Dust: Heirs of Neverland, #1

Some day you will be old enough

to start reading fairy tales again.

—C. S. Lewis

Wildomar, California

When did this fairy tale become a nightmare?

I slide my fingers over the worn little book, and the question surfaces again. Each textured hollow in the cover is as familiar as my own lightly freckled skin and chipped nail polish. How many times have I searched this storybook for answers?

But all I’ve ever found is a myth. A lie.

Something at the far side of the convenience store clangs. Loud. I glare at the wall of refrigerators opposite my cashier counter. They’re on the fritz again? Oh well. Duty calls.

As I reach for a wad of paper towels, I lay the book beside the small rack of Little Debbies. A few pale, thin specks drip from my fingertips. My dust—the strange, lightly colored, scentless flecks that no number of doctors and needles and scalpels have been able to diagnose. A skin disorder was all they said.

Code for: you’re a freak of nature.

I blow the haunting, sandy flecks away from the book, as the mocking green eyes of the boy who never grew up peer up at me from the cover. He’s there in watercolor, perched on the edge of a window seat, sporting a jaunty green cap and a pair of panpipes. This book is the favorite bedtime story of my twin, Connor. An innocent fairy tale, I once thought. But it isn’t a story, it’s a curse—just like the flakes that drip from my fingertips.

Shoving up the sleeves of my wool cardigan, I step out from behind the counter and around a stack of dollar DVDs, heading for the wall of humming fridges. I need to keep up with this job. Being broke won’t help me find him any faster.

Not to mention that work allows me to drown out my mind, something especially needed today.

The anniversary of Connor’s disappearance.

I trot down the line of smudged glass refrigerator doors and finally find the culprit eliciting the racket. The tall fridge sports rows of Coca-Cola products and some foggy-looking plastic bottles of water, but nothing is leaking like last time.

I told them we needed a handyman in here, so they better not blame me for this. I aim a solid kick at the fussy refrigerator. The machine gives a wheeze, but the hissing clatter stops.

Feeling almost triumphant, I turn back, unused paper towels in hand. Then I hear a telltale drip-drip-drip.

I groan. Fine, fine. Nothing can ever be easy, can it? Oh boy, two hours into my shift, and I’m already talking to inanimate objects.

Figures. At least they’re good listeners.

I drop down to wipe up the gathering pool. As I sop up the mess, the bell at the front of the store dings. I’m half-tempted to stay put and see if the customer walks away. Really, Claire? Pathetic. This is my job, and I can’t afford to lose another one. Not as a poor nineteen-year-old financing her own search for someone everyone else has forgotten.

Two girls appear in front of the cashier counter—their glistening hair falls in waves, their fashionably ripped jeans and tank tops showing far more skin than I’d ever dare. They’re both well cared for, put together. Things I’ve never been that set my nerves on edge.

Take a deep breath.

I can’t let my insecurities hurt them. Can’t let my emotions leak out in burning dust. I’ve never been able to stop or understand it, only bury the flecks and pray they stay locked away.

The girls glance around and spot me, still by the refrigerator. One of them, a brunette, lifts a hand in a half wave. The bathroom at Starbucks is broken. Can we use the one here?

This Circle K doesn’t seem like their kind of place, with its cheap knickknacks and dented soda cans and paint peeling from the walls. Not that it’s my first choice either. But I’ve always had to scrape by—thanks to the mother who abandoned my brother and me as babies without even bothering to leave a blanket.

As I rise from my knees, I stifle the urge to hide my chipped nails in my jeans pockets. My comfortable, faded teal cardigan suddenly feels like a shapeless sack that will do nothing to hide the scar-laced skin that could betray me and start leaking the taunting, pale flecks again. Dust that could turn toxic if I don’t keep it together.

I muster a smile. Uh—yeah. The bathroom is in the back right corner. I’ll get you the key.

The brunette raises her finely penciled eyebrows. Oh, it’s all right! You look busy. Is it here . . . ?

She attempts to reach over the cashier counter, and I pick up my pace. Ah—actually, it’s better if I do it.

But I’m too late. She’s already fumbling for the key and knocks over a small plastic cup of water I had balanced on the edge of the counter. The liquid flows toward the Peter Pan book I had set beside the register.

Hot panic flashes through my limbs.

"No!" I hurry to get behind the counter, grasping for the book. As the water soaks through a corner, I grab it. But I’m too late.

My vision blurs as I snatch another paper towel and pat at the cover. I hate this storybook—but it’s all I have left of him.

