Neverwith
Chapter 1: Hall of Doors
Ira
She took a deep breath. This was it. This was the moment she’d been preparing for her entire life. No really, her whole life. It was a tradition in her family: all females born were sent to DeadEnd at age six. Right when they were beginning to really dive into school.
She’d been there for nearly twenty years. It wasn’t at all nerve-wracking to have her daily routine disrupted to enter a children’s story. A fairy tale where the oldest person was probably eight. Nine at most.
Luck of the draw, she supposed.
When she was younger, the idea was amazing. What child didn’t want to dive into Neverland where you never have to grow up and you get to have adventures every single day for the rest of your life?
Of course, even though she knew she was at DeadEnd with the intent to fix a broken fairy tale, it hadn’t occurred to her that something fundamental had changed. Something that would make it wholly unsuited for children.
To the left of her, Mal was checking her pockets. Checking all the markings. Ira had looked at her own a dozen times. A hundred times. She’d been practicing the perfect lines and loops and angles for the last decade. Still, watching Mal meticulously check herself again, knowing the girl was just as thorough, made Ira look at her own.
Ira had hand sewn her pants after carefully drawing all she wanted to in chalk, then outlining it in fine tipped marker. And then she permanently sewed all the lines, words, and symbols in with gold thread. Why gold? Who knew? Just what she happened to grab. Her jacket was the same – the entire outside was covered, as was much of the inside.
And her shoes and on her skin. Mal had talked her out of getting it tattooed.
“What if they screw up?!”
She hadn’t been wrong.
And lastly, she wore a thin backpack that would, hopefully, be transformed once she entered her DeadEnd fairy tale.
“All in a Golden Afternoon
Full gloomily we glide;
For both our wits and mighty strength,
By mighty arms are plied,”
Mal’s spooky words made Ira glance at her again and smirk. She’d been repeating the doom and gloom cantrip for months. Ira let the words wash over her like a soothing blanket. She couldn’t remember when she’d gone a day without hearing them. Maybe she’d find herself repeating them. The thought made her smile fondly.
She looked at the door in front of her. Well, to call it a door was generous. It was the trunk of a tree, at best. And the opening was a dark pit that appeared to go on forever. The bark was even rough to the touch. Vaguely, she wondered if anyone had ‘accidentally’ fallen down it when they weren’t supposed to be there. You know, curiosity and all that.
Probably not. She was sure that the Operators had the Hall of Doors carefully monitored and secured until their Fixers were ready for departure.
She glanced at Mal again. For whatever reason, although Mal had been there seven years shorter than Ira, Ira had a habit of looking up to Mal. The girl was tiny and fierce. On the other side of her was her twin brother, Reth, and although they looked eerily identical, he was taller, broader, and oddly beautiful in an ethereal way. Though Ira couldn’t decide why she thought that of him. Len thought that, too. In fact, she was almost sure it was Len who’d suggested it, making her constantly think of him that way since.
Mal was looking at her memorandum book. She’d taped the rules on the back of the cover. Ira didn’t need to look at them to know them. She’d memorized them before she’d even come to DeadEnd. Her father had had her repeating them every night like they were a prayer. Even not knowing what they meant at such a young age, she knew them word for word.
This is a one-way door. Once one enters, the door seals shut. It will only open again when one fails. Otherwise, should one succeed, the door will vanish forever.
Your sole mission is to set the world right again. There is a wrong afoot, not necessarily the “evil” you might anticipate, but something has knocked the world off balance. Your one and only job, your sole purpose in your life once you walk through that door, is to set the world right.
As stated in Rule 1, this is a one-way door. You will not be returning, nor will you ever have contact with anyone Outside ever again. Again, your primary goal is to fix the world. But remember along the way that you will need to build a life there. You won’t be coming back. Period.
Yes, you can die. You are subject to whatever the laws of their universe are. Those who have gone before you have likely died while on their mission.
She looked at the hole in the tree again, contemplating what she’d run into. Ira suspected it’d land right in the home under the ground. Where the rest of the doors in trees landed. One for each boy, fitted exactly to their specifications.
But then, she’d spent many years reading over other retellings of Neverland. And there were some weird ones. So many of them had Peter Pan returning to the world and growing up. But she was sure those authors really missed the essence of the story. It was about never growing up. Never having to face responsibility.
Many romance authors liked to put a spin on it that he had fallen in love with Wendy and that was what prompted him to grow up. But Ira didn’t believe it. The obstinance, the insistence that he always wanted to be a boy and have fun, was the entire premise of the story. He’d even taken Wendy back himself and was just as excited to have her daughter join him in later years.
The boy didn’t fall in love.
And he was basically feral. Barrie even stated that Peter Pan killed off the Lost Boys if they started to age. Could you imagine where he’d end up if he showed up back in the real world? Juvie at best.
To Ira’s right was Len, staring at her door blankly. She’d only been at DeadEnd for eight years and somehow had been matched with the door that had been there the longest. The deepest fairy tale break. One that had consumed nearly forty Fixers before her.
It made sense that Ira was taking Neverland. Thirty Fixers had failed, but Ira had been there since she was six. This was her life’s goal. Her legacy. The reason she was born.
No, really. Her parents and aunts, uncles, grandparents… They would literally have a child until they had a girl, just so they could send one into Fair Ree Tayle Fix, aka DeadEnd. In fact, her Aunt Rose had six sons. Finally, she’d just had a daughter last fall. Yep, they were serious about this shit.
