dear! Oh dear! I'm late, I'm late!” the rabbit's shrill voice exclaimed. “This is quite the wrong time to be arriving!”
“Come back here!” the officer barked, failing to catch up with the rabbit. The small animal seemed spring-loaded. “Stop!” He fired several shots at the furry white rabbit, but could not hit such a tiny and fast target.
“Oh my ears and whiskers—this is not good!”
Gwen stayed perched on her bough and watched as they both passed underneath her, neither catching sight of her.
The white rabbit dodged several more bullets, competently avoiding trouble, despite the black coat's persistence.
“Freeze!” the solider yelled.
With a deep shudder, the rabbit declared, “Mackerels and mercy, it's cold!” but kept running. The officer was not amused, and continued to waste his ammo chasing a rabbit that could not be caught.
Once they had passed, Gwen dove out of the tree and resumed her course, nearly to the shore. Soon enough she saw the glow of yellow sand peaking through the jungle. Her course had been off only slightly. She did not arrive at the cliffside, but further nouth. She passed the last of the trees and felt as soft dirt transitioned into gritty, loose sand under her feet. Climbing over fallen trees and ancient driftwood that had washed up to the forest's edge in long ago monsoons, Gwen scanned the shoreline to make sense of where she was along it. This side of the island had ample landing places, and a naval raft on the shore proved that at least some of the soldiers and shadows in the jungle had come from this beach.
In the distance, she saw one of the two smaller ships in battle with the Grammarian. The pirate ship, smaller than adult's naval forces, still held its ground with mighty capability. Starkey knew Neverland's waters and tides better than any do-gooder adult could, and what his ship lacked in size it compensated for with swiftness and cannons. The adults' other small ship, half-submerged in the sea, was already as good as sunk.
A cannon exploded, its boom dizzying even from half a mile away. Gwen saw no sign of Peter anywhere along the beach, but the coastline here wove and wound in such a way that she couldn't see a thousand feet further nouth. She wished she had emerged on the cliffside and gotten a better view, but did not dwell on this thought.
Forming a revised plan as she began to fly along the rocky shore, she decided she would run the length of the serpentine beach for a few minutes before she called Rosemary again. If Peter wasn't on the beach, she had to assume he would return to the Never Tree with whatever information his reconnaissance mission had provided. She flew where the rocks made running impractical, but as the sharp, hard shore gave way to wet sand she started running. Her flight felt shakier every moment that passed without sight of Peter. As she ran the length of the beach searching for him, something else entered her sight.
Someone was lying in