"Peter Pan? Isn’t that a children’s book? The girls are still standing there. The brunette glances down at the book. Sorry. Ah, I can give you a few bucks to buy another copy?"

I shake my head. We may have been fourteen when he vanished, but Connor had never outgrown fairy tales—while I learned far too early that there is no magic left in the world. Only the kind you make for yourself by working your fingers to the bone.

The short redheaded girl looks at me quizzically. Do I know you?

Tucking the book under my arm, I dry the counter with more paper towels, avoiding eye contact. I don’t think so.

I fight to concentrate on the task at hand, despite the way my breath shakes. Losing control, even for a moment, could risk so much—my job, the money I desperately need, even these girls’ safety.

Tossing the soiled towels in the trash, I form another smile and reach for the bathroom key. Wait, the brunette says. You were in my freshman English class at McKinley for a few months.

I groan inwardly. Of all the schools I’ve bounced around in Southern California, they have to be from McKinley. Not that I recognize them, but that was the year Connor disappeared. I’d rather not make another trip down memory lane—especially with how uneasy I am today.

The other girl jumps in. Weren’t you the girl who dropped out before the end of the year because . . . Her eyes widen. Your brother is the one who disappeared, isn’t he?

I drop the key to the counter with a metallic clatter and nod, face tense.

If they know about Connor, what else have they heard?

About the fruitless doctors’ tests? Or about my hospital visit six months ago? The memory may be distant, but the twinge of the scars lining my back is a painful reminder.

The dark-haired girl leans on the counter. I’m so sorry. They still haven’t found your brother?

I hate the way the tears sting my eyes. Staring down at the smudges on the counter, I shake my head.

No. Not a single clue has turned up.

Just breathe. Just get through today, through work.

Through this moment.

The girls seem to take my wordless reply as a silent plea for help, and the brunette reaches over to put a gentle hand on my shoulder. That warm touch is enough to cut through my resolve, and a single tear leaks down my face.

Oh, honey. She squeezes my arm, her manicured nails unwittingly digging into my already raw nerves. Bringing back the drowning ache that fills my lungs. Breathe, breathe, breathe. . . I force myself to keep from wrenching away. She might be sorry, but she doesn’t understand. Not really.

And I’ve had far too much suffocating pity.

My panic swells. I’m usually so good at locking it away, stomping it down—but this time, I can’t stop the shaking. The grief is back in horrific Technicolor.

Turning away, I twist my fingers in my cardigan. I need to pull myself together.

Clenching my hands close to my aching chest, I try to focus on just pulling air in—letting a breath out. But when I rub my hands together to work some warmth into my chilled skin, my fingertips come away thick with pale flecks.

Tiny, yellowed specks seep from my skin, covering my fingers.

Oh no! Not now!

I shove my quaking fists into my pockets.

Connor said it was magic. That I was special. But he was wrong.

The dust isn’t magic—it’s poison.

So I try to repress it now, fists balled tight. Through the pounding staccato of my heart in my ears, I can just make out the hesitant voices of the girls standing opposite the counter.

Is everything all right?

The dust is building inside me, a volcano hammering against my ribs. Calm down! They’re customers—just do your job.

They don’t wait for my response. Uh, we’ll come back later.

Leaving the bathroom key forgotten on the counter, they flee the store.

Thank God. They probably meant well . . . but today I can’t take talking about him with strangers.

Or watching those girls react like everyone else when they see the flakes that leak from my skin—confused, shocked, even angry. People are rarely kind about what they don’t understand.

With the store finally quiet again, I sink against the wall behind the cashier counter.

Why can’t I just have a day without this pain tearing me apart? A day to function like a normal person, instead of shutting down. Instead of having every breath be a reminder that I let him slip away. Every ache of my heart a testament that no matter what I do, I can’t find him.

But I must try.

I stare down at the dust coating my hands and sticking to my cardigan’s sleeves, and I shake it off. But even with the dust dislodged, the strange, glistening substance continues to seep from my fingertips, and I tighten my fists to push it back. To push away the panic and the thrum of electricity in my veins.

I close my eyes, muscles taut, and try to ball up the memories and that strange whisper in my core and shove them down as far as I can. I suffocate that spark of warmth in my veins, that part that has never belonged, no matter how desperately I try.

But he can’t be gone forever. He can’t be dead. He can’t.

My breaths come in tight sobs—the dust building with each one. Layering my skin, coating my sleeves and slipping into the air. Pale and glistening and catching on the faintest whisper of a breeze. They swirl around me like taunting specks of tarnished sunlight.

