Afraid for the wave-battered body, Gwen ran faster and tried to determine whether it was a shipwrecked adult or or tuckered out child. She couldn't tell if it was a friend or enemy. As she neared, she realized the body was not face down in the sand, but propped up on its elbows, keeping its face out of the water that lapped at the rest of it. As soon as Gwen realized the half-surfaced body was conscious and alive she called out, “Hey! Are you okay?”
With a sudden, almost frightened jerk, the mermaid lifted her head higher and threw her long hair out of her face. Panting and barely supported on her arms, she laid in the water, stripped of her breath, maybe even stripped of her strength. Gwen stopped and stared, too overcome to believe her eyes.
Her wet, blond locks streaming with water, Lasiandra saw her and called out, “Gwen?”
Chapter 27
“Lasiandra!” Gwen called back. She started running toward the water. She felt a terror gripping her, like at any moment the tides would change and sweep exhausted Lasiandra away. It had been so long since she'd seen her friend, and they had parted under such anxious circumstances, but Lasiandra wasn't going anywhere now. Propping herself up in the shallow water, she tried to catch her breath. Her tail didn't even have the energy to flex and splash up.
Gwen stopped in her tracks. Lasiandra was not smiling. The haunting sensation that Lasiandra would be swept away transformed into a more nebulous fear. Gwen didn't know what she feared, but she sensed something was very wrong.
“What happened to you? Are you alright?” she called.
“I'm fine,” Lasiandra replied, “just a little winded. It was a long swim here.”
“Did you and Jay make it out of the lake alright?”
“Yes, but of course,” Lasiandra answered, water still dripping from her hair. “He's fine. I promised you I'd keep him safe and get him home, Gwen.”
Lasiandra was as good as her word. This had always been true, but everything Starkey had said about mermaids twisted in Gwen's mind and filled her thoughts with wordless worries.
“Come over here and give me a hand,” she instructed.
“What's going on? Where have you been?”
“I can explain everything,” Lasiandra said. “Come over, Gwen. We haven't much time.”
She wanted Gwen to give her a hand—with what? They didn't have much time, but time for what?
“Do you still have the skyglass?” Gwen asked.
“No,” Lasiandra answered. “It has done its work, and I know what I need of the stars' backward secrets. We're all going to have what we want now: you, me, Jay… all of us. Come over and help me!”
Still, Gwen hesitated. She might not have trusted immature Peter or callous Piper, but she had trusted Mr. Starkey as much as a teenager could trust an adult. Even he had warned her against the mermaids.
Lasiandra saw her reluctance, but her urgent expression did not leave room for her look hurt. “Gwen, for the stars' sake, come here. I'm not going to hurt you.”
Mermaids never lied. She saw no choice but to rush to her friend.
She ran over, and as she looked down at her friend she saw a satisfaction in her eyes that she did not recognize. She approached, charging into the shallow waters on her bare and sandy feet. Gwen started to form another question, but before she could, Lasiandra reached out. Not for her hand, but for her ankle.
With a sudden jerk, Lasiandra grabbed her foot and pulled her down. Screaming as she toppled over, Gwen smashed into the surf, hurting herself as she crashed down.
A mouthful of bitter saltwater tasted as bad as the ocean water felt against her open and aghast eyes. She reached out, groping in the dark silence of the water for Lasiandra. She could feel the sand beneath her, but it shifted and swayed with the tide. Gwen flailed in the water as she attempted to get back to her feet, or at least get her face back to air.
She surfaced, spitting the water—but not its taste—out of her mouth. Blinking back the burn of the saltwater in her eyes, she looked up and saw Lasiandra standing over her, the sun's shine blurring into the glow of her light hair.
“I'm sorry, Gwen,” Lasiandra told her. “You have no idea what you've set in motion and I don't have time to explain it.”
On legs as tall as her her tail had been long, Lasiandra stood over her and looked down at Gwen in the sandy surf as she had so often looked down at her. She took a step away, as if she had been walking away from things her whole life.
“Where are you going?” Gwen demanded.
She looked back. “To the Never Tree, Gwen. That's what we're here for. It's part of the deal. One last thing for them, before you and I get everything we want.”
Lasiandra walked away while Gwen wrestled her abject horror. Storming and splashing to her feet Gwen realized all at once what had happened. “You!” she shouted. “You brought them here?” The adults hadn't devised a way to navigate to Neverland without one of its native inhabitants leading them. They had never needed to.
Lasiandra stopped. Turning back to face Gwen, she gave her a weak smile. “I have made you promises, Gwen, and I stand by them all. The stars and I are going to give you everything you want, my friend, and manifest those hazy desires you have not yet realized and named in your own heart.” She spoke with confidence, yet had an apologetic melancholy in her expression, as if she know she was hurting Gwen and took no pleasure in it.
“I don't want this!” Gwen screamed. “How could you think I want you to destroy Neverland?”
She looked so collected, like a model in the sunlight. She stood triumphant in a short, dark diving suit as her wet hair curled past her shoulders. Gwen, disheveled and emotionally destroyed, felt hideously small in her sodden dress and
