“Look, over there!” A fellow new arrival exclaims, tugging on the younger cousin’s arm.
She turns around, struggling to keep her balance without the ground, then pushes up her glasses, and squints.
In the distance, a small floating island comes into focus.
It was a curious thing, unmistakably covered in forest and greenery. At its center stood a giant banyan tree with vines webbed and entwined as they cascaded down into what appeared to be a river beneath.
“Huh,” the younger cousin murmurs, transfixed by the oddity, “I wonder what it’s made of.”
Her fellow new arrival glances at her then back at it. “I wonder if its dangerous.”
Suddenly, fear crowds out curiosity and the two new acquaintances decide very quickly, they need somewhere to hide.
They looked around at their surroundings, but everything was too far or too unfamiliar to give comfort. As they search, the island disappears behind the clouds and reappears in front of them.
“Who are you?” A voice calls out.
The girls exchange glances, not knowing if they could, and if they should, how to answer.
“Did Piper bring you here?” the voice continues.
“Whoever they are, they know Piper,” the new acquaintance whispers assuredly.
“Okay, but do we know Piper?” the younger cousin retorts, pulling the girl back and holding on to her tighter. “Let’s…inquire.”
“It depends,” she shouts back, “where’s here?…and whose Piper?”
“And do you like her?” The new acquaintance adds.
The voice laughs, but it’s quickly drowned out by the wind wooshing past them, once, twice, and once again, only stopping to reveal… a person?
Yes, a girl, with a sharp glint in her eyes and a smirk on her lips. She wore the strangest pairs of goggles around her neck and an equally odd aviator cap on her head. Her face expressive and animated, her hands fluid with excitement as she signs.
The two new arrivals look at each other confused then back at the fast flying girl, who frowns, rolls her eyes, and let out a sigh.
“You have to imagine,” the voice yells up from the strange platform jutting out from amongst the island’s forestry.
“Imagine?” the younger cousin calls down.
The girl with the goggles shakes her head and motions for them to follow instead.
The two hesitate, but having nowhere else to go and reason not to trust them, they clumsily descend onto the soft grass of the floating island’s surface.
“This can’t be real.” The younger cousin decides. For the island was breathtakingly vibrant up close. The forest swayed with colorful plants, ripe delicious fruits, and trees so vivid it seemed like they were laughing. The river water, an alluringly clear blue frothed lightly with foaming bubbles before pouring over the island’s edge.
And if she listened, she could hear the island’s gears, quietly clicking in the background, harmonizing with the hum of the river and the strange fantastical sounds of creatures atop the island.
As she sat in awe of her surroundings, another girl drops down from the strange platform above them. She had a grounded gait, and a presence that was steady, yet oddly light weight.
The fast flying girl began to sign again, and the two new arrivals furrowed their brows in confusion.
“You have to imagine,” the girl repeats with the same tone of the one who’d called out to them.
“Imagine that you can understand, even if you don’t. How do you think you’ve understood each other…or me, or anything else?”
And as she said it, as if by magic or some trick, the girl’s words morphed into a melody of sounds, that the younger cousin had never heard and could not grasp. She looks over at her fellow new arrival, whose words once clear now cluttered and jumbled together in her ears.
“No, no, no don’t think of what you can’t do, what kind of adventure is that?” the girl with a grounded gait chides. She points back at the other new arrival who had closed her eyes, furrowed her brow and seemed to be thinking very hard before opening them again.
She looks at the girl with the goggles around her neck, who smiles back at her and signs. The younger cousin watches as the other girl’s eyes widen with delight, before she lifts her hands and stumbles through an answer.
Not wanting to be left behind, the younger cousin closes her eyes and tries to imagine.
If she can do it, I can do it too. She decides, before opening her eyes again.
The fast flying girl stands in front of her and grins. ”I’m Avit, short for Aviator, it’s very nice to meet you.”
“Nice— nice to meet you too,” she signs excitedly.
Avit continues, but much to her dismay, the younger cousin quickly looses the thread and it all becomes nonsense again.
She turns around looking to her new acquaintance for help, but instead the other stranger walks up to her, eyes squinting as she leans in and examines her closely.
The younger cousin steps back.
“What are you doing?” she asks, ill-at-ease, but the strange girl crosses the space between.
“The story goes…” she muses, “that beyond the second star, people only know logic for reason. For them, it makes Neverland hard to understand.” She looks deep into the girl’s eyes. Then relents, reaching her conclusion. “That’s your problem. You’re too reasonful, you need to be reasonless.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“No need to provide more evidence, we’ve already solved it. Come on, close your eyes.” She instructs, “try going to the space just below words, where thoughts spring forth from, but without patterns. Arrange reason differently and see where it leads.
“You make it sound easy,” the younger cousin protests
That’s because it is. Use Avit as the anchor to move past your doubt. After all, if she exists, then so must her existence and if you exist, your existence is certain.
Since we have two destinations, there must be some path between, and a single possibility is all you ever need, or so the story goes.”
The younger cousin looks at the girl in disbelief, but then decides to take her advice. After all this whole world, whatever it is, had recently been infeasible, and yet now, She was sure… it was as feasible as anywhere she’d ever been before.
She sighs, closes her eyes, and drops down past the place where one thought leads to another. She thinks very hard of the fast flying girl.
But her mind aches, restricted by what she knows and can accept.
“You can do it. Push past it. You’re no limits accomplice.” the girl whispers. Her words drilling small holes in the detention of her assumptions.
