The Best Science Fiction And Fantasy Of The Year Part 10

Do not be alarmed. Peter has not dropped Ashley out of the sky, only to catch her at the last minute. Ashley had made it clear she did not think that was a hilarious game.

She had merely spotted the small picturesque village of Litford by the Sea, which had thatched cottages and rambling manors, cobbled byways and streams under wood bridges. And on top of a hill near the town was a gaunt black structure with fiery windows. It looked like a castle of nightmares, a place an old pirate went to retire and gnaw on booty and bones.

It looked like something out of Neverland.

"Seems to me we've tracked the varlet to his lair!" Peter crowed.

"Peter, doesn't this seem a little weird to you?"

Peter stared at her, all guileless eyes and crazy smile curling around those little pearl teeth, his dead leaf bowtie fluttering in the wind.

"Weird?"

"Ah," said Ashley. "Never mind."

It struck Ashley that this was something Peter and the ninjas just accepted: the macabre and fantastical, all the trappings of Neverland. Ashley was the only one who could see the difference between what should be real and what should not be: she had some power here.

It pains me to confess Ashley had little poetry in her soul.

She would have preferred t.i.tanium body armor.

The castle floors were largely made of big flagstones. Ashley's bare feet ached for the carpets of home, or even the forest floors of Neverland.

The castle echoed with the creak of machinery, the pop and sizzle of flames, and the sound of screams. This place reeked of pure, storybook evil.

Ashley kept thinking of a particular name in the story.

Hook.

"The villain never really dies," she murmured as she crept after Peter. Her ninja training made her light on her feet, so it was really a shame that Peter and the fairies showed her up by gliding silently a few inches off the ground.

She was distracted from these dark musings by three mad scientists. Ashley could tell they were scientists by the lab coats, and that they were mad by the maniacal laughter.

Peter drew his sword and killed two of them. Ashley gave the other a kick in the kneecap, and then he went down. The fairies finished him off.

"Now we put on these evil lab coats and make our way into the heart of the evil fortress," Peter commanded.

Ashley put on her lab coat doubtfully. It was really quite evil-looking. The name tag read DR STRANGE FEELINGS OF CONFUSION AND RAGE.

She was also extremely uncertain about two barefoot kids trying to pa.s.s themselves off as scientists, no matter how mad said scientists happened to be. It would never work.

When she heard steps barging down an appropriately echoing stairwell, she thought frantically of how the spies on TV would act to distract attention from what they were doing.

So as the next set of mad scientists approached, she whirled, pushed Peter up against the wall, and kissed him on the mouth.

She had her eyes shut, but she could feel his mouth open in amazement. For a moment the world was still and peaceful, the hard angle of his jaw against her fingers, her senses flooded with the taste of berries and the smell of leaves.

When the scientists had pa.s.sed, Ashley leaned back. The world remained peaceful for a moment, the wild lights in Peter's eyes gone golden and a little hazy.

"Peter," Ashley asked softly, "Do you know what that was?"

"Of course," Peter said, much affronted. "A thimble."

"No," said Ashley, staring. "That was a kiss."

"It was a thimble!"

"Didn't it strike you as a little different from other thimbles you've had in the past?"

Peter looked s.h.i.+fty.

"Well, yes."

"Ha!"

"It was my first thimble with tongue," Peter told her with dignity.

Ashley fixed him with a look of unutterable despair and then stalked down the stairs toward the grim creaking of dread machines, her evil lab coat trailing in her wake.

The fairies and Peter followed her, Ninja Star making a belligerent ringing sound as they went.

"Ninja Star, please, how can you be so inappropriate!" said Peter, deeply shocked.

"What'd she say?"

"I refuse to tell you!"

"Heh," said Ashley, making the wise decision that being amused was better than being driven to madness. "You're a bit old-fas.h.i.+oned, aren't you?"

"I am not old anything," Peter snapped.

And so bickering at the top of their lungs, our spies stumbled into the evil at the heart of the fortress.

There was a large chair, of course, looming almost like a throne. It stood on a dais, shrouded in shadow.

There was someone sitting in it.

Ashley's voice died in her throat, and her heart beat like a child's fists on a door, begging to get out. All the fears of her nursery got together and whispered.

Hook.

The figure in the chair leaned forward. "Peter?"

It was a golden-haired girl, plump and beautifully dressed.

Even taking into account the natural distortion of legends over time, Ashley felt this could not possibly be Captain Hook.

She looked to Peter for help, but Peter was looking perfectly blank.

"It's me, Peter," said the girl. "Only-I'm bigger now."

