Werifesteria

• || six || •

"I'm not," she said immediately. It was too quick of a response to be true, and she pursed her lips as Logan closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"Ms. Wheeler," he said slowly. "I know that I don't look like some tough private investigator. I'm not. I'm an eleven-year-old nobody who wants to prove himself by finding this man." He reached forwards and put his hand on Vanessa's arm, and she flinched at he touched her. "I know you know where Ryder is, or at least where he went. Please tell me what happened that night so I can find him and bring him back to you."

Her head drooped, then she screwed her eyes shut and sucked in a deep breath. "Ryder came in through my window. He told me that I couldn't tell anyone where he was going, or it would catch him." She spat out the word 'it' as if it were poison.

"It?" Kasey and Penny exchanged confused glances, but Logan tried not to let his "serious but concerned" expression fall.

Vanessa sniffed. "He just left one thing for me. A piece of paper. On it was a big mix of random letters." Logan leaned forwards even more, his eyes widening. He could feel his heart pounding from the exhilaration. "It took me about twenty minutes before I unscrambled them. I got a lot of different words, but 'land' and 'ever' made the most sense, since they used all the letters. I figured that he was trying to spell 'Neverland' but forgot the N." She chuckled quietly, the way people do when they're sad. "Unfortunately, I've no idea where Neverland is."

"Second Star on the right and straight on till morning," Penny mumbled softly. Everyone turned to look at her, and she blushed. "That's how J.M. Barrie explained how to get to Neverland."

"Who's J.M. Barrie?" Logan asked, forgetting for a second that he was supposed to be on track.

Kasey, however, seem to want to keep the conversation going. "Well, what could Neverland mean?" she interjected. "If Ryder wanted you to find whatever this Neverland representation is, how could we follow the second star? Is that a clue?"

"But why would he forget the N?" Logan mused.

The girls excitedly shot ideas back and forth, Vanessa Wheeler looked extremely overwhelmed by everything, and Logan sat in silence. He could hear the ticking in the back of his head that always annoyed him, always told him that he had to think faster. Neverland wasn't a real place. And why would Ryder forget the very first letter of a word he was spelling?

He suddenly shot up and snapped his fingers. "I've got it," he whispered. All heads turned towards him, and Penny's eyes widened. "It's not Neverland. We don't need to follow some star." He stood up, a wide grin spreading across his face. "It's a location! Everland!"

"What the hell is Everland?" Kasey asked. Vanessa gave her a dirty look, probably for swearing, but Kasey ignored it.

Logan excitedly snatched his notebook out of his pocket in one swift motion, and had scribbled down something else in seconds.

Ryder Hemingway - Everland 1992

He nodded to Vanessa, still smiling. "Thank you for everything, Ms. Wheeler. Don't you worry—I'm going to find Ryder and bring him back if it's the last thing I do."

—

The girls had pressed him for answers all the way back to their house, but Logan ignored all of it. Before Penny even stopped the car, Logan had unbuckled his seatbelt and flown out of the car, running up the driveway and barging into the house. He ignored the shouts from the girls behind him as he closed the front door and shot down to his bedroom, not even bothering to take off his shoes.

"Ryder Hemingway, you sly man," Logan muttered as he slid his laptop out and flipped it on.

Penny and Kasey ran into his room to find him frantically typing, his eyes narrowed and fixed on the screen.