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Scene 48




Never Land from Will’s viewpoint, as he watches the wolf attack the Queen of Elvenland.


Will felt frozen with fear, iced with despair.

Watching the wolf bite and tear at Ariel’s arms, listening to her scream, hearing Quicksilver imploring her to let the wolf at him, listening to Marlowe bemoan his immateriality, Will thought the wolf would come for him next.

If Quicksilver’s courage wouldn’t move the wolf, if Ariel’s grace didn’t mollify it, if Kit’s mad rage was to no effect, what could Will do that would save him? Save them all?

Will was a mere mortal, without even the magic that Ariel must still have, after Never Land had leeched almost all.

Will was a nothing. A failed poet. An absent father.

The wind of Never Land robbed him of hope and strength.

And yet an idea formed in his mind. The wolf had taken human form to do a type of magic. Sympathetic magic. Will’s hand fell to his dagger.

The wolf was not truly alive, and he couldn’t be killed, and yet . . .

Holding his dagger, clasping it tight, Will said, “Thou art a dagger of the mind, and will cut through spirit.”

The idea was insane, yet the new Will, the Will who had learned to be foolish sometimes and expose himself to ridicule to save himself greater pains, would try this. And what could happen to Will that would be worse than shortening a life expectancy little worth mentioning?

He stepped up behind the wolf, who, absorbed in mauling the Queen of Fairyland, didn’t notice the mere mortal.

Will drew his dagger.

“No, Will. He’ll go for you,” Kit Marlowe whispered, his immaterial form touching Will. “And he can’t be killed thus.”

But Will raised his dagger and let it fall. The wolf could be killed thus, for it was magic. Sympathetic magic. Will would do the gesture and thus visualize the result and bring it about by the force of his wishing.

The dagger went into the wolf’s grey fur.

The wolf howled, letting go of Ariel, and turned his head to try to bite Will, but his fangs wouldn’t reach

Black blood poured out over Will’s hand.

And Will plunged the dagger again and yet again.

The wolf bayed and writhed.

Will visualized the wolf dead, the force gone out from the dread creature. “Now die, die, die, die, die.”

The wolf bayed a last, awful scream, half-human, half-canine, and then collapsed, rolling off the sovereigns of Elvenland.

Ariel stood, shaking, cradling her torn, mangled arm.

Quicksilver stood, quivering, almost wholly transparent.

Marlowe looked at Will amazed, awe in his one remaining eye.

Far in the distance, a Hunter’s horn sounded.

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Framed