A curse that no one can explain. A curse that threatens to drown me now.

Air—

I can’t breathe!

My throat is thick with it, my eyes red, blurring. My pulse drowns out the sound of cars outside as the world grows shadowy. The dust starts to darken, crinkling around the edges like burning ash.

No! No, please, no—

All it takes is one person walking in, or a security camera catching sight . . .

My phone buzzes in my pocket. I’m still trembling and it isn’t until the last vibration that I manage to dig out the device. I wipe at my face, clearing my vision enough to make out the one-letter name displayed on the cracked screen. N.

N wouldn’t call unless it was important. I take a long, ragged breath. N is a friend. One of the few people I can call that anymore. The outpouring of dust ebbs, and the thundering in my chest starts to diminish as I try to focus on the glint of stability he brings to mind.

N is the computer nerd who befriended me in my search for Connor, and although he’s never gone by anything more than the one-letter name, he’s been there to help in far more ways than my court-assigned foster parents bothered to. The one time he’d visited, it was during my lowest point that landed me in a hospital for two weeks, and the smile that met me on N’s dark face had been just as genuine as I’d always hoped.

I’d only known him for a few weeks, but that cemented our friendship. The reason why over the past several months N became one of the very few people I trust. He’s an ally, and I know how rare those can be.

I hold the phone against my ear and manage a cracked, Yeah?

Claire? Where are you? The strain in N’s voice sends goosebumps up my arms. But I focus on him, on his words, and watch the dust slowly return to its usual pale color. The flood stops abruptly and starts to fade from my cardigan sleeves.

I force my tone to remain steady. I’m at work. Why? What’s wrong?

A computer mouse clicks on the other end. I’m sending you a link—you’re gonna want to see this.

I brush away the flecks skimming my palms. The chipped phone shakes beside my ear. Does this have to do with . . . ?

Yes. It’s about Connor, he says with a hint of excitement. It’s taken weeks to hunt down, but I found an image cut from a feed at one of the LAX terminals six years ago, just after your brother went missing.

The clack, clack, clack from N tapping fills the silence, and a few seconds later it pops up on my phone. My hands go numb, but I manage to tap on N’s video, and it fills the screen. The playback is grainy but shows white walls, a security checkpoint, and a smattering of blurry people, most facing away from the camera.

Two people are in the forefront of the image. One a tall, shadowed, masculine silhouette, while the other is as familiar as every tattered pulse of my heart.

My knees almost buckle, and I reach for the edge of the counter, holding myself up as I stare at Connor’s image on my screen.

Tall for his age, shoulders beginning to taper out, wearing his favorite threadbare Captain America shirt. Shaggy, wheat-blond hair falling to his shoulders, a shade darker than mine.

Connor.

Dear God . . . The words come out like a prayer.

It’s Connor. My sweet Connor.

The tears are warm as they roll down my cheeks. Heavy with relief.

I half expect Connor to glance over his shoulder and lock those blue eyes with mine, to once more see that playful gleam and that shadow of an old soul reflected in his gaze. But my twin brother never turns. I don’t get a last chance to see his face. Only his receding back as the larger figure guides him away from the camera, through a security checkpoint, and to a boarding gate on the other side.

But it’s still him. The first real look at Connor I’ve had in six years.

I don’t know who the man is. N’s words are rushed. Or what was happening. But I know that Connor got on a plane. And I know where they took him, Claire.

My lungs have practically shriveled in my chest, eyes still blurred as I look at my brother’s faded silhouette on my phone, replaying those words over and over again in my head. Y-you do?

Yes, but you’re not going to believe it.

A break. One break. That’s all I’m asking for. Where is he, N?

There’s a rumble of static as he shifts the phone. They made several layovers, but their end destination was out of the country.

Where could he have . . . ?

My eyes drift to the edge of Peter Pan just sticking out of my purse and a dark suspicion starts to surface.

No—please tell me he didn’t do it. Please tell me I’m wrong. That this strange man hadn’t used the bedtime story I’d read to my brother as bait to steal Connor from me and drag him halfway across the planet—practically to another world.

All this time, a part of me has secretly hoped that one day Connor would appear on my front step. Say he ran away to join a circus. Reassure me he’d been fine. That no one had taken him. That no one hurt him . . .

But suddenly, the consequences of this video crash over me. The truth that all this time, when the police stopped looking, when the newspapers said perhaps he just ran away, that the girl with a record of clinically proven delusions was just crying wolf—I was right.