But Len… Ira couldn’t fathom how she’d been matched with hers. Why they’d given her one whose door was back almost the instant the Fixer went in. And really, Ira suspected that tale was going to stay broken. There were some wonky issues going on. The fairy tales in the real world that were reflecting the break were… well, she’d call them questionable at best.
It pained Ira to think that this was a death sentence for Len.
She glanced beyond Reth to the other doors in the hall. There was a curious one that had popped up in recent years. It looked like a cabin door. The kind you might find deep within the woods. A newish girl, Wrenley, was assigned it. Wren had only been at DeadEnd for three years. She had been an exotic dancer. Yeah, talk about a career change.
There were more than a dozen other doors, too. The one next to Reth was something out of a dark fairy tale. Ironic, right?! It was huge, with massive ornate iron knockers and wide planked wood. There was a little door for a window at eye level. It opened from the inside and there was an iron cage around it on our side. Ira was dying to see what was beyond it.
Ira had always secretly wished she could visit all the broken fairy tales. That she’d be the one to fix Neverland and find a way to come back to DeadEnd so she could try her hand at fixing another. But it was a fairy tale in itself to wish such a thing. No one ever came back from their fairy tale. Not even when they succeeded.
At the very least, she wished she could hear about the success stories. What the break was. What had caused it? How had it been fixed? What was their life like now?
But that wasn’t a thing because of Rule number 1. This was a one-way door. There is no returning.
Mal looked over at her and Ira turned to grin. The four of them had been inseparable for years, since Len had arrived. Partially because of the doors – the four longest-running, unfixable doors. But so much more of it was because they just got each other. They understood one another. Some people were just made to be friends. That was the four of them.
“As the story moved along
The maids of fair did die,
And bravely strode the weary One
To set the story right,
‘The rest next time-’ ‘It is next time!’
The weeping voices cry.”
“Always reciting that creepy ballad,” Len said, shaking her head. “I’m glad my door didn’t come with a doomsday prediction.”
“I suppose the fact that it's been unfixed for generations doesn’t count as a doomsday prediction…” Ira said.
“Not at all,” Len said as she flicked her hair over her shoulder.
“They all have dead ends,” Reth said. “Whether we fix them or not.”
That dampened their moods considerably. Yes, they were dead ends. There was no moving beyond that plane.
“Okay,” Ira said as she stood, “One last goodbye. But this is it!”
Len rolled her eyes and stood, a smile dancing on her face. Reth and Mal stood as well and the four came together for a tight group hug.
For a long time, the four stood in a warm, comfortable, familiar embrace. It would be the last time, the final farewell.
“We chose this,” Ira said. “We chose this.” Did it count as her choosing it when really, this was the whole reason behind her conception? Was that really her choice?
Not that it mattered. She couldn’t imagine living a mundane life as like, an accountant, or something. Where she sat behind a desk. What about the adventure? The life and death situations that these stories had turned into? It seemed like such a better solution.
“I love you guys,” Len said with a sniffle.
The three returned the sentiment in unison. Again, several long minutes passed. Finally, Mal pulled back. There wasn’t exactly a deadline on when they needed to walk through their doors, but today was the day. They had graduated. There was no putting it off.
It was time.
Ira put her fist in the middle of the group before they disbanded. On it was a tiny fairy silhouette tattoo, smaller than the size of a penny, embedded on the skin between her thumb and first finger.
Reth smiled and added his fist to the group, an owl silhouette. With a teary laugh, Len put hers in as well, a little cyclone. And lastly, Mal joined in, a little teacup and saucer. Their four fists expanded like a strange flower or the braces of a cog.
“Okay, okay,” Len said as she pulled away at last. “It’s time. Five more minutes and that’s it.”
The three nodded their agreement and all returned to the chairs across from their specific doors.
A moment later, Reth was kneeling in front of Mal, his forehead against hers. “I need to know you forgive me,” he said, bright eyes imploring.
Ira tuned their conversation out. It didn’t concern her. On the one hand, she was glad that some place like this existed to offer children a purpose when the world was against them. On the other hand, what if they didn’t want to go into the business of fixing tales and possibly being killed in the process? What if they just needed a helping hand in the right direction?
Sure, there were things like the foster system but there were just as many monsters hiding in that as there were in families. Those skeletons were many.
Ira shook her head. Not her problem. Not her concern. Her concern was Neverland. Finding out what the problem was. And figuring out how to fix it. And then settling with the fact that she’d be nearly the only adult on an island full of children.
Well, there were the pirates to consider… The redskins, too, she supposed. But then what?
She shook her head again. Didn’t matter. Neverland was dark and toxic. It was time that it was fixed, and Ira swore she’d be the one to do so. She’d trained, studied, meditated, done everything she could to prepare for this moment.
It was time to fulfil that life’s goal.
A moment later, Reth moved back to his seat and their five minutes were up.
Len stood first. Ira followed. Mal and Reth, as well.
“Make a happy life,” Ira said. It had been something she’d been drilling into her friends’ minds. This was a job. And at the end of the job, you needed to still live. Finding a happy ending for themselves was also a priority.
Len shivered.
As one, the four placed their hands on the knobs (Reth’s was actually a wrought iron ring that he had to pull on, and Ira braced her hand on either side of the hole in the tree, one foot dangling inside) and together, they opened their doors.
Ira looked into the depths of the darkness below her foot. This was it. Her heart thundered in her chest. Her blood rushed in her ears. This was it. There would be no turning back. No changing her mind. She may die in the following days. But she had to try.
Taking a breath, Ira closed her eyes and walked out of the Hall of Doors and into her fairy tale.