Keeping Fantasia: The Third Book of the Fantasia Series

Chapter 27: Neverland Misadventures - Beware the Shadow Worker

Chapter 27: Neverland Misadventures – Beware the Shadow Worker

(When: Approximately 6 Years and 9 months ago)

Let's backtrack. While Ariel and Jim were patrolling the cruise deck, Peter and Wendy were preoccupied in different parts of the ship. Jim had assigned them separate tasks, each vital to his plan.

Peter had been assigned to the shrouds. His job was simple: prowl the highest parts of the ship, munch on gummy bears, and sprinkle sparkling green phytoplankton over the passengers when Queen Illysa says the magic codeword, "pixie dust." 

Morph was with Peter. Morph's job was to make sure Peter accomplished his.

As for Wendy, her job was also simple...in theory. Her job was to shadow work. Once Flint arrived, Wendy would enter the control room, incapacitate the captain (via shadow working), and steer the cruise ship into non-breathable space. 

Ideally, Flint would suffocate right after he disclosed the whereabouts of Captain Hook and The Jolly Roger.

Thus far, the plan was going smoothly. Peter was unusually attentive and he sprinkled the phytoplankton exactly on cue. But Wendy...

Wendy was not well. When Peter was sprinkling phytoplankton over the ship's passengers, Wendy was waiting outside the captain's control room trying not to vomit. 

She felt awful. Her head felt like it was in her stomach, and her stomach felt like it was in her head. It wasn't her nerves: she wasn't overly concerned for the children, and she wasn't scared to face Captain Flint. She just felt sick. And to make matters worse, Jim had forced her into a skin-tight dress so she could work "incognito."

The stressors didn't stop there. Wendy was additionally irritated with Eris and Shadow: they had disappeared. Wendy hadn't heard from them in weeks, ever since Jim had formulated his plan with Queen Illysa.

"They're probably on vacation..." Wendy murmured. "Shadow must have shanghaied Eris to a tropical paradise in...in...oh my. Ohh I don't feel well...."

Wendy wiped her forehead. She was warm, probably with a low grade fever. Wearily, she slumped against the doorway, head in hands.

"Please just stop..." she moaned, willing the nausea to pass. "Please just stop...I haven't felt like this since the Battle to Give Fantasia, when Pitch was giving me..."

Wendy froze.

"Nightmares..." she finished, slowly lowering her hands. Dismayed, she thought back. She remembered Pitch Black manipulating her dreams when she was twenty-one years old. Pitch had crawled around her brain like a parasite, perverting her memories and draining her sanity.

Back then, Pitch's psychological warfare had manifested in a battery of symptoms, all frighteningly similar to Wendy's current illness. Then, as now, Wendy had experienced headaches, nausea, insomnia, and (most frightening) inability to control her shadow working.

"But there were also nightmares!" Wendy insisted, trying to prevent a sudden panic. "And I haven't had any nightmares! I've only had trouble sleeping, but only because I'm ill, not because I'm possessed or somehow under Pitch's control again! I would know, there would be terrible dreams! This different, this is just an illness, it's almost exactly like the morning sickness I had when I was pregnant with Gwendol—"

Wendy clasped her cheeks. "Oh my goodness! I'm pregnant!"

For a wonderful, breathless instant she smiled. Then she frantically donned her oxygen mask as Captain Flint and Ironbeard boarded the ship.