Connor hadn’t left me. He’d been stolen away.

That man took Connor to London, Claire.

And with one sentence, my nightmare becomes a reality.

London, England

You know that feeling between falling and flying, frozen midair, heart in throat, pulse pounding so loud it drowns out everything but that small voice screaming—don’t die?

Yeah. That’s where I’m at.

And I love it. The adrenaline, the weightlessness—the freedom.

Even though the ground rushes up at me at a breakneck pace as I launch over a towering brick wall.

Focus, Peter!

I bend my knees as the air rips past my dropping body—and then, thud!

I land on both feet, one hand pressed against the asphalt, unable to fight the smirk. Ha! That wasn’t so hard. If only Tink could have seen—

I cut off that thought before it can bring a swell of regret. Reminding me again why I’m stuck jumping over blasted walls instead of soaring through the air. Why I’m grounded.

I fling reddish hair out of my eyes and quickly take off down the shadowed side road leading away from the brick wall I just vaulted over. That should give me at least a bit of a head start as a sliver of afternoon sun warms my well-worn green jacket.

As I run, each step feels heavy compared to free falling. Muscles fighting through gravity, my feet squarely against the earth, the buildings rising all around me like towering monsters.

I hate this weighted feeling. The sky pressing down on my shoulders.

But all thoughts of being grounded fade away as the thud of footsteps sounds across the asphalt.

They’ve finally found me.

The cool London mist swells through the arching cityscape, and I grin. I’ve been waiting for them to catch up.

Now for some fun.

With its winding alleys, gloomy skies, and brick buildings, London is practically a maze to the swarms of tourists. But not to me. Today, this game of cat and mouse is mine—and I never get caught.

Let’s get started, shall we?

I spin on my heel, taking off down another side street. I whip past a sidewalk littered with Londoners carrying umbrellas. Trotting past a tiny green scrap of a park, I throw a quick wave to blokes resting there before ducking into an alley. My pursuers’ footsteps come faster.

Feels almost like old times, eh mates?

These boys were once like brothers. Now they hunt me like dogs.

But they’re the only ones who can give me a chance to find Claire and set everything right that has gone so bloomin’ wrong. When I whisked her brother off on an adventure, I had no idea how much it would make a mess of everything, leaving her behind.

I’m already stuck here, grounded in London for three dreary months because the pixies can’t risk helping me—thanks to Hook’s hold over them. Claire has to be the piece I’m missing. With her dust, I can fix this.

I can go home.

Not to mention finally fly. Cripes, it’s still annoying how blasted alike everything looks down here. Everything is easier to navigate when you’re off the ground.

But, even as the Lost Boys draw near, the rhythm of my pulse becomes a message repeating over and over again. Starting beneath my ribs and spreading through my whole body. An acute knowledge that despite everything I’ve lost, despite having my magic stolen, despite the danger Neverland is in, one thing hasn’t changed. I may be outnumbered but there’s one thing these boys will never be: me.

I quicken my pace, ducking through the towering buildings that pierce the cloudy skies. And then I see the fire escape at the end of the alleyway. One rung of the metal stairs hanging just low enough for me to grab. We’re about a half mile from where I told Tiger Lily I’d meet her, and even closer to finally getting the information I need.

By trapping one of the blokes who think they’re chasing me.

I grin. Knew this would be a jolly time.

My feet pump against the asphalt, faster and faster. I near the lowest hanging rung of the fire escape, and leap—

My fingertips barely circle the thick steel, but it’s enough.

I scramble up, pausing only long enough to glance over my shoulder at the crowd of boys that have burst into the alley below me.

Their features are hidden behind dark hoods, but I know half of them by the sets of their shoulders and the weapons glinting out of their sweeping coats.

The boys are out for blood. They aim to drag me back to him. Back to the man who wants to rip everything away from me, carve out my very soul.

Nice try, chaps.

I can feel their steel eyes boring into my back as I reach the top of the fire escape. The metal stairs creak and sway as the gang of boys climb up after me.

My vision blurs for a moment. I remember another lifetime, when I desperately climbed salty rigging to escape another group of bloodthirsty vagabonds. Only those pursuers held shimmering sabers between their teeth.

Focus! my instincts scream at me. Right, the game at hand. I can hear the heaving breaths and creaking metal of their gang climbing, but I don’t look back—only at the rooftop ahead.

I pick up the pace, across the shingles and near the edge.

