The Annihilation of Foreverland

sand. By the time he got to the tree in front of the Mansion, the sun had dropped below the trees and the sky had turned orange and was quickly dimming. He wasn’t going to get to all the trees, but he couldn’t sit around and think about it.
    This tree was near the entrance. A golf cart had been abandoned exactly where Danny and Zin had left one a week earlier. Seemed odd, but Danny was focused on the tree and the dozen gifts beneath it. He tore through them, sifting sand from each one, finding nothing new. He crouched down to bounce back into the sky to find the next one when lights inside the Mansion caught his eye.
    One of the double doors was open. An enormous tree glittered inside the dark entrance.
    Danny climbed the steps. The doors had been vandalized with spray-painted graffiti and skateboard stickers. The hinges creaked as he pushed the door open. The tree stood beyond the foyer against the far back window with a view to the ocean where lights twinkled. More trees.
    He sighed. He’d never get to all of them. She was killing him. And yet he couldn’t forget what Reed must be going through. He opened the dozen presents to find more sand. Danny threw the last one across the room. He grabbed the tree and launched it through the window. Shards of glass exploded.
    His curses echoed down the empty halls.
    But he was wasting time. Every second that was wasted was a second that Reed endured needless suffering.
    He went back to the front doors. There was a narrow closet door on both sides of the foyer, both closed. But the one on the right had a sticker. Danny stopped.
    It was a Spitfire sticker; the flaming head smiling at him.
    One sticker. The rest of the room was in order, just the one sticker.
    Merry Christmas.
    Sand.
    Christmas on the beach.
    Tell me your favorite Christmas.
    Reed asked Danny on the beach and Danny remembered the thing he wanted most in the world: the half-pipe covered in stickers. But no one would have known that, he didn’t tell anyone about it. He wasn’t even sure it was his memory. But there it was, a Spitfire sticker in an otherwise pristine Mansion without a half-pipe in sight.
    Danny put his hand on the door knob. He turned it slowly and cracked the door open. An odd grainy light spilled out. It crept out in misty tendrils. Danny tried to slam it closed but the foggy light wrapped around him. Liquefied him.
    And sucked him inside.

28
    The mist had texture.
    Grainy particles, scratching.
    Momma?
    A boy. He sounded sad, crying for—
    First! I’m first!
    On the right. Someone excited, someone—
    You go first!
    Where am I?
    How long until we eat? I’m hungry.
    The voices bunched together, above and below. They were everywhere, but nothing came out of the gray mist. The bodiless words whizzing by like passing trains.
    The mist thickened.
    The grains pelted his face like sand. He looked at his hands, saw his feet and realized he was standing on something solid. The wind began pulling away, revealing a white floor.
    A spot of color developed ahead of him. It was soft and faded, like a beacon appearing in a blizzard. It was pink.
    Then red.
    Bright red.
    The mist swirled out like an ever-widening hurricane. And then it was gone. He was in a round room, walls white. And she was sitting in the center, hands on her lap. The bright red hair cut below the shoulders .
    “I’m sorry for the inconvenience,” she said, softly. “But you couldn’t know where you were going. He would’ve known, he would’ve followed… he was watching.”
    “Who?”
    “Whoever runs… Foreverland.”
    “The Director?”
    She shrugged.
    Her eyes were large, the pupils engorged and the iris’s brilliant green. She was almost cartoonish, the colors saturated.
    The room was barren, except for the chair she was sitting on, legs crossed, hands on lap. She stood up, her bare feet touched the floor silently; toenails the same color as her hair.
    Olly-olly-oxen-free! The voices soared through the wall.
    “Where are we?” Danny asked.
    “The boys call this the Nowhere,” she said. “It’s outside… the eyes of Foreverland. Outside the reach of he who… is Foreverland.”
    “Those are memories?”
    “In a way…” Her cheeks suddenly matched the color of her hair and toenails. “I know you have questions and I’ll answer them the best I can, but the truth is… I don’t know much and we don’t have much time…” She wrapped her arms around her chest like she was hugging herself. “I’m