And the more she thought the warmer she got, and when she opens her eyes and looks at Avit again—
“As I said, I’m Avit, that’s Oc short for Ocular.” She points up, and that’s the bird coup with her telescope. It can see as far as Neverland is wide…or long…and probably further.” She looks back at her. “What are your names?
The younger cousin begins to sign, but hesitates, searching her mind but finding nothing.
“You haven’t found it yet.” Oc replies gently.
“No problem, I can think one up.” Avit assures. “You look like a—”
“This thing sees out forever!” the fellow new arrival shouts down excitedly. She had flown up to the bird coup and was twisting the telescope this way and that taking in the expanse.
“You gotta see this…. hey wait,” she steps back, “what are those ships?”
“What do they look like?” Oc calls back.
“Uhhm,” she looks into the telescope again before describing. “They’re huge, industrial things, with teal colored wings.”
Oc’s amused smile fades into worry. She throws Avit a sharp glance, before flying up to the bird coup and taking the telescope from the new arrival’s hand. Closing one eye and peering through it. She grimaces signing to Avit, who had grabbed the younger cousin and flown up quickly to join her.
“Sky Sailors.”
Avit turns to the new arrivals, forehead scrunched in distaste.
“Were there any others with you?”
“Were there…” The younger cousin repeats, distractedly watching as Oc continues to search the sky, twisting and changing the knobs of the telescope and making quick calculations on what looks like a map.
“others…” she thinks her thoughts slipping away as her memory goes foggy.
Remember that I love you.
“There was…” She thinks.
past the stars and the moon there is no place
“And a person…”
Where I don’t love you both.
“Two people.”
watch out for your—
“My cousin!” She spits out panicked. “Where is she? Did they take her? Is she in trouble? We have to get to her.”
“Whoa whoa, hold on.” Oc interjects gently, still peering out into the sky, turning the steering wheel to hide the island behind a passing mountain.
“Sky sailors play a dangerous game.”
“I don’t care!” The younger cousins yells, breaking free of Avit’s grasp. “I have to get to her. I can’t sit around and do nothing.”
“Nothing?” Avit raises a brow, as she walks over to a near by tree. “We’re not going to do nothing.” She grin, pressing into the grooves of the tree trunk.
“We’re going to do mischief.”
The inner workings of the tree click and twist in a dance of mechanical and natural life.
After a moment the trunk opens up, revealing a pile of handcrafted contraptions.
“Inventions.” Avit explains. “Courtesy of Grips our resident magician.
“This one shoots spit balls, just make sure you put in enough spit.
“But,” she adds squinting to read a note,“ no loogies. Apparently, it jams.”
The other new arrival takes the invention, spits into it and pushes a button.
A wad of mesh shoots out and sticks on the edge of the bird coup.
“Gross.” she grins.
“Here.” Avit hands the younger cousin a slingshot and a bag. She opens it up, takes out a pebble and is about to crush it between her fingers, but Oc stops her. “Not yet.” she warns, “They up in smoke and create a smell that is terribly foul.”
“Alright, alright get ready.” Avit signs excitedly securing her cap and pulling her goggles over her eyes.
“We’ll find her.” Oc assures, securing a slingshot to her hip and she climbs over the railing of the bird coup. She pushes off the edge and takes off flying towards the aero-ships. Avit follows after, her form relaxed and at ease as she quickly catches up to her.
The two new arrivals try their best to follow, clumsily making their way towards the aero-ship fleet, which was large and imposing despite its whimsy.
Some looked like the old sea ships, with large sails and huge sprawling decks, while others were held up by massive balloons which suspended them high in sky, and still others looked like mechanical fish with sails for tails and fins and others like birds with canvas sheets for wings. But all had these luminous teal colored scales that glowed bright on their sails beneath the sun.
The younger cousin turns to her fellow new arrival. Her stomach sick with worry and excitement as they flew into the cold shadows of the ship.
“I’ve never seen airplanes like this before, have you?”
Her new acquaintance bristles at the question. “I— don’t…think so.”
“And those scales….what are they?” she wondered out loud, but instead of answering, Avit pulls her deeper into the shadow beneath the belly of the ships.
She put her finger to her lips, then motions up at the sky sailors leaning over the edge of the deck keeping watch over the sky.
“Stay put,” she signs as she starts searching the windows of the ship one by one.
The younger cousin digs her fingertips into the side of the ship. The roar of their engines, the cold of their exterior, the gusts of wind billowing off their wings were frightening. She looks down at the world below her feet, and panics.
“Girls don’t fly, people don’t fly. And neither do ships. And this place shouldn’t or couldn’t exist. And where was her cousin, and where was she and—”
The fellow new arrival touches her shoulder lightly.
“Don’t think of what it isn’t.” she comforts her. “Try not think at all. Just one step and then the next, got it?”
The younger cousin nods, following the other girl’s lead as they search each window on the side of the ship. Then, to her dismay she catches a glimpse of a familiar face.
“That’s her!” she yells banging on the glass. “What are they doing? Where are they taking them?
Oc flies back and covers her mouth quickly. “We have to be quiet.” She whispers harshly. “It’s our best chance to help them escape.”
“Help them?” a menacing voice booms from above them,
“Darlings, you should worry about helping yourselves.”
Suddenly the tables had turned and four rescuers found themselves captured, surrounded by nets and dragged up to the deck of the sky sailor’s aero-ship.