Then the rooftop is gone, and I’m vaulting through the air. Weightless.

Cor, I’ve missed this . . .

For those stretching seconds, everything is all right. I’m lighter than pixie dust.

Then I hit hard on the shingles of the next roof, feet first, hands down to steady myself. I race over the ridge of this rooftop and leap to the next one. When I peek over my shoulder, I find only three boys have managed to keep up.

Not for long.

The distance stretches out between us, and in moments only two are still attempting to give chase.

My muscles burn, but I’m grinning wider than a hungry croc. For the first time in the months I’ve been trapped in this blasted city, I almost feel like myself. The damp wind in my hair, my feet dancing across rooftops, the threat of death always at my heels but never catching up.

I almost feel as if I could fly.

All I’m missing is that certain spark of light hovering at my side and the chime of her voice. I try to ignore the burn at the back of my throat at the memory of her, of flying together, Tink always at my side. I vault off another rooftop, reaching for the next one—and miss.

My hand grapples for the shingles, the gutter, anything. But I come up short. The distant rooftop sliding right past my fingertips . . .

I fall.

Something cold and hard rams into my chest, and my knees collide with a grated metal surface. The air is wrenched from my lungs. A thick metallic taste lies heavy on my tongue, and my vision spins.

Blast it all!

My forehead throbs almost as much as the sting of the scrapes covering my palms. Pulling myself to my feet, I lean against the metal bar. I’ve fallen into the balcony at the top of a block of flats with a fire escape running up from it. As the world slowly comes back into focus, I look over the low wall to the ground far below. It’s covered in rigid pavement.

Overhead, I can hear the distant scramble of the boys still searching.

What am I thinking? The fall could have killed me. I couldn’t catch myself. Couldn’t fly. My light this close to going out.

This chase is no game. Just like my hunt for Claire is no game.

Just like what happened to Tink was no game.

My head explodes with a splitting ache. Somewhere deep inside me, dark, spindly fingers shove down my sense of adventure with the pressure of drowning in the Neversea. Suffocating the very spark that makes me . . . me. That gravity-defying sense of adventure. That boyishness.

I’m shaking now, and it won’t stop. I thought I was over this. These charred memories that Neverland locked away—but the beastly things have started to resurface. Memories of losing Tink, of having my island ripped away by Hook and . . . darker things. Things that are beginning to emerge now that I’ve been cast out of the island. Now that everything has become so twisted. And good gad—it hurts.

Spewing curses, I grab the cool metal rungs of the fire escape, clamber off the balcony, and let myself down. My bones feel as though they’ve been filled with concrete.

I need to get away, need to get to Lily . . .

I’m panting, the thoughts in my head spinning. The minute I hit the asphalt, I duck into another alley and slump back against a molding wall. My chest heaves as I hold my throbbing head.

It’s all wrong. Something has shifted deep inside me. Like how my body has started to . . . to . . . Blast!

Twisting, I ram a fist into the wall behind me and wince at the impact.

I’m getting . . . old. There, I got it out.

I’ve started to age.

Everything is whirling out of control and my own body isn’t playing fair anymore.

Just like those boys hunting me. They used to be like a tribe of my own, always having my back and on my side. Not anymore.

Now they are a threat to everything I care about.

And thinking of them always leads me back to her. To Claire. The girl I lost. The girl I can hardly remember, thanks to the island that has buried my memories deeper than the roots of a spritewood tree. Memories of Claire and . . . darker things.

I close my eyes and focus hard, finding she’s there in flashes. Her sun-gold curls. Her stubborn refusal to believe that fairy tales were anything but stories.

I press a fist to my forehead, angry at myself for caring so much, but even more angry that I forgot her in the first place. I have no blasted idea where she is—just that I need her. I only hope one of the Lost Boys may have more information on her whereabouts.

I’ve got to find her. And soon. Before whatever is happening to my body grows too crippling for me to track her down—or before someone else finds her first.

Someone with a hook and beastly intentions.

Letting out several curses that would impress a pirate, I shove off the wall and dodge through shadowed alleys to cross Copperfield Street.

I glance over my shoulder one last time and see that I’ve lost all but one of the dark-coated boys following me. And just ahead, tucked between a noisy pub and a quirky little gallery, is the meeting place where a certain warrior princess waits.

I’ve walked into enough of Hook’s ambushes. Creating one of my own? Easy.

My quick steps carry me to the edge of a building, and I duck around the corner of the raucous pub to