Ashley's world tilted a little, the story changing beyond all recognition. The Queen's doc.u.ments showed a machine that increased an object's size ten times.

Not just an object. Anything.

The machine had not been created for an evil purpose, not at first. But who knew what terrible mixture of science and magic had worked together to enlarge a creature who could only feel one thing at a time-and fix her like that forever, full of rage and hate.

Creating a villain out of a fairy. Ashley whispered, "Tinker Bell."

"Doesn't ring a bell," said Peter. "Sorry."

Tinker Bell went purple with rage. Under the circ.u.mstances, Ashley felt she could hardly blame her.

"Perhaps you're thinking of a different Peter," Peter continued helpfully. "Though it would be hard to mistake me for another boy. There is n.o.body quite like me!"

"This is no time for crowing," Ashley said out of the corner of her mouth.

"He'd have to be really amazingly wonderful," Peter went on and then Ashley kicked him in the ankle.

Peter looked surprised and annoyed. "Peter," Ashley said firmly. "We're on a mission. Now I don't think she'll attack you" -though looking at Tinker Bell's enraged face, she was not altogether certain about that-"so I'll get her to attack me."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Peter said. "I am the spy here. I'll run her through."

"The Queen said she was to be brought back for questioning! And if we can change her back, make her less inclined to be, well, you know, evil-"

Peter looked around at the high Gothic windows and the white cat in Tinker Bell's lap.

"I do see your point."

He looked around further and espied a machine that looked a little bit like the offspring of a telescope and a giant spider. "I say, Ashley. I think I've come up with a brilliant plan!"

"Have you indeed," said Ashley, very dry.

"You'll never guess."

"I'm not so sure of that, Peter."

Peter began to sidle with rather obvious stealth toward the contraption.

"What are you doing?" Tinker Bell asked sharply.

Ashley took a hasty step forward. "Why did you want to be big, Tinker Bell?"

Tinker Bell blushed under the fading purple of her rage. "I forget."

Ashley took another step. Tinker Bell's gaze followed her. "I don't think you do."

"Well," said Tinker Bell, and shrugged. "It just didn't seem important afterward, you know. I mean-I realized, Peter is quite ridiculous."

"I quite agree," said Ashley. "Of course, so is world domination."

The white cat was rather abruptly tipped out of Tinker Bell's lap as she stood up. "You take that back!" she exclaimed, and in her fury, her voice was like the ringing of bells.

"I will not," said Ashley. "Jealous other woman, doing it all for love, evil overlord bent on world domination? Don't you ever get tired of being a cliche, Tinker Bell? Don't you ever just- "Now, Peter, now!"

For Ashley had broken off in the middle of her sentence and delivered a roundhouse kick to Tinker Bell's stomach. Tinker Bell fell directly into the path of the machine Peter had just turned on.

In some ways it was a pity. It had been shaping up to be rather a good speech.

Ninja Star approved very much, however. Ashley even received some compliments from the other fairies about her style.

Tinker Bell, the evil genius; Tinker Bell, the fairy transformed, was captured in a ray of light and diminished once more, her stolen inches glowing and falling away. It was terrible at first, Tinker Bell's face locked in a snarl. But then it was different suddenly: like a snake shedding a skin, or a b.u.t.terfly emerging from a chrysalis.

When the light of the machine faded, Tinker Bell was small and s.h.i.+ning once again.

Ashley stood staring, fascinated. Ninja Star took the initiative and imprisoned Tinker Bell in an empty crisp packet.

"I did it!" Peter crowed, and very nearly hit his head on the ceiling of the evil lair, soaring in triumph.

The Queen took being presented with the tiniest evil genius in the world very well. She commended both Peter and Ashley, which left Ashley rather dazed for a while until Peter's crowing annoyed her again.

"Oh Peter, do be quiet," she said crossly, as they flew over Big Ben, badly startling a family of pigeons. "I think it's rather sad. She did it for love, after all."

"Did she?" asked Peter, rather bored. "Who did she love, then?"

Ashley gave him a withering glance.

"Well, it's no use looking at me like that," Peter told her, injured. "How am I supposed to know? I've never seen the fairy before in my life!"

And no matter how she argued, he stuck to that.

Ashley finally sighed in exasperation and gave up. "You know, considering her, and Tiger Lily, and Wendy... for someone determined never to grow up, you're a bit of a playboy."

Peter frowned, and then his brow smoothed. "It's true that I am a boy," he said. "And I love to play!"

Ashley forbore from slapping him upside the head. He might have dropped her.

"What game shall we play next?" Peter inquired eagerly. "I'm sure that with a bit of perseverance, we can get you flying."

